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xervn · 1 month ago

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melatonin

two-shot | enemies to fuckers sevika x reader

pt. 2

ao3 link

summary: you're forced to go on a business trip with your least favorite coworker and share a room with her. now you can't sleep.

18+ MDNI | 4.1k words | tags; canon divergence, sevika is a little mean, sevika is nonchalant fr, reader is a brat, very light sub/dom, vaginal fingering, scissoring, begging kink, praise kink kinda, porn w/ plot-ish, no use of y/n

new record; took me 4 days to write. i don't know who possessed me. i love enemies to lovers so bad FUCKKKK!!!

“One room.” The motel owner, an old, short, and grotesque-looking woman with a thick accent, says.

“One room? Clear another one out then?” You insist, mildly threateningly. The woman’s eyes glaze over as she blinks. She’s not moved.

“There are two beds; who cares?” Sevika grumbles, clearly over your antics.

You shoot a glare in her direction, lip forming into a scowl. “I’m not sharing a room with you; you look like you snore.”

She tells you something along the lines of go fuck or kill yourself (you weren’t really listening) before pushing past you and replacing the room keys on the counter with a stack of silver cogs.

The owner collects the cogs with a grunt before adjusting her small reader glasses. Sevika strides off towards the rooms, and you quickly turn after her.

“Couldn’t you have tried to help?” You ask. Your eyes burn a hole through the side of her face.

She doesn’t spare you a glance. “You’re dramatic, and I don’t have the patience to deal with your bullshit right now.”

You hate her. You fucking hate her. You’ve been working alongside Sevika for two years now, yet you can’t shake the feeling. It started when you first met; Sevika was cold and critical, reprimanding you even though you were young and starting out. That’s not even what drove you to hate her, though; at least back then it felt like she was looking out for you, but you were painfully mistaken when you got promoted within the year.

You don’t know what it was; jealousy, doubt, but her distaste for you only grew more apparent. There were fewer critiques and more insults about how you work or about your intelligence. Insufferable. She was insufferable.

There hasn’t been a day she’s been likable since then, so imagine your reaction when Silco tells you and her to go on a little business trip to Bilgewater. No matter how much the both of you wanted to protest, you didn’t. Instead you two argued amongst yourselves the whole trip there.

Why would you want to spend even more unnecessary time around her?

The minute you guys enter your room, you don’t speak a single word to each other, let alone look each other’s way. You take turns using the restroom to get ready for bed, and then you find a place for your belongings, and Sevika ejects her bionic arm for the night. Although you two definitely don’t like each other, it doesn’t mean you don’t trust each other. You know she won’t rob you; she knows you won’t (can’t) take advantage and kill her. That’s the only semblance of peace you share.

—

A faint amber light soaks through your eyelids, and you blink them open to the popcorned ceiling. You toss and turn in your bed, rustling around, unable to find a good position, and it doesn’t help that the cheap mattress is, well, cheap. You can’t sleep. You’ve always had trouble sleeping, but it’s never been a real problem before; you’d just stay up. Yes, you have permanent eye bags because of it, but it’s not like you can choose otherwise. You‘re from Zaun; any aid for it is not exactly accessible.

However, the meeting you have tomorrow is important, so it’s important that you find a way. You can’t afford to slack off or doze off during it; you’re the negotiator, and tomorrow makes or breaks a trade deal that will be most beneficial for Zaun’s income.

You rustle in your bed sheets again, and Sevika immediately groans. “Can you stop? And turn the lamp off.”

You look at her and you’re about to apologize, but you hold your tongue when you remember who you’re talking to. “I can’t sleep.”

“Turn the lamp off and fucking figure it out.” She snaps, turning her back towards you.

“Can’t you hear?” You squirm around, making as much noise as possible to get your point across. “I’m trying.”

“Find a different way. Count poros. Turn the lamp off.”

You scoff, eyes back on the ceiling, “I’m not five; counting poros doesn’t work, and I’m not turning off the lamp.”

You can hear Sevika shifting in her bed. “I knew you should’ve stayed back,” she sighs, “and you’re scared of the dark? Grow up.”

“Wow, fuck you. If you had asked nicely, I would’ve turned it off, and what do you mean I ‘should’ve stayed’? You’re not my boss. I’m more valuable than you are.” You angrily rant.

“Alright, you are talking way too much right now. Cut it out.”

“…No.” You reply. It sounds unconvincing with your lack of words, but it was the best you could come up with.

“Do you need calming tea or something? What will get you to shut up, because I’m about to hold a pillow over your head and call it a night.” She growls.

“Nothing. I can only sleep if I get a concussion or if I drink my pants off.”

She says your name like a warning, “If you ruin this deal, I’ll make sure to see you off myself.”

You bite back, “Sevika, if I could sleep, I would be sleeping. I don’t want to ruin it either, but your scolding isn’t helping.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds, then Sevika grunts stubbornly. It’s followed by sheets moving and a dull stomp on the floor. You turn to look, and you see Sevika sitting at the side of her bed.

You glance at her muscular thighs in those gray shorts—you couldn’t help it—before staring back at the ceiling. “Are you going to make me tea?”

She pushes off the bed with her one arm. “No.”

“Switching rooms then?” You ask as your eyes follow her shadow’s movement on the walls.

“No.”

“Then... What is it?“ You turn, flinching a bit when you find Sevika peering down at you.

She looks hesitant, timid; the first time you’ve ever seen it. “I’ll help you.”

Your defenses go off, and you quickly sit up. “Wait. You’re not going to kill me, right?”

“Over sleep? Are you stupid?” She pushes you back down, and not with much force, obviously.

You lay there, defeated. “So?”

“I said, ‘I’ll help you.'” She restates.

You stare up at her with slight annoyance, “Well, you have to tell me how?”

She has an indecisive frown before exhaling, “If you come, you’ll shut up.”

Your head shakes in confusion. “Come? Where are we going?”

“You’re an actual idiot.” She groans.

You gasp in offense. “You’re the one being fucking cryptic—“

“I’ll fuck you to sleep.”

“What?”

“I’ll fuck you to sleep.”

“I heard you; I’m just,” you laugh nervously, “are you serious?” Your ears must be playing tricks on you.

“We’re not close enough to joke around with each other.” She says plainly.

Baffled, you reply, “We’re not close enough to fuck either?”

“Do you really care about shit like that? Sex is sex.”

You think about it for a second. You’ve never been in a proper relationship, and you’ve only had a handful of hookups, but you’ve never slept with someone you dislike, and you definitely don’t like Sevika. Even if she is hot. “Well, I guess not—“

“—Then what’s the issue?” Her eyes bore into you.

You gulp at the sudden weight of her stare, but you don’t crumble. “The issue is that I don’t like you. At all.”

Sevika scoffs, “I’ve seen the way you stare at me. You’re not subtle. At all. I saw you do it a few minutes ago.”

How embarrassing. It’s true, between all your hate are moments of admiration. Sevika is “cool,” she’s respected, she’s feared. She’s also full of herself, naggy, and blunt. Both things can be true. But on top of that, she’s hot to the point it’s frustrating.

One time, while she was sitting in her designated booth at The Last Drop playing poker, she locked eyes with you after a big win. There was that sexy, satisfied grin she always gets after every win, and she had the audacity to lock eyes with you.

Your thighs pressed together. You beat yourself up over it for the rest of the night and the following day; you couldn’t even look her in the eye without getting unreasonably angry.

Your face is turning warm, but there’s no point in turning away—you have to fake it until you make it. “Okay? What’s your point?” You ask, even though her point was very clear. You’re running yourself into walls.

Sevika already deciphered that; her face reads, ‘Where the fuck are you right now?’ “Listen, I don’t like you either, but if you want to sleep, I’ll help you, and if you don’t, I’ll get another room.” She explains.

You can tell it’s her final offer. You chew your bottom lip until you remember Sevika is still looking at you. Hiding your face behind your hand, you can’t believe you’re considering it. Sex with Sevika. Sounds mad when you repeat it in your head. It’s just sex, though, right? You knew she loved Zaun, but you didn’t know she loved it this much. Sleeping with you, practically her arch nemesis, for the betterment of society. That sounds insane. This is insane.

Sevika kisses her teeth, “Forget it—“

“—Okay,” you interrupt, “help me.” You’re unable to look her in the eyes.

She looks at you dubiously, and her lack of doing anything unnerves you, so you continue. “Please?” You slowly look up at her, and you swear her eyes darkened.

“Please?” She mimics. “Didn’t take you for the submissive type.”

“No idea what you’re talking about.” You reply, although it comes out like a whisper.

“Mhm,” she hums apathetically, pulling up the covers draped over you. Her knee makes a dip in the bed. “Make some space,” she asks. You sit up, and you have no idea what to do. Looking left and right, you'd think you were trying to cross the road. She stares blankly. “Just spread your legs.” She commands.

You immediately do as she says, and she chuckles to herself at how you continue to prove her right. You’re clearly not a fan of that, your frown prominent. “What’s funny?”

Sevika kneels herself between your legs, using her arm to help balance her in place. “Man, you love to argue.”

You shrug. “I’ll stop when you fuck me to sleep. If you can... Don’t you think you’re a little overconfident?”

Sevika slowly blinks at you, unsure of whether she should be turned on or irritated. You take it as the latter, and now it’s your turn to chuckle to yourself. But your self-satisfied giggling stops when she leans over you, inches away from your face, “You’re about to find out.”

You never took the time to process Sevika kneeling between your legs, and now you can feel each exhale from her on your face. Your body starts to process it too: your breathing gets heavier and your heartbeat gets faster. You don’t have a crush on her or anything, but this is an unusual, unsurprisingly hot experience. Your eyes flicker to her full, uneven lips before they squeeze shut.

Sevika flicks your forehead. “Wh—ow?!” You whine, rubbing your head with your hand to soothe it.

“I’m not kissing you.” She clarifies.

Your face warms with embarrassment, fingers gripping at the fabric beneath you. “How was I supposed to know you wanted a staring contest?” You grumble.

Sevika rolls her eyes, barely shaking her head in disappointment. Her face moves on from yours, and her lips attack the exposed curvature of your neck, licking, biting, and rendering you speechless. She gives you no time to regulate your emotions, and you let out a soft groan you would’ve otherwise swallowed down. Just what she wanted: less talking, more moaning.

Letting her guide the tilt of your head, you awkwardly rest your hands on her shoulders. You’re unsure of whether you can or should touch her. She pauses. “Sor— I… uh…” You stammer and put your hands up. You decide to just stop speaking to save yourself.

“Relax.” She tells you, gazing at you through her loose, dark hair. It stirs something below you.

You place your hands back on her shoulders, albeit reluctantly, and try to maintain eye contact so you look composed.

Sevika doesn’t buy it. She glances at your hands, very tellingly. “…Relax.” She repeats, softer than she did before, and your heart skips a beat like you’re in a cliché.

Hesitantly, you slide your arms around her shoulders, linking your hands together. It feels intimate, too intimate, and looking at her is getting harder by the second. Sevika chuckles in a way that borders on a scoff. “You wanted to do that; don’t be shy about it.”

You huff, “I didn’t know I was being teased to sleep…”

“Is it working? It’d save me time.”

“Fuck off...”

“You’d hate that.” She replies, as if it’s undeniable. It is, but she’s way too cocky about it. You look like you’re about to curse her out, but you’re holding it back.

Sevika grins smugly, and for a moment, she considers kissing you. Your arms are wrapped around her shoulders, your eyes are yelling, ‘Fuck me already,’ lips practically begging to meet hers.

This is intimate, too intimate. It’s fucking with her logical reasoning—not that this is logical to begin with. It sounds stupid, but it’s worked for her so far; she casually fucks on the regular, and she doesn’t kiss them ever. Never really felt like it. Yet, here you are, making her feel new things. She knows there’s no going back if she makes an exception with you, and quite frankly, you still piss her off. It’s conflicting.

You impatiently perk a brow at her. You had to stop yourself from flat-out asking her to continue; your ego can’t afford you coming off as begging.

For a millisecond she looks like she got caught, then a millisecond later, she’s on you again.

She attentively kisses the skin below the curve of your jawline, her tongue making frequent warm appearances. It’s much more fervent, but rough in a way that makes you tremble. She always makes sure you feel her teeth gliding over when she moves to the next spot. Your legs move on their own, one leg curling up against her side. You’re already pooling where you’re seated, but now it’s getting uncomfortable to sit this damp.

Experienced is how you can describe her right now. You heard rumors of her activity, but you never believed it. There was no way her ol’ grumpy ass was getting laid, no matter how incredibly sexy she was. Then again, you never got along, which makes this situation, this fucking feeling, even crazier.

She was being extra careful not to bruise you at first, but she seems not to care anymore, only driven further when she hears your little gasps or feels your arms tightening around her. She’s getting carried away, but she’ll figure out how to play it off some other time.

Sevika pulls back. She throbs at your dazed and confused expression. “Come closer.” She ushers as she transitions to sitting rather than kneeling on the bed.

With no hesitation, you don’t let go of Sevika as you push yourself forward on your hips, sitting your ass comfortably on the edge of Sevika’s lap. Her hand lands on your waist. She says, “Lay down for me.”

You nod shyly, removing your arms from Sevika’s shoulders and descending onto the mattress. Sevika tries to ignore how the loss of your arms around her made her feel. Her hand travels to the waistband of your joggers. “You’re going to have to move these for me too.” She asks, shrugging her shoulder that’s missing an arm as a reminder.

She doesn’t move; she waits. Your insides do a flip. She’s waiting for you to remove them how you are now: legs diverged around her, hips pointed towards her. You think about how vulnerable you’ll look and feel when you slide them off, showing her the sopping mess she unknowingly made between your legs. You know she’s going to see it eventually, but from you doing the honors? That’s tearing you apart. She notices a shift in your demeanor, but she doesn’t acknowledge it. “Hurry up.”

“Can’t you move back…?”

Sevika rolls her eyes. “No.”

You whine in embarrassment, briefly shielding your face in your hands before hastily pulling at your waistband. You wish you had turned the lamp off.

Sevika’s hand clasps over yours. “Slowly.” She scolds. Scolds. You’re fucking flabbergasted. She’s doing this on purpose, you can tell. She’s barely holding back another signature, smug smile.

“You’re such a dick.” You curse. A direct juxtaposition in your actions that don’t defy Sevika at all. Hell, it juxtaposes your body because of how you’re aching for her.

“Yeah, yeah. Off.” She pulls at the band of your pants, letting it slap down when she releases it.

You mutter out a few more curses that she fully grins at before you silently begin to remove your joggers and underwear simultaneously. You lift your hips for mobility, and Sevika’s eyes are glued to the fabric making its way down your thighs, and you’re forced to watch how intently she’s watching you. You can try to insist this is humiliating and cruel, but you can’t stop throbbing just from this; her eyes anticipating your reveal, like you’re a self-opening present.

The clothing starts to bunch at the middle of your thighs, and your arousal is halfway there to being exposed to Sevika. The scent is what hits her first; it makes her want to yank your pants down and give you what you want, but watching you do it so much better.

Once it reaches above your knees, she partially moves out of the way so she can help you remove them properly. While she tosses it elsewhere, you debate pinning your legs shut.

Sevika looks back at you—your legs, actually—and you do flinch them closed. She tsks. “Don’t be stubborn. Not now.” She didn’t sound like she was insulting you, even though a small part of you wanted to be offended.

You let out a shaky sigh and avoid her gaze, slowly parting your legs. Thighs slicked with arousal, folds glistened with the same, you’re undeniably soaked. You prepare yourself to look at Sevika’s shit-eating grin, but when you do, it’s nothing of the sort. Her eyes are low, shaded, and memorializing, and her bottom lip fully disappeared between her teeth.

Then she grins; she even laughs, just as you expected. You groan, not at her, but at how wet you got from it. “I didn’t even do anything yet.” She teases, her eyes still locked on the ego-stroking mess she made of you.

“Such a di—“ You cut yourself off to moan sharply.

Sevika’s thumb came in contact with your swollen clit, the rough pad of her thumb making perfect circles; the rest of her fingers positioned in the patch of hair crowning above it.

