#And I many be exaggerating with beloved but I really do believe in the dash

[the-physicality]

I can’t believe it has all come down to the fact that I must root against my beloved Houston dash to keep Portland out of the playoffs

[wrenhyperfixates]

Home Is Such a Lonely Place

Pairing: Loki x reader Summary: When Loki is handpicked to be part of the Avengers new space force, it causes some problems in your relationship. Will distance make the heart grow fonder or is it too much to bear? Warnings: none I believe :) A/N: Based on the song Home Is Such a Lonely Place by Blink-182. This has been sitting in my drafts since February so here it is. Hope you enjoy :)

Permanent Tag List: @lucywrites02 @frostedgiant @lunarmoon8 @twhiddlestonsstuff @lokistan @lowkeyorlokificrecs @gaitwae @whatafuckingdumbass @castiels-majestic-wings @kozkaboi @cozy-the-overlord @birdgirl90 @myraiswack @mythicalgarlicknot @what-a-flammable-heart @marvelouslovely @laurenandloki @fallinallinmendes @sophlubbwriting @mooncat163 

Disclaimer: Gif not mine

Loki was perfect. No, you weren’t exaggerating; he really was everything you’d ever wanted. It was the circumstances that were the problem. Because you were born a mortal and he a god, so you were relegated to Earth while he spent increasingly more time in space.

The Avengers and SHIELD had both reached the same decision that Earth needed to be protected from extraterrestrial threats. So, who better to send out to space than those with the most experience out there? A team had been assembled, and Loki was put on it, traveling with them for a good many months now. You could still remember when he’d first told you.

“Darling?” he called out, coming home from work that fateful day.

“In here,” you called from the kitchen.

He walked into the messy room, hugging you from behind. Loki rested his head on your shoulder after placing a quick kiss to your cheek, breathing in your scent. You sighed as you relaxed against him, but there was an odd, nervous sort of tension in his body. Frowning as you tried to figure out why, you got an idea.

“Here, try this, love,” you suggested, holding a steaming spoon of pasta sauce to his lips.

After blowing on it a bit, he’d taken the spoon in his mouth, swallowing the sauce. He’d smiled at you, cupping your cheek. “Delicious, my sweet darling.”

“But...?” you’d prompted.

“It could use just a dash more oregano,” he conceded, pinching a small amount of the herb between his fingers and tossing it in, stirring the pot. Mimicking your actions from just moments ago, he held out a spoonful for you to try. “Well?”

“It’s perfect, Loki,” you beamed, pulling him closer. “So perfect, in fact, that I think you need a taste too.”

“Oh, is that so?” he chuckled.

“Mhm,” you hummed before kissing him, the taste of the sauce still on your mouth.

“You were right,” he purred, pulling back a little bit. “Absolutely perfect.”

Troubles momentarily forgotten, the raven haired god set the table for two as you finished cooking dinner. The two of you sat, chatting and eating and holding hands. Everything was going so well, and then you asked a question that made his smile falter.

“So how was your day?” you’d inquired.

“About that,” he said, setting down his utensil. “We need to talk.”

“Uh oh,” you responded. You felt a little nervous as you put down your fork too. “That doesn’t sound good. Is everything ok?”

“Yes... and no,” he sighed. “SHIELD is putting together a team to take care of threats from other planets. A team that they have told me I am to be on.”

“Oh,” you replied, trying to keep your face neutral. You didn’t want to be upset if it was something he was actually excited for. “And it’s required you go?”

“Not exactly. If I plead my case, I’m certain I can stay. Believe me, I do not want to leave you. I will stay, if you wish me to.”

“Well, how long would you be gone for?”

“I am uncertain. It could be three months, or it might be ten.” He bit his lip. “But, darling, tell me to stay and without hesitation, I shall.”

It felt like the floor was falling out from under you. Of course you wanted him to stay, but would that really be fair? Could you let yourself be the one to hold him back? If there was one thing you knew, you loved each other. As long as you didn’t forget or doubt that, you could weather anything.

“No, Loki, it’s a great opportunity,” you said. “You should go. I’ll be waiting here when you get back.”

“Oh, darling,” he whispered, sliding out of his chair. Kneeling before you, Loki rested his head in your lap, and you ran your fingers through his silky black hair. “I swear these next three weeks shall be the best of your life. I will dedicate all my time to you before I leave.”

“My love, I would like nothing more, but I don’t want to monopolize all your time,” you hesitantly said. Though you wanted to spend as much time with him as you could before he left, you didn’t want him to feel obligated to. “If you really don’t mind, though, please do.”

Of course, he was more than happy to and spent just as much time with you as he had promised. But now he’d been gone for six months, and you missed him terribly. You laid on the roof, petting the cat Loki had bought you before he left. So you never got lonely, he said. It had shiny black fur and beautiful green eyes. As soon as Loki gifted your new friend to you, you’d named him Loki Jr., earning you a playful eye roll from the trickster god.

Remembering that night brought a brief smile to your face. Now, you looked up at the moon, Loki Jr. purring as you pet his soft fur. You wondered where your lover was out there in that great expanse of space. Was he looking at it like an empty void? Or was he appreciating the stars and the wonders that were held out there? Maybe he was just indifferent to it, you thought. After all, he’d grown up on Asgard, so perhaps he was used to it.

Going back to your room that evening, your bed felt empty. Your home just felt so lonely without Loki. The real Loki, anyway. As much as you loved Loki Jr., it just wasn’t the same thing. Was your love thinking the same thing, you wondered? You hoped so, but didn’t want to think about it too much, lest your brain make you believe he didn’t miss you.

Sighing, you buried your nose into Loki Jr.’s fur. You had no one to blame except yourself, really. Loki had asked you repeatedly if you wanted him to stay, but you always said no. Told him he had to live his life to the fullest. That he couldn’t wait for you to give him the ok. You’d still be here when you got back, and you had your job at the Tower to keep you occupied. Of course, every mission you observed from there reminded you of Loki. How you’d met and all the shy glances you’d shared. You couldn’t help yourself from wondering how he was doing. He’d be alright, you were sure. But until he got back, it seemed there was nothing you could do to ease your worrying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Space was beautiful, there was no denying that. But it was kind of cold and empty too. Especially since the trickster god had to be without you, his beloved. Now that’s not to say he wasn’t having fun or wasn’t enjoying the time he got to spend with his brother. He just still really missed you and your company.

Loki ran his fingers over the picture he had of you. Not too much longer until he could brush his fingers over the soft skin of your beautiful face. Oh, how eight months could feel like a million years, Loki didn’t know. Well, in a way he did; any time spent away from the one you loved with your whole heart as he did you was bound to be tedious and feel drawn out. He’d be arriving back home tomorrow. Or, rather, today, he realized with a thrill as he checked the clock, reading midnight.

It was a bit of a struggle, but soon he was able to fall asleep. When he woke up, there was a mere hour left before reentry into Midgard’s atmosphere. Even with as empty space was, it somehow felt even lonelier with you. And now he’d be back with you in your shared apartment. He couldn’t wait until that night when you got to lay together just holding each other, basking in the other’s presence.

“Well, brother, are you ready to head back?” Thor asked, clapping Loki on the back.

“You have no idea just how eager I am, brother,” Loki replies. “It has been too long away from my beloved.”

“And certainly, they are missing you, too,” the God of Thunder assured.

“I can only hope. But what if they have moved on? We have not even been able to talk to each other in over a month. What if... What if they do not love me anymore?” Loki let himself be vulnerable, utilizing the relationship he and his brother had cultivated on this journey. “They did, after all, encourage me to go. Quite a bit.”

“Yes, but you know they just did not want to hold you back. Cheer up, Loki. Everything will be just fine.”

By the time they landed, Loki had mainly eased his worries, though he did feel a twinge of panic in his heart when he didn’t immediately see you while walking off the ramp. Luckily, you were there, he’d just missed you in the crowd.

Immediately, you ran to him, giving him the biggest hug you could. He reciprocated, beyond happy to feel your frame pressed against his. Tension relieved from both your bodies as you held each other.

“Hello, sweet darling,” he smiled.

“Hello, my love.”

Kissing the top of your head, Loki led you, following the gathered group as they walked further into the Tower while laughing and chatting with their recently arrived teammates. Loki kept an arm around your shoulder, and you one around his waist, the need to keep each other close quite obvious.

You and your boyfriend had to separate for a little while as Loki went to a debriefing. Soon he was back out, and the two of you joined the Avengers for a little welcome party of sorts. It was really just a get-together for the team to catch up. Even though it was a ton of fun, you were more than happy when you and Loki were in your car, driving back to your apartment.

“Welcome home,” you grinned, opening the door. Loki Jr. immediately came and rubbed himself against your legs. Loki smiled as you bent down to pet the cat, glad to know his plan had worked, at least in some degree. “Did you miss it?”

He cupped your cheek, looking deep into your eyes. “You have no idea, darling.”

Unable to wait any longer, Loki leaned in and kissed you. You responded immediately, brining him closer to you. He lifted you up and put your body between his and the wall. You giggled when the two of you finally broke for air, and Loki planted a million little kisses along your neck.

“I missed you, too,” you panted, still breathless.

“Next time,” he said between kisses, “I am telling them I am staying here.”

“Wait.” You brushed a few of his raven locks behind his ear, cocking your head at him. “Next time?”

Loki sighed. He knew he shouldn’t have brought this up so soon. The last thing he wanted was to make you upset on the day he came back home. All the trickster god wanted was to be with you, but of course he had to mention it. You had an adorable inquisitiveness in your eyes as you continued to play with his hair, twirling some of it between your fingers. He wondered if there was still a chance to save the day after his blunder.

“Yes. Fury wants to ship the team back out in a few months. After so long away from you, my darling, the thought sounds torturous. I will stay here. With you,” he explained, setting you back onto the ground.

“But that’s not fair to you,” you protested. “I shouldn’t be the only thing tethering you here. I don’t want to hold you back.”

“No, darling. I want to stay with you, I swear,” he vowed. You frowned, and he felt his heart drop a little. You said you missed him, and yet you were telling him to go again. “Look, sweet darling, it is late already. Let us just enjoy this night together. There is plenty of time to decide.”

“Ok,” you agreed, burying your face against his chest as you hugged again. You really didn’t want him to go, but a human like you shouldn’t tie down a god like him, you thought.

You led him to the bedroom you’d so missed sharing with him. After getting ready for the evening, you both laid in bed, talking of lighter topics. Neither of you could keep your hands off the other, and constantly maintained some kind of contact. Loki hadn’t even realized how late it’d gotten until your sentences began to be punctuated by yawns. Though you would have rather continued the conversation, you acquiesced when he suggested getting some sleep.

“You know,” you said, cuddling up to him, already half asleep. “If you do want to go on the next mission, I won’t be mad, my love.”

“I know. But I want to be with you. Yet you keep telling me to go and...” he trailed off, absentmindedly rubbing your back. “We will talk another time. Just sleep for now, my sweet darling.”

“Alright,” you hummed against him. “Goodnight. I love you. I promise, I’ll never stop loving you.”

“And I promise the same. I love you too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was only a month left before Loki would leave again. If he left again. You were both still debating, though you had eased up a bit after he voiced his concerns.

“Really, you should go. I- What’s wrong?” you’d asked during one such argument when he frowned.

“You say you love me, but you try to send me away,” he replied, a few tears gathering in his eyes, threatening to spill. “Why?”

“Oh, Loki, I really do love you. I swear on my life.”

“I believe you,” he assured while you kissed his forehead, though with an unmistakable hint of doubt behind the words.

“It’s just you’re a god. And I’m a mortal. I don’t want to hold you back. Hold you here. I don’t really want you to leave either; home is lonely without you. So if you really want to be on Midgard, of course I’ll support that too. I just can’t imagine you wouldn’t rather be free to roam.”

“In all honesty, my darling,” Loki began, “I do quite enjoy space travel. The settling down is nice too, of course, but there is something about being out there that’s freeing. So no, it is not that I want to be on Midgard, but that I want to be with you. I need to be with you. I love you so, so much, and I cannot bear to go without you for so long again.”

“Well, that’s it then. I need you too because I love you too. And you don’t want to go without me, but what about with me? We’ve been so caught up in our argument, we didn’t even consider another option.”

“Bring you with me?”

You nodded nervously. Maybe he was going to tell you it was too dangerous. Maybe he was just being nice saying he wanted to stay with you. But no, he wouldn’t have been this stubborn if that was the case. Just as you were going to try to recant your suggestion, Loki surged forward and kissed you.

“Darling, you’re a genius!” he exclaimed, pulling away. “I cannot believe we did not think of it sooner. You can work on the ship to monitor the missions, just like you do here. And we will be together. It is perfect!”

“Is it ok if we bring Loki Jr. too?” you asked as the cat plopped himself in your lap.

“For you, my sweet darling? For you I would do anything, so of course it is,” he chuckled as he cupped your cheek and kissed you again.

When you broke apart again, you felt happier than you had in a long time, knowing you wouldn’t have to part again. After all, he was your home, and you were his. So as long as you were together, home could never be a lonely place.

[ohmy7hearts]

spring gale

Summary: Spring means new beginnings but a gale (a storm more like?) in the name of Shinazugawa Sanemi blows your plans out and throw your once peaceful life into the winds.

Pairings: Shinazugawa Sanemi x Fem!Reader // future Shinazugawa Genya x SisterFigure!Reader 

A/N: this,,, is v impromptu. i literally got out of my bed bc it has been bugging me with how little sanemi fanfics there are, esp modern aus. tbh, there have been plenty of fics brewing in my mind and tell me if there’s any you’d be interested in and maybe i will return from my hiatus hah:

 - zhongli modern au: adepti babies being your adopted children and navigating parenthood 

- unknown pairing as of now but travelers being your kids so transporting yourself into the world to find them after 500+ years of not returning home 

- etc involving atsumu, diluc, childe but if you have any requests, feel free to drop it in and maybe i’ll consider them

Warnings: Some cursing (I mean it’s Sanemi lolol)

“Shinazugawa-san?” Sanemi glanced up, his hands continued packing away his things into the bag, an eyebrow raised. You smiled, hands folded over the other in front of you, as you continued to speak after gaining his attention. “When would you be free to do the project?”

He sighed, throwing his bag over his shoulder, while making his way out of the classroom - tone and body language showing his disinterest in the conversation. “We can just do it in class.”

You jogged to get into step next to him, “Well, it is for the bare minimum. I’m sure we can do much better than that.” You observed his side profile to see if any emotion could give way to what he was thinking. You frowned, frustration creeping up on you, “I understand that we’re not each other’s first choice in partners but that’s not an excuse to not do our best.”

“Are grades and studying the only thing in that airhead of yours?” His eyes flit towards yours for a moment before returning its gaze forward. “I don’t fucking have as much free time as you.”

You stopped following him. A bolt of anger and disbelief had your mouth dropping and hands curling into shaking fists. You scoffed, voice raising with each word, “I believe you need this more than me, Shinazugawa-san. Unless you want to continue being a pain in everyone’s ass and eventually not even graduate, then be my guest.” 

He swiveled towards you. You flinched reactively. He faltered, face momentarily flitting from anger to surprise back to annoyance the moment his eyes scanned you. One step, two steps. He was in your space, breathing in and out to you, with his�� strikingly cold eyes and thin eyebrows furrowed. “Say that again, I dare you.”

You closed your eyes before releasing a deep sigh, muscles easing from the hold of your anger. “We don’t have to do it after school or on the weekends if you are that occupied. We can do it before school or during our breaks and even before our clubs start.” You grabbed one of his wrist, turning his palm upwards, shoving the crumpled paper with your number into it while fixating your glare on him throughout. You refuse to back down but you will be the bigger person. Forcing his hand to a close, you narrowed your eyes for good measure while trying to control the smirk from overtaking your face when his frown further deepened in distaste. Taking a step back, your hands returned to the usual folded stance, you forced an amicable smile to replace the smirk - although you have a feeling that he could still see the smirk from how his eye twitched, “Of course, it’s really up to you, Shinazugawa-san.”

Turning on your heel, you headed back to the classroom with your head held high and a full-blown smirk on your face while your peers watched with stolen glances and whispers behind hands or under breaths. The clicking of his tongue echoed in the corridor and in your head all the way back to the classroom. 

“Ara, ara, should you really do that (Y/N)-chan?” Shinobu greeted you by your desk, eyes filled with mirth from the free entertainment.

You laughed airily, eyes not meeting hers but focused on clearing the messy table, “I wouldn’t have to if he wasn’t that difficult.” 

“Not many survive Sanemi you know?” Shinobu followed you to the student council room. “One must use their life's worth of luck to crawl out from his bad side.” 

A bark of a laugh escaped you from her exaggeration. “Shinobu-chan ~ I thought you wanted to get into medicine and not theatrics?”

Her eyes met yours, a smirk tugging on her lips, eyes shifting precariously into ones when she knew something the other party doesn’t and in this case that was you. A shiver ran down your spine. You’ve been in the spot only a few times but still a few too many with most of them ending up jerking your view of the world down a path you’ve never considered. You gulped, hands itching and playing with themselves. 

“Did you not hear about how he got into a fight with some university boys down at the park?” She leaped into your space, voice dropping into a whisper in your ear yet head tilted to ensure a front seat view to your reaction. “He came out with a couple of scratches and bruises but…” Her small hands encircled your upper arm. Your eyes dropping to them before returning to her face - surprised to witness your shock colouring your face white as it was reflected in those big eyes of hers. “The boys said to be much bigger than he is, had to go to the hospital.” Her smile bordering on unhinged glee, she drawled, “They were so scared they didn’t sue him.”

She immediately returned to her spot beside you, a foot away, while her shoulders and arms lifted in a form of a shrug nonchalantly. “Apparently, when questioned, the boys said something about them being the ones out of line and they have worked things out.” 

Being close friends with Shinobu and Mitsuri meant that you were privy to the latest gossip and news but you always took it with a grain of salt seeing firsthand how some things were purposefully voided or added for the enjoyment of teenagers. You smiled unsurely, “that’s just a rumour Shinobu-chan.”

She pouted, invisible to those who didn't know her well enough or who weren’t keen enough, “You can ask Akio. He was a witness.”

Your eyes widened before blinking in incredulity. “What.”

She giggled, hand raising in a wave before dashing down the corridor. “Do share with me if he tells you more!” 

It took you a few seconds to regain your bearings, even a shake of your head to rid the mental image of Sanemi punching away on people bigger than him for his amusement. He was by no means a small person shown clearly with the muscles seen even through the school uniform - a testament to his achievements as one of the greatest fighters in the taekwondo club despite his lacklustre participation of actually attending said club practices - but there were certainly bigger and taller people in your school, much less university. 

“Hashimoto-san!” You snapped out of your musings.

“Tanaka-san.” You greeted back. The black haired guy chuckled, “I told you to call me by my first name. After all, we’ve been working together for 3 years. Unless, you don’t see me as a friend? Damn, it must hurt to only be seen as a student council partner even after winning the presidential election together.”

“Stop being so dramatic.” You huffed, plopping down into the chair and hands gravitating towards the papers on the table before being stopped by a hand on your wrist. Raising an eyebrow, he returned the gesture indicating there’s something he was expecting you to tell him. He released the grasp on your hand the moment you were falling back onto the back support of the chair with a sigh. “How may I help you Akio?”

“On the way here, I heard an interesting piece of news.” He sat sideways on the table, the leg on the table folded over the leg still standing. You folded your arms over your chest and hummed. “You and Shinazugawa were fighting?”

“It was just a talk that got a bit heated. I was trying to get a hold on him so we can do our project for literature together.” 

Akio’s eyebrows shot up and disappeared under his bangs. “Wow, what luck. First, he somehow got into your class through that stupid maths shit and now you have to deal with him.” He smiled in assurance, eyes crinkling close and  a hand over his heart. “Be careful but if anything happens, I’m here. I’ll come running to save my beloved president.”

You mouthed a wow. Silence blanketed the both of you as you nod in understanding - lips trying to contain the smiles and laughs - as he continued to express his devotion through his hand gestures - hand flying to point at you before returning to over his chest, patting it, then forming into a prayer of sorts - all the while mouthing his loyalty to you. 

With a shake of your head and hands indicating him to leave as you pulled yourself closer to your table, “Thanks but I doubt I need it.”

Instead, he tilted his head backwards and narrowed his eyes on the ceiling. “If you see what I saw, I wouldn’t put too much faith in him.”

Blood freezes over while questions overwhelm your mind. You gulped and licked your lips to get rid of the sudden dryness, “And what exactly are they?”

“He didn’t stop beating them up or screaming at them even when they were down. Three policemen had to pry him off and restrain him.”

Your heart dropped.

[musicallisto]

Hi Clara!! Congratulations on 800 followers again!! (also I was looking through your blog and we have the same birthday!! 🥳) I was wondering if I could please have a male Bridgerton ship? I’m an ENFJ, libra, and Hufflepuff if that helps at all. I can be a bit introverted a times but I’m usually a pretty outgoing, kind, and optimistic person! (although I can be a bit sensitive at times lol) Currently I’m studying to be a teacher. My friends/family are very important to me, and I will always try my best to help them it whatever ways I can. As for some things I enjoy, I love to read and write, as well as spend all day watching movies. I’m also interested in signing, acting, etc. and making things with my hands (ie. knitting, embroidery). Thank you so much in advance!! 💛

hiii birthday twin!! <3 you seem like the most fantastic person ever, I love your personality - and your writing, but it goes without saying. I hope you like your vanilla milkshake, but don’t get caught sipping on it unchaperoned with benedict bridgerton, that would be quite the scandal...

Now, was I influenced by your profile picture? Probably. But even without it, you’d be perfect for each other, and let me tell you the story of you both.

For your first society outings, and following your debutante ball, you became the talk of all London. Sure, you were praised far and wide for your beauty, but there was something else, ineffable and far more tender, that caused your name to linger on most gentlemen’s lips.

It was your first season, and yet you had already shown a mesmerizing elegance and poise, as well as an acute optimism and enthusiasm, making your conversation all the more enjoyable to all those you encountered.

Benedict had noticed you on your first ball, when whispers of your name and your every move had spread among the crowd like wildfire, and he had to admit that you were radiant, and your warm and welcoming smile gave you beauty like no other, but bright eyes and rosy cheeks were legion this side of London, and he knew the superficiality of these pretty little faces all too well. He wasn’t intrigued enough to start up a conversation or ask you to dance, and imagined you would be married in a matter of weeks.

But as time went on, and you apparently gracefully declined each proposal you received, Benedict couldn’t help growing a little bit more captivated each time he heard your name. What could you possibly waiting for? You’d had dashing young men bring you presents, you’d had the wealthiest nobles serenade you with flowers and compare you to a summer’s day; you’d had sonnets and promenades and bouquets and jewelry... and yet you had rejected them all, but not out of malice, still with this grace that everyone knew you to have.

Perhaps, and it was a little pretentious of him to dare entertain the thought, but it pleased a small part of his soul nonetheless, perhaps what you were waiting for was a portrait.

Eventually, after having theorized for days about what could possibly prompt such unambiguous refusals from a lady who seemed to have plethora of choice, Lady Whistledown must have deemed your situation to be less worthy of attention, because not scandalous enough, and you, like most other trends and fashions in that everchanging society, became an old tale before you’d even reached your prime.

But paradoxically, exactly when you were no longer the subject of Whistledown’s tittle-tattle, were you the most intriguing to Benedict.

It was then that he finally asked you to dance, under the watchful (and, though she did not show it, agreeably surprised) gaze of Lady Violet Bridgerton.

“You look positively radiant, lady Y/L/N. Your gown is exquisite.”

And he immediately regretted every single word that he had just said; he sounded just like those boring Lords you had rejected one after the other; but he meant it, he truly meant it, for he was just then seeing the hues in your eyes and in your smile, all those colors like those of a vibrant landscape...

If there ever was a time to show the depths of his soul, it was then; but he had always been good at avoiding conversation, not prompting it.

Still, you didn’t drop your beaming smile, and answered with a slight blush.

“Thank you, my lord. It is... oh, you will think it’s silly.”

“Not at all, I promise.”

“You see, you are the first to say that. Other lords have reproached its simplicity, but I am rather fond of it, because I sewed it myself.”

