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eoieopda · 1 month ago

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triple-dog dare | lsm

“Bambi.”

The sternness of his tone surprised both of you, so much so that when you snapped to look at him, both of you froze. Your moon-sized eyes were further proof that your childhood nickname still rings true to date, although your being the deer made him the oncoming car in this scenario.

He didn’t love that analogy.

Recovering quickly, he pulled the Ace from his sleeve: the surefire way for one of you to get the other onboard:

“I triple-dog dare you to come with me.”

pairing: lee seokmin x reader summary: when you're left off the guest list to seokmin's parent's thirtieth anniversary party, you're content to keep your questions to yourself and stay home. seokmin, on the other hand, is not content. in fact, he pulls the one card he knows will always win. au: childhood best friends to lovers genre: fluff, angst, smut type: one-shot rating: 18+ only. minors do not have my consent to interact. wc: 13k cw: pov switches, complicated sibling dynamics (seokmin’s), there is in fact one (1) bed, halmonis gone wild, stupid childhood nicknames, fingering (v), oral sex (m receiving), multiple orgasms, implied penetrative sex (p in v). reader notes: afab, uses she/her pronouns, wears a dress/heels to the party, is implicitly an only child. the setting is intentionally ambiguous, so she's not implicitly korean and/or asian. there are no descriptions of body shape/size, complexion, etc. a/n: thank you to the incomparable @daechwitatamic for beta-ing this! it's been a long damn time since i've written anything, so this might not have seen the light of day without jo, the hype-man. on that note, i suck at summaries; just read the fic, lmao. svt masterlist. svt permanent taglist. multi permanent taglist.

For being the walking disaster that he is, there have been shockingly few moments in Lee Seokmin’s life where he’s needed to shove his oversized foot into his oversized mouth.

Prior to the incident at your apartment, the last time he’d embarrassed himself like this was when he’d asked his oldest sister, Soyeon, in earnest whether or not she was pregnant, only to learn that she was just bloated; and he’s just an ass.

To your credit, you’re far from cruel when he slips up, but that almost makes it worse. You visibly deflate when he asks his well-intentioned but ill-fated question, rather than letting him have it the way his two siblings would have done.

The day in question went like this:

He asked, “Did you reserve your room yet for the 31st? If not, we can double up. It’ll be a lot cheaper.”

And you blinked, stunned like you’d been slapped. “Have I what?”

It dawned on you both at that moment that, for whatever reason, his parents’ thirtieth anniversary party was in fact news to you. Two things then happened at once: you tried to hide your surprise and the twinge of pain that comes with being excluded; and he racked his stupid brain to find any explanation for why you had to feel either one of those things.

The best option he found was to gently toss his middle sister, Seonmi, under the metaphorical bus.

“Seonmi’s been working on something special for them. You know how she gets,” he waved dismissively. “So obsessed with finding the perfect napkins — ” He wiggled his fingers for emphasis. “— and creating custom cocktails, that she misses the forest for the trees.”

You didn’t look convinced. Likewise, you didn’t look any less uncomfortable.

Fuck.

“I’m sure it was an honest mistake.” To drive his point home, he reached from his spot on your couch to give your knee a reassuring squeeze. “I have a plus-one, so it’s not like it’ll be a logistical problem. You belong there as much as we do.”

And he meant it, wholeheartedly.

All his life, the running joke has been that Soonyi and Minseok Lee have four kids: two biological daughters, a younger son, and his otherwise unrelated twin, who spent more time sleeping on his top bunk than in her own home next door.

The way he saw it — and the way he’s sure his parents would see it — is that no family gathering is complete without you. That’s a hill he’d die on if need be.

You shifted in your seat, which caused his hand to slip off your knee, whether or not you meant for it to happen. Glancing uneasily out your window, you worried your bottom lip between your teeth, mumbling, “I don’t know…”

Seokmin frowned. You didn’t see it, though, and therefore weren’t moved by it. Instead, you cycled through your anxious thoughts at high velocity. If he was still touching you, he’d be worried that your sparking brain might catch him on fire.

“What if it’s not a mistake? I mean, what if it’s a couples thing?”

He couldn’t even classify these questions as rhetorical because he wasn’t meant to hear them in the first place. Though you asked out loud, each one of them was for your ears only. From his half of the couch — miles away — his frown deepened, unbeknownst to you.

“You know, Seonmi follows me on Instagram; she’d know that Kai and I broke up a few months ago. Maybe she doesn’t want me to feel awkward? Even if I went, and I didn’t feel weird about that, her expecting it to be weird might make it weird, right?”

Fuck.

You’d spiral all day if Seokmin didn’t stop you. As much as he loves how thoughtful you are, he knows better than most that you have a tendency to take it too far, inflicting that relentless consideration on yourself until it wounds.

“Bambi.”

He didn’t love that analogy.

Recovering quickly, he pulled the Ace from his sleeve: the surefire way for one of you to get the other onboard:

“I triple-dog dare you to come with me.”

Begrudgingly, you’d conceded, just like Seokmin hoped you would. You sat with him while he figured out travel plans to the mountain resort, helped him visualize what the hell he needed to wear to an event like this. When the time came, you sent him half the cost for the room he booked, even though he repeatedly insisted that you didn’t need to chip in.

Now, that unsolicited sum sits untouched in his Venmo balance. You sit next to him on the night train out of town.

Sit, he thinks, is a bit of an understatement. You’re barely upright, so exhausted from your work day that his shoulder and side are bearing most of your weight. His arm went from tingling to numb an hour ago, but Seokmin doesn’t mind. There isn’t a burden he wouldn’t carry for you, up to and including you yourself.

Besides, he’s not worse off for being left to his own devices. In fact, he keeps himself thoroughly entertained by taking selfies of the pair of you. The aftermath will stay securely in his camera roll — largely because you’d kill him if you saw how squishy your face is, pressed against his coat, or how your little pout trembles slightly, almost as if you’re trying to talk through your sleep — but he still finds it worth the risk. This mochi-cheeked version of you is one of his favorites.

When Seokmin has amassed enough silly photos to comprise a dossier, he tucks his phone back into his pocket with a self-satisfied smile. You’re still out cold, so you don’t stir at his subtle movements or the sound of the concession trolley rattling your way down the aisle.

The girl manning said trolley is significantly outweighed by the thing itself. She hardly looks old enough to have graduated high school, he figures, and he can’t imagine how it is that she’s working at this hour — or how she got stuck doing this job, when it takes all she’s got to maneuver the giant metal contraption through all the train cars.

“Anything, sir?” She asks politely, albeit slightly out-of-breath.

Even though she’s speaking to him, her gaze is directed squarely at his hat, leading him to believe that she may also be too shy for her job. Nonetheless, it’s been two entire hours since his dinner, and he’s on the brink of starving to death, so he coughs up a few bills in exchange for several different snacks.

She could do him the kindness of assuming his massive pile of food is for sharing, but she doesn’t. She gestures to you and whispers, “Anything for your —?”

Seokmin intercepts the question, knowing exactly where it’s headed: in the same direction as the million others like it that he’s heard over the years.

“— parole officer?” He supplies with a smile, “No, this nap is fueled by a lot of crab rangoon. She’ll be out for the duration, I fear.”

Both halves of his response seem to stun her, which means he has to cover his inevitable laugh with a fake cough.

This bit of yours will truly never get old, although the implications that prompt it did a long time ago. It was a stroke of genius on your part, dodging inaccurate references to your relationship status by offering up something too absurd to converse around.

“You two make such a cute couple,” an Uber driver once told you.

“He’s not in a relationship,” you’d politely corrected him. “He’s in witness protection. I’m duty-bound to keep him and his identity safe.”

The silence turns awkward, so Seokmin thanks the girl and gives her a smile he hopes says, “you’re allowed to run away from me now; I won’t take it personally.” She bows her head a little too eagerly, then skitters off with a grimace, like she pulled something in her neck.

Alone again with you, he wiggles gently upright in his seat so that you can rest more comfortably against his pectoral, rather than his shoulder bone. Even though you’re still asleep, Seokmin swears he hears a quiet mmpfh, as if you’re expressing gratitude. He bites his lips to keep from smiling, knowing that smiling in your proximity is one step away from laughter: the only thing you’ve never been able to sleep through.

Instead of giving into the urge, he murmurs, “You should get paid royalties whenever we use that joke. Being as smart as you are should pay off.”

Now, he knows he’s not simply hearing things because you’re just barely loud enough to overcome your own mumbling.

“Agreed,” you sigh on an exhale before slipping to sleep off again.

“Well?”

There are two beats between his first question and his next: the unfilled gap you’ve left in the conversation and the cab’s trunk shutting firmly. “‘s that cool with you?”

Seokmin stares at you, staring at him. His expression is soft, like your lack of responsiveness is something to be fond of, rather than annoyed by. It’s unexpectant, too, leaving the door wide open.

You blink. “Sorry — I — What did you say?”

Hitting him when he least expects it, you shift your suitcase from your dominant hand so you can gesture properly to the bright, poorly crocheted bucket hat flopping over his forehead. “It’s a bit hard to hear you. That hat is so loud.”

His quizzically raised eyebrows drop in an instant. Likewise, that airy smile of his flattens into a straight line.

Bullseye.

“Is it me that you hate?” He asks, tone dead serious as he points his finger towards his own chest. “Or is it the very concept of whimsy?”

You’re too busy biting back a grin to protest when, without being asked, Seokmin reaches out and takes the handle of your suitcase into his own hand, as well as the garment bag you’d draped over your arm. Before turning away to abscond with both sets of luggage in addition to his own, he shoots you an incredulous look. It dissolves entirely before his face even disappears from view.

“This is an objectively delightful hat,” he mutters, nonetheless, in furtherance of the bit.

He spots a member of hotel staff standing on the sidewalk directly outside the hotel’s double doors and pleads his case to them. “She made me this hat, you know,” he announces, gesturing back to you with a nod.

The valet’s uniform hat casts a shadow under the lamplight, but it doesn’t do enough to hide the expression on their face. It is abundantly clear — even in the dark — that they didn’t hear a single word Seokmin said before he offered up that bit of trivia, seemingly apropos of nothing. They muster up a customer-service smile that doesn’t reach their eyes and tell him it’s a wonderful hat. Meanwhile, you roll your eyes from behind because nothing either of them just said is true.

That hat is the byproduct of delusions of grandeur and innumerable skeins of color-conflicting yarn. You made it for yourself, believing that you were the kind of cute and kitschy person who could pull it off; and inconsolable weeping Christ, were you wrong. It was — no, is — your greatest fiber arts failure.

Frankenstein’s floral monster would be in a secondhand shop somewhere if you’d had any say in the matter. It isn’t because you didn’t. Seokmin “rescued” it from the “to donate” pile on your bedroom floor. Since then, he’s worn it at every — public — opportunity, season be damned.

Admittedly, he’s exactly the kind of cute and kitschy person who can pull it off, but you’ve decided out of sheer pettiness to keep that appraisal to yourself.

You take your time catching up to him, both because his long legs make it hard to keep pace; and because the room is reserved under his name. After all, he’s the welcomed guest, not the reluctant party-crasher. The receptionist is already handing him a white keycard when you finally reach the desk. Seokmin holds it up between his index and middle fingers, closed-eye grin sparkling in a matching shade of ivory.

Though the journey up to your shared room is long, the real trip is being confined to an elevator with mirrors for walls.

No matter how hard you try to avert your eyes, you manage to keep finding some new, horrible angle of your stale, post-train state. It’s torture. Three versions of you stare back with deep, dark undereye circles; and all you can think about is how dull your complexion is — especially in comparison to Seokmin, who may as well be bioluminescent with the way he glows from the inside out.

It’s joy, you know, his primary state of being and something he radiates like no other. He’s happy to be here, happy that you’re here, and happy to be happy. Whether or not he means it to be, it’s infectious. Now, you feel yourself starting to smile, too.

Despite your quiet observation, you must have missed him looking at you. Seemingly out of nowhere, he carefully sets down your belongings, raises his now-empty hand, and cups the right side of your jaw. Unaware that you’ve frozen solid, he swipes his thumb carefully over your cheek, tilting his own head to the side and frowning.

“I got you bad, huh?”

You blink.

“The zipper on my coat,” he explains, laughing. “Looks like it took a bite out of you when you used me as a pillow on the train.”

For reasons you can’t possibly explain, the only word to roll off your tongue is a sheepish, “Sorry.”

For a second, Seokmin is just as confused as you are about whether you’re needlessly apologizing to him or his coat. He chuckles quietly at how easily distracted you both are, then he gets back to the point: “Does it hurt?”

“No.”

Your response comes unnaturally quick. Your pulse does, too, when you finally make eye contact with him. After clearing your throat, you give him a half-hearted smile, ignoring whatever medical event you seem to be experiencing. “I didn’t know it was there until now.”

He hums in acknowledgment, then rescinds his hand. You watch in silence while he re-encumbers himself with your luggage and turns back to face the elevator doors, which open almost immediately.

Seokmin steps out easily, like the weight of your respective burdens doesn’t mean a thing. “I’d say this way, please, but I’ve already forgotten the room number,” he admits with a sheepish laugh. “The keycard’s in my pocket.”

You take his cue and reach into the front, right pocket of his coat for the keycard. As soon as you see the room number, you snort.

“You booked room number 218 because that’s your birthday, and then… what? You forgot your own birthday?”

“I’m deeply flawed.” He sighs, put-upon. “Now, let’s go, Bambi. It feels like you packed a week’s worth of bricks.”

There’s no time to point out that you never asked him to carry your suitcase or bag for you in the first place. Likewise, there’s no opportunity to ask exactly how many bricks is a week’s worth. He’s on the move again before you can blink, energy evident in each step regardless of how late it is.

Once again, you follow Seokmin’s lead. Despite the signage, which is clearly visible on the wall, he walks confidently in the wrong direction, prompting you to grab him gently by the elbow and steer him the opposite way. His smile doesn’t falter; he plays it off as if he was just testing how closely you’re paying attention.

It takes several turns down several additional hallways before the pair of you reach your target. When you come to room 218, you tap the keycard against the reader, causing the lock to click open. You turn the handle, push the door open into the room, and step awkwardly out of the way so your personal bellhop can get by.

“This is what I was trying to tell you when you so viciously insulted my favorite accessory.” Seokmin nods his head towards the center of the room. “All of the rooms Seonmi included in the reservation block have a king-sized bed — singular. The rooms outside the block are criminally overpriced for ski season.”

It’s far from the first time you’ve doubled up, so you shrug. “Just like old times, right? Like, when you thought your house was haunted, and you forced your way into the top bunk with me?”

“First of all,” he says as he sets both of your suitcases down and places one hand on his hip, the other pointing at you. “We were six.”

After locking the door behind you, you toe off your shoes, smirking at him from over your shoulder. “What’s your second point?”

“It was haunted —” He insists. Then his stern expression melts into something smug, the way it always does when he’s about to blatantly rewrite history. “— and you asked me to come up there because you were scared.”

A laugh slips out of you automatically, but you selflessly decide to let him have this. Crossing to him, you pat him on the bicep, patronizingly simpering all the while, “You are the brave one.”

Even though you’re both cowards, and he knows it, he pockets this little victory with a pleased hum and a grin.

Turning away from him, you make a beeline for the closet area near the door. There, you shuck off your coat and hang it up, out of the way. While you do, Seokmin passes you both your garment bag and his. From there, the pair of you work in efficient silence: you, pulling your respective formal wear from their bags and smoothing out any wrinkles; him, tucking away your extensive collection of toiletries in the bathroom.

When everything is in its place, you turn back around and notice for the first time how beautiful the room actually is. Though the shades of the floor-to-ceiling windows are almost completely drawn, the snow-covered mountains are at least partially visible through the gap in fabric. If you had the time, you’d spend all day tomorrow sitting on the forest green, velvet chaise directly in front of the window, staring at frosty peaks so massive, they feel close enough to touch.

To your right, an electric fireplace heats the room, while a portrait-framed television hovers on the wall above the mantle, flipping through famous artworks as a screensaver. In between flashes of Van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms and Klimt’s The Kiss, you catch a glimpse of Seokmin’s smile reflecting on the black screen.

Awestruck, you turn to him and sigh, “Don’t let me get used to this.”

He jerks his thumb to his right, gesturing towards the bathroom. “Don’t judge me if I steal one of the bathrobes. They’re probably more expensive than half the shit in my apartment.”