“How fast do you think you’ll come? I’m thinking,” she pretends to, only to press her thumb over your clit. Filthy words flutter from your lips, and you instinctively grind into her touch. “Three minutes?”

You look pissed between your bouts of pleasure; it molds together attractively. Sevika can’t wait to make it break, make you cry, and fuck the attitude out of you. “What? You should see how wet you are; you’d think I already fucked you.”

She feels the way you twitch at her words, and it makes the pressure between her legs unbearable. She should just strip and grind her cunt into you, but she knows she won’t be able to stop there. Fuck her stupid life; she’s losing the plot.

Her thick forefinger collects your slick as she paths towards your entrance. You twitch as she slides it in, making you gasp. She chuckles as your walls clench around her finger, and she starts pushing it in and out, painstakingly slow.

It’s not enough, yet you can’t bring yourself to beg her for more. It’s at the tip of your tongue, but Sevika was right; you are stubborn. She reads you like a book, and she can read you now. She angles her finger in a way that brushes against your g-spot, but at the same mind-numbingly slow pace.

Your body doesn’t know what to do; you can’t find friction anywhere; you can squeeze against her finger, but it doesn’t change her speed; all you can do is writhe in place. “You look like you need something,” she says, almost like it’s a thought in her head, so condescending, so fucking hot. Your pussy tenses around her finger for the millionth time, and you almost, almost, cry. “You’re gonna cut my finger off at this rate.” You tense again. She chuckles.

“Sev—Sevika,” you bite your lip to hold down a sharp inhale, but it fails miserably. “Sevika, you’re not helping.”

“Should I stop?” She asks with the tilt of her head. Her finger does stop regardless of the answer.

Your hands reach out for her wrist, weakly clawing at it. “No! No, pl...” You mildly cringe at yourself, turning away.

Sevika’s brows lifted. “What was that? Pl...?” She begins her pace again, and you realize you didn’t appreciate it enough before. “You said it once already; come on.”

Your lips tremble, “Plea—se—?” She barely lets you finish the word before slipping another finger into your drooling cunt. Her pace increases, and you let go of her wrist as you succumb to pleasure.

Your arousal coating her fingers makes the most obscene noises; she wonders if the entire motel can hear it. You try to suppress your moans with your hand, but you can never do it right, not with the way she’s fucking you. Sevika’s glad you can’t; having one arm would’ve been even more inconvenient otherwise. She needs to hear you sob out her name at least once. “Please what?” She leans over you as she slams her fingers into you, pressing them against your wet, ridged, gummy walls.

“You’re— fuck, you’re pushing it,” you groan, and just like that, she slows down. But you’re weak, and you crumble. “Wait, wait, wait—please. Please, fuck me... Fuck me to sleep.” You ramble loosely, back to scratching at her wrists again. There’s that smile you were thinking about earlier, the one she gets after a big win. She broke you, and she lost the plot ages ago.

—

It’s been an hour, and you’re already on the brink of your third orgasm. Sevika folded and ended up, verbatim, stripping and grinding her cunt into yours. You should be asleep right now, but Sevika said you have enough time to catch up on it before the meeting. You hope that’s true, but you don’t care. You can’t get enough of her or her abs flexing with every desperate hump.

So intent on getting her rocks off, practically using you for her own pleasure at this point—you already came twice now; any more is a bonus, just like the one building up right now. Your eyes are pressed shut, trying to envision your release so it comes quicker. “Just like that. Keep fucking me, please, Sev.” You beg through your teeth and quiet sniffles. Sevika’s fingers squeeze the meat of your thigh.

She murmurs, “You,” her movements get sloppier; you can tell she’s close, “feel so fucking good.” Now you’re close—no, you come at her praise.

You’re shaking, grabbing at the sheets that have since slid off the mattress. You forgot how to breathe; all you can feel is your orgasm coursing through you. Your mind is turning fuzzy, and even fuzzier with Sevika still grinding into you. Your moans are pitchy and pornographic; you’re making sounds you didn’t even think happened in real life. “Sevika...” You sob out from overstimulation, tears threatening to fall from your eyes.

She loves it. “Shit…” Sevika moans, followed by several more curses as she shudders out her orgasm. Her vision goes blurry for a second from how hard she came. She tries to control her labored breathing as she comes to, breathlessly calling your name.

When she focuses in on you, you’re passed out, fucked out, and peaceful. Sevika’s pupils dilate at the markings she left on your neck, then to your lips, which she’s yet to have the chance to kiss. She lets the sleep weighing on her win and carefully collapses beside you.

#sevika #sevika x reader #sevika x you #arcane #sevika x y/n #sevika x female reader #sevika smut

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bi-writes · 5 months ago

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who to call to clean up after an "accident" than your sick and twisted military boyfriend? :D (dark!ghost x dark!fem!reader, 18+)

cw: dark!reader, dark!simon, horror movie vibes, graphic depictions of character death/murder, unhealthy relationship dynamics, one slip of daddy, smut, unprotected piv, simon "spit in my mouth" riley, reader and simon are kinda psycho :D

you've been so nice to her. really nice. you've let it slide off your back whenever she doesn't do her dishes. you pretend you don't notice when she borrows your shoes from the hallway and wears them out to dinner. you hide yourself in your room when she has her awful, loud guests over, and you have never once said anything about how she takes her sweet time in the shared bathroom in the morning and makes you late 2 days a week for work.

but this? this?

she needs to keep simon's name out of her fucking mouth.

"excuse me?" you say finally. your roommate is shrugging on her jacket to leave, her purse in her hand as she types on her phone, using it as a way to not make eye-contact with you. her long nails are tapping against the screen, and it feels like fucking drip water torture. "what the fuck did you just say?"

she sighs, irritated, rolling her eyes as she keeps tapping away at the screen.

"you're so dramatic, it was just a fucking joke."

"you know, i let a lot of things slide," you laugh, humorlessly, and you cross your arms over your chest as you follow her into the kitchen. "but you need to be careful what you say."

"i don't do anything except call it like i see it," she says, tossing her hair over her shoulder and looking at herself in the reflection of the mirror hanging on the wall. "you need to just...go out more. man like that isn't gonna stay for long if you don't give him something to go for. he's bored, you know. when you have him over here all the time. and i've totally caught him peeking at me after i shower, y'know."

"well why the fuck are you wearing nothing but a towel when my boyfriend is here, anyways?" you snap. "he's trying to be polite, he's a guest. what if i wore a fucking towel when you had your guy friends over?"

she laughs, poking at the edge of her lip to fix the gloss of her pout. "trust me, honey, no one's looking at you in a towel."

you step back, a little shocked. she rolls her eyes again, sighing.

"i didn't--"

"are you kidding me?" you retort. "you're the worst fucking roommate in the world, and i put up with all your bullshit, and now you're going to go so low as to insult the way i look just to make yourself feel better?" you make your way around the kitchen island. "you don't wash your fucking dishes, you steal my fucking clothes, you're always late on your rent so i have to spot you--"

"you know what, just because i'm fucking happy, and you're not, doesn't mean you have to take it out on me!"

"i am happy, you sorry bitch!" you cry. "i'm so fucking happy, you're the only thing in my life making me constantly miserable!"

"oh, shove it up your ass, you ungrateful little shit!" she snaps. "you're just so fucking insecure and hate me so badly just because simon would rather fuck a girl like me than have to spend another minute with--"

the crack of cast iron against her head shuts her up. it dents the side of her head easily, and her face smacks against the countertop before she crumples to the floor.

it's so fast. one minute, she's yapping, high-pitched voice straining your ears. the next, she's silent.

and she won't say simon's fucking name again.

you watch with bated breath as she folds into herself, her head hitting the hardwood last, a slow puddle of blood beginning to grow under the tendrils of her hair as your eyes move to the heavy pan you're still holding in your hands.

fuck, that's a lot of blood. god, you thought she was just full of fucking air.

you drop the pan once the rush of anger leaves your chest. it thunks onto the ground, and your hands shake as you see the specks of blood that are on the back of your hands, sprinkled over the shirt you wear. it stains your bare legs, even your toes, and you don't even want to look at the spray of it along the counters.

you should be crying, you think. you should feel bad. you're trembling a little, but you think it's just the adrenaline beginning to fade and not the guilt you know is supposed to be racking your insides.

you turn your eyes back to her. her eyes are dull. she doesn't move. it's so quiet now, utterly silent, and you take a deep breath as you take in the silence that you've craved for a long while now. you make your way quietly out of the kitchen, stepping over her body before going for your phone that sits on the coffee table in front of the couch.

you keep your eyes on her as you put your phone to your ear. it rings, and you tilt your head to the side as the blood begins to spiderweb under the kitchen table.

"'ello?"

you blink, looking towards the door. you clutch your phone a little tighter to your ear.

"simon?" you say softly. "a-are...are you busy?"

he hums lowly, chuckling, "no' at the moment, swee'eart, why?" he asks. "mmm...missed y'r voice..." you close your eyes as you hear the buckle of his belt. you try not to picture your giant of a boyfriend leaning back on his worn couch and shoving his jeans low enough to fuck his fist. "tolk t'me, luv...tell me 'ow much ya miss daddy."

you clear your throat gently, willing yourself to ignore the soft squelch of what you know is his hand around his cock, to not let it distract you from what's more important. "uhm...i liked the flowers you gave me, simon. t-they were beautiful."

the sounds on the other end of the phone quiet. you hear shuffling, and then a few moments later, the clink of his car keys.

"tha' right, baby?" he asks, and you close your eyes as you hear the front door of his flat opening. he's already on the way, already coming.

"yeah," you sniffle. "really nice sunflowers."

a yellow flower. he huffs on the other end of the phone, breathing a little easier.

"good girl," he murmurs, and then the line cuts. you set the phone down, making your way back to the kitchen and taking a seat at the table. you watch as the blood continues to curl over the floor. you make no attempt to help her; you just swing your feet under you as you look at her spoiled outfit, just grateful she isn't wearing your shoes or one of your jackets. you would hate to have to throw something out that she got all dirty.

there's a curt knock at the door ten minutes later, and then it opens. simon shuts the door behind him, cracking his neck by moving it from side to side before narrowing his eyes at you. you bite your lip, blinking, forgetting suddenly why he is here when he looks so fucking good. he's got a sweatshirt on under his windbreaker, worn jeans tucked into his boots; you like these jeans, his ass looks incredible in them.

"wot happened?" he asks. you stand, remembering your place. your lip starts trembling, and simon's eyes soften just a little. he's wearing his balaclava, hood up over his head and jacket zipped up, shadowing any true expression on his face. his gait sounds heavy as he lets his hands out of his pockets, coming towards you. when he steps into the kitchen, his eyes dart towards your roommate who's still on the floor, laid out unnaturally just by the oven.

he lets out a low breath, clicking his tongue under the mask. you hold your breath as you wait for his reaction.

"bloody hell," simon mutters, reaching up and throwing his hood off. you wring your hands together nervously, your eyes beginning to sting with tears. you brace for the accusations, for the inevitable terror of facing the music. simon is military, for fuck's sake, why the fuck did you think turning to him would be a good idea?

"i...i-i--" you start, looking up at him, and he holds up a hand, taking the side of your face into his palm before smoothing a gloved thumb over your bottom lip. you blink in confusion, not understanding.

"'s olright, baby," he shushes you, shaking his head. "don't cry."

"simon, i--" you sputter a little, gripping his wrist gently. "i just--i couldn't do it anymore, she just--"

he pities you. maybe you can explain. maybe if you tell him a warped story of what happened, he can help you. he must know someone. he must have important friends, he must--

he uses his free hand to move his mask up over his nose, and you lean into him when he bends, kissing you warmly. your eyes flutter shut, and you shuffle closer as he kisses you sloppy, kisses you hot. you mewl as he slips his tongue into your mouth, licking over your teeth and humming low as he pulls away. his eyes are flashing.

mmm. love.

"hmm..." simon licks his lips, smiling a little. he looks over you, almost pensive, his eyes scanning over your face before he settles back on your eyes. it's tender, the way he looks at you. romantic. "let's get this off of ya."

he reaches for the large shirt you are wearing, pulling it up and over your head. he crumples it into a ball before tossing it on top of your roommate, nodding his head behind you.

it's then that you realize simon isn't going to do the noble thing. he isn't going to call the police. he isn't going to turn you in, make you explain, he seems uninterested in knowing what really happened. no, he already knows what happened. but that's not important.

his pretty, perfect girl got into a little trouble. and he's going to make this go away.

"go on, luv. take a nice shower, yeah?" simon turns you around and pushes on your back gently. you suck in a shaky breath when he fondles your ass, pulling on your panties gently. "mmm...take these off, too."

you slip your panties down your legs, handing them to him.

"they have blood on them, too?" you ask, wiping your face, and he chuckles lowly.

"nah," he shrugs, stuffing them into his back pocket after taking a little sniff. "these are just for me."

jesus fucking christ, there's really something wrong with him. there's something really, really wrong with him.

and something wrong with me.

simon looks you up and down, his eyes catching on your naked body for just a few moments before he nods his head again.

"go on," he tells you. "before i get distracted." you pause for a moment, tilting your head back a little as he reaches out and cups one of your breasts in his big hand. you bite your lip, swallowing back a heavy breath as he flicks his thumb over your nipple gently. "greatest tits 've ever seen," he mumbles, scrunching his nose under the mask before he lets you go. "yeah, go on, baby." it takes everything in you to walk away when you see him reach down with that same hand and grip his bulge through his jeans, adjusting himself as he turns back to the mess in the kitchen.

when you shut the bathroom door behind you, you hear shuffling in the living room. the coffee table scraping. the couch being pushed. the rustle of the rug you have there. he grunts a little, and you hear his boots track from the kitchen back to the living room.

you turn the water on hot. you decide to take a bath, not looking at yourself in the mirror as you sink into the tub and plug the drain. you make the water scalding, and it soothes your sore muscles as you rest your cheek against the edge of the tub and stare at the door.

you're not sure how long you stay there. long enough for the water to nearly slosh over the edge of the tub and for simon to swing the bathroom door open, seemingly done with his...tasks.

he's taken his sweatshirt off. just a black t-shirt tucked into jeans, and there's a slight pant to his breaths that tell you he's exerted some energy. you notice he has his gloves still on, but before he touches you, he takes them off and tosses them into the sink.

"move over," simon mutters, starting to undress. you look up at him as he undoes the button on his pants, shucking his shirt off and into the corner before dropping his jeans. the water swishes as you sit up, and you swallow hard when simon kicks his boots and pants off, his cock hanging heavy as his mask is the last to hit the floor.

fuck, he's so pretty.

he has no regard for his size. he simply steps into the tub behind you, taking a seat. he looks comically large in your small bathtub, and you squeak a little as the water spills over the edge of the bath and wets the floor. he hums as he feels the hot water on his back. you don't say anything as his hands start to turn the water a little red. you just look up, away, at him.

you shuffle between his legs, tucking yourself into his space. you can't help but look him up and down, admiring his naked physique. he's just hot. big arms, thick thighs, sunburnt tattoos and scars cutting across his face. he hasn't shaved today, so there's some stubble along his jaw, but your eyes focus a little too much on his girthy length, heavy as it sits on his stomach and leaks a little there. his fat stomach, all solid and pudgy, such a nice place for you to rest your hands.

"you did good today," simon says finally. you look at him, and he tilts his head to the side. his approval makes your chest warm. "callin' me like tha'. wot a good girl you are."

keeping quiet on the phone is what he doesn't add out loud.

you purse your lips, trying not to keen at the praise, but it's hard not to when he reaches over and slides his hand over your shoulder, thumbing at your jaw.

"i-i didn't...didn't know what to do," you admit, and he clicks his tongue, shaking his head. you didn't know what to do, so you called him. level-headed enough to not do something rash and call someone else, no, you called him.

"mmm...tha's wot i'm 'ere for, luv," simon soothes you. "made such a little mess..."

you close your eyes. it's sick. deranged. fuck, it feels nice.

why don't i feel anything?

"i know. i'm sorry."