“Really? That’s impressive!”

He found he had little trouble continuing with the conversation after that, because you were so easy to talk to, so understanding of everything he said and so enthralling to get to know. You were creative and great with your hands, an artist, just like him, and it was the first of many things he would love about you.

“Tell me, lord Bridgerton... I have heard that you are quite the artist yourself.”

“Oh, that’s a gross exaggeration, they are but half-good sketches, nothing of interest, truly...”

Yet as he danced the night away with you, he felt as though a new blood surged through his veins, ready to craft the most beautiful pieces the world had ever seen, if only they could resemble the colors of your face.

“Well, I would love to see these half-good sketches someday, if you allow. I am sure they are brilliant.”

You had never seen a lord blush before, especially not a Bridgerton. It made your heart soar like it had rarely before.

“If you so wish. I couldn’t possibly refuse a lady.”

All along the ride back home, Benedict has the hugest, silliest grin on his face as he looks wistfully at the night sky.

“If it is what it takes to see my beloved brother swoon like a simpleton, then I will come to society balls more often.”

“Eloise, do not talk of your brother like that!”

But she’s right - it only took one night for him to be completely enraptured by you. He understands what they all meant when they couldn’t keep your name out of their mouths, when they said you were delightful and spirited... but they all hurried with their proposals, without getting to know you first, without listening to you, without discovering the depths of your character, and it’s all he wants all he can think about.

The next morning, he’s at your doorstep with a bouquet, and, of course, tightly wrapped inside it so as to not draw suspicion, a few of his sketches, ones that he drew the evening prior because his mind was too restless to sleep.

And thus begins a long period of courtship that has all of London in a frenzy. Surely no one expected the second eldest Bridgerton and the former diamond to have an affinity for each other. Truly no one.

“My Benedict has his heart set on an accomplished lady, a beautiful and clever one at that - this truly is the season of surprises! All a fulfilled mother would need now is for your brother to be the next to mend his ways...”

“And all his brother would need now, mother, is an escape from this interminable paperwork, but alas.”

You can often be seen promenading together in Hyde Park - you enjoy the company of the squirrels and the geese as much as he loves taking in the sceneries to later paint them.

“Y/N, pardon me if it is too bold of me to ask, but why are you not engaged yet? Surely you must have had a plethora of charming young men propose to you...”

“Handsome they were, but hardly charming. Oh, they all had plenty of qualities... an estate by the sea, a racing stable with twenty horses, a spot in the throne succession... but, oh, I care little if this is unbecoming of me to say, they were all so boring! None of them had half the charm that you have. The hours fly by when I am with you, Benedict, and I am entirely truthful when I say I have never felt as content as I feel with you.”

Everyone is London is awaiting the moment they’ll see you with a ring on that finger, but it seems to never come; yet everything is idyllic and your courtship and, beyond that, in your friendship, and he sincerely knows that he is irrevocably and utterly in love with you. But he just doesn’t dare ask.

To the point that Benedict’s entourage give him signals that it is now or never. Even Anthony, though with varying success.

“If you don’t propose to Lady Y/L/N, brother, I will.”

(And no one believed that.)

“Fine, I will, then!”

“Eloise!”

But what he has with you is so special that he’s terrified of rushing things. What if you are not ready, what if he is not as interesting, just as boring as the other men you turned down? What if he read everything wrong? What if...

Until he shoots his shot. It’s not nearly as romantic as he expected, because he fumbles over his words a few times and almost drops the ring in the Hyde Park lake...

... but given the enthusiasm with which you nod and embrace him - not caring about the passerby’s judging gazes -, he’s not sure why he agonized over it so much.

It’s self-evident that your love story is one for the ages.

800 follower sleepover

[maid-of-the-golden-deer]

Tell me about why you love kurt wagner.(I love him either💙💙💙, I just like to read other people's reasons bc I feel like I can't articulate a text properly haha)

sorry if you've had to wait awhile on this, just woke up haha. and i can DEFINITELY provide this, but it may get a smidge rambly lol.

let's start with the most superficial reason; he's visually interesting. he's a striking blue, he's almost always in a unique pose which makes him stand out from others in groupshots, and he has his unique eyes, hands, feet, and tail. you're never mistaking him for anyone else, and i love that. can't forget the adorable pointy teeth either lol.

along with just how he looks, his skill set and appearance means a GOOD artist has to get creative with his action scenes and expressions. he has highly mobile, close combat fights which are interesting to look at. and when he's not fighting, because his face is often obscured in shadow + he lacks pupils, he gets exaggerated, fun expressions. he just lights up whatever page he's on tbh.

okay, now to move onto less shallow reasons lol, which are harder to articulate because there are so many small things that come together to make him as great as he is. i think, at his best, he brings a nice level headed balance to a team. like he gets emotional and irrational like anybody, but as seen in his early interactions with Cyclops and Captain Britain, he's generally the one giving out advice and knocking some sense into the heads of a team's more melodramatic members lol. he's even explicitly called the backbone of the tram in excalibur.

this screenshot also brings up another things i love about him, even if it makes me sad- one of the things that "humanizes" him is his tendency to self doubt. he's kind, understanding, forgiving... but whenever he makes a mistake, or feels hurt, he tends to get inside his own head and beat himself up. i obviously want him to be happy but i do think he needs this aspect as a way to keep him from being a little one note.

on that note... i love his self confidence. and no, this is not as contradictory as it sounds. like yeah he has doubts and doesn't always believe in himself, but it has very little to do with appearance. he likes how he looks, revels in the abilities he has, both that he has earned and that come from his mutant powers.

and in X-Men forever, a sort of "what-if the Claremont era X-men kept going" comic, he ends up switching appearances with Rogue, and misses how he used to look.

(I know the plot reasons for it but I hate human looking Kurt, give me my fuzzy blue boy.)

to go along with his confidence, i obviously adore his swashbuckling nature and love for all things dramatic and fun. he likes to triple wield swords which is just downright delightful, has movie posters up in his room, makes movie references... he's just got so much joy and lust for life!! his two best solos are when he gets to go on dashing interdimensional adventures and i hope that gets capitalized on again sometime soon (pic isn't from a solo it's from excalibur lol)

another flipside point, unsurprisingly, like many characters of his type, he uses humor to hide his (and others! he likes to make others feel better with his antics) pain and his fear. he KNOWS he's perceived as confident and balanced and patient, so he'll use that a means to distract from what he's really feeling. it's very :( but another thing necessary to make him as well rounded as he is. kindness and joy aren't endless wells that can be pulled from constantly, there have to be limits.

and speaking of, time to get to the part everyone knows and why he's so beloved, in universe and out; his kindness and friendliness. no matter what you do to him, good writer or bad writer, bleak scenario or silly, he's just kind and understanding down to his bones. you don't become one of wolverine's first friends, and then remain his best friend for the rest of both of your respective lives and even well beyond your deaths unless you're something special. you aren't killed as a plot device to emotionally devastate the x-men unless you're one that they all love. you don't get called the soul of the x-men unless you are.

he has every reason to hate the world, but he refuses to, he makes the much harder choice to love it. he leaves eternal paradise to protect the world and his friends who live in it. beloved, amazing, wonderful-

so yeah, these are the big reasons why i love him. he's a man of logical contradictions, good even when goodness in short supply, and just... man just a delight.

a few bonus things i like: he's a hit with the ladies in universe, how his religion (ignoring that elephant in the room we all ignore) is used as a grounding, humanizing element, and he was originally the team's medic.

to sign off, i will share my fave panel of him

[inspired-by-the-music]

For You: Stand By Me

Taglist: @jineunwootrash @angels-from-california @jayjaydawn @i-peachesandstrawberries

If you would like to be added to the taglist of any of this blog’s works, please ask!

Recommended Reading: For You: 4 O’Clock; these works have separate, independent, but deeply interwoven timelines.

Chapter 12: A Boy Like The Sun

Lei’s POV

It was the best dream I ever had— the feeling of Sehun’s lips against mine. His touch was gentle— so gentle that I shouldn’t have felt it long after the moment passed, so faint that it shouldn’t still seize my heart and squeeze my lungs empty and wipe my mind of every thought except those of him. 

Sehun. Sehun, who was never mine. Sehun, who made me believe for a fraction of an infinity that maybe everything in life had led to that moment when he filled my every sense and painted my every thought and memory with colors that I had never seen once with open eyes. 

My best dream. My favorite dream. The dream that blessed me too many nights before and after it became a curse. The dream I would bring back to life every day of every week even if it ended the same way every single time. 

The problem with dreams coming true is that you always wake up or the dream becomes a nightmare. 

Never in a million years would I have believed that his smile and his laughter— the luxuries that were once so rare and more brilliant than the sun in my childhood world— would conspire to break my heart into a million little pieces that were too jagged and sore and bloodsoaked by the piano to pick up and fit back together.

Yes, it was my first kiss. 

He was my first kiss. 

Sehun was my first kiss. 

Sehun. 

And I wasn’t shy— just humiliated by his laughter at my expense. I was just humiliated that I couldn’t catch my breath. I was just humiliated by the urge to kiss him again because it— he— Sehun was everything I was afraid of wanting or needing to feel like one of those people who can smile in the sun and really mean it no matter how many eyes try to rip them apart. 

And I was, for a fleeting second that I wish with all of my soul had lasted forever, proud to have shared my first and only act of intimate affection with Sehun because I always imagined that he was so much more than handsome before he broke my heart with a smile and a wink. 

And if he would have loved me, even in his broken joke of a way that impaled me through the chest, I would have forgotten my refusal to date— just for him. I would have let him in every door, I would have helped him climb over every wall because — well— every wall crumbled at his touch. Not even his ill-timed laughter and mockery would rebuild them. Every door was always unlocked for him, and his kiss blew them wide open with a wild gust of tornado hurricane wind, and it would take all of my strength to lock them.  

I guess I have Minseok to thank for saving my pride. If he hadn’t called Sehun to his side and allowed me to run up to my moonlit bedroom where I could reconstruct my defenses— the defenses that I once imagined applied to everyone but the one who already held my heart in the palm of his hand— maybe I would have acted on that urge to rise on the tips of my toes to kiss Sehun again and again and again even if it was just a joke to him and Chanyeol, even if his heart could never swell for me or break for me, even if I could never look at him while remembering the beloved boy who was always beautifully too far out of reach, always opposed to love despite frequent expressive actions, always just slightly out of step, never quite on the same page, tragically never on the same path for long, never once in a million daydreams close to being mine. 

I closed the door on years of memories, years of looking at one person who never needed to look at me to have my love, years of falling for Lucas’s adamant belief that everything works out for those who are meant to be together, years of praying in the tiniest, most irrational piece of my heart that Sehun and I would someday—

Every thought died when I made eye contact with his poster that hung on my wall since his debut. All at once, as I removed it pin by pin, imagining that this was exactly what I would have to do in my mind with every one of his memories if I ever wanted to stop bleeding, tears streamed down my cheeks. 

Would you think that I’m pathetic if I told you how hard it was to be angry with Sehun for hurting me? Would you think that I’m weak if you knew how long I struggled to pack Sehun’s poster back into its container? Would you call me a fool if you knew that I almost left his photocards up on the wall because I wanted so desperately to remember him without that stabbing ache in my chest— because I wanted to forget that he told me I was annoying for following him and that he laughed at my first kiss and that he dashed my every conception of him? 

I don’t care if you would. 

It killed me to lock our memories away in that box. It killed me to unfasten his bracelet. I hated that I couldn’t just close my eyes and think of Sehun as I always had. I hated that I couldn’t trick myself into believing the lie that nothing had changed— that I wasn’t shattered. 

I don’t care if you think I’m weak because I don’t care about being strong anymore. After all this time, I have accepted that there is only one person who has ever held the power to fragment me like that. I have accepted that I am foolish enough to trust him with that power in every universe. What’s worse: I am okay with spending all that time crying in the dark if it gives me the vaguest hope that he could love me someday. 

I was hugging Sehun’s note that came with the bracelet against my chest when Lucas burst through the door, smiling and unsteady on his feet. “Baekhyun spiked the punch!” He cheered, holding up a clear glass of red liquid. “I brought you some!”

Lucas’s smile faltered when he sat on the foot of my bed. Setting the cup down on the floor, he asked, “What’s wrong, Lei?” 

And before I could decide what was worth sharing and what was worth locking away in the box, I threw myself into Lucas’s outstretched arms, sputtering, “Sehun— Sehun— Sehun—” 

I couldn’t say anything but his name. The name that still made my heart swell. 

Realizing that I couldn’t say anything else, Lucas ran a comforting hand up and down my back, promising, “It’s okay. Just let it out.” 

Until the embarrassment of baring my raw emotions overwhelmed the ache of a broken heart, I sobbed into Lucas’s shirt. If he didn’t smell so different— if he didn’t feel so different— if his voice didn’t sound so different, I would have imagined that (instead of Lucas) Sehun held me together that night. 

When I finally ran out of tears that Lucas could dry, when I finally untangled myself, I rubbed at my eyes. “I’m really tired.” My words blurred together in a pathetic mumble. 

“Oh,” Lucas hummed. He scratched at the back of his neck. “Well, if you’re sure—” I nodded— “then I’ll just go back downstairs.” He picked the alcoholic punch up off of the floor. “Just text me if you need me, and I’ll come running.”

“I know.” To prove that I would be okay alone— that I could heal alone— I tried to force a smile. Just before he walked out of the door, I asked, “Can you take that box away for me?”

“Sure,” Lucas agreed before knowing its contents. After taking a glance at Sehun’s picture, he swore, “I’ll take good care of this for you.” 

Practicing my hand at pretending to be strong despite the growing urge to snatch my box away from Lucas and return its contents to their rightful places, I lied, “I don’t care what you do with it.” 

Lucas blinked. He didn’t believe me, but he didn’t say so. “Someday you might,” was all he said before walking away with every token of my memories with Sehun.

If I thought that the memories would fade with those objects out of sight, I must have been disappointed breathless at the number of scenes that played in my mind as I stepped out of my white dress and heels into a set of sunflower pajamas. When I settled into bed, rubbing at the headache forming around my temples, I realized that I would never forget Sehun. Only with the greatest exertion of effort would I be able to hide my love for him (and my humiliating utter desperation for his love) behind a mask of exaggerated anger. 

Here’s the truth, if you want it: I didn’t love Sehun any less after he kissed me at that Christmas party. It was with great difficulty that I avoided him over the following two years. The embarrassed anger that would eventually swell in my gut with his mocking flirtatious remarks wasn’t an immediate response. For a while, I was still stupid enough to swoon at his glance. 

I was lying in bed, dreaming of how I would survive without surrendering any more pieces of my heart the next time I saw Sehun, when three knocks sounded at the door. My eyes opened wide to the sight of Baekhyun tiptoeing into my bedroom as if he were afraid to wake me. 

Although Baekhyun and I were not especially close, I didn’t feel bothered by his sudden, unannounced, unsolicited appearance. Spurred by curiosity that burned through my sadness, I sat upright and quipped, “Come on in, Baekhyun.” 

Turning toward me quickly enough to flick his orange-dyed bangs out of his eyes, Baekhyun broke into a glittering smile. “Thanks for the warm welcome!” 

He turned back to trace the outline of the place where Sehun’s poster stood for years. His touch was careful, hesitant as if he feared that the wall would crumble under pressure. “I was looking for the bathroom. It’s a happy accident that I ended up where you are.”

Owing to his devious smile, I didn’t believe that anything Baekhyun did was an accident. Still, I was afraid to say something that would send him away. Forgetting that I wanted to be alone just minutes ago, I didn’t offer him directions to the bathroom. “A happy accident,” I repeated under my breath.

He said, “The party is boring without you,” although he hadn’t said a word since ‘hello’ at the start of the night. “Can’t I convince you to go back with me?”

“I would follow you anywhere, Baek.”

My hand clamped over my mouth after the words fell out as if in an ill-timed effort to contain them. I don’t know why I said that. I had never followed Baekhyun a day in my life— not even that time at the SM showcase when he tried to lead me away from the first Sehun-induced heartache. 

“Anywhere?” Baekhyun winked and melted the block of ice in my chest. 

Stupidly, as if enchanted by his smile, I nodded, conditioning, “Just not tonight.” Although Baekhyun asked for no explanation as his gaze dropped down to his feet in a perfect picture of disappointment, I said, “My heart is too heavy tonight.”

“What if I carried it for you?”

Thinking that he couldn't have been serious, I laughed until I felt his eyes on me. Something about the way he looked at me took my breath away— made my heart thunder as if it wasn’t broken— made me forget that I was supposed to be crying, mourning a dream that I never should have dreamed. 

Once I found my voice, I said, “I couldn’t ask you to do that.” 

“Somebody else is holding it,” Baekhyun muttered, likely assuming that I wouldn’t hear. He reached for the ribbon on my vanity— the one I wore on my debut stage— and I raced to reach it first. 

But I couldn’t beat Baekhyun. I don’t know why I tried in the first place. I don’t know why I didn’t want him to touch the item I hadn’t looked at since the first and only time I wore it. 

The ribbon was radiant in his hands. As he traced his fingers over it, eyes widening and glittering as if it were an artifact of his wildest dreams, I told him, “I’m holding my heart. I can feel it pounding. Breaking. Aching. It’s mine again, for the first time that I can really remember, and I wouldn’t give it to someone like you in its current condition.” 

In a wounded whimper, Baekhyun repeated, “Someone like me?”

My heart stilled. I was quick to explain that I wasn’t trying to insult him. “Yeah. A boy like the sun.”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows pinched together to form little wrinkles in his forehead. “The sun?”

“Yeah. Somebody who can smile in the sun and mean it no matter how many eyes try to rip them apart.” I burned at how easily I could speak to Baekhyun, who was little more than a friendly acquaintance, when I was a stuttering, blubbering mess around Lucas, who was my best friend. 

The stars shone in Baekhyun’s eyes a thousand times brighter than they ever did in the sky. I couldn’t look away from them. I couldn’t forget them. Sometimes, I count them when it’s hard to fall asleep. 

“That’s what you think of me?” Baekhyun beamed. His smile made me smile too. “You think I’m like the sun?” 

“You’re probably brighter than the sun, Baek.” 

Suddenly, he was too bright, and there were too many parts of myself that I wanted to hide in the shadows. Although I didn’t want to, I needed to look away from Baekhyun’s smile. My eyes fixed on the ribbon in his hand, and I reached for it again. 

Holding it just out of reach, Baekhyun looked down on me with a muted form of his sunshine smile. “Have you ever heard about ribbons and soulmates?” When I shook my head, flushing at the word ‘soulmate,’ Baekhyun continued, “I learned about it from my second favorite love story. Apparently, if you give a ribbon to someone or if someone gives a ribbon to you, your souls will be tied together forever. So be careful of who you give this to.” 

Struggling to imagine that Baekhyun was the kind of person who watched or read romantic stories, much less believed romantic superstitions, I narrowed my eyes at him, waiting for some outburst of laughter. “Do you really believe in that sort of thing?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “The couple in the story was together forever, so it can’t hurt to be careful.” He pressed the ribbon into my palm. His skin was fire against mine— a flame that warmed but didn’t scald. I think that’s the first hint that I was dreaming. Feelings like that don’t exist in real life. 

Maybe I scalded him, though. Maybe I gave him frostbite. Baekhyun’s hand flinched away from mine, and he looked down at it as if expecting to find a scar or a blister. There was nothing there.

Frowning, I said, “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” 

Baekhyun looked up from his hand to meet my eyes. “Huh? You didn’t hurt me. You could never hurt me.”

I wanted to ask him how he could be so sure about something like that, but I didn’t even want to imagine hurting Baekhyun, so I made a joke instead. Grinning down at the ribbon in my hand, I asked, “You gave this to me. Does that make you my soulmate, Baek?”

He blinked a few times, mouth falling agape before a smile broke across his face. “Don’t make a big deal of it.” 

Those words— they struck a familiar chord within my heart, within my memory. I closed my eyes and remembered a golden pink sunset coloring a cotton candy sky, a crown of white roses, a white rose in his coat pocket, a fountain where we made wishes. Deja vu. The memory with Baekhyun that played in my mind had never happened, but still I— I could feel it. 

The last time I heard him say those words to me, did I want to kiss him as badly as I did that night in my room? I must have. Whether it was in another dream— because surely, this was a dream— or another lifetime, those words must have inspired the singular desire to bridge all distance between us. 

The dream prompted me to take the first step toward him— the first step I had ever taken in my life— ribbon still in hand, and I would have brushed my lips against his in pursuit of some cosmic miracle if he didn’t wheeze, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.” 

My eyes, which I must have closed in preparation for some eclipse, opened to the sight of Baekhyun’s eyes swimming in tears. I would have done anything to take that look from his face, even if it was a figment of a dream turned nightmare. Leaping away (despite my persisting desire to cling to him) because I knew I was accidentally the source of his tears, I opened my mouth to apologize. 

Baekhyun didn’t give me a chance, though. Gnawing at his lips as if he was afraid that I would try again to kiss them, he bowed to me. “I’m sorry, Lei. There’s something really important that I have to take care of. Don’t—” A tear streamed down his cheek— “If we’re dreaming, don’t forget me when we wake up.” 

Before I could promise that I wouldn’t, he bolted out the door without glancing back. He was gone just as suddenly as he appeared. And I missed him. I miss him. 

Maybe Baekhyun knew how to carry others’ broken hearts, and maybe he didn’t need permission to do so. After he left, and I settled back under my blankets, the ache in my chest was almost gone. 

I fell into dreams about him— laughing down by some lake, arguing in some darkened corner of an SM banquet hall, talking by the side of some pool, driving through my hometown late at night with the sunroof down, tossing coins into a wishing fountain, stumbling into his arms at a party where we matched from head to toe. Dreams— maybe they’re memories from another life. Maybe I woke the next morning, haunted by the hope that I loved Baekhyun in another life and that maybe, someday, if I did everything right, I would get to live that life again. 

I dreamed of Baekhyun, burned as I wondered how I would ever face him, squirmed as I debated whether he was in real life anything like he was in dreams. 

And then I remembered the dangers of wasting one’s life dwelling on dreams— even the best ones. And I learned to be content with his mischievous glittering smiles and the memory of the stars in his eyes. And I never quite packed it away— the hope that there would be a time for him someday. 

Of course, I think I forgot just about everything when I saw him again— the one who could send me falling with just a glance. 

Sehun. 

Maybe my heart was mine, but that was only due to the force with which I held it whenever Sehun stood too close, calling it to him without words. That was only due to the scowl that I sculpted onto my face whenever the white-hot sting of his laughter wasn’t a distant enough memory. 

And even then, if I’m really honest, if I hold nothing back, I’ll admit that my heart was secretly (not-so-secretly) his all that time.

[raendown]

A commission for @syusukewrites! Thank you! 

Pairing: TobiramaSakumo Word count: 5482 Rated: T+ Summary: When faced with death Tobirama performs the impossible and throws himself forward in to the future where he meets two Hatake who end up being everything he was always missing in the past.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Perversions of Honor

All things considered, he’d gotten off pretty easy. The experiments he’d conducted over the years in his never ending thirst for more knowledge, more progress, had led to some pretty devastating results on occasion. Not every trial was a success. Not every idea was a good one. Since the idea he’d pulled out of his ass this time had only been about half formed and under-researched Tobirama supposed he could be only grateful that it hadn’t ended with his corpse being strewn about the landscape in several pieces, his last moments full of pain and despair. 

Under better circumstances he might have even been inclined to celebrate the success of something he’d always assumed would be impossible. Time travel; to think that he had accomplished such a feat boggled the mind even without taking in to consideration how little chakra had been left in his coils, how desperately sloppy his signs had been. He didn’t imagine many would blame him for experiencing a touch of panic with the Gold and Silver Brothers bearing down on him cloaked in the Kyuubi’s chakra and thirsting for his blood. With no other options left, his body tired and old and broken, Tobirama had gone with the first desperate plan that leapt to mind, a half-forgotten idea he never did get around to properly researching. 

Looking deeper in to the spontaneous modifications he’d made to the hiraishin would have to wait, however, until he figured out exactly how far through time he had fallen and where he’d landed. The layout of the forest around him looked strangely familiar, like a path he had walked a thousand times before that had changed since last he saw it. Was this the past or the future? Should he know this place? 