“I won’t, but they’ll bill you for it when they figure it out,” you warn him. “On that note, do you need to shower or anything before I start my skincare side quest?”

Seokmin shakes his head, causing the crocheted abomination to flop. “All yours. My hair’ll get weird if I don’t deal with it tomorrow before we head out.”

And with that mental image of his insurmountable cowlick, you quickly grab your pajamas and shuffle off towards the bathroom.

The first few seconds after you close the door are spent gawking at the insanely intricate, geometric tile pattern in the walk-in shower. Thinking of how much time it must’ve taken to lay each one of them, you set to work on your own tedious task: your ten-step regimen of cleansers, toners, serums, and moisturizers. Seokmin says otherwise, but you don’t think any of them truly make a difference. As stupid as you know it is, the routine itself is therapeutic, even if your skin is no more bouncy and glowy than it was before.

When it’s all said and done, you emerge from the bathroom to find your best friend stretched out on the half of the bed nearest the door with his eyes fixed on his phone screen. It’s the side of the room he always chooses, claiming that it’s to protect you from any intruders, but you know the truth: he’s too much of a freeze baby to sleep near the window, and he knows you like it cold.

“Feeling refreshed?” He mumbles to the best of his ability; his sweatshirt hood is pulled up and drawn so tightly that it squishes his cheeks and chin, restricting his movement.

Chuckling quietly as you go, you pad over to your half of the bed and slip under the comforter. Like a moth to a flame, the other occupant sends his last text, tosses his phone to the side, and scoots closer to you, eager to siphon whatever extra body heat he can. His head winds up on your shoulder, while your cheek rests against the top of his head.

“Before you tell me that I look it, I’d encourage you to stare long into the abyss that is my under-eye circles.”

When he laughs, it’s merely a puff of air from his nose. “You never look as tired as you feel,” he says distractedly, fiddling with the drawstrings of his hoodie. “Pretty miraculous, given how little sleep you get.”

That comment warms you up so thoroughly, you wonder if he can feel it. Then, you wonder if that was the point. You intend to tease him for that, but then it dawns on you how fidgety he’s being. It’s rare for him.

“You okay, Thumper?”

It feels silly, using that nickname after so long. Your clumsiness stuck around for the ride, continuing Bambi into perpetuity; but he grew out of his companion name when he hit puberty, and his giant feet were suddenly proportional to the rest of him.

He’s certainly no bunny, nor is he a child, but the low ebb of anxiety rolling off of him reminds you of the scared little neighbor boy you used to know. It fits, even if it is silly.

At first, Seokmin begins his explanation without peeling his gaze off his restless fingers. “Apparently, Seungcheol and Mingyu are in town.” Then, his eyes slowly lift up to find you peering down at him. “They want to meet up to go snowboarding before we leave.”

Ah.

There it is: the top-secret look in his eye that only you can decipher. The one he’s been practicing for years, at your insistence, for moments like this, when he needs to be talked into something. When he needs to be brave and avoid missing out on something he’d love, solely because it freaks him out.

You respond the same way you always have; the way you once pinky-promised you always would: “I triple-dog dare you.”

He sighs deeply, neither fully resigned nor relieved, but then he nods. His head knocks slightly against your shoulder as he does. “I’ll do it.”

And that’s that; it’s settled.

Or so you think.

A beat passes in silence, until Seokmin suddenly pipes up again, “But you’re going to have to hold my hand on the chair lift, or I’ll pass out and fall to my death.”

“Deal.”

You grab his hand now in consideration of your promise and scratch affectionately at his palm. Surprisingly, his thoughts haven’t made him clammy. His skin is even softer than usual, likely due to the expensive hotel lotion he’s undoubtedly now harboring in his suitcase. Tongue firmly in cheek, you look at him sideways.

“Just — leave the hat in your suitcase, okay? The snow will be blinding enough.”

Seokmin’s been dressed and ready for at least thirty minutes, but you’re still standing exactly where you have been for the last forty-five. Face pinched, you turn this way and that in front of the mirror, smoothing fabric that’s already wrinkle-free, apparently for the hell of it.

“I’m oh-for-three.” Your exasperated sigh is punctuated by your bare, right foot stomping on the carpet. It doesn’t make the impact you likely hope it will, at least sonically. It does, however, speak volumes about how close to the ledge you are.

“All of them looked good,” he says earnestly. “I think this one is my favorite, though, if that means anything.”

Apparently, this is the wrong answer. Your wild-eyed gaze lifts from your own reflection until you’re staring him dead in the eye through the mirror.

“Why did I even pack this?” You ask, “Do you see this?”

Suddenly, you lift a manicured hand to point at your neckline, from which he’d admittedly been averting his eyes. “This is too much cleavage for a family function, isn’t it?”

As quickly as you glanced at him in the first place, you go right back to fussing with your dress, thankfully missing the way he swallows thickly.

Fuck, now he’s staring — but you’re the one that made him look in the first place — and he can feel heat rising to his ears, a dead giveaway. His sudden silence does enough to communicate his struggle. He has no idea how to respond without vaulting over the boundaries of your friendship.

Is it hot in here?

Deciding to rely on his usual tactic, he jokes his way out.

“If you think I’ll ever side against tiddie…” He forces a grimace, shaking his head gravely. “Then you really don’t know me at all.”

You laugh loudly, and whatever one-sided tension filled the room snaps like a twig. Better still, the smile you give him stays on your face while you reassess your dress. Seokmin takes it as a personal victory that you commit to his choice, rather than cycle back through your options for the second time.

While this means that you’ll both be able to hit the open bar sooner rather than later, the biggest upside is that he no longer has to keep excusing himself to the bathroom so you can change again, and again, and again.

You finish up quickly, tossing on jewelry, and then turn to him. His shoulder keeps you steady while you slip into your devilishly high heels. Seokmin pays them little mind now, however; his attention is drawn to the accessories you’ve chosen. Sure, they match perfectly with the rest of your outfit, but that’s not what strikes him. It’s the fact that everything you’ve picked was gifted to you by his parents at one point or another.

Unable to stop himself, he reaches out and gently taps on one of your dangling earrings. “Eighteenth birthday,” he muses to himself.

Then, both his gaze and his hand lower to your necklace. He skims his fingertip along the delicate, gold chain, inadvertently making you freeze up. “Christmas 2019?”

You shake your head slightly, though it barely counts as movement.

“Ah,” Seokmin corrects himself. “2020.”

Sensing that he’s somehow made you uncomfortable, he reels himself back in and clears his throat. “Shall we?” He asks, furnishing you with a bent arm to loop yours through.

You take his cue, link your arm to his, and sigh, “I suppose we shall.”

The walk to the elevator is quiet, in that neither one of you says a thing. Seokmin can hear the gears in your head turning, though, without any conversation to drown them out.

You step inside that glorified, mirrored box; and for a few minutes, he lets you work through the thing he knows ruined your sleep last night. That is, until he hears your breathing come a little quicker than usual.

“Hey.”

It was supposed to be a jumping off point. He was going to go from there and reiterate that you belong here with him. The plan was to reassure you for as long as it takes to get you to believe it, but you look up at him almost helplessly, and his Etch-a-Sketch brain is wiped clean in an instant.

The very best he can do is smile and offer a single word: “Hi.”

“Hi,” you whisper back, eyes twinkling.

Your plagued frown curves slightly back in the right direction. The creeping shroud of doom lightens, if only a little bit.

“That’ll do, pig.” You swat his arm, but he says it again, emphatically, “That’ll do.”

Halfway through you scolding him for quoting Babe at a time like this, the elevator door reopens, ready to regurgitate the pair of you out onto the ballroom level.

Unlike the lobby, which sits only one floor below, this floor looks like it was ripped straight from the pages of a fantasy novel. Everywhere he turns, there’s something new — and vaguely elven — to look at. Fairy lights hang in perfectly spaced arches from the lofted ceiling, delicately illuminating the exposed, wooden beams above. The chandeliers — plural — are crafted out of antlers of some kind, cutting between rugged and highly refined.

As stunning as it all is, Seokmin’s mind snags on a single conclusion. You’re the one who voices it, though, much to his surprise.

“This is the most Seonmi thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” you whisper to him, all without taking your eyes off the extravagance in front of you. “Is this a dress rehearsal for her wedding next year?”

He bites down on his lips hard to keep his laughter to himself. Of course, you’re dead on. Nothing about this space feels like his parents, who are supposed to be the sole focus of this entire event. He already found it odd that they agreed to such a big to-do in the first place — especially when it would require their loved ones to go out of their way, literally and financially — but this is….

“Am I being petty, or is this kind of… selfish?”

Petty, no.

Psychic? Probably.

“You’re right, and you should say it.” Seokmin nods and withdraws his arm from yours so that he can drape it properly around your shoulder. “This way to the beer, please. We’ll need it.”

Merely four steps in the direction to the bar, and a screech rings out from somewhere neither of you can locate. In fact, Seokmin’s head is turned the opposite way when someone launches themself at you, damn near ripping you from his hold.

“Oh, my god! I knew you’d come!”

Soyeon’s relief in seeing you is palpable. Seokmin can practically feel his bones being crushed as she hugs you tight, swaying from side to side. He catches a glimpse of your expression, which barely peeks through the curtain of his oldest sister’s hair; you’re far happier now than you were in the elevator.

His sister kisses the side of your head. “I missed you so fucking much. I love my residency program, but I hate how far away it keeps me.”

A solid minute passes by like this. When it starts to get unbearable, Seokmin clears his throat, hoping to remind his sister that she hasn’t seen him in months, either; and he’s also standing right here.

Instead of greeting him, Soyeon shoots you a wry smile. “Who is he today? A fugitive you’re harboring?”

In tandem, the two of you appraise him with thoughtfully narrowed eyes. See, this he didn’t miss: being both of his sisters’ least favorite younger sibling.

“Oh, no, though I can see why you think that.” You shake your head, then reach out to pat his shoulder patronizingly. “If anyone asks, this is a foreign diplomat, and I’m the interpreter he can’t understand a word without. Best not say hi to him; he won’t know what you’re saying.”

Soyeon nods, though Seokmin wonders if she truly gets what you’re trying to achieve. Not quite, he realizes a moment later. Instead, she covers his chin with her hand so she can squeeze both his cheeks at once.

“He’s adorable,” she coos. “Doesn’t look old enough or mature enough for diplomacy, though.”

Seokmin rolls his eyes. “Well, we can’t all be doctors, can we?”

Again, in tandem, all eyes on him widen with feigned shock. Between overlapping gasps of “he does understand!” and “someone’s been studying!”, he shakes off his sister’s touch and scowls.

“If you’re going to keep bullying me, can you at least do it at the bar? That way, I can numb my suffering with booze.”

At this, Soyeon drops the charade and pulls him into a hug like a vice grip. She holds him so tightly that his vision starts to get spotty. It’s not until he gently pats her back, begging for air, that she lets him go.

“I missed you too, Thumper,” she swears, prompting you to snicker.

Now, he’s annoyed for a completely different reason — one that makes even less sense to him. That nickname hasn’t bothered him in the last decade, so it shouldn’t now. Then again, the only person who’s called him Thumper since middle school is you.

The rules are different for you, if they exist at all.

“And I promise to catch up with you later, but I’ve got five thousand questions for Bambi, and the answers aren’t half as juicy with you around.”

Just like that, his plus-one is subtracted.

As much as you love Soyeon, she’s no Seokmin. With him, talking is easy; he never rushes to fill silences, doesn’t steer the conversation with a white-knuckled grip.

On the contrary, his oldest sister comes forward with a pickaxe, smashing through small talk while she mines for the wild stories she thinks she’s missed out on since moving away.

You don’t blame her, really. If you spent all your hours in a hospital, only sleeping in the lulls between other people’s trauma, you’d probably become just as intense — the human equivalent of a cracked-open fire hydrant — in the search for closeness, too.

In the thirty minutes you sit with her, you brief her on all the cliffhangers you’d left her with the last time you saw her.

Yes, you’re still stuck with your lease in the same apartment; and the old lady next door still regularly sets off the building’s fire alarm by accident.

No, you decided not to stay with Kai and haven’t spoken since the breakup; he needed more of your time and energy than you wanted to sacrifice for him.

No, Seokmin still hasn’t gone out with anyone that you know of in months. In fact, it’s been so long since either of you have touched on this topic, especially compared to how little time he and the last girl were together, that you can’t even remember her name.

Beyond that first, limited fact, you keep your mouth shut about the rest. It’s not your business to share; and it wouldn’t kill her to ask Seokmin about himself for once.

The longer you spend with her, the more frustrated you find yourself getting, although you keep this fact to yourself, too. Soyeon and Seonmi have both spent their lives fussing about Seokmin, talking about him like he’s some helpless baby, without doing much to get to know him.

That’s it.

If you were at all confident that Soyeon would take the initiative, you’d let her find all of this out on her own. She won’t, you know, but maybe it’ll sink in if she hears it from you.

“Seokmin’s doing really well, now that you mention it,” you offer, though she barely mentioned him in the first place. “He got promoted last month; he’s now lead architect on that massive commercial lot downtown. Apparently, it’s still a secret, whatever it is they’re putting there. Must be something special.”

Seokmin is something special, you all but yell inside your head.

Soyeon’s eyes brighten.

Nobody loves secrets quite like she does. You wait for the barrage, anticipating all the questions to which you’ll have to respond with “seriously, I don’t know,” but they don’t come.

Instead, she puts her drink back on its coaster, reaches out, and squeezes your wrist with her slightly chilled hand. “I’m grateful that he’s always had you, Bambi. If he didn’t, I don’t know if he’d lean in to opportunities like that.”

The look on her face tells you she means it. Maybe that’s what makes your stomach sour: that she can sit there, hearing of Seokmin’s accomplishments, and still find a way not to credit him for them.

Anger ignites inside of you. The flames lick up your esophagus, ready to explode, and you suck in a breath with every intention of letting her burn.

But then an arm slinks around your waist. Seokmin’s head bumps slightly against yours until you’re cheek to cheek.

“I hope I’m interrupting something.”

For a second, you think his slight tipsiness caused him to misspeak. Tilting your head to the side the best you can, you look at him out of the corner of your eye and catch his very subtle wink.

Soyeon opens her mouth, but Seokmin makes his wish a reality.

“Sorry, sis,” Seokmin says, entirely unapologetically. “I just found out that the band takes requests; and I’ll be goddamned if Bambi and I don’t show you clowns the meaning of dance.”

It takes no encouragement whatsoever for you to slip off your stool, get to your feet, and inch your way closer to his side. Then, like a starting gun was fired, the two of you bolt clumsily away from the bar, with you shouting “sorry!” over your shoulder as you go.

Your heels skid against the dance floor when you finally reach it, but Seokmin steadies you before you can eat shit in front of god and everyone.

“You’re way too expressive, you know that?” The fact that he’s out-of-breath doesn’t keep him from laughing. “I could’ve seen that grumpy turtle face of yours from space.”

Unintentionally, you prove his point, drawing your eyebrows together and frowning. “I do not —”

“— Also, I lied,” he interrupts yet again.

This, coupled with the everything else going on, leaves you too stunned to speak.

“This band is all trot, all the time. They don’t take requests — trust me, I tried — but if you stay here with me long enough, we can kill two birds with one stone.”

Seokmin doesn’t wait for you to answer because he knows it’s a yes. He doesn’t wait for you to assume your position, either, and instead holds your left hand in his right before placing your right on his left shoulder. This close, you feel the urge to tell him how handsome he looks with his hair parted off his forehead. You don’t, however.

The music swells behind you. Seokmin leads, and you follow, swaying slowly and moving across the floor.

“Two birds?” You remember to ask, one eyebrow arched.

His right arm lifts. “Spin,” he whispers. You step under his arm, then twirl. While you’re facing the opposite direction, he continues, “There. Do you see it?”

“Oh, my god.”

You do.

The bar stool you were just occupying is now filled by Seokmin’s great-uncle, Hajoon, while his new and much younger girlfriend, Yunhee, hovers near his shoulder. Even from this distance, you can see the look of abject distress on Soyeon’s face, totally unhidden by her attempt to seem engaged.

You return to your position in front of Seokmin, your hand accidentally landing on his bicep, rather than his shoulder. Flustered by the deceptive bulk there, you immediately scoot your palm back to where it belongs.

