aniqua

[aniqua]

Flaming Hearts Fan Club

summary: you, a shit-out of luck reporter, are stuck following around the world’s most self-centered superhero for his fan club’s magazine.

OR

Johnny Storm sees a challenge… and you just can’t help but resist him, right? You’d never kiss and tell.

[Johnny Storm x Fem!Reader] [WC: 12.3k]

Warnings: SMUT! MDNI! 18+ hesitant lovers, love at first sight, both have preconceived notions of one another, fluff, flirtation, Johnny is more than a flirt people! explicit language, oral (f receiving), fingering (f receiving), a lil bit of edging.

Quick Links: Masterlist

“No.”

“Come on,” she begged. Her puppy eyes were glinting in the office lights. “Please. Pretty please? I’ll even say it with a cherry on top.”

“No!” You laughed at her absurdity. You interviewing Johnny Storm on behalf of that magazine? Non-heroic immolation sounded more grand at that very moment.

“What if I tell you I’ll throw in a bonus?”

Swiveling around in your chair, you looked at Lucy’s comically large black cat-eyed glasses and blinked once.

“Nothing on planet Earth could get me to step foot in the Baxter building. The goddamn sky could be falling and I would rather be crushed by the weight of gravity than spend ten minutes in heatwave’s presence.”

“He’s called The Human Torch.”

You nodded unenthused. “Wonderful.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. She laid herself dramatically atop your desk’s perched edge. Her frown deepened; eyes wallowing in self-destruction at your refusal.

“What about a big bonus?”

“Fifty dollars isn’t a “big bonus” no matter how many times you emphasize that it will cover my groceries for a month. I’d rather starve.”

“Good grief,” she wailed. “You’re a lost cause!”

“I’m the lost cause?” You feigned offense. “You are all in love with the same womanizing astronaut who spontaneously bursts into flames and cries hero when he destroys ten apartment buildings with a shallow “sorry!” You are lost causes.”

“Maybe you actually have a giant crush on him and you just don’t want all us girls to know about it.”

“Mhm,” you feigned and turned back to your work.

Materials laid askew before you in the most unorganized manner. Articles half edited remained inked in red while photographs of worthy news were plagued by post-it notes with reminders of what, where, and why.

Lucy walked around your desk. Her fingers gliding along the top of it before stretching out in observation.

“I think you actually like him,” she said matter-of-factly. “Is it the eyes? They’re so blue that they just swallow you whole like the sea. Or! Or is it that he’s a funny guy? I love men who can make me laugh.”

“Yeah, well,” you scoffed, “you laugh at everyone’s jokes so it’s not that impressive.”

“But he’s a hero! And a rich one—you see the tower? And the car… don’t even get me started on the car.”

You hummed. “Every girl just wants to be picked up in an invisible floating object.”

She narrowed her eyes accusingly. “Do you just hate fun or what?”

Shrugging, you picked up a photo and held it to the light. Lucy took you in as you distracted yourself from answering her accusatory question.

By all standards of the word, Lucy thought you fit the definition of “beautiful woman” but your beauty stumped her with your lack of social life. You had no husband, no boyfriend, no guys circling on the side. You lived alone in a decent apartment where your late nights in the office were more important than getting home at a reasonable hour to someone willing to treat you right.

You were good at your job—great, even. But you were lonely and even a single star in the farthest galaxy could see it.

Lucy wasn’t implying that Johnny Storm was going to sweep you off your feet or ride in on a golden carriage to save you from a desolate nature. You weren’t going to fall in love with him after one interview. She took your vocal objection to as a win, however. Getting you out of your comfort zone, exploring something new, and hell, he just happened to be the attractive guy at the subject of your piece.

It was different, new, and it was perfect for you.

“$300.”

You kept your eyes glued to the photograph.

“$350,” Lucy propositioned instead.

“$400?”

Your face curled up in polite decline. “I mean, I’d go through so much trouble. Not to mention the traffic and then the extra fare for the train ride home… I’m losing free time and precious seconds I could be completing other articles for Friday’s edition…”

“$500 extra, final offer.”

Dropping the photograph, you folded your arms in front of you seriously.

“There are twenty other girls who would love to be an inch away from his breathing space. Why are you asking me?”

Lucy gawked, looking around the cubicles for other reporters to share an incredulous look but no one dared look at their boundary-crossing boss. Her curly black hair whipped back around to you in seriousness.

“They don’t have a spect of talent that you do. And besides, what story is going to benefit from a fan writing about their idol or someone they wish to become their husband?”

“You think the other girls would try to… you know, sleep with him?”

“I think every person who had a mutual attraction with Johnny Storm would try and fuck him.”

“Jesus,” you muttered. “We’re at work you know.”

“I know you won’t though,” she smiled mischievously. “Even though you won’t admit he’s cute.”

“Lucy,” you sighed heavily. You put a hand to your forehead as if she was stressing you out.

“But I wouldn’t blame you if you did. I mean get it where you can.”

“I’m a professional,” you reminded her.

“Exactly.” Her eyes told you a million reasons to take the job against your better judgement.

Do it: there was plenty of money involved. Do it: imagine the publicity your writing would gain if you did. Do it: it may be published in a fan club publication but it will fly off the shelves and will bring money into the organization.

Do it: it’s only one, fifteen-hour session following around Johnny Storm for a “Day in the Life” feature that would be the first of its kind for any of the Fantastic Four.

Why couldn’t it have been Ben? Or Reed? You thought. At least with them you fathomed you’d be treated like an actual reporter, not just a set of eyes, boobs, and ass with two legs and a mouth that smiled pretty.

“$800.”

Shit.

Your eyes flicked up immediately, locking onto Lucy’s with a determination you didn’t have ten minutes ago. Now that was a bonus.

“Alright,” you sighed and nodded your head in agreement. “You’ve got a deal.”

The Baxter Building was a towering shadow in the center of the city. Scaling into the sky with reflective glass, the world bounced back from it like a mirror. Anyone could spot it from the edge of the river—the spaceship docked in its back lawn didn’t help hide it from view.

The four residents were something of a spectacle. In your opinion, they were the center of the universe when it came to politics, space exploration, and the general news. They brokered deals and were looked to by actual leaders to just about anything regarding the world’s most serious problems.

And they were handed that because they once rode through a cosmic storm and were transformed with abilities that brought forth a more dangerous era of life on Earth. You didn’t know how to reconcile the fame they achieved when dangers now lurked everywhere. You wished Earth would go back to the way it was. Boring news stories, a few interesting STEM articles, and an entertainment section that didn’t make the front page everyday.

It was easier. Simpler.

But there you were: standing anxiously outside of the Fantastic Four’s home to write an entertainment feature for the front page.

You adjusted your bag’s strap on your shoulder, straightening your spine and titling your chin higher in faux confidence. Finger lifting to the call button, you breathed out, breathed in, and pressed.

“This is the Baxter Building. Please state your name and matter of business at the tone,” a robotic voice responded.

As instructed, you relayed the information necessary. You tried to focus in on the glass before you but nothing of its contents inside appeared. Just you, your reflection, and the city still bustling behind you. The faint whizz of a police ship passed by above.

“Mr. Storm has been informed. Please wait patiently at door number 2.”

You stepped back to eye the numbers above the doors. You were at door number six and in your purview, another police ship flew by in the sky. Was it always this noisy for them?

Nevertheless, you positioned yourself outside of door two with space left for it to swing open and not hit your toes. Your heels were shiny, catching the light of day in polish while the woolen fabric of your dress beneath your coat caught the February chill.

How long would he make you wait? You fathomed he would take his time. Slowly descending from his golden palace, swiping at his hair to land in a perfect Ivy League wave, he’d wink at the few building employees he’d cross paths with along the way and send their body’s into nothing but a puddle of wooed soup to step over.

He was a hothead—that much you knew, or heard, rather. Boisterous, self-centered, and expectant. It was the why of Lucy’s ask of you. You wouldn’t melt into a puddle. Johnny would surely sense your displeasure of being there and give an honest, professional interview… at least, you imagined that was her “why.”

A minute ticked by and then two. You shifted again on your feet before giving up at standing straight and relaxing with a slouched hip. Three. Four. Five. A third police vehicle soared by and in a flash, a searing heat erupted from the middle of the building and poured down onto the street below. Your head whipped up so fast it gave you whiplash as the brightness of Johnny Storm’s body consumed by a fiery blaze flew off the side of the building.

You’d never been in the presence of any of the Four in their element, but it was magnificent, if not inconvenient. The heat melted snow around you and you realized that no one ever talked about it. He couldn’t touch anyone with the flames even if he wanted to. There was no way he wouldn’t seriously injury someone while fully lit.

However, for as quickly as he followed after the police, you knew the clock was ticking again. Service over duty, a little reporter isn’t going to halt the saving of those in danger. You looked around the courtyard and set at its center was an art piece depicting the powers of the family. It sat elevated enough for you to sit and you did: for fifty-three minutes while Johnny Storm saved the city.

Goodness was it cold outside.

Your feet had lost feeling long ago and your hands were locked together frozen. Your shoulder’s shook, legs bouncing to keep the blood flow alive.

At fifty-five minutes, the door to the Baxter Building opened with a start.

And by the heavens were you irritated by the tiny sliver of relief the intrusion offered. A small white and blue robot with eyes made of film reels appeared in the doorway.

It beeped at you from afar. You looked around. You were alone and the sole focus of the robot. With a finger, you pointed to yourself.

It sounded a robotic cheer and pointed a metal finger back.

“Hello,” it said loudly.

Alright then.

The robot had a four at the center of its chest and as you approached another decal became clear. In zigzagged letters it spelled out H.E.R.B.I.E.—its name.

“H.E.R.B.I.E.?” You inquired. It beeped. You were familiar with its design and its features. H.E.R.B.I.E. had been featured in a recent edition of Good Housekeeping and the “Four Favorite Meals” of the team were entombed into the social strata.

“I’m here to interview Mr. Storm. It was supposed to have begun an hour ago but—“

H.E.R.B.I.E. sounded again in acknowledgement.

“Johnny,” it said clearly. “Follow.”

H.E.R.B.I.E. led you through the doorway and into the spacious lobby you recognized from press conferences aired on the nightly news. The room was empty sans another lone robot watering a potted tree near a set of steps.

H.E.R.B.I.E led you to a bank of elevators and pressed the button labeled “up”.

“Upstairs,” H.E.R.B.I.E.’s static voice relayed.

“Upstairs,” you repeated. “Is Mr. Storm in now? I would rather wait—“

“Saving people,” H.E.R.B.I.E. answered. “Helping people.”

You nodded and it must have registered it as the end of the conversation because the bot wheeled itself to the panel, stuck its hand in a slot, and pressed floor twenty.

When the doors reopened, they opened up to a home.

The floor was magnificently built with floor to ceiling windows stealing the most treasured views of New York City. It was furnished and colored in aesthetic perfection. A central television, a sunken living space, the art of science hanging on the walls. It was gorgeous.

You logged a mental note at the lived-in nature of the vicinity. It didn’t feel unapproachable. This space and the rooms that flocked it were a true home. It wasn’t flaunting wealth or power, just a space to live and build the strange life they walked.

And it wasn’t what you had expected.

As someone without pomp and circumstance or a penny to spread far, you’d only seen the Fantastic Four as “heroes” and not “people.” That was a hard admission to swallow when the familiar heat met the side of your face again and the man of the hour landed softly on the balcony just outside of the tall living room windows.

When his flames extinguished, your breath caught in your throat.

Johnny Storm was handsome. He was the kind of handsome that the word seemed too light to apply—beautiful was more apt. His blond hair was perfectly molded in a suave, stylistic groom that left his face framed for viewing. Beneath the high swoop of his gelled bangs, his blue eyes shined brightly. The winter did nothing to dull them. The flames only ignited them to glow orange until he showed his true self and back to blue they went.

They seemed to go right through your skin and into your bones. Blue meeting the red blood inside of you only to make your heart jolt and pick up its pace.

As your eyes trailed his figure now landed and walking inside, his lips curled into a small, barely there smirk before attempting to play at professionalism. His tongue wet his lips; catching your eyes and pinpointing exactly what shape they took when pulled back and forming into soft curves again.

My. Your palms grew sweaty, back taut in sudden speechlessness. Johnny entered the living room and jogged up the small set of stairs to meet you. Jogged. He rushed up knowing his duty prevented you from doing your job.

“Hi,” his voice was out of breath.

Johnny held out his hand for you to shake. You glanced down at it, registering its purpose before wiping your palm on your coat discretely and filling the space between you.

A singe of heat lingered from his power.

“Hello,” you introduced yourself. “Thank you for meeting with me.”

“It’s not a problem,” he waved off but his eyes, God… his eyes… they seemed to keep your feet planted to the floor. They gleamed further, crinkling at the sides. “I wanted to apologize for… that,” he jabbed his thumb toward the window. “We never know what it is they need us for.”

“I see.”

“You’ve met H.E.R.B.I.E. I take it?”

Johnny motioned to the robot beside you and put his hands on his hips. H.E.R.B.I.E.’s head looked from Johnny, to you, and back to Johnny.

“I think he saw me freezing to death outside and felt a little bad about it,” you admitted and bristled at the thought of being left outside for so long. “Are any other members of the team around today?”

Johnny gave a click of his tongue and walked around you to the kitchen just off the living room. H.E.R.B.I.E. followed after him obediently with a whirl.

“Reed’s in his lab today and Sue and Ben are off… somewhere. I’m afraid it’s just you and me today, sweetheart.” He shrugged in normalcy.

He didn’t comment on leaving you outside for an hour in the cold. You didn’t want to make it a problem but your toes were icicles even inside and your coat still burrowed the chill.

And sweetheart. He didn’t even know you! You were there for work and only work. Even if addressing your question, sweetheart wasn’t going to cut it.

You repeated your name. “It’s not sweetheart.”

Johnny pulled a box of cereal from a shelf and turned back around. “Force of habit. Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” It wasn’t. But you wondered, unprofessionally, if you’d be alright with him saying that off the clock.

“What paper do you write for?”

“For the New York Chronicle,” you replied and putzed with the strap of your bag to keep your hands busy. “We own the Flaming Hearts magazine.”

“I was expecting…” he didn’t finish the sentence.

“An adoring fan?”

He nodded and pulled a bowl out from a top shelf. As he reached, his shirt pulled on the muscles of his arms and your eyes attached to them like magnets.

Get a grip, you thought.

Johnny was handsome, you knew it—you got it. You weren’t blind and your body registered it in the way that the world already knew, you were just catching up. It just took you until this very moment to admit that Johnny Storm was perhaps the most beautiful man you’d ever laid eyes on.