Such questions could probably be answered by the small body watching him intently from some bushes to his left. Tobirama very carefully did not look round, certain the presence was a child who thought themselves well hidden - and from anyone else they would have been. Whoever this child was they had excellent chakra dampening abilities already. If he were any less of a sensor Tobirama would never have known he was not alone here what with how tightly that small chakra had been pulled in and smothered. He was quite impressed, actually. Knowing he was under surveillance but secure in knowing there was no one else around for at least a mile in any direction, he allowed himself a few moments to simply breathe, to accept the loss of things he might never get back to. Jumping through time once had been a risk. There was no guarantee he would ever be able to recreate what he’d done in a moment of need. Only when he was sure his emotions were settled enough that he could soldier on as he had all his life did Tobirama stand and clear his throat.

“Can you tell me where I am, young one?” He asked. The bushes twitched.

“How did you know I was here?” a small, grumpy voice asked. 

Tobirama looked over and resisted the urge to smile. “I always know where everyone is,” he boasted. It was only a slight exaggeration. “Will you answer my question?” 

“Why should I? You could be a spy or a missing nin or something. A shinobi should never give information to the enemy!” 

Reaching up to trace the shape of his brow, Tobirama already missed the happuri that must have been knocked off at some point. Without it he supposed it would be a little harder to identify himself as a Leaf shinobi but depending on where he had ended up that might turn out to be a good thing. One never knew what sort of grudges might exist in the future or what information he would need to hide from the past.

“I would appreciate it if you at least tell me what year it is, then, young shinobi.”

“Got your head knocked around, huh?” With a quiet snort of derision as though passing judgment on him somehow, the bushes parted to make way for an utterly tiny figure to stroll out. 

Messy silver hair and dark eyes both drooped over top of a thin mask clinging to the bottom half of his face, the same color as the Leaf headband he wore on his tiny little head. Despite being clearly decked out for battle his clothing was of a cut Tobirama had never seen before and by his stature he could be no more than five years old. Which was ridiculous. Clearly he must have travelled to an entirely different universe because there was no way any iteration of the village his brother had built, present or future, would ever allow children of this age to become shinobi. Putting a stop to child soldiers was the entire reason they had founded Konohagakure in the first place. 

Judging by the pride in the boy’s stance, however, mentioning any of these thoughts was not likely to make him any friends. Best to be polite. Later he could figure out who was responsible for this so he could express his very sharp displeasure to the correct channels. 

“I see that you are also a shinobi of the Leaf,” he noted instead. “You show excellent caution. How would you like me to prove that I am a citizen?” That was the right question, he could tell by the minute straightening of thin shoulders. Concealing his indulgent smile took effort as he watched the boy preen with self importance. 

“How many brothers did the first Hokage have? Anyone who took history in our village should know that.”

“Four,” Tobirama answered. 

The calm in his tone thankfully hid the way his mind had already begun to spin. So he had travelled to the future, it seemed. Not only that but he had travelled so far ahead that his own time had been lost to history books and myths for young children to use as trivia to test a stranger’s identity. Just thinking about it reeled him so terribly he couldn’t even spare a moment to be amused at the disappointed pout that followed his answer.

“Hmph. Guess you’re really not an enemy. Konoha is that way.” The child lifted one arm to point west. “It’s still several miles out. You’re not likely to run in to anyone but patrols this close to home so I would recommend travelling at an easy pace if you’ve got a concussion.”

“You have my thanks. What is your name, young one?” 

With a startled look as though he’d never encountered someone who didn’t know his name, the boy answered, “Hatake Kakashi.”

“It’s good to meet you, Kakashi-kun.”

“Right. Whatever, old man.”

“Old...man?”

Before he could even think about any lectures on propriety or respecting one’s elders the boy had already turned around and dashed away through the trees. It was only then that Tobirama finally took notice of the travel dust on his clothing, the dots of blood splashed on the sides of his sandals. Despite his age Kakashi was clearly only just returning from a mission of some sort in which it was very probable that he had taken a life and yet neither his bearing nor his voice betrayed any sort of trauma from such an act. This was not the boy’s first kill. 

And that was troubling. 

His viewpoint on the situation did not improve in the slightest after he made his way to the village to discover who exactly was in charge and in how many ways his once beloved student had failed him. In the moments before what he thought was his death, only hours before in his mind, he had chosen Sarutobi Hiruzen as his successor because he believed the young man to be a true student of the teachings he’d done his best to impart on the next generation. To be proven wrong so harshly was a blow that he wrapped around his heart to deal with another time. Nearly half a century in to the future and somehow possessed of a body some three decades younger than he’d been only the day before, Tobirama had quite enough to come to terms with already. Time travel was mind-bending on its own as a concept even without all these unforeseen consequences. 

It took hours in conference with an ancient man who claimed to be Saru and yet seemed an entirely different person before at last his old student dismissed him with the air of someone attempting to sweep undesirable filth under the rug. Then to add insult to injury the Sandaime Hokage who did not deserve to be such added a parting shot like an afterthought. 

“Many years have passed since last you were here and many more things have changed. You’ll need someone to act as a guide, of course. I have the perfect man in mind. To the east of the old Senju district there is a house that sits alone on a street; you’ll find a man named Sakumo there. Tell him I sent you.” Tobirama watched those faded eyes turn away from him, back to paperwork that his own time as Nidaime had taught him could always wait, and hoped that there was something better in this future to convince him to stay. 

Leading the village had taught him a number of other things as well. He knew exactly the sort of waves it would make if the ANBU following behind him as he left the tower did not see him go straight to this glorified minder as he’d been oh so subtly instructed. For now it was best he keep a low profile. To make life easier on the ANBU only following orders he made sure to keep himself in plain sight and not simply reach for any of the numerous hiraishin markers he could still feel pulling at him from all over the village. New structures may have sprung up as the population expanded but the foundation remained the same. He could still find his way around just fine. 

The last thing he expected to see as he turned on to the street with only one lonely house built on its long dirt stretch was little Kakashi hopping down from a newby rooftop, stopping to turn and look at him with sleepy curiosity in his eyes.

“What are you doing here old man?” 

“Your words are as accurate as they are wrong,” Tobirama grumbled at him, taking heart in the confused tilt of a small head. “I am looking for a man named Sakumo.” He was unprepared for the boy to light up with a fierce pride. 

“Tosan! Come with me!”

Kakashi leapt forward to grab him by the hand and began pulling him towards the house while Tobirama thanked whatever good fortune allowed him to continue crossing paths with this intriguing little tyke. Together they ghosted in through the front door, not even stopping to kick off their shoes, pattering down the hallways with a surprising lack of noise. Even here in his own home Kakashi was an exemplary shinobi. 

Another crime that Tobirama would need to carve out of Hiruzen’s unworthy hide. 

When the boy threw open a door that looked much like any other in the house things happened so quickly that Tobirama found himself reacting almost before he had properly taken any of it in. Distantly he registered the room as a study of some sort, automatically cataloguing his surroundings as he would in any unfamiliar territory. His eyes caught the flash of steel at the same time his ears twitched at the horrified gasp from Kakashi’s mouth and Tobirama was flashing across the room to stop the blade in Sakumo’s hand before the door had finished sliding open. 

Dark eyes stared back at him with equal parts despair and surprise. Tobirama could see a hundred thoughts racing across the other man’s face as he very gently guided the blade down until shaking fingers released it to clatter against the ground. He kicked it aside without breaking eye contact.

“Nidaime…?” 

“Tosan! Are you okay!? Was it a jutsu!? Did someone put you in a genjutsu or something!?” Kakashi hurtled in to the room and threw himself against his father’s chest for the briefest of hugs before pulling away to inspect him head to toe, assessing him for injuries. 

“I’m- no, I was not in a- Kakashi, who is this?” 

Distracting the boy from what he’d been about to do, that was a smart move. Regret was already there in the lines of his face, gratitude that he had been interrupted, all the signs of a man who did not truly wish to die. Tobirama wondered if there was blackmail at play here or something else but at the moment he supposed it was none of his business. Not yet, anyway. His brother had been the more infamous people person but he’d always been able to ingratiate himself with the people he needed to impress. Sniffing out whatever had driven this man to such a low could wait until later.

Explaining who he was and how he had come to be here was enough of a distraction that both Kakashi and his father seemed to forget entirely about the blade Sakumo had been about to sink in to his own belly before he was interrupted just in time. Answering their questions took hours, asking his own took several more. Sakumo was startled to hear that he had been chosen as Tobirama’s guide, though the surprise in his voice carried a peculiar tone that Tobirama couldn’t quite put his finger on, and he accepted the duty with a strange kind of relief in his eyes. Blackmail was already looking to be the less likely motivator behind what he’d almost done. A close eye would be needed to watch this one.

Luckily, without the duties he had left behind in his own natural time Tobirama was entirely free to watch as closely as he liked. When offered a place to stay in the Hatake household he accepted easily. If it came with the added benefit of making Hiruzen’s teeth grind so hard he could practically hear it across the village, well, he had always enjoyed that old killing two birds with one stone philosophy. 

Making a new life here in this village that was so much the same and yet so different as well was easier than Tobirama would have thought. He spent his days dragging Sakumo from one end of town to the other, asking endless questions only for each reply to spawn a dozen new ones, more and more grateful as time went on and his companion responded with nothing but patience. Tobirama watched more than just the man at his side, however. Any shinobi worth their salt maintained situational awareness no matter where they were and even here in the place where he should be safest his eyes and ears were always open. He saw the way people moved to the other side of the street to avoid brushing up against Sakumo, heard the voices that murmured dark thoughts about their own comrade. He saw the narrow glares and heard the curses. 

But most of all he saw the way Sakumo quietly flinched away from it all. In the many weeks since he’d been in the man’s company Tobirama had gotten to know Sakumo quite well, enough to build a healthy doubt that whatever put a wedge between this man and the rest of the village had likely not been a purposeful act. At least not on his part. No one who deliberately alienated those around them would cower away from the results like a dog with its tail between its legs. As the days passed and the two of them got to know each other, grew to trust each other, Tobirama did what he could to hold his patience, waiting for the day it would be more appropriate and less of a nosey attack to ask his questions. Watching Sakumo do his best to pretend he didn’t exist in public while also trying not to let his son see him act with shame was almost physically painful. It was something he could not allow to go on. 

A man as good as the one who housed and cared for him did not deserve to be tucked away and forgotten about, let alone rejected by those who should have venerated him. 

The time for questions came after Tobirama had been living here in the future for nearly five months, any thoughts of returning to his own era long abandoned. Whether it was he himself or the way he lived his life that changed the most was indiscernible. Once he had been a political leader tasked with guiding the village and sleeping barely four hours a night as he tried to carry the weight of his brother’s dreams alone. Now he rose late each morning to enjoy a lazy meal with two sleepy Hatakes and spent his days in leisure. Conversation between him and Sakumo flowed as easily as the river and assisting in Kakashi’s training was as delightful as teaching him how to relax and play. Exploring the village, learning the many ways technology had advanced, and slowly reintegrating himself with the gossip chains, all of these helped the days fly by. 

Of course, that wasn’t to say that leisure was all he’d concentrated on. A few months was more than enough time to make a nuisance of himself for the ones he now renounced as his students. The men that Hiruzen and Danzo had grown up to be were not the boys he once trained with such loving care. But that was not what he wanted to spend this second chance at life worrying about, not when he would much rather concentrate on the way Sakumo’s hair turned from silver to gold in the morning light, how Kakashi could express so many emotions with only his eyes and lie with a rarely seen smile, the sound of Sakumo’s quiet rasping laugh when one was lucky enough to earn it. For a lifetime he had watched others around him building families and only now that he had an approximation of the same for his own did he understand the joy of it, only now did he understand how his brother could have been so consistently distracted with thoughts of his beloved wife. For how little time he spent apart from Sakumo it was embarrassing how often his thoughts strayed back to the man. 

Lounging on the engawa and sipping perfectly brewed tea, Tobirama looked over at the figure beside him without turning his head. Half a dozen sets of paws bounded from one end of the courtyard to the other as Kakashi chased a number of his recently acquired summons with stern words about bathtime. It was a more peaceful afternoon than he thought he would ever see, one Tobirama was loath to disturb in any way, yet the curiosity that had been gnawing at him for months now had reached a boiling point at last, unignorable any longer. 

“May I ask you something?” he murmured, sliding his eyes forward again to afford his companion the privacy of not having his emotions studied like an experiment. 

“You ask a hundred questions a day,” Sakumo retorted.

“And you answer them all.”

“Indeed I do; not sure why you think this one might be any different.”

One corner of his mouth quirked with a brief smile before it faded away again. “Kakashi may not see it - the unsuspecting eyes of youth - but I do. What happened to drive you away from your own people?”

“Ah.” Sakumo sighed and even without looking at him one could practically feel the way he shrank in to himself. 

Wanting to provide comfort but knowing he was terrible at such things, Tobirama’s hands wrung together in his lap as he debated whether or not to reach out. If he were his brother he would have thought nothing of taking Sakumo’s hand in his own for a gentle reassuring squeeze. But he was not his brother. The very mental image of them holding hands threatened to turn his cheeks to fire even if he knew the only intentions behind such a gesture would be those of friendship and comfort. 

Thrown forward in to the future for a second chance at life and still he had the urge to flee at the slightest hint of his own beating heart. He was doomed to be hopeless, it seemed. At least when it came to emotions.

“It must have been about a year ago now,” his friend began with halting syllables. “My team and I were sent on a mission which might very well have ended the war if we were successful. If I had been less foolish.”

“Hard to imagine you ever treating a mission foolishly,” Tobirama said. 

“Kind words, though I don’t know if I deserve them. We all swore our loyalty to this village, vowed to do whatever became necessary, but when my team got in to a tight spot I chose to abandon the mission like some genin still wet behind the ears. I disobeyed my orders and in doing so I lost the respect of those who thought they knew me. How could I accept any other missions after that when none of my teammates could trust me to do the job I was sent to do?” Sakumo’s profile tucked in to itself in the corner of Tobirama’s eye. “If I had only continued with the mission...well. I suppose there’s no use wishing to change the things we can’t.” 

Something like rage stirred in Tobirama’s breast like an animal waking with hunger in its teeth. “You’ve been ostracized for saving your teammates from death?” 

“For failing perhaps the most important mission of my life,” the other corrected him.

“They owe you their lives!” 

With a sigh Sakumo shook his head. “How can we know that? It’s entirely possible that they could have survived without my intervention. I could have failed this village for nothing.”

Tobirama had never whipped his entire body around so fast.

“You failed nothing!” he snapped. Sakumo blinked at him in shock. 

“I abandoned my mission-”

“No, you chose to protect the lives of your comrades. That is not failure. That is admirable. Am I to understand that the people of this village treat you like some unwanted half-breed cur because you chose to value them!?”

“Saying it like that certainly makes it sound quite pretty,” Sakumo allowed. “It’s just-”

Tobirama cut him off again without even waiting to hear whatever ridiculous point he was about to get wrong. “I won’t hear it! How dare they! If there is anyone who has been failed it is you! Your actions are exactly the sort of thing my brother dreamed of when he first conceived of Konohagakure, back before that name ever existed, when this land was nothing but untamed forest and blood-soaked loam. When he shook Uchiha Madara’s hand they promised that no more children had to die and that every able bodied fighter would give their last breath to protect each other because that is what makes a village!”

Hot tea spilled across the tatami mats as Tobirama surged to his feet, pacing along the ground just beyond the engawa. Sakumo remained on the ledge with fingers curled tightly around his own cup and watched but said nothing. Barks and yips cut the silence that might have fallen, clouds of dust drifting through the air to make a haze between them and the boy Tobirama had come to see as more precious than his own students had been to him. Like a son, if he could ever be as bold as to say so. 

Rage burned hot on his tongue, disappointment like a heavy black cloud in his belly. Never in his life had he been glad his last remaining sibling was already dead but now - well. It was good, he thought, that Hashirama would never be cursed to see the pale shadow his dreams had faded to. 

Spinning back around sent the sleeves of his yukata snapping out around him. This time there was no hesitation when he reached out to frame his hands around Sakumo’s, feeling the warmth of the tea leaching through pale cold fingers, cradling them with all the support he could never properly offer with words alone. Dark eyes watched him in shock as he stepped forward. Some small part of his mind noted that standing below the ledge of the engawa put him at just the perfect height to bend his neck, creating a small pocket of privacy where the rest of the world did not exist for the moments in which they held each other's gaze.

“I have lived two lives and never known a man better than you,” he whispered. “If it takes the rest of my time here on this earth I swear I will help you believe in all the wonderful things that you deserve.” 

“You...know what I was about to do. That day. How can you say these things to a coward like me?”

“A true coward would have run from danger. Not towards it as you did.” 

Sakumo looked away, though his eyes came back shortly as though drawn by some inevitable force. “I’m glad you came here to us. Whatever god sent you must have known that you were needed. I...if you hadn’t come Kakashi would be without a father.”

“May I ask - you do not have to answer - even at the time it seemed to me that you didn’t truly want to end your own life. What put you on that path?” 

“It just seemed like the only option left at the time. My honor was gone, my comrades no longer trusted me to watch their backs, and Kakashi was still so young. He would come home from the academy talking about all the things he’d learned and how much he looked forward to fighting for Konoha someday and then he came home with his genin headband and I just didn’t want him to grow up with my failures staining the way that others looked at him.” 

Breathing felt strangely difficult but Tobirama refused to look away. “You bring to your son, and to all of us, the greatest honor. It is I who should be thanking the gods for sending me to your side. I’m glad that I have this chance to know what a happy life feels like as my brother once had.” 

“Ah, but your brother was a married man,” Sakumo murmured. “Surely a wife and a child at home cannot compare.” Such words were a chance he was terrified yet only too happy to take. 

“Do I not have you and Kakashi?” Tobirama asked. 

“M-me?” 

Considering how pale the both of their natural complexions were, it was very probable that the color he could see rising on Sakumo’s cheeks was matched perfectly on his own. Tobirama had never been very prone to blushing. Emotions had always been the sole exception to that, the one true foil he’d never entirely been able to overcome. He never expected to find himself in a situation where he didn’t mind this most embarrassing of weaknesses until he was treated to the sight of Hatake Sakumo blushing like a young maiden. Seeing that was absolutely worth doing the same himself.

He waited patiently for a minute or two and when his first advance was not rejected in any obvious way he felt emboldened to make another, stroking his thumbs across the back of his friend’s hands. The electric feeling in his veins as he watched Sakumo try to suppress a shiver could only be described as triumph. 

“I would give many things for the chance to show you how much you mean to me,” he said.

“You have always had strange tastes,” Sakumo retorted. It was a good sign if he was able to crack a joke, although a straight answer would have been preferable. Tobirama supposed he would probably have more luck with a straight question.

“Would you allow me to court you? Perhaps it’s my pride talking but if there is anyone who could help you understand just how worthy of a man you are I think it would be me.” 

“Aye, it would be you.” Taking in a shaky breath, the other man swallowed after before finally nodding very slowly. “I don’t feel as though a man like you should be wasting your time on a man like me but I suppose that’s the point you’re trying to make. Kakashi will be fine on his own for an evening; would, ah, would you care to join me for dinner? We could go to that place you like in the market.”

Tobirama had never felt so light without accidentally inhaling the fumes of his own experiments. Every nerve ending in his body tingled in a way he simply did not have the time to pay closer attention to at the moment, not when gravity seemed to be pulling him closer and closer to the quiet smile he’d been falling in love with since the day they met. When their lips met it was soft, barely a brush of skin, not hesitant but unhurried. Sakumo never seemed to be hurried by much. Yet even that small display of affection was enough for Tobirama to wonder if it was possible to expire of sheer happiness.

For the brief moments that it lasted their first kiss was unequivocally one of the best things to ever happen in either of his lives; he still couldn’t find it in himself to do anything but laugh as Kakashi’s voice rang out across the courtyard. 

“Gross! Ew! Pakkun, they’re kissing! Make them stop!” 

“We may have to wait until privacy is more available to continue this conversation,” Tobirama murmured. 

“Pakkun will bite you if you don’t stop!” Kakashi shouted, immediately backed up by a series of sharp barks. The rest of his pack seemed content to stand and wag their tags while they watched the humans interacting. 

Sakumo took a long moment to look away towards his son, smile growing only wider. “Will he? That wouldn’t be very nice of him.”

Nodding imperiously, Kakashi scrambled across the yard to push Tobirama aside and crawl up in to his father’s lap, curling as tightly as his growing body would allow. It was adorable enough that Tobirama supposed he really didn’t mind being put off for a while just at the moment that he obtained everything he could have ever wanted. If a little patience was all it took to feel those lips against his own again that was a sacrifice he was very willing to make. 

“We can discuss this in more detail later,” he said, knowing that his friend was smart enough to read between the lines. The long overdue blossoming of their relationship was not the only thing they needed to talk about. 

“Of course,” Sakumo agreed. 

“For now”-Tobirama dropped a hand on to Kakashi’s head and ruffled the silver hair only a few shades of from his own-“how would you like to help me plan a village coup, pup?”

“Tobirama!” 

Putting one hand against his chest to profess honesty, he blinked with as much innocence as he could muster. “It’s only a training exercise, of course. Just to see how his studies are coming along. I would obviously never think to depose the ones in charge and reform the entire village back to the original concept it was meant for.” 

His friend - partner, now, in every sense of the word - lifted one eyebrow without saying anything. 

“I would start by gaining their trust, I think,” Kakashi mused, oblivious to the conversations his elders had been having. When his father heaved a deep sigh he looked confused. 

Tobirama could only turn his head away to smile in to the distance, watching clouds of dust swirl and dance in the afternoon breeze. It had taken dying and not dying and leaping through time but at long last he had found the future his precious sibling always dreamed of for him, for everyone. He’d found happiness; he found peace. The first thing he intended to do with this newfound dream was to enjoy it.

After that, well, it was only right of him to pursue Hashirama’s visions of the future and share his happiness with the others in this beloved village. When he met his brother in the afterlife he wanted to carry with him stories of a life lived to the fullest, a family that loved him every day, and courage enough to be better in the future than he had in the past.

[johobi]

When You Least Expect It | 11

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader x Taehyung

Word count: 18k

Warnings: major angst, panic attack description, unprotected, penetrative sex, creampies, own cum consumption, fingering, oral sex, overstimulation, squirting

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732419/navigate

A/N: Thank you, sincerely, for your patience. I really hope you enjoy. Writing this one took everything of me, haha. There is a Read More attached!

Next: 12 || WYLEI Masterlist

You’re in love with your childhood friend, Taehyung. The problem is, you treasure your friendship with him far too much to ever risk losing it. Oh, and he’s quite the Casanova. At your wits’ end with feelings you can no longer hide as diligently as you once did, you ask him to set you up with someone, anyone, in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a heartbreaking conversation.

“Noona!”

You conquered the corner quickly. Ahead was the elevator, the interdimensional portal that had first ejected you into this hellscape.

Its flames licked at your heels.

“FUCK! Stop—listen—just listen, please! ____!”

And the abominable being that pursued you without heart, you could feel his breath upon your neck as he closed in, all devious pleas and feigned devastation. Jungkook's weight was a scorching burden upon your back, dismantling your bones in their efforts to propel you toward salvation. He was a respectable two or three meters behind, of course, and hadn't yet outstretched a hand toward you. But you felt him, nevertheless, in your startled muscles and overtaxed lungs, the acid of his repugnant deception rendering every step an agony.

It was then that you acknowledged reality. That while you would reach the elevator before Jungkook, there wasn't a chance the bastard thing would exclude him from its descent. He was just too close. You'd known that from your first, futile step, of course, but flight was how you were sympathetically wired. Your body believed it was a concord, but in truth you were some pathetic, puttering contraption nosediving to its doom.

But how about fight?

"Noona, please! Don't leave me like this—"

Oh, the poor, snivelling brute. How dare he get snotty-nosed and scarlet-eyed at his own doing. How dare he demand the time of someone he'd stolen it from.

Fuck Jungkook.