He leans in so that only you can hear him. It doesn’t feel necessary at all, given how loud the band’s horn section is, but you don’t recoil this time.

“They had me trapped over by the appetizers,” he explains, low voice making you shiver involuntarily. “Every time he started a story with when I was your age, I wanted to point out that Yunhee hadn’t been born yet.”

You can’t help the laugh that erupts out of you and therefore can’t pull your head away from Seokmin’s ear in time to save him. Instead of wincing or complaining, he looks at you and breaks into laughter of his own as soon as your eyes meet. The effect doubles, and before you know it, both of you are teary-eyed.

“How the hell did you get away from him?”

It’s a feat you've never once managed. Uncle Hajoon’s inability to read a room is equal parts due to his horrible hearing and his tendency to never stop talking. Even if he did leave space in the conversation for you to excuse yourself, you’d never successfully get the message across.

Seokmin lifts his arm again but not for you. He takes his leave to spin himself, simpering as he goes, “That’s where Yunhee came in handy, actually. I didn’t know she had it in her, but she’s not as much of a dud as we initially thought.”

“Oh?”

“She told him that I should be able to dance with my girlfriend, and he shouldn’t keep me any longer.” He shrugs. “It didn’t seem like the time to correct her.”

All the heat in your body goes straight to your cheeks. Nonetheless, you attribute it to the dancing and choke out, “No royalties for me, then.”

“Not this time.” Seokmin shakes his head. “I said that Soyeon was trying to catch up with everyone and would love to hear his stories.”

You bite back a grin. “You’re a bastard, you know that?”

“Maybe.” He smiles with every single one of his teeth. “But you’re free.”

“Surprisingly so. I haven’t felt the Eye of Sauron on me at all yet.” Just in case your statement serves as a jinx, you glance around the room for Seonmi. The tension you’ve been keeping in each one of your muscles slackens when, once again, your radar is blip-free.

“Dinner was supposed to start ten minutes ago. If I had to guess, she’s either leaving a scathing Yelp review or personally waterboarding the chef as we speak.”

“Both at the same time,” you counter, earning a wry smile. “She inherited your mom’s self-assuredness. If she believes she can, she will.”

After the pair of you dance through two more songs, the band breaks, and the hotel’s battalion of waiters come in, bearing domed, silver trays. Seokmin takes off in a hurry for your assigned table in the far corner of the ballroom, so famished that he barely remembers to tug you along behind him.

Through the meal and all its complimentary wine pairings, you do your best to focus on the conversation. Seokmin introduced you to the few people sitting with you that you haven’t had the occasion to meet yet. While he does what comes naturally to him, charming them with ease, you struggle for the first time to pay attention to him.

A few tables over, Seonmi sits down with her fiancé, joining the company of her parents; Soyeon and her date are there, too, leaving Seokmin out by design. Like an insane person, you can only watch her, rather than Seokmin’s blatant theft of bites from your plate. She laughs at whatever jokes her mother cracks, but you’d recognize that look of veiled angst anywhere. She isn’t happy, you realize. You can’t avoid the feeling that you’re the reason why she isn’t.

Time passes, somehow too quickly and too slowly. The plates are emptied, then cleared away by the wait staff — except for your half-empty glass, which is your third. Much like the other guests at your table, the joyful buzz you’d been feeling so far leaves, too.

All that’s left is you, Seokmin, and that ominous, storm cloud you can’t seem to shake.

“You’ll probably feel better if you talk to her.”

He’s always more observant than you give him credit for. You snap out of your zoned-out stare across the room in order to look at him. You frown. “I doubt it. She already looks pissed. Me parading my presence here despite her isn’t going to help anything.”

“Bambi,” Seokmin sighs, not impatient but gentle. “She’s not exactly warm, but she has always liked you. There’s literally no reason why she wouldn’t be happy to see you —”

You open your mouth to argue.

“— that happened over twenty years ago, and you really need to stop feeling guilty about it —”

You close your mouth, cross your arms self-consciously, and sink in your seat. Despite yourself, you glance over at him and catch the way he’s looking at you. He doesn’t need to say the words out loud for you to hear them.

It’s either the unspoken dare, his reassuring, soft-eyed smile, or all the blasted merlot that does you in. You’re not sure which of the three was the coup de grâce, and as you slink off towards her table, you realize it doesn’t matter. For one reason or another, you’ve decided that fear isn’t going to get the better of you this time.

Seonmi somehow senses you coming. Even without the band underscoring your movement, your timid steps across the mahogany parquet should’ve been impossible for anyone to pick up on.

Must be an older sister thing, you think, being doomed to keep a perpetual eye on others.

She doesn’t say anything when you slip into the chair next to her, which doesn’t bode well but isn’t a deal breaker, in and of itself. The important thing is that she doesn’t get up to leave. You tell yourself that this is a good sign. The knot in your stomach begs to differ, however.

Say something.

Say anything.

“Everything’s… lovely, Seonmi, seriously.” You gesture around you, smiling, but she only gives you a cursory look. “You’ve really outdone yourself with this one.”

Seonmi takes a sip of her cocktail — something bitter, the petty voice in your head assumes — and lets the corner of her mouth rise slightly. If it’s the closest thing you’ll get to a smile, you’ll take it. She hasn’t granted you a proper one in the decades since you got gum in her favorite Barbie’s hair.

“Thanks, kid,” she sighs, setting the drink back down on her personalized, cardboard coaster.

You can’t remember the last time she called you “Bambi”, let alone your real name. Just like Seokmin, you’ve always been a child to her. Apparently, you always will be, no matter what you do.

Her grip around the glass remains rigid, not unlike her overall posture. Condensation weeps under and around her manicured fingers, uninhibited. You watch those droplets soak through the coaster’s design, darkening her parents’ initials and wedding date, while you mull over whose turn it is to talk.

Ultimately, as is usually the case, Seonmi makes this decision for you. Without so much as a glance at you out of the corner of her eye, she muses, “It was a lot of work, getting all the details ironed out.”

You pick up on the subtext immediately. One of those details would’ve been the guest list; another, the invitations. Seokmin assumed it was all an accident and said as much to you no fewer than a hundred times, but this little comment from his sister blows his assurances to smithereens.

Your exclusion wasn’t an accident at all.

Suddenly, somehow, the room is twenty degrees colder. You shoot a panicked glance over to where Seokmin was just sitting, wanting nothing more than to slink back to his warmth with your tail between your legs; but he’s not where you left him. In fact, he’s nowhere to be found.

Fuck.

“Ah,” is the best you can do.

And then the two of you sit awkwardly in silence while the seconds age in dog years.

You should’ve brought a drink over with you so you’d have something to do with your hands. Or your phone — except you left it on its charger, you idiot — or a time machine, so you can revoke your bullshit decision to walk over here in the first —

“He deserves that, don’t you think?”

The combined suddenness of her voice and the switch in topics makes you jolt ever so slightly. You try to pass it off, to pretend that you’re simply adjusting the skirt of your dress, but your efforts go unnoticed. Seonmi is too busy pointing casually ahead, drawing your focus to the center of the dance floor.

Like absolutely no one else is watching, Mr. Lee twirls around his laughing wife, his heart-shaped smile beaming so brightly that it almost hurts your eyes. The love of his life has to hold one of her hands over her mouth to keep her laughter from bursting out; the other hand is raised with the rest of that arm, allowing her husband to spin himself underneath. When he’s halfway through, she surprises him, drops her arm down, and embraces him fully, giggling all the while.

It almost makes you tear up — Mr. Lee’s unabashed, silly love, and how much it reminds you of his spitting-image of a son; the way Seokmin’s mother’s eyes sparkle in the same blissful, radiant way his do. Maybe the same can’t be said for his older sisters, but it’s abundantly clear where Seokmin came from. It’s even clearer where he should end up.

“Yes,” you breathe, and it almost sounds like a laugh because of course, he does. Before you can stop yourself, you ask, “Is that really a question?”

No, you realize too late, it’s bait.

Without batting an eye, she counters, “Is it really so hard for you to let him have that?”

Seonmi turns her head to look you dead in the eye. Confusingly, despite her words, there’s nothing in her tone or gaze that reads like malice. If anything, the slight furrow of her brow shouts concern.

Your mind is spinning too fast to keep up with. Whatever her next move is, you’re too dizzy now to see it coming and too disoriented to follow it. With the knot in your stomach tightening further, you stammer, “Is — what?”

“God,” Seonmi drops her face into her hands. “You don’t get it, do you?”

A fish on dry land, all you seem to know how to do is open and close your mouth. You may not be literally flailing, but with the state your mind is in, you may as well start.

“Seokmin loves love.”

She says each of these words slowly, like she’s trying to hammer each nail through a thick skull.

“It’s the one thing he’s wanted most since he was a kid, yet I can count on one hand the number of short-term relationships he’s been in. He doesn’t ever bring anyone home to meet us; he doesn’t bring anyone to weddings, or parties, or holidays; he just brings you.”

Of course, you’ve been right there through all of his situationships. He’s always scant on details when they end — and you’ve never pressed for any — but you know better than anyone that nothing has stuck long-term.

You’ve never thought about how odd this really is, but with Seonmi spelling it out for you now, you can’t come up with a single, good reason why someone as objectively incredible as Seokmin can’t make these things work — or why, even as you rack your brain, the only constant you can find in his life is you.

She glares now, as if she’s daring you to speak; as if you’ve got anything she’d deem worth adding. The bulldozer revs up again, whether you’re ready or not: “You’ve always been the only person he saves space for, whether or not there’s a place for you, and he has no room left in his life for someone to love him like that —”

Seonmi points again to her parents, who are circling slowly on the dance floor, talking softly to one another.

“So, what is it? Do you truly not see what he’s missing, or are you choosing not to because you like his attention?”

Your eyes burn with tears, but you can’t let them fall, and you can’t wrap your head around why that is.

Who are you hiding them from: Seonmi or yourself?

The longer she stares at you, the muddier it gets. You don’t want her to be right. You don’t want to be the kind of person she’s describing; but there’s something awful whispering in the back of your mind, saying that you might be.

You’ve left every relationship you’ve been in, telling everyone who asks in the aftermath that you like being on your own better. But that’s bullshit. It’s not your own company that you keep when you’re single; it Seokmin’s.

He makes sure that you never spend a day feeling alone, that he’s always available over the phone in the rare times he’s not physically with you. As his best friend, he treats you better than every single one of your exes ever has. Like you’re worth more than anyone else will credit you.

What kind of friend are you if you feel relieved whenever his relationships expire?

Seonmi’s hand drops, landing half-heartedly clenched on the tabletop. Just the same, her voice drops until it’s almost a whisper.

“I am begging you,” she pleads, eyes narrowing desperately as they search yours. “If you don’t want him, someone else will. Please just — get the hell out of their way.”

By the time you reach the elevator, all you’re left with is a blur. You’ve already forgotten how the conversation ended, or which one of you was the first to get up. If she said anything else to you, it was drowned out by your own hammering pulse and a looping chorus of voices validating your biggest fear, stating in no uncertain terms that you don’t belong.

You’re shaking when you reach your floor. Heels clicking under unsteady footsteps, you make for room 218; and as you go, you shove your hand into the well-concealed pocket of your dress for the keycard Seokmin forgot to grab himself on the way out earlier.

He’s certainly not in the room when you finally step inside, although you have no clue where he’s gone. It’s for the best. The door closes behind you, and with no one to see it happen, you burst into tears.

All rational thought flies out the window, shaken off by the tornado of utter confusion tearing through your brain. You grab your suitcase, needing nothing more than to be anywhere else, and begin haphazardly throwing your things back inside of it.

Why did you still come with him, knowing it wouldn’t end well? It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve told him no; he would’ve listened if you truly meant it.

If you didn’t mean it when you initially tried to squirrel your way out of this, why not? Was it just your friend asking sincerely that won you over without a fight; or was it because you knew, deep down, it’d hurt to see him bring someone else?

Why would it hurt?

The answer to that will crack the foundation of everything the two of you have built, but only if you admit it to yourself. It can’t threaten you if you don’t say it out loud, don’t make it real.

So, you won’t.

You’ll bury it deeply enough to forget about, repour the concrete, and tiptoe through the rest of your life with your best friend still at your side.

That is, if your friendship survives the weekend — rather, your sudden departure from it — at all.

“Halmoni, it’s time to go back to your hotel, okay?”

He coos this, as if he’s pleading with a toddler at bedtime, because that’s exactly what it feels like to wrangle the drunk, 80-year-old clinging to his arm.

Physically, she needs to hold onto Seokmin to keep herself steady. Mentally, she’s ready to run and has made several attempts to do just that when she thinks his guard is down. It’s no wonder the hotel staff cornered him and begged him for help; she’s too wily for those who don’t know her.

The manager had at least done him the courtesy of hailing a cab. It sits out front, warm and waiting, while he shepherds his grandmother through the lobby.

“— and another thing!” She slurs.

There is never not another thing. She shouldn’t bother concluding her sentences in the first place; she’s never done talking.

“I told your sister — I said, Sunny —”

Seonmi, he dares to presume, although he doesn’t dare to correct her.

“— you can’t have stuff like this —” She gestures animatedly, albeit vaguely around her. “— in places like this and expect retirees to pay for it! I said — oh, what did I say? — Ah, I said, ‘find me the cheapest motel in the area, or I’ll be staying in your room with you’ —”

Her kitten heels hit the brick outside with an angry thwump.

Seokmin can’t help himself. “She didn’t go for that?”

“No!” His grandmother squawks.

The driver sees the ball of a woman wobbling his way and quickly exits the cab, skirts around it, and flings the back door open for her.

“I can’t imagine why, halmoni,” he lies through his teeth, which shine down on her in his best, least sincere smile. “You’re a blast in a glass.”

She roars with laughter, even while two grown adults work together to pour her into the backseat without bumping her head on the doorframe. “Glast in a blass!”

“Exactly. Can you —?”

He gives up before he finishes voicing his request; it’s no use. Instead, he bends down to hug her and finagles the buckle of her seatbelt while she’s too distracted to fight him off. That click is the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard, after the clunk of the door shutting her in.

By the time Seokmin turns to the cab driver, his grandmother is fully slumped in her seat, pilled peacoat rising and falling with every wine-laced breath.

“I am so sorry.” He sighs, which devolves into a sheepish laugh, and fishes all of the cash out of his pocket. No tip could possibly cover the emotional toll of this ordeal, so he does his best and gives the driver everything he has.

The driver’s eyes widen. Seokmin gets the impression that he doesn’t quite understand the task he’s undertaking.

Poor bastard.

Seokmin continues, “My grandfather is at the inn already; he didn’t feel well enough to come here, but he’ll be ready to get her inside once you drop her off.”

“Sounds easy enough.” The driver smiles and holds out his hand to shake.

Seokmin reciprocates, and he declines to explain just how wrong that assessment is. He thanks the man and chirps a quick goodbye to his grandmother before rushing back inside.

Walking into the ballroom, he hopes to find you and Seonmi laughing about whatever misunderstanding had gotten in your way before. At the very least, he expects you to still be sitting next to each other at the same table. That would be good enough, he thinks; he could assist in repairing the situation from there.

The problem, it seems, is beyond his help. Neither one of you occupies the same table. If his quick scan tells him anything, you’re not even in the same room.

No matter which way he turns, he can’t spot you. His sister, on the other hand, is near the far corner, having what looks like a nightmarish conversation with their parents. There are approximately five billion things Seokmin would rather do than get in the middle of that, but you don’t have your phone on you, and he has no other way to find out where you went.

Above the heads of the two women, Seokmin’s father catches sight of his approach. They lock eyes; there’s something insane in his father’s gaze. The older man shakes his head, mouthing “no.”

Seokmin stops short, raises his hands with the palms up to get across his confusion, and mouths back, “Bambi?”

In response, his father extends a single finger and points upwards. He then makes a shooing motion with his hand. His wife and daughter are so engrossed in their argument that neither of them catches the pantomime or Seokmin’s quick exit, back the way he came.

On the elevator ride upstairs, Seokmin worries. The most likely explanation is that you went to find your phone so that you could find him – but you haven’t texted or called him in the time he’s been looking for you, so he supposes it isn’t likely after all.