"nothin' ta be sorry about."

you slump into his arms, resting your cheek on his solid chest. you can feel his cock pulsing against your tummy, and you adjust yourself in the water, straddling him as you rest your chin on his pecs and look up at him through watery eyes.

you aren't sad. no. not sad at all. simon has shown you what he will do for the you. the lengths he will go. what he'll forgive just to take care of you. he's so capable, so understanding.

sick. twisted. mine.

"then i'll just say thank you," you mumble, grinding your hips slowly. simon hums, a wicked smile coming over his scarred face. he licks over his bottom lip, big hands gripping you by the fat of your hips as you grip the edges of the tub for stability. "say thank you to my big, strong man for taking such good care of me..."

he chuckles, his eyes lowering, watching your tits sway as you fit your pussy over his length and grind down on him.

"tha' so, baby?"

you nod.

"mhm," you whine. "how can i thank you, my big boy? how can i show you how grateful i am for cleaning up after me, hmm?" you bend at the waist, kissing him wet and warm, and he hisses as you suck his tongue into your mouth. he tastes like cigarettes, and normally you would curse him for it, but right now it tastes so much like him, and you lick around his teeth trying to taste more of that sweet nicotine.

"fuck--such a naughty little girl..." he snickers, reaching down. you sigh when he slides his big palms over your ass, forcing you to grind slower, the tip of his cock sliding through your folds leisurely. you grip the edges of the tub tighter, pressing down to give you more leverage to grind down harder. "make such a mess, oll the time..." you gasp when he presses into you just enough, the tip breaching your entrance and forcing you to squeeze around him, your cunt trying to suck him in. "olways needin' me ta pick up afta ya..."

you giggle, sliding your hands up his chest, gripping his shoulders for leverage as you sink down onto him. he grits his teeth as you do, his eyes focused on the way his cock disappears inch by inch until you're seated down in his lap, his length kissing deep and twitching excitedly. he always feels like a teenager again whenever you fuck--like you're the first pretty girl to ever wet his cock.

you cup his cheeks finally, smoothing your thumbs under his eyes as you bring his gaze up to meet yours. you swallow hard, looking down at him.

"i-i love you, simon," you breathe. he stills underneath you, his jaw clenching as he frowns just a little. you come a little closer, nuzzling your nose against his, your thumb falling to trace the outline of his torn lip. "i should've said it a long time ago...i-i..."

"heart's beatin' out y'r chest, luv," he mutters lowly. "'s olright...'m not goin' anywhere."

it's so disgusting. you should be fucking ill. you should be scrambling to the toilet, your breakfast halfway up your throat. you should be crying, emotional, begging simon to tell the cops that it was all your fault, because it is. he should've come here and made you do the level-headed thing and confess your terrible crime.

he shouldn't be here, sitting underneath you in your tub, cock-deep inside of you after helping you commit murder and then fucking clean it all up.

"what did i do?" you gasp, sitting up. you move to get out of the tub, but simon growls, putting two firm hands on your ass and shoving you back down on his cock, making you cry. "w-what did i do? s-simon, why don't i feel bad, why am i not sorry--?!"

simon tsks, feigning comfort. he juts his bottom lip out into a pout, mocking your little cries.

"oh, luvvie, don't start cryin' now," he chuckles. "don't start pretending like y'care."

uhm...

"simon--"

"no one likes a liar."

you're still trying to pretend, and he knows this. you're still trying to act how someone normally would react. someone normal, someone who thinks rationally, would never have picked up the pan in the first place. and even if they had, they would've scrambled, cried, picked up the phone and confessed, called an ambulance as they tried to get her to start breathing again, put both hands on her chest and tried to get her wake up.

but you didn't. you watched, unnervingly calm, as she stained the hardwood with her blood. you watched as her eyes glassed over, lifeless, and you watched as her insides began to paint the floor in abstract shapes as you gave it time to spread. and not once during that time, or waiting for simon, did you think to help her.

you didn't want to help her. and you certainly didn't think she deserved to get back up. maybe she hadn't done anything quite harsh enough to deserve death in someone else's eyes. annoying, overbearing, rude.

but it's hard to feel bad when she talked about simon. when she called him by his name. when you've seen her let her towel slip when he's in her vicinity, trying to coax him into her room when you're looking away.

you should've taken one of the throwing knives that simon hides in his boot and thrown it at her then, just for that.

"we're cut from the same bloody cloth, baby," simon says, almost accusingly. you grip the edges of the tub, trying to stand again, but he cants his hips and fucks up into you, drawing a frenzied moan out of you. you reach for his shoulders as he does it again, his tongue darting out before he licks a fat stripe over your pebbled nipple. "'s olright. 's okay, luv. don't worry. don't hafta get y'r hands dirty, swee'eart, i've got it."

"but simon," you whine, but all he does is shake his head. you don't have to put on this morality act for him. you don't have to pretend that you are sorry for something that you had every right to do, you don't have to explain to him why you aren't feeling the way you should be feeling.

simon doesn't care about how you should feel. he only cares about how you actually feel.

"she was in y'r way," simon grunts. "always bein' a bloody brat." he fists your hair and brings your mouth to his, groaning as you tighten around his cock. "'ow many times did she fuck ya over, baby, hmm? 'ow many times did she steal y'r fuckin' things, come outta the loo wearin' nothin' but her fuckin' knickers, yeah? 'ow many times?"

you kiss him, frantic, digging your nails into his pecs and dragging them angrily.

yeah. fuck her. fuck what she did to me, fuck the way she behaved, fuck her stupid face and her stupid attitude and her stupid little games.

"called ya names..." he's hitting your sweet spot now, making you cry from pleasure. your pussy feels so hot, squeezing him because you know he's right, and the way he fucks this time makes you think he really knows what you are and knows exactly how to get you there. "wot a fuckin' twat. deserved every bit o' it, baby."

you meet his eyes, dark and cruel. he's still moving, still holding onto your hips and drawing out little whines, but it's different suddenly, it's more. you nod, understanding.

simon is terrible. no good. his head isn't in the right place, maybe it never has been. you wonder, briefly, if this is what he does when he's at work, if these are the things that he's used to. maybe simon has been in service too long--maybe he doesn't understand that you aren't at war here, that you can't just kill and clean up, that you aren't in the field.

"she deserved it," you whimper, and he grins, all teeth, all mean.

"tha's it."

"she was such a bitch."

"fuckin' right."

"she got what was coming for her."

"nnghhh--fuck, baby, gonna make me fuckin' cum, tolkin' like tha'," he hisses. you practically smack him as you grab onto his scarred face, gritting your teeth as you glare down at him. his lips part, and you spit in his mouth as he fucks up into you, thighs hitting your ass with a wet smack that makes your head spin.

"and i'll get rid of the next bitch that so much as looks your way, simon."

the kiss is searing. hot, blinding, white noise fills your ears as he cums with you, stuffing you full as he cums hard, a pained groan leaving him as he collapses against the porcelain tub with a harsh thud. you follow him, chasing after him, kissing him between heavy breaths as you don't make any effort to move off of him. when simon opens his eyes, he can't help but smile.

he's never seen his reflection without a mirror.

#awwwwwwwwww thanks for taking care of me pookie #thanks for indulging my terrible mind and telling me its okay ;)#simon ghost riley #simon riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #ghost mw2 #ghost cod #ghost call of duty #ghost mwii #ghost x reader #cod #call of duty #simon riley smut #simon ghost riley smut #simon thoughts #dark!ghost #dark!simon

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miabebe · 6 months ago

Text

Too Many Beds (Choi Seungcheol)

Reverse Trope Series Installement 1

Pairing - Choi Seungcheol x afab! Reader

Word Count- 13k (don't ask me how I thought I could do this in 2k)

Genre - Enemies to lovers? Frenemies to lovers? Lovers to lovers? Idk man, these two are idiots, that's all. Oh and smut.

Warnings - one mention of blood cause of intense make out wew, other smut warnings under the cut!

A/n - I'm trying to do a Reverse Trope one shot series for all seventeen members, first up Choi Seungcheol :) Next up is 'Accidentally Kidnapping A Mafia Boss' Ft. Yoon Jeonghan hehe send me an ask/message to be tagged in that! Or you can also drop a comment when I drop the teaser in a few days!

Smut warnings - oral (m and f receiving), fingering, brief face fucking, thick dick cheol lol, slight choking, allusions to a breeding kink, unprotected sex (these two are digustingly in love, extremely horny and highly irresponsible, please don't be like them), creampie, mention of the word slut like once, and I'm hoping that's all?

“Absolutely not.”

“No way in hell.”

Seungcheol glared at you as you narrowed your eyes at him.

“I’m not sharing a room with him.”

“I refuse to even breathe in her vicinity.”

“Then maybe I should do mankind a service by being around you more.”

“The only way you can help mankind is by shutting your mouth.” Seungcheol leaned closer, his voice dropping. “You’re not pretty enough for all the stupidity that comes out of it.”

You rolled your eyes. “Rich coming from you. If I had a face like yours, I’d sue my parents.”

“Aw, fifth graders can insult better than you, sweetheart.”

“That was a fact, darling.”

“Ah” The two of you turned to the receptionist, finally remembering her presence as her eyes flickered between you and Seungcheol. “So, the two of you are dating?”

Looking at her incredulously and with unadulterated disgust, the two of you immediately took a step back.

“No!”

“I’d rather stub my pinky toe on furniture everyday than date her-”

“And I’d rather choke on my own spit everyday than date him-”

“Oh baby, I knew you were a desperate one. I can give you something better to choke on-”

“Honey, are you sure? I heard you can stack fruit loops on that skinny thing-”

“Enough!” The old woman behind the counter got to her feet, putting her hands on her hips, the never-ending squabbling finally getting to her. “If either of you say another word, I will personally put you both in the tiniest broom closet I can find and trust me, the ones in this lodge are devastatingly small.”

You immediately shut up, dreading that idea more than anything. Seungcheol too became uncharacteristically and thankfully, quiet.

“Now, as far as your room is concerned, your company booked only one room, number-” She glanced at the paper in her hand and pulled out a pair of keys from the drawer. “- 68. If you can bear each other for 4 nights, well and good, get moving. If not, then take your things and get out of here. Good luck finding another lodge in this miserable weather.”

And as though on cue, a bright light, followed by a loud thunder flooded the room, taking all three of its inhabitants aback.

From the corner of your eye, you saw Seungcheol visibly gulp, well aware of his fear of thunder. Seungcheol too heard the way you sniffled, knowing that your rhinitis would only get worse with the humidity rising outside.

Sighing with the realization that there was no way out of this, both of you reached for the keys at the same time, making the old woman snatch it faster than the damn lightning to avoid yet another fight from breaking out. Ringing for the bellboy, she handed him the keys before he took your suitcase and Seungcheol’s bag in each hand, leading the way to your despair of the night.

Seungcheol followed quietly behind you, hands tucked in his pocket, his large headphones perched on his head as he swayed to the music, blatantly ignoring you. You were thankful for that. Since you were little children, you had always craved moments where you could pretend like this man didn’t exist. Why wouldn’t you? Everything about him was a pain in your ass.

You first met Seungcheol when you were five. Your fathers were college mates turned business partners and coincidentally, your mothers were best friends since high school. Naturally, everyone expected the children of both families to be just as close as their parents but alas, even at the age of five, you could not bear him for more than five minutes. He was so aggressive and unruly, always messing up your dolls, always pulling your hair, never giving you a second of peace when he was around. Albeit that behaviour got milder over the years but there were other things now.

Like the fact that your father always preferred to have a boy, a son who could be his heir, someone like Seungcheol. It wasn’t like he didn’t love you but a different side of him came out every time Seungcheol was around, a side not even you could bring out. He would laugh louder, his eyes would shine more, he would seem so carefree. Seungcheol too never missed the chance to rub that on your face, constantly sneering and claiming that your father would be happier if he was a part of the family.

Over the years, your displeasure and annoyance at Seungcheol only grew into a deep dislike. As though it wasn’t enough that the two of you did your entire schooling together (yes, all twelve years of it), he was always present anywhere and everywhere you went - the debate club, the swim team, the dance academy, the cafes, the libraries, the movies - there was no place you were free of him. Ever since you were young, you had longed to escape to a place far away from home just to be carefree and explore and reinvent yourself without the constant looming of a figment of your past. You had hoped that at least after school you’d have the chance to go away from him but as your luck would have it, the two of you were accepted into the same business school, were interning in the same company, were working on the same project, and had come out of town for the same three-day conference together. It was one thing to have to bear this man’s presence all day, now you had to do it all night as well, thanks to your cheapskate company.

As you got in the lift Seungcheol held the doors open for you before settling in the corner opposite yours, keeping as much distance in between as possible. The bell boy looked at both of you confused.

“I thought the two of you are dating?”

You groaned, rolling your eyes, and fished out your phone, scrolling through it instead.

Seungcheol glanced at you before scoffing at the absurd idea of dating you. He wasn’t foreign to that doubt though – people often wondered if they were together and Seungcheol wondered what on earth they saw between them that even resembled a speck of liking or even tolerance for one another.

Seungcheol had honestly not met anyone as stuck up as you. He never understood why his parents constantly considered you as the ideal role model for their son - ‘Look Cheol, she joined debate, you should too’, ‘She got selected in the swim team, you should try Cheol.’, ‘What do you think about dancing Cheol? She’s really good at it.’. Seungcheol was sick of being dragged into everything you were in, only to always be second. He hated debates, he would rather play football than swim, and though he liked to dance, ever since he joined the academy with you, even dancing was not giving him any solace.

Yet he gave his best all the time. He tried and tried and tried but he was always second to you who was evidently a natural at everything. For example, back in the school days, Seungcheol would almost get the same grades as you but at the cost of sacrificing nights of sleep and putting hours and hours into teaching himself. Meanwhile, you would breeze through the notes a day before the test, get a full 8-hour sleep and still score higher than him. As if that wasn’t enough, you’d invite him home, offering to “tutor” him only to constantly berate him about his ignorance, drop snide comments about how you were better, subtly challenge him in a battle that the both of you were well aware he could not win.

No wonder you had no friends while Seungcheol was as popular as could be - who would even want to be friends with you when you were always so cold and condescending towards anything that moved or breathed. If your parents weren’t joined at the hip, forcing Seungcheol to be a constant presence in your life, he wondered who would ever even talk to you? You should have been thankful for him, that he was the one human presence in your life who was always there despite it all, yet you treated him like he was beneath you. He had hoped that at least after graduating the two of you could part ways but the universe apparently loved playing cosmic jokes, putting the two of you together yet again, at the same workplace. And completely up in each other’s space for the next few days as well.

It wasn’t like the two of you hadn’t ever shared a room before - whenever your parents would meet up at each other’s house to drink and talk all night, the two of you had no choice but to crash in the same room, sharing the same bed even but thank God it was usually queen size, allowing the both of you to take two opposite ends, not even your breaths mingling. It had been years since that though…..Seungcheol felt a bead of sweat trickle down his back. He had no idea how he was to spend tonight in this room. Or the next few ones.

Neither did you.

As all three of you stood before the door and the bellboy fumbled with the keys, you glanced at Seungcheol. He looked unbothered as one could be. Perhaps you were overthinking this whole thing. It was a matter of four nights, surely the two of you could at least try to be courteous right?

“What in the...?”

Seungcheol’s voice rang in the empty corridor and you leaned to see what had him so shocked. Your own jaw dropped in a strange mixture of surprise, confusion, and relief.

Room 68 was no average hotel room. It was as big as the entire lobby, 7 heavily pillowed and blanketed single beds aligned from one end to the other almost military barrack style, only small bedside tables putting space between them.

“Room 68 is uh our bachelorette party suite.” The bellboy clarified. “For, you know, those big groups of girls who are hell bent on partying all night together?” He looked away like he was recalling a horrifying memory. “Since it’s holiday season, the lodge is booked out, this was the only room we had left. Is... is it not good?”

Seungcheol looked at you and for the first time in nearly 25 years, the two of you could finally agree on something.

“No.” You stepped in. “It’s perfect.”

It had been years since you had seen Seungcheol half-naked.