And there was your fight. That diminutive surge of bile, of acrid hatred, that unsettled the contents of your stomach. But it was gone again in another two, exerted stomps of your feet and a bereaved yowl that demanded most of your exhausted oxygen supply.

God, you loved him so much.

You hated him so much.

Fuck Jungkook.

You couldn't fight someone that had already bested you. Couldn't defend against someone that had long ago infiltrated your sanguineous recesses and distributed his toxin.

And so you flew, without flight nor hope, toward nothing.

And then, toward green.

The fire exit sign was a viridescent lifeline gesturing to an alternative too stupid to consider. But what else was anyone when they were distraught and desperate, and one look back could be their last? What else was anyone but deathly dense when trailed by a fucking Gorgon?

Because Jungkook might as well have been. Exhaustion would slow you. Desolation would stop you. And just the one look into Jungkook's vast, overflowing eyes would petrify you.

So, yes. You opted for the hazard of descending eighteen flights of stairs, tear-blind and jelly-legged, because breaking every of your bones was preferable to the unfathomed torment awaiting you in that stranger's face.

You veered from the elevator with an impetus that took Jungkook off-guard, if his gag of surprise was anything to go by.

Good. Each beleaguered stride was a flicker of advantage.

Panic seized his every breath. "The stairs?! Noona—please, don't, you're going to hurt yourself!"

It was with a grisly determination that you barrelled your way through the stairwell door, elbows first, finding the prospect of injury on its many, solid steps preferable to the havoc that fucker wreaked on your mind and soul. Vertigo disturbed your vision for the second you spared to look down the bottomless drop at the staircase's core. It was better to watch your feet on loop as they scuffed past the lip of each step, one stray lace away from a broken neck. The magnitude of the building's verticality could be heard through the echo of your dogged stomping, each, angular turn pulling squeaks from your rubber soles.

Curiously, the noise of Jungkook's unrelenting footfall could no longer be heard.

Instead, his dismay ricocheted from above you. "____! God, stop running! You can't run down all these stairs!" was his attempt at reasoning.

But reason was turning the corner and not seeing your beloved in the arms of their secret betrothed.

This was not the time for reason. "Fuck you, Jungkook!" you rasped from lungs that were aflame, and though the air would've been more favourably facilitated to support your eighteen-floor descent, ejecting some wrath emboldened your escape. Three floors beneath him and low on breath, despair fled and left only a torrid hatred in its wake. Its heat cauterised your immediate pain and stoked the fire in your muscles, unlocking their untouched potential. "Fuck you!"

"I'm not going to chase you!" the adulterer hollered down the shaft. Funny. He'd pursued you every day for weeks, never allowing you the dignity of your initial disinterest. No, he'd hunted, and eventually, humiliated you. And why? "I'm not going to chase you," Jungkook's voice came again, not as an eerie reverberation, this time, but from him. You paused mid-step, quaking, rivulets of sweat drenching the sides of your face and oiling your roots. "I'm not going to chase you," he vowed again, quieter. Away from the din of your squealing Converse his own, laboured breathing was apparent.

One look.

You just wanted that one, last look. The one that had been taken by tears.

Like you were peering into the midday sun, your narrowed, tear-sore eyes turned upward.

God, it was a mistake.

It wasn't the sun looking back but the moon, mournful and gentle, and with enough tears of his own to replenish your weary store. "Noona—"

"Don't call me that!" you snapped, more sorrow than savagery. Your mouth pulled down and open, agape with woe. Fuck, you must have looked disgusting. Every secretion that could possibly ooze from your face, painted it. "Don't fucking call me that."

"Okay, I won't. ____," Jungkook's palms were up again to appease you. Like you were the preposterous one. Even your own name had been tainted beyond reclamation. It was better to be a nameless thing than to ever associate it with your despoiled time. "I just need to talk to you—"

"Fuck this!"

The exclamation punctuated your sudden, violent entry to the fifteenth floor as you snatched the door from its hinges and staggered over its meticulously varnished surface. The elevator to your immediate left was idle and ready to abet your getaway. And though there was nothing but an uncanny silence behind you where there should have been resounding, heavy-booted stamping, you jabbed at the button with the violence of a prison shanking.

Rescue came with a whimsical ding and leisurely opening of doors. You slunk inside and prodded repeatedly at the button that most resembled some depiction of the blasted thing closing. It was then, finger levitating above the Braille for the ground floor, that the ease of your departure rang suspicious. Shit, your finger carved agitated circles into the air. He's probably riding the elevator down, too. He's gonna cut me off.

In divining this, you punched the one above. Red illuminated the button for the first floor instead. It would’ve been fascinating, had it not been for your overcome state, just how clearly you were thinking right now. Lucidity had recalculated your compromised escape route. Your ability to outfox him came out of nowhere. In your everyday life, you could never hope to be so canny.

The ride was long, and, though you engaged none of your muscles, arduous. Exhaustion and a myriad of dark emotion brushed the boundaries of your frazzled mind. Its looming threat was such that it manifested as shadow in your peripheral vision, endangering your dash for the exit. But if you blacked out now, Jungkook would find you. Talk about respawning in enemy territory.

No.

The darkness couldn’t have you yet.

It was with a foreigner's eyes you regarded yourself in the mirror opposite, noting, in the mundane fragment of mind that dwelled quietly at the back, that their redness was alarming. That the bags beneath weighed more than ever.

And that they were voids. Frigid, empty, and devoid of stars.

Your reflection scoffed despite herself. Tacked with tears and wild-haired, the sardonic twitch of your lips only exaggerated the mania of your appearance. No wonder Jungkook dipped his dick elsewhere.

Look at you.

The cue for you to alight came with another, soft ding. It was the sound that drew you from your morose musings and back to the horrific cat and mouse you were entangled in. Your chest swelled with anticipatory breath as the doors parted, fully expecting the burly figure of your pursuer to be filling out its frame.

It was empty, however.

Your drive to survive had orchestrated an actual, effectual plan. Spared you further humiliation.

Hah.

Until you had to weather the solemn embraces, the pitying coos of your friends as you divulged to them the most embarrassing of your romantic failures, at least.

It was with the scorch of that impending indignity that you sprang with renewed vigour toward the last flight of stairs, taking the steps two, three, and a leap at a time. The ever-present fatigue plying your leg muscles into surrender was no longer a hindrance but an anaesthetic that allowed you to push your body past feeling. The only thing that burned now, as you stumbled, giddy on adrenalin, down the final case of stairs, were your lungs. But that felt good, in a way. The burn was punishment for being an enamoured fool. It was anger made physical. It animated your limbs with the fire to flee from betrayal.

Your hands were out and depressing the bar for the fire exit as soon as your clammy palms could grease themselves around it. Blood and breathing were at such a cacophany in your ears that you barely even acknowledged what must have been the tinnitus-inducing blare of the fire alarm triggering. It rang hollow and incessant in the background of your body's impassioned efforts.

But you were outside. God, outside, finally. Like an inmate fleeing from some plush penitentiary of pain, you scrambled for the opening in your enclosure. Brisk, evening air took the razor edge off of breathing and cooled your cheeks, invigorating you enough for a sprint. So set was your path that it was only when your face was slippery with moisture unattributed to tears that you realised it was raining. It seemed appropriate that even nature itself would spit on you in this moment.

And as though it were another step in God's garbled plan, your brazen disregard for emergency protocol had disabled the electronic lock of the front gate. It flapped back and forth, impotent, beckoning you to abscond.

You were halfway across the parking lot when you heard one too many feet slapping wet blacktop. Whoever it was - however many it was - it was none of your concern, now. No-one in that building needed re-enter your periphery. And nothing, either - no matter how painful and precious the memory - could stutter your step.

The hurried scuffling slowed. By your ears, several individuals had gathered outside the lobby.

"Is she okay?" a male voice, faint and fainter.

A different man. Almost inaudible. "Looks upset. I don't know—sir!"

"NOONA!"

A man you knew all too well.

In acute contrast to the other people gathered, Jungkook's voice bellowed ragged and raw. And though you were almost to the gate, you heard his shortness of breath with alarming clarity. He was practically dry-heaving. And he must've sensed that you were slipping, rain and tear-soddened, from his adulterous clutches. Because he finally spewed something other than repetitive, bullshit pleas. "I won't give up!" his vow pelted your ears as jarringly as the racket of rain. "I won't give up," he reiterated, solemn and stubborn, as you hauled open the gate.

However, when you pounded pavement from the complex, ankles beset with puddle water, Jungkook didn't come with. The knowledge he wasn't tailing you flooded your weary muscles with something opiate. Or perhaps it was the relentless physical strain you were putting yourself under? Whatever the cause, your feet were barely touching ground now. Analgesia embraced you until you were floating through pain. Until fuzz plugged your ears. Everything was strangely soft and considerately muffled. Even the whetted judgment of puzzled passersby hit you with no more than a mute thud.

Rain no longer seemed to bombard you but baptise you anew. It soaked you through, right to the centre, revivifying your spirit. It was only when you threw back your head to the opening heavens, closed-eyed and possessed of a weird, smiling lunacy, that rationale whispered of your light-headedness and imminent unconsciousness. Certain enough, as soon as you tripped to an unsteady stop, the nearest wall was the only thing keeping you upright. Somehow, along the way, your skeleton had diverged from your madcap route.

One hand on brick and the other encircling your traumatised torso, you coughed and hacked like the oxygen in your lungs had ignited. Your entire thoracic cavity cringed to escape existence, but, alas, it now had to triage your over-exertions. "Fuck," the wheeze was unhelpfully spent on the obscenity and earned you only the concerned muttering of a passing couple. Whatever their summation of your situation, apparently it didn't warrant an enquiry after your wellbeing, nor the cover of one of their absurdly overpriced umbrellas. They swept by but continued to peer back, right into a seething glower that set them to rights. You turned back to the wall.

Fuck rich people.

God, you were suffocating. It wasn't even your lack of physical fitness. It was just this place. This neighbourhood. Its people. Their airs and graces and penchant for horrific secrets. They wrapped everything in gold leaf but rotted beneath. The couple that gossiped rather than offered aid; had they a person each on the side? Smiled through one another’s deceit because it was propriety?

Had you been nothing but an escape from that for Jungkook? His pauper's fantasy?  

Fuck Jungkook.

There was an overwhelming urge to extricate yourself from this place and yet, now at a standstill, your limbs were in a coup. All you could do was drag yourself along the building supporting your struggles - the chafe losing you a couple of your coat's buttons - and dip into the adjoining alleyway. Away from prying, fault-finding eyes, you surrendered to gravity and slid down the brick, grazing your outerwear with limestone.

A ball was all you could become now, huddled and swamped with moisture. Your hands weren't your own, quaking as they did in front of your face. It was with a detached enchantment you observed their tremors, tremors that arrested the length of you.

And all because of a man.

You used to have all the power. Men chased you for better reasons, back in the day. Now they pursued you out of mortification.

And all because of love.

Fuck love.

Love buzzed in your pocket. Too loud and too insistent. Why you took your phone from said pocket was anyone's guess, but the device sat in your palm nevertheless, illuminated by an angelic face that had fallen from grace. Jungkook's thin lips stretched gleefully over his two, jutted teeth. His eyes, too, projected boundless happiness. It looked real. It must have been real.

So why?

You let him ring and ring, distantly evaluating his expression for fraudulence. There wasn't any. There wasn't any. Or perhaps you were just that much of a fool. And that was why tears imposed themselves once more, hot and smarting. They were unpleasantly thawing. And that was also why you swiped to accept his call. Because you could only run for as long as you were unfeeling.

The battery was warm against your ear. You said nothing.

"____? Is that you?"

A shuddering breath trickled past your lips. Apparently, Jungkook heard that.

"Noona! Oh my God, thank you for picking up," he rushed, toppling over each, excited syllable. "Thank you. I was so worried about you—"

The snort that comprised your response came involuntarily. He heard that, too.

"I was—I know what this all looks like. And I know," Jungkook breathed into the receiver like a feverish bull. "That sounds like a bullshit cliché. Trust me, I know. Please, just talk to me. Let me talk to you."

"I don't want to see you," you found your voice, however remote it sounded. "I don't want to see or hear you ever again. This is me, saying goodbye."

Although you weren't in the process of disconnecting your call, a noise of pure panic emerged from the device. He must have discerned the finality of your words. "No, wait! Oh, God, please don't," Jungkook was sobbing again, and you just couldn't fucking understand why. It enraged you. It curdled your fucking insides. He did this! "I love you, ____. I love you, I swear I do. Please, let me explain."

Your jaw clenched painfully. To hinder the question: "Is she your fiancée?"

There was a heartbeat of silence too long.

"Fuck you, Jungkook—"

"No, wait, just—"

"Answer the fucking question!"

The soul-purging sigh that came from the other end was implicit. But you waited for his response nevertheless. "Yes, but—"

"Goodbye, Jungkook."

"WAIT—"

"I don't want to see you again—"

"Just let me exp—"

"Don't call me. Don't text me—"

"JUST LET ME EXPLAIN!" he roared without inhibition, berserk in his wretchedness. You would've given him kudos for this rare show of assertiveness had he not been, at this point in time, the most reprehensible being in existence. Topping even your parents, which was a feat in itself. A gross one.

As it was, his boldness only rankled you. "I don't want to fucking hear your bullshit explanation. I've heard all I need to. Goodbye, Jungkook."

Your thumb battered the red button until his noisome profile picture vanished into black. And for a deceptive moment it felt like you had the upper hand. Of course, sitting swamp-assed and soaked down a trash-strewn alley hardly rang of victory. Being the equivalent of that trash in your ex-boyfriend's - ugh, it hurt - life was hardly a win. Not when he'd been eating that bitch's foie gras this entire time.

No.

She deserved none of your ire. Not as far as you could determine in those infernal seconds you'd glimpsed her face. She'd worn surprise, as you did. Confusion. The whole diabolical cocktail of heartbreak.

So fuck Jungkook.

The rain had stopped, but your face sprang another leak. It was too hot on your cheeks; unbearably molten. Your heart catapulted from broken to overtaxed in too short a time, and the walls of your scummy surroundings suddenly became animate. They pulsed like atrial chambers as they closed in, warm and claustrophobic. Oh God, even your inner voice was beset by hysteria. Please, not now. I can't do a panic attack. Not now.

Three breaths in. Hold.

You scrolled, full-cheeked, through a contact list stuffed with insignificant names, seeking only those whose letters elicited comfort.

Hoseok. Yoongi. The screen was ablur with your indecision as you flicked the considerable distance between them, thumb twitchy.

Three breaths out. Hold.

Your lungs and face deflated both, and on exhalation invited some thready, fragile calm to you. Weird how the body was so easy to trick. He’d certainly succeeded in doing so, too. However unassuming, Jungkook had been a master manipulator of mind and loins.

Garbled identities continued to flit, indistinct, past your eyes. I can't call them. They're still out. I don't want to ruin their evening.

Even knowing both would’ve been on you in a second and berating your hesitation, this was a palatable enough excuse, in your mind, to dodge this particularly painful phone call. It wasn't just your reluctance to disturb their evening's cavorting, though.

And, fuck, it pained you to admit it.

You were embarrassed. Humiliated. Fucking six-foot under the shame. Because it'd only been an hour or so ago you'd been smugly singing Jungkook's praises to your friends, detailing every instance of his demonstrative chivalry, consideration, and - because Hoseok had practically wrested it from you – feats of sexiness.

And now you were his discarded sidepiece, collecting waste on your clothes.

So you instead looked to the name stored between theirs, knowing well he was the worst possible option of the three.

Taehyung.

The worst, because humiliation bit all the more acutely. He'd been your introduction to Jungkook, after all. And, somehow, you'd fucked it up in the most implausible way possible. What a fucking anecdote you were, now. God, he was going to be channelling secondhand embarrassment like a particularly gifted psychic. And he, too, was out this evening, blissfully unawares. With that red-headed idiot. Sure, you didn't give a shit about Jimin, but he hardly deserved to have his night cut short, either.

Actually, he did deserve to. Because he was a fuckboy and that brand of man hardly endeared themselves to you in your current circumstances.

With every, tinny ring, your heart fluttered like a stir-crazy budgie. This was mortifying, uncharted territory. He wouldn’t cast judgment; of course not. But of all your carefully collected memories of Taehyung, his reaction to your profound heartbreak wasn't among them. Your lovable, labradorous best friend could be volatile. Perhaps even violently so, if sufficiently incited.

Maybe you were hoping for that.

No. That was bad.

Retribution couldn’t heal. It would only abrade that which was sore.

"Pick up, Tae," you willed him aloud, no care for him picking up into your maddened pleading. "Pick up. I need you."

As you breathed in, the ringing stopped. And so, too, did your heart.

"Hey, this is Taehyung," his mellifluous tones dripped smoothly from the receiver. Just the impersonal greeting of his voicemail was like being swaddled by contentment. "Leave a message."

The beep came far too fast for the requested, unformulated message. "Uh," you started, and didn't continue for the most excruciating time. "It's ____," and on your own fucking name your voice cracked and bled, thick with woe. "I—I—fuck! I'm sorry, I can't get a fucking w-word out, I'm—" the sobs took too much lungspace; cheated your lips of the ability to form a reasoned sentence. They quivered horrifically, demanding the release of guttural distress before they would allow you to regain control. "God, I-I'm sorry for this message. L-Look, it's not as bad as it sounds, I-I know I'm b-bawling like a baby. D-Don't panic, I'm okay, but I—I just—" you weren't okay. "F-Fuck. I need you, Tae. I-I'm so sad. S-So upset. I don't know what to do with myself. I-I know I'm b-bothering you but I—" the slick sounds of your snot-wiping was something Future Taehyung would find himself treated to. "I don't know what else to do. I j-just miss the old days, y-you know? L-Like, when we were kids. B-Being generally happy, you know? When things w-were simple. W-Wait," your fingernails gouged the bridge of your nose. "This sounds really depressing. I'm okay. I-It's just—s-something h-horrible—fuck!" even wording your way ambiguously around the events of the evening was proving too much for your extinguished ego. A deep breath coaxed it out. "S-Something bad happened tonight. I'm just r-really upset. I know you're out, a-and this message is way too long. Can you come ‘round and talk w-when you can? D-Don't worry if you can't," and yet you couldn't imagine how you'd survive the next few hours if he didn't walk his warm, willowy mass to your door. His hug would fix everything. "S-Sorry for bothering you."

It cited its low battery, but when your phone powered off abruptly, you suspected it was the long-suffering gizmo rolling its eyes into oblivion. This latest misfortune, rather than deepen your sorrow, shook your shoulders with mute laughter. It wasn't a reach to say you were near hysterical when you hauled yourself to your feet, Converse squelching and jeans five shades darker blue.

But if Taehyung were to receive and act on your message, you'd be a poor hostess to prompt him to an empty home. So, with this mission in mind, you staggered from the alley, no longer breathless from overexertion but light-headed in recompense. Despite perching on the brink of unending misery, this task of getting home was just the prosaic goal your exhausted mind welcomed. You advanced, as steadily as you were able, to the bus stop you'd bookmarked on your many car journeys back and forth to this neighbourhood. Its location had stuck in your mind for its abnormal placement; a few times you'd caught yourself scoffing over the notion that any of this neighbourhood's inhabitants would be seen dead draping D&G over dubiously stained, dubiously patterned bus seats.

The rain, at least, had seen fit to lessen your sentence. Your clothes clung cold to your form as you eyed the bus schedule, arms crossing your chest against the chill. Mercifully, you needed only air dry for a few minutes more before the bus pulled in with a grumble, its doors sticky in its hesitance to admit you. Knowing well that the driver was assessing your disturbed appearance, you adopted the chipper facade you often resorted to to stave off potentially awkward questions. "I look a state, don't I? Got caught in the rain way too long. Probably got a cold incoming, now," you chirped past a convincing smile, never quite committing to eye contact.

It seemed to placate him though. "Don't worry, sweetheart. We'll get you home. A single?"

"Single?" you echoed, offended by imagined insinuation. The driver's brows rose up his kindly face. "Oh, my ticket? Yes, a single. Thank you. Sorry, I'm not all here today."

Your skittishness must have disconcerted him. His only verbal response was a nervous chuckle as he printed your ticket and handed it to you with a subtle aversion. And although this encounter would have cowed you on any average day, today you had more to rue than a stranger's unfavourable first impression. So you took one of the many empty seats with a soggy huff and gave yourself to the purr of the engine beneath, finding its spluttered rhythm mollifying.

It was a short, oblivious trip, spent entirely in an exhausted voidspace. Only the driver's gentle wakening alerted you to your reached destination. "We're here, sweetheart. Time to go," he urged but barely, sympathy pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"Oh, already? Thanks for waking me up. Had a long day," was your unsolicited explanation. As you dropped a foot down the steps: "What time is it?"

"Just gone seven. Got here a little early."

"Wow, still so light out. Doesn't feel that late. Anyway," you fixed him over your shoulder. "Thanks."

He inclined his head and cap with a twinkle of his eye. "No worries. Take care, you hear?"

Sheepishness had you looking everywhere but at him. But then you did, and with the smallest of smiles. "Yeah. I'll try," you promised sincerely. The stranger's concern was a much-needed emollient for your parched spirit.

"Good girl," he was already unfolding a crumpled tabloid, feet on the dash and pitted nose between its pages.

Re-entering open air was akin to stepping foot into an industrial chiller. Hugging your miserably damp trenchcoat closer was counterproductive, and yet your chattering teeth demanded the rest of your body strive to warm itself somehow. And that's when you saw him again, mid-step and roughing your forearms for body heat.

Jungkook, three storeys above and pacing the balcony of your apartment complex like an impounded stray, as wet and bedraggled as you.

"Fuck!" the curse was soft in volume but hot with anger. While you were hardly an authority on clear and concise communication, there hadn't been anything nuanced about your parting words to him. Jungkook hadn't misinterpreted your instructions, but simply defied them.

God. You were over and above fury. But, standing there, and watching the cherub-cheeked culprit behind your anguish, it was quite easily doused. All you wanted lay in the two arms that swung agitatedly at his sides. The winsome lips he chewed into chapping.

And, oh, fuck. It hurt. Watching him candidly, unnoticed and out of reach, it hurt. He was no longer yours to touch, hold and merge with. There may as well have been a sheet of glass between your persons, now, because he was one, prohibited exhibit. All you could do was admire from afar.

He would see you soon if you didn't move. You; a drenched rodent, frozen in the road, begging to be roadkill. All he had to do was glance over. Just one look.

Perhaps because you were certain it wouldn't work, you willed him to.

And perhaps because you hoped it would, you willed him to.

Jungkook didn't.

He did, however, unpocket his phone and press it to his ear, never once missing a step in his rigid retreading. Was he trying you again? The defunct device lay frigid in your pocket, and though it was easy to fantasise that he was leaving his umpteenth voicemail for you, cynicism whispered that it was her he was gasping apologies to.

And that made it easier to turn on your heel. To the only place you had left.

The bus driver didn't seem especially surprised by your reappearance. His ochre eyes beamed benevolently over the top of his newspaper. "Where we going to now, sweetheart?"

Cash was already interweaving your fingers. "Does this bus go to the suburbs?"

"It can do," and a niggling feeling told you it probably didn't venture out so far. "I don't pick up many people on this route, this day, and this late. I'm sure the grannies we gather along the way won't mind a scenic detour."

"I really appreciate it," gratitude was certainly behind the smile stretching across your face. "Here."

"It's on me this time," he asserted with a sorcerous swipe of a card across the payment podium. Burying his lanyard back beneath his jacket, he tossed you a fatherly wink. "Just relax and enjoy the ride."