Maybe, he thinks, the wine caught up to you. You’re not as strong a drinker as you think you are. While he walks down the hallway to room 218, he steels himself. Even though you both hate it, he’s ready to hold your hair if he walks in and finds you with your head in the toilet. That dress looks too good on you not to be expensive; he’d rather talk you out of your embarrassment tomorrow than have you shell out for dry-cleaning.

You didn’t deadbolt the door behind you, which strikes him as odd. In fact, you didn’t even close it properly; it isn’t latched. All he has to do is tap on it for the door to open.

“Bambi?” He calls out before stepping inside entirely, thinking it’s only decent to confirm in advance that he’s not an intruder. “Sorry for disappearing. I had to pour my grandmother into a cab – it was exactly as awful as it sounds.”

The faint rustling sound he hears isn’t coming from the bathroom, which is both dark and unoccupied. Part of him wants to take this as a good sign, but the rest of him wonders if he’s walking in on a burglary. That flicker of fear is followed by a stupid sense of validation:

You always laugh at him when he cites this as his reason for choosing the bed closest to the door; you claim it’s statistically unlikely. Finally being able to say “I told you so” after a robbery wouldn’t make either of your belongings magically reappear, of course. That said, it might make him feel a little better.

But the figure rooting through your suitcase isn’t a bandit at all. It’s you with your coat on.

“Um,” he starts, unintentionally startling you. “What is….”

His question peters out when you look up at him. There are broken mascara tracks down your cheeks, as if you tried to wipe them off without actually looking at them. Above them, your wide eyes are wet, like you’re seconds away from crying all over again. Even worse, you’re trembling.

Seokmin’s only instinct is to reach for you. Before he can wrap his arms around you, you jerk away from him. “Please don’t.”

So, he stops, though he doesn’t understand why. This is quite literally the only time in your life that you’ve pushed him away.

“What’s going on?” Ideally, he’d project calm at a time like this. He just sounds desperate. “What happened with Seonmi?”

“She — um, she didn’t — It wasn’t that bad; I’m just… You know how sensitive I get when I drink wine.”

Like a switch flips, a half-hearted smile takes over the bottom half of your face. It’s not real; if it was, your eyes would light up and crinkle at the corners. Whatever that look is, it’s bullshit.

Seokmin gestures to your suitcase, where everything you brought with you has been unceremoniously shoved. “Sensitive enough to, what, run away? No. I’m not buying it. She said something — or did something — to make you this upset. Bambi, what happened?”

His urgency is selfish, he knows it. Seonmi’s always been way too intuitive for her own good. There’s no way she hasn’t noticed the way he looks at you when you aren’t looking; how god-awful he is at acting platonic.

He tries — has been trying, for a long time now — to shake these feelings off because he knows you’re not emotionally available. Because he knows who he’s supposed to be for you, and how devastating it would be if he threw your friendship away.

That devastation is right in front of him now; and it’ll push you out of his life forever if he doesn’t shut it down. He has to get in front of it.

You strike first, though. “Seokmin, why didn’t you bring anyone else?”

There are two ways for him to interpret that question: with the emphasis on anyone, meaning not you; or as an escape route. For your sake, he chooses the latter.

“She gave me a plus-one, not a plus-two,” he says softly.

Despite his tone, it must hit you like a punch. You nod curtly, once. “Got it. Basic math. Thanks, Seokmin; that was never my strongest subject.”

Foot, meet mouth.

You immediately set back to work, reaching for the lid of your suitcase to close and zip. Before he thinks once, let alone twice, his hand darts out and flattens against the mesh inner pocket on the top, preventing you from doing so.

“No.” He shakes his head firmly. “Not happening.”

You don’t scowl at him the way he expects, nor do you even stop to look at him. It’s far worse than that; your eyes start swimming, focused helplessly on your suitcase.

When you speak, your voice cracks. “I shouldn’t have come in the first place. I knew that this invitation shit wasn’t an accident; I knew I wasn’t welcome to —”

“— You came anyway.” Seokmin doesn’t mean to snap at you, but the point is moot. Softening at the edges, he quickly continues, “And I’m glad that you did because I don’t want to be here with ‘anyone else’.”

It’s not the whole truth, so it may as well be a lie. You know him too well for him to get away with it; it was stupid of him to try. Your head turns, and the slight narrow of your eyes says it all.

I triple-dog dare you to tell me the truth.

This fork in the road has two dead ends. His only options are to do just that or double down and lie straight to your face, while you see straight through him. Either option pulls the pin, he figures, so it’s no longer a question of who gets hurt; it’s who gets hurt worse.

Seokmin jumps on the grenade.

“I don’t want to be with anyone else!”

It comes out too loudly, startling you. In a way, it’s angry, too. He wishes could project that anger onto Seonmi for starting shit, as usual, but the person he’s maddest at is himself for putting you both in this position.

For the first time ever, he can’t decipher the expression on your face. He’d shove his foot into his mouth to try and keep himself quiet, but his adrenaline is firing on all cylinders, and he can’t seem to stop shouting.

“And I’m really fucking sorry to say it because I know you don’t want to hear it, not from me or anyone else. So, you can leave, alright? I’m not going to stop you.”

The force of the surprise almost knocks the air out of him, so quick that Seokmin can’t process what’s happening until his back is flush to the wall behind him — until your hands, flat against his white button-up, curl to grip the fabric, and you kiss him so hard that he sees stars.

You’re surprised too, it seems. When you pull away, chest heaving, you freeze in the same way he does. Eyes searching the other’s, unsure of what to do now that twenty-plus years’ worth of boundaries have been blown to bits.

You whisper, “Are you still sorry?”

Of the five million feelings swelling inside of him — fear, kind of; joy, yes; fucked up by your blown-out pupils, definitely — regret isn’t one of them.

Actually…

He cups your face in his hands like water from a spring, drinks down the sight of you in this new and perfect light. “I’m only sorry that it took me this long to tell you,” he confesses before kissing you back twice as hard.

You’d ask Seokmin to pinch you and prove to you that you’re not dreaming, but the fear you feel at the thought of waking up is too overwhelming.

Even if it wasn’t, he can’t help you, can he?

His hands are far too busy.

Your pretty dress is long gone now, having been shucked off and tossed somewhere out of sight. In its place, it’s Seokmin’s body that now drapes over yours, warm in touch and tone, like molten gold.

His middle and marriage fingers curl inside you, working you up again; and all you can do is cling desperately to his hair, whimper, and wait for the fall.

“I take back what I said earlier,” he murmurs between nips and kisses at your neck.

You can’t ask him to elaborate. You’re too close to careening over the edge for the second time tonight; too busy babbling fucking nonsense.

His simper against your throat reverberates all the way down, lights up your every nerve in tandem like a switchboard. “Only an idiot would tell you to be less expressive.”

The pad of his thumb swirls over your clit; its movement synchronizes with his middle finger inside of you, targeting your weak spot. He presses down on that spongy patch of nerves, and your hips buck involuntarily, a hallmark of your body begging for you while your words fail.

“You were right, though.”

You summon all your concentration. “I’m always right,” you counter. Seokmin pulls his mouth away from the underside of your jaw just to look at you pointedly. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

He picks up the pace of his ministrations, pulling no punches. You’re teetering on the ledge with no real ability to lift your own neck; your head crashes back against the pillow as you wail, clenching and gushing around his fingers.

“I do know how sensitive you get,” he snickers before slipping his fingers from you and sweeping down to kiss you sweetly.

The ringing in your ears has barely subsided, but you’ve decided not to take anymore of his teasing laying down. Slipping your fingers from his hair, you move your hands to his shoulders; and with whatever muscle control you still maintain, you flip him off of you, onto his back.

“How long —”

You climb over his lap and straddle him, placing your palms flat against his chest. It’s as much a show of dominance as it is a carefully disguised trick for balance.

“— have you been waiting to say that?”

Caught red handed, Seokmin shoots you that trademark, heart-shaped smile. His cheeks were already flushed from the effort he just expended on you; that perfect pink only deepens when he blushes and laughs, “What, you think I can’t come up with killer lines in the heat of the moment?”

You scratch your nails gently down the lines of his abdominal muscles. “Nope,” you purr.

Sitting up on his elbows, Seokmin tilts his head to the side and narrows his dark eyes at you. You’re nowhere near used to seeing him look at you like this, like you’re something to be devoured. The feeling of being wanted so badly makes your stomach flip.

“Give me some credit, won’t you?” He asks, voice low. “You’re a knockout; you’re naked in front of me for the first time; and it’s a miracle I can talk at all when I feel this concussed.”

When you lean in, he licks his lips expectantly. You’re close enough to kiss him, of course, but you stop a few millimeters shy of your mark and watch him fight the urge to pout. His eyes search yours, almost pleadingly.

“Is that why you’re still not naked?”

Seokmin’s next move is to reach for the black briefs he’s still got on, but you stop him, encircling each of his wrists with your hands.

“Ah, ah, ah,” you tut with a patronizing shake of your head. “You’re fired. I’m in control now.”

If the little sigh he lets out is any indication, he is very much on board with your self-promotion.

He takes your cue and reels himself in, allowing you to move further down his body, your fingertips hooking under his elastic waistband and tugging as you go. When his length finally springs free, you duck your head to take him into your mouth, beyond eager to feel his weight on your tongue.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, eyelids fluttering, while you swirl your tongue around his head. “Feels s-so —”

The rest of his sentence gets stuck in his throat; you take what you can of him down your own throat, working whatever remains with your hand.

Seokmin wants so badly to watch, you know he does, but he’s sensitive, too. His head tips back, eyes closed and mouth hanging open.

It’s messy, the spit dribbling down your chin and the sound brought forth by the suction of your mouth around him. The obscenity of it all spurs you on. Nothing inspires you quite like Seokmin’s breathy whines and low moans, though. Above all else, it’s his reaction to you that slicks the inside of your thighs.

You’d give him the ending he deserves, right down the back of your throat, but you feel his fingertips graze your shoulder, beckoning you to look up at him.

Voice rough, he pleads, “Come here.”

With his steadying hands on you, you move back into your original position with your bent knees on either side of him. You immediately spot the indent his teeth have left on his lower lip, which is now slightly swollen. Delicately, you brush your thumb over the mark. “Oh, you’re a goner.”

Seokmin looks at you pointedly. Though you tease, you’re even worse off: drunk on the taste of him, as much as the sight of him underneath you, wanting you just as badly.

“Alright, alright,” you concede. “I am, too.”

The hand you use to wave dismissively at him then reaches down between your thighs, fingers wrapping around his cock and lining it up with your entrance.

“But I’m taking you down with me.”

And you do.

So thoroughly that you barely recall him staggering off to the bathroom when all is said and done, the wash cloth he returns with to clean you up, or the way you slump into his waiting arms before promptly falling asleep.

You sleep so soundly, in fact, that you don’t stir when the sun blares through the open curtains. Likewise, when Seokmin carefully maneuvers himself out of the tangle of your limbs and places your head on a real pillow instead, you’re none the wiser.

What finally gets to you is the clatter of the expensive, hotel-issued shampoo clattering against the floor of the shower, echoing off the tile like a sonic boom. You sit bolt upright in bed, staring bleary-eyed in the direction of the bathroom.

As if on cue, Seokmin pokes his head out of the doorway to see if you managed to sleep through the noise. Damp hair splays over his forehead, hanging just as loosely as his lazily-knotted bathrobe. If you weren’t still too sleepy to function, you’d love nothing more than to grab him by that tie and drag him back to bed.

“Shit. I’m sorry, Bambi,” he coos, though his mouth is full of both toothpaste and a toothbrush in a distinctly greener shade of blue than usual.

You merely point at his mouth with a half-powered look of distress, otherwise unable to put your suspicion into words. He doesn’t get it; he glances down at his chest, looking for what he assumes is a stray glob of paste.

When you finally do speak, it’s a prayer: “Please tell me that’s not mine.”

Seokmin blinks at you, then down his nose at the toothbrush he’s using. He cocks his head to the side, opens his mouth to assure you it isn’t, and finally, when the realization makes his eyes widen, he groans.

You wail, “Noooooo!”

Memories of your last trip together clash before your mind — specifically, attempting to navigate a drug store in a foreign language while you shopped for the replacement toothbrush Seokmin is currently holding.

Ears bright red with embarrassment, he ducks back into the bathroom. Immediately, you hear a rush of water from the tap, which nearly drowns out his feeble cry of “I’m sorry!”

“I know it’s an honest mistake, but how do you make it twice?”

You collapse back onto the pillows and bury your face in your palms; and you stay that way, even when you hear him padding softly over to you. The mattress shifts under his weight as he makes his way, one knee at a time, until you feel him looming over you. His hands reach out and gently pull yours from your face.

Before you can get any ideas, Seokmin flattens himself on top of you; a weighted blanket, smelling like vanilla and spearmint. He folds his arms across your chest and props his chin up on the top of his right wrist, bright eyes sparkling as he peers up at you.

Suddenly, you find it very difficult to be annoyed with him. The worst part is that none of this is by design. He always just looks at you this way, not to get out of trouble but because you’re you.

Your hand reaches out of its own accord and brushes the remaining damp strands off his forehead. When your touch lingers, Seokmin leans into it, warming your palm with his cheek.

“Hey,” you say, after failing to come up with anything better.

He beams. “Hi.”

“Why are we awake at this hour?”

That smile of his evaporates slowly, giving way to a grimace you’ve seen before. “Seungcheol and Mingyu want to meet up at the ski lodge before the post-brunch crowd gets there,” he explains. “And I told my parents we’d get breakfast with them first, since yesterday was… well, mostly a disaster.”

“And it will conveniently provide you with time to think of a way out of snowboarding?” You chuckle quietly and pat his cheek.

Seokmin shakes his head firmly, then stretches his neck enough to kiss you.

“No,” he mumbles defiantly against your lips. “I never back down from a triple-dog dare.”

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journen · 9 months ago

Note

do you have a list of good CoD fanfics, or favorite writers in general?? <3

Presented in no particular order, here are some of my personal faves / fics I really enjoyed, and my own summaries for them. Hopefully you enjoy, thanks for the ask, anon!!!

I didn't tag all the authors because I'm not sure if they all have tumblrs, but also I'm shy tagging people ahjdfhkaheje. If any authors here are mentioned tho and you have a tumblr, feel free to lmk and I can update this post to include your tag!!:)

Anything rated mature I colour coded the name in red, and anything explicit green. Not all the mature fics feature smut, but yeah! I didn't want to link anything tooooo explicit here, but if anyone wants any, I can definitely rb this post to add a few more 😅

Also, just beware the tags on any of these fics because some feature kind of heavy subject matter. 👍

COF FIC REC LIST:

A Very MacTavish Christmas - @m3rrywe4ther

Prob my fav fic in the fandom lololol. HUGE RECCOMMEND. It's about Johnny who gets roped into spending the holiday Christmas season with his , for the most part, very not so nice family, and Simon accompanies him. So much stuff happens in this fic and it's such a great character exploration of Simon and Johnny independently, but also as a couple, and just so much stuff happens in it lol again, HUGE RECOMMEND!!!

We'll make Death Proud to Take us - Literal_Satan

Fic where, it starts off really sweet where Simon goes to Scotland with Johnny to spend Christmas with him and his family, but things take a drastic turn when Soap's brother, a police officer/detective, gets a little too curious about mysterious Simon, and the story spirals from there. All the guys end up on this crazy goose chase tracking down some of the people who were involved in Roba's brainwashing operations. The fic gets v dark at times and deals with some very heavy trauma so beware, but it's SO. GOOD.

Dream a Little Dream - Angelicasdean

Again, one of my total fav fics in the fandom!! AU where Simon leaves the army to raise his nephew Joseph, who's the sole survivor of the Riley family massacre, and Johnny is one of the daycare teachers at the daycare where Simon takes Jo 🥺🥺👍👍

Pretend to love me like I do - FetteEule

Really cute fic of Simon who accompanied Johnny to Scotland for his sister's wedding, under the ruse they are dating. They are v much pining but not there yet. Features lots of really cute domestic moments and Simon being really sweet to Johnny's kid nephew 😭🧡

Something important - Anonymous

One of the fics that has me totally brainrotted rn. It's about Simon's who's been de-aged to 6 years old, and Price, Gaz and Soap all taking care of him and trying to figure out how he got turned, and how to turn him back! They all get tested on their abilities to care for a child, and unwillingly learn a lot of details about Simon's childhood they never knew. This summary doesn't do it justice tho, so I'd just recommend checking it out! Beware tho again, there is some dark childhood trauma stuff but there are warnings at the start of each chapter that contains references to it.