That realization was distracting.

It didn’t stop you from thinking of your purpose here or the fact that superheroes weren’t really your trademark of writing, however.

“I’m here to write about you truthfully. My editor didn’t think a fan could write without bias.”

“That’s nice,” he said sarcastically while pouring himself a bowl. Did you sour it? By not admitting you’re a fan of his? “I guess you’ve got a list of questions for me then?”

“I do,” you joined him the counter with ease as he settled on the other side by the sink.

His eyes tracked you like a foreign object. A woman, a pretty woman, here for him with a very different intent than he was familiar with. You hadn’t even bothered to take off your coat as you sat on a stool and unearthed a pad of paper and a pen from your bag.

The muted colors of your clothes differed from the space around you. You looked like a journalist, he thought. Yet you were pretty and the way you straightened out your back and brushed at your forehead with a manicured nail captured his attention more than he was expecting.

Gorgeous. He wasn’t sure of any other word.

“My editor said that this is supposed to be a… informal, formal interview. I will ask you questions that are casual and people want to know, make you seem like an everyday guy, and then write it as a feature piece of the magazine.”

“I think I’m an everyday guy,” he quirked his head to the side.

You looked up from your paper and gazed at him seriously. Johnny was eating a bowl of cereal after igniting into flames and saving a small part of the city. That was not normal. It didn’t make him an “everyday guy” and maybe he, like you, also has some grappling to do.

“Yeah,” you lightly snickered. “I think we have different ideas of what makes someone normal.”

You didn’t mean to call him abnormal. But it came out and he took it that way.

Shit.

“What I meant was—“ you attempted to clarify yet his face already merged into one of abject offense. The interview hadn’t even started, you only met not five minutes ago, and you already know your name was at the bottom of the Do Not Let These Reporters In List.

“I know what you meant,” Johnny said chewing. “I’ve heard it before just not from someone cute.”

“Mr. Storm—“

“Johnny,” he clarified.

“Mr. Storm,” you insisted, “I didn’t mean offense. I think it’s clear that we lead two very different lives and I am just here to get a story.”

It didn’t even register to you that he called you cute.

His spoon clattered to the edge of the bowl. You wanted to do nothing more than climb into Sub-Terrania and hide forever. Why did you take this job? Why did Lucy have to offer that much money?

“You’d think a reporter from my own magazine would at least like me a little bit,” he said and you furrowed your brows.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you don’t exactly look like you want to be here right now.” He gestured to your coat and rigid body.

“I told you,” you reminded him, “I work for the Chronicle, not your magazine. And it’s not yours, per se. It’s just about you. And what does my dress have anything to do about wanting to be here? I am here, aren’t I? I waited outside in the cold for an hour just to do this job.”

“Take off your coat,” he ordered passively and walked back around the corner. From your sitting position, he leaned up against the chair beside you. He was so close now.

His body heat radiated. It was natural now, the warmth he gave off absentmindedly.

“I like my coat,” you answered as the frigidness melted away.

“You’re going to be here all day and I would rather you not snag it on any of our projects while we take a tour.”

“A tour?” He was being considerate—not something you considered about him at all.

“What better way to figure out who I am?” He looked down at you. He wasn’t towering as he stood beside you but he wasn’t short either.

Your eyes met. Both meeting a challenge of what this day was going to be like.

A girl who doesn’t like heroes or abnormal attractive guys with flirtatious banter battling a boy who doesn’t like being underestimated and thinks said girl is the most attractive reporter he’s ever seen.

“All the secrets that make Johnny Storm brilliant are hidden here,” his gave small smile and leaned in close. “Aren’t you the least bit curious how the magic happens?”

“I’m a bit afraid of what magic you’re implying.”

His mouth shifted into a truthful grin. It was the kind that pulled at the edges of a person and cracked them open wide for the world to see.

“And I thought I was the one with the dirty mind. I guess trait belongs to you, sweetheart.”

That name again. You sucked in a fast breath.

“That’s not my name.”

Johnny tapped the back of the stool he stood at in a melodic pattern. H.E.R.B.I.E. rolled up beside him like a dog beside its owner.

“I know.” He tilted his head toward the staircase to the left. “Come on. Leave the coat. I promise it’s warmer here.”

The only thing you knew for certain was the warmth didn’t spread from the outside in. It was felt in your cheeks and your face, burning at his comfortable commands that would certainly be replayed in a different manner once this interview was done.

You had to keep reminding yourself that Johnny Storm was not a man who you wanted to woo you. This was all work and no play. None.

You just had to promise yourself that this was it all it was going to be.

“Out of all of the rooms in the building, this one is my least favorite.”

Johnny paused before a door labeled “Do Not Enter” about an hour into the tour.

Every room that you had passed thus far had been accompanied by a lengthy description of what was beyond the door and if you were lucky, Johnny would open it for a tiny peak. You were informed that three weeks ago, the apartment had been deep cleaned for an interview that Reed and Sue had done which featured the home.

It seemed everyone and their mother wanted to know where the family ate, slept, and spent all their free time.

You’d asked how he felt about being at the center of the universe but he just smiled at you and neglected to answer—only leaving the door open for you to follow through to the gym on the seventh floor.

Reed’s office was closed off when you went by but you could hear the static going off behind the door.

“Any reason why?”

Johnny wiggled the handle. It didn’t budge.

“My brother-in-law loves to keep me out when the experiments get too… involved.”

“Aren’t you a scientist too?” You asked and he turned his head with a surprised amusement.

“Scientist?”

“Well you did go to space so I assumed.”

“Mechanic,” he clarified. “Or I guess an engineer of sorts. I shoot pretty good too. And I can fly a spacecraft, if asked.”

You wrote down his reply and he waited silently as you carefully worded the response. H.E.R.B.I.E. rolled up to his legs, knocking into him slightly with the loud beep.

“I swore I read you have a degree somewhere,” you mumbled.

“I do,” Johnny’s eyes widened in surprise. “A couple years back, before… you know, everything, I studied in California.”

“Stanford.”

“That’s the school,” he replied lightly. He was impressed to say the least. You knew something about him and remembered it enough to bring it up.

“Question,” H.E.R.B.I.E. output to Johnny.

H.E.R.B.I.E. was the most intelligent of robots but neglected to understand that this was an interview. H.E.R.B.I.E. nudged Johnny again expecting him to ask you questions in return.

“What about you?” Johnny asked uncertainly as he looked down at the robot and motioned in confusion at the question he posed.

“What about me?” You replied still writing.

“Are… you? A…” again, he looked down at H.E.R.B.I.E., “scientist?”

H.E.R.B.I.E. groaned and you laughed. You laughed. For the entirety of the interview he’d come to expect you to never give in to his jokes and while his question was worded poorly and he didn’t actually mean to say scientist, he felt his world relax at the sound.

The melody of your laughter laid softly inside of his mind like a lullaby. It was natural and free and completely you—something you’d yet to show him during the short time you’ve spent together.

You’d been professional and kept your kindness at an arms length. You were curt and serious, not playful nor buying into his comments that bordered on suggestive.

“If you consider writing a science, sure. Most people would consider it an art. So, I’m an artist.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat and patted H.E.R.B.I.E.’s head as he stepped past.

“But about the mechanic thing,” you looked up from your paper and Johnny forgot what he said before.

Every time you looked at him, he felt himself grow fonder of the way it made him feel. The silly feeling of love at first sight being marred as ridiculous in his perspective yet he swore that’s what it was.

He could listen to you talk all day.

“Do you have a shop or anything here? Or is it more isolated to here,” you motioned to the lab door. “Does he let you in to work?”

“I have a room,” Johnny said quickly. His excitement poured through his speech. “It’s not here. It’s a shop just off 4th and Wash Square—“

“I know of it.” Your eyes lit up in recognition. “I take the train from there to work everyday.”

Small world.

“Really?” He said honestly.

“That’s a far way from here,” you added. “Any reason why?”

“I guess because it’s my own little place.” He put his hand on the door handle again casually. His grip was strong.

Your eyes caught sight of his hand as it strained on the handle nervously, like he was admitting something for the first time. Had he never talked about this before? You knew he had talked about vehicles and that he’d love to race cars one day but that was Q & A session on the back of an entertainment rag at the grocery store.

“There’s nothing but me and the car and it’s kind of peaceful. It’s peaceful here but it’s a fishbowl, you know? Everyone feels like they know us when we are here but when I go there, it makes me feel like they don’t really know me. They just know The Human Torch, not Johnny. The shop makes me feel like me.”

“I’m not going to write that.”

His face dropped.

“Why? Didn’t you say you wanted this to be human? Or that you’re trying to make me sound more personable?” Johnny grew defensive.

“I’m not going to write that because once they,” you tipped your head to the windows, “know about that little shop, you won’t have one day of peace for the rest of your life.”

Oh. Oh. He hadn’t thought about that.

“That’s…” he tried to find the words.

The shop was his little slice of paradise. He could tinker away and no one would come looking because they knew that not only was he safe, he was alone.

Sue let him have his space there because it made him happy. It was the most happy she’d seen him since they were kids and while you might not have known that, it meant more to him that your integrity wasn’t going to jeopardize his peace.

He’d given you a part of his humanity and you’d shown him mercy. A trade off of the hour.

“That’s real nice of you.”

“It’s what a decent person would do,” you brushed it off casually and held the pad of paper to your chest.

“You’d be surprised by how few of those exist.”

You smiled at him softly. A blush bloomed on his cheeks and he looked off towards the city outside his home. H.E.R.B.I.E. whirled by toward the direction you were heading next.

Breathing in deep, you took the first step and barely brushed Johnny’s shoulder as you walked by.

“Can’t keep H.E.R.B.I.E. waiting, can we?”

Johnny shook his head and bit back his smile, peaking down at his shoes to hold it in. He played with the handle of Reed’s lab once more before turning on his heel and walking a step behind you.

“Did you always want to be a reporter?” He felt his confidence return in bounds.

You hummed. “Since I was a little kid.”

“Why the news and not books?”

“I’m not that creative,” you admitted. “And aren’t I supposed to be asking you these questions?”

“Just curious.” Johnny pulled his hands together behind his back. “Besides, this isn’t going to be fun if I don’t learn about you too.”

“But that’s not the purpose of this.”

“Are you always a rule follower or only when interviewing superheroes?”

You stopped walking and turned around. He caught himself before crashing into you.

“I’m not a rule follower,” you told him. Johnny wasn’t convinced. “I’m on the clock.”

“I’m always on the clock but I have a good time too,” he skirted around you and began his walk backwards.

You huffed and followed.

“It’s inappropriate.”

“It’s prudish,” he countered, hands still bound behind his back.

“It’s a boundary,” you challenged.

“It’s an imprisonment.”

“That’s a strong word.”

It was Johnny’s turn to shrug. “I don’t take it back, if that’s what you’re waiting for.”

“I didn’t ask you to take it back. That’s your opinion, not mine.”

“So you’re making this a challenge for me?”

“A challenge?” Your brows shot up and then came together.

“For you to admit you had a good time hanging out with the one and only Johnny Storm by the end of the today.” He referred to himself in third person and you weren’t sure if that was inducing a wince in response or a short track to the answer.

You already knew what your response would be.

Your heart hadn’t stopped thumping, hands still sweaty. Your stomach grew with butterflies every time he looked in your direction and no matter if you sat in silence the rest of the day, today would be the most entertaining experience you’d ever had.

But Johnny didn’t need an ego boost right now.

“We are already a couple hours in,” you checked the small golden watch at your wrist. “You have twelve hours to change my mind it appears.”

“I could have sworn I had gotten a smile out of you earlier.” Johnny’s teeth grazed over his bottom lip. “And maybe even a laugh too. Those are pretty good signs to me that I’m winning this.”

“I don’t recall—“

“Yes you do.” His voice grew louder in amusement. You peered away from him, not willing to gaze into those blue beacons because you knew that he’d see a liar.

You did smile and laugh with him. That was a sign of enjoyment if there ever was one.

“You smiled and laughed and you don’t want to admit it because it means you’ve already lost and I’ve won.”

“You didn’t win anything. I don’t even know what we’re playing for!”

“To prove that you—“

“No,” you let a breathless chuckle escape your lips as his misunderstanding and his eyes pinned you in the hallway laughing again.

Point: Johnny.

“I meant the prize. What’s the prize if you win or if I win?”

“I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I didn’t think that far out yet.”

“Oh,” you played disappointment. “So, I guess that means the smarts only extend to engineering then?”

Johnny’s mouth dropped open in surprise. Did you just make an attempt at a borderline offensive joke that he would totally love to hear?

You did.

“You’re going to wish you never said that,” he teased.

Were you really doing this?

“Well you didn’t name your price, Mr. Storm.”

“Mr. Storm,” he muttered like he’d never been called that before. “You’re obedient, you know that?”

“Like a dog.”

“Fine,” he put his hands on his hips. “You wanna know my price?”

“Name it.”

“If you enjoyed yourself by the end of today—really, truly enjoyed yourself—you gotta let me take you out on a date.”

“A date?” You confirmed.

Never in your wildest dreams did you think you’d have the gall to banter with Johnny. If Lucy could see you now she’d be asking to collect her winnings in the office betting pool. You were emotionally weak to Johnny’s charm and you hadn’t expected that.

“That’s all? Just a date?”

Both of your minds raced to that appetizing place. It stirred with from within, billowing into full blown fantasies of the dark. Imaginations painted a lustful affair; the tugging of lips and the grasping of skin. Polished nails digging into heated flesh and the sounds of two bodies combining rung deeply in echos of the hallway.

“I mean,” his face turned pink and his right hand rubbed the back of his neck. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Too late.

There was far more interest in the fantasy than either of you let on. You let the blushes fall apart and dared your minds to venture into that place again.

“Fine,” you agreed. “But if I have a terrible time… a really, horribly agonizing time, you have to… be my assistant for a day. Like come to the office and everything. Get my coffee, make my copies, all of it.”

Amused, Johnny dropped his hand. “That’s it?”

“What?”

“Your assistant? That’s the best you could come up with?”

“Well… yeah,” you replied. “I don’t have time to think of something worse.”

“Either way I think I win, though,” Johnny stepped forward again but this time with his hand extended similar to how he had greet you two hours before.

Yet his hand was offered with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. Every time he reached for it, the purpose was different.

“And why’s that?” You accepted his hand and relished the way it perfectly encapsulated your own. His hand was soft and cooler than it was prior.

You wondered if he could still feel the sweat the settled in your palm.

“Because no matter what I get to spend more time with you and I think that’s a win.”