Well, you frequently saw him during swim practice in those tight speedo shorts of his, ass all plump and taut but you were not talking about that. You were referring to the sight before you right now, him with a towel wrapped loosely around his waist, his wet hair falling into his eyes as he searched for something in his bag frantically – most likely his aftershave. You knew he must have cleaned up given the conference was starting tomorrow and also that his cheeks were burning because you couldn’t smell the subtle cinnamon spice aftershave that usually followed in his routine.

Seungcheol strangely felt a pair of eyes on him as he rummaged through his things and suddenly remembered he was not alone in the room. He quickly turned, looking for you, finding you curled up in your bed, writing in what he guessed was your journal, unbothered by his presence. You were wearing that cute nightgown with little tomatoes drawn all over it which Seungcheol found funny given how much you hated tomatoes with all your heart and soul. Realising he had been looking for too long, Seungcheol gulped, quickly grabbing the aftershave he finally found and rushed back into the bathroom.

You flinched as you heard the door of the bathroom slam shut, looking up from your journal. Shaking your head exasperated, you returned to your writing. Seungcheol always handled things around him roughly like he was just not built to be gentle - slamming doors hard, breaking at least one coffee mug a month, causing rips in most of his clothes when he would gym because he was so big…. And muscular…. And built…..You bit the back of your pen thinking about how good he looked in his gym wear but if you were being honest, he looked best in a suit.

He’s going to be wearing one tomorrow.

You snapped out of your thoughts realizing you were entering dangerous waters and turned your attention back to your writing. Seungcheol made that process slightly harder as he walked out, furiously rubbing his towel against the back of his head, dressed in a black t-shirt and grey sweats.

As he sat down on his bed, he looked at you sitting six beds across, all the way in the other end of the room, right by the window. The moment the two of you entered the room, he took bed 1, the one against the wall and you took bed 7, the one against the opposite wall, putting the maximum possible distance between the two of you. He let you use the bathroom first, not because he knew you preferred using it when it is dry but because he thought this was the best time for him to call his parents and wish them goodnight….. even though it was still 7:30.

He showered after you did but even now, despite being so far from you, he could still smell your bodywash, the fragrance of lilies, the mildest kind because strong fragrances irritated your sensitive nose. Throwing his towel on the chair he kicked his legs off the floor and lied on the bed, turning to the wall, hearing the faint annoyed click of a tongue. Seungcheol knew exactly what triggered it - you hated it when he tossed damp towels like that. But honestly, he couldn't care less right now, not when there were more important things to deal with tomorrow, not when he was so tired already.

You shut your journal, irritated by his behaviour remembering exactly why being in the same vicinity as this man infuriated you. Flipping the lights off and pulling the covers over your shivering body, you realigned your thoughts towards your goal - Tomorrow’s conference was crucial. You had to look your best and do your best so clocking in 8 hours of sleep was the priority, Choi Seungcheol's character development be damned.

But as you lied down turning towards the window, lightning flashed across the sky, a loud thunder following. You turned to see Seungcheol and his back was facing you, the outline of his figure moving up and down rhythmically like he was already in a deep sleep. Slightly relieved yet still unconvinced, you turned towards him before the sleep and tiredness took you away.

Seungcheol simply stared at the wall all night.

Seungcheol most definitely did not sleep all night.

You could tell by the fact that one, he was up without you waking him and two, he was not there in the room right now. That meant he was out for a run which in turn meant his face must have been all swollen which definitely meant he didn’t get enough sleep. You did notice though that his bedding had shifted from bed 1 to bed 2 and guessed it was because of the coldness of the wall - Seungcheol had the habit of tossing and turning at night and there was nothing he hated more than his bare skin accidentally brushing the cold walls. Considering you were still five beds away from him, you ignored it as you went to wash up and prepare for the day.

When he saw the time on his watch as he finished his last lap, Seungcheol realised he was way behind schedule and that you probably were already at breakfast, sitting with a dozen snide remarks, waiting for him. True enough, as he quickly showered, dressed, and headed down to the buffet, you were there already, going through the proposal, the plate beside you nearly empty. Quickly grabbing a piece of toast and stuffing it in his mouth he walked over, putting on his suit jacket in a hurry. As you saw him approach, you shut your laptop, looking at him top to down in an ensemble that fit him all too well. Seungcheol’s eyes wandered over the pretty way you did your hair, and the plunging neckline of your blouse, a sliver of your pink bra peeking from underneath the fabric-

Both of you cleared your throats and looked away.

“We should leave, the cab should be here in-” He glanced at his watch. “-should have been here ten minutes ago, fuck.”

“It’ll be here in ten.” You pushed a cup of coffee towards him, looking at him pointedly to take a seat. Seungcheol glanced at it then back at you.

“You changed the time on my watch.” He huffed annoyed. “Again.”

“Glad to know you are still capable of basic comprehension.”

“You vile woman.” Seungcheol gritted between his teeth, sitting down. “I showered so fast I thought I was going to pass out.”

“But you didn’t.” You shrugged. “And learn to be grateful Seungcheol, you’re only ever on time when I meddle, so say thanks to me.”

“I’d rather die before I thank you.” He took a sip of the coffee before the extreme bitterness hit his tongue, making him spit it out right back into the cup. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“You did say you’d rather die.”

“Fuck you.”

“I know ten minutes is more than enough for you but personally, I prefer longer.”

Every single time. Every single time you flashed him that sweet, mocking smile and every single time it pushed his buttons like no other. One day he swore to put you in your place but right now he was too low on energy for that.

Well aware that you loved strawberries more than anything, he grabbed the last one on your plate and walked off to the taxi stand, ignoring the way you whined behind him.

“Oh, real mature of you Choi Seungcheol!”

You knew in your stress about perfecting the proposal early in the morning you had forgotten something important and the moment you stepped into the room that night, you knew exactly what that was.

To close the windows.

Thanks to the pouring rain, the water had drenched your entire bed, not to forget, your bag full of your clothes which was conveniently placed right on the mattress, soaking nearly every piece of clothing you owned. Thank God the laundry in the lodge said they would handle it for you so you still had an outfit for tomorrow’s conference but there were still two major concerns - one, what to wear tonight and two, where to sleep tonight.

You solved the first problem (almost) by grabbing your umbrella and heading to the nearest clothing store as instructed by the receptionist only to find out it sold barely any ‘cloth’ at all. It was an adult shop, filled majorly with lingerie of all kinds which were aiming to cover as little as possible. Groaning inwardly, knowing you didn’t have a phone on you to go any further in this weather, you grabbed the most decent nightgown you could find and rushed back.

A hot shower, a change of clothes and a quick meal later you decided to deal with your second problem, moving your things from bed 7 to 6, not too displeased considering there were still three beds between the two of you. You glanced at Seungcheol’s empty bed and then at the time - it was well past 10. Sighing, you settled under the covers pulling out your journal to write but got lost in your thoughts instead.

You were pretty proud of what you presented today - people praised you, congratulated you for a well drafted proposal and even went so far as to offer you jobs in their company. Yet you were not satisfied. Somehow, the one thing constantly running in your mind was the swarm of women who had flocked around Seungcheol the moment the conference was done, ‘mindlessly’ touching his arms, ‘casually’ brushing their chests against his, ‘genuinely’ laughing too hard at whatever bullshit came out of his mouth.

This was not new to you, Choi Seungcheol being the centre of attention wherever he went. He enjoyed it, basked in it, and chose to make a show of it whenever he got a chance. It was all so fake and superficial; you could not bear to stand it. That’s why even though everyone decided to go out for dinner and drinks tonight, yes, all twenty-seven of them, you politely said goodbye citing a headache and took a cab back. You were not interested in casual conversation and definitely not interested in seeing Seungcheol’s pathetic flirting.

Just as you begin to relish his absence and the beautiful silence that came with it, a loud knocking on the door and his voice screaming your name ended your perfect night. Grumbling, you opened the door to a fully drenched Seungcheol looking absolutely frazzled.

“What the hell-”

He stopped when his eyes fell on you dressed in a white floor length satin gown, the material seductively clinging to the curves of your body, your leg slightly visible between the slit. You crossed your arms to cover yourself up, feeling conscious under his gaze as he gulped audibly.

“What the hell were you thinking?” He met your eyes, a slight worry flashing behind the anger. “You just disappeared without letting me know-”

“I told you I was leaving.” You walked into the room rolling your eyes. “Maybe if you could see something beyond all that pathetic fangirling you’d have heard.”

“Fangirling?” He looked genuinely confused, following you in as he stripped off his jacket. You tried your best to not stare at the way his pecs were so perfectly outlined under the wet shirt sticking to his body but Seungcheol caught you peering, his features lighting up with amusement.

“Would you look at that?” He smirked. “Someone is jealous.”

“Please.” You scoffed. “I wouldn’t be jealous even if we were the last people on Earth.”

“Obviously, if we were the last people, who would you even be jealous of?”

You sighed. “You know what I mean.”

“I actually don't, sweetheart. If a little action is all you want, you can just ask for it you know?”

“Funny coming from a guy who kissed me just because another man was talking to me.”

The first tea break of the conference had led to an introduction that was surprising to you considering people did not really tend to approach you on their own. It was even more shocking that this man chose to speak to you in the lunch break as well, completely unprompted. He was sweet, not egging you too much with conversation, simply limiting it to work and the conference and then Choi Seungcheol appeared out of nowhere, snaking an arm around your waist, uninvited. Before you could glare at him and send him away, he planted a soft kiss on your cheek, excused himself and led you away from there, only to abandon you the very next second without an explanation.

“You call that a kiss?” Seungcheol scoffed. “You were so swept off your feet, you were this close to spilling details on our quotation for the project. That was actually me shutting you up.”

“Oh yeah?” You raised an eyebrow. “If you really wanted to shut me up, then you should have kissed me on the mouth.”

Seungcheol stared at you wordlessly.

As you began to walk away, he pulled you by the elbow, putting you against the wall, trapping you between his hands on either side.

“Is that how?” He leaned closer, the scent of his cologne taking over your senses. “Because there is nothing I’d love to do more than shut you up.” He cocked his head with a small smile. “And maybe also show you what a kiss really is.”

You tried not to gulp the phantom lump in your throat, cheeks suddenly hot under his gaze. Somehow, as though it had a mind of its own, your hand traced his exposed collar bone, trailing down his chest slowly, eyes following. Seungcheol held his breath under your touch. You stopped your tracks at his hard pecs, right above his heart beating just as fast as yours and looked up at him.

And then twisted his nipple.

Shrieking in pain, Seungcheol stumbled back, clutching his chest.

“What the hell mate?”

You walked towards your bed, grabbing your matching satin night robe and slipping it on. “It's ridiculous that you even think you of all people could show me a real kiss.”

“You forget sweetheart, I was your first one.”

You turned to Seungcheol as he brought up a memory you had actually done a great job forgetting. It was during your senior year - your parents had forced you to accompany Seungcheol to a house party so you could “get more involved in the social scene” instead of holing yourself up in your room all the time. It was a classic game of truth or dare and the worst dare of your life - to kiss Seungcheol for a minute.

Now the last thing you wanted to hear was him teasing you every day about how you were too scared to kiss him so you held him by the collar and pulled yourself into his lap straddling him, your mouth meeting his in a frenzy. If you were being honest, something about that kiss served as your sexual awakening - maybe it was the way he moaned into your mouth, or his hands gripped your ass, or hands entangled in his soft hair or your chest pressed up against his. Whatever it was, there was a video of it that your classmates took circulating somewhere out there, timed around five and a half minutes as opposed to the one minute it was supposed to be.

“Don’t take too much pride in yourself Cheol.” You sat on the bed, leaning back on your hands planted in the mattress. “Only I know how many other guys I had to kiss after that to know what kissing truly is.”

Seungcheol felt his jaw tighten.

Something in you had changed in junior year. Yes, you were still the same antisocial, inhospitable, unapproachable person you always were but somehow every other day, he found you in a new location with a new guy's tongue shoved down your throat. They were not boyfriends, Seungcheol knew that much, and it was the fact that they weren't that made his blood boil with anger.

“You shouldn’t take pride in yourself either sweetheart.” He looked at you with a strange mixture of anger and pity. “There's nothing to feel accomplished about not forming a single real bond in your life.”

The moment the words left his mouth Seungcheol regretted it, knowing he had hit a soft spot. It was too late now; the damage was done - pain was flashing in your eyes.

You looked at the insensitive man before you and laughed at him sadly, mirroring his hurtful words.

“No real bond? I’m afraid you filled that void Seungcheol. Hate forms really strong bonds too.”

And with that you turned away from him, tucking yourself under the sheets, turning off the lights on your side of the room. Grabbing his towel and a change of clothes, Seungcheol locked himself up in the bathroom, your words piercing his heart like no other. Over the years yes, the two of you argued and fought and annoyed each other and couldn’t stand one another but hate? He didn’t ever think that’s what you felt for him. Perhaps he deserved it - he had after all crossed a line with that comment.

He knew you had always struggled around people. He knew that even though you detested taking his help for anything, in every social setting, you would always choose to hide behind him. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to interact, you just couldn’t. You were a sick child since birth, constantly brought down by various illnesses that often confined you to your room - you didn’t go out to play with the other children, you didn’t join the kids on their trips to the ice cream shop, you didn’t go late night camping with your classmates, you didn’t do a lot of what kids your age did.

And when you were old enough, when you were healthy enough to step out into the world, you didn’t know how to anymore. Hence you continued to stay in your own shell, closing yourself off from everyone, wary of any and all interactions. Seungcheol knew all this, that’s why when he couldn't lay his eyes on you in the crowd of the conference, the panic he felt was like no other. He never thought he would ever feel his heart stop but Seungcheol felt it twice today - once when he lost you and the other when you said that. I’m afraid you filled that void Seungcheol. Hate forms really strong bonds too.

You stared out of the window, mildly annoyed by all the light falling in your face, Seungcheol’s words ringing in your ears. It might have sounded harsh but he was right. You never formed real bonds with anyone, you could never bring yourself to. Having spent years all by yourself, you didn’t know what it was like to let another person into a space that was entirely yours. That’s why, though you engaged in all sorts of flings and hookups, you never let it go beyond that - you never let yourself lose your heart to someone, walking away from them before they could walk away from you.

In that sense, Seungcheol was indeed the realest bond you had - just a constantly present, mildly irritating, oddly comforting white noise in your life. It was easy with him - you never had to think in his presence, you never had to wonder whether anything would drive him away, never had to worry about keeping him by your side unconditionally - he was always there. Somehow what you felt for Seungcheol was liberating in a way you hadn’t even realized. Hate could hardly define that; you were unnecessarily harsh earlier.

Seungcheol stepped out of the bathroom, eyes falling on your unmoving figure which he just realized was on bed 6 instead of 7. Noticing the damp sheets and piecing it together, he didn’t think too much of it as he switched off the lights and crawled into his bed.

Hearing the sounds of him shuffling, you turned towards him.

“Are you not going for the dinner?”

“It’s too late now. I would have eaten there if I didn’t have to run back here to check up on you.”

“You could have just called me.”

“I did.” He turned to you, looking at just your silhouette in the darkness. “A few hundred times.”

You checked your phone immediately and it wasn’t a hundred times but there were some fifty odd calls from him and two dozen messages.

“I put my phone on silent during the conference and forgot to take it off.” You mumbled, just a little guilty that he was missing out on a gathering because of you. “Did you at least eat?”

“I’m not hungry, thanks to all the Americanos you kept feeding me all day.”

“If not for that, you would have been snoring in the conference barely an hour after it began.” You turned to lie on your back, facing the ceiling. “And I wouldn’t have had to do that if you’d just obediently drank that double shot espresso in the morning.”

Seungcheol remembered you sliding the coffee cup to him and smiled to himself in the dark.

“Then maybe you should also listen to me and stop munching on those strawberries every chance you get, especially when you know they flare your allergies.”

You remembered Seungcheol gobbling up the last berry and smiled to yourself in the dark.

“Goodnight, you obnoxious prick.”

“Goodnight, you insufferable fiend."