Seasons - StinglessWasp

In this fic every chapter is set during a different season and tells a unique sort of story/mission/interaction Soap and Ghost have. Definitely some v good angst&hurt/comfort stuffs too. Starts off pre-relationship, and explores their characters a lot! It's just really good HUGE reccommend lol.

What the Eyes Don't see - WhiplashRogue

One of my FAVESSSS! So the premise is like, Soap can actually see ghosts ever since he was a child (which most other people can't see and also don't believe in), and Ghost has 2 spirits attached to him that follow him around(Joseph, and Roach). The fic starts off pre relationship, and it mostly about Soap trying to learn more about these two spirits and discovering more about Ghost's past.

All that's said in the Low Light - Headlocket

Probably one of the most emotional I've ever read LMFAO. It's about Johnny, who receives a back & knee injury bad enough he gets discharged from the army, and is back in Scotland living with his parents as he recovers. He and Ghost lost contact a bit since the accident, and it's sort of a story of them reconnecting. This description doesn't do it justice, just read it, but it will emotionally destroy you lol

Time Loops Suck (series) - Enter_fand0m_reference00

The first installment of the fic takes the idea that Soap is stuck in a time loop during the alone mission! And all the optional dialogues and interactions in thE alone mission are separate attempts of his trying to survive the loops and rendez vous with Ghost. It's just sooo good!! And then there's a follow up fic where it deals with the mental aftermath of the loops and Ghost comforting soap through it, then there's 2 other installments of Simon who instead goes through a time loop! They are such great character explorations in how both Soap and Ghost experience the loops, and I whooleee heartedly reccommend.

Yellow Card - SkerryB

Soccer au fic!! It's so good! Simon is the captain of a soccer team Soap is drafted to as their new goalie. Simon has had a history with Soap before though, that he was the only goalie Simon could never score on! So that's how it starts, and it's just so good from there!! Simon's family are also alive in the fic and his nephew is adorable.

You swept me off my feet - @ghoulishhone

Ghost is down bad for strong Soap, the fic xD This was a fic Ghoulishone and I were paired together to work on for the Ghostsoap server reverse bang! They wrote the fic and I made some accompanying art. Just a cute fic of Soap having to pick up Ghost after he gets injured and some other shenanigans that ensues:)

Dear Mr Ghost - @shortcuts-make-long-delays

SUCH A CUTE FIC!! The majority of the fic is these letter/pen pal exchanges between Ghost, and Soap's young niece Chloe...it's just. So. Good. And was written by a friend of mine too! BIG RECCOMMEND.

Give me Hope and Let me Down - MechanicalBones

Some of the best Ghost whump I read lolll. Ghost is captured by some people with ties to Roba and tortured. Meanwhile Soap is on his way to rescue him, and eventually he does, and there's a lot of hurt and comfort. It's also a getting together fic. 🥺

Unspoken Love - Hammy101

( Super amazing oneshot. I feel I can't do this fic justice with any summary. Just read it. 🥺 It has decent Ghost whump AND domestic off duty cute ghost soap angsty stuff it's just one of my faves ever!!!!)

Except You, You can Stay - Iravaid

Really realistic, believable portrayal and expansion upon a lot of the key events that happen in the Ghost comics. From his childhood, to the mental aftermath of Roba, his family dying...it's heavy but really really good. And has a happier hopeful ending that's Ghost/Soap 🥺

Hat Trick of the Heart and the sequel Family, Gotta Love em - Librarian_FanFicFan

Absolutely am obsessed with these fics!!! It's an AU about Ghost who is recently discharged from the military due to injury, and on a flight back to London where he is seated next to Soap, a famous footballer/soccer player. Ghost doesn't know who he is tho, but they hit it off and exchange numbers. The second installment features Simon's family!!! And Tommy being dramatic and shocked over the fact his brother got the number of this famous sports player... SUPER CUTE IF YOU LIKE RILEY FAMILY STUFF.

As for my fav CoD authors I wholeheartedly recommend anything by:

RedClegane, m3rrywe4ther, Hammy101, TheEdwardianOne, Iravaid, and so many authors but I can't list them all ahaha...but hopefully this is a good start!

Hopefully this helps anon! Sorry it took me a while.

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samoankpoper21 · 3 months ago

Text

Numb - Jo Togame

Jo Togame x chubby! reader

Word count: 3.2K

Content warnings: a bit of self deprecation (only because the reader is still growing into her own), cussing, unprotected sex (always use protection!), p in v, creampie

Genre: angst, smut, smut with plot

ALL CHARACTERS ARE AGED 18+! MDNI!

⊱ ─── ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ ─── ⊰⊱ ─── ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ ─── ⊰

Togame wasn't slow, just the way he spoke.

You remember the first time he and his family had moved next door. "Y/N, come say hello to our new neighbor." Peering from behind your mother you peeked to see the slender boy with dazzling emerald eyes peeking behind his mother as well. The two women chatted as you both regarded each other quietly. "Y/N, this is Togame. Togame this is Y/N."

Your family owned a small clinic that you were set to take over once you were older; your weekends spent readying, studying anatomy, medicine, herbs and the likes. "Do you actually want to do that when you're older?" Togame drawled one lazy afternoon. "'course! Why wouldn't I?"

"Have you ever thought about doing something else?"

"Nuh uh. From the moment I saw how my dad tended to this elderly man I was hooked. I want to be like him."

"Hm." Togame smiled while ruffling your hair. That was the first time your heart beat like crazy. Trying to rationalize your heart's wild thumping due to the fact that puberty hit you both differently there was no denying that you were attracted to your childhood friend. What you once saw as a small boy with thick black hair and big forest green eyes grew to be a lean, muscular man whose jawline was sharp, hair now shoulder length, veins traveling the length of his arms, legs thick and taut with muscle; only thing similar was his aloof nature that wouldn't allow him to make friends easily.

He was your first when it came to intimacy: your first kiss, first hickey, first hand held, first sexual partner. You remember storming into his room demanding, "Togame! I need you to kiss me!" Smirking he drawled out, "Well where is this coming from?" You relayed the story of how most of the girls in your friend group had already had their first kiss all but you and Emi earning pitiful gazes. Swallowing slowly he asked, "You sure about this sweetheart?" Nodding fervently he chuckled instructing you to sit on the bed with him. Turning your body to face him you suddenly felt self conscious: would he be turned off by your belly and rolls? Would he grimace at the way your skirt hiked up your thick, melanated thighs? He doesn't have to do this anyway. He's just being a good friend. Lost in thought you failed to realize how much closer he moved toward until he gently cupped your chin whispering, "Stop overthinking this." He pressed his lips against yours gently first, your eyes widening, your brain reveling in the feel of his slightly chapped lips; he taking in the softness of yours. You closed your eyes as your lips began to brush and move against one another, your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck pulling him closer, your fingers carding through his hair tugging lightly til he growled. Pulling back panting you murmur, "Sorry, didn't mean to hurt-"

"Don't stop." he demanded, pulling you closer by the back of your neck, your back meeting his covers, not an iota of space between you two; both his and your hands traveling, exploring, squeezing.

Your makeout sessions were becoming more frequent, both of you not wanting to put a title on what this was; for all you were aware of was how good it felt, the thrill of being able to run to the other person's arms and feel their lips against one another. Until one particular session became too heated. Laying in bed, Togame on top, his hand slowly crawled underneath your shirt, squeezing at the fat, dancing along the curves of your love handles and waist. He cupped your clothed breast, pinching and rolling the erect nipple causing you to gasp in the kiss, his tongue slowly traveling into your mouth, exploring. Your tongue began to intertwine with his when he sucked on it causing you to moan. "Do it again." he demanded before slowly sticking his tongue into your mouth, your tongues fighting against one another, a string of saliva connecting the two of you. That was your first french kiss.

Sitting in his room anxiously he could read you like a book. He knew whenever you failed to meet his gaze gnawing at your lip that there was something "difficult" you wanted to ask of him but was too shy to. He laid there patiently waiting, watching you clench and unclench your small, chubby hands. He always told you he found your hands cute. "Togame," you whisper.

"Mm."

"I...I have a favor to ask you."

"What is it sweetheart?" your heart clenched at the endearment he always used when it came to you. Figuring you've already done embarrassing stuff together you settled to just be out with it. "I need you to fuck me." His eyes widened. "Come again?"

"I just-I just want to see what the other girls keep talking about. None of the guys at school find me attractive which I don't mind because they're not my type either it's just-" Cupping your cheeks he earnestly gazed at you. "Ya sure?" Holding his gaze, your blush heating up Togame's hands, you nodded. If only you knew all the dirty thoughts that ran through his mind as he fucked his fist at night: thoughts of you. Kissing you slowly, gently, as a means to relax you he lowered you onto his bed, his lips brushing your cheeks, trailing down your neck, murmuring "beautiful" as he nipped at your pulse point making you gasp. His lips traveled down to your collar before reaching your shirt. "May I?" looking away covering your face you nodded for him to continue. Slowly peeling your shirt over your head he audibly gasped "Beautiful", your arms failing to cover your tummy. "Stop that." he scolded. Peeking at him you silently gasped, for this was the first time anyone, let alone a man looked at you with so much want. His blown out pupils nearly covering his beautiful beryl eyes as he bit his lip taking in the entirety of you. The want and need in his eyes fueled your courage. Reaching behind you unclasped your bra tossing it somewhere in his room, your bountiful breasts spilling over. You always knew Togame had huge hands but in comparison to your 46D breasts it still covered a good amount. You watched as his calloused hands cupped both mounds causing you to squirm, watching as some of it spilled through his fingers. "So soft." he dazes. Finally meeting your eyes he gauges your reaction as he slowly began to pinch and roll your nipples, watching as your eyes close, lips caught between your teeth. "Togame." you whimper, the bulge in his pants growing tighter. Slowly leaning his head down he took one of the rocky pebbles in his mouth and began to suck, catching it between his teeth lightly tugging, your back arching. Maintaining eye contact with you he swirled his tongue around before fully enclosing your breast into his mouth sucking harshly. "To-Togame!" you gasp out. Blowing air on your nipple he chuckled at your whimpering before moving to the next breast, your fingers tangling themselves into his thick hair pushing him more into you. Leaving your nipple with a pop he smirked at your panting figure, nipping at the tops of your breasts. His lips gently placed kisses in between your breasts, slowly making their way down your chubby tummy, licking at some of the stretch marks, pushing a deep kiss into your belly before reaffirming how beautiful you are to him.

Locking eyes with you once more for consent your lust filled gaze nodded as he slowly peeled your skirt down your legs groaning at the wetness found on your panties. Lowering his face to your mound he inhaled, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Hooking his fingers around the band he slowly pulled your panties down, you subconsciously spread your legs wider for him. "Togame," you whined. "Do something." Licking his lips he lays himself flat on his stomach, his hands wrapping around your thighs pulling your closer to his face. He took a tentative swipe along your folds making you let out a small gasp. Biting and sucking on your inner thighs he sucks on your puffy clit causing you to let out a drawn out moan, the tension in his pants becoming stuffier. He began to suck and lick at your folds, moaning at your saccharine taste. You tasted so much better than he imagined, thankful that he was the one to be able to do this with and to you. Bumping his nose against your clit his tongue slid into your entrance, your back arching, your hands tangled in his hair pushing him deeper to your mound. "Please! D-don't stop." your hips began moving of their own accord, all sense of shame out the window. "That's it sweetheart," he urged. "Keep using my fucking face." before landing a slap on your thigh making you moan. Taking your clit in his mouth he gathered some of your slick on his middle finger sliding it into you slowly earning a silent "o" from you. Slowly pumping his finger in and out he watched as your eyes went from squeezing tight due to the uncomfortable pressure to your eyebrows relaxing. His finger was able to glide in and out of you with ease. "I'm going to add another finger in, think you can handle it?" You nodded and he slowly inserted his pointer finger along with his middle. You gasped at the delicious stretch. "'s tight." Letting his fingers stay in your warm cavern he waited until you gave him permission to move. Slowly jutting his fingers in and out he watched as your breasts bounced, your hips moving in accord with him. "T-Togame, more." Scissoring his fingers he took your clit in his mouth as he moved them at a faster pace. Bending them on contact of something spongy you gasped out, "Ah! To-Togame there! Right there!" Using his middle and ring finger he pumped his fingers in and out of you at lightning pace, bending his fingers inside beckoning in a come hither motion. "Listen to how fucking soaked you are for me." The wet squelching sounds filling the room was driving both of you insane. "To-Togame, I-I feel-"

"I know sweetheart. You're going to feel so good, I promise." Using his other hand he began to rub rapidly at your clit while the other was busy thrusting in and out of you. "To-To-Aaaaah!" Trying to close your legs Togame held one of them down as your orgasm washed over you. Trying to catch your breath all your ears could pick up on was "mwa" each one landing on your sensitive pussy lips. Licking you clean Togame praised you: "My pretty girl did so good for me. So fucking good for me." Once your breathing calmed down you looked over at him. "'s not fair. I'm the only one naked." Smirking he replied with, "Patience sweetheart." Getting off the bed quickly he tossed his shirt aside leaving you to admire his physique. You always knew he was built but not to this extent. Mesmerized by his hardened abs, broad shoulders, and the veins running down his forearms and onto his hands you pressed your legs together to create some type of friction, an action that did not go unnoticed by Togame. Ridding himself of his sweats and boxers you could feel yourself salivating at the thickness and length of Togame's cock as it hit his stomach. Crawling to the edge you gently took his cock in your hand reveling at the weight and warmth of it, he letting out a low hiss. Looking up at him you opened your mouth making sure to cover your teeth before taking his length in moaning at the contact, his heady scent making you dizzy. "F-fuck Y/N." You swirled your tongue around his tip, watching as he kept his hands glued to his sides, balled into fists, his eyes closing. Remembering to breath through your nose you slowly took inch by inch of him making sure to get his dick wet and slippery. Using your hand at his base you began bobbing your head up and down his length, hollowing out your cheeks. Hearing you gag he pulled back breathing harshly. "Y-you okay?" Biting your lip you crawled off the bed kneeling in front of him looking up through your lashes. Gawd Togame wanted to cum from the sight in front of him, imprint it in his mind forever. Keeping eye contact you hollowed out your cheeks using both hands to twist his cock as you slurped and sucked. All restraints broken Togame moaned tangling his hands in your hair fucking your mouth. You moaned and gagged loving how he was using you as his personal fuck toy. "S-shit 'm gonna cum." Pushing your face against his pubes as encouragement he let out a low groan before releasing into your mouth, his sticky hot seed hitting the back of your throat.

Taking a moment to process what had happened he slowly peeled his hips away from your face tilting your head upward. Glaze filled eyes locking with his you opened your mouth extending your tongue, letting him know that you were a good girl for swallowing all of him and not wasting a single drop. He groaned. "Gawd you're gonna be the death of me sweetheart." Pulling you off the floor he harshly pushed his lips against yours, you both moaning at the taste of each other's climax hitting the other's taste buds. Pushing you to the bed as if in a trance he says, "I gotta fuck ya otherwise I'll lose my mind." Spreading your legs again he kissed you, rubbing the tip of his cock against your folds. Slowly sliding in you both moaned at the fullness. "Pretty girl you're so tight. 's like you're suffocating my dick." Running your hands through his hair you whine, "Togame, fuck me." After those words left your lips you watched his eyes darken, as if a switch had flipped. Hoisting your hips up slightly he began pounding into you, watching as your breasts bounced in time with his thrusts. "Fuuuck Togame, yes. 's so good." Grabbing the back of your thighs he pressed you into a mating press his thick, long cock hitting deeper, poking at your cervix. "O-ohmygawd Toga-"

"Hmmm? Isn't this what you wanted? For me to fuck you?"

"Yesyesyesyes" your hands left his hair flying above your head clutching at the pillows, your eyes closing as you felt your impending orgasm rushing towards you. "To-Togame mmph!"

"Open your eyes. I wanna see you come undone." Togame slammed his hips against yours, the wet plap plap plap sound of his thighs meeting the back of yours had your eyes rolling to the back of your head. Using his left hand he quickly rubbed at your clit your eyes shooting open. "Togameeeee please s-so close"

"Me too sweetheart." Slamming into you his hips faltered, pace sloppy, his fingers rubbing at your puffy bud. "Cum for me sweetheart." Locking eyes with him you screamed as your climax hit you hard, your wet gummy walls squeezing him oh so good his jaw clenched shooting his load deep into you. That was the first and last time you would sleep together before he left to be with Shishitoren.