You didn’t know what to say to that but your heart surely responded with a thump.

Johnny’s bedroom is not where you thought you’d end up after imagining what it would be like to fuck him.

He had lingered by the door at the end of the hall with his own curiosity threatening to change the atmosphere. It wasn’t like being in his bedroom was automatically leading you to a rumble in the sheets.

His room was the essence of him. If Johnny really wanted the world to see a normal guy, his bedroom is where he surely showed it.

It was clean and shared the same views overlooking the city as the rest of the apartment. Amidst the wooden paneling and the filled shelves, a round bed sat centered and an elevated seating area with the nicest record player you’d ever seen was placed adjacent.

It was well used based on Johnny’s collection of vinyls that bathed the room on either side.

He offered you the chair overlooking the city and made himself comfortable on the floor across from you. Having taken off his shoes, his socked white feet were constantly moving from side to side like he couldn’t sit still with every question you asked.

The clock ticked away.

“Sports team?”

“I’d say the Mets but I don’t want to make anyone mad, so Yankees.”

“If you could have any other job in the world, what would it be?”

“Race—“

“—car driver,” you finished his words for him. “I should have known that one.”

“Yes.” Johnny’s fingers traced the edges of his lips as he fought a grin. “You know me so well.”

His lips pulled and you thought about how nice they’d be to kiss. They appeared soft and pink, just plush enough to leave a lingering tingle in the spots he’d lay delicate memories to your skin.

Someone once said that the beauty marks on a person’s body were the remnants of places their lovers had once kissed.

Maybe in another lifetime the ones on your own were lives lived with Johnny. You shook away the thought when reality snapped back in. You were rushing and only fools did that.

You read through question after question to get a full extent of who Johnny was. These questions, the mediocre ones, were the kind that people wanted to read about.

“First love?”

“Oh.” His tone dropped an octave. “Look who’s trying to learn about my exes now.”

“It’s not me,” you reminded him, again. “It’s the readers, remember?”

“I don’t think they’re the ones coming up with them.”

“Then it’s my editor. She’s obsessed, move along. First love?” You asked again.

“Ramona Mitchell—second grade. She shared her animals crackers with me and broke up with me at the water fountain.”

“Tragic,” you fought the indulgence chuckle.

“Favorite food?”

“Anything Ben makes.”

“That’s not a food,” you countered.

“He makes a mean pasta,” he thought on it. “But I’m from Long Island and you can’t beat some restaurants there.”

“I’ve never been to Long Island.”

You said it passively. Solely focused on writing his response down, your face inclined toward the paper and not to him. Watching him sit there casually was making this feel more and more like a choice rather than a job.

He sat up straighter on the floor.

“What do you mean you’ve never been to Long Island? It’s like… right there!?”

You put the pad of paper down on the table beside you. Crossing your legs, Johnny’s eyes followed them as you settled into the new position.

“I’ve been to Brooklyn before.”

“That’s not Long Island,” he said as if he was a geography expert.

“It’s on Long Island so maybe it counts a little.”

You leaned back into the chair and folded your arms across your chest. This was comfortable. Johnny was surprisingly easy to talk to and you’d be remiss if you said you weren’t loose to the idea of someone to talk to. He listened, he asked, and he looked like he was interested in anything and everything you had to say.

“But you wouldn’t say that Manhattan is the same as Brooklyn as to Queens or as to the Bronx.”

“No,” you agreed. “I suppose I wouldn’t.”

“And I’m talkin’ deep Long Island,” he emphasized his words with an extension of his hand. “Like the kind where your favorite deli is owned by the cousin of the ex-boyfriend of your mother’s best friend and they know you by name kind of deep.”

“That sounds like it’s from experience, not a universal trait.”

“I guess we’ll have to go see and ask them then,” he smirked as though he knew he’d prove you right.

“Time isn’t on our side today.” You glanced down at the watch on your wrist. You’d been talking in his room for nearly five hours—seven hours to go.

“Another day then.” Johnny crossed his feet at his ankles. “I’ll show you our old stomping ground and take you to one of those delis.”

You laughed not out of amusement but out of nerves. It sounded a hell of a lot like a date.

“Is this the part where I ask you what you think is the perfect date? According to the survey, our readers really want to know how Johnny Storm would make them fall in love.”

“What’s your ideal perfect date?”

“I’m not the one being interviewed here.”

“Amuse me,” Johnny bartered. “And then I’ll ask H.E.R.B.I.E. to make us some lunch.”

You sighed, gazing out the window in thought at the question. What constituted the “perfect date?” You weren’t entirely sure there was one concrete answer because everyone had a different opinion.

However, if Johnny could be open and honest for the sake of a magazine, you could be honest for him.

“I guess it would be doing something that interested me.”

“Go on,” he urged. Those interested blue eyes bore into you.

“I don’t know… I would hope that before I am asked out on a date that a guy would listen to me. Ask me about my interests and discover things I like so that when we go, they choose a place that I would like to go to. Someone says they like art and they go to a museum; someone likes music, they go to a show—that kind of stuff.”

“But what about you? Not someone else, you.”

“I like going to the pictures. Museums and the city zoo is nice too. But sometimes I don’t want to make a big fuss about it all and a diner is nice. Just a little hole-in-the-wall place where the coffee is stale but the food is good and the company doesn’t care that it’s not a five star establishment.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” he nodded his head in agreement.

“Dating doesn’t have to be flashy. I see the kinds of things that are written about your sister and her husband. I couldn’t imagine being under that microscope.”

“It’s a choice they made—to be open about everything. I’m not sure they like the constant guessing of what the baby is going to be, but they don’t mind the interest in their lives.”

“What about you?” You asked him. “The perfect date? Being in the public eye?”

“I don’t mind it,” Johnny said with little thought. “It’s just part of the job and people have been pretty nice about it all. It’s not everyday you have to trust someone like me to help out.”

“So you admit it,” a small, rewarding grin played at your lips. You saw his gaze flick to them and back to your eyes. “You’re not normal then?”

His eyes narrowed playfully. “Was that a trick question?”

“No. Just an honest one. Date?”

He sat with his response for a minute, falling back against the record player’s built-in. Johnny liked having you here. It felt normal and easy and not like anyone else he’d ever known.

“Mr. Storm?” You pressed.

“You don’t give a guy any time to think, do you, sweetheart? And it’s Johnny.”

“I don’t have forever,” you reminded him. He wished you did.

“What you said.”

“Excuse me?”

Johnny’s smug face was rewarded with your surprise. His head tilted up as he rephrased, “you described my perfect date.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes,” he dug in further, “you did.”

“But that’s my perfect date. We are two very different people.”

“Opposites attract and all,” he commented. “I want her to feel comfortable and safe. If I take her race car driving on the first date, she might never speak to me again or if she’s someone I really, really like, then I want her to feel like I’m making an effort to get to know her. Getting to know me can come later. Preferably here, in this room, with a record on and very little taking.”

You felt that warmth invade your body once more.

Your band of resistance was starting to snap.

“Mr. Storm,” you started.

“Johnny.”

“You know I can’t write that down.”

“It wasn’t for you to write down,” he said seriously. “It was for you to know.”

“Why would I need to know that?”

The space inside of his room shrunk. The only thing that existed was the small, elevated section you both sat upon: you in the chair, he on the floor.

Your comment sat heavy in the hair. Hanging there above your heads, it twirled into a storm of those savory thoughts from a few hours ago. Neither of you had forgotten about it—how your minds automatically raced to imagine what it would be like to sit just a little closer, inch your hands toward the other.

He knew what your palm felt like in his and it was perfect. Slotted to a perfect puzzle piece and he knew this feeling was the ultimate one that Sue told him about. It was the universe opening portals to emotions he didn’t know existed and stretching him in directions he didn’t anticipate going.

“I know we don’t know each other well,” Johnny started slowly as he broached the topic.

“We don’t know each other at all,” you clarified.

“People have done a lot more knowing a lot less.”

“I feel like I’ve had to remind you that I’m working several times,” you uncrossed your legs and moved to stand.

Johnny scrambled to his feet and that line had been crossed. He didn’t know how to return to the other side and wasn’t sure if he wanted to.

All that talk of a perfect date and he just wished someone would give him a real chance to show off. You listened and maybe right that second you didn’t feel like you knew him, but you did.

Johnny had given you more answers in seven entire hours than he’d allowed anyone else to hear in his life besides his family. You cracked a part of him open without waving the slightest finger in attempting to do so.

“I’m sorry if I gave you an impression that it wasn’t professional.” You gathered your paper and pen from the table and aimed for the door.

He rushed toward you frantically. Johnny cut off the path to the door by standing in front of it. The look on your face immediately sent him into orbit. He was spiraling.

“Sorry!” He said quickly. “I’m sorry if I crossed a line. I just… I just thought that, well, I don’t know! I felt something, okay?”

“Mr. Storm, please—“

“You gotta stop with that Mr. Storm shit.” He let out a stressed groan, a hand wiping over his face in duress. “You’re tellin’ me that you haven’t felt it too?”

God did you feel it. You felt the pull so strong that it was sending your own synapses into overdrive. You couldn’t be here any longer. He pushed open the flood gates and allowed those feelings to spur deeper, rising into that forbidden territory you couldn’t come back from.

This was what all those other reporters wanted and the one thing that you weren’t expecting. You were attracted to Johnny. Immensely. He was charming and sweet—far more interesting and curious than you realized. He was the one guy that was as engaged with your own answers as he was with his own and it was a drug. A highly addictive drug that wouldn’t last because he was a hero and you were a journalist.

Those two things didn’t mix.

They couldn’t mix.

It was wrong. It was inappropriate. But fuck, did it sound so, so good.

“It’s not appropriate. I don’t sleep with my clients.”

“Then end the interview,” he said like it was easy. “I’m not a client anymore.”

“Is this just for you to get your rocks off?” Your eyes narrowed and he held up his hands defensively.

“No! No!” He exclaimed. Maybe you were being too harsh. “If you want to leave, go ahead.” Johnny backed away from the door and settled at its side.

There was a pathway out now.

“I’m not trying to make you break any rules,” he said softly. “That wasn’t my intention. But tell me you don’t feel it too. It feels like you stuck dynamite in my chest and it’s ready to explode.”

You knew the sentiment well. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t be what Lucy and all the rest of them wanted to be.

“I can’t, Johnny.” He melted at the sound of his name falling from your lips. “I’m not trying to be like those other girls.”

“So you’re not like the rest of them, huh?” He joked.

“No,” you replied painfully. “Unfortunately I’m just like them it seems because I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss you.”

You threw your hands up in defeat and paced around his room in circles. He just stood by the door and watched amused as you worked through what he already figured out.

“I guess that means you won, right? It’s not even the goddamn end of the day and I’m already throwing in the towel because I don’t have a little more self control.” You let out a rueful snicker. “And to think I was so certain that I could do this!? I mean, it’s not like you’re my type or anything.”

“And that is…?”

“Nice!” You answered loudly. “And not one to say crude things all the time.”

“They weren’t crude, they were suggestive. For a writer I would hope you would know the difference.”

You stopped pacing and looked at him with your mouth agape. “Why you—“

“Careful,” he held up a finger, “your name calling game isn’t that strong. Might I suggest ‘most handsome man on the planet’ or ‘hero of my heart’ instead?”

“Oh my god,” you wailed. “I can’t believe I am even the slightest bit attracted to you!”

“I think it’s a little more than slight, sweetheart. You were ready to burn this building to the ground at the mere thought of sleeping with me and I think that means you’ve at least thought about it before.”

“I have not!”

“You’ve thought about kissing me.”

“That’s different,” you emphasized. Of course you thought about fucking him too. He’s Johnny fucking Storm and he’s been giving you “fuck me” eyes for the last five hours.

“It all leads to somewhere else in the end.”

“So you were implying that. I’m not crazy.” Your eyes widened like you were.

“I didn’t say you were. And you’re not, by the way.”

Johnny just settled against the wall and crossed his arms against his chest. The muscles of his biceps strained at the short sleeves of his white tee and invited you in.

“Having a little bit of fun doesn’t make you less of a journalist,” he said your name for the first time. Not sweetheart or any other pet name.

Johnny. You. It was personal now.

“I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not that kind of guy and I hope you didn’t get the idea that I would be that kind of guy. You’re nice, real nice, and I really enjoy talking to you. There aren’t many people who are willing to listen and take things with an open mind.”

God. He needed to stop talking.

“Plus I think H.E.R.B.I.E likes you. He felt real bad about leaving you out in the cold like that.”

Stop talking, Johnny.

“And I do too. Sorry about that, by the way,” he laughed slightly at the predicament. “I’m not used to putting people that aren’t my family first but I’m open to the idea…”

His blue eyes beat you down. Stop fucking talking.

“If we had more time I would have—“

You couldn’t take it anymore. Dropping your pad of paper and pen to the ground, you closed the distance between the two of you in a few long strides and grasped his face between your hands, planting your lips onto his in a heartbeat.

His words halted.

Fusing together like atoms, the electricity of your mouths falling into sync quieted both minds. It was tranquil. His face cupped between your hands tilted, angling to the side and opening up further. Johnny’s tongue begged for mercy between your lips, melding together with yours in tune to the beating of your hearts.

Something sprouted inside of you. Building from your toes to your mind, it tingled your limbs into numbness where nothing else but Johnny’s hands weaving around your waist and cradling the back of your head mattered.

This is what it felt like—attraction.

It was all consuming and all knowing. It recognized parts of you that had been sleeping and awoken to a giant tower ready to climb. His smooth face fell from your hands as they dropped to his neck; trailing the edges of the scoop of his shirt and feeling the molds of his chest before settling there. One hand turned into a fist to gather his shirt with a tug, drawing him closer and leaving no space between you.

His lips were as you imagined: soft and inviting. There were no words needed to accept the fact that you were holding everything back for nothing. This was as it should be. He was kind. He was considerate.

He was charming, funny, nervous, clumsy, confident, handsome, smart, entertaining, and didn’t force you into this.

It fell into place. As two objects in motion collided, the motions continued on.

Johnny’s hands groped you tightly, barely allowing you time to breathe as your lips parted. His hands paved a path down your body and tested the waters with bated breath. You didn’t stop him. You craved the feeling of his hands on your body.

You pulled back from his lips but he chased after them, drunk on the feeling. You knocked your nose gently into his as you breathed in deep breaths.

“You can touch me,” you reassured him. His eyes stayed focused on your mouth.

“As long as you’re sure.”

“More than sure.”

Johnny’s hands slid down to your ass and cupped you roughly. His grip pulled you flush against him and with a groan, your lips caught his chin and dotted kisses along the column of his neck.