It was an extensive traipse from the bus stop to the two houses that sat together before you. The terrace was touched by time, but only superficially. There lived on countless memories; a residual trace of two kids digging for worms and comparing Hallowe'en hauls. Your house and Taehyung's house, sewn by brick; joined by the hip. As you had been. But he wasn't here, and nothing else of value remained. Your parents had long vacated the property that adjoined Taehyung's, leaving only the sad, sole occupant of his mother behind. She was as much a remnant of the past as the brick and mortar surrounding her. But that might be where she preferred to dwell. In a time where her husband lived and her children didn't simmer with resentment. Even if your parents had still inhabited the walls of your childhood home, however, it would still not have been the reason for your coming here. They were, after all, easily likened to tyrants in your eyes, and the last of all people you would run to in need. No, you weren't here for them. You were here for something forgotten. By others, at least, but never you. And it hardly mattered if time had been cruel. As you made your trek into the woodland aback of the terrace, you were fully expecting to find your juvenile retreat dilapidated and in danger of collapse. The birdwatching hut had been a ramshackle eyesore from day one of its discovery, but that had been of little consequence then. The prospect of possessing your own property, regardless of its dereliction, had been irresistible. Both you and Taehyung had thrilled at its earthy dank and rotting slats of wood, and furnished it fit for the pirate king and queen you declared yourselves as being. Longer legs made the trip shorter than your memory had gauged. Longer legs also diminished the structure somewhat in size, but to your immense, bleary-eyed delight, it had maintained steady foundations and a relatively proofed roof. And when you dipped your head underneath the overgrowth swathing its entrance, your elation only intensified upon observing everything in its long-established place. It was untouched by everything but nature itself, and though the aroma of forest was at its most stifling inside, the touches of green and brown were a pleasant addition to an already organic arrangement. You paid its only furniture - two odd, mould-eaten chairs - an affectionate, nostalgia-ridden touch as you passed, a decade of warm recollection transferring to your fingertips. One was yours, one was his. Being the spitfire you had been back then, you had, of course, insisted on possessing the most grandiose of the two chairs. Grandiose being the one devoid of the wobbly leg. Taehyung had rediscovered his voice around then; perhaps in solution to your bullish rule-making. The day he'd emerged from his grief-induced silence and appealed to you for said, eminent chair had been one of your happiest. It was easier to plunge into reminiscence than confront the present. Encompassed by nostalgia's warmth, you sunk to the floor by the back wall, at peace and in remedial silence. Dead leaves, once verdant, chafed at your palms, welcoming your return. Cicadas squawked their same, age-old tune, and that was all it took to travel back in time.

Time was a flighty creature. Years passed behind your closed eyelids, when it could only have been a few seconds. But, no: Those moments of black had actually been an hour at the least, if the dim illumination of dusk, washing out the floorboards, was anything to go by. It hurt to open your eyes upon this darker scene. Your eyes, likely blood-shot and dog-tired, adjusted with some difficulty.

And that was when you heard the crunch that had disturbed your befogged slumber to begin with.

Again. Crunch; shod foliage, crumbling under confident and unhurried bootsteps.

Closer and closer they fell, unmistakably on course for your hideout. On track to discover a dishevelled mess of raw emotion. Somehow, it hardly mattered. Yes, a stranger of unknown intent was stalking toward your very location, omniscient of your presence there. Yes, they could very well possess the last pair of eyes you would ever look into as they mutilated you alive.

Somehow, even that didn't perturb you.

So when the figure loomed long and dark in the doorway, impeding your only escape route, your gaze rose to engage them in a direct acknowledgement of your grim fate. Whoever it was, however, denied you that by banishing the only, weak light source.

"Here you are," a voice announced. Its familiarity punched you solid in the heart with elation. "Thought you might be here."

"T-Tae?" you croaked like a long-wounded animal, curled in its place of resignation. "Is that you?"

The laugh confirmed that it was. And then he stepped past the threshold, allowing rays of feeble sunset to illuminate his gentle, round face. His sandy head was an inch from the ceiling's incline, collecting cobwebs as he neared. "Yeah. Are you okay?" he put the question to you firmly, not as a gentle probe. Concern distinctly warped his features, and yet he made no aggressive, physical move to console you. Likely as an overt demonstration of his respect for your personal space. Considering the last time...

This was the first instance, in the last four or so weeks, that you shared a space alone.

But neither doubt, nor discomfort, were anywhere to be found.

Your fingers pinched and twisted amongst themselves in your lap. "I guess it would be asshole-ish of me to say yeah, considering my phone call," you found humour in that, at least, and snorted it out. "I'm so used to just saying that. But, no, I'm not. I'm calmer than I was when I called you, but I'm not okay, Tae. I'm sorry for dragging you into all this."

Taehyung wasn't done playing urgent care. "Are you hurt anywhere? Do I need to take you somewhere?"

"I'm physically fine," other than cramping legs, attacks of dizziness and a cosmic heartrate. "I would have called 911, otherwise. I'm not totally ridiculous. Just partially. Look, I know I—"

"I'm glad you called me," and there was no implication of the opposite in his tone. Only earnestness. "Really glad. You know I'm here for you, whatever it is you've got going on."

"I'm sorry to cut short your evening," you remembered. Guilt nibbled at what scraps there were of you left. "I know you were out with Jimin. Where is he?" though there was no sign of a smaller silhouette peeking over Taehyung's shoulder, you eyed the doorway beyond warily. The last thing you needed was Jimin's callous ribbing.

"He went back to my place. I said he could stay there if he wanted to, because I wasn't sure when I'd be back," Taehyung held up a sole, deterrent finger when you drew breath to blurt apologies. "Don't. It's okay. Jimin can amuse himself. So, what's going on, noona?" he sidled up in small, leisurely steps until he was a tower above your shrunken hunch. "Jesus, you're soaked. You're gonna get ill."

And he was right. Debilitation was creeping up on you. The beginnings of weakness and ache. A sigh of acknowledgement. "I know. But I'll be fine, a cold isn't really ranking high on my scale of problems right now, honestly," something occurred to you, then: "How did you know I was here?"

Taehyung's dense brows met. He skewered you under careful scrutiny. "Well, I went to your apartment first. Met someone there."

Mechanically, your head jerked away from the mere insinuation of that person. "Oh."

"I knew it," your long-limbed companion barked above you. "Did he do something?" Taehyung's voice reverberated with an undercurrent growl. "He was acting shifty when I talked to him."

You side-stepped his question with another. "What did he say?"

"Well, for one, I asked him, as a joke, why he was pacing about like a tweaker, soaked to the bone," his lips stretched sardonically over model teeth. "Uh, he didn't find that amusing, apparently. Guess I judged the mood wrong. He looked miserable. I thought he'd lost his key to your apartment, or something."

"I never gave him one," you informed him, like it was important he know you'd been shrewd in some things. Truth was, you'd been considering getting a key cut for Jungkook the next week. "Not yet. So, what did he say?"

Taehyung had the biggest, most beauteous eyes. Almost uncannily so. How he narrowed them, then, until there was barely a flash of pupil peeping between, was some feat. Feeling their sharp edge, you squirmed. "What's going on? Why are you here, and he, there?"

"I'll tell you in a sec. Just tell me if he said anything," was your pathetic bargain. You'd scarcely blame Taehyung for shaking each word from you, like a disobliging pepper pot. "I wanna know."

"And you couldn't call him to ask?" he did, at least, release a jaded sigh. Considering your babbled pleas to see him and your difficulty with being forthcoming, it was generous. "I just wanna know if I've gotta kick his ass or not, noona. I asked if you'd called him, too; if you were in trouble. He said he didn’t think you were in trouble. That, yeah, you’d called him. But he was shady as hell about it."

"Probably because he knew you would kick his ass if he told you the truth," a sigh of your own hit the tops of your tucked knees. "You didn't tell him I'd be here, did you?"

Taehyung picked inattentively at the decaying walls. "Of course not. I got the feeling he was being weird, and maybe you didn't want to see him. Especially if he was waiting like that. So I said I was going home, but to call me if you showed up. And then I drove here."

"I still don't get how you knew I'd be here, though," it was your turn to eye him, though he, for the first time, was diverted elsewhere. You tracked his gaze to the two, lissom fingers pinching holes into the rotting structure.

"You mentioned the good ol' days in your call," Taehyung shrugged without any of the indifference the motion called for. It was a little too vigorous. "I thought, maybe," another shrug, this one more self-conscious. "You'd come here. So many good memories here, y'know. I dunno," he continued, unprompted and meandering. "The days we spent here were some of the best."

A smile, your most endangered expression, broke through all the grimacing. "They were. I agree. I mean, when I called you, I was expecting to just go home, and meet you there. But Jungkook was there, so I came here. I didn't even think about it. I just caught the bus here. This was more like a second home than my childhood home. Funny."

"Not funny," he corrected, pulling up one of the structurally suspect chairs and plopping himself, with a squish and a cringe, onto its saturated cushion. "Understandable. Your parents were - are - shit. I mean, my mom tried, but," his arms flopped flaccid over the armrests. "Well, you know how she was. Helicopter mom to the extreme. She's a lot better these days, I guess, but, yeah. We did a lot of damage to each other. Especially after Yoongi moved out. Sorry," a tsk. "I didn't mean to make this about me. Or mom. Anyway, tell me what's going on, ____. It's getting late, and I'm getting worried about you catching pneumonia."

"Don't apologise," your bottom lip was a traitor and already wobbling. "I'm happy to talk about anything. Anything else."

"____," your name was a nudge, a reassurance, and a hug all in one. Dread slowed you as you raised your eyes to him, sprawled lax in his chair but fiercely attentive. And patient, as always. "Tell me."

The longer you stared, unsaying, the more it stung. It wasn't long before your eyes teemed saltwater again. "H-He cheated on me," God, you had to gasp between each, shameful word. "Jungkook. He has a fiancée he never told me about."

A jarring clatter snapped at your nerves when Taehyung shot from sitting, upending his treasured, childhood throne. "What?" his Doc Martins crunched leaves to powder as he surged forward. "What the fuck? He fucking cheated? He has a fiancée?!"

Taehyung didn't wear emotions. Emotions wore him. You sat, shrunken and sobbing as you watched a showcase of fervid responses morph his handsome features. Yours, you were sure, were unflatteringly scrunched and damp with upset. Which was all you were capable of conveying, when your voicebox was preoccupied with summoning the shrillest of caterwauls.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he invoked, fingers linked upon his head and between strands of disarrayed hair. Not once did his gaping at you waver. Things were happening behind those potent eyes of his. "Jesus. I'm going to fucking kill him. I'm actually gonna kill the bastard," and he was off, a hurricane on the spot as he spun, stirring dust and decomposition with him. "Just fucking wait!"

"No!" your legs were a launchpad into a belligerent tackle. You snagged him from the back, right around the waist, leveraging every pound of your waterlogged weight against him. "Please don't go," you begged softly between his shoulders blades, darkening the cotton of his coat with your various secretions. "I need you here, with me. Please."

"I'm not letting that fucking asshole get away with this. He didn't just treat you like shit, he fucking fed you it. I can't," his musculature strained up his back and along his arms, and it was then you clocked the two, balled fists by his sides. Taehyung shivered, not with cold, but with blistering anger. "I can't not do anything."

"Tae," you called, soft and shuddering. His tautened figure softened considerably. "What you can do is be here for me. Comfort me. Don't leave me alone. Please."

Though you could see no more than the back of his satin, sandy head and two endearingly prominent ears, it was clear cogs were grinding. Grinding, because you knew how difficult it was for Taehyung to disengage. He was a being of pure passion.

Finally, another sigh. One that released fingers from fists, and rigidity from his back. He sunk into you without further opposition. "Okay. Only because you're more important than anything. But he'll be getting a visit from me in the near future, don't worry."

A nuzzle became a shake of your head. "Don't. Don't hurt him, Tae. I don't want that. I told him I never want to see him again, and that's the end of it."

Taehyung tested your grip with a hefty, abdomen-expanding snort. "I'm not gonna hurt him, noona. I just want to have a talk," he vowed stiffly. You were not convinced.

"Not now, Tae. Stay with m-me," you broke again, wretched and wheezy, both frustrated and embarrassed by your unrelenting lamentations. "I-I don't know what t-to do with myself."

But he did.

Taehyung pivoted in your weakening embrace, hauling you near clear from the ground in vehement consolation, his two arms completing your enclosure. He plunged you into the heat of his body and headiness of his skin-and-cologne, glamouring you immediately into pacification. Like a bawling infant returned to arms of the one it loves most, you quietened, whimpered and sniffled, co-opting his collar for your personal handkerchief. And quite as temperamental as a baby, the gentle side-to-side rocking Taehyung exerted brought you from 100 to 0 mortifyingly quick. Exhaustion dunked on you again and, within your only reprieve since The Event, sleep felt gloriously within consideration.

It was okay to let go now.

Here, with him, you were safe. Safe, valued, and loved.

Things that required time and a begrudging vulnerability to build. Jungkook had wheedled it from you far too quick, and, as it happened, far too prematurely.

He’d vanquished you.

Vanquished someone he regarded as no more than a challenging diversion, and now the game was over. A game you'd stumbled – obliviously - to the end of, only to reveal its sordid conclusion. And now you would somehow have to amputate yourself of him.

God. How?

The hands around you helped. Squeezed comfort and hope back into your chilled cadaver. "I'm sorry, noona. I'm sorry for introducing you in the first place. This is my fault," Taehyung whispered hot into your hair, and it curdled your blood to hear him self-blame.

"No, it's not," your voice was husky from snivelling. "Don't say that. You were only trying to help me. I asked, after all. Your intentions were good."

"Let's get you out of here and into something dry," he deflected, because Taehyung was nothing if not a flagellant. He truly felt responsible for this. His decency demanded it of him. "Come on," crisp, late-evening air intruded as he broke the hug. When your body compelled a patent shiver, the kind-eyed man cocked a brow. "Don't fight me on this. Get on, I can see you're tired," he offered with a pat to his back, turning into an awkward-looking squat. "Climb aboard, princess. Your royal steed is here."

A snort-scoff - that was dangerously close to ejecting the stuff building in your nasal cavities - burst forth. "Last time I did this, it didn't go so well," you ribbed, because it was easy to, now. That whole calamitous evening felt an era away and so, so unimportant. The two of you could conquer anything, hiccup or mountain. True friendship endured. You hopped onto Taehyung's saddle and linked your ankles around his middle. "Hey, you didn't fall over."

"Yeah, well," your long-legged friend huffed, hiking you higher with a couple bounces of adjustment. "This time you don't have that freakin' slanket. I've banned those from my apartment, by the way."

Taehyung's hair flittered under your breath. "Nooo! I want to live in the slanket forever, Tae. Don't take away my precious."

His chest rumbled with amusement. "Well, seeing as you asked so nicely, Smeagol."

Your index and thumb formed pincers and tweezed his ear.

"Ah! Don't make me drop you!"

"Bitch, you wouldn't dare."

"Yeah? I'll dump you on your ass, right here. Pinch me again."

The murky, twilight forest listened in on your exchanged jabs and escape from melancholia. It was weird just how easily Taehyung could efface misery. Temporarily, maybe, but now you'd slipped from its clutches, you were fleeing, a jubilant insurgent, and you weren't going to look back. A bad idea, definitely, but who the fuck cared.

You fucking deserved to be happy.

Even if it was by comparmentalising everything you couldn't contend with.

When it inevitably bit you in the ass, it'd just take a heartier chomp than normal. 

That was fine.

Because for now, you were fine.

With him.

Taehyung withdrew his hands from your knee-pits and left you to slide, comedically slow, down the length of his back. "Sweet, we timed that right. Wouldn't have been fun navigating the woods in the pitch black."

As he stretched away his body's complaints, you poked your head around him and gawked at your stopping place. "Your house? No offence, Tae, but I'm not really in the mood to talk to your mom right now."

Although preoccupied with kneading the small of his poor, overburdened back, he found it in himself to shoot you A Look. "You really think I'd bring you back here if she was at home? She's not here. She's gone on a cruise with friends I forced her to make. That's what people her age should be doing, not babying her adult sons."

"Wow, good going. I thought we were just going to go back to your place."

"Nah, Jimin's there, and I don't think you want to see him, either," his front teeth hooked his bottom lip into a shit-eating grin. "We'll stay here tonight and go back tomorrow. Cool?"

"Sure," your shoulders shrugged in accord as you led him along the familiar picket fence. "Definitely don't wanna be within grasping range if he's been drinking."

"We didn't even get to that, actually," Taehyung piped up from behind you, inexplicably happy. "So Jimin is probably bored out of his brains and watching something shitty on TV right now, stone sober."

Ah.

You stood aside so he could fumble blindly with his keys. "Geez. I thought you were supposed to be making me feel better."

"That was supposed to make you feel better," his eyes flicked mischievously from the lock. "I know how much he irritates you. He'll survive one night without booze and chicks. I mean, I hope," for a second, Taehyung played up his uncertainty. "Maybe he'll die without them. I don't know, man, I don't think he has gone a day without them. Ah—got it."

Jesus, even his house smelt the same. It invaded your nostrils as soon as you stepped a foot inside; pure, unadultered past. Memory in sensory form, enchanting the air you breathed. It was peonies and teenaged boys. "Your mom still using that fabric softener?"

"Hah, you smell that?" Taehyung's nose twitched in an attempt to pick up the scent. "I don't even notice it anymore."

"It's nice, reminds me of coming here before."

He smiled slight with one side of his mouth. "Go up to my room, I'll find you something to change into. I'll take the sofabed."

"Okay," slipping off your Converse was like shelling snails. Your whole face pinched. “Gross.”

Taehyung pointed at the molluscs that had once been your socks. “Give me those now, you definitely don’t want wet things on your feet. I heard it’s the best way to a cold.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” mirth sounded from your nose. You handed him the ruined things nevertheless, apology puckering your mouth. “Sorry I’m so disgusting.”

“This is hardly the most disgusting thing you’ve done,” and yet he held your socks at a full arms’ length, like they were at risk of tripping a Geiger counter. “Remember when you had food poisoning, and no-one was home at your house? So you—”

“Oh wow, there’s new art on the walls!” there wasn’t. Taehyung accosted you with one of his most disrespectful grins. “I’ll be upstairs,” you sung, feeling his blitheness on your back. “Don’t be long, peasant.”

Each step up the staircase was a step back in time. It was spooky how palpably you could hear the ghost of music trickling from Yoongi's old room. His indecisive muttering as he replayed samples into monotony, honing his myriad of projects. But as you passed, there was nothing but the silence of his absence, and through the sliver of open door not a lot remained of his ever being there.

Why was it so...

Sad?

Yoongi was alive and well, thriving professionally, and seemed at peace with himself in his first, loving relationship. Things couldn't be better for him, really.

It was you. You, selfishly yearning for simpler times. You, taking steps back when others leapt forward.

It was while entertaining this pestilent thought that you let yourself into Taehyung's room. Once fleeting, it now latched on to feed. And it was while observing the perfectly preserved contents of his teenaged upbringing that profound melancholy chewed at you in big, greedy bites.

It had been so long since you'd been free of doubt and devil-may-care. Turns out, the devil did care. Enough to torture you, that is. Though it was satisfying to blame your misfortunes on the debatable existence of some chaotic deity, it was far less to do with luck and far more to do with sabotaging every adult decision you'd made thus far.

Yeah, being a kid had been simpler. Happier. But those times were gone. The people had gone, and grown, and so must you. The past was always your respite from hurt. But it shouldn't be. It should be the future, and yet it was so difficult to look directly into.

Now that he was gone.

In its murk, your body acted autonomous of your brain. It found its way, somehow, to Taehyung's esteemed comic collection. While thumbing through, without a conscious thought for the art blurring between your fingers, you prodded at an internal sore so excruciating it wasn't long before that same, bilious anger began to bubble.

Jungkook had stolen that future from you. He swept you from the past and swore that the time ahead could be as hopeful and happy. Something you came to believe with the whole of your heart. Because if he was to be a part of your ensuing life, it couldn't have been anything but that.

Instead, he'd dumped you in the present, hopeless and miserable. With no foreseeable way forward. Yes, time healed, but it could also fester.

What would you become?

Within the span of five hours, you'd lost all understanding of yourself. Who was this person, standing here, and what was she supposed to do next? The heartbreak was cataclysmic; on par with nothing else you'd ever experienced. Jungkook had not only dispossessed you of the future you'd jointly envisioned, but, it felt, of your own identity.

God.

You were so fucking angry. Angry and alarmingly off-kilter. How could any one man exert so much power?

People went through break-ups all the time. You, however, were not equipped for the unthinkable circumstances surrounding yours, nor the severity of the pain that had followed.

Fuck Jungkook.

Yes, anger was the easiest emotion to indulge. It couldn't hurt if it only filled you with vengeful power.

You dropped the comic with a derisive snort, as though the blameless book itself were your ex.

"What the hell? I thought you liked Ranma ½," you hadn't heard Taehyung enter the room. "It's got tiddies! 14-year old me loved that."

It was a mercy he hadn’t glimpsed the wrath that had brutalised your features. The last thing you wanted was an inquisition, however well-meant.  Before turning around, you affixed something more inconspicuous. "I'm sure you still do," you snarked, crossing your arms. "I preferred Inuyasha, anyway."

"I know, you and your wolf dudes," Taehyung thrust a pile of plaid pyjamas towards you. "Here, this is all I could find. They’re mine. A bit musty, sorry."

"He was a dog, not a wolf," you corrected with a playful indignance, accepting the moth-eaten nightwear reluctantly. "Man, they stink."

"I apologise if the facilities of Chateau Kim are not to the lady's taste. It's that or nothing, noona," your bright-eyed friend chirped, ridding himself of his coat and hanging it on the back of the door. It was peculiar to find yourself admiring the flex of his lats so brazenly, but nothing within chided you for ogling. Suddenly, your usual, tiresome concerns seemed miniscule in comparison to today. 

You really didn't give a fuck. How incredibly refreshing.

Maybe you should be thanking Jungkook for minimising your other problems.

It was peculiar, but empowering. Today—no, in these mere, last few minutes—the anxiety that had hounded you for most of your adult life, shrivelled in the face of this new, sanguine you. The anxiety asked: What now? How will you cope? Will you ever get over this? 

Perhaps it was your lack of mental and physical energy that had facilitated the answer:

I don't care.

And so it was gone.

And you didn’t worry for its return.

"Nothing?"

Nor did you worry for the future.

"Uh, yeah. That's all I've got, sorry, noona."

Consequences?

"So you want me to sleep in my underwear?"

 What are those?

Taehyung halted his noisy assembly of the sofa bed, staring at its cushions as though the mattress itself had uttered the words. "What? No," frozen, his irises darted to your face and back multiple, dizzying times. "I didn't mean nothing as in nothing. I mean, you can wear something of my mom's, if you want. I just thought you wouldn't want to." 

You waited for his gaze to settle before you continued. Seeing him so circumspect was exciting for this new, impetuous you. "It's okay. I want to sleep in my underwear. It's a warm evening."

He rose from bending to the full length of his legs, wary and dithering. "Uh, okay. Sure. Whatever makes you comfortable."

"Thank you, Tae," the buckle of your trenchcoat clinked under its unfastening. "Be nice to get out of these wet clothes."

A forbidden scenario unfolded in your mind's eye, and rather than stifle that which you would usually consider an abhorrent thought-crime, you spurred yourself to enact it. Deliberation and diffidence had no place in your current thoughtscape. Only opportunity and primitive compulsion. A need to be wanted, and to want freely.

He’d wanted you once.

Taehyung's fear-freeze shattered with a courtesy cough when you went to grab the hem of your shirt. The shedding of the coat was fine; anything beyond that must've been tripping a klaxon in his brain. "R-Right. I'll let you get changed. Shout me when you're under the covers."

A single foot was all he was capable of shifting before you caught him again, an invisible snare around his ankle. "You don't have to leave," the assurance came calm and through the sodden fabric of your shirt as you liberated yourself of it. "You can stay, if you want."

For a moment he gawked, jaw loose and tongue idling in the bottom of his mouth. But it was only the scantest glimpses of weakness before he was dutifully diverting his attention to the ceiling. "I know I saw you naked as a kid, but this is hardly the same thing," Taehyung's bangs danced on an agitated breath. His eyes travelled the popcorn ceiling, likely in search of sense. "I don't wanna give you another reason to think I'm gross. I'm kinda designed to stare at that kind of thing," his hands shaped invisible breasts in the air. "Alright, that made it gross. Sorry. Point is, I don't wanna give you the wrong idea. So I'll step outside, and you get into bed, 'kay?"

"Nah."