You remember when he excitedly came bustling through the doors of your family's clinic, his way of speech a tad, just a tad bit faster, as he gushed over his new friend group and something about a guy named Choji; how Choji ushered him into Shishitoren gifting him with the yellow and white baseball style jacket with the emblem resembling the Japanese lion head on the back. You sat there staring up at him as he animatedly expressed to you how Choji was like the sun: warm, inviting, bringing out the best in people.

Months passed before you would see him again. Staring out the window you sighed as you saw the once clear skies being quickly covered with dark clouds, the heavy rain beginning to fall. You were closing up shop when the doors of your family's clinic slid open, thunder clapping behind him. "Togame!" you shouted. Rushing over to him you pulled him in shutting and locking the doors. He let you lead him to the examination table sitting there silently his head facing down as you busied yourself retrieving towels from your room upstairs. Shucking his jacket off you began to swipe at his forearms, moving your way up to his shoulders, damp hair, gently dabbing at his face. "Togame, what happened?" Staring ahead not answering you sighed whispering, "Let me grab more towels." Before you could fully turn around, his strong arms encased you pulling you closer, his forehead pressed against your chubby tummy. Biting your lips, tears brimming on the surface, you couldn't help but feel the butterflies in your stomach beating against its cage; the feelings you held trapped inside wanting to burst through your chest. "Please," you heard him lowly murmur. "Just stay like this...for a little while longer." Nodding your head your fingers automatically began threading through the thick, black trenches of his hair unaware that he too was fighting the same battle as you.

Weeks pass and he would stop by the clinic to get patched up, each time looking more exhausted, numb, dead inside. You noticed after that first rainy night how his eyes no longer held a trace of light or life in them, how he had braided the ends of his long locks, and now wore sunglasses. "Togame," you whisper while applying hydrogen peroxide on the newest cuts to his knuckles. "Why are you doing this? Why are you fighting so much?" Looking up to see him staring ahead you plead, "Answer me." Rubbing your thumb across his knuckles your tone turned accusatory. "Is it Choji? Is he the one making you do all this?" Finally getting a reaction out of him you were startled to see how fast his head whipped in your direction, his eyes glaring at you with a sharpness. "You don't know Choji."

"I-I'm just saying Togame look at you! You're all banged up! Every time you come to me now it's only for me to patch you up and then you come back with a new set of bruises! At what point is fighting not enough?! Hm?"

"You don't know anything Y/N."

"Then tell me! Because from what I'm seeing ever since you befriended this Choji guy you lost all sense of hope and purpose." Snatching his hand from your grasp, grabbing that damned Shishitoren jacket along the way he hissed out, "I don't need this shit and I don't need it coming from someone like you."

"Someone like me?! What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think you can tell me who to be friends with? You don't know anything. All you know is your stupid books and how you've been holed up here your whole life." Lowering your head so that he wouldn't see the tears brimming at the surface you ask in a low voice, "So that's how you think of me huh?" Without answering you turn your back towards him. "Let this be the last time I see you Jo." Once the doors of the clinic slowly slid shut your knees buckled leaving you to sob and wail at the loss of your friend, your first love.

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── ─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── ─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── >>

A/N: I know I wanted to see more stories about body confident people on here but I felt like it would be more relatable if the reader suffers body image issues. My thought process went as follow: reader is insecure because she's a teen still going through puberty, trying to navigate what it means to be plus size. Once in high school that's when she owns it and learns early on how to love herself despite what society says.

©ALL WORKS BELONG TO SAMOANKPOPER21; ANY INFRINGEMENT OR PLAGIARISM WILL BE REPORTED!! DO NOT STEAL OR REPOST MY WORK!!

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agendabymooner · 2 years ago

Text

closure ! max v. x ofc (hearth sister!ofc)

“it wasn't right—the way it all went down. looks like you know that now.”

summary: sylvie just wanted to prove that she was good enough for the red bull racing team, but everything that had to do with her history with max seemed to get in the way of her determination— and she made sure that he knew that.

content warning: panic attack (and its triggers), use of explicit language, mentions of absent father figure, j*s verst*ppen 🤢, christian horner, frenemies to lovers (ish), confrontational text messages (max and sylvie), max being oblivious to her mental state, mentions of max’s childhood (not detailed)

note: as someone who struggled to find peace at certain situations, I know what it’s like to struggle in asking for help. please remember that there are people that are more than willing to give you the support that you need.

(i may not be able to update any of the smau works for the next two weeks as i am out of town and i only have my ipad with me. i normally do the layouts on my computer. i’ll try my best!)

enjoy xx

masterlist

2016 Spanish GP

If fate worked like this all the time, she might as well jump off the cliff if any of her peers asked for it.

She had been pulled out of her lectures for the week only for her to sit and watch how the racing teams operated. She could only roll her eyes when Christian Horner recommended she should have her presence be known in the paddock and the track as she prepared to work in an F1 team.

Sylvie already knew how everything worked; she was going to be a driver, for fuck’s sake. She had been trained for it. She grew up attending the race weekends because of her father and grandparents. She knew everything now. Hell, she even had Toto Wolff for an in-law (practically). He could just rerun everything to her if she needed to remember.

Christian Horner clearly had a different intention towards her visit. He claimed that she needed to relive the experiences in the garage, the media pit and the hospitality. But she knew the truth.

She had a rapport, her history in the academy was obviously discussed to Christian at some point. How Christian never mentioned anything about her departure from the program to her sister, who now held parts of Red Bull and the other two teams, she never had an answer for. It wasn’t a secret to most. At least to those who were there the day she left.

Tilly was in the Mercedes area, leaving her little sister in the Red Bull hospitality as she listened to nothing. She felt so alone and isolated, her urge to go to Mercedes was overwhelming. But it wasn’t as if she could; Christian had already told her off about her role and position in the company.

It didn’t help that Max Verstappen, donning his number 33 shirt, was in the same building. He was quite adamant on keeping her company but she constantly avoided him, slipping out of his sight as soon as his eyes settled on her.

She found excuses, most of which had something to do with Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian hadn’t minded though, knowing that she felt uncomfortable being around other people especially around Max. Daniel never minded her excuses, instead making up a lie that’s believable to others. Just so she could escape.

Max’s family was there that weekend. Obviously, she knew his mother and Victoria, his sister. Max and Sylvie, the two 18 year olds, were practically soul twins. Born on the same day, grew up together, and had been attached to the hips since the day they could crawl— they were friends, no one just knew what had happened. His mother had always asked Sylvie’s mum about her and how she’d managed to let her friendship with Max dissipate like that. Victoria missed having Sylvie over for tea whenever she visited the Netherlands, asking Max about what he had done to let Sylvie go like that.

Jos Verstappen was a different story. He never liked Sylvie, only holding a certain amount of respect for Julius Hearth and Blanche Ford Hearth. He always wanted Max to be successful at motorsport and this meant that nobody could be as equally good as his son. Not especially when Max’s ability matched Sylvie’s. He always claimed that hanging out with “that girl” will simply distract Max.

Even if he nodded at his father’s direction, Max continued to be friends with Sylvie, spending more time together whenever she and her family would fly and meet with his family.

At the ripe age of 12, Max admitted to her that she’s the closest thing that he had to an imaginary friend. Like he was forced to grow up before he could even walk. She was the one who would pull up the PlayStation whenever he failed to please his father for the tournament of that time. Jos never liked her, but he didn’t know exactly what could’ve made him dislike her. Sylvie didn’t like him, either, because she couldn’t believe that she was the one who’d have to give Max the childhood that he deserved. There are times when she wished she could simply spew out the foulest words and lump him with her own father. Well… she had already considered him a shitty father, and there’s no changing of opinion now.

So for Sylvie to see Jos in the paddock, basically keeping his eye on his son like a pestering hawk? Yeah, she turned away from their direction.

Then another group of people came, the same arrogant smile all over their faces. They taunted her.

She could remember her last week at the academy, when she had enough. These boys questioned her abilities on the track as soon as she started, trying to get her to quit as soon as she could. She didn’t care about them, because whenever they’d race she remained on the top of their level. They hated her because of it. Then on her last day, she was left to be called a name that didn’t even fit her…

“Snake Sylvie!” Matt Bauer was what she called Max’s bitch. He never liked Sylvie and had always wanted to be in Max’s family’s good graces. Alongside him were Max’s two other friends. These three were the same incompetent fucks who never ended in Formula 2. Thus, ending their racing careers early. They were doing fuck knows what these days. Which was quite hilarious, if you were to ask Sylvie, because they were the ones who kept telling Max to “Keep working” or “toughen up and get the first place.”

She couldn’t remember their names when she met them again that weekend, her eyes were already blurry from the tears as she shoved her way through them. “Where are you going?! We’re just going to catch up, babe!”

She didn’t even stop, her feet speeding up as she attempted to wipe her tears away. Her lips let out a stutter of excuse me as she pushed her way into where the Mercedes garage was.

Second free practice didn’t start anytime soon and Sylvie was thankful for that. It, however, never stopped the camera by the engineering station from capturing the sounds of a sobbing girl and an image of her nearly soaked Red Bull shirt as she ran inside. Had she been stronger than this, she wouldn’t have ran to Toto.

As if he knew someone was coming his way, Toto Wolff immediately took his headphones off and turned. His face etched with worry as Sylvie wrapped her arms around his broad figure. She was hysterically sobbing and shaking, her tears almost soaking his white shirt as she kept her head tucked in his chest.

“Can we stop the camera? There’s an obvious situation going on in here and we need a moment,” Sylvie couldn’t hear his voice as it was something more of a rumbling noise. Meanwhile Toto’s stern expression made the cameraman do as he was told. “Hey, schwester, are you okay?”

She was relentless, sobbing as she kept her head down and her arms tightly wrapped around him. She couldn’t speak. Not breathe for that matter. It felt like the last day of the academy all over again. Having no voice felt like she was just as defenseless once more.

“Sylvie, do you want me to take you to your hospitality?” Her bloodshot red eyes, still tearing up, stared into his dark ones as her lips quivered and her head shook left and right. “Do you want your sister?”

Toto knew that the Mercedes hospitality was nearer to the Red Bull area than the Mercedes garage. So for her to go this far just for comfort… something told him that she didn’t want to stress out the pregnant woman and that she needed more than her sister.

He pursed his lips, feeling helpless as he kept an arm around her shoulder as they walked out of the garage. He nodded at his engineers as if he was letting them know about leaving for a moment.

He did his best at comforting her. Rubbed her back, shushing her quietly and gently leading her to the hospitality. People outdoors had gotten a glimpse of her situation and began to speculate, which forced her to hide her face once more as Toto glared at them.

“Come on, schatzi,” inside nobody had batted an eye on her. And instead of speculating, certain people merely looked at the two with concern. What the hell happened, they probably asked themselves.

She was too busy crying and hiding her face away that she hadn’t realized Tilly was already approaching the two. Sylvie didn’t look up until she heard, “What happened, bello?”

“She came to the garage,” Toto said quietly, looking down at his in-law with concern as he said, “she couldn’t say anything because she’s having a hard time breathing.”

“Oh, lovie,” Tilly whispered empathetically, her delicate figure reaching out to hug her little sister, “I’m sorry to hear that. Come, let’s sit down, yes?”

Sylvie could barely think throughout the process of moving from one place to another. They reached the Mercedes motorhome and found themselves in a private room, Sylvie’s lips were swollen and her tear-stained cheeks were red.

She wasn’t even aware that Toto left until his tall figure returned with two bottles of water in his hands. He simply placed it down on the empty table and exchanged looks with his girlfriend. They couldn’t even find a way to help her out of this.

“Listen, Sylvie,” the girl’s sobbing subsided for a moment as Toto said, “I will come back. Okay? I will check and make sure that you’re alright, but I have to go.”

“Yes, go,” Tilly nodded at him, “I’ll be here. Thank you for taking her to me, mon amour.”

“Alright, I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Toto murmured as he leaned down and pecked Tilly’s lips. “I love you.”

“And I love you,” Tilly smiled ruefully, her eyes trained on her little sister as Toto moved to stand and hug Sylvie. Sylvie could only hug his waist, not wanting to let go but had done so anyway.

“Take some time to breathe, lovie,” Toto said for the last time before he left hesitantly.

Nobody but the two were inside the motorhome, thankfully. Sylvie would be so embarrassed to cry in front of other people— as she had done so ten minutes ago. The silence was interrupted by Sylvie’s sobbing. Tilly couldn’t help but wrap her arm around Sylvie’s shoulders, trying to occupy as much space as a pregnant woman could. God, this was the only thing that she didn’t like about her pregnancy. She wasn’t able to comfort her sisters or anyone as much as she’d like to do.

The model couldn’t even think or try to let out a single word, only crying in her sister’s arms as she listened to her shushing. It didn’t take long until the tears dried up. Her energy drained from crying too much over some fuckers who couldn’t even make it to the podium. Them, and that one person would be able to do that on Sunday.

With exhaustion washing over her, her sniffles turned into something more silent as she shut her eyes. It didn’t take long for Tilly to notice this as she stood up, giving more space to the girl on the couch. “Get some rest, lovie,” Tilly said quietly, brushing Sylvie’s hair away as the girl drifted off to sleep.

She really didn’t like being here in Spain.

—

Argument just outside the motorhome was what had woken her up. It was normal to have frustrated drivers or team principals throw a bitch fit, but hearing an argument was a different story.

Her eyes stung from opening after her post-crying nap, her feet meeting the floor as she popped the lid of the bottle open, her parched body taking in the water that she swallowed.

She liked eavesdropping, she really did. She liked to provide her own input even if it’s not needed— she was nosey and everyone knew that. But what she had gone through just about an hour or so ago made her lose the energy and motivation to be her usual self.

It didn’t stop her from walking closer to the door and listening in to whatever argument was going on.

“She’s here to observe and work, she’s not here to spectate,” that was Christian Horner.

“But she’s not feeling well, Christian, she has to rest,” now that’s her favourite in-law. Not really in-law.

“Look, I get that you’re looking out for her but you have to understand,” Christian hissed, “she’ll be signing with Red Bull as soon as she graduates. I cannot have her working with the team if you’re constantly mollycoddling her just because you’re the closest that she has to a father figure. This is a professional work setting, Toto, and she needs to be disciplined to be a part of it.”

“Disciplined, in what way?” The sternness on Toto’s voice could kill, unless you’re just as stupid as Christian as Sylvie heard a scoff coming out of the Red Bull team principal’s mouth.

“Everybody’s going through tough times,” Christian said, “so what? Most of us are moving along anyways. Don’t treat her like a child and make exemptions. She’s never going to learn how to toughen up from it.”

“Hey!” Another voice rung out as the door opened slightly, making her step back as she heard an exclamation of, “That girl was distressed after she left your area— the place where she’s supposed to feel comfortable working in. It’s not her responsibility to bear the problems that are clearly happening within the area of your control, so don’t you tell us how to accommodate if you can barely take care of it. Alright?”

“Fuckin’ prick,” the door slammed shut as Sylvie’s figure remained frozen, her eyes watching as they met Lewis’ dark ones. He smiled gently and asked, “Hey. Are you feeling better now, sweetheart?”

She didn’t respond for a moment after she heard Toto say, “Just give it a rest. She’ll work on what she has to do, just let it go for now. Speak to Tilly, if you would like.”

“Don’t worry about them,” Lewis pulled her back to the couch and sat with her. He leaned back as he joked, “Lovers’ quarrel is what’s going on between the two.”

She chuckled quietly, unable to keep her facade. The laughter fell eventually as she muttered, “I didn’t mean to create such a scene. I’m sorry.”

“What? Hey, girl, no,” Lewis felt his heart break at her words as he reached and rubbed her shoulder for comfort. “Don’t be sorry for snapping. It’s brave of you to keep it together in the first place.”

“I really didn’t mean to make a big deal out of it,” her voice cracked as she tried not to cry. Thinking about it was exhausting and saddening. “It’s just— there’s—“

“It’s okay, take a deep breath,” Lewis told her softly. She did as she was told. Many would say that it’s a rare thing to happen but Sylvie listened.