When you woke up in the morning, two things had changed - one, Seungcheol had moved from bed 2 to bed 3 in the middle of the night and two, his shirt was gone, discarded somewhere in the mess on the floor. He was lying sprawled on his bare stomach, his back covered in a thin sheet of sweat, his tattoo shining as the light hit it. Ignoring the sight before you with much difficulty, you shook him awake.

“Get up Cheol, we’re going to be late.”

He groaned, rolling over, eyes slowly blinking open, falling on you first thing in the morning. Even though you were dressed in the sultriest thing he had ever seen on you, Seungcheol controlled himself and tore his eyes away.

“The radiator is right across the other bed; I was literally burning all night.” He mumbled, stretching awake, justifying his move.

You turned towards it noticing how it was in fact between bed two and three, closer to three than two to be honest. Considering Seungcheol was still drenched in sweat, his move in the middle of the night was actually quite pointless, but you chose not to say anything about it. Quickly washing up, the two of you rushed for breakfast, skimming over the presentation notes one last time. Today, neither of you noticed but Seungcheol drank the coffee and you didn’t eat the strawberries.

Day two went by in a flash much like day one. Only this time, you didn’t talk to the gentleman from yesterday, choosing to sit quietly by Seungcheol in the break and he didn’t leave your side either, regardless of all the ladies calling him to join them. In the evening, as the team headed to the city’s best karaoke bar, inviting you and Seungcheol again, Seungcheol brushed them off claiming the two of you had a little more work to do on the proposal. To his surprise, you shot him down, agreeing to join everyone, looking at him with a small smile.

“Don’t be such a killjoy darling.”

Seungcheol knew you were compensating for last night so he followed, well aware that you would most likely want to leave the moment the singing started. Well, he was almost right - you actually wanted to leave the moment you stepped foot into the room, turning to him with pleading eyes. Seungcheol turned you by your shoulder, laughing as he led you in.

“Don’t be such a killjoy sweetheart.”

You sat patiently as the beers poured in and people around you fought for the photobooth props. Seungcheol was sitting right beside you, his thigh a comforting weight against yours, laughing with everyone. As the night progressed, you had downed a beer or two, a slight buzz taking over, not noticing the way Seungcheol had his arm around you now or that you were warmly cuddled against his torso. Soon, one by one, everyone settled on the couches, tired from all the screaming, resorting to chatter instead and deciding on an old-fashioned game of truth or dare. Seungcheol smirked at you and you turned his face away with a soft push.

“So Seungcheol,” The man beside him spoke. “Truth or dare?”

“Neither actually. We should leave now.” He stood, pulling you up, stumbling slightly. “I’ve had too much to drink and it's late, Y/n needs to sleep.”

“Didn’t realize wacky wallflower here also had the bedtime of a toddler.” One of Seungcheol’s many fangirls piqued, jealousy stark on her face. “We can book her a cab, why don’t you stay a little longer, Cheolie?”

You raised an eyebrow, amused at the nickname, and at her jealousy but Seungcheol did not find anything about her words even remotely funny.

“No thanks, I go where she goes.”

“I thought you guys weren’t dating? Then why-”

“That doesn’t change what I said.” His voice dropped an octave. “I go where she goes.”

“Cheol.” You placed a hand on his chest, sensing his anger rising. “It’s fine, let’s stay for a few rounds, yeah?”

Seungcheol looked at you frowning as you sat down, pulling him with you. The girl you already disliked but quite vehemently hate now, spun the bottle with a giggle.

“We don’t have to stay.” Seungcheol whispered as the guy beside you excitedly asked the one across him a question. “You stayed long enough, you need sleep-”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m not.” He spoke between gritted teeth. “Just looking at that foul woman makes me mad. I already said I wasn’t interested in her, she had no reason to be a bitch.”

“Well then don’t you want to put the bitch in her place Cheol?”

You looked at him with big doe eyes which terrified Seungcheol even more. What on Earth were you up to?

“Y/n, you get to ask Yuri!”

You looked at the bottle to see it pointing between you and your little conquest of the night. Hook.

“Truth or dare?” Line.

“Dare.” And Sinker.

“Okay Yuri, then I dare you to not take your eyes off.”

You pulled Seungcheol by the collar, smashing your lips on his, swallowing his audible moan. His hands immediately found your waist, pulling you closer, up against his body, teeth roughly tugging your lower lip. Hand sliding up his neck and across his jaw, you entangled your fingers in his hair, drawing him even closer denying even air the right to come between the two of you. Yes, it was all a show for Yuri or whatever her name was, but at a point, she stomped her foot and got up, running out of the room. Perhaps the two of you should have stopped then or at least when you were running out of breath. But you only broke apart when someone dropped a beer bottle, smashing the glass loudly on the floor. Seungcheol and you looked at it, faces flushed, lips swollen. A low whistle echoed in the room.

“We-” Seungcheol cleared his throat, trying to get his voice back. “We should get going.”

“Y-yeah.” You agreed, getting up and grabbing your things as Seungcheol smoothened his hair with his hand, muttering a small goodbye to everyone. As the two of you stepped out of the room, you found Yuri crying at the entrance, her friend trying her best to console her. Not sparing her another glance, you walked away, Seungcheol following you close behind. As the cold air hit you when you reached the taxi stand, you felt a painful sting on your lower lip, making you hiss. Hand cupping your face, Seungcheol wiped the trickle of blood with his thumb.

“Guess you desperately did need a real kiss huh?”

“Shut up.” You smacked his hand away. “I had to help the poor girl get over her pathetic taste in men.”

“By getting a taste of me?” Seungcheol smirked as you rolled your eyes. Before you could say anything, his stomach let out a loud growl making you laugh and look around, spotting a burger joint.

“Let’s get you a taste of that big boy.”

“Sometimes I wonder-” You stared out of the window at the large clouds rolling in. “-considering our parents are best friends and we are not, do you think our children would be good friends or enemies?”

“Wow, children.” Seungcheol munched on his burger furiously. “I never thought that far.”

“Then think about it now.”

“I don’t know.” He hummed. He hated thinking when he was tipsy. “Siblings tend to have a love-hate relationship.”

“I was talking about our children Seungcheol.”

“So was I.”

“No, I mean, my own children and your own children.”

“Yeah, same thing.”

You looked at him exasperatedly.

“Let’s be honest here Y/n. Who else out there can put up with us for long enough to start a family?”

“We can barely put up with each other-”

“But we have, for almost 25 years.” He slurped on his drink. “There’s a reason why you have never been in a relationship and I have never been in one that lasts. Because whatever it is we share, it’s you and I, till the end.”

“Till the end.” You muttered, reaching for his burger, taking a bite from it. Judging by your expression, Seungcheol could tell you liked his better, like you always do. That’s why he made sure to get it without the tomatoes he usually loved and settled to eat your meal instead. He was just about to ask why exactly you were so lost in thought when a loud thunder boomed across the sky sending a shiver running down Seungcheol’s spine.

Shoving the last of the burger down your throat quickly washing it down with some soda, you began gathering your things.

“We should go before the rain starts.”

Seungcheol nodded, finishing up his meal as you threw the trash in the nearby can. As the two of you left, muttering your thank yous to the waitresses, you laced your fingers with Seungcheol’s, gripping him tight as another lightning flashed across the sky. Thank God it wasn’t too hard to flag down a cab because the moment the two of you sat inside, rain began pouring like there was no tomorrow. As you glanced at the obscurity outside the window, Seungcheol stared at his hand, the one that you hadn’t left in all this time.

There were times when he used to stay over in your room, unable to sleep due to all the thundering while you dozed away oblivious to his presence. Those days, you’d turn around, reaching for his hand, holding it in your sleep. Seungcheol now wondered if that might have been a conscious effort to comfort him.

Perhaps not he thought as you began to nonchalantly hum his favourite song. He wondered if you knew he loved that piece because of how beautiful you looked when you danced to it. He wondered if you knew that the reason he was always around you was to make sure you were alright. He wondered if you knew he always carried an extra inhaler for you, that he had written a long list of your allergies in order from ‘can handle’ to ‘keep away from at all times’, that he was constantly alert about everything you ate, smelt and touched. He wondered if you knew, deep down how much he cared about you…..but sleep dragged him away before he could wonder anymore.

Sensing Seungcheol had fallen asleep, you stopped humming, turning to him, smiling at his half open mouth. Scooting closer, you slowly pulled his head to rest against your shoulder, and he groaned softly, nuzzling into it. The driver looked at the two of you through the rear-view mirror, making your cheeks go red as you looked away.

“Is your boyfriend afraid of thunderstorms?”

You nodded, ignoring the title. “Since he was a child. I don’t think he’s been sleeping too well the last few days.”

“The forecast shows it’s going to be worse today.” The driver sighed. “Look out for him.”

You nodded again. You did look out for him. In your own ways you always did - you always challenged him knowing that was what pushed him to do better. You always made sure to wake him up or at least meddle with his clocks so he was always on time. You always made sure he ate and slept enough, knowing how it threw him off whenever he was deprived of either. Even now you were humming his favourite song knowing it calmed him down. You wondered if Seungcheol knew, that deep down you really cared about him…..perhaps more than anything.

When the taxi reached the lodge, you softly shook him awake after paying, dragging his sleepy self through the lobby. The receptionist's eyes followed the two of you, stumbling away hand in hand, mouth curling into a small smile as you disappeared. You only let his hand go when you reached the room and that’s what jolted him awake.

The silence that descended the room today was different. It wasn’t because the two of you were too tired to say anything to each other, rather neither of you knew what exactly to say given there was so much to. So instead, you resorted to washing up and filling in your journal for the day while Seungcheol worked on a few changes in the proposal for the final pitch tomorrow. Just as he shut the laptop and you shut your diary, the two of you looked at each other before quickly looking away, settling in your own beds, for the night.

You were almost ready to drift off to sleep, before the driver’s words rang in your mind - the forecast shows it’s going to be worse today. Without thinking much, you moved your things from bed 6 to bed 5, muttering that the light from the streetlamps was falling in your face there. Seungcheol did not point out that you could just close the curtains instead and curled up in his own bed, glad you were closer to him now.

He looked at you across the one bed that was in between and suddenly you felt too far, like the distance was too much.

You looked at him as his eyes fluttered shut, thunder rumbling across the sky, wondering if he could hear you across all this space, humming louder than usual, lulling the two of you to sleep.

When you woke up, Seungcheol was surprisingly awake and fully dressed, trying to knot his tie unsuccessfully in front of the mirror, expression focused with a small pout. Propping yourself up on your elbow, you stared at his reflection, eyes skimming over the beautiful features of his face which you never really consciously admired - his thick hair, thicker eyebrows, plump, pillowy lips, his jawline sharp and chiselled. He was indeed handsome, in a way you really liked….a lot.

You wondered why you always looked at him like he was the bane of your existence. Was it because it was easier to bury the unresolved tension under pointless banter? Or did you wantonly show him your worst side, hoping it wouldn’t scare him away, hoping he would stay despite every flaw, every shortcoming. What did it mean if in 25 years, he didn’t leave even once?

Seungcheol groaned, annoyed at his futile attempts, eyes finally meeting yours in the mirror. You slid off your bed, walking up to him as he turned to you. Yawning, you took his tie in your hands, tying it for him. Seungcheol’s eyes drifted over the features of your face as he held his breath.

He could get used to this, the sight of waking up to a sleepy you, your hair all over the place, your eyes slightly droopy, nose red. God you were so beautiful - he knew that, but why didn’t he ever think about it? Why did he choose to fight every remote thought about you with irritating banter? Was he scared that the tension would remain unresolved? And what did it mean if you were still here, right by his side, helping him out in everything big and small, always making sure he was going the right way and doing the right thing, every single day for the last 25 years?

You pushed the knot up to his neck, smoothening the material, patting his chest with a proud smile. Seungcheol gulped as you walked away to wash up, trying to get his breath under control.

When the two of you came down for breakfast, you pointedly avoided the receptionist's gaze. There was no time to deal with more thoughts.

The rest of the day went like that, thoughtlessly. It was a little awkward at the conference considering the little show you two put up last night, so the moment it ended for good in the evening, you bid everyone goodbye, citing you had an early flight and had to leave soon. It was true though, you did have to travel in the wee hours of the morning, but leaving from the conference so soon also meant having to spend longer with Seungcheol, all alone. He agreed with you though, stating his social battery was at an all-time low and that he just wanted to go back.

Today the two of you were somehow sitting on two ends of the car backseat, bodies pressing against the door, in complete contrast to last night. It was a silent ride, a silent walk to the room and a silent session of packing up. Suddenly there were very conscious efforts to not brush hands, or accidentally walk into each other or catch the other person randomly staring, lost in thought. It was only when you were finally done that you asked Seungcheol if he wanted to order dinner. He agreed, leading to a very small and very efficient discussion about what dishes to eat and then silence descended upon the room again. While waiting for the food to arrive, Seungcheol muttered that he was going for a quick run, leaving you alone with the thoughts you could no longer stop from plaguing your mind.

Something had changed over the last 3 days. It wasn’t you or Seungcheol - he was still throwing his damp towels on dry clothes and you were still meddling with his clocks. No, the two of you hadn’t changed. Neither did the arguing, neither did the banter, neither did the subtle flirting, neither did the silent support. No…. nothing had changed. It was all the same. It was all the exact same except now, you were finally willing to acknowledge something you hadn’t even admitted to yourself since the age of five, that-

“I’m in love with him.” You whispered, smiling to yourself.

Seungcheol on the other hand thought running around the lodge would mean those thoughts wouldn’t run in his mind anymore. He was wrong - even though you were not there, like always you were on his mind, in his every thought, in his every breath. Seungcheol didn’t know of a life without you. He also knew that you would be there with him for the rest of his life but for the first time in 25 years, he finally found himself owning up to it - that he truly wanted you be a part of his future, that he could not bear to think of one without you in it, that-

“I’m in love with her.” He whispered, smiling to himself.

By the time Seungcheol had returned, dinner had arrived. Between each bite you searched for the right words to say, noticing that Seungcheol was trying the same. Somehow, neither of you could bring yourself to say anything.

You couldn’t peacefully finish up your journal and Seungcheol couldn’t take a relaxing shower, both muttering under your breaths, practicing long speeches, determined to confess everything before sleeping tonight.

But when all was done for the night, both of you laid down on your respective beds, staring at the ceiling, unable to talk, unable to sleep.

Seungcheol turned his head as you did towards him, making his heart clench a little.

Sighing, he grabbed his pillow and put it on bed 4, lying down, facing you.

You looked at him blinking slowly.

Seungcheol held his breath.

Taking a deep breath, you grabbed your duvet and joined him on the fourth bed, throwing it over the two of you, lying down, facing him.

Seungcheol slid his hand over your waist, pulling you closer.

You gripped the material of his shirt, snuggling into the warmth of his neck.

Nothing was said that night.

Nothing had to be said as the two of you drifted off to sleep.

It was the harsh morning sun and the annoying chirping of the birds that woke you up.

You stared out of the window surprised at the bright light given the last few days were as gloomy as it could be. Seungcheol’s soft breaths tickled your shoulder as his arms held you tight, your back against his chest. Smiling you wiggled in his grip turning towards him, taking in how much more stunning he looked in the morning light-

Morning?

“Cheol.”

He hummed softly.

“Cheol!”

“What?”

“It’s bright outside.”

“That’s how mornings are Y/n.”

“Oh thank you for enlightening me.” You rolled your eyes. “Might I return the favour by reminding you that we had a flight at 5am?”

Seungcheol’s eyes flew open.

He quickly grabbed his phone from the nightstand, 11am flashing on the screen.

“Fuck.” He muttered, running his hand through his hair. “Fuck fuck fuck, I can’t believe we missed the flight!”

You took the phone from him and scrolled through the app. “The next flight out is tomorrow morning, same time, 5am.”

“But the company hasn’t paid for the room tonight, where will we stay?” Seungcheol groaned. “How could you not wake me up?”

You frowned at him. “And why is it my job to?”

“Because, you don’t like it when I put alarms on my phone.”

“Uh no, I don’t like it when you continue to sleep through the dozen alarms you put on your phone.”