Likely it was your dismissal that drew him back to your face again. "What? You're being really weird. Are you okay?" Taehyung's valiant attempt at affixing his eyes above neck-level pulled a smirk to your lips. "I want you to watch me undress." His boundless brown eyes flitted, momentarily, to your diabolically boosted cleavage. Again, he snatched them away. "I don't understand. Is this because of Jungkoo--" "No," you were firm. A touch disdainful. "Fuck him. This isn't about him.  This is about me." Taehyung remained unenlightened. His mouth puckered with unspoken questions, and, God, did you want it. Eventually, he found his voice. "H-How—" there was careful consideration of his wording. "How can I help?" An unobtrusive offer. Open to innocent interpretation, and yet something other twinkled in his eyes. He was testing you.

“Tell me if you like my lingerie. I wanna know if I made a good choice or not,” you tossed the order to him like it were no more significant than getting his impression of a new purse. Fingers on the button of your jeans, you popped them open with a purposeful catch of his eye.

You were rather revelling in revisiting your seductress persona. The one you hadn't fully unearthed since college. A time when you ate men for breakfast, lunch and dinner. One where you didn't downplay admiration of your own body.

Even if it were merely an illusion now, well.

Fake it 'til you make it.

And then Taehyung fractured it. "Noona, wait," his hands were on yours, but not to disrobe you. To prevent you from humiliating yourself further, apparently.

Fuck. Again?

Twice in one day?

Were you so undesirable?

"You can tell me the opposite, but I know you're upset. And as much as I find you attractive, I don't want to fuck things up. For real," you wouldn't look at him. And when he tried to tip your chin upwards, you withstood. "Noona. I meant it when I said I treasure you more than anyone. You're hurting. It wouldn't be right of me."

You continued your vacant examination of his shirt buttons. Six in total. Don't look up, or you'll break. "I've been hurting for a really long fucking time, actually," oh, God. This was just supposed to be an ill-conceived lay. Disengaged from emotion. Not this. Not now. "Because of you, Tae."

His hands were silken snakes, encircling your upper arms. Don't look up. "Noona, I thought we were okay about that evening now. I said I'm sorry, and I meant it."

Oh, this sweet, summer child. Yoongi was right. Taehyung was implausibly unobservant.

"I didn't mean to give you the impression that I wanted a quick fuck," he continued off on his own tangent. "It was a mistake. A drunken mistake. Your worth to me as a friend far outweighs a stupid snap judgment."

"I wasn't talking about th-that," his fingers were a sensuous mistake on your shoulders, rubbing comfort into your body but summoning only the hungriest of wants. You shrugged him free.

Don't look up.

A baritone, patient and even-tempered, whispered above your ears. "What is it, noona?"

Don't look at him.

Don't say it.

You looked at him, and you said it. "I love you," fuck. "I'm in love with you. And I have b-been," you unravelled faster than a spool of silk. Your tears sprung from an empty well. "For the longest time."

So this was the moment. A confession composed, tweaked and performed infinitely in the safety of your mind. And now it was out there, lingering in the air between you, executed with none of the finesse or sweetness you'd practiced. Taehyung, however, was not repelling you in the revulsion you so frequently foresaw. No, he remained inches from your face, pressing you to the earth with the intensity of his ambiguously-arranged features. The time that passed since your last, uttered syllable grew past uncomfortable. Mortification held you and your terror-struck expression in place, as did the contemplative smoulder that ensorcelled Taehyung's eyes. His pitch plunged to a bass that resonated with your soul. "You love me?" he turned the question over on his tongue, gently sampling its meaning. "You're in love with me?"

There was still time to salvage this mistimed, foolhardy admission. There were innumerous factors worthy of blaming your unbalanced mindstate. And yet, that cryptic something that stewed beneath Taehyung's surface encourged truth. "Yes. For years. I'm in love with you," God, it strengthened you to repeat it. Years of emotional prostration evaporated. Even if it was the wrong thing to do, it was right for you. You needed this. "I love you so much it hurts."

Light and air vanished. Taehyung surrounded you whole, his lavish lips heavy and fierce on yours, tongue out and ravenously prying apart your stunned-shut mouth. His fingers were so quickly, so deeply entrenched in your hair that your roots throbbed with a delicious ache. And then he was tugging you back, back, and back, easing open your jaw to fully immerse his undulating tongue in your saliva.

This time, this kiss, nothing suspended you in inertia. You snapped into reciprocation.

You, too, buried deep your fingers in his soft, flaxen hair, charting his scalp with a rake of your fingernails. Your tongue met him with ferocity, butting back against his boisterous exploration, washing the length of the slick muscle. It was this counterattack that drew Taehyung's first moan, sonorous and hearty in appetite. The violence of your entanglement spilled to the outside of your mouths, brushing your lips and chins with gloss. Your teeth clacked on clumsy occasion, a frustrating obstacle when all the two of you wanted was to assimilate each other completely. Only when your vision began to fizz either side did you lay your hands on his chest to urge him off, but, God, just having his widespread frame under the tips of your fingers nearly stole your last breath.

The two of you panted, hoarse and dizzied, like you were verging on diabetic coma. You needed the nectar of his saliva; the fragrance of his hair and skin that close, damp with rain. Each second without was painful. But if you had to oblige your body’s call for breath, you’d spend those seconds heaving, chest to chest, journeying to the depths of each other’s heavy, enamoured gazes.

Taehyung wouldn't wait. His long, sublime fingers cradled your chin with utter care and tipped your face away, enough to expose your jugular in all its thrumming excitement. Ample lips, daubed sticky with saliva, brushed the column of your throat to its foundations.

Heaven was this.

Heaven was his practised teeth and tongue, pinching and suckling your collarbones to an inhuman shade. Like an overzealous pet he branded you with feral desire, mouthing marks into stretches of unclaimed skin. This was what drew your first moan. "Oh, God," the soft, warm fuzz at his nape suffered a reactionary yank. "I've wanted this for so long, Tae. You don't know how long."

Home was this.

He was home. Vibrancy, warmth, and the safety of knowing. Colour saturated the space between his arms; the parting of his lips. Everything ghastly grey was banished from this place. And though he didn’t love you, all you wanted was to forget. To shirk your burdens and be light and liberated. Indulging in his flesh was a just reward for all the adversity.

"No, I didn't know," Taehyung climbed your neck and slathered your jaw with its fair share of open-mouthed kisses. "I had no idea. Why did you keep it to yourself all this time?" his serpentine tongue lapped around the shell of your ear. Almost as though he were inebriated, he spoke lower and slower, affected by arousal. "No. I understand why," all you could do was jellify in his warm confines, lids like lead and eyes turning heavenward. It was then you felt the heat of Taehyung's stiffening shaft, appealing for your touch. He applied it firmly to your abdomen, the rapidly swelling appendage instructing your cunt to weep. And it did. Gleefully. "I know why it was brave to admit it. You really are the strongest, most amazing woman I know."

The thread of conversation got away from you while squashed flush to his cock. That ultimate fantasy that materialised, now, as literal, rigid flesh. His hips rocked gentle to your stomach, nurturing himself to his full, pussy-wrenching potential. God saw fit to outfit Taehyung in slacks today; slacks so thin they were almost gossamer. It granted your unworthy, dripping cunt such riches. Like the tangible tug on his foreskin as he swayed back and forth, belying his dick’s solid centre. So solid he could scaffold you. All the expletives in the world couldn't express how fucking much you wanted it up, in and on you, in any and all capacities.

"Uh-huh," was all you could muster, lust-drunk as you were. He robbed you, then, of his fire-stoking firmness, when he stooped eye-level with your laced-up cleavage. There, cheeks pressing soft to your breasts, he laid an unexpectedly sweet kiss where it plunged.

A true tactician of seduction, Taehyung had you flanked from the back. The tips of his fingers.  were a feathered trail up your spine, conjuring tingles in their wake. He lingered on the clasp of your bra, nails burrowing crescents into the skin around.  "Okay?"

Your response was the emphatic drop of your loosened jeans. Well, they didn’t so much drop as gather stubbornly at your knees, adhesive while wet.  Taehyung's hands tumbled from your back as he staggered a step backwards, repelled like a charged magnet. His eyes and mouth were round, unreserved in broadcasting appreciation. "Oh, holy shit," his lips looked tucked to whistle, but nothing but excited breath streamed free. "You're—damn. Crotchless, huh? Well, I—approve. Wow."

Was it possible for someone to occupy both paradise and infernal abyss simultaneously? Because there was some absurd, polar conflict raging within you. And it was suggesting yes. But, right now, the pearly-gates beckoned you. Hell was eternal. It could wait.

"You like it?" a touch flirty; a touch hopeful. A touch too insecure. You directed his attention to the opening between your legs, freely exhibiting the extent you were already glistening for him. Your fingers played at the innermost of your thighs, inviting him to spectate a sensuous display. After gathering evidence, you presented your slick-tipped digits to him.

Taehyung snapped to you like virgin elastic, engulfing your wrist in a fist and taking your near whole hand into his mouth. He sucked your sticky fingers sterile, dark-eyed and dangerously on edge. Your hand left his lips slow and stringy. "Who the fuck wouldn't?" he purred, lapping the pads of your pristinely cleaned fingers like a kitten glut with milk but greedy for more.

Who the fuck wouldn't?

Your stomach dropped, unwelcome, onto the arousal stewing in your lower abdomen.

Someone wouldn't.

Jungkook wouldn't.

The bells and whistles had been for him, and he wouldn't like it.

Because no matter the provocative your gift-wrapping, it wasn't enough to keep him. Keep him, and keep him honest.

Your head, your seductive smile, dropped. And so, too, did your hand, back to your side. Taehyung was warmth around you again, two large, gentle hands securing your shoulders. "Noona?"

No, you needed this. Him. No matter how fleeting the moment.

Wet, cloying saltwater descended your cheeks for the umpteenth time. It didn't help to fight it. It came and left of its own accord.

"____?" a crack sounded in his voice. Your heart, too.

No, you wanted him.

So much.

So you shook yourself free of his hands and flung yourself within inches of his face, arms out and coiling inflexibly around his neck. Taehyung mirrored the desperation of your hold around your waist, hauling you too near to breathe. This close, gold speckled his soul-searching irises. You pressed your vulnerability, your ardour for him into his half-open mouth, closing your eyes to his torpid gaze. His tongue greeted yours, gentle and tranquil, waiting to receive your message. And you communicated it in soft, apprehensive strokes he swallowed in understanding.

Your mouths separated, barely. Your bodies remained affixed. "Don't hurt me, Tae," was everything said in that kiss. "Please, don't hurt me. I can't take anymore."

The tip of his nose dimpled your dampened cheek. His breath was a seraph's tickle. "I won't, noona. I won't," you felt his eyebrows animate against your forehead, crumpling and arching between expressions. "Because I—I love you, too."

What?

Though you hadn't interjected aloud, he repeated himself. "I love you too. I kissed you that evening because I love you," it was his familiar, musical timbre uttering the words, but they were exotic coming from his mouth. "I shouldn't have, but I was weak. Drunk, but mostly weak. I'm still sorry about that."

"Tae," everything about this clinch was more reverie than reality. Something akin to cotton filled your ears, dulling all but his steady heartbeat and breathing. He was here, against you, possessing every one of your senses, and nothing was real. This couldn't be real. "Y-You what?"

His cheek slid soft down your own until he was nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye with you. "I love you," it came from his vocal chords, but he spoke it from somewhere arcane. "I don't know how long. I don't think I even realised until recently, when I saw you with—with someone else. Saw you happy and fulfilled," his gaze wavered as he exposed his truth. "I realised that I wanted that. To do that for you. Maybe I did all along, I don't know. I wasn't expecting this," the tremulous sigh that kissed your chin told you that Taehyung was just as daunted verbalizing such long-veiled feelings. "This came out of nowhere. It was kinda scary, honestly. I don't catch feelings. I don't do stuff like this."

Your heart raced ahead of your brain, pumping you giddy with endorphins. It knew the meaning before you did. "You love me?"

"I do," Taehyung cupped your face to focus your ricocheting gaze. When it hit him, he wrapped your parted lips in an effusive kiss, eyes open, so you could sense his candour. "I do," your mouths drifted just enough for him to reiterate. And as you fisted the back of his shirt, giving yourself to trust, lust and love, he tasted you again, a hand at your back and one on your nape, bending you toward the bed at the backs of your knees. "I do," Taehyung rasped more than murmured, and you felt his restraint unravelling with every of his shirt buttons you flicked open.

"Y-You don't know how long I wanted to hear that," it was an odd clash of relief and arousal faltering your voice. "G-God, I need you, Tae," you clung to him as you undressed his torso, hissing as though his bare flesh had branded your wandering palms. He ran so hot.

Like a willow branch you snapped back onto the bed, his fiery encumbrance too much on you to remain vertical. And Taehyung crawled, shirtless and driven, over your awkwardly-splayed body, stapling you to the duvet beneath with his elbows and knees. A glimpse of his painfully contorted crotch both filled you with wanton ache and the validation you so desperately needed right now.

"You have me," three hot, breathy syllables mouthed into the groove of your breasts. "Jesus, you can have me," he declared once more, his lengthy, slender fingers delving far into your fleshy sides. At the mercy of his self-serving cock, he dug his clothed erection into your thigh for any scrap of friction. "You're driving me crazy, noona. You always have. I can't wait to finally fuck you. God, I know you have a sweet cunt."

"F-Fuck," Taehyung's snap to gruff indecency was as potent for your clit as those lips of his around it. You throbbed and leaked like an oversexed nymphet, like a virgin denied the touch of even her own hand. Arousal had never enthralled you so vividly as it did now. "F-Fuck me, quick. I'm so horny, oh my God. Get your fucking jeans off."

Taehyung, half your uncupped breast sunk deep into the humidity of his mouth, tore himself away, tacky-lipped and with his tongue trailing reluctantly after. It peeked through his teeth as he wrestled with his buttoned jeans, augmenting his concentration. Nearly free, he snagged his swollen, bottom lip beneath his front teeth, surveying your submissively spread body. "And you, lazy," he growled through grit teeth. "Unless you want them torn from you."

As much as that would likely send you into an untouched orgasm: "Alright, alright," the material was uncooperative in its soggy state, as much a sexual deterrence as a chastity belt as it griped its way down your legs. Once rid, you slung it unceremoniously from a foot and marvelled at the extravaganza that was Taehyung rolling his briefs to mid-thigh. All imaginings of his mythic cock faded into irrelevance when presented with its cunt-clinching palpability. You could already feel it cleaving you in two. And it was why you wouldn't even allow him the chance to strip himself completely. "Fuck, get in me. Tae, I'm not even kidding."

Two, languished moans emanated from your lip-lock when the wide, blunt tip of his cock knocked against your uncovered cunt. And then he squirmed, like the importunate boy he was, until your mouths came apart. "God, let me look first," his broad hands swept over your naked shape, greedy in scrutiny. When they set down on the softest part of your inner thighs, you sensed a veritable shudder churn through him. His thumbs slid slick toward your ripened cunt. "Is this what I do to you, noona? Shit, you're ridiculously wet," but all you could muster was a feeble mewl. "Fuck, all the times I've imagined you like this."

"Hurry up, Tae," urgency laboured your breath. "Please."

All he could acknowledge you with was the subtlest twitch of his head, as rapt as he was with your pussy, framed prettily by lace and slobbering over the embellishments. Crotchless had been an informed choice.

"Tae."

His cock was heaving pre-cum. It pooled tacky against your thigh, anointing you as his worthy, impending vessel. That you were affecting him so absolutely only further stirred your loins.

"Tae."

It seemed the most gargantuan of efforts to extract his focus from between your legs. But when he did, chin flicking up and scattering his sweat-matted locks of sandy hair, it silenced your whining. Taehyung was endowed with the darkest, sultry eyes. But now, fully-blown and predatorily fixated, God, did they ever subdue you. Like tar they bubbled, pulling you slow into their molten, syrupy depths. "Condom. Don't move," he commanded in bass, and though you were happy to comply with any of his godgiven instructions, you slapped a hasty hand around his bicep.

"Don't need one," your reply was just as simple; just as compromised by desire. "Just fuck me." 

Whatever you were relaying with your eyes, he accepted it with a silent, solemn nod.

Trust.

There was trust here. Elusive and precious.

And then he was clambering over you, aligning your bodies for joining, his mouth traipsing saliva across your cheek until you turned your lips to him. As his tongue unfurled, a red-carpet invitation to explore his drooling maw, his hands ringed your breasts, crushing them together and to him, like squeezing just wasn't enough. He milked your softness and pliability, tweaking the tips until they stood pert and could scrape his own, excited nipples. Because Taehyung was heavy on full-body contact, barely an inch of you was left wanting for his weighted warmth. The two of you shifted like one, sinuous being, the sweat of frustration greasing you to cohesion. And, fuck, you'd never felt more alive. Or vital. Or organic; you were nature's purpose; intertwined with your naked mate, beckoning forth his seed with your wet and ready cunt.

"F-Fuck m—ah—"

Taehyung did. Smooth and without reluctance he drove his cock into you, propelling past your folds like you were room-temperature butter. He wasn't gentle; and nor did you want him to be. Neither of you needed that right now. Both of you yearned for the resistance, the intrusion of one another's bodies. He suffered sweet in your clamping, constantly spasming cunt, and expressed as such into your mouth and across your breasts, groaning Gods and fucks whenever breath allowed him. And you gratefully endured his dive to the back of your pussy, inch by momentous inch, as he widened you where he could.

Never had you been so accommodating, nor fit for a function. Taehyung was perfect inside you.

Perhaps he was your purpose.

Perhaps you were his?

"You're so fucking tight!" Taehyung exclaimed with sudden violence, like the intensity of pleasure angered him. He hoisted himself from your chest and became a canopy, urging at your knees for open access.

It wasn’t enough for him.

Ensnarled in lust, he manoeuvred you without ceremony, pinioning your ankles either side his neck to draw your cunt closer. Taehyung roared and you gasped, when, curled compact as you were, he lowered himself back over you, folding you near in on yourself. Your clit throbbed relentlessly like this, the tension in your thighs funnelling pressure direct to your centre. Taehyung didn't so much as rock his hips but slammed them audibly to your airborne ass as his impatience to scour his cock won out. Immediately he was fucking you furiously, jarring your crumpled body with vehement, soul-shaking thrusts. And, God, you wept, with fuck knows’ what emotion anymore, joyously receiving his rock-solid punishment. Your pussy wept more, until the emphatic squishing Taehyung pumped from you dampened the wallop of flesh. "Fuck!!"

Never before had you climaxed from penetration alone. But the menacing lurch your cunt gave when his cock grazed the dip in your cervix proposed that, today, things might be different. Taehyung, too, lurched, stretching your pelvis as good as your pussy when he determinedly sought to lock lips. "Mmmmmph," he caught your mouth, hot and sloppy, before your inflexibility forced him back a few inches. "____," it was as softly spoken as something could be when breath was hard to come by. "I've come s-so many fucking times—ugh—," Taehyung began, hanging above you sodden with sweat. "While thinking about you like this."

His uncut confession seized another spasm of warning from you. "Oh, God. T-Tae, tell me. Tell me what you did."

"Agh—fuck, you're getting so tight. Noona, are you n-nearly there already?"

Bliss tickled at your fringes. There was nothing else in this world that you needed than this. Tortured agitation coloured your tone: "Y-Yes! Tell me!"

"I've thought about you before, but so much more lately—oh, fuck, yes—" he plunged to the core of you, heavy and fluid in motion, spreading you out with his girthy cock. "You on your back, smiling up at me with your dick-sucking lips. Filling your mouth with my cock, making you choke—a-ah—"

Your eyes weighed like ball bearings. They reeled into your head, in search of the thread to undo you. Delirium pressed close. "M-More."

"God, yeah. Get you on your knees," Taehyung appeared drunk on fantasy and reality colliding. "Pull your fucking hair while I fill you with cum—oh, shit. I think I'm gonna. I-I'm gonna. Fuck! I-I can't stop it."

Taehyung ejaculating his literal need for ejaculation was almost enough. The entire bottom half of you rushed with untapped euphoria. Another clench of culmination tugged at your navel, but the build-up wouldn’t relent. He’d have to soar solo. "Come, but don't forget about me, Tae, I'm desperate," and he must’ve felt that well enough when he forced himself through your tautening pussy. "Get me off too."

"Like I would forget that," he scoffed, rivulets of perspiration springing from his temples. "You're not gonna forget the orgasm I'm about to give you."

"I better n-not," your jest was undermined by the hungriest of moans. "Come in me. Fill me up, Tae. I wanna feel your hot and sticky mess."

That staggered his meticulously-paced penetration. He thrust with caution, withholding the fury you knew he could thrash you with. "A-Are you sure?"

"I'm on birth control. Go to town."

"Holy shit," his fingers scaled your thighs with fresh reverence and coasted to your hips, remaining there as he righted himself vertical. The soles of your feet kissed air, quite converse to their usual, earthbound deployment. "You want me in you, babe?" the pet name was alien in its attribution to you, but entirely welcome. The ache of it was far-reaching. Taehyung hastened his pistoning up to speed with your go ahead, his thumbs beyond an imprint on your pelvis. "You want my load? Want me to fill you up, noona?"

A respondent groan. "More than I've ever wanted anything. Fill me right up, Tae."

He raced towards that end, an unyielding grip on one thigh and the other of his hands ambling leisurely over your abdomen, stretching his palm its maximum span, like just the one handful wasn't enough. The airy caress was contrary to the brutality with which he enforced while pummeling your cunt; so battered was it he rendered it almost numb at its exterior. But all the while, you cried only for him to assail you faster with his sweet, solid cock, knowing well it was almost his time. It thickened tangibly within, as did the sac that swung heavily against your entrance, bloated with spunk. "Rrgh! G-Gonna come. Sh-shit, I'm coming, ____!"

And he came with a bark of breathless wonder, the sound of surprise mellowing into the softest of moans as you milked him of his seed; lashings of warm, sticky release that kissed your insides in pulses. "Oh, God, I feel it. I feel you. Fuck."

"Noona, you're—mmm. Jesus. You're taking it so good," Taehyung rocked, deep-seated, against you, pushing each, ample spurt from himself. Having him consummate like this felt entirely right. You were whole while he stuffed and spewed you full; pervaded every part of you, inside and out. His imprint was upon your soul and leaking from your thoroughly thrashed, unsatiated cunt. A matter you were about to bring to his attention when he addressed it himself—

By slipping his waning cock free of your fusion and falling to his knees, relieving himself of his half-shedded briefs on the way down. Your precariously airborne legs, levitating by nervous energy alone, were spread by greedy, expeditious hands.

"Come on my fucking tongue, noona," it took Taehyung a bare second to situate himself between you before he was ducking, face-first, into your messy cunt, extracting your most strained exclamation to date. Just watching him work his wicked, tongue-hungry ways made your orifices twitch. He kissed and sipped at your swollen labia until they tingled with his excess, smearing his mouth and all below until both his chin and eyes shimmered. "I wanna hear what it's like to make you come," he slurred between your puffy folds, daubing them prettier with saliva. "S-Stop teasing me, then," you hissed past your tooth-snared tongue. Taehyung was playing with his food. "God, I need to come, Tae. For real. Please. It's almost painful." He smiled slick up at you. "As you asked so nicely." Taehyung's idea of kindness was euthanising you outright, apparently. By immersing two of his marvellously long fingers immediately into your core. No delay, no insertion by increments, just the instant, exquisite strain of his digits separating and pulling your cunt wider. But as tantalising a taste the sensation was, it was gone quicker than you could voice your stark objection to its removal. What kept you mute, though, was the sight of his withdrawn hand, stringy with his own cum, icing the outside of your cunt wedding cake white. Taehyung dolloped it generously over your grievously sensitive clit, something fiendish about his dark eyes. "T-Tae." The two, cum-wrapped digits returned with aplomb, seeping past your giving hole until they were once more knuckle-deep and testing your softest spots. "Your pussy is a World-fucking-Wonder," he sighed like he were its most adoring fan. "Just listen to it," the tips of his fingers juiced the ghastliest of noises from your cunt. "That's me in there. Fuck, that's so hot." And then he added another finger without so much as a whispered warning.