He thought he was dreaming. Five minutes ago he was certain you were going to flee the apartment and speak his name into forbidden existence because of his brash assessment. Here you were, kissing him mad and he was imprinting a picture of your body forever in his mind. You were luxurious and finite. There was only ever going to be one of you and he was never going to forget what this moment caused.

The rapture within him was cemented.

“You know,” he murmured against your kisses when your lips returned to his. “I did really want to take you out on a date before all this.”

“I told you that I don’t follow the rules,” you nipped at his chin playfully.

“You surprise me.”

“Good,” you smiled. You backed away from him and his hands fell to his sides loosely. “And I’m not going to write an article about you anymore either.”

“No?”

You hummed and shook your head. “Can’t now. I’m too biased in my storytelling to be truthful.”

Johnny took a step forward and you took one back.

“And the honest truth is what, sweetheart?”

“That Johnny Storm isn’t the man everyone thinks he is.” Another step forward, another back. “He’s a good man with a good family and similar morals. He likes to have a fun time but within the bounds of his duty and he’s a romantic at heart—not a womanizer.”

“I would really like to womanize you, however.”

Johnny bit down on his bottom lip. You extended your hand and he gladly took it, leaping into your space again and tumbling with you onto his bed at the center of the room. You fell back with a thud and his body weighed heavy on top of yours.

“Johnny Storm defies the expectations we have of him,” you continued on.

The hand not entwined with his own came back to his face and brushed stray blond bangs from his forehead.

“And the lucky few who get to know the real Johnny will always know his true heroism lies within.”

Johnny’s smile widened. “That’s real cheesy—you know that, right?”

You grinned back and returned your hand to the back of his head where the shortened hairs weaved between your fingertips. Johnny pulled your intertwined hands up above your head.

“I think it’s a perfect story.”

His story or this one playing out now, he wasn’t sure which was better.

“Yeah,” he placed a soft kiss on your lips. “Me too.”

“You’d sacrifice the world for your family and I admire that.”

“Now you’re getting sappy on me,” he laughed. He laid a peck beside your ear. “You don’t need to butter me up to make something happen.”

“I’m not buttering you up.”

You titled your head to the side to give him access to the side of your face, neck, and when his hand tugged at the top of your dress, the bit of clavicle he was able to reach.

His touch set you ablaze. Burning from the sensations his gentle lips left behind, Johnny knew how to touch a woman and make her feel good. It was something he’d perfected in his thirty years on Earth.

“You remember what I said about my perfect date?” His voice was muffled by the wool of your dress.

“Oh,” you gave an awe inspired sigh. “Was that you buttering me up? How you got me here?”

“You did that all on your own.”

Johnny’s head turned back up to face you and he rested his chin at the curve of your breasts. You hadn’t realized he had moved down that far on your body. He slowly slipped his lean frame to the edge of the bed, kneeling at its base and letting his hands fall to the backs of your knees. They glided down your calves and to your ankles, playing with the straps of your shoes.

“Tell me that you don’t want this and I’ll stop.”

You sat up on your elbows. His hands grasped your right foot. Slowly pulling at the buckle of your heel and undoing the strap to where you shoe fell off your foot with a small clunk when it hit the floor.

Johnny’s gaze didn’t escape yours. He waited for you to change your mind. The anticipation of your soft rejection pounding at his ribcage.

His hands moved to your left leg and when the second shoe dropped, Johnny’s hands caressed the skin of your shin.

“I wouldn’t have let you do that if I didn’t,” you told him.

“When I said that your perfect date is how I see my perfect date, I also should have said that I want her to be satisfied when it’s all over.”

You swallowed a lump that had formed in your through from the promise. God. You couldn’t believe you ended up here.

“I’m not asking you to give out to me,” he nodded at you. Johnny asked you to give him the confirmation he needed. ��So if it’s not today, it will be another time.”

The ghosting of his fingertips on the backs of your knees sent a chill up your body.

“Don’t you think that’s a little presumptuous?”

“I mean…” he smirked, lips placing peppered kissed along your kneecap. “I think I may have won the bet.”

He did. He knows he fucking did.

Johnny’s hands roamed to the end of your dress. His thumbs pushed the fabric that had grown far too warm on your body upwards, watching you in permission that every inch higher was not crossing the boundary of what you were willing to give to him.

His position between your legs prevented them from closing in bashfulness. His tongue wet his lips as the curve of your hips forced his hands harder to give him access. Johnny paused again.

“You’re sure?” He asked quietly.

You nodded, running a hand through his short hair. The hesitancy you had yesterday seemed like a distant memory. Johnny enraptured you and while you were breaking every rule in the book, you couldn’t stop here. Not when he was kneeling for you. Not when he wanted to taste you.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Putting your free hand atop his, you guided it to the top of your panties in invitation.

“Lay down,” he ordered and you complied. Obedient. “Relax.” Came next and in a mere whisper as the fabric slipped from your body and the cool air now exposed to your body made you aware of how wet you were.

“I’m gonna take care of you.”

Kissing the inside of your thigh, you stared at the ceiling in disbelief. You felt his piercing gaze upon you; he measured your body in the way it folded and it heaved.

And he kept a promise of taking care of you—not himself. As much as the sight of you, bare and wanting before him made his soul burn, he knew this wouldn’t be your last meeting.

His kisses drew closer. Johnny’s hot breath met the crux between your legs before any other part of him did. His lips barely grazed you and your thighs trembled with his head stuck between them.

Johnny didn’t miss the sharp intake of your breath when he finally lowered his mouth to you. And my, he had never tasted someone as sweet as you. His tongue glided along the wetness that had already gathered and focused his attention to your clit. He gave in to a merciless pace; circling and sucking—your toes curled to hold you back.

Your hand wrapped into his hair and tugged at the strands. His arms held onto your sides and tracked the curve of your body as he pulled you closer. The response he was receiving was Pavlovian. Forever he’d bend at the sounds of your sighs, of the feel of your nails raking against the base of his skull. He’d dream of the flesh he devoured and sing songs of the pleasures he took.

Johnny Storm hadn’t believed in love at first sight until today.

And you hadn’t imagined giving him a chance until he had greeted you that morning.

His tongue increased its pressure on your bud. Pressing down as he lapped the wetness of his saliva and your arousal into his method and used it to lower himself smoothly.

A whine escaped your lips when his fingers left your side and helped open you up to him. Splitting you open and allowing his tongue to pin you to the bed. Your knees shook, legs coming to bend beside his head as his shoulders lurched to catch them. Johnny’s opposite hand held you down, settling at the base of your stomach.

“Holy mother of—“

He hummed and it sent a vibration through you.

As he had kissed you before, his tongue flicked inside of you in a passionate rhythm. His eyes closed to relish in the sounds of your neediness. Johnny didn’t tell you to be quiet because he didn’t want you to be. You could shout, scream, or cry out and he’d ask you for more. Give him everything, he wanted to imply, but he couldn’t ask for everything at that very moment.

You were taking everything he was giving like it was made for you. Hell, maybe he was.

The fingers he had used to help open you up remained rubbing up and down the sides of your pussy while his tongue explored the horizons beyond it. You felt one move, his middle finger, and it joined his tongue, curling into you gently.

“Oh god,” you groaned. His mouth curved into a smirk, backing away centimeters.

“Johnny is fine,” his voice had turned gravely. “But I’ll take being a god any day.”

And that laughter. It filled him so deeply that not even the strain in his jeans could distract him from the innate pleasure of hearing you respond to him. He continued on, letting his finger work against your plush walls and master the craft of you.

His mouth refocused to your clit which he did not abandon on purpose. Johnny quickened his pace, unrelenting and fixed on assisting you to the end. It built, like a flame kindling from a spark and tingling every cell in your body.

Your shoulders tensed, anticipating a release but infatuated with the way his ministrations only pulled back when he knew you were getting too close. He was keeping you on your toes. Johnny let you feel and experience the pleasure outside of simply working toward an orgasm.

Earn it. You had to earn it.

“You gonna keep teasing me like that or what?” You whined.

“I’m just not done with you yet.” His finger left you empty before coming back with its neighbor. “We’ve got time.”

“I don’t think we have time today,” you seemed to always remind him that you had a deadline. “Maybe another day.”

“Now who’s asking for a second date?”

“This isn’t a date.” His fingers reached lengths you were unable to do yourself. Your back arched in his grasp and his grasp tightened.

“Then our first date will be amazing.” Cocky son-of-a-bitch.

“Jesus,” you couldn’t help the spattering of words that flew from your lips as the precipice gained on you again.

“Johnny,” he repeated.

“Johnny,” you cried back. “I—“

“I can feel you, sweetheart.”

The familiarity of your orgasm climbed the mountain of your thrill rapidly approached. Recalling the minutes he spent prior being agonizingly slow, then picking up his pace, your ears captured the most bawdy sounds of excitement. His fingers were coated in your slick, chin glistening in the slightest with remnants of what he’d take as a prize.

You turned your head to watch his fingers disappear inside of you and your chest nearly caved.

“Come here,” you breathed in heavy. Johnny’s brow furrowed.

“Wha—“

“Just kiss me.”

With his fingers still pumping frantically inside of you, Johnny pushed up from the ground and let your hands pull his face toward yours. You had never tasted yourself on the lips of a lover before and you cherished the intimacy of the notion.

He felt your shoulders stutter, your body shaking in need. His mouth opened to allow you in.

One. Two. Three additional thrusts of his fingers and he felt you tighten around him. A wave of immense pleasure washed over your body in bliss. Arching into him, Johnny held onto you tightly, never once letting you fall apart without him.

You could hear him whisper words of praise in your ear except nothing but a kaleidoscope of colors seemed to match the tremors of your lower body. Legs shaking, toes curled as one leg wrapped around his own waist and laid lax once the shaking subsided.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured. He retracted the two fingers. Resting them on your thigh, he patted the skin there. “You’re fine, sweetheart.”

Johnny laid his forehead against yours and let you breathe before his mouth couldn’t help but run again.

“I would have called you a good girl but I think sweetheart is the only nickname you can take right now.”

You opened your eyes and met his glinting with amusement. Did you want to take back everything u out said? Pretend this never happened and go find someone who can keep a moment serious for longer than a minute?

“You are—“ the words couldn’t form. There were too many words to describe Johnny Storm and even a journalist as great as yourself couldn’t come up with one.

The next morning you were at the office bright and early. No article had been prepared, no pictures of Johnny in his space, and nothing to report to Lucy.

Your mind was racing, however.

When you unlocked the door to your apartment later that night, you did so with a smile plastered to your face. You felt like a school girl with her first crush. Johnny enamored you and left you feeling like jell-o and your limbs acting on their own accord was proof of it.

But you had to keep a lid on it. So, when you sat down at your desk and flipped on the light to wait for the inevitable, you pretended you weren’t hopelessly crushing on the hot-headed hero.

An hour after you settled in, Lucy rushed to your desk to gossip. Her eyes were wide, expectant for you to spill all of the details of what makes Johnny tick. Every secret you gathered from the contents of his bathroom cabinet to the food he liked to eat, she wanted to know.

“So?” She said incredibly fast. “How was it? Where is it?” The draft.

“I don’t have it.” You preoccupied yourself by typing out a different article. The keys on your typewriter filled the space of her mouth hanging wide open in confusion.

“What do you mean you don’t have it?”

“I didn’t it write it,” you clarified. “It’s not happening.”

“We—“ she started and stopped in a stutter. “What, well… what happened? Did you even go??”

“Of course I went.” The page reached its end with a ring and you shot it back to the opposite side. “I just don’t have the story for you. I’m not going to write it so ask someone else.”

Lucy watched you carefully. “Please tell me you didn’t make our paper look bad.”

“Oh just awful,” you drawled. “I think we’re banned from ever covering them.”

She didn’t catch the tone. Lucy had been so preoccupied with wanting a big, newsworthy feature that she didn’t think of anything else. She joked about you falling into bed with him but figured you were too much of a straightened arrow to try it.

You didn’t have a hickey, you weren’t sweating at the temple, or drinking the largest coffee. In fact, you didn’t even have a coffee.

“Did you…” she trailed off, neck jutting out in curiosity.

Before you could look her in the eyes and lie, a delivery man with a bouquet of flowers was making a b-line to your desk caught your eye.

Shit. So much for discreet.

He said your name aloud and held up the flowers as if you didn’t see them. They were magnificent. A collection of winter favorites perfectly curated in a massive bouquet.

“I have a delivery.”

“From?” Lucy asked bewildered.

“There’s a card,” he informed. The man set the flowers on your desk and you stood, straightening out your blouse as you plucked the card from the small spokes elevating it above the petals.

“Who’s it from?” Lucy pressed.

“Geez,” you mumbled. “Care to give me a minute or would you rather just read it yourself?”

“Go ahead,” she motioned.

You slipped the card from the envelope and slid it out. In personal handwriting, a short message relayed a simple message without a signature.

You couldn’t fight the grin this time. It filled your face with a joyous, girlish glow and Lucy smacked her hand on the surface of the desk.

“Holy shit!”

And holy, flaming fucking shit indeed.

Saturday, 9 AM. My shop. Wear something nice, it’s a date.

And you knew right where to go.

A/N: a Joe Quinn character breaking me out of a writing slump? 2022 me is not surprised. His Johnny is *chef’s kiss* and I love him, your honor.

P.S. all writers love to hear from readers and it’s the one thing I love more than anything. Thank you for taking the time to read this!

Liked this one? Here’s another Johnny fic!

[aniqua]

If I write something for Clark and Lex, do y’all want the robot fucker or clone fucker idea first?

Being kinda vague for legal reasons

[aniqua]

I kinda wanna write for Clark and Lex.

“Fuckin’ two bad bitches at the same damn time!”

[aniqua]

28 YEARS LATER (2025) dir. Danny Boyle

"Memento amoris. Remember love."

[aniqua]

𝗦𝗞𝗬'𝗦 𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗟𝗟 𝗕𝗟𝗨𝗘

caleb xia x fem!reader, boyfriend!rafayel qi x fem!reader

summary: 1.0k

He doesn’t know what he expected. For you to wait for him? For you to mourn him to the point of never moving on, if there was something to move on from in the first place? To you, he was dead for a year. He’d just have to live with the consequences of that.

or the one where you convince caleb to come with to you an art exhibit in which he learns more about who you've been hanging around since he's been gone.

content: jealousy, unrequited love

masterlist | beat you to it masterlist

When you had initially invited Caleb along to an art exhibition, he’d been confused. Don’t get him wrong, he was happy to go with you–more than happy to accompany you on what he thought to be the first of many date-like outings since he’d come back, saying yes with a dopey grin on his face–but this hadn’t ever really been his scene. Or, your scene, for that matter. He remembers the field trip your class had taken back in grade school to the Linkon City Art Museum, when you were still only single-digited in age, and how you’d begged Gran to let you stay home for weeks prior. Even the morning of, when you’d pretended to have the flu by sticking your thermometer in front of the space heater in your bedroom.