“Whatever your reasons are, I think its been established that you are the one who's supposed to wake us both up.”

“Yeah well thanks to you I forgot to set an alarm.”

“Thanks to me?” He looked at you bewildered. “What did I do?”

“Who asked you to..” You pointed at everything around with the wave of a hand, the two of you only just registering the situation you were in.

“You were the one who came to my bed.” Seungcheol shrugged. “This is on you because you were desperate.”

“Says the one who’s boner poking into my back woke me up.”

Seungcheol gawked at you, stuttering. “M-morning wood is a scientific phenomenon, okay? I can’t help it-”

“I could have.” You muttered, slipping out of the bed.

Seungcheol pulled you back under him, half hovering over you.

“Oh yeah?” He bit his lower lip with a small smile. “How exactly?”

You hummed, “I happen to know some good meditation techniques-”, running a finger down his abdomen, tracing a random design.

Seungcheol grabbed your hand and pinned it to the mattress by your face, leaning close.

“Think of a better way, baby.”

The nickname sent a delightful chill down your spine as you slightly squirmed under him, smiling.

“How about I get you some ice-”

“That’s not what I want right now.”

“Then what do you want right now?”

His eyes ran along the features of your face.

“I want to kiss you.” He whispered. “So bad.”

“And what are you waiting for?”

Seungcheol groaned, immediately pressing his lips onto yours, needy and ravenous, like he had been waiting eons for this. Well, so had you.

Pushing him off you and onto his back, you straddled his hips, kissing him again, rolling your tongue over his. Seungcheol moaned into your mouth, one hand wrapping around your waist, the other holding you by the nape of your neck, taking back control. When you ran your hand over his thick pecs, he pulled away with a dreamy sigh, planting a trail of kisses along your jaw, down your throat.

“Strip for me.”

Sitting up immediately, you lifted your hips a little letting Seungcheol push the material of your nightdress up your thighs and you pulled it over your head, tossing it somewhere. In the ten seconds it took you to do that, Seungcheol was a changed man. The old him wanted to take his time unravelling you slowly, pushing you to the edge but the new Seungcheol felt the animal in him come alive with a throbbing, insatiable desire. It became exponentially worse when you pulled your hair up, tying it with the hair tie on your wrist, baring your neck, perfect breasts, soft stomach….unable to reign it in anymore, Seungcheol lunged forward, hungrily sucking a tit into his mouth, making you lose your balance over him a little, grabbing his bicep half laughing.

“Huh, I really thought you were more of an ass guy.”

Seungcheol let go with a wet pop, looking up at you from between his thick lashes. Oh wasn’t that a sight.

“For you, I’m an everything guy.” His hands gripped your ass hard. “Your derriere does take the cake though.”

You laughed, “Who even uses that word?”

“I don’t know, I have no idea what is coming out of my mouth right now.” He confessed, his tongue running up the gap between your boobs, the sweet and salty taste of your skin driving him insane. “I just know what I want in it.”

“Yeah?” You sighed, threading your fingers through his hair, pulling him back with a harsh grip, before he latched onto your other tit. “I have better things to put in it.”

Seungcheol grinned like he couldn’t wait, flashing his canines, biting his lower lip.

God he was going to be the end of you.

But you’ll beat him to it.

Palms planted behind you, you slid yourself back off his thighs and sat between his legs, lifting your own up for him. Seungcheol’s eyes darkened in an instant and the moment he saw the wet spot in the middle of your pink panties, he could not hold himself back anymore. With a swift movement he was up on his knees before you, hooking his fingers in the elastic by your waist and slowly dragging your underwear along your legs. Like a man starving he crumpled it in his hand, breathing it deeply, eyes fluttering shut like he was intoxicated by your scent.

“I’m going to be borrowing this, for whenever you’re not there.”

“Pervert.” You whispered as he tucked it in the back pocket of his tracks. “But I’m never not going to be there. I’m afraid you’re stuck for life now.”

Seungcheol fisted the material at the back of his neck and pulled it over his head, flinging it somewhere before he put his hands between your knees and spread your legs apart, groaning at the sight before him. You were quite literally hiding his paradise between your legs.

“Trust me,” He reached for a pillow behind him, throwing it to you. “I want to be stuck here.”

The moment you tucked it under your head lying back, Seungcheol wasted no time in crawling between your legs, tossing them over his shoulder, descending on your sex. You felt your back arch off the mattress as he devoured, his tongue, mouth, lips all showing you stars in daytime.

“Fuck Cheol.” You whimpered as his tongue slipped into your hole, his moan sending a wild vibration against it. Bringing your hands to his head, your fingers gripped his hair, pushing your hips up against him “Give me more.”

Seungcheol smirked, pressing your hips down, continuing his ministrations in a way that made your toes curl. Damn he knew what he was doing. For a split second you wondered how he knew so much and an ugly jealousy began coursing through you but it was lost almost immediately, when he began to suck on your clit.

“Cheol….” You moaned, the sudden stimulation too intense for you, a tightness growing deep inside. “F-fuck that’s good.”

Seungcheol knew he was good. Not because he was experienced, not exactly - more because he was desperate to taste every inch of you. If he thought the taste of your arousal was heavenly, the moment your legs trembled and your breaths got harsher and you came against his mouth, Seungcheol knew he’d cast aside the heavens for it. This wasn’t enough.

This was probably the fastest orgasm you ever had, waves of the buzz washing over as your jaw fell slack. You rode it out against his mouth, tense shivers running down your body as his nose grazed your clit before falling limp into the softness of the bed, chest heaving.

Seungcheol was so noisily devoted to making you fall apart on his tongue, he wasn't sure if you didn't moan his name or if he was too entranced to hear it. Either way, he had to go again, keeping in mind to put his eyes on you this time. When he looked up at you, your face was flushed, lips curled into a blissful smile and Seungcheol thought he fell more in love with you, if that was even possible.

“We're gonna have to talk about why you're so good at that.” You half laughed, trying to sit up. Seungcheol pushed you back down, throwing another pillow at you, humming.

“How good was I exactly?”

“Nice try big boy,” You stacked the pillow over the previous one, leaning back against it. “I'm not going to feed your ego.”

“I'll feed myself then.” He smirked before licking a long strip between your folds making you tremble with over stimulation.

“Cheol not yet-”

“If I don't hear you I'm not going to stop.”

And he descended upon you like a mad man again, making you gasp in surprise. You did not think he'd go through with it.

“Cheol I really can't-”

but Seungcheol did not stop.

When he didn’t listen, you reached to pull him off you but Seungcheol was quicker as he grabbed both your wrists in a flash and held them against your heaving chest, continuing to eat the life out of you.

“Seungcheol please.” You couldn’t even squirm if you tried to, held down hard by his brute strength. “I really can’t-”

He looked up, his mouth wet with his spit and your arousal as he licked his lips. Fuck you really loved this man.

“Do you actually want me to stop?”

He was taunting you but there's a slight concern laced in his voice.

You shook your head slowly.

“I thought so.” He chuckled before continuing his act of wolfing down on you.

Your second orgasm began to rush in with an unreal speed and you don't know how Seungcheol could read your body so well already but the little bitch backed out before you could cum again.

“Cheol…”

You whined, frustrated at the feeling ebbing away, desperately clenching to hold on to it.

“I said I wanted to hear you.”

You glared at him, not used to him having the upper hand. He knew he's got you under control when he finally loosened his bruising grip on your thigh to sit up and you opened your mouth on your own accord to let him slip his fingers into them.

“What a pretty little girl.” He sighed as you sucked on his digits. “My pretty girl.”

“Yes yours.” You moaned, as he pulled them out of your mouth and pushed them into his, wetting them more as you practically panted below him.

“I'll do what you want, just put them in me Cheol.”

“You're quite demanding baby.” He leaned over you looking amused. “I hope you deliver as well as you talk.”

“I'll suck the life out of your dick after this I swear, just let me cum again.”

Enticed by the idea, Seungcheol captured your mouth in another one of his messy kisses, his fingers slowly slipping into your heat. You gasped into his mouth, surprised by how thick his fingers were. Oh his dick would probably make you pass out and god were you ready for it.

“Say my name baby.” Seungcheol pressed his forehead against yours, still holding your wrists between both your bodies with his other hand. “Tell me who's making you feel so good.”

“You.” You moaned as he pumped his fingers, slowly stretching you open, your arousal dripping down between your thighs. “Fuck Cheol, faster.”

He obeyed, picking up the pace as you babbled a string of curses, legs squeezing his hand desperate to feel more. Seungcheol sucked on your neck, enjoying the way you were crumbling apart for him. How was he ever going to be away from you after this?

“Oh god yes.” You sighed, as his fingers curled hitting the spot, eyes rolling back. Seungcheol looked at you in awe.

“I apologise if I ever told you that it was annoying when you rolled your eyes.” He continued to push you over. “That was the hottest thing I've ever seen.”

“Yes yes yes.” You chanted not hearing him, too lost in your own pleasure building. Pleased with himself, Seungcheol finally put his thumb over your clit and that was all it took for you to cum all over his fingers with yet another silent scream.

Seungcheol let your hands go and sat back on his heels, admiring his artwork. Your chest heaved erratically like you had forgotten how to breathe, squeezing your tits, hands desperate to claw something. Hair sticking to your forehead, sweat running down your neck next to the bruises he marked, you were a vision to behold.

Seungcheol sucked his fingers clean, relishing the taste of you yet again. You stared at him wide eyed, curious.

“Have you never tasted yourself?”

You shook your head.

“Oh sweetheart.”

Seungcheol pushed his tracks down just a bit, enough to pull his dick out. It's not the longest you've seen but God was it thick, a stark vein running down the length which looked painfully hard. The thought of having him fill your mouth and choking around it literally made you drool.

He pumped it a few times before hooking his hands under your thighs and pulling you towards him with unsurprising ease. You scrambled to raise yourself up on your elbows, watching as he ran it up and down your slit, gathering your release on it.

“Come taste.”

You blinked at the man holding out his dick to you like it was a treat, like he expected you to crawl to him, stunned at just how cocky he had gotten in 20 minutes. Hell no.

You shook your head, tilting it in challenge.

“Come fuck my mouth.”

If Choi Seungcheol had a fatal flaw it was how much he desired control but right now, there was nothing he desired and craved more than you.

Moving over not so gracefully he aligned himself by your mouth, knees planted on either sides of your waist, looming over you.

You immediately wrapped your lips around his tip, humming at the weight on your tongue as he pushed your hair off your face softly.

“I know baby, you taste fucking divine.”

Giving him a half nod, running your tongue over his slit before hollowing your cheeks around him. The mix of your and his arousal indeed tasted….right, like they belonged together.

You tried to take in more of him but you might have underestimated his girth and overestimated your ability. Pulling back with a pop, you licked your lips.

“You're too thick.” Mumbling you tried to push him off you, onto his back. “Let me move over-”

“Oh no no.” Seungcheol clicked his tongue, grabbing the back of you neck, forcing you to look up at him. “It can't be that bad, someone claimed they could stack fruit loops on it.”

You rolled your eyes realising he was a bit too proud of himself. “I still can. I just don't have the cereal to prove it.”

“I'll buy some on the way back and when we go home that's the first thing you're going to do.” He wiped the spit leaking around the corner of your mouth with his free hand. “And if you don't manage to prove your point, that's grounds for punishment.”

You grinned at him.

“Oh you like that.” He hummed, guiding your head back to his cock. “We'll see how much of it you can take baby.”

A lot apparently.

Seungcheol should have known. You were like him - you didn't like to be challenged. That's why the moment he thrusted himself into your mouth, you held onto the back of his thighs with both hands, pushing it in a lot more than Seungcheol had thought you were capable of. Throwing his head back with a satisfied moan, he began moving his hips ever so little, slowly fucking your face, but you had other ideas, taking him as far back as you could, your throat constricting around his dick.

“Alright that's it.” Seungcheol pulled you off him, staring at your confused face. Somehow you had no gag reflex and Seungcheol suddenly had the endurance of a teenager. “Want to actually fuck you.”

He muttered drawing back, kicking off the remaining of his clothes and sitting up, trying to hide his breathlessness.

“Aw Cheol, was I right again?” You laughed, getting up and clambering onto his lap. “Is ten minutes really enough for you?”

“You'll see.” He pulled you into a deep kiss before abruptly breaking away, leaving you confused yet again. “Or not.”

“What?”

“I just realised… I don't have a condom.”

You waited for him to tell you he was kidding but he looked serious.

“Cheol….” He looked at you apologetically. “Ugh Choi Seungcheol, why not?!”

“One, don't call me that and two, I don't know, maybe because this was a work trip and the conference dress code didn't mention dick envelopes.”

You sighed annoyed. “I just always thought you'd carry one on you, xl sized.” You shot his overconfidence down before it even grew on him. “you know, for your head.”

“Oh because I'm a dick?” He rolled his eyes at the comment you had used on him too many times already. “Well, wouldn't that make you a little slut? Since you’ve been in love with me for so many years.”

“Who said I was in love with you?”

Seungcheol looked at you with the biggest, fucking cutest eyes. “Are you not?”

You smiled, surprisingly shy despite all that transpired so far. Honestly, you didn't have to answer that question. What you felt for each other was clear as day.

Putting a finger on his mouth, you whispered. “Less talking, more fucking please.”

Seungcheol groaned. “What do you want me to do? Go buy them now?”

“No…” You hated the thought of him leaving.

“Or…. I could pull out?”

“The last thing I trust in this world is your timing.” You laughed, wrapping your arms around his neck. “Besides, don't you want to be inside me when you cum? Squeezing you tight? Milking you dry?”

“Kinky.” Seungcheol raised an eyebrow, secretly delighted. “And shoot me if I ever say no to that, but you're not on birth control are you?”

“No…” You drawled. “But I can get plan b?”

“Baby, you realize how reckless this is-”

“I know.”

“-we've barely just-”

“I'm aware.”

“-plus your health-”

“Choi Seungcheol.” You pushed him back into the bed, annoyed. “Are you gonna fuck me or not? Because if you don't then I'm gonna do it myself and all you get is to watch-”

Seungcheol, tucked his arm under his head, looking like he liked that idea a little too much.

“-while I cum taking someone else's name.”

His eyes darkened as his hand wrapped around your throat, pulling you down to his eye level, “Try me sweetheart.”

“You know how I feel about challenges.”

“And you know how I feel about sharing what’s mine.”

“Then fuck me like I’m yours.”

Seungcheol smiled, dropping a soft kiss on your mouth, much in contrast to what followed. “Remember, you asked for this.”

One arm wrapped around your waist, he flipped you over, putting you below him once again, the hunger in his eyes burning a lot more now. As he shifted to push your legs apart, hand leaving your neck, a soft whine left you and Seungcheol caught it immediately.

“You’re into that too?” Seungcheol smirked as you frowned at him, annoyed.

“Apparently. I just found out as well.”

“I wonder what else you’re into.”

“You can wonder all you want, after you put that dick into me.”

Seungcheol clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “I don’t like how you think I’d listen.”

Yet before you could talk back, he slid his cock along your folds, the tip slightly dipping into your hole, pulling out the most exquisite moan from you.

“Now that’s something I’d listen to.” He pushed himself a little further, your hands immediately coming to grip his biceps, gasping again at just how big he was. Seungcheol had been dying to listen to you sound like this and god was it so worth it.

You attempted to relax, adjusting around his girth as he eased himself in, but gave up even trying to maintain the facade of composure when he bottomed out, pressing all the way in.

“Fuck yes Cheol.”

He hissed softly, feeling your soft walls flutter around him. He had never fucked anyone raw and after this, how was he expected to just not spend his whole life buried in you?

“Please, move.” You begged, and he folded immediately, his hips slowly picking up pace as he kissed you along your neck.

“We should have done this years ago.” He groaned, wrapping your legs around his hips, pounding faster, harder. “We should have been doing this for years now.”

You nodded half listening, half submerged in your pleasure, nails running down his back. “Let’s just never get out of this bed.”

Seungcheol chuckled, absolutely agreeing with that idea, snapping his hips faster, delighted by the way you were reacting under him.