And then they were expertly curling, grazing, rapping at the roof of you, precisely where he was most needed. "Come for me," it spilled from his lips a heartfelt plea; an unholy decree. To disobey was inconceivable. Your fingers and toes gouged his bedspread like demons dwelled within. They compelled your eyes latch shut, because what divine euphoria nagged at your cunt was too blinding to witness. But you had to. You had to see his beautiful, flawlessly-conceived face taking you there. Your eyelids peeled open with effort, though for a heart-deadening instant it wasn't Taehyung's resplendent features peering back. It was Jungkook, round-nosed and rounder-eyed, thin lips plumper for his cunt-eating endeavours. You blinked again. And back was Taehyung, regal and illegal, lips parted wide and submersing your stiff, agitated clit in the ambrosia that was his mouth's warmth. This Prince of Sin knocked without mercy at your g-spot, beckoning you follow his command to release. What decided your end was witnessing his sumptuous mouth sup up his still-warm ejaculate as he suckled your clit into an excruciating vacuum. Your entire lower half rattled uncontrollably in his grasp while he sucked and fucked you through several new dimensions, the length and breadth of you lacquered with sweat. If, in his belligerence, his grip slipped, he pinched and grabbed his way back, shackling you into surrender. "Come," Taehyung's teeth grazed your clitoral hood as he snarled the final instruction, his trio of fingers ransacking your cunt. "Oh, G-God! Y-Yeah, I'm coming, Tae. K-Keep fucking me. Harder, oh, fuck, harder!" And by request he did, practically punching himself into That Perfect Place, and almost ashen for lack of oxygen. When his tongue lashed without remorse or pause, the ruthless tactic was the last that you needed to push you into somewhere sightless and soundless. Some string of sounds must have exited you, however, because some part of you - every part of you - tautened and forced all cognisant control from you. The pleasure was unbending, rending you from top to toe. But that was just a timeless second, and soon you were seeing again, Taehyung's dappled ceiling and the glow-in-the-dark stars that bedecked it. It was far too powerful, and far too short. God, how you ached still. Your cunt mouthed for Taehyung, not for his laudable, digital substitutes. "Fuck. I need more," and though you had never felt more weak or incapable of further, rigorous copulation, the beat between your legs coerced it. "I'm still so fucking horny, Tae. I need more." "Lucky for you, there's plenty where that came from," standing, his drying dick was in his fist and burgeoning into hardness. "I'm not done either, not after watching that."

Like a submissive pup your legs fell open, sullied, weeping cunt barely recognisable as being one. "Oh, thank God," the terrifying threat of insatiability burned deep in your foundations. Some bestial fever had taken hold and galvanized your libido while sapping the strength from every of your other physical parts. So it was a relief when Taehyung handled your languorous limbs with mirrored interest but far more energy.

"Want it from behind?" he posed the question close to your ear, with weighted breath and anticipation beading at the head of his cock. You watched through the crevasse of your bodies how he primed his imminent reinsertion, glissading himself along your messy slit. "On top?"

Both options were two of your life's three wishes. But the monster inside you wanted it deep, dirty, and - this was a revelation - demeaning. "Fuck me from the back," you sucked on his lower lip like a segment of citrus. "Hurry."

"And here's me thinking you'd want to be in charge," snagged by your mouth, Taehyung’s tongue swept its roof, sinking himself into your open-mouthed half-kiss.

Simply, you were not someone to slink away from provocation. "Don't think I'm some shy little sub, Tae, because that will lead you down a painful path," your lips migrated to his thick, delectable neck, where heat and pulse were strongest. God, you needed more time with it. To scrape your own mark into him. But: "I just need it like this right now."

With one, waist-ringing arm he flipped you onto your front, the suddenness of it snatching your air. "Ass up, babe," he hollered gleefully, emphasising your new, baptismal name with a superhuman swat to your backside. By reflex, your limbs flailed back to provide protection to the vulnerable area, but the hot, horny weight on your thighs forbade it. "You're mine now. You had your chance to call the shots, and, well..."

"Asshole!"

"Indeed. Got a beautiful view of a it," he chuckled so low you knew his arousal was subduing his compulsion to one-up you. "Up," the mass withdrew from the back of your knees and you rose salaciously, slowly, to present your desperate situation to him. "God," it worked. "Being my own sloppy seconds is hot as fuck."

"I won't know what that's like until you hurry up and do i—oh, fuck!"

Again did he waylay your impatient raving. By dunking the entirety of his freshly-rigid cock until he touched bottom. And, Jesus. At this angle, did he touch bottom. The end of his dick was practically stirring your guts, so acutely entrenched was he. Somewhere behind you, a songful moan sounded. "Noona," Taehyung crooned, but didn't finish.

"God," you concurred, because his and His name were interchangeable.

Shivers vaulted up and down your skin's expanse when you found his long, splayed fingers rounding your ribcage and up. Taehyung fucked down, in, and as far as your body would plausibly allow him, with some latent, industrious power he must have tapped into. No longer was he withering from depletion but drilling you with renewed vigour, jabbing at parts that made you cringe. His expansive palms steadied the breakneck to and fro your breasts were subjected to, cupping them from harm while indulging his desire to toy with their elevated tips. "Does that feel good, noona?"

When he then put his thumbs to work, glancing over the nubs like he were flicking at the sticks of a game controller, a wretched yelp sprung from you. "F—yes, you bastard. Don't stop."

A span of sticky warmth descended on your back. Taehyung stooped over you, chest pressed close, like a lion breeding the prized of his pride, his teeth out and in the base of your neck, pitting your skin with his stamp. His tongue and lips directed his journey downwards, slathering wet and warmth down the centre of your back while he crammed himself repeatedly into the back of your centre. "You feel f-fucking amazing—" the last syllable was little more than a gasp. "You feel me fucking you with my own cum, noona? Fuck—" verbalising the debauched act only seemed to aggravate his arousal. And while you couldn't witness the excessively slickened show that he was able, you felt it well enough between your plastered legs. Heard it well enough when the base of his cock bruised your outer limits.

"Mmm-ugh!," avid agreement was ousted from you on the end of a markedly sharp thrust. That one you swore you felt in your ribcage. "C-Can't you do any better than that, though?"

"Oh, it's like that, huh?" his timbre was deeper, darker, than the second circle of hell. The consequences of running your mouth was to have it driven into the pillow. And when you twisted for breath, half your face still submersed in cotton, you met his devilish grin with a side-eye of impudence. "Face down, ass up. No," he snapped to you so hard your spine could shatter, "backtalking," gathered your hair like a horse's reins and tugged for your compliance. "Or I'll have you like this."

The curve of your body was near unnatural as you gave to the pull on your roots, arching to both stymy the strain and gravitate toward the stimulation at your scalp. As much as you were loath to admit it, the trajectory of both his fucking and dirty talk was sending you to the cosmos. "Ah-ahh," even the build of your second orgasm, while familiarly intense, felt alien in eventual destination. It gathered deep, fermenting your arousal into a belly-ache of longing. "Fuck, this feels so good. Whatever you're doing, d-don't stop." Your jockey grunted with the effort of riding you, occasionally delivering your ass a spank of encouragement. The finishing line must have been in sight for him, because the frequency of his expletive-laden murmuring began to escalate. As did the momentum with which he slung himself into you, the bottom of your cum-slick ass cheeks a thunderclap against his similarly soiled abdomen. "God, come here," unexpectedly, your hair fell loose from his grip and back to your shoulders. And an inch from faceplanting the pillow, both his arms wreathed your torso, criss-crossing your breasts. You reared from the bed until he had you against his chest and his lips around your earlobe. "I love you," he puffed into you, himself a stallion run ragged. "That's why this feels so good." Whether he spoke for himself or for you, it was ambiguous. But, God, it resonated. Thrummed, in the depths of your cum-defiled cunt. And swelled, as he did, on the brink of something tremendous. "T-Tae," his name faltered on your tongue, swallowed by physical and emotional pandemonium. Again, he suctioned himself to your neck and your jaw, drawing hues from your flesh that would scream, rather than suggest, your evening's activities. So many hickeys! And in the knowledge that others would see them! Nevertheless, your hand found itself ensnarled in Taehyung’s glossy locks - Jesus, you were fucking Taehyung - in express approval. "Call me daddy," he hummed into the juncture of your jaw and neck, snagging you between his tongue and top teeth. "I'd like that." "Oh my God," incredulity forced it from you first. But him striking that same, salaciously sore spot five thrusts in a row gave it an undertone. "How about no." "How about yes," Taehyung seethed sexual puissance. "How about if I make you squeal?" His audaciousness alone kneaded your insides. A cautionary spasm gripped his cock and he railed you harder in rebellion. "T-Tae!" "Daddy," he corrected with an adamance that, too, battered your buttons. It was then that you grasped how someone so outwardly nonchalant could control a classroom of unruly kids.

Taehyung had a power to him. 

"I-It's not gonna happen," blurted forth your weediest attempt at defiance. You squeezed him rhythmically, roughly, of your body's own accord, and it was with exhilarated disbelief that you realised you were heading toward your first ever, non-clitoral climax. Somehow, whether it be your insatiability, Taehyung's technique or his mere involvement, something about your liaison was tapping the untapped. "H-Harder, I'm so close, Tae," you were sobbing without tears, pure, aroused anguish. When his hand traversed your stomach to, you presumed, grant you mercy in the form of clitoral stimulation, you clasped his wrist like a woman imparting her raspy, dying words. "N-No. I wanna come like this. Untouched." You felt his lips curve against your cheek. Warm, musk-heavy breath caressed your nostrils. "I like it. I'll get that daddy out of you, though." And he did. Simply because, determined fuck that he was, he was prepared to jackhammer you into docility. How his thighs were able to sustain such a prolonged struggle you had no idea, but nonetheless they were the unfailing strength behind his savage, upward thrusts, spearing you silly until you jostled in his arms like you were strapped to a pneumatic drill. Taehyung ugh'd and huffed into the back of your head, heat pervading your scalp where he rested his grimacing mouth. Had you been conscious and not stricken rabid by the mount of molten pressure threatening to rupture you, perhaps you wouldn't have given in. But in your climb, where pleasure rendered you impervious to shame and enthralled by the shameless, it slipped out. "I'm so close, d-daddy!" A snarl, far too beastly for its human origin, deafened you on one side. Taehyung's victory spurred him into an animated dash for the finish, packing himself with unerring repetition into your quivering cunt until the whole of you was one, concurrent tremor, held fast to his heaving chest.   "Again." It came as you did. "F-Fuck, d-daddy, I'm—agh—coming!" From within you it crested, and for an appalling, horror-stricken second the urge to pee was overwhelming. But what gushed free didn't bring mundane relief but a climactic convulsion that stilled and swallowed Taehyung's cock whole. Urge pushed your ejaculate from you in intense, clenching waves, dousing him in a colourless liquid that surged from your pussy with force. "Jesus-fuck, are you s-squirting? Oh, shit!" Barely a breath after Taehyung's awed exclamation did you feel his second load of the night jet into the confines of your cunt, as explosively abrupt as your own projectile ejaculation. For a moment the absurd wetness of your joint orgasms was drowned out by cries of enraptured wonder, the man in throes behind you still stubbornly - perhaps automatically - grinding himself against your grain, determined to put in as much as you were putting out. Indeed, your pussy brimmed dangerously around the plug that was his pulsing cock, his lodged shaft the only thing preventing your entirely drenching the bed beneath. What squeezed at you could hardly be called a rush. It was protracted and fluctuating, like the beating of wings. All that kept you sky high was your orgasmic storm, because your body sure as hell had clocked out during. Once the two of you had emptied everything of yourselves, all that remained were your quaking, intertwined bodies and the harsh sounds of exhaustion, deafening in the lateness of the evening. "I-I'm dizzy," Taehyung's arms unfolded without resistance as you collapsed forward into the softer embrace of his cotton bedspread. "What the fuck was that," there was no question mark to be heard in your spent stupor.

"I don't know, but, wow," his intonation was that of bafflement. "Are you okay?" the mattress dimpled down in spots where he manoeuvred himself with care above, avoiding applying further stress to your body. An unpleasant, gaping coolness accompanied his cock's withdrawal, prompting a feeble mewl from you. Taehyung heard it. "Noona?"

"Ah, yeah, just—seriously done. Exhausted. Already miss your dick, though," his mild consternation was probably compounded by you lying entirely face-down and sacrificing air for rest. With shreds of energy you turned your face in the pillow to settle him with a smile. "Thank you. I'm good. I should probably go pee, but I can't move."

The gentle scrape of wood on wood and subsequent introduction of something downy between your legs told you that Taehyung had produced a towel. It was the simplest, most courteous of gestures, but his soft and careful attention folded your stomach. "And I'd offer to carry you, but I think we'd just end up a heap on the floor," his chuckle was soft and inflected with a cryptic affection. Cryptic only because your post-coital fog rendered his confession all the more befuddling.

He loved you?

That same, post-coital fog supplied analgesia to your sudden recollection of the day's events. It only pierced superficially when so wonderfully drugged. Still, the promise of pain lingered on the outskirts, biding its time. Waiting for the cloud to disperse and lay bare all your ill-judged, rash decision-making.

Right now, it was at bay.

And right now, that was all you wanted.

The towel hit the floor somewhere with a muted thump. "You not gonna pee, babe?"

"Nah," Taehyung's tall silhouette bore down on you. And then his hands were on you with soft intent, none of the carnality they grasped with before. Like he was adjusting a newborn in its crib, he slid you gently to the unsoiled side of the bed and pasted himself to your back, long and warm, more a ladle than a big spoon. Safety exuded from the presence encompassing you. Doting on you, with a palm running the length of your naked side.

"I'm gonna sleep so good," it was ever a marvel that his mouth was at your ear, whispering so buttery, and that what had happened, did. "You probably will, too. It's been a long day."

Your slowing heartrate agreed. "Yeah. Thank you for—I don't know. Turning it on its head. As you always do."

"Don't thank me," his lips nurtured the discolouration littering your shoulders. "It's just love. I wanted you to feel it."

"I still can't believe it, but—I did. I do."

Taehyung was gentle. "Is it so hard for you to believe that I would?"

"Welcome to my mind," you believed was sufficient explanation.

"Yeah, explains why you didn't even think to link the Valentine's card to me. Dude, I was so into you back then, it's not even funny," it was, though, fantastically so. A laugh burbled from your chest. "Hey," Taehyung's fingers accosted your ribs in light, teasing strokes; the last thing you needed in your condition. "I was disappointed as hell. You laughing at a teenage boy's heartbreak?"

"N-no," you stopped him with an embarrassingly weak swat. "It just makes me feel happy."

"Good. You need more of that."

Curiosity piqued in your heady happiness. "What about after that?"

"I got over it eventually, took quite a while though—"

"Sorry."

"Stop," Taehyung's face came into view, far too close. His eyelashes combed yours, and you laughed. "apologising."

"Alright, alright," would you ever, though? "And what after that?"

"After that, when we started losing touch, I started losing the feelings. Was over it for years. Then when you started dating—uh, that guy—and it started getting serious, I was like. Wait. These feelings," he discussed it so easily, so openly, that it spawned envy. Was that the key to offloading emotional baggage? Emptying it? "They're back. But worse. Well, not worse, you know what I mean. More intense. It wasn't a crush anymore. It wasn't just about me getting off to a mental image of your tits anymore—"

"Oh my God—"

"I mean, that came back, too, but—"

"Tae!"

"It was a whole lot deeper. I wanted to make you smile the way he did. Make you laugh. Make you giddy. Be more than the third person down in your Favourite Contacts. You get the idea," even now, having bared his truth, he was unflustered. He experienced and expressed his emotions without reservation nor smothering.

The music of his requited feelings was sweeter than any lullaby. Your eyelids dropped like ten-tonne weights and soft, inaudible murmuring escaped your lips.

Taehyung swept your face free of occlusive hair. "Hmm?"

"I love you. And I'm so tired.”

"Get to sleep then, you," something wet and warm met your forehead. "Sweet dreams."

Dreams were reality now, though. Reality was utterly bizarre. You lay, in the arms of your best friend-cum-lover, in his childhood twin bed. Twin. Wouldn't it be funny if he'd had a twin?

That was your last, stray thought before sleep took you.

And all you dreamt of was Jungkook.

-

Next: 12 || WYLEI Masterlist

[likeanemployee]

Whiterose date night

(Valentines day part 2 but super late)

“It will be just a moment miss” the maitre d' said “Take a seat in our waiting area and we’ll call you when your table is ready” 

“Ok thanks!” Ruby replied heading over to the small sitting room. It wasn’t quite packed since the restaurant wasn't taking walk ins this evening but it was still near comfortable capacity. In fact, Ruby was a little amazed Weiss had been able to get a reservation at all. Weiss had made the reservations every time they had come so Ruby didn’t know for sure what the waiting list looked like and this wasn’t the nicest restaurant in Vale but it was definitively swanky and it was Valentines day. She guessed Weiss would have had to have made the reservation at least a few weeks in advance probably when she had made the reservation for their farewell dinner. Which just proves how long she’s been planning this and I didn’t do anything! she thought to herself smoothing out her dress as she sat and then clenched her hands into a fist, forcibly stopping herself from fidgeting with it anymore. It’s fine she thought letting out a long sigh Yang was right I shouldn’t be worried Weiss purposely planned things this way just don’t be nervous, I mean why should I be nervous? there’s nothing to be nervous about. We’ve been dating forever, well not forever like six months but still things have been going great and this is just another date like any other. Well not any other it is the first time we’ve seen each other in over two weeks and it’s our very first Valentines day together but it’s fine this is totally normal I’m not nervous, ugh I’m so nervous!  her knees bounced rapidly up and down as she sat there doing her best not to mess with her dress or the hair Yang had helped make sure laid just perfectly, struggling to contain all her nervous energy. 

A short eternity, which her lying scroll insisted was only about 2 minutes, later her name was called and she stood to find a young man, who looked just a little like Ren in a waiters uniform, waiting for her “Right this way ma’am” he said and started leading her through a familiar maze of tables. Unsurprisingly those tables were even more full then usual this evening. The restaurant bustled with busy waiters and bus boys and the soft drone of dozens of couples holding quiet loving conversations. The restaurant was designed to be a little more spread out then many others in an attempt to give diners at least a little privacy and intimacy which helped limit the sense of chaos but on a night like tonight with every couple in Vale trying to find a table at the nicest place they could there was still an energy in the room which threatened to become frenetic at the slightest provocation. 

Ruby half watched that crowd as she followed the waiter around a corner and saw Weiss siting at a small table in front of them. She froze, she wanted to dash over to Weiss, to use every ounce of speed her semblance allowed her, run to Weiss and embrace her but she couldn’t. Weiss wouldn’t approve of the display of course but that wouldn’t have stopped her, no the problem was she was physically incapable of running in the heels she was wearing. Weiss had helped her get better at walking in them and she no longer worried about falling over every second she was in them but there was still a limit to how quickly she could walk, running was, and would probably remain, well beyond her. In some kind of paradox Ruby would never fully make sense of since she couldn’t run she stopped dead and stared at Weiss as she stood to greet Ruby. Weiss was wearing a brand new dress Ruby had never seen before, an elegant jeweled necklace and the white rose-crest earrings which paired with the Ruby snowflakes in Ruby’s own ears. On top of all that she had clearly spent a great deal of time making sure her hair and make-up were absolutely perfect. She looked more beautiful then Ruby could describe and Ruby was suddenly very conscious of her own appearance. Besides the earrings she was in the same dress and heels she had worn to a school dance so long ago, they were the only ones she owned, and while Yang had helped to make sure her hair was well kept she wore it in more or less the same simple fashion she always did and the only make-up she wore was a very simple red lip stick. She felt so plain in comparison to Weiss and suddenly all those fears about how unprepared she was and about disappointing Weiss were back. 

“You look lovely, Ruby” Weiss said as she stood and it kicked Ruby back into motion she moved as quickly as she dared to Weiss and they shared a long tight hug before sitting.

“oh this is, you know, just the same thing I always wear, it’s nothing really” Ruby mumbled out nervously “You though, you look incredible I really mean it, I mean that dress and that necklace wow!”

“Thank you” Weiss smiled back she’d been complimented in much more poetic ways and a part of her wished Ruby was a little more eloquent but no one had ever meant any of those poetic compliments they way Ruby always meant her’s and that was good enough for Weiss. “The earrings are still my favorite though.” she continued “When they heard about our date Ironwood and my sister insisted on setting me up with this new dress and this necklace, actually they bought me new earrings too it’s a whole ensemble and I really appreciate it, especially since it probably costs more then our rent, but I decided to wear the earrings we bought together. They’re nowhere near as expensive but I love them, how they reflect a part of each of us and how they match but you’d never know they did unless you knew us. I’m really glad you wore yours, I almost texted to tell you to but I didn’t want to seem to bossy.” She trailed off and Ruby stared back tilting her head slightly to carefully reexamine the earrings. They were fairly simple a colored metal in the shape of the rose crest Ruby normally wore with white petals outlined in a dull red and pined to the earlobe. They were still fairly new and Weiss took good care of them and they gave off a faint gleam when the light struck them just right but in comparison to the bright jeweled necklace Weiss wore they were as simple as Ruby felt. Yet as Ruby looked at them she knew Weiss was right they were the best part of the outfit because they meant something. The dress and necklace were nice, wonderful even but they were a bonus something extra on top of the important part, Weiss, she was here and they were together again and that’s all that really mattered. The earrings they wore were part of that being together, symbolic of their relationship and the part of each other they shared. It didn’t matter that they were a little simple, it mattered what they were and Ruby smiled as she looked back at Weiss and realized how silly she’d been all afternoon. 

“I missed you so much” Ruby said “I know we talked all the time but it’s not the same as being together, actually seeing you.” she paused taking a deep breath “I was really nervous about tonight.” She admitted “It’s our first Valentines day and you’d been away and you did all this” she gestured vaguely around “and I had nothing. I’d just been sulking and upset about how we weren’t going to be able to see each other. I wanted to do so much for you and I was worried you be disappointed with everything. Disappointed I didn’t have any surprise for you, disappointed I was dressed plainly without a fancy new dress or shiny jewelry or anything. You really are beautiful tonight Weiss I don’t know how to say it strongly enough. I can’t believe I’m here with you tonight. It’s all so far beyond me the clothes, the restaurant, all of it I sometimes feel like maybe I’m not good enough for all of it, for you. It can be really scary but” she looked deep into Weiss’s eye’s and smiled brightly “I just realized none of that matters, right?! It’s the simple things that matter, that I’m here and you're here and that I missed you because I did, I missed you so much and I’m so happy to be here with you.” 

Weiss smiled back a single tear rolling down her face “You dolt” she said in something that was half laugh and half cry. “It’s been the same thing from the first day we met. You don’t have to show off, you don’t have to be better you just have to be you. You were so worried about all those gifts and surprises you thought you needed.” she shook her head softly “you just gave me the best surprise I could have asked for just being honest, by being you. I love you, Ruby” 

“I love you too, Weiss” Ruby answered with a giant smile. They held each others gaze for a time before Weiss sat back with a sigh and a small laugh

“ohh look what you do to me Ruby Rose” she said in a very fake scolding “Making me get all teary eyed in a public restaurant! People will talk you know”  

“What can I say it’s what I do!” Ruby laughed back and Weiss gave her an exaggerated eye roll 

“Well I guess we better just get to ordering before you cause a full blown scene” Weiss teased back 

“I don’t know about that you’re plenty of a scene for me” Ruby tried back but Weiss just gave her a sideways look “No?” Ruby asked “I thought it was flirty like I can’t keep my eyes off you” 

“Maybe” Weiss chuckled “but scene sounds kinda negative like I was a mess or something” 

“Well it worked when Yang used it on Blake the other day.” Ruby shrugged

“ha well I would never say anything negative about our beloved bees but...” Weiss started

“they are kinda a mess” Ruby finished and they both laughed

The rest of the night proceeded in a similar fashion. There were no more big surprises nothing else particularly special just simple jokes and simple conversations and both treasured the evening forever.

[wendynerdwrites]

500 Elephants

Prompt by @drilling4mana​ "Against the backdroppe of a worlde gone madde"

I see you, Honey. Enjoy your Discworld AU.

“Get up on the box, Snow!”