So, for you to now be dragging him along to some artists’ showing by choice… yeah, he was questioning things. You’d simply shrugged your shoulders when he’d asked the day before, smiling softly, “I know the artist.”

“Oh…” he’d said. “That Rafayel guy? The one who pays you to go on trips with him?”

It should’ve clicked then, he thinks, rather than after you’d already dragged him through dozens of paintings he could care less about, only to stumble up to the final piece which was undeniably a portrait of you. In molten shades of reds and violets, the colors blended your features into something divine. Something worth worshipping, if he hadn’t already been prepared to drop to his knees for you before you had the chance to ask.

Caleb’s jaw nearly dropped, his hold on your hand loosening as he let you step closer to the painting. It was beautiful, truly, the only artwork he thinks he would hang on his walls if given the chance. But, then again, what was this Rafayel guy doing painting such a portrait of his girl. 

“Hey, pipsqueak?” he asks. The sound comes out, but it sounds distant. Far away from the cotton currently filling his brain. 

You turn to face him with that cheeky grin he remembers from so long ago, the nostalgia tugging even harder at his heart. You were still that same girl he’d fallen for all those years ago. The only girl he’d fallen for, and probably ever would.

“Yeah?” you ask.

“Aren’t you his bodyguard?” he asks, more for reassurance of his own thoughts than anything else. Aren’t you just his bodyguard?

You nod, returning back to his side. For some reason, it didn’t give him the assurance he wanted. Then, with a flicker of your eye line, your attention on him wavers. In an instant, it’s like you’ve forgotten him.

“Raf!” you squeal, wandering away from him to throw your arms around a purple haired man in a navy suit. 

“Hey, cutie,” the man snickers, lifting your feet up and off of the ground as he accepts your embrace. “How’d you like it?”

He nods toward the portrait behind you. Your eyes don’t leave his even as you nod enthusiastically. Rafayel’s smile softens a bit as he sets you back down, lifting his hands to your cheeks to pull you into a reserved kiss. Caleb thinks about excusing himself to go and throw up in the restroom. 

“Oh! Raf, this is Caleb,” you say as you tilt your head to face your childhood friend. So you do remember him. Rafayel nods as he sticks his hand out to shake Caleb’s, a gesture he tentatively takes. 

“Pleasure,” Rafayel hums. His arm wraps around your waist. The look you give the artist, your head resting delicately on his shoulder, has Caleb’s stomach churning further. He hadn’t realized how moon-eyed you’d been over him as a child until he saw that gaze turned onto someone else. 

Rafayel blinks a few times, tilting his head as he squares up Caleb. It feels like a laser focused on the raw points of his heart, exposed and beating and freshly bruised. Though it feels like hours, in a moment the artist’s gaze returns to you.

“Are you coming to dinner with me and Thomas tonight?” he asks.

“Dinner?” Caleb’s throat is dry and he nearly coughs the statement out. 

“My beloved usually joins me for celebratory dinners after these exhibitions,” Rafayel says, using his spare hand to cradle the side of your head briefly. You hadn’t mentioned anything about dinner. Caleb had already been planning on making something when you got back home. 

“I told you I couldn’t,” you say, poking the pout that appeared on Rafayel’s lips. The pilot bit his cheek. Hard. “Caleb’s staying with me for a bit. Remember?”

“You should go,” Caleb hears himself say. He’s off somewhere else in his mind, watching these events unfold before him. He’s sitting in the attic of your old house, a hand wrapped tight around yours with you kneeling between his spread thighs. You don’t need him anymore. That’s what you’d said.

“Really?” you ask. “You think you can make it back to my apartment okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I can get there alright. I’ll wait up for you,” he swallows. 

“You don’t have to do that. I’m not sure when I’ll make it back,” you say softly, reaching out a hand to rest gently on his shoulder. It’s fire and ice all at once. All Caleb can do is nod helplessly.

It’s not long before Rafayel is ushering you away from him fully, whispering things he can’t hear–and, likely, doesn’t want to–while he continues to stand there at the heart of the exhibit. There’s a couple of paintings surrounding the painting of you. Various land and oceanscapes strung together in violets and maroons. Periwinkles, navys, ocean skylines that have him craving the comfort the clouds give him back in Skyhaven. 

He doesn’t know what he expected. For you to wait for him? For you to mourn him to the point of never moving on, if there was something to move on from in the first place? To you, he was dead for a year. He’d just have to live with the consequences of that. 

[aniqua]

PLEEEEASE DO MORE SEONGJE HEADCANONS IF YOU HAVE THEM

씨발(Shibal)...

Geum Seongje x fem!reader

The reader has a shy character in this story

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

It wasn't that cold that night, but the asphalt smelled of rust. Geum Seong-je sat on a bench, looking vacant, a limp cigarette stuck between his teeth, almost completely burned out. He wasn't even really smoking it. His eyes followed the car headlights like flies around a bulb.

The screech of tires, the screams, the dull thud of a body being thrown, none of it made him move. It had happened right in front of him. He had turned his head, cast a lazy glance, seen a figure mowed down on the ground. He had cursed under his breath.

He hadn't snapped out of his torpor to help her. Not out of shock, not out of fear. He just didn't give a damn. But he had called the ambulance. Out of habit, maybe, or because he didn't want the hassle of a non-assistance investigation. He wasn't there to play the hero; he just wanted to be left alone.

But that face. Pale. Frozen. That face had disturbed him. Not because he found it beautiful or innocent. But because he hated seeing something broken, weak, fragile. And that girl, Y/N, was all of that, at that moment.

He found himself at the hospital, standing, leaning against the window of her room, watching her, unconscious, connected to tubes. He was going to leave, do what he always did: ignore the consequences. But as he was about to turn on his heel, the nurse called out to him.

"You're not going to leave her alone, not now. She talked about you in her sleep. 'My love,' that's what she said. It's you, isn't it?"

He had burst out laughing. Dry, humorless. He had wanted to deny it. But the police were already there, the rumors, the eyes fixed on him as if he were the reason for her accident. He had felt suffocated. So he had lied.

"Yeah. It's me .She's my girl..."

The following days were a punishment. For him. For her. He had to come back every day, bring things. Romantic crap: disgusting stuffed animals, candies, little notes folded into hearts. He had grabbed everything from the most cliché shops in town. And he called Y/N "jagiya," "yeobo," or even "my little bunny" with that drawling voice, twisted with sarcasm. But his gaze remained that of a madman, hungry, unstable.

He hid nothing. Neither his fights, nor his offenses, nor the scars on his fists. He even showed them, barely concealed under dirty bandages. He wanted her to be afraid. To understand who he was. To look at him with horror. He needed that fear to exist.

But what really haunted him was what it did to him. This feeling of being expected. Even if it was based on a damn misunderstanding. Even if she had never seen him before. He had started watching her sleep longer than necessary. He noticed the movements of her hands under the sheets, her lips that moved when she dreamed. He hated it. He hated feeling connected to someone.

A week after the accident, she had woken up.

"Who are you?" she had asked, her voice trembling.

He had dropped the water bottle he was handing her.

— Shibal... Are you serious? You sleep for eight days, moan my name like a lovelorn child, and now you're looking at me like a fucking stranger?

She had curled up. He had felt that fear. It ran through him. And it made him smile, a smile that was anything but tender. But inside, it turned his stomach. He felt dirty. Awkward. He didn't know how to get out of this mess.

He had kept coming. Every day. He brought the most ridiculous flowers, the most absurd declarations scribbled on Post-it notes, teen magazines, bags of cookies. He played the game. With an unhealthy intensity. Because he had never had this. Someone to see. Someone who looks at him, even with fear.

But it wasn't love. Not yet. It was need. Panic. As if she were the only thing that could keep the mess he was on a leash. He wasn't nice. He wasn't romantic. He was twisted. He was getting attached in the wrong way. He was becoming possessive before he even had the right to anything.

One day, she had said to him:

"I don't want you to come back."

He had replied, his teeth clenched:

"You don't get a say, jagi. They believe me, not you. You want me to leave? Then explain to them that I'm an asshole. Go on. Look them in the eyes and tell them you're all alone. You want that? Huh?"

She had said nothing. She couldn't. And he had clung to that silence like a rope.

Geum Seong-je didn't understand himself. He fought in the streets because he had never learned to talk. He lied because he had never trusted anything. He got angry with her because she was calm. Because she was gentle. Because everything about her reminded him of what he would never be.

But he was there. Every day. Sitting in the chair next to her bed. He ate her cookies, he sometimes fell asleep listening to the beeping of the machines. He expected nothing. Just for it to last a little longer.

The hospital had become his world. And Y/N, his fixation. It wasn't a fairy tale, it was a cell. And in his deranged mind, it was almost enough.

---

He refused to leave.

Y/N had asked him, even begged him, one morning when the pale sun filtered through the hospital blinds, but he had remained rooted there, staring at her with his split, distorted smile that never reached his eyes.

"Are you kidding me? You're the one who landed me here, jagiya. You're the one who got me into this mess. So now you deal with it."

She had turned her face away, trying to ignore him, as if that could make him disappear. But Seong-je wasn't a draft. He was a sticky, insistent presence, like an oil stain on a white tablecloth.

When the nurses passed by, he resumed his act. He laughed, offered her stuffed animals, strawberry chewing gum, little notes that he read aloud, punctuating them with saccharine nicknames.

"You remember when we stole that bike together, huh, yeobo? That was our first couple adventure, wasn't it?"

And when they moved away, his gaze changed. He leaned towards her, his sour breath on her cheek.

"Don't play smart with me. Say one more time that you want me to leave, and I swear you'll really know what it means to be alone."

He knew exactly when the staff changed shifts, which corridors were empty, which stolen moments he could use to whisper vile threats in her ear. He didn't need to shout. He inflicted pain with a few words, spoken softly.

"I have your first name. Your address. Your life, now, belongs to me. You wanted to put on a show by calling me in your sleep? You thought there would be no consequences? Well, here they are. You've earned yourself a monster, my dear."

Y/N tried to sit up in bed when she had the strength. Sometimes she struggled to reach the call button, but he would discreetly unplug it before anyone could see. Just to silence her.

"Come on, rest," he murmured, stroking her hair. "I don't want them to think you're hysterical, you know. It's not good for you."

He had to be careful. The cops kept coming by. Twice already, they had come to ask questions. First about the accident. Then about him. He played the desperate lover perfectly—a tear in the corner of his eye, stories of pseudo-memories with Y/N, a trembling voice when he spoke of his "fear of losing her."

"I'm just here for her, that's all," he had said to one of them, his hand placed over his heart. "We haven't always been an easy couple, but she's my world."

And it worked.

It worked because people preferred slightly dark love stories to disturbing truths. It worked because he knew how to manipulate silences, how to shed tears at will, how to create an illusion credible enough to be believed.

But with Y/N, he wasn't acting.

With her, he was what he truly was: unstable, violent, possessive. He swung between a distorted tenderness and an icy rage. One day, he brought macarons; the next, he smashed a bouquet against the wall when she wasn't looking.

He resented her. For what she had triggered. For the space she occupied in his head. For this obsession he couldn't control. He felt trapped, and his only way out was her.

"You can't push me away. You don't have the right. Not after what you made me believe. Now you put up with me. You endure me, just like I endure myself every damn day."

He sometimes slept in the armchair, his body tense, his arms crossed. Sometimes, he would get up in the middle of the night and stand, leaning over her, watching her. For a long time. Too long.

And in the morning, he would resume his act. Smile. Wink. Silly little nickname.

And when no one was watching:

"If you say one wrong word, I swear I'll make a scene. They think I'm the perfect boyfriend. You're just a fragile little girl. You know who they'll believe."

And the worst part was, he was right.

---

The days in the hospital dragged by with a devouring slowness, and Seong-je had had enough of every second spent in that sterile room, with Y/N lying on her bed, unconscious of everything happening around her. But it was even worse when she was awake. The heavy air of the room seemed strangely more oppressive. Every sigh he let out, every movement he made, seemed as desperate as it was useless. He felt suffocated, invisible in that overly silent room.

But a nightmare repeated itself every night. A nightmare that was gradually turning into an unbearable obsession.

Y/N was all he had. All he believed he had. And every night, he saw her leave. Not in an explosion of light or in a grand theatrical act. No. Y/N left in a much simpler, much more destructive way. She would look at him one last time, without emotion, then turn and disappear into the void. He couldn't hold her back, he couldn't even move. He was frozen, paralyzed in his own nightmare. And with each awakening, anguish washed over him, an irrepressible fear that dug even deeper into his twisted mind.

He was tired of feeling this way, of drowning in this inner void. So, he had hurt himself. Nothing serious, just enough to get Y/N's attention. It wasn't suffering he sought, but the moment when he would finally become real to her. He had slammed his fist against the bathroom wall until there was blood, and when he saw the red staining his skin, he had felt a little more alive. The taste of iron in his mouth, the burning pain, all of it had become almost… comforting. Then he had waited.

He had appeared in Y/N's room, a blank expression on his face, his wounds barely bandaged. He said nothing, he didn't move, just there, in the shadow of his own desire.

Y/N had woken up to muffled sounds. She had turned her head, her eyes blurry, and had seen him. He was there, sitting next to her, holding his arm where the blood had formed a small pool. He looked like nothing was wrong. But she… she couldn't ignore it.

He was looking at her. He had that look, both pleading and threatening, a mixture that no one else could understand. For a second, he had thought she would push him away again. For a second, he had thought he was too broken, too dirty for her to still pity him. But no, she had sat up, her face marked by fear and worry.

"Seong-je! What are you doing? You're hurt?!"

She had rushed towards him, panic in her movements. She had grabbed his arm, scrutinizing his wound as if the whole world depended on knowing he was safe. He could feel her fingers trembling on his skin. He could hear her short breaths. And he felt… loved. Not in a normal way, no. But it was enough.

"It's nothing," he had replied in a hoarse voice, a barely perceptible smile on his lips. "Just a little accident."

Y/N hadn't replied immediately. She had lowered her eyes to his hand, still tightly gripping his arm. He could see her fingers closing a little tighter, as if to make sure he wouldn't disappear. She had slid up his shirt sleeve to get a better look at the wound. Her eyes were hard, focused, almost overwhelmed.