He wanted to flip you around and take you from the back, mark your ass with the red prints of his hand. He wanted you sitting on him, fucking yourself on his dick while he watched, your head thrown back in pleasure. He wanted to eat you out till you cried, fuck your throat and make you swallow, pull every moan and every whine and ever chant of his name out of you. God he wanted so much but Seungcheol wasn't capable of any of those right now - he had been hard for almost an hour now and your grip around him was like a vice.

“Seungcheol more.” You whined, despite him already railing into you like there was no tomorrow. He still listened though, sliding his hand down between your bodies and finding you clit, well aware that you would probably go unbelievably tight the moment he touched it, rendering him absolutely helpless. Sure enough, you keened, clamping down on him hard the moment he began rubbing circles, a string of curses leaving your mouth.

“Cum for me.” He whispered, hips rutting against yours harshly, holding his own release back desperately. “Cum all over me.”

And you did, the pleasure washing over you in waves, legs tightening around him before they finally went slack, exhausted. Seungcheol pulled them off him, gripping your thighs instead, shifting from an erratic rhythm to quick, deep strokes as he finally came inside you, collapsing on top.

He was careful enough not to crush you under his weight, holding himself up a little so you could regain your breath, watching your eyes flutter tiredly.

“We need to get you cleaned up.” He tucked your hair behind your ear, glancing at your mixed arousals dripping out of you. “I don’t know how long the statute of limitations for ejaculate is….”

For the first time in your life, Choi Seungcheol had managed to turn you dumb, as you nodded mindlessly, not having registered the stupidity that just came out of him.

He chuckled, rolling off you, but you dragged him back by the wrist, wrapping your arms around him.

“Hold me.”

And as though the universe hated you, a sharp knock on the door made you two jump apart. Seungcheol still proceeded to hold you but the knocking only repeated, louder this time. He huffed annoyed, sliding off the bed, grabbing his shirt from the floor and threw it on. Opening the door just a little, half hiding behind it, lower half specifically, he peaked out but his plan was foiled when the receptionist pushed the door fully open and came barging in, throwing her hands around.

“Check out time was 12! You’re late-”

She froze as Seuncheol quickly covered himself with a towel from nearby and you scrambled in a hurry, hiding under the sheets, squirming in embarrassment.

The old woman slowly, still shocked to the core, muttered an apology and walked out of the room as Seungcheol smacked his head against the wall, regretting not wearing his pants.

“You…” She cleared her throat from the other side of the door. “You have till 2. Get it together and get out of my lodge.” She then walked away, the sound of her footsteps fading, before they suddenly got louder again. “I would also like to add that I knew this was going to happen from the moment you two stepped foot in here!”

You covered your face trying not to pass out from the embarrassment as Seungcheol locked the door laughing.

"Why does she sound so happy?"

“I cannot believe she saw us." You groaned. "Who walks in like that-”

“Who cares?” Seungcheol walked over to you. “I cannot believe we still have two more hours.”

“You’re not even ready to go again.” You looked pointedly at the softened dick in his hand that he was pumping lazily. “Besides, we're going to have to book the room again, for tonight.”

“2 hours isn’t enough for you? Oh baby-”

“Our flight is at 5am tomorrow you idiot, we still need a place for the night.”

“Right.” Seungcheol recalled, “I forgot we had to go… that this had to come to an end.”

“Nothing’s ending.” You clarified, putting a rest to his worries. “Didn’t you say, you and I, till the end?”

Seungcheol nodded as you held your hand out to him. He walked over taking it, dropping a soft kiss on your knuckles.

“Say.” And you knew an unholy thought was brewing in that head of his. “We have all this time and there are seven beds here.”

“I don’t care how many there are.” You laughed, pulling him into the softness of the sheets. “I only want one to share with you.”

A/n - this was supposed to be out a few hours ago but tumblr was being a bitch to me. Im adding the tags in the comments! Reblogs with tags, comments and asks are much appreciated, thank you for reading :)

#svthub #choi seungcheol #seungcheol #choi seungcheol smut #seungcheol smut #scoups smut #seungcheol x reader #scoups × reader #seungcheol fluff #scoups fluff #seungcheol angst #scoups angst #seungcheol fic #seventeen fic #seventeen smut #seventeen #reverse trope prompt #one bed #too many beds

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corkinavoid · 6 months ago

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DPxDC De-Aged Triplets and Their Tired Single Sister

Jason has seen the four of them a couple of times in Crime Alley now. They looked like a family, what with similar facial features- err, actually, the kids looked like carbon copies of each other, but their mom/sister/aunt/cousin looked similar enough to be related to them by blood.

Normally, Jason didn't care for each and every family that moved into Crime Alley. Sure, he cared about all of them as a whole, but there were a lot of people, and he couldn't possibly get elbow deep in every life story he came across. So all he knew about them were three things: a) they were on the run from someone or something, b) they trusted each other and no one else, and c) apparently, they have made it their life goal to never make any kind of sense.

The list of shit they have gotten into included but was not limited to:

• one of the kids biting a gun. Not the hand of the attacker who was holding it, no, the actual gun. And he bit a piece of it clean off, which earned him - or her, actually, Jason knew one of the triplets was a girl but he couldn't tell them apart - a lecture from their... mom? sister? parental figure. The lecture was about how chewing metal does not help with iron deficiency.

• getting kidnapped and creeping out their kidnapper to the point of him returning the kids back home. A few witnesses said one of the kids was actually driving, sitting on the kidnappers lap behind the steering wheel and cheerfully commanding the man to speed up or brake. Their mom actually apologized to the kidnapper for the incident and offered him homemade cookies for his troubles. He ran away without them.

• driving a lady at the laundromat insane by repeatedly walking inside and climbing into one of the washing machines. They never got out of it, just one kid walking into the laundromat, climbing into washing machine, then another kid, looking exactly like the previous one, walking inside, climbing into the same washing machine, then another kid walking into the laundromat- well, you get the idea. The lady claimed she's seen at least five kids do that in a row, but when she looked into that washing machine, there was no one inside.

• casually falling out of windows. Or, better, walking out of them like they were doors, at any given opportunity. The witness - an old man who was helping their mom with groceries - said the mom did not care in the slightest, and when he asked her about it, obviously concerned, she just said, tired and exasperated, 'they like the feeling of free fall, don't worry, they'll come back in a minute'. Sure enough, they did, not a scratch on them. The family lived on the sixth floor.

• eating insane amounts of food. Jason personally witnesses their mom give them her wallet, telling the kids, 'eat until you're full', and promptly passing out on the table, her head on her arms. The kids then proceeded to eat four whole pizzas, three burgers each, then seven brownies and at least five cups of soda. What was interesting about it was not only the amount of food they ate but the way they never left their mom unattended, one of the kids always staying beside her sleeping figure as the other two went to order.

And now, all four of them were standing in front of him. Not Jason Todd him, but Red Hood him. And he was... confused.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I said, can you watch them for a few hours? Three, maybe four," the mom, Jazz as she introduced herself, was looking at him like it was he who was speaking nonsense, not her. Because asking a crime lord to watch three kids in the middle of the night is not something a sane person would do.

"Why?" He asks, bewildered, because what the fuck else is he supposed to say?

"I need to kill a man, and if they come with me, it will take three times longer," Jazz tells him. Is she saying the kids slow her down or what? Jason can admit he's never been this confused in his entire life.

"You could ask me to kill a man, while you stay with them, no?" He tries to reason, but the girl waves him off:

"No, that will take even longer. Besides, no offense, but you kill people to simply end their life, and I need that man to fucking stop existing forever."

What's the difference he almost wants to ask. But instead of that, he just sighs.

"Why me? I'm sure you could find a babysitter-"

"No babysitter will handle them. The last one told me they have been running laps on the ceiling, which is, actually, not that big of a deal. They are kids. Kids like running around," she huffs, and Jason suspects she is missing the point here, but okay. He gets why babysitters are not an option.

"You do understand what they can witness if they stay here?" He asks, as the last attempt to reason with the girl, but she just nods and leans down, making all the kids turn to her.

"Okay, you menaces, tell me what not to do while you're staying with Mr. Red Hood."

"No eating people," one kid starts.

"No driving people insane," the other one continues.

"No, um, stealing eyeballs," the third one finishes, and what the fuck are those ground rules? Is this girl a mother to eldrith horrors? That would explain some shit.

Jazz turns to him, "See? They're all good."

In what world is that good? Jason debates if he should start running now or when she leaves.

"Do they have names?" He asks instead. The girl nods:

"Danny." His surprise must be evident even through the mask because she sighs and points to each kid, "Diane, Daniel, Dante. Dani, Danny, and Dan. Actually, you know what, let's make this easier," she rummages through her bag and gets a marker out before gesturing to the kids, "Come here."

As they do, she proceeds to draw numbers 1, 2, and 3 on their foreheads. Then she nods to Hood and puts the marker away.

"Okay, that's better. Behave, you monsters, I'll be back soon!"

After she leaves, Jason looks down at the kids. They also look at him, eerie and unblinking.

Finally, one of them - number 2, Dani, if he is not mistaken - asks:

"Do you want teeth? We have a lot."

"She doesn't mean her teeth," number 1 clarifies, "She means other teeth."

...This is going to be some very long three hours.

#danny phantom #dc x dp #dpxdc #jason todd #red hood #jazz fenton #dan phantom #dani phantom #de aged danny #de aged dani #de aged dan #triplets au #triplet horror kids are out for your eyeballs #beware #jazz is so done with them

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evanhereonearth · 1 month ago

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The Insidious Cycle of the Abuser Who Says They Love You: Mythal and Solas

Likely goes without saying, but Veilguard spoilers all under the jump.

I have been absolutely wrecked by the end scenes in Veilguard for weeks now, and I want to do a deep dive into Solas's relationship with Mythal and how it absolutely reeks of abuse. Long post incoming!

CW for heavy discussion of cycles of abuse, trauma response, and abuse tactics.

When I finished my first playthrough, this moment hit me like an absolute freight train. His visceral response to her presence and the way he instinctively retreats and flinches back/puts out a hand to protect himself is a full-blown trauma response.

And then she starts talking and moving towards him, and it gets worse.

Solas curls in on himself; his body goes even further into self-protection mode. His face is downcast, not the way he bowed to his vhenan moments before with a straight back and open posture, but shrinking.

And then as she advances, he cowers.

He completely folds inward. He crumples; he shakes, he hyperventilates, and the moment she reaches for him, he fumblingly offers her the lyrium dagger to kill him with.

Is this shame? Yes, of course, but it's far, far more than that.

For the sake of brevity, I'm going to limit this list to the four most widely recognised trauma responses:

Fight

Flight

Freeze

Fawn

As someone whose primary trauma response is fawn (wooo CPTSD), which is intensely common among people who experience complex trauma, especially through emotional and prolonged physical/mental abuse where their needs are discarded, pushed aside, or otherwise steamrolled, I felt this right alongside Solas. My own body responded to seeing it. This is, quite frankly, one of the most visceral and realistic (and extreme) fawn responses I've seen depicted in media.

Mythal in this scene is...phew, something else.

"She was the best of them," Solas tells us in Trespasser.

But she was not good, everything tells us in Veilguard.

Let's look at his regrets in chronological order.

Through Solas's memories of regret, we see this germinate in his foundational regret: leaving the Fade to take a physical form.

He does not want to do this. He tells her he does not want to do this. From the conversation, it's clear it's not the first time she's asked.

And the way she asks? Outright coercion.

"You have so long observed the world. Why not consider joining it?" [I want you to do this thing, so I will frame it as logical for you to make the choice I want you to make.]

"But I have no desire to live as humans. Besides, this talk of taking on a solid form. I think you underestimate the danger." [I don't want to do that. It does not feel safe to me.] "When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?" [This is dangerous and selfish.]

"The lyrium gives us the strength we had when we were of the Fade; we are the best of both physical and Fade." [It makes us powerful, so I don't care about the risks.] "I need your wisdom, Solas, to withstand the louder voices like Elgar'nan's who would go too far." [If you do not come with me, a tyrant you abhor will make others suffer.] "I need you."

"This is madness. You must know that." [I don't want to do this at all. This will hurt me. I don't want this.] "I will always follow where you go." [Because I love you and trust you.]

Mythal's words in this part are classic abusive framing. When appealing to his natural curiosity does not work and he expresses strong rejection of her logical thought process (just because I have observed this place does not mean I want to go there, echoing his comments to the Inquisitor in DAI: "Many Orlesian peasants dream of travelling to exotic Rivain. But not everyone wants to go to Rivain!") and expresses that there is significant danger to continue to build bodies out of lyrium, she changes tactics.

Her second tactic is that it gives them power--she implies that he is limited and not enough for being only of the Fade. If he follows her, he will be the best of both, like she is. She clearly already sees herself as above him.

Her third tactic is pure emotional blackmail: "I need you. I will give in to the tyrants without your wisdom, and having your counsel in the Fade is not enough. If you don't go against your own nature and desires, people will suffer...and it will be your fault for not being by my side."

She doesn't say those things outright, but they are implied by everything she is saying. He says again he doesn't want it--that it is madness and that she must be aware of that despite her ignoring any suggestion that she actually is. All she is seeing is power and her desires: for Solas to do what she wants him to do.

So he agrees. Because she is his friend, and she says she needs him.

As far as core wounds go, this one is a doozy. It's absolutely brutal, because it's irrevocable. It's a point of no return. It's the first in what will become millennia of regret, of her ignoring the Wisdom she coerced out of the Fade to do what she wants regardless, to continue to push him to twist his nature under the guise of the greater good, to continue to cede to Elgar'nan and enable the very tyrants she promised him to balance.

This regret was deeply painful for me to watch. The nuance here is easily lost if people don't understand abuse tactics and how this sort of manipulation is used. It also serves to bind Solas to Mythal, an enormous sunk cost fallacy in the making--once he has made this choice, there is no going back.

And you see Solas curled in on himself in anguish and regret from the trauma of taking a physical form. It is in deep, painful contrast to his open, free wingspan as a spirit of Wisdom; he will never be the same.

"Have you created what we need?" From the outset Mythal is framing this as his idea as much as hers, when from everything he says, that is not true.

"With this, the proper ritual will sunder every Titan from its spirit. But you must know, those severed dreams will certainly be driven mad, a disembodied blight of pain and anger. It--is--awful what we are doing."

"And the only way to end this war."

Again, Solas offers the wisdom she claimed she took him from the Fade to listen to. He warns her, again, of the danger. He does not want to do this. Just like he warned her of the earth quaking when they made their bodies--they, the Evanuris, started this war by taking what they wanted regardless of who it hurt. He never wanted to participate in it, but now he is in the middle of that war. Mythal was one of the initial perpetrators of this war; she brought Solas into it against his will because he loved her, and now he's stuck. He is past his point of no return. And she is still using his heart against him. She has isolated him from everyone he knew in the Fade; he has no one to support him. He. Only. Has. Her.

This is another classic abuse tactic; if the person being abused has no one else, they will continue to enable that abuse even if it harms others, because they cannot see a way out. If you don't do what I say, it will destroy our children, our family. If you don't do what I say, this war will consume all you have, and you no longer have a home to return to. If you don't do what I say and hurt yourself and the Other, more will suffer, and it will be your fault.

Again, his posture, curled up and broken, appearing to cradle a now-tranquil Titan beneath him--and be embraced in return. This is an interesting artistic choice here, one that aches. It speaks to the depth of his own wound and how much it rent his own spirit to follow through with Mythal's wants here; that it sundered him from his spirit as much as it did the Titans.

"You cannot do this, Elgar'nan! You swore we would give up our commands when this war was over!"

"Our people need our leadership. If you are unwilling, leave."

From Elgar'nan, this is expected. From Mythal?

"Our people must rebuild. And we must help unite them."

Solas, once again, betrayed. He put his trust in Mythal and in the other Evanuris to follow through with their promise. Everything he has done thus far is poisoned in this moment; had the Evanuris indeed stepped back rather than stepped on necks, perhaps Solas could have healed, found a way to live with what he had done, maybe even to make amends. But this starts his war anew--and Mythal is standing with his enemy despite her promises, despite every wheedling word she's used to get what she wants from him over the centuries and longer, despite him turning from everything, everything, he loved to love her. This is the moment where he understands that he has only been a tool to her all along.