“There’s just people,” Sylvie explained quietly, not looking at Lewis as she murmured, “I haven’t seen them for a while and… I felt so uneasy. Like it’s the final nail in the coffin. I didn’t want to make a big deal because it was at Red Bull. Nobody’s in there. Toto, you and Tilly are in Mercedes.”

“Sorry we couldn’t be there,” Lewis told her sympathetically. “But it’s a good idea that you went to the garage as quickly as you did. Now look, even Christian’s facing Toto’s wrath.”

“I don’t want to think about it anymore,” Sylvie whispered shakily, shutting her eyes close as she sighed, “I just want some closure.”

The next few days were dreadful. She hadn’t wanted to go back to England as much as she did that weekend.

The people she never wanted to see were there. The sad part of it was the fact that Max would continue to be a part of her life and job, whether she liked it or not. She’d have to tolerate him, no matter how much shit she had gone through because of him and those people around him. This was the second time she had seen him and felt so angry. It was like her life was a race. It starts out very well, with her at the pole. But then she crashes the moment she tries to take advantage and overtake.

On Sunday, Max landed in P1. Sylvie watched him pop the cork of the Moet out and showered his fellow podium winners with it. The text that she then received and sent spilled everything that had nothing to do with champagne. But rather explained how she ended up leaving the academy after that damn open tournament four years ago.

Max complains a lot, he could admit, but he never felt so guilty as much as he did when he practically berated her through a series of text messages. He always demanded answers to things that he believed had explanations, and he wouldn’t stop until he got it. But sometimes he wished his relentless demands were silenced by his conscience.

He felt extremely guilty and upset. It wasn’t because Sylvie Hearth refused to give in to his demands, but rather because her answers explained her hatred and anger. It wasn’t just any anger. It was an ounce of hatred and a lot of anger directed towards him.

Because really, he was the reason why Sylvie never turned out to be the first woman to become a Formula One driver. She never got the seat in Red Bull Racing and Max had gotten it instead. Now he understood why she would refuse to speak to or look at him as if they were childhood best friends and act like they were strangers.

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sotogalmo · 6 months ago

Text

3:00 am (4 days ago) — 12:34

“Come, my prince, kiss me in that forest...”

@alien-til-i-stage / @starry-skiez (small but lots of mentions of Ciaran) :

@solei-eclipse / @junebluues / @chokkito / @4listr / @aakaneeee / @rockwgooglyeyes / @teapotuser + @bluemoonscape

Before it all— continuing from my other post, which is the aftermath.

"now, let's get some rest. Tomorrow is a very special day, is it not?" Yume has said, a lot of the times after seeing the 'Sun' set while being in the garden.

It's something that he's cherished, but not outrightly stated that it's something he liked doing. It's more like a gift- that's what Yume has thought and called it

Sleep is a gift; and those who are able to sleep are given such a gift because it's necessary for them (not for me, they wanted to see if they can push me to the end)

And such a gift, is good for them.

And it's something he wanted to learn about; it's not that weird that he watches others, isn't it?

He's learning about it, and it's better to do it up close and personal- a hands-on type of experiment. So it's not weird of him to stare.

It's actually quite normal for him to stare at others.

Seeing others sleep, whether they sleep within seconds or take longer- it's all interesting to him.

They are also in weird and funny positions to sleep in... But it's nice that they trust him when they fall asleep next to him.

He, Yume Nagai -"the sleep potentate"- finds it's very nice of them to trust him with such dreams and how close he is to them (physically, he doesn't really know what happens in their dreams, but he hopes it's nothing but what they want)

But it seems whenever they sleep close to him, they have happy dreams!

That makes him.. feel... Nice about himself. And it gives him purpose.

To which, he couldn't help but let his mind wander thru his past as he stared at some of them sleeping.

His past before he met the ones in his class; before he met his class.

His past where he would indulge in his own choosing of hanging out with Ald, for as long as he can. That has him asking questions, and never getting a full straight answer— but the fact that he can hang out and hear his voice?

Ah, it's so wonderful that it just drives him wild.

Even if Ald later down the line forgot about him and then got a new pet, oh what was his name? Sebstian? Sebastion? No one cares.

Yume had loved him since they had their first meeting; when they first looked at each other and then a spark happened.

And he was helpful too! Since he could bring Ald to greatness and provide wealth for him; he was technically the son of a doctor.

And he didn't mind! He actually accepted it, outright. And if it means that the silly childhood promise they both made when they met, could be kept in like a secret; a place where he will compromise for Ald's forgetfulness—

Because as long as he has him, surely everything will be alright. Even if he forgets- as long as they are together physically; he can be safe and sweet.

...

To which, it connects to what he's been seeing and what he's seeing right now. Someone is having trouble sleeping- someone not close to him, so they're fine.

But some of them seem to be in a nightmare; granted, Sebastian always has nightmares or just plain black dreams. so it's not surprising when it comes to him—

But for the others. It's a bit of a surprise. But then again, this places does bring them so much anxiety- fear and relentless horror. Even if they don't know it.

At least the subtle-ness of such a place gets to them subconsciously. It always was like that for him, so most likely it's for the others too. It would make sense

And in a way, he has just the right thing for them that can soothe them and bring much happier dreams than the ones that they're having. Well- not really, and he doesn't feel up to it.

In a way, he's jealous because they can have this gift of being human and having a rest. It's a gift that many of them have shared with others since the very start of their birth.

But, also- he's helpful to them because he can lure them to sleep— he was helpful for Ald!

He thinks he's helpful for the others because of how he can help them with their sleeping habits. And it makes him happy that he can help them; which has turned into a thing he does for the sake of their health and overall happiness.

Everyone has worries that weigh them down from day to day, he knows that with perfect -unchained, unscorecard, and unrestrained- knowledge because he's always seen worry.

"mama" he would first think, and then- "or papa... I don't know which is more fitting for them, but mama gives me... makes me a tiny bit of.. happiness..."

But then he'll just continue this train of thought: "mama and every other person I was able to see.. I could see their worries plain as day. Even with their sleeplessness, it wasn't hard to find it. It's under their eyelids, they are called "eye bags" I've been told by ama." — "and that was why some of them have been so surprised when I went up to them, whenever I could. I think."

"But! Now! With this medicine I plan on making, with the tiny leaves I've gathered when I was out playing with Ciaran (ah, ciaran..), and the.. cuts I gave myself. Leaves and liquid are important for making a cure, right?"

Yume hums a small tone, nothing significant. Just something that he regularly hums whenever he's too deep into his mind— "repeated tasks in uninspiring daily life, deepest longings.. ah, you know. Only inside a dream, you can leave it all behind-"

He's thought of that, too many times.

To close his eyes, cast away anything - anyone - everyone and everything he's tired of because if-

Ah. You already know that though. I bet you do, it's the main reason why he was made!

Such irony.

That he, now also does the same for the same reason; to lose himseld in his mind inside of his realities, where it's all true! (oh, who needs reality when you can dream? It's very simple!)

. .

. . .

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. . .

. .

.... . / .-- .- .-.. -.- . -.. / - --- / - .... . -- .-.-.- / --. .. ...- .. -. --. / - .... . -- / .- / --. .. ..-. - .-.-.- / .- / --. .. ..-. - / ..-. --- .-. / - .... . -- / - --- / -... . / ..-. .-. . . / ..-. .-. --- -- / - .... . / .-.. .. ..-. . / - .... .- - / .. ... / .- -. .- -.- - / --. .- .-. -.. . -. .-.-.- / .- / --. .. ..-. - --..-- / .- / -... .-.. ..- . / ...- .. .- .-.. .-.-.- / .- / ...- .. .- .-.. / .. -. / .... .. ... / .... .- -. -.. / - .... .- - / .. ... / -.. .- -- .- --. . -.. / -... . -.-- --- -. -.. / .-. . - ..- .-. -. --..-- / .- -. -.. / - .... .- - / -... .-.. ..- . / ...- .. .- .-.. / .-.. --- --- -.- ... / .-.. .. -.- . / .-- .- - . .-. .-.-.- / ... ..- .-. . .-.. -.-- / - .... .. ... / --. .. ..-. - / .. ... / -. --- / .--. --- .. ... --- -. -.-.-- / -... . -.-. .- ..- ... . / .-- .... -.-- / .-- --- ..- .-.. -.. / .. - / -... . ..--.. / .-- .... -.-- / .-- --- ..- .-.. -.. / .... . / --. .. ...- . / - .... . -- / ... ..- -.-. .... / .- / - .... .. -. --. ..--.. / .... . / -.-. .- .-. . ... / ..-. --- .-. / - .... . -- .-.-.- / - .... . ... . / .-.. --- .-- .-.. -.-- / .--. . - ... / --- -. .-.. -.-- / .-- .- -. - .. -. --. / .- -. -.. / .-- .- .. - .. -. --. / ..-. --- .-. / - .... . / --. .-. .. -- .-.-.- / - .... . / -- ..- .-. -.- -.-- / .-- .- - . .-. --..-- / - --- --- / -.. .- .-. -.- / -.-- . - / .. - .----. ... / ... - .. .-.. .-.. / .-..-. .-- .- - . .-. .-..-. .-.-.- / .- / --. .. ..-. - / - --- / .- .-.. .-.. / --- ..-. / - .... . -- .-.-.- / -. --- .-- / --- ..-. ..-. / .. -. - --- / .... .- .--. .--. -.-- / -.. .-. . .- -- ... --..-- / .- .-.. .-.. / - .... . / -.-. .... .. .-.. -.. .-. . -. / ... .... .- .-.. .-.. / -.. .-. .. ..-. - / - --- / - .... . .. .-. / ... .- ..-. . / .... .- ...- . -. .-.-.-

But now,

I can—

Be free.....

Yume hums a small tone, nothing significant. Just something that he regularly hums whenever he's too deep into his mind— He thinks he's helpful for the others because of how he can help them with their sleeping habits; he's shown that! His vial, his medicine- his "gift". And it makes him happy that he can help them; which has turned into a thing he does for the sake of their health and overall happiness.

For the sake of his—

CRASH. (Wink)

Oh?

Ah.

That rat— vermin, again.

Isn't it?

Roaming the halls, seems like he's not actually a heavy sleeper; but that's to be expected. He's always on the worry side of everything.

That's what Ald has been telling him, when he was first adopted he would make these small mistakes just like a new-born fawn! Ald found it funny, and so does Yume.

Hah, how can a faun- a deer survive in these conditions?

Ah.

But if he finds out; oh. He might tell the others— he seems to be that type of person, either way.

A scaredy cat that makes too many mistakes that it's funny, a mouse that tells on others, a rat that hears and whines, a vermin who's nothing but pest— nothing but oblivious to the idea that Yume has; that will set them both and many others free from this place.

So, yes. He has “"broken in"”. Not his fault that the aliens didn't trust him enough to watch the others...

. .

. . .

. . . .

. . . . .

. . . . . .

They met.

Face to face—

Once again. But this time with no "axe" behind Yume as to "disregard" his 'clone' (ahahah, ahahaha! funny- because he's the one and only Yume Nagai. Why would there be clones of him?)

They were standing near- so damn near- the entrance of the garden.

The ever-shifting colored box; the top of it open. They could see the stars- the other planets— everything.

. .

. . .

But that doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter to him; Yume. It doesn't matter.

It shouldn't, and it doesn't matter.

Why is Sebastian so resistant? Why does he hesitate (Drink up the vial. Take a breath; Suck out the poison, let it touch you) ? Why does he second guess, everything given to him?

This gift, why does he wake so easily from it?

This gift, why does he always worry it would never work?

This gift, why does he call it "nightmare"?

... Yume walks away; oh, he doesn't want to spend a MINUTE longer with this ginger!

He always makes him confused, questioning himself; but of course! What he thinks about Sebastian is nothing but rivalry!

Why should he feel connected, and feel just the same when he was with Ald (with Ciaran)?

Sebastian is the total opposite of them, and that doesn't feel nice.

Yume is now back in his room. Not alone, but he's back in his room. In all honesty, that's better than being in the halls where the others could see them.

This is better, because he can now- revisit the way he did his cure. (Feelin' feelin' feelin' feelin' f e a r)

And maybe have someone taste it (Drink up the vial. Take a breath; Suck out the poison, let it touch you) out! To see if it's perfect for the others.. even if he already gave those said others (those nobodies) their peace!

Yume sits back down, close to the area where he was making his cure; his gift to them all. Before he heard Sebastian's voice;

Of course it wobbled, but only a slight bit before he 'yelled' (more like he whispered this out loud in a very hushed but loud voice)— "Stop this already!"

To which? Of course, Yume responded, in the same tone and everything. You don't want the others to catch you, right?

"Stop what?"

Sebastian's hands waved around in the air (With a slight fever,) as he tried to remember what Yume called that glass bottle- "this- that thing that you're creating!—

You can't keep making it-!" Such a ""hero"" (but he is here with a weapon.. no, it can't be.)

"Why not!? Why not!? What's so bad about finally having rest!?" (wink.) "I'm here to save you all!"

"To start the end of the beginning."

"......"

"So I can finally meet him again... I have to do this."

"How are you so sure that this will make you meet him?"

"you... you just want to die!"

"AND!?"

"if I DIE, then they'll surely ask you about me. And he- he'll ask you about me! He'll finally talk about me!"

"Also...." Yume stopped for a bit, lowering his hoarse voice.

"Are how you so sure, I'll die? I know I will, but I'll not stay dead for long. I know it for sure." Saying it with such childishly sweet reassurance.

Sebastian gripped his scissors. Wondering if that tone should've been comforting, or something. It sounds— wrong. Like it's not supposed, to be that childish. That sweet- that unbothered.

Yume held onto his box cutters, the ones he found and hid away from the aliens- so very well.

"Besides. You know what Ald eats."

Sebastian shudders at the memories of seeing.. three? Or possibly more, human bodies that sometimes look like him; with the same clothes and everything-! The same rat hats, same rat tail belts, and everything. (Even the same things that the other pets would hunt- everything was prey. He was prey. But he lived; why? What's so interesting about him? Why did Ald keep him alive?)

"I only hope to be helpful to him. To be his resource, to be his~."

Sebastian looked away as he slightly drew blood from his own hand holding onto his scissors too tightly. "I should've known it would be like this, for that reason.. because you are weird, and a freak... ..... but why.. just why Yume..."

"it's only natural, that I'll finally be useful to him. And that they'll never let me go... I'm too important to them."

"Why.."

"Isn't painful? Suffocating?

Do you just want to escape it all?"

He's being... He's being vulnerable.

"Too tired of it all?" (A woman is eavesdropping on them; she lightly shakes and then looks down while having her robe on. She understands what he's saying.....)

"But."

What do you mean "but"? (Drink up the vial

Take a breath

Wink

Suck out the poison

Let it touch you)

"That's alright. It's fine; it's just how- and the way humans are."

You're saying that like you're.. you, yourself aren't human.... (Save this game, Mr. A)

Yume brings his box cutters to a spot on his wrist, like he's an expert at such harm (he is, just look at how he needed a glove to hide his marks!)— he didn't even have to look at his arm; his hand.

He knew just the spot, and he knew how to finish his cure; his gift— the heaven's blessing.

Love's love.

. .

. . .

His own blood.

If he can't give it to Ald (not Ald, not Ald. It's Ciaran), then he can at least "accidentally" give it to him.

The leaves, his blood, the poppy lookalike flowers (they are called ANAKT flowers, but he doesn't buy it. Fake? Of course, but it's the best he can do)- along with one silvervine.

Sebastian looks around, continuing to draw blood from his sweaty palm that is holding onto his weapon (Still covering my right eye

I check the tears). ..... He's thinking of doing what he should do- as a way to stop this craziness (yes, he knows that Yume has already been crazy from the start since they met, but this— ....)

A cut; and the drip-drip-drip of fresh blood. The metal smell overwhelms Sebastian, as he dashes forwards to pull Yume away; getting some of it (the blood, the blood coming from Yume's already too far gone wrist) way from the small bottle that Yume has been working on for who knows how long..

To which?

Yume attacks.

How DARE he stop this!

He would've dragged him down with him later or earlier, but now it seems like he should drag him down with him; NOW.

If Sebastian is acting like this, then he must surely want to be dead with him right now— but he can't.. he doesn't have the strength for it. (The woman outside of their door, starts to leave. They don't pay attention- but surely the guards might've- should've heard of her steps. It seems to be close to morning? The time where they would put the place in "day mode"; pink hair in cat-ear like buns sways, leaving with a younger girl who has ear-length ginger brown hair)

So it was easy for Sebastian, the one who can hold an alien back by one hand, to hold him in place and to at least try and help— keyword; try.