"But why did you do that? Why are you… Why are you still here, Seong-je? Why?"

The words had flowed from her lips, but he hadn't answered immediately. He felt almost trapped in the tenderness she was offering him without really meaning to. She was there, worried about him, touching his arm as if it were the most precious thing she had.

"Because you won't let me leave," he had murmured. "Because you gave me something. And I'm going to hold onto it."

He had seen the look she gave him, hesitant, confused, full of guilt. He wasn't sure she understood. But he knew. She was worried. And that was all he needed to feel that love could exist, even in this twisted version of himself.

But he didn't have time to think further. A nurse, a young trainee, entered the room. Her name was Joo-hyun ,made up like a failed idol, and she didn't seem to notice that Y/N was awake. She approached Seong-je, who was still standing in that strange position, and began to speak to him without paying attention.

"You're really stubborn, you know, aren't you? Not wanting anyone to touch you, and now you have another wound to take care of."

She spoke in a slightly casual, almost flirtatious tone, settling near him. Joo-hyun hadn't noticed that Y/N was awake, and she leaned a little too close to Seong-je, as if it were nothing special.

But Y/N had noticed. Every word Joo-hyun spoke, every movement she made towards him, all of it ignited an anger that Y/N didn't understand. She sat up slowly, her gaze hardening. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She knew it wasn't an innocent gesture. Not in this room.

Joo-hyun looked so carefree, too self-assured, too familiar with him. She had gently caressed Seong-je's shoulder, and her fingers had slipped a little too low, lingering on his skin. Y/N felt heat spread through her, but it wasn't the warmth of desire. It was a fever of anger, of frustration.

Without warning, Y/N stood up, looking tense, almost threatening.

"You… you should leave," she said, her voice louder, more authoritative than usual.

Joo-hyun jumped, raising her eyes to her, surprised by the coldness in her voice. Seong-je, for his part, watched silently, as if a strange smile was slowly spreading across his lips.

"What?" Joo-hyun asked, a little lost.

"I told you to leave. Right now," Y/N replied, her voice sharp.

Joo-hyun hesitated, then straightened up. A last furtive glance at Seong-je and she turned on her heel, leaving the room without a word.

Y/N sat back down on the edge of the bed. She didn't really understand why she had reacted that way. But what she had felt was something new. A feeling she had never had before. Jealousy. An emotion that was completely foreign to her.

She turned her gaze to Seong-je, who was still there, silent, his eyes fixed on her. It wasn't love. It wasn't even compassion. It was just… a need. A possession. She was afraid of it. And at the same time, something inside her tightened, a discomfort she couldn't identify.

Seong-je looked at her, then, as if nothing had happened, leaned towards her and whispered:

"Thank you. That's love, you know. The kind I can get. The kind you give me without meaning to."

She shivered at his words, but this time, she didn't react. She simply let herself be invaded by this strange sensation which, little by little, was making Seong-je someone more than he seemed. Someone essential.

And in Seong-je's tormented mind, this moment was just one small step further towards what he believed to be his own love. A love he would impose. A love she would never be able to get rid of again.

---

Seong-je no longer knew exactly when obsession had taken over everything else. When the anguish of losing her had become that black fire, that creeping thing that scratched at every corner of his mind. Maybe at the hospital, or even before. But one thing was certain: from the moment Y/N had placed her hands on him, worried, desperate to know if he was alright, something had broken for good within him.

It wasn't love. Not really. It was deeper, darker. A morbid need. He didn't want her to love him. He wanted her to need no one but him. To breathe only through him. For every beat of her heart to be linked to him. It was the only way he knew how to love. It had to hurt.

When Y/N finally left the hospital, she expected Seong-je to disappear. Maybe not immediately, but that he would understand, with time. But she saw him in the lobby, as if everything were perfectly normal. He was there, sitting calmly at a table, signing the discharge papers. As if he were her husband, her guarantor, her everything.

"What are you doing?" she asked, hesitant.

He turned to her with that small, split smile, the one she never knew how to interpret.

"I reassured them. I'm taking you home. You're my girlfriend, remember?"

He gently, almost tenderly, brought his hand to hers and intertwined their fingers. Like an ordinary scene between two lovers. But Y/N couldn't ignore that strange pressure in her chest. A suffocating sensation.

He had accompanied her home. She had expected him to leave afterwards. He had even said goodbye, a kiss on her forehead. And she had believed, truly believed, that he would go.

But Seong-je had returned.

That same evening, he had come back, his arms full. A few personal belongings, a worn travel bag, and groceries. As if he planned to stay for a long time.

"I... I have nowhere to go. And with the storm approaching, it's dangerous outside. Just a few days, okay?"

She hadn't answered. He had already entered. He already knew where the kitchen was, where to put the dishes, where to place his clothes. As if he already lived there.

The storm broke that night. Howling winds, driving rain, lightning streaking across the sky. And Y/N found herself stuck with him. Alone. Trapped. The perfect closed-door setting for the emotional tension that had been building for days.

But Seong-je, for his part, was calm. Almost too calm. He prepared food, chopping vegetables with military precision. Y/N had never said she liked spicy tofu dishes. But she had confided in a nurse once, half-asleep, thinking no one was listening. He had listened. He always listened.

They ate in silence, their fingers occasionally brushing. Heavy silences, followed by glances that lingered too long. Sometimes their arms touched, and she didn't pull away. Sometimes her eyes lingered on his lips, and she turned her head. Until he kissed her.

A kiss that was initially soft, almost clumsy. Then more intense. As if he wanted to bite her, devour her. And she, lost between confusion and attraction, hadn't known how to react. She hadn't managed to say no. Not right away.

But the storm hadn't only carried away the rain. It had unleashed another tornado, far more dangerous.

They were in the living room, the lightning barely visible behind the curtains. Y/N wanted to talk, to set boundaries. But he had approached with a step that was too assured. And she had backed away.

"Are you afraid of me?" he asked.

"No... I just want some space, Seong-je. You're not supposed to be here."

He had laughed. A dry, slightly bitter laugh.

"You always say that when you feel like you might love someone. You're afraid of yourself, not me."

"That's not true."

"Oh no? Didn't you see yourself at the hospital, worried about me, as if your life depended on it? You kicked that nurse out just because she touched my arm."

He moved closer again.

"I need you, Y/N. And you know you need me too."

"This isn't... healthy."

"Maybe it's not healthy. But it's real. You can feel it."

He placed a hand on the back of her neck, gently. But there was strength in that touch.

"You think you can forget me? I'm in your apartment. In your head. You still breathe in my scent on your sheets. Every time you close your eyes, I'm there."

"You're manipulating me."

"No. I'm just revealing what you're hiding. You didn't reject me when I kissed you. You wanted it. You still do."

His words were like needles. And she had nothing to say. Because deep down, a part of her wanted to believe he was right. A tiny part, lost, wounded.

And that night, as the storm continued to beat against the walls of the apartment, they found themselves entwined on the sofa, between hatred and passion, between fear and desire. Prisoners of a love that wasn't supposed to exist, but that consumed them, slowly, dangerously.

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

New Geum Seongje fanfictions

Okay... She has a Trespassers in her house. But maybe she has this kind of view in the morning.

(⁠灬⁠º⁠‿⁠º⁠灬⁠)⁠♡

@mariii-0001

[aniqua]

LEE JUN YOUNG as Geum Seong Je in

Weak Hero Class Two (2025) / Episode One

[aniqua]

instagram: cheri.png

[aniqua]

i haven't been playing tumblr as much because i've been outside inhaling pollen

[aniqua]

I want to get back into writing but I don’t know who my next victim is.

[aniqua]

Boa

Pairings: Geum Seongje x Fem!Reader

Summary: You're just a kid, caught in a gangster’s crosshairs. What happens when you don’t deliver like you should…

Warnings: Language, Dom!Seongje, Gangsterism, Bullied!Reader, Coercion, Bullying, Extortion, Mentions of Rape, Smut +18 (mdni), Dark fic, Dubious consent, Public Sex, Exhibitionism, Desperate Sex, Humiliation, Degradation

A/N: I'm not responsible for the media you consume. I wrote this for me so...

Ever since you've started working for him, you've learned to get extremely acquainted with the floor.

"I'm sorry, Sir…” your voice is brittle as you try to make yourself heard in the suffocating internet cafe, “I'm short on delivery today..."

Hardwood. Tile. Linoleum. It's become all too familiar to you. The floor is all you see in his presence.

You never looked Seongje in the eyes unless he addresses you first. He likes that, you suspect.

It's kept you alive this long so you must be doing something right.

"I got assigned a kid to tutor and..." you clear your throat, not daring to make direct eye contact, choosing instead, to keep your eyes trained on the dirty, cold floor.

The internet cafe is the very last place you'd want to be on a Friday evening. You were caught right in between two challenging essay due dates- one for English and one for AP English. Both hung gravley over your head, threatening to set off your sympathetic nervous system and have you fainting from academic stress. Seeing him was the very last thing you needed.

"That tutoring time fucked with my system and-" despite all your achievements, despite the academic prestige and the boundless knowledge… in Seongje's presence you feel insignificant.

A bug he's letting scurry around for no other reason except his enjoyment. You didn't want to get stomped on. You saw what happened to the other kids under his thumb and it kept you up at night. All that blood. All the merciless sadism.

You aren't dumb enough to hope an exception would be made for you.

"I'm sorry,” you conclude, and for a second, you get no response. He plays his game. His friends remain silent.

That's all until he pushes the bridge of his glasses up further against his nose. A calm, quiet sigh leaves his lips.

“Before you started working for me, do you know what you were?" Seongje doesn't take his eyes off the screen. His fingers run deftly over the keys as he speaks to you without ever really acknowledging you, "You were in an alleyway, about to get raped by Eunjang scum."

"Yes, Seongje, I know-"

"And in return for my kindness, what did I ask of you?"

"FUCK- COVER ME BRO!" Your eye snaps up to the source of the loud and sudden burst of energy. Your frightened and pitiful eyes find a boy seated adjacent to Seongje and his goons. He's bent over his screen, clearly not a part of the group. Clearly far too young.

Your heart sinks when you realize Seongje's eyes are trained on the boy too.

"Ya…” Seongje raises his voice a decimal above the cacophony yet it has you flinching. “Too loud,” he says to the boy, “Didn’t anyone teach you shut up when adults are talking?” he asks monotonously to the boy- a child really- still mourning the loss of his avatar on the screen. He doesn't pay Seongje any mind.

Of course he doesn't. He's a kid.

How could he have known?

He came to an internet cafe to play a game with his friends.

It's the boy's innocence that hurts the most.

He doesn't know that the monsters under his bed are very real.

They walk where he walks.

They don't hide.

They move about freely.

Your heart makes like the titanic and sinks.

"Excuse me for a second." Seongje addresses you politely, finally giving you a fleeting glance before pushing himself out of his gamer chair. You see his entire row of friends (if that's what one could even refer to them as) remain unfazed as Seongje rounds the table to stand directly behind the young boy.

He’s bigger, far bigger as he pushes the rims of his glasses up, staring directly at you

"I know you're smart so you're probably aware that your fuck-up won't be tolerated-” he says to you, despite slithering his arm around the boys neck like a boa as he squeezes. Everyone keeps their eyes trained to their computers. Your fist curls at your side. You want to look away but you can't because you're speaking to Seongje. You wouldn't want to aggravate him further by showing him his mindlessly violence bothers you. So you try not to flinch.

You try not to let the casual violence scare you. How nonchalantly he speaks while an elementary school boy flails in his arms, begging to be released from the headlock making his lips turn blue

“You knew there'd be a punishment,” Seongje is still speaking to you. You hold your breathe in solidarity with the boy choking in his arms, “-for fucking up your delivery-” crimson blossoms onto the little boys face but Seongje keeps his eyes on you, appearing unfazed by the boy flailing like an animal in arms, "And yet you came anyway. That's the kinda work ethic, I like-” he smiles, “I like it alot-"

Eventually, after what feels like forever, he lets go of the boy. You finally breathe as well, watching as the kid slumps forward ingesting the air in horrid gasps.

Seongje bends forward, patting the boy on the back.

"No more interrupting when I speak, yeah?" Whether the boy was new to this particular internet cafe, it was unclear, but you hoped to whatever divine being that he wouldn't dare come back.

"So I'll let it slide-" He turns his attention back to you and you watch, still shaken up as Seongje leaves the little boy to make his way back to his side of the table. When he breezes past you he smells like nothing. Like his eyes, everything about him is empty.

"Thank you, Seongje-"

He nods before adding, "After you get on your knees." The goon sitting nearest to you, all the way at the end of the table, his fingers hover over the keys, and just like before, the room is rid of all air.

"Excuse me?”

He pulls out his chair for you, like some mimic of a perfect gentleman he opens his arm, gesturing you in.

"I want you on your knees, under the desk.” His words hang above you all. It has tears threatening to spill. Bile rising.

“What’s with the face? Its not like I’m asking you to suck my dick,”

"Seongje, I need to get home-"

"If you can't do it yourself I'm more than happy to help."

That has your legs moving into action. In your periphery, it feels as though everyone's watching you. A thing in psychology called the imaginary audience. When you're so self-conscious you concoct this idea of being the center of attention… only this time, it's real. You know they're all watching you. You know no one will do anything about it.

"Under the desk you go," he chuckles before sitting down and pushing his chair back in. You back away, creating intense distance between you. Your back hits dirty wires and your knees press hesitantly down onto the grime just to achieve a more comfortable position. Everything you see is his legs, his friends legs and you're suddenly hit with the overwhelming urge to cry.

You want to scream at him to let you go. He's hijacked you from your endless pile of homework and yet the very thought of standing up for yourself causes a sea of nausea.

So you sit there in the dark, not knowing when this punishment would conclude. When would he let you go home? That sends you into another spiral. You've heard Seongje could game for 24 hours straight. Maybe more if he was in close vicinity to food and a bathroom. You knew this internet cafe would close eventually, that gives you the smallest sliver of hope and so you do your time.

Never once does he acknowledge you- the girl under his desk. Unbeknownst to Seongje, you catch one of his fellow gang members sneak multiple glances at you under the table. They all do. Like they enjoy seeing you under here. As time passes, and you slip further and further away from the stress, you realize that down here, on the floor, under his desk, the world is small. It's quite comforting actually and that wasn't the trauma talking.

You've always liked small spaces.

It definitely beat dealing with whatever he had going on up there half the time.