"So we did not fight for freedom, but to conquer this land and our own."

Let's pick apart Solas's words.

So we did not fight for freedom: He truly believed that he was fighting for freedom, that no matter how bad it got, that he could bear it for freedom.

But to conquer this land: Literally the land, I think, because of the Titans. To subdue them at all costs. This was not what he came for, but he believed Mythal.

And our own: Our own, our people, more spirits we gave bodies for this war, more who may not have wanted to leave the Fade. Our own, our people. To Solas, he is one of them. In this moment, he realises how much Mythal holds herself above all of them.

Elgar'nan's words are all too telling: "We fought to win. And now the Evanuris are as gods. I do not answer to Mythal's annoying lapdog."

They all--all--see him thus. As her pet.

Because he is. She has, until now, controlled him utterly with her manipulation and "need" for him.

"The people are afraid. They must believe in something." Mythal does not even stand up for Solas here; she does not reject Elgar'nan's perception of him. All she does is further distance herself.

The people are afraid: The Evanuris made them. They are as controlled as Solas and more.

Elgar'nan asserts, "They need strength."

"And wisdom." Mythal has the absolute gall to attribute this to herself, when Solas is the source of the wisdom she "needed" for so long. (Belated addition: And another level here: she may also be saying again that she needs him, but doing so in a way that doesn't require her to stand up for him directly. Honestly, fucking gross.)

"They need gods who can protect them," Elgar'nan continues.

"We are not gods. You will learn that." Solas's voice here is pure defeat. The scales are falling from his eyes.

"Every lapdog holds a wolf inside," says Elgar'nan.

Solas knows that Elgar'nan's "protection" is hollow, based on subjugation. And I think in this moment, he learns that Mythal's is based only in her belief that she is better than those beneath her, who cannot possibly handle themselves.

So her lapdog becomes the Wolf.

"I was not certain you would come."

Solas's opening words in this regret show the distance between them already and how much he has realised he does not know this woman who called herself his friend.

And her response is to instantly blame him.

"You are the one who walked away. I never turn my back when my friend needs me."

In putting this post together, this line absolutely sucker punched me. I've watched these several times already, but the absolute audacity to blame him for standing up for his principles for the first time against all her manipulation? Hoo.

She blames him for doing just that, "turning his back when his friend needed him." She needed her enabler, and when he stopped, she turned bitter. Just like any abuser.

That he goes straight into "The Evanuris seek the magic of the Blight" instead of engaging, honestly shows that he's still Wisdom. That is one battle that is unwinnable, trying to stand up against an abuser's bullshit like that.

"Impossible," she says. "The Blight is safely sealed away forever."

Gaslight, girl boss, gatekeep.

"Though I wish I could believe you." [You have lied to me so many times.] "I have sensed the breaking of the wards."

And her answer is patronising. "I will investigate your claims." [I don't believe you.] "If they forget the danger of the Blight, I will endeavour to remind them."

Solas knows this is futile. "What if, instead, you left the Evanuris and remained with me? Do you not wish for freedom from this struggle?"

He asks her, again, to veer from the dangerous path. He desperately wants to believe he was not completely wrong about her, I think. If she were to leave, he could heal somewhat, for not having so thoroughly misjudged her character.

Am I enough for you? Was I ever enough? is the unspoken question here when he asks if she will remain with him.

And in return, he gets back even more patronising bullshit and hubris. "Be at peace, love. I will stop them."

(Can you tell Mythal pisses me off?)

She calls him love. What an unbearable insult after everything, to go on telling him she cares for him whilst ignoring his wisdom--the very wisdom she coerced him into leaving the Fade so she would have by her side--and consolidating her own power at the expense of his people.

"As you must," he says. "The Blight is our mistake."

Might be unpopular, but I do not think Solas bears a split fifty-fifty custody for whose fault the Blight is. Could he have said no about the dagger? Could he have pushed then? Maybe. But by this point, he'd already had probable millennia of complex trauma and a deeply abusive codependent relationship, probably also a level of magical bond. Like, sorry, Trick and BioWare, if you want to retcon everything you shared with us in Inquisition about being in service to the Evanuris ("You have given yourself into the service of an ancient elven god! You are Mythal's creature now. Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her.") AND Mythal casually overriding her servants' will and Solas burning her vallaslin off his face and leaving a scar and devoting himself to freeing the elven people from the Evanuris's domination, fine, but I don't buy it. Even if there was no magical compulsion on him all this time, that is immaterial.

Complex trauma literally rewires the brain to survive. She spent lifetimes programming him, isolating him, stripping from him every bit of agency he had. This man did not have the capacity to say no.

When our no is trampled even for a few months or years, we stop trying to use it. We comply. We, as mortal humans, cannot begin to comprehend the compounded trauma of millennia of this happening with the stakes of worlds in the balance. Solas, quite simply, has lost the entire ability to consent. No one of us can even imagine.

Yet he managed to walk away from her somehow, when she chose Elgar'nan. This man is stronger than anyone gives him credit for.

The dagger was clearly Mythal's idea. The plan to sever the Titans from their dreams, clearly her idea. To end the war. For there to be "peace". For there to be "freedom". Except that never came.

His loyalty was to her and to their people; hers was only ever to herself.

And again, she walks away and lets Solas suffer.

What a good friend.

[screaming from the general direction of Scotland]

She put her trust in monsters instead of her oldest friend, and the monsters ate her face.

Anyone surprised? I'm surprised. (I'm not surprised.)

And on top of this, Mythal finally, finally giving Solas one tiny breadcrumb that she had any principles remaining? I think that cemented his bindings to her forever. Not just that the Evanuris killed her, but why they killed her: because after millennia, she listened to him.

For someone that deep into trauma and abuse? Well. We know what happened.

It cannot be overstated that with his imprisonment of the Evanuris and the Blight, Solas saved the entire world. The entire world. Every living being in Thedas had a chance at life because of him. Only because of him.

Morrigan says it early on in the game, that for all the consequences of the veil (which, it also must be said, was not supposed to be global!), "his imprisonment of the Evanuris was just. Had he not done so, all of Thedas would have fallen to the Blight."

And the world has hated him for it.

He woke after sleeping for millennia, exhausted by this immense act of magic, to discover that not only had it gone horribly wrong, but that it had cost his people everything. That Tevinter had come in and enslaved them, released a trickle of the Blight after breaking into the Black City, used so much blood magic that the veil itself all over Thedas has been in tatters--not least because in releasing the Blight, the survivors had had to face down and kill the dragon thralls (archdemons) of the Evanuris, rendering five out of seven of them mortal, and with their deaths over the intervening centuries, the veil had grown threadbare with only two Evanuris sustaining it.

The risks were catastrophic, the price unbearable.

Everything he'd ever done to protect the world could still come crashing down...and in a sick twist of fate, he would be alive to see it.

And, shockingly, so would Mythal.

Mythal, whose fragment has just been chilling in a swamp for centuries in human form. Mythal, whose abuse of him lasted through the entirety of the world's history. Mythal, who, due to the Evanuris's betrayal and her abusee's abandonment, has become little more than retribution.

Mythal, who could have set him free at any point in all this time and didn't, because he was hers.

Mythal, who is the only remaining person with the power to do what he feels must be done.

I find it interesting that they chose not to use the post-Inquisition dialogue at all. Interesting also that they used Mythal's voice actor and not Flemeth's. This feels like a retcon, but we'll go with it. Whatevs.

"I knew that you would find me soon enough. You need the power of a god, the strength that I alone still carry."

She's still asserting her own godhood.

He's not having it. "The blighted Evanuris will soon break free from their prison. I must make a stronger one that can contain them."

He's not wrong. Not even a little bit wrong. And he's also right that she won't help him. Why would she? She never has.

"While the prison is important, it is not the only goal you seek."

"Why should I not tear down the veil? And bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it."

And this is where I get even more raging, because Mythal's answer is this: "The elven people of today do not deserve to see the world they love torn apart to salve your conscience."

I'm sorry, what?

The world they love? The world that has offered them nowt but literal genocide for thousands of years? The world where in Tevinter, they're chattel slaves and worse, fuel for blood magic without a thought? The world where in the "civilised", slaveless nations to the south, they're either confined to alienages and subjected to repeated genocide (that's what a "purge" is, if anyone isn't clear on that) or the remnants of the Dales, who are the descendents of another enormous genocide? The world where elven magic has been pillaged but elven mages in human settlements are confined to Circles and abused or made tranquil or also genocided by Templars invoking the Rite of Annulment? The world where they're called "elf savage" and "rabbit" and "knife ear" and cannot participate in Thedosian religious life because the Chantry erases every instance of elves from even the Chant of Light? The world where it took the Inquisitor installing a perpetrator of genocide on the Orlesian throne (both Celene AND Gaspard fit this bill) and either having Celene reconcile with Briala (Briala and Celene's relationship could be a whole other post. Boak.) and blackmailing them to give a single elf lands and a title? That world????

What the fuck, Mythal, die faster.

I got real mad there for a second. I'm fine. I'm fine!

Solas, once more, simply says, "I must fix what I have broken. I am sorry."

More than she deserves, frankly. Man's a mess, but at least he tries. She's been chilling in a swamp and pulling puppet strings for ages and abusing her kids. Nudging history like it's some sort of hobby, because it has always just been pieces on a board to her. They have never been people in her eyes like they are in his.

"As am I, old friend."

Aye, get tae fuck. Friends don't treat friends the way you treated Solas. The closest thing to an apology Solas will ever get from her is that she pretty much just lies down and dies when he comes to kill her. And she still won't set him free before he does. Has to continue to twist her own knife.

This scene has me riled.

And this takes us back to the beginning of this post.

To her essence showing up to release him from her service.

In what is, to me, the least accountable, bare minimum non-apology (she never actually says she's sorry) I've had the displeasure to witness in a videogame, with Solas literally cowering before her and offering her a knife to kill him with since this is the first time he's seen her actual, non-Flemythal face since she died.

This was never a friendship of equals. Ever.

She got one thing right. She did break him. But she knew it all this time, and she never took a single step to put it right until pushed. Her corner of the Crossroads, which he built for her in the desperate hope that she would show a glimmer of the friend he believed she was, notably has a pair of wolf statues. Both beheaded.

She's spent all this time punishing him further.

He never went to visit her? I wouldn't either. I could not blame him.

This has gone to an angry place. So let's conclude with what is, I think, the entire point.

Grace.

"I lied. I betrayed you."

"I forgive you."

Has anyone--anyone--in all his long life, ever said those words to him?

I'll say that again: has anyone--ANYONE--in all his millennia of existence, EVER said those words to him?

I forgive you.

Mythal certainly didn't.

The world certainly didn't.

He has shouldered all the blame of an entire pantheon, a war that broke the world, a blight, everything, always, and while people have come alongside him to help him, I am not sure anyone (certainly not anyone he cares about) has given him the grace of forgiveness.

The beauty of this final scene for me wasn't just Ilaana, wasn't just Ilaana reuniting with the man she has loved for a decade who has spent all that time pushing her away so he couldn't--in his mind--inevitably poison the love of the only person who has seen his spirit and cherished it without twisting him.

It was the slow realisation that Rook trusted his love enough to try.

It was Morrigan, who carries all Mythal's memories and her own of Flemythal's abuse and machinations, who responds to Rook's question about her views of Solas with: "Or do you mean to discover if I would stand directly against the Dread Wolf, were there a need? I shall aid you in any way but that. What has passed between Solas and Mythal...I beg you: do not ask this of me again."

Morrigan knows. She will not raise a hand against him. She will not try to stop him. She will let the veil fall. She will not fight with Rook. Because she knows this being whose memories she holds has harmed him enough.

Solas, in these final moments, even before Mythal shows up to gut punch him, realises all these people have somehow, somehow, banded together to help him.

Not work for him.

Not be his agents.

Not worship him.

Not follow him blindly.

To help him. To help Solas. To help him, after all this time, take the first steps towards himself. Towards his own essence, so long twisted into something he never sought or wanted.

The Inquisitor and Morrigan certainly understand what it's like to be seen only as the symbol others raise in your image. Rook will learn that someday, but is still naive.

But even with that naivete, willing. Present. Able to put aside being a chess piece on his board. Able to see that they would never have succeeded without his help. Able to trust two people who know him better than they ever will.

Able to offer him grace.

And when they produce Mythal's essence, how that must brutalise him; to think that perhaps all this has been to let his abuser kill him back. He clearly thinks that's what's happening. He breaks. He fawns. He offers her the blade that has caused so much pain.

Her release of him is the bare minimum she owes him. I've already railed about that.

What is transcendent here, transformative--it is the mortals.

The mortals offering grace to a god who never wanted to be a god.

It's them together showing him a way out of an endless cycle of trauma and abuse. No one of them alone is enough. Without Rook, they wouldn't have Mythal's essence; Morrigan can't go get it, and she can't do what is needed because she's not actually Mythal, only has her memories. Without Morrigan, who can stand there with those memories but from the compassionate perspective of someone who has watched them in horror from the outside. She's far from objective, but she can do this one thing to help.

Without the Inquisitor (romanced or not, still someone he let know him as he most desperately wanted to be known--the Fade-walker, the Dreamer, the humble mage who desperately needed a friend). The Inquisitor, who kneels before him to comfort him. Who sees his hurt and responds.

If romanced, without Lavellan, who kneels to repeat back words he once shouted at the Nightmare in the Fade after Adamant.

"Dirth ma, harellan. Ma banal enasalin. Mar solas ema mar din." (Speak, traitor. Your victory was fruitless. Your pride gives way only to your death.)

To which Solas replied, "Banal nadas."

On the surface, nothing is inevitable, but can also be taken to mean that nothingness is inevitable, entropy, the final void. (Thanks to Dumped, Drunk, and Dalish for this excellent long post on this scene.)

And here is Lavellan, kneeling beside him with those words. "Banal nadas ar lath, ma vhenan."

Nothing is inevitable but the love we share, my heart.

I see everything you are, all you have done, and I love you. I forgive you for the pain you have caused me. I understand, see, and forgive.

No one has ever shown him grace like this.

Ever.

And Solas, this shattered man, sobs.

He sobs.

Someone has taken the trouble to isolate his voice in the video. This man has nothing left. And, after millennia of this trauma cycle repeating over and over, he is finally free to make the choice he wants to make. It's not the outcome he wants; that has to be said. He doesn't want to leave the veil up. He doesn't want to be bound into prison forever with no hope of seeing the world he fought for ever return.

But he is done.

In the Fade after Adamant, there is a cemetery with the worst fears of every companion scriven on shrines and stones. Solas's is dying alone.

After all of this, he is willing to face just that--and would, if not for her.

She knows his deepest fears. She has faced the demon Mythal made of the man she loves. She has given unwitting comfort to the spirit of Wisdom still within. She has seen his sweetest self. Nurtured him, cherished him, and has been nurtured and cherished in return.

Does she want to leave the world behind and spend eternity in a Fade prison? Probably not her first choice. It's not my Ilaana's; she has been on his side all this time, dreaming of a world where the spirits she loves can be reunited with the world in peace and ready to make that happen.

But it was not supposed to happen this way. It did happen this way anyway.

He has sacrificed everything--everything--including his own spirit self, his soul, his life. How could she not offer him what no one ever has? A friend forever, a lover willing to walk the din'an shiral by his side, a companion to ward off the forever alone.

Together, the two of them can begin to heal, with their counterpart who has always seen through the burdens of the world to the soul within.

This is the only thing I've ever had any faith in. Grace I know you carry us Grace And it was such a mess Grace I don't say it enough Grace You are so loved

#solavellan #a solavellan heart beats in my chest #bellanaris #solas x lavellan #solas x inquisitor #solas romance #veilguard spoilers #da4 spoilers #datv spoilers #fen'harel #solas x female lavellan #ilaana lavellan x solas #these two are my everything forever #breaking trauma cycles

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