He tries.

He doesn't succeeds.

Yume scratches at his arm's bicep.

Not necessarily with his nails, but also with his box cutter. It's easy to do that (he had to, switch? the placement of his box cutters onto the other hand because his hand is bleeding out. Slowly, but still).

He was giving something back; he was giving that pain back. Not to the actual one who caused it, but the one who caused confusion for him.

He lightly smirked again, a last time type of smirk; the same smirk he had when they first met (God, Sebastian thinks, this makes me sound cheesy as hell. As if I liked him- no, not that. As if I "loved" him.....)

But his smirk was hiding something. Sebastian just knows it; how can he smile like this? And use so much force to crave words into his biceps....

He's—

you had used me, and abused me, made me feel small. You had cast aside my feelings, treated me like a doll. Even long before the gift, you'd broken my heart.

It was all I could do to tear the damn place apart! (I'll scream until I rot away)

They are face to face again.

Sebastian is holding in his tears (he doesn't want to be seen as weak, or pathetic. He doesn't like tears because of that. He only wants to be helpful)

Yume is ever smiling back at him.

. . . This feels so weird...

it's a medicine, it brings sleep make no mistake. And the sleep's eternal, so you never shall wake.

With what he can do for now, he reaches over to the glass bottle. Sebastian doesn't move, as he only tighten his grip onto him- trying so much.

"This is okay. This is okay." Yume said, what is he trying to achieve with saying that?

My Insomnia is transformed to a thing of the past.

Yume pushes them both away from each other. Sebastian brings his scissors to Yume's shoulder; close to his neck and collarbone (he wanted to stop this, in one way to another. Even if blood is made. He has to chase his heart) — to that, Yume somewhat whined. Only for a little bit

No longer the sleep princess, instead the sleeping beauty~—

. .

. . .

. . . .

. . . . .

. . . .

. . .

. .

The same pink haired woman is lightly seen. She's with— no.

It can't be.

It must be a clone, at least!

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ceescedasticity · 4 months ago

Text

A writeup/outline of the House of the Dragon/Song of Ice and Fire fic I worked on feverishly for a month and a half:

Premise: So, over two-four months of binging HotD fanfic before abruptly focusing on something else, I found a lot of fics with one or more Game of Thrones-era characters being reborn into the Dance era, but very few in reverse — I can only remember one, and it overwrote a canon character who I like with a HotD character I don't care about so meh. (There were a handful more with HotD characters suddenly being transported to the GoT era, but most were abandoned.)

So, the other way around — why might such a thing happen?

Well — Jace owes the Starks a Targaryen princess. The Starks seem to have felt dying cleared the debt, but they aren't the only ones who might care about oaths sworn in godswoods. So, Jace gets to be reborn until he delivers. As a girl, because he doesn't have a right to promise other Targaryen princesses. —Except his brothers. Well, sisters.

Unfortunately the Old Gods do not have free access to Targaryens; they need there to be a backdoor, so not every generation is accessible. Also they are possibly using a somewhat perverse definition of "princess".

First backdoor: Melissa Blackwood, one of the mistresses of Aegon the Unworthy. Jace and Luke are reborn as Mya and Gwenys Rivers. (Melissa's third child is a boy, and also earmarked for other purposes, so Joff sits out this round.) Even after they're legitimized they're not precisely princesses; there's no reason the Starks would want to marry them. They end up pretty preoccupied with Targaryen stuff anyway, supporting Daeron II and opposing the Blackfyre Rebellion. They go through some bad stuff. There's a whole story here, between the Blackfyre Rebellion and the frankly insane dynamics of Aegon IV's court.

(Part of the story is about their little brother, Brynden Rivers, who loves them very much and also sees who they are after a greenseer-awakening sojourn on the Isle of Faces.)

Altogether it's not an entirely unsuccessful life, but delivering Targaryen princess: Not accomplished.

You might think that Betha Blackwood would be the next backdoor! You would be wrong. Possibly Shaera was un-meddleable due to upcoming Prince that was Promises bloodlines. Possibly the Old Gods are set on only reincarnating them as questionable princesses.

The next backdoor is Jenny. Duncan and Jenny weren't planning on having children, but whoopsie-daisy, twin girls. Jenny's friend (the future Ghost of High Heart, henceforth Woman of the Forest/WotF because I don't want to keep typing that) sees some things about the babies, but not very clearly, so they end up named Junia and Layne.

Junia and Layne have a good, sheltered childhood. (Junia could definitely have been a much better and more responsible princess than Shaera, but whatever.) They're in their mid-teens when Aegon V comes up with his dragon-hatching scheme. They are 1000% on board with this. They love dragons. Targaryens without dragons is just wrong. They die at Summerhall. But — and this will be important — the WotF understands their situation enough to know they will eventually be back.

If Lyanna Stark had daughters (who didn't already have Destinies), that would have been a suitable backdoor. But, she doesn't, and her son mustn't be tampered with. And of course not much later there's a serious Targaryen shortage.

If I were writing this properly I'd introduce Jessamyn, Lucinda, and Jocelyn Flint and leave the connection vague until later, but since I'm not — their mother Mona (short for Daemona) was a Blackfyre in the female line. Their father Ronnel is the backdoor, and a younger son of House Flint of Flint's Finger who ran off to become a sellsword in Essos.

(This is the most excruciating parentage by far, because after Mya and Gwenys's experiences they really, really hate Blackfyres.) (Joff is here for the first time, and Jess and Lucy won't let Jo out of sight, mostly.)

Ronnel says they're trueborn and no one in Westeros can contradict him, but technically their parents never formally married (no godswoods available).

Mona dies and Ronnel gets sick/takes an injury that won't heal/idk something where he's dying but not immediately. Mona didn't trust her family, so Ronnel takes the girls to the North. He'll trust his brother with his daughters' safety — but not with the several chests of Essosi gold Ronnel is leaving to them. Those Ronnel entrusts to Eddard Stark, the contents to be released to his daughters only; as a compromise, they can withdraw some before they marry to help offset expenses.

Thus they are not infrequent visitors to Winterfell, not close to the Starks but quite well acquainted. Which puts them closer to 'marrying a Stark' than they've ever been, but Catelyn is very clear that they are not suitable prospects. Jessamyn Flint is a responsible girl with enough dowry for a respectable smaller house to overlook questionable origins and some personal eccentricities, but shouldn't look higher.

Also Jess has a temper — better controlled than Jace's, because Mya faced severe consequences for lashing out and Junia's family actually taught her how to manage anger, but it's still there. When it shows up at Winterfell it's usually because Theon Greyjoy, comedic genius, has reacted to Lucy's somewhat boyish behavior by persistently nicknaming her Brave Lucy Flint. This is generally agreed to be reasonable grounds for even a lady to lose her shit. (If Jess had Jace's training and muscle mass it would be all over for him.)

Cascade effect from this: Because the Brave Danny Flint thing gets brought up over and over and OVER again, tied into reality in a way the song alone won't do, Jon is much less enthusiastic about the Night's Watch. In fact, he wants to go for a knighthood first (or instead) — when he leaves Winterfell he goes to House Locke, one of the handful of Northern houses that does knighthood. And when the North goes to war, Jon rides with House Locke to the Green Fork and gets captured.

After Robb is crowned, Jess has the idea of reaching out to her father's contacts in the Company of the Rose — would any of them want to come defend an independent North, at least enough to get a good price hiring them? She also volunteers her dowry to pay for it. So, Jess and one of her Flint cousins set out to get a ship to Essos, and Lucy (with Jo) is dispatched to Winterfell to get the gold if things work out.

The three-eyed raven gives Bran a very clear and explicit warning about Theon's party approaching, with instructions on how to avert it. The castle falling would be useful to drive his successor northwards, but Brynden is not about to let Gwenys get captured by Ironborn. The attack is foiled with minimal casualties, but Theon takes out one of Lucy's eyes. (Lucy has a hysterical laughing fit before passing out.)

—After this Theon is either dispatched for the Wall and does Night's Watch things or "escapes" with "Reek" and has a very bad time.

In the course of preparing for the attack Brynden revealed through Bran that he's still alive and can communicate through weirwoods. He has to be much less cryptic in explaining why Bran needs to cross the Wall. Lucy is unconvinced and says she certainly couldn't let Bran go without her, which Brynden doesn't like at all. Fortunately for Brynden's plans Lucy is still in recovery, and she is unable to stop Bran from slipping away with the Reeds, Hodor, and also Jo. Brynden will be in so much trouble when she tells Mya.

Jess has her own problems. The safe thing to do would be to head to Essos by way of White Harbor — but starting from Riverrun that's a long way out of the way. Sneaking through the Riverlands to Saltpans should be much faster. It's a terrible idea but Jess knows the Riverlands well (or did when she was Mya) and her cousin is short on common sense. They get caught and taken to Tywin at Harrenhal. We now have Jess, Jon, Arya, and Tywin all in Harrenhal.

Which is not quite the same as it is in canon, because — remember Jenny's friend knowing Jenny's daughters would be reborn someday?

The Woman of the Forest dug up those seven dragon eggs Aegon V brought to Summerhall and buried them by the Harrenhal heart tree. They'd already been in a pyre with way more than seven people, and Harrenhal has plenty more death to offer, so when magic starts growing again — say, about when the direwolf mother came south — they hatch. Now the Harrenhal godswood has seven possibly cursed dragons. (Almost definitely cursed, really. They're most active at night and stealthier than they should be even at night; they grew quickly to a fairly small size for dragons and then stopped; they are uncannily knowing for animals.)

Cursed or not they've been very considerate for dragons — they've never attacked inside the castle. They're practically friendly with the castle smallfolk who discovered and secretly fed them. (The smallfolk called them after the major houses of Harrenhal — Hoare, Qoherys, Harroway, Towers, Strong, Lothston, and Whent.) When they started attacking Lannister raiders they did it outside the castle.

Since Jon Snow has been a prisoner, one of them has been lurking around the relevant tower more.

When Jess arrives, one breaks into her cell within a few days. (Jon is an option. They're meant for Jess.) (The one that's most for her is Strong, because of course it is.)

There's a very exciting night after which they're in control of Harrenhal and Jess and Jon have claimed dragons, to Jon's consternation. (Two more of the dragons are destined for Lucy and Jo.)

Blah blah, more stuff happens, I'm not sure how the war works out exactly but Robb marries Jess after all because she's from a good northern family and HAS A DRAGON.

They still have quite a bit to do up North even before the Others show up because in addition to the Ironborn and potential Bolton problems—

No Jon Snow means Lord Mormont gets killed by a wight, which means that the Watch started attempting to elect a new Lord Commander and deadlocked. No Great Ranging. No infiltration of Mance Rayder's wildlings by Jon or anyone else. Wherever the wildling army attacks — maybe not Castle Black if it's full of election — they're a surprise, and any wall-climbing advance guard was un-infiltrated. Mance gets through.

(Which will actually be a benefit when the Others show! Going to take a while to work that out, though.)

The Bastard Dragons will likely help with all this. (Also Brynden has to be careful with Bran or his sisters will be disappointed.)

Anyway anyway — that's only four out of seven bastard dragons spoken for, and what about the Greens?

So, considering the dragonkeepers as a quasi-religious order. They are likely to be distraught when the last dragon dies. They perhaps might want to demand vengeance — perhaps not on the current king, both because the senior Dragonstone dragonkeepers remember Aegon III as a little boy who loved Stormcloud plus, you know, he's the king. Perhaps they might instead turn to Valyrian blood magic and access to Targaryen funerary urns, and commit mass ritual murder-suicide to chain the guilty to life where they can be punished.

This doesn't work with an empty funeral urn, so they can't actually target Rhaenyra or Daemon, or Daeron. Any non-Targaryens aren't on the table at all. But Aegon II and Helaena had funerals, and Aemond's bones were dredged up with Vhagar's. (Some might question the inclusion of Helaena among the guilty, but her suicide triggered the storming of the Dragonpit.)

The curse will see them reborn, when a Hightower has a child with Targaryen blood. The curse will see their bodies warped with approximations of draconic traits, eventually killing them painfully. The curse will end when there are dragons again.

The first available "child of a Hightower, with Targaryen blood" is the youngest daughter of Rhaena and Garmund Hightower, followed by Rhaena's daughters's children. They go through a few rounds of this before some of the Hightowers figure out what's going on. They come up with a way to stall the curse, but decide that probably they should try to avoid marrying Targaryens. Rhaena's grandchildren don't bear the Hightower name, so it doesn't fall on any of them.

It does pop up when Viserys Plumm marries a Hightower. And when a Hightower fathers a child on a dragonseed whore, years after that.

(The curse doesn't specify gender, but somehow Aegon is a girl every time. He undergoes character development partially from this and partially from experiencing actual competent parenting and unconditional love.)

Fast forward. Leyla Hightower is one of Lord Leyton's daughters, and the only one to marry into a knightly house. Suppose, then, that this was a coverup after she got in trouble. Suppose she got into trouble with a descendant of one of Aegon V's sisters, and surprise, turns out that's enough to trigger the curse. Mad Maid Malora figures out what's going on fairly soon, so Agnes and Ellyn get the curse mitigation very young.

Leyla then goes on to fuck Robert at the Lannisport tourney and has Emmon. To complete the set.

Agnes, Ellyn, and Emmon are all nominally the children of Ser Jon Cupps, but Leyla and Robert weren't exactly discreet. Jon Arryn comes up with a pretense to invite Ser Cupps and family to court — he wants a closer look at white-blond Leyla and her black-haired son.

Ellyn would rather die than set foot in King's Landing, so she goes to be a companion to her cousin Margaery instead. We'll come back to her.

Lord Arryn and Stannis interrogate Leyla but leave Ser Cupps out of the loop. Emmon isn't told anything but figures it out. Agnes decides Cersei was custom-crafted by cruel gods to answer the question "what would a queen have to be like for Aegon to think better of Rhaenyra by comparison".

When Jon Arryn dies, Stannis takes Leyla and Emmon — evidence — to Dragonstone. Emmon is very unhappy about this. Agnes and Ser Cupps are left behind. Ser Cupps, still clueless, helps Ned's investigation as best he can, and is 'accidentally' killed in the chaos around Ned's arrest. The Lannisters decide Agnes isn't much of a Reach hostage, but still worth hanging onto. Agnes is very unhappy about this and makes it everyone's problem.

Back in the Reach, Ellyn doesn't care about Renly but she is fond of Margaery and Loras. She tries some of Malora's tricks to protect the encampment. It interferes enough that Renly doesn't get killed.

Emmon eventually manages to get off Dragonstone — Leyla will probably be safe there but Melisandre is making him nervous. He wants to get back to the Reach or find Renly's forces, since breaking Agnes out of King's Landing on his own is unrealistic. (As far as kings go Emmon thinks all the Baratheons are pretenders, but the Lannisters and Stannis have made themselves his enemies.) Inconveniently, he makes landfall in the Riverlands. He is captured. He is imprisoned in proximity to Jess, and both of them have to come to terms with a lot of things real fast.

So Emmon is also at Harrenhal, and also claims a dragon, and also calls dibs on two more for currently absent siblings.

Claiming of the Bastard Dragons:

Hoare, renamed Hoarwing (by Jess), renamed Hoarfrost (by Jon): Jon Snow

Qoherys, renamed Rhaenaxes because who cares about House Qoherys and Queen Rhaena was awesome: Ellyn Cupps

Harroway, renamed Harrowfyre: Agnes Cupps

Towers, renamed Towerfyre (by Jess), renamed Riverwing (by Emmon, from reasons he won't discuss): Emmon Cupps

Strong, renamed Strongwing: Jessamyn Flint

Lothston, renamed Danelleys because Mad Danelle was definitely the best Lothston: Lucinda Flint (You could therefore, if you wanted, nickname the dragon Danny Flint — or perhaps Danny Flint's Revenge)

Whent, renamed Whenthor: Jocelyn Flint

When Daenerys finally arrives, they all make terms — they insist on good terms, but they won't set dragon against dragon for the sake of any crown.

#things I'm not writing #asoiaf #I'm really proud of this actually #I did so much wiki research #wove around the timeline #I have some more details/written snippets but not on me

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