Slowly, your body begins to shut down. Your energy plummets from all the stress and all the thoughts. This is the first time you've been forced into a spot for too long doing nothing. No essays. No tutoring.

Due to tendencies from your childhood that you should've gotten rid of, you find yourself curling up against his leg. He stiffens and you snap out of the exhaustion long enough to reel back. Especially when you see his hand reach under the table. Your heart hammers in your chest, not a single word spoken as his hand searches for something. You move a bit closer until his hand catches on your hair. You wince as he drags you closer, pushing your head against his leg as you had done.

He leaves you there. You try to regulate your breathing as you feel him adjust in his seat above you.

You shift as well. Not your head. He clearly wants you there. But your legs are uncomfortable. You try to kneel and it's ridiculous because your head never leaves his leg.

No position seems comfortable enough until he stretches his leg out, right in between yours and you're made to straddle it. Above you, his fingers are still hitting the keys and you try to disassociate from the fact that his leg is pushing against your cunt. You try to sneak a peek at the surface, his glasses are trained on the screen. Not knowing whether it's your exhaustion making a reappearance but you could've sworn you hear the words, "good girl," release from him in a low drawl.

Something in his tone has you shifting over his leg. Your cunt warms against his leg and you fight the urge to buck against him. All you had to do was remember who it is that you're currently touching. That conscious reminder has you once again hellbent on doing your time with concrete resolve.

That resolve breaks.

It shatters when he eases his back against the chair, enough to once again slither his hand down towards you.

He curls his fist into your hair and tugs.

He pushes you down and lifts you up and you mindlessly follow his movements until you realize he's coaxed you into riding his leg.

He lets go of your hair, satisfied when your hips move out of their own accord.

You hate how good it feels to quite literally be beneath him. You look up and you whimper oh so quietly when you see that small smile play on his lips while his eye remains on the screen.

He's given you new instructions now and so you don't dare to stop moving your hips against him. Despite the damp spot forming on the seat of your underwear. You're not sure what it is that allows you to lose yourself so easily. Perhaps it's all the expectations that melt away when you're doing something so pitiful. You're breaking for him and he's letting you. You're not in control of anything and there's freedom in that.

“F-Fuck-” you didnt mean for the words to slip. There are still other people here but you also couldn't help the wave of pleasure that pushed up so suddenly. Your clit is moving against the fabric of his pants just right and your eyes threaten to roll to the back of your head.

The second that whimper escapes your mouth, he stiffens again.

You watch as he leans back again, this time his hand isn't reaching out for you. It's to ghost over the bulge forming in his pants. Somehow that spurs you on more.

You grind against him desperately and before he can take his hand away, this time you reach up for him.

You watch him closely. The glare from the screen reflects on his glasses. His jaw, tight.

He controls the game easily with one hand, while you bring the other into your mouth.

You're not sure where this other side of you came from. This vixen who rolls her tongue out and forces his index and ring finger into her warm mouth.

He becomes more and more restless… His breath hitching. Seongje's fingers hit the keys more aggressively, while his right hand forces his fingers further down your throat. His hips buck upwards and you can see the damp spot forming where his cock is straining against his pants. He's about to cum in his pants and you're about to cum on his leg and it's far too much for you.

You know his friends are about. You try to preserve even a sliver of dignity but it all goes out the window.

“Fuck-” he spits out, slamming his fist on the table before abandoning the game. There's a fire in his eyes as he sits back to watch you peer up at him with complete and utter desperation.

“What a fucking slut-” he snarled, cleaely audible enough for not only him but his friends too. It has your mouth snapping open. Your back arches as you try to watch him watching you cum on his leg.

You've never held his attention for this long and it sends you off the edge.

“S-Seongje-” you barely squeak out as your cunt spasms against his leg. You rut uncontrollably, spurred on by the name That fell from your lips as if your body needed a reminder of just who it was making you cum. Your tormentor.

It has you seeing stars.

For all of 11 seconds.

Until it comes crashing down on you. Your pitiful act has you reeling. Mind spinning.

You don't want to look up at him but you have nowhere else to look. Your heart sinks when you see a smile form slowly across his lips… Somehow you knew you'd never be rid of him.

[aniqua]

hello!! I want to make a request ; is it alright if you can write about how seong je would be with a mute!reader? i just think it’d be an interesting dynamic ..! hmm other details i’d add is the reader often giving affection in a form of gifting (letters mayb?), cooking him a meal or quality time :) you may write this in whatever format you want!! thank youu and have a nice week (ps love your writing)

synopsis — seongje is a whirlwind of noise and chaos, but he finds unexpected peace in your silence.

now playing — sweet - cigarettes after sex pairing — geum seongje x gn!reader (hard of hearing, selectively mute) genre — hurt/comfort, slowburn, angst with soft moments, unconventional romance (nothing is conventional with seongje) cw — ableism/mocking of hearing disability, bullying, violence (including implied offscreen physical assault), power imbalance, toxic behavior, minor blood/bruising, strong language wc — ~2.1k

note: this was a pleasure to write <3 i hope i did ur request justice, anon. and please do not hesitate to tell me if i wrote something wrong or inaccurate to the experiences of hoh individuals.

masterlist | join the taglist | 400 follower event

seongje doesn’t do “quiet.” he doesn’t do subtlety, either. his entire existence is loud—his presence is a storm that makes everything feel tense and unpredictable. that’s how he’s known: the unpredictable, impulsive force, the mad dog. so, when he sees you for the first time, it’s almost like a challenge.

you’re sitting there, silently, in the bowling alley, a forced audience to the bullying happening around you. the union’s delinquents have gathered, sneering as they taunt you. they wave your hearing aids in front of you like a sick joke, expecting you to react. but you don’t. you’re quiet, your face unreadable, eyes glued to the floor, trying to stay as small as possible, like you’ve done countless times before. it’s a game for them, nothing more than a way to make you feel like an outsider.

“hey, freak, what’s wrong? can’t hear us?” one of them mocks, swinging your hearing aids back and forth with a smirk.

the noise is deafening to you in a different way—a slow, rising pressure in your chest. you want to speak, to make them stop. but your voice won’t come, and the words you want to say die in your throat, replaced by that quiet ache of helplessness.

that’s when seongje steps in.

he’s not supposed to be there. he’s supposed to be in baekjin’s office, probably arguing or being a general pain in the ass—but the noise coming from the alleyway catches his attention. he comes striding out, a curse on his lips as he surveys the scene, his eyes lighting up with the familiar flash of anger.

“what’s with all the fucking noise, fuckers?!,” seongje shouts, his voice dripping with disdain as he eyes the delinquents, but his gaze lands on the one holding your hearing aids, who freezes up as soon as he realizes who’s standing in front of him.

“aww, you guys are really fucking pathetic,” seongje steps forward, his mood shifting from bored to dangerous in an instant. he slaps the delinquent’s face, knocking the hearing aids out of his grip, and catches them before they hit the floor.

the delinquent stumbles back, startled, and seongje doesn’t miss the way his bravado slips. “hey, if you want to get your ass kicked, i’ll be happy to oblige. otherwise, get the fuck out of here,” seongje growls, and his voice carries an unmistakable warning.

the delinquents scatter quickly, realizing they’re not really looking forward to get beat up by the wolf himself. seongje watches them leave with a bored smirk, but his eyes return to you, where you’re still sitting silently, your gaze downcast. his anger bubbles under the surface, but it doesn’t seem to be directed at you—it’s more frustration at how they treated you. and, maybe… it’s confusion. because why would he be frustrated?

he despises those who put on a front, acting all tough and dominant when they're around someone they know is weaker, but turn into cowards the moment they face someone like seongje. the hypocrisy makes him sick—they don’t even have the balls to face him.

you look up at him then, your lips parting as if to say something, but the words stay locked inside. seongje stares back, a little too long, before he gestures to the now-empty bowling alley with a roll of his eyes.

“shit, it’s way too quiet in here now,” seongje mutters, half to himself. “i need a fucking drink. you coming?” his fist reaching out to you, making you flinch, but he simply turns and opens his palm to reveal your hearings aids, offering it back to you, his gaze not even meeting yours.

you hesitate, a flicker of uncertainty crossing your face. seongje doesn’t wait for a reply. he knows how this works—he doesn’t need words from you to tell if you’re okay. you’ve already said more than enough with that silence of yours.

it’s a few weeks later when seongje starts to notice something he wasn’t expecting—something soft. you’re not the type to speak, but you show him things. you leave him little letters. they’re simple at first, just words on paper—carefully written, neat and soft. but each one has meaning. you might leave him a note after a chaotic day, telling him, thank you for helping me today—a gesture he’s not used to.

seongje can’t stop himself from reading them over and over, even if he pretends they don’t matter. he tosses the first one aside in an exaggerated motion, but later, when he’s alone, he pulls it out again, trying to make sense of it. there’s something oddly comforting in your words. something real. his usual sharpness dulls just a little when he reads them.

it’s a typical night, and you don’t expect anything to go wrong. seongje has always been unpredictable, but you can’t stop yourself from trusting him. there’s a strange sort of understanding between the two of you now. he doesn’t need you to speak, and you don’t need him to be anything but… himself. still, you don’t expect what happens when he calls you to meet him in a parking lot late one evening.

the dim light from the streetlamps makes the whole place feel cold and detached. you spot him standing there, leaning against the hood of a car, his eyes narrowing slightly when he sees you approach. but there’s something different tonight—something unsettling in his stance.

"come here," seongje says, his voice almost too casual for the tense atmosphere.

your breath catches in your throat as the boy on his knees comes into focus. you've seen him around before—he’s one of the delinquents from the union. the same one who’d been taunting you in the bowling alley, waving your hearing aids like some cruel joke. that memory hits you sharply, and your stomach churns with discomfort as you recognize him now, his face bruised and bloodied, a lip split open, looking like he’s been through hell.

but why is he here? why is he on his knees, shaking in front of seongje? what happened to him?

seongje stands over him, his posture casual, his grin wide and wicked as he watches the boy with almost bored amusement. he kicks the delinquent’s side lightly, like it’s a game, and the boy flinches.

"come on, kid," seongje says, his voice teasing but edged with something darker, something almost amused by the kid’s fear. "just like we practiced."

the delinquent on his knees doesn’t speak, his eyes downcast, probably too terrified to even look up at seongje, but his shaky hand lifts. you watch as he tries to make the "a" handshape, his fingers clumsy as he attempts to sign. seongje looks down at the boy, his grin stretching wider as he watches him fumble.

the delinquent hurriedly completes the sign, his hands shaking, his breath coming in short bursts as he struggles to perform it correctly. he spins his hand in a half-hearted clockwise motion, and you can tell how hard it is for him to even try. he looks humiliated, and maybe that’s what seongje wants—to make him feel small, to show that he’s the one in control now. like how the boy probably felt back in the bowling alley with you.

“sorry.” he signed.

as the boy finishes, seongje pats his shoulder with an almost affectionate thud, a grin still plastered on his face. “good job,” he mutters, voice dripping with mock praise. but his eyes flick to you, then back to the delinquent, as if waiting for some kind of reaction.

the delinquent scrambles to his feet, not daring to say a word, but you can see the fear still fresh in his eyes. without another glance, he stumbles off into the shadows of the parking lot, and seongje doesn’t follow him, not bothering with any more theatrics. “now that’s how you apologize,” he sighs contentedly, glancing at you from the corner of his eye as he walks back to where you two came from.

you don’t respond, but you follow him. because, despite everything—despite how messed up all of this is—he’s still the one who, somehow, happened to feel like the safest person to be around. despite his… unique antics.

despite the way he does things no one else would dare to. because even if he’s rough around the edges, unpredictable and loud, seongje never made you feel small. and that, weirdly enough, was enough.

seongje’s desk at the bowling alley becomes a quiet sort of shrine to you—littered with your letters and notes, half-crumpled from him rereading them over and over. he never bothers to clean it up. they’re scattered across the surface like leaves in a storm, but he knows exactly where each one is. it’s an organized mess, chaotic in the same way he is. but if anyone even looks at them too long—tries to pick one up, makes a joke about the handwriting, even breathes too close to the edge of his desk—they’re basically asking for a death wish.

“touch it and you die,” he’ll mutter without even looking up, one foot kicked up on the desk, cigarette dangling from his lips. it’s not even a threat—it’s a promise.

somewhere in between the late night meetups—where the world is quiet and it’s just the two of you—and the stolen moments in back rooms lit by vending machine glow, seongje softens. not in a way that’s obvious to most, but in ways you catch. like when he plays bowling with you late at night at the union headquarters, just the sound of pins crashing echoing through the empty lanes. he’s terrible at it, but he doesn’t care. he would fair better hitting someone at the back of the head with these bowling balls. he only really lights up when it’s your turn.

you roll the ball, knock down every pin, and before you can even react, he’s throwing his hands in the air, exaggeratedly signing applause, a wide grin stretching across his face.

“that’s what i’m fucking talking about!” he shouts, clapping loudly on top of the sign for applause he just made, just because he’s still him—loud, obnoxious, impossible—but now he’s loud for you.

yeah… to seongje, you’re like a stray puppy at first. small, quiet, following him around without saying a word, eyes always wide and watching. at first, he thinks it’s kinda funny—endearing, even. you don’t talk back, don’t flinch when he’s loud, and you’ve got this habit of showing up with little notes or food like some soft, strange ritual he doesn’t understand. he starts calling you “puppy” just to mess with you, ruffling your hair whenever you come around.

but somewhere along the way, that fondness stops being just a game. no, you’re not a pet to seongje. but maybe, you became an equal.

he starts waiting for your notes. starts leaving his office door slightly cracked, just in case you come by. he catches himself watching you instead of his phone. gets weirdly pissed off when other people so much as look at you wrong.

and the night he realizes it’s different—that it’s not just him babysitting some quiet kid—it’s when you sign “stay” with soft hands after a long night, and he does. no grumbling, no jokes, just settles next to you and doesn’t leave.

after that, it’s not a question. you’re not a puppy. you’re his person.

and yeah, maybe he never said you were dating. but everyone knows. you leave your food in the union’s fridge, your letters in his desk, your comfort in the chaos of his life. and he protects you, respects you, listens to your silence more than he’s ever listened to anyone’s voice. and no one in the union dares to bring it up or even question your soft presence in the nitty gritty bowling alley.

seongje is loud. like, really fucking loud. he talks with his whole body, yells when he's annoyed, laughs like he owns the air around him, and never knows when to shut up. he's noise and motion and chaos wrapped in one, dangerously sharp-edged boy. but you—you're quiet. not just in voice, but in presence. you move gently, offer kindness without demanding attention, speak in ways that don’t need sound.

and somehow, in all the noise of his world, your silence is the only thing that ever made sense. he used to think silence was empty, but now it’s where he finds comfort. he’s still loud, still volatile, still the type to throw a punch first and maybe ask questions never. but now there’s this... softness around the edges. a space he carves out just for you. like you’re the eye of the storm, and he’s always, always circling back to you.

in your quiet, he feels understood. and maybe that's the wildest thing about this whole mess—that a boy made of sound found peace in someone who never had to say a word.

note: aaa i feel like this so short >><< i wanted to give them more of a backstory but for now this is what i’m going with. if you’d like to see more of them that’d be nice 🫶 this is such a different take from collarless tho, and it’s nice to also write a softer character to contrast our tough collarless!reader to explore more dynamics with seongje.

i don’t aim to reform or soften seongje, but have the peaceful presence of the reader be incorporated into his life without changing his ideals and personality.