Jon fumes. He does that a lot these days. In between bouts of wondering what he’s even doing here, why he came to Summerwood in the first place, and why he’s still here.

Every moment of this is demeaning. He stands out in the hot sun, holding a cheap wooden sword, dressed like an idiot, acting like a fool with exaggerated expressions and motions, for twelve hours a day at least, while people either shout at him to do things or attack him with brushes and sponges to keep him “camera-ready.”

At least with this picture, at least, the “hero” he is playing is not a knight or centurion or some other type of warrior that requires heavy metal armor. That’s agony. In this, he’s a pirate king with a ridiculous name and linen, wool, and leather for his attire.

They produce these so rapidly, sometimes at the same time, with them shooting scenes for one film for two hours, then a costume change to shoot a scene for an entirely different film. Mr. Baelish keeps the audience in by churning them out by the dozens. In the three months Jon’s been a “star”, he honestly has lost count of how many pictures he’s made.

Now they want him to stand on a box for this scene in the seraglio of the evil prince that his dashing pirate hero was to rescue his lady love from.

“Why, though, Marsh?” Jon asks the director. “Aren’t I supposed to be fighting? I can’t do that standing on a box.”

“We’re shooting the big kiss scene right now, and you have to be taller than Sansa.”

Jon cringes. These scenes are always awkward. “But I’m already taller than Sansa!”

Not by much, true. Sansa is the second tallest woman he’s ever met, after Brienne. But the brevity of their height difference was never an issue before.

Marsh sighs, looks from behind the camera, and rolls his eyes. “I know, but Baelish says he wants you even taller. He says this picture is our first color feature and so it has to be more epic than anything we’ve done before. Everything bigger, and that includes you. Also, he doesn’t want people comparing the height difference between you and Sansa to the one between Oberyn and Sansa. He says the hero has to seem as tall as the villain or no one will believe that you’re man enough to fight your way through a world gone mad.”

It doesn’t take Jon even half a second to realize the obvious gaps in logic here. Oberyn is much taller than him, true. And they can put Jon atop as many boxes as they want, but…

“What about when we’re fighting?” Jon asks, “I can’t fight Oberyn properly atop a step stool. How do you intend to hide our height difference when we’re moving around together?”

Marsh groans. “You know, I think the glamor is going to your head, Snow. You didn’t ask so many questions before.”

Glamor. Ha! Jon is still sleeping on the lake shore.

He stares Marsh down coldly, who reluctantly relents. “We’re making boots with lifts in them right now. They’ll be ready tomorrow.”

“But---”

“----Jon, would you just get on the box, please?!”

Everyone turns towards the costuming tent a few yards away.

Emerging from it is Sansa, whose appearance renders Jon speechless before he can think to reply. His co-star is bedecked in a style that Baelish has dubbed “Dornish concubine” (much to Oberyn’s annoyance). It comes with gaudy gold and amethyst jewelry consisting of a collar, arm bands, a circlet, anklets, chandelier earrings, bangles, and a bracelet that Baelish calls a “slave bracelet” and Oberyn angrily insists is called a “Haath Phool”.

Her bosom is practically erupting out of a bustier of midnight and gold brocade that stops just under her breasts and has a line of coins hanging off the underwire. A long, pleated matching skirt hangs low in her hips. Two generous slits crawl up the front so that no matter how she stands, at least one of her long legs peeks out. Indeed, as Sansa marches out in her curly-toed slippers, Jon gets to see the full length of the slits, which go all the way to the coined belt and reveal enough for the costumers to apparently to make Sansa some matching pantalets.

But, for modesty’s sake, she has a veil that still reveals her lush auburn hair that tumbles about her shoulders in gleaming waves.

Her march out brings noise. Her ornate garments jingle like bells with every moment and then there are the onlookers, who wolf-whistle and shout out comments that make Jon’s blood boil. He’s going to kill Baelish. The man has been throwing Sansa into racy outfits since he hired her, but this is beyond anything.

She looks less like the average Dornish woman Jon has met, and more like a brothel girl serving a man with a desert fetish.

Sansa ignores the cheering men, her blue eyes fixed on Jon. She comes up close and pokes his chest. “Listen to me, Targaryen,” she says his real name like it’s an accusation, “I have only so much time I can spend out in this sun, and only so much time I can tolerate this ridiculous costume. I want this scene done quick and without incident, so listen to the man and get on the box.”

Jon sighs and, feeling like a fool, steps atop the small wooden crate.

“Maybe it should be the broad directing instead,” remarks Pyp, one of the grips, “It seems like she’s the one who can get things done. Put her in the jodhpurs and the director’s chair and Marsh here in the skirt.”

“Shut up!” Marsh snaps, clearly embarrassed. He sits back in her chair and glares. “Alright, Snow, you’ve just finished killing off Prince Silvaad’s Fifty Thieves single-handedly to steal back your beloved Princess Esmeralda. After weeks of separation and danger, you two are finally reunited, and you embrace her passionately. Sansa, you were stolen by the thief-prince and have been held captive for weeks. You were hours away from being forced to wed the villain. You’ve heard the fighting outside, but didn’t think too much of it before because you’ve become used to your captor fighting someone. But this time, the fighting has gotten much too close to the harem tent. You’ve bravely ventured out from the tent while your maids cower inside, holding a knife, intending to defend yourself if necessary. But to your shock, it’s not one of the prince’s barbarian rivals raiding the camp, but your long-lost love, the Pirate King Flynn Saber---”

Jon and Sansa exchange an incredulous look. When they first saw the script and saw that name, they’d said, in unison, “Really?!” Baelish truly was amplifying everything with their first color picture, including the ridiculousness of the names. Past characters Jon has played were named things like, “Man Without a Moniker”, “Renaldo Gable”, and “Jack Hawke”. But this name is as swollen and exaggerated as Sansa’s bosom.

Marsh pauses when he sees the look they share. “--- Pirate King Flynn Saber. You thought you’d never see him or home ever again. You are so overcome that you swoon right into his arms. Jon, you catch her and kiss her, dipping her back, the usual fare. Sansa, you come to as he kisses you, and, thrilled, you wrap your arms about his neck and close your eyes again. Got it?”

“Yes, but I wanted to point something out,” Sansa states, “If Jon is supposed to have just finished fighting fifty thieves, shouldn’t he be sweating?”

Marsh groans. “Someone get some water!”

A basin is brought and Sansa dabs him with a soaking cloth across his forehead. It’s actually kind of nice in this heat…

Then she undoes some of the lacings of his tunic, exposing his chest.

“What are you doing?!”

Sansa looks up at him. “If I have to expose everything short of my nipples, then it’s only fair that you show a couple inches of skin.”

She has a point. Jon says nothing. If he’d been told last night that Sansa would be pulling his shirt open, he’d have been thrilled. But this hypothetical past him should have known it would be in this context.

Jon spends a lot of time wondering why he came to Summerwood, and, most of all, why he stays. Then Sansa will walk by and he’ll remember the answer to his second question.

It’s yet another miserable irony of his life that he kisses her on a near-daily basis, but have it be in the least romantic circumstances possible. It’s agony. Still, every time he does kiss her, he finds himself hoping that this time, with this one, he’ll somehow communicate to her that it isn’t fake, that there’s something real.

“Good,” Marsh says critically. “Where’s Sansa’s knife?”

An assistant produces a dagger and takes the water and rag from the actress.

“Excellent. Alright, Sansa, get in the tent. Jon, get your sword out. Let’s get going!”

Sansa ducks under the set tent. Jon pulls the stupid fake blade from its holster and raises it above his head and begins breathing deep.

“Ready! Set! Action!”

Sansa charges out of the tent, fist clenched about the raised blade and a determined look on her face. Jon slowly lowers his sword, angry face softening, eyes widening. Sansa freezes for a moment, drops her knife, and covers her mouth. Jon re-holsters his blade as she staggers towards him. After four steps, she falls toward him, eyelids dropping.

At this point, Jon has caught a swooning Sansa at least a hundred times. She’s swooned in every picture they’ve done, sometimes more than once. She’s an expert at fainting, and Jon’s an expert at catching.

But something is off this time. Jon is used to catching her at his usual height, and there’s something off about Sansa’s movements as well. The act is a bit awkward as a result.

Marsh sees this and calls cut. Sansa groans.

“What was that?” Marsh demands. “You must have done this a hundred times! Sansa, what were you doing with your arms?”

Sansa straightens up, looking disgruntled. “Don’t blame me! It’s this!” She gestures to her bustier. “It already barely fits. If I move my arms too much, I could completely pop out!”

The crew looks over and starts gathering.

“Somebody get Sansa some tape or something!” Marsh shouts. “And Snow, why are you barely catching her?”

“I’m taller on this thing,” Jon says, tapping his toe against the box, “It’s upsetting the angle a bit.”

“Well, practice a bit!”

“Let me tape up first!” Sansa says as the material is brought. She ducks under the tent again. Everyone waits quietly and awkwardly. She eventually emerges, looking disoriented.

“Everything secure?” Marsh inquires in an acidic tone.

“I think so.”

“Okay, practice falling a bit until we’ve got it right.”

Thankfully, it only takes a few tries to get it right. Marsh calls for action again.

But this time, when Sansa falls, the tape and the bustier give way on the right side. Her right breast springs out as she falls. Jon barely manages to grab her in time, positioning his arm to block anything indecent from view. It seems only Jon sees it, thank the gods, as none of the crew reacts and not even Sansa seems to realize until Jon turns her body to face upward. Not wishing to humiliate her, Jon leans down and presses his lips to hers, blocking most of her upper body from view. Sansa’s arms wrap themselves around his neck, but she does something new: tangles her fingers in his dark curls.

“Thank you,” she whispers as their lips begin to part. Their faces remain close and they hold their pose, Jon trying to make sure Sansa doesn’t feel anything going on below his belt, until Marsh calls cut.

When the scene ends, Jon pulls her up so she faces him dead on, her modesty protected by their backs. Sansa hurriedly shoves her breast back into place. Both of them blush as Jon averts his eyes. He couldn’t help looking when he was maneuvering to conceal this… wardrobe malfunction… but he should be a gentleman now.

And what he has seen was glorious. It was only one, but gods… The rosy pink of her nipple against the cream of her skin, then way it seemed to burst free from the fabric, then jiggled as she landed in his arms. As Baelish and Marsh have crudely pointed out, Sansa has “The face of an angel and a body for bedchambers.” The woman looks like one of the paintings on the walls of the temple of the goddess Alohura in his hometown. The sort of perfect woman that Jon thought could only be a god and not a real, living person. Even his old sweetheart, Ygritte, had tangled hair and crooked teeth.

Despite the fact that until recently, Sansa spent half of her off-hours working at the diner to pay her rent, her hair never seemed to snag or tangle. She’d pin it up in a braided knot while waiting tables. Jon had the good fortune a few times to witness her releasing her tresses, and they always tumbled out gracefully, falling and spreading like a red waterfall. The messiest her hair ever got was whenever they had to do a scene where they moved fast, like riding on a horse or a few times when Jon had to hold her as he swung from ropes or vines. And even then, it only got rumpled in that exciting, sultry way.

Indeed, despite the absurd names and costumes and plot and sets and… well�� everything… Jon is excited to be shooting a color picture. Thus far, all fans of Sansa Stark had witnessed only some of her beauty. This picture will be the first time they see her hair in color.

“Thank you so much,” she says again, quietly, “I think I’d die of shame if I exposed myself to all these people. And while the camera was rolling! Knowing Baelish, if they captured it, he’d probably have Marsh magnify and duplicate every frame and sell it in little brown envelopes on every corner of King’s Landing. I’d never be able to face anyone back home again. Mother already writes pages of complaints about my attire in her letters. And that’s when I’m not playing a tavern wench or an opera singer or something scandalous like that.”

“I don’t think Marsh got anything. Someone would have reacted. Your… Well, it was facing away from the camera when it came loose, and when you turned I already had my arm in place.”

“So you’re more than just a hero on script, then.”

Jon can’t help his grin. Before he can reply, though, Marsh comes over.

“Look, Kids,” he says, rubbing his forehead, “I just inspected the footage and, well…”

Jon’s blood runs cold. Damn it. He’d failed. Marsh caught a shot.

The director reddens. “Look, I’m not usually one for major compliments, but I have to say that this scene is easily the best you two have done. You really are bringing your A-game to this picture if this scene is any indicator. San, you were even better than usual. And Jon… I barely recognized you. Never have you seemed so genuine before. I saw such true passion, desire, shock, fear, excitement. The way you stared and handled her… You appeared so fired up and stunned, but when you held her, you seemed to move so meticulously, and so protectively, but your eyes were so hungry. Fantastic energy there. I want to incorporate that into everything else. Flynn is all action and passion and roguishness, and he wants Esmeralda desperately, but even so, when he speaks to her, touches her, the roughness melts away and he’s as gentle and tender as a lamb. But, you know, a lamb that wants to get her into bed.”

“Uh, thanks,” Jon replies, purposely avoiding Sansa’s gaze, “I… I’ll try.”

“Marsh, can we see the footage? You know, so we might study the intensity of the performance and keep it going?” Sansa asks in an innocent tone.

The director shrugs. “Be my guest.”

They go over to the reel-viewer and watch it. And, thankfully, Jon is right: Sansa’s breast was not caught on camera.

“He’s right, you know,” Sansa remarks to him, “You really are good here. Maybe I should pop out of my top in every scene, eh?”

Jon goes redder than Sansa’s hair. “I… I…”

“It’s fine, Targaryen.” Now she says his real name like an affectionate nickname. “It’s not your fault. It’s Baelish’s, making me wear this nonsense.”

Jon steps back and purses his lips. At the mention of Baelish, his insides seem to harden. Jon hooks his thumbs at his sword belt and gestures with his head towards the large oak tree twenty yards away. No one was there.

Sansa nods and they head over, well away from earshot.

“Um, Sansa, I know it’s probably none of my business, but… well… I hope you never feel forced to… compromise anything… for Baelish. He’s not an honorable man, and he seems to have a certain fixation with you. And, well, word gets around. Not that I was gossiping, but you can’t help but hear things. If he tries anything---”

“---Jon, have I told you about Lady?”

“Huh? No. Lady Who?”

“Lady. My… dog. She’s a giant wolfhound. Enormous. She’s why I don’t agree to have anyone here walk me home. She runs through the woods all day and heads for the studio gates each night to walk with me. I’ve introduced Baelish to Lady. And he knows that if he doesn’t keep his hands to himself, that he’ll be chased down by an enormous hound and have his Littlefinger bitten off. He done anything more than make some lewd comments and insist on some absurd costumes. And ask me to have dinner with him. He is determined to have me. He likes to think himself a sophisticated gentleman, and wants to charm me, seduce me. Even when I was honest with him about how that will never happen, he didn’t care. He’d just decided to ‘change my mind.’ But he’ll never force anything on me, because he knows the consequences. I’ll admit, though…” Sansa crosses her arms over her exposed ribs.

“Like I said, he won’t listen to me when I tell him it’s hopeless. So I gave up on that. And, well, I figure that if he’s going to try anyways, I might as well use it. I don’t lie to him, or do anything for him, but, well…” She blushes. “I have pretended to warm up to him a bit. It’s why I haven’t refused his costume ideas. He wants to gain some relief and consolation by seeing me parade around in a slave girl costume? Fine. He likes me to stay super pale? Alright, I avoid the sun. He wants me to have at least one fainting spell per flick? No issue. I keep him just happy enough, and now I don’t have to spend half my waking hours at the diner anymore and can get a full night’s sleep. I don’t have to worry about being kicked out of my boarding house for late rent. I got myself a proper tent to change in so that I don’t have half the crew gawking at me. Marsh isn’t allowed to bully me. I eat regularly. I got away with demanding a living wage from the studio, some control over my work, and some protection because I let Baelish drool over pictures of my cleavage whenever he wants. We both know that if he ever tries to stick part of himself inside me, that he’ll lose that part of himself, and many others.”

Jon licks his lips and swallows. “I… I see. But what do you think he’ll do when… if… another man enters your life.”

Sansa snorts. “Oh, he’d completely lose it. But that’s hardly an issue. I don’t have the time or the wherewithal for that sort of thing anyways. I spend nearly every waking hour on set, pretending to swoon.”

“But surely you want---”

“---Ugh, you sound like my mother,” she groans, leaning back against the tree trunk, “Quite frankly, Jon, no, I don’t. At least, not right now. I’ve been given the opportunity to be a star in the most exciting thing to happen on Disceros in centuries. Everyone has been flocking to Summerwood for just a taste of this business. People are clawing at each other for a chance to empty the spitoons in a producers’ office. But we’re at the very center of it all. Even better, we’re on track to becoming essential. A few weeks ago, we could easily be replaced by the hundreds of other pretty young people waiting in the wings. But now? Now we’re not two of many. We’re Jon Snow and Sansa Stark, the stars people pay money to see. Before long, they’ll need us more than we need them, because we’ll be the reason they sell tickets. We’ll be the deciding factors in whether or not their pictures make money. They won’t be able to replace us. They’ll have to fight to keep us from wandering to another studio that offers a better deal. And all that while, we’re going to be among the first legends here. We’re being immortalized. We’ll be able to say we were there way back when. Right now, we’re young and good-looking and energetic. Eventually, we’ll both start to wane a bit, and there will be new stars, yes. But that’s why I intend to focus everything on making sure my star burns the brightest while it’s still hot. That I make my mark and stake some claims, make my fortune so that when the day comes that the audiences tire of me, I can just bow out gracefully, retire in comfort, and get on with my life. Then I can worry about husbands and family if I wish. But if I throw everything into this and play my cards right now, get what I need, I’ll be free to do as I wish forever more. So no, I don’t want to waste time with suitors and romance. I get enough of that faking it with you every day. All I want right now is to rise in this business.”

I’m not faking. But he doesn’t say that. “I see. That seems rather lonely, though.”

“I have Lady. And I have friends. Like you.” She smiles kindly. “I just don’t have a lover. And I don’t mind. I didn’t come here to fall in love.”

Jon’s stomach sinks. “You didn’t?”

“No, I came here for this, just like everyone else.”

“Not everyone. I didn’t come here for this.”

Sansa cocks her head. “Really? What else is there in Summerwood, though? What did you come here for?”

Jon looks at the ground. “I… I don’t know. I just sort of… Set off one day. And I felt this pull. I had to come here. Something was happening.”

“This. This is the thing that is happening.”

Jon shrugs. “Maybe I didn’t come here for something, but for someone.”

“Who?”

“I’m not sure.”

Sansa sighs. “Alright. Well… Lucky you, then. If you don’t have your heart set on this, then the business can’t break it.”

“Other things can, though.”

People can.

“Having fun, you two?”

Jon’s skin crawls at the sound of Baelish’s voice. The producer, green eyes glittering, approaches them, a rolled up piece of paper under his arm.

“Hello, Mr. Baelish,” Sansa says, pretending to be happy to see him. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes… You two having fun making our masterpiece? Having…” He licks his lips. “...Too much fun, perhaps?”

Jon swallows the bile the rushes up from his stomach. “Hardly. We were just discussing this height thing. I have to admit, Baelish, it is throwing us off a bit. We’re used to working on literally a different level.”

Baelish’s eyes narrow. “Snow, you know what I wrote when you came in for your first audition?”

“Can’t sing. Can’t dance. Knows how to use a sword a little.” This man has told him this a thousand times. “But you still took a chance on me. And it’s paid off, hasn’t it?”

“Sansa’s carrying you.”

“And I’m carrying her. Literally, sometimes. But that’s why the box thing is so difficult.”

Baelish rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” He starts unrolling the paper. “I just thought maybe you’d like to see the poster.”

“Poster? But we’ve only shot two scenes!” Sansa cries out.

“So?” Baelish turns the unrolled paper.

Jon wants to tip it to shreds. At least a third of the damn thing consists of Sansa’s bosom as she contorts her back. Jon’s face, in contrast, is barely visible.

SIEGE OF THE SERAGLIO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FULL COLOR A PIRATE! A PRINCESS! 500 ELEPHANTS! SEARCHING FOR EACH OTHER AGAINST THE BACKDROPPE OF A WORLDE GONNE MADDE!

“We’re trying to find five hundred elephants as well?” Sansa inquires in a tone of false innocence. Jon has to choke back a laugh.

“No! That’s just to draw in the audience! You couldn’t possibly think---” He looks at the poster again. “Damn it!”

“And where are you going to get five hundred elephants, anyways?” Jon asks. Knowing Baelish, the man probably just planned on gluing a trunk and ears onto a gerbil.

“We’re getting one elephant, and just showing it run past over and over,” Baelish retorts, “It’ll be almost as big a hassle as getting those lifts put in your shoes.”

“That doesn’t---”

Baelish has already spun around and is marching away. The two actors exchange looks.

“Why does every picture of his have to be ‘against a backdrop of a world gone mad’?”

“Because he has to convince himself that it’s the world that’s crazy, not him.”

Jon snickers, then sighs. “Are you sure this is worth it, Sansa?”

She bristles. “At least I’m not doing it for nothing!”

Jon smiles at her sass. “Oh, I’m not doing it for nothing, Love, I assure you.”

[demcnsinmymind]

badassxbirdy​:

“Dang, foiled by good parentin’ yet again.” A smirk of her own as she settled down into the drivers seat, rolling her eyes at the whistle. That reaction wasn’t fooling anybody. “It’s uh, kind of a work in progress. Poor thing could barely make it around the block when I got it.” She patted the dash as though it were a dog, a beloved pet rather than a car. She’d grown very attached to it over the months since she’d sold the rather conspicuous car her mother had brought her. This was her baby, something she’d poured hours of work into. One of the perks of working at the garage was having access to use it in her downtime, being able to use the equipment there saving her a hell of a lot of cash.

In a few moment she had pulled away from her parking spot, the car’s engine rumbling like a particularly happy cat. “I know like, the general area. Might need you to direct when we get close though.” Ty had seen a few stories about ol’ Wilshire when she’d first moved arrived in town, the place frequently being included in the many ‘top ten things to see’ lists she’d read online while trying to get a feel for the area. “Sounds creepy.” She laughed, contributing a ghostly ‘woooo’ sound to his hand waving. “Not much of a believer, huh?”

“Yup, been doin’ it for… jeez, I don’t even know. Two years maybe? Started off at a different shop though.” Tyler couldn’t help but laugh when he asked if the shop was hers. In her dreams. “Nah, I just work there part-time.” One of three jobs she was currently doing, and her favourite by far. “The guy that runs the place didn’t even want to hire me at first, but I guess he couldn’t resist the sad face.” She demonstrated the expression with an exaggerated pout before breaking into a grin.

“Don’t worry, I got you covered” Lance replied with a smile on his face, waving about with his phone where the navigational screen could be seen. Soon enough he was focused right back on the thing, texting and reading with a somewhat absent look on his face. Because Jesus. They needed to shift a lot of the shots around now because he was so late. Naturally, some of his team were already pissed because of the impending overtime.

He tried to soothe them, writing a couple of messages while he still listened to Tyler’s talk. He snorted softly when she noticed his skepticism. “Oh no, sure. I’m a total believer. You’re right, it’s tremendously creepy. I’m spooked” he muttered while still glued to his phone. Then he remembered how often his team had told him to put a little more effort into the whole believer act off screen, too. He was the face of the show after all, and they were trying to really sell the whole premise. Sighing, he put his phone in his lap and chose to dodge the topic, especially since she kept telling him her story anyway. When she mentioned the sad face and then showed it to him, he started laughing.

“Wow, that is one hell of a sad face. I’m sold” he said, grinning right back. “Who would’ve thought that giving someone that look two years ago would end with you saving my ass today. Seriously, I appreciate you making the drive and all” Lance thanked her yet again until he turned his face a little to have a look around. “Faith in humanity restored after this shit show with my tires.”

Ah, here it was again. That precious annoyance. The resulting stress, the deadlines.

“So are you a local? You know the town and the people from here?” he asked, trying to distract himself, always looking for more people to interview and more stories to tell.

[hasansonsuzceliktas]

The Eye of Horus: Yet another Tale of Regression Therapy

I'm in a room, an adobe room, all alone and lying on a bed. An oil lamp illuminates