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[aniqua]

Rabid

Pairings: Geum Seongje x Fem!Reader

Summary: You've figured if you paid him, then your debts would be settled and maybe... just maybe he'd let you go

Warnings: Language, Dom!Seongje, Gangsterism, Bullied!Reader, Angst, Neglect, Coercion, Bullying, Extortion, Absent Parents, Violence, Smut +18 (mdni), Sadomasochism, Sadist!Seongje, Fingering, Dark fic, Dubious consent, Exhibitionism, Desperate Sex, Humiliation, Degradation

A/N: Comissioned by @tojii11 ... as always I'm not responsible for the media you consume.

Since you've known him as of late, lying has become almost as voluntary as breathing. It should scare you, how fluidly a lie slips past the confines of your lips. Making you more and unrecognizable to even your own self.

"I'm tutoring late tonight."

"I’m studying at the library,"

“I'm having dinner with a friend.”

You didn't have many of those. Had your parents been the caring type they might have known that friends were a luxury you could not afford.

Still, it bothered you that you were making excuses for him. You were helping yourself get extorted everytime you stole for him and everytime you didn't let a living soul know.

The first few times were as difficult as it ever got. But the more you were forced to work for him, the more he corrupted you-the more that infection spread until it became all you were.

"What do you need that much money for anyway?" You squeeze your phone tighter with one hand while the other sits in your blazer pocket. You maintain a calm, controlled gait as you walk out of the school gates, surrounded by your peers dressed in the same uniform walking in clumps of groups- little ecosystems that they formed to help manage their anxieties. You wish you had their problems: Boys. Makeup. Parties.

You wish you had your own little ecosystem. A group who'd be more concerned with strengthening your mental health, not deteriorating it.

"You think school trips to Bali are gonna be cheap?" It was always easier to lie to her over the phone or through text. There was something biting in your mother's eyes that you couldn't always face. Something that would eat you alive if she found out you've been working for the kind of people you're working for.

"Backtrack on the attitude," her words snipe you through the receiver like barbed wire, "It's just strange that they're organizing a field trip in the height of your assignments like this..."

"It's an incentive I guess. They're telling us about it now for extra motivation to see this exam season through.." lies lies and more lies. Your mouth is full of them.

"I don't know if I want you to be thinking about a trip to Bali during all this work... have you been improving?"

There was no improvement with her. Only perfection. She tried your whole life to wipe you squeaky clean until you were spotless. If only she knew that over the past year you've acquired a spot almost impossible to scrub away. He's irremovable. Or at least you thought he was...

"When did you say your field trip was? Perhaps your father and I will tag along, make a family vacation out of it. We never see you anymore because you're always studying and Bali is lovely all-year round-" while your mother talks, your heart sinks and panic festers. You try to focus your steps on making it across the road, down a path you've walked all year.

"Mom, please don't be embarrassing."

"How am I being embarrassing?"

"You'll be the only parent there." Above you, the afternoon sun sits snugly against the horizon, guiding you down a decrepit lane. Stray cats and empty soju bottles litter the street the farther you walk from the safety of the school grounds. You're getting closer and you needed her to send the money.

"It's my money. I can do with it as I please."

You scramble your brain, searching furiously for a lifeline.

"It's just..." More and more lies, "This trip is actually just Geo-camp. Our teachers planned a few cave explorations. We're gonna check out the different stalactites and stalagmites-your presence might hinder my concentration-"

In the distance, the warehouse looms and your fist in your blazer pocket begins to coil.

"Why didn't you say so in the first place instead of wasting my time?” Your mother tsks, “I've sent the money to your account."

"Thank you ma'am..."

The call ends abruptly, void of any warmth. Void of any love. You pull your phone away from your ear and your nerves settle as you see the money reflecting. You suddenly feel bigger than this warehouse- bigger than life itself- like you're armed and ready to take on anything this rabid dog might throw at you.

You tilt your head back to watch the clouds disappear behind the iron roof and you steal your nerves. Word on the street is that this place once belonged to Baek Jin before his untimely disappearance. Until, naturally, a wolf came in and marked it as his own...

The nearer you get to the slightly opened door, the clearer the sound becomes: You hear the sound of a broken man groaning and your body has a visceral reaction. By now you recognize the sound of a fist slamming against human flesh and bone. You know what that sounds like and it haunts you through those quiet moments at night when it was just you and your memories. You fight the urge to stop walking, something in you tugging and begging to just walk away. It's either this or remain a slave for the rest of your foreseeable future.

That thought is enough to have you sucking in one final breath of air before waltzing into the warehouse. It's dark, the air damp and stuffy with little to no circulation. Despite the location, the interior is somewhat tidy and were it not for the man kneeling and bleeding on the floor, you might have thought the place fitting for any dignified bachelor.

“I didn't expect to see you today,” Seongje addresses you the moment you step in. His fist is paused in mid air and it's pulled back as if you'd just saved the man on the floor from experiencing one final blow.

He smiles at you, as if he didn't have blood on his knuckles. As if he didn't have a man on his knees, pleading for his life. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Seongje asks, before digging his fingers into the boys scalp. You hide your trembling hands in the pockets of your blazer and you appear as unaffected as you possibly can when Seongje tilts the man's face to look up at you. “This is Eungmin. He's very cute, very small.” Seongje smiles. “Eungmin is getting beat unconscious because he's been stealing some of my money for himself, isn't that right, Eungmin-a?”

The man’s left ise completely disappeared under a swollen mass of flesh. His skin is broken in several places- all is red and yet he still tries… “P-please-” his words are slurred. You can tell he's getting closer and closer to blacking out. His brain can't comprehend the words leaving his mouth and it's far too painful to watch. “My grandfather's sick and- I needed the money-”

“Sob, sob, sob, stories, Eungmin-a,” Seongje lets go of the man's head before tucking his hands into his pockets. Eungmin sways from side to side as Seongje rounds his bruised and battered body, tsking lightly like a scolding parent.

Before you're made witness to any more bloodshed, possibly even a murder, you grab your phone out of blazer pocket and with trembling hands you press a few buttons on your screen.

Seongje's phone buzzes and he pulls it out of his pockets. He taps away at the device with bloodied fingers, his orange windbreaker stained with the same blood and for a moment, all is quiet.

Seongje stares blankly at his screen.

“What's this?” He asks without looking up.

Something in you tells you that you have the upper hand. Power has shifted, even minutely and it gives you the courage to reply back, “It's an incentive.”

Seongje's dark eyes finally flit up to you and you're arrested by that wolfish grin. “Big words.” He smirks. “You want a promotion or something?”

You ready your voice. “Actually, Seongje, I’m looking for a way out.”

More silence but this time, it's fucking suffocating. Even the man on the floor, the man who's experienced the very worst of Seongje's wrath has his mouth slightly open from shock.

“I never want to steal for you again. I never want to do anything for you again.” You find your voice in the rubble of your pain and all your anxieties that have gone unnoticed by the adults around you. “I never wanna see you again.”

He nods slowly. “I hear you.” Seongje's voice is calm. So calm it births a sliver of hope inside you: Maybe he'll just accept the money and you might actually be free. You could go back to being a girl forgotten by the rest of the world but this time, it'd be on your own terms. You'd love to be invisible again. Invisible girls don't get extorted like this.

“It's just… I'm really sensitive-”

The very moment those words leave his mouth, the moment a glimmer of a smile flits onto your lips, Seongje delivers a bone-cracking punch to the man's jaw.

You gasp and cup your mouth with both hands. Shocked.

The man slumps over, face hitting the floor. Knocked out cold.

“This is interesting.” Seongje says but you can't look away at the man laying on the ground. His body twitches periodically until there's barely any movement at all. Were you looking at someone passed out or were you staring at a corpse?

Soengje doesn't care about either outcome because he's already lighting a cigarette, standing as if pondering something else entirely.

“Where'd you get this money from?”

“D-Does-” you swallow thickly, “-it matter?”

He nods his head slightly before sticking the cigarette on the tip of his lips, “I could buy a million cig packs with this. The good kind too,” he chuckles, “Fuck, I could buy a fucking factory-”

“It's not that much-”

“Are you rich?” He asks suddenly, ramping up your nerves as he tucks his hands in his pockets to stalk closer towards you. “Have I been extorting a princess this whole time and I didn't know it?” You make your body an iron rod- your face cold. Something like him can't sense discomfort or he'll play with it.

“Not rich,” you say, “Just desperate…”

His feet stop directly in front of you and you keep your gaze there. Not daring to look up at him until he brings his own index finger under your chin, tilting it up.

“I like that word… Desperate.” He blows out a plume of smoke but not in your face. The small, gentlemanly act is almost laughable.

“Seongje, at this rate I'll be working for you for the rest of my life-”

“The rest of your life…” he nods slowly, looking away in a pensive manner before looking back at you, “That sounds fun, doesn't it?”

“Seongje- please just accept the money…”

“Are you calling me poor?”

“That's not what I'm saying at all and honestly, I feel like you know that's not what I'm saying-” your brows are furrowed, voice rising.

“So I'm delusional then?” He asks with a smile.

“Why do you get off on making yourself a victi-” his hand contracts around your throat and it tightens.

“Lemme stop you from saying what you wanna say because you really won't like the outcome.”

He squeezes one more time in warning before letting you go

“Why would I let you go? You're so perfect for me. We work well together.”

“Seongje, Please-”

“Shh… shh… shh…” he lets the cigarette hang off the side of his mouth before cupping both of your cheeks with both hands. He pushes back a stray braid and you tremble under the weight of not only his hands, but his gaze. His eyes are two endlessly cold voids. You don't wonder what's behind those eyes because you bet there's nothing there.

So focused, you've become, with Seongje's eyes, you barely notice his hand slithering down your neck. He feels you, touches you like he's just discovered something new…

“You've just made me more money than any of these useless scumbags ever have…” He stands closer and you watch as he opens his mouth to let the cigarette fall to the floor. You hear his foot stomp on it but your eyes are hazy with tears.

“I pride myself on being a good businessman… Letting you go?” He tsks, “That's not very good business.”

“Please, Seongje-”

“I do believe in rewards though so…” he lets his hand roam lower and lower. On its way down, he squeezes you tit through your shirt, causing a small gasp to slip through.

“Is it okay?” He asks in a low voice, “That im touching you like this?”

He waits patiently for a response that never comes. Truth is, you're completely and utterly overwhelmed. Caught in a web of feeling good and fucking terrible.

A tear falls.

“Shh,” he pats down your hair while all too slyly inching his hand up your skirt. “Seongje will make you feel better-”

You could tell him to stop, but your mind is clouded with all sorts of contradictions. You can't lie some more and say you don't find him even a little bit attractive. Isn't it fucking terrible how that works? This man has tormented you and yet-

“You're so wet, Princess,” you open your legs wider, only flinching when his fingers rub against your clothed cunt. You don't have the energy to look up at him, but you notice the visceral reaction his body is having from all this.

Over his shoulder, you notice the bloodied man unconscious on the floor.

“You just became wetter-” he whispers into your ear before cursing ever so lightly as his finger pushes aside your panties. You notice his movements becoming less controlled, far more hungry and you begin to pull away.

“Say it.” He urges, before fisting your neck in one tight grip. “I need you to say it.”

In a moment that feels unreal, Seongje pushes you backwards, forcing your feet into motion until he has you firmly pressed against a wall. “Say we work well together- tell me-”

You can't very well say much of anything because he's already sinking his index and middle finger into your cunt. Your mouth flies open and you're caught in a silent cry.

“Fuck- Look at how well we work together…” he says, bringing his fingers up to the light. He watches your slick coat, his fingers and something in you coils with disgust and immense pleasure.

His eyes immediately snap to you the second a small moan croaks out.

“F-Fuck-” you gulp in all the air you possibly can when his grip around your throat loosens. There's absolutely no space between you as he crowds you against the wall, staring down at you with the bad fluorescents reflecting against his glasses.

“You don't get to do that… You don't quit on me. I quit on you.” He's forcing his hand between your legs, this time he fucks you properly. Your cunt clenches around his fingers and a tear falls.

“Say sorry.” He taunts with another manic smile flitting across his face, “I want you to take my fingers and tell me how sorry you are-”

“F-Fuck Seongje-” your hips snap awards and you stare up at him with watery eyes- watery eyes that havr his cocktail straining against his pants. He brings you in close by the nape of your neck while he forces you down until your clit meets the palm of his hand.

“You keep looking at me like that and I'm gonna cum. And I hate cumming first.”

“Shit…” your eyes roll to the back of your head as you force yourself to grind down on his fingers. His hand around your throat is the only thing keeping you somewhat upright. You've slipped into that mental soace where you'll embarrass yourself to achieve orgasm. You needed this.

And him.

“What a greedy slut, huh? Tell me you're done with me. I want you to say it again-”

You can't say much of anything because you grab ahold of his wrist, keeping his fingers inside you as your orgasm crests and breaks.

You're screaming wildly, devoid of all rational thought, unprepared by the fact that a bleeding man still lays forgotten on the cold floor. All you feel is him. Jts all him and its suffocating.

You've quite literally found yourself in the clutches of a sadist and he's guiding You gently through your orgasm… patting your head down lightly like you were a delicate baby bird.

"Why would I ever let you go?"

[aniqua]

Avril Lavigne in 2004 ⋆ ˚｡⋆✩

[aniqua]

colodio on flickr 𐙚˙⋆.˚ ᡣ𐭩

[aniqua]

omg girl have you seen challengers?

Well yes!🤭

[aniqua]

OMG CONGRATS! Also, that’s crazy, I leave for war and come back to the village grown as hell.

I can’t lie, you’re going to have to give me hints because I’ve been gone so long that I can’t decipher style of messaging.

(I don’t know why I can’t reply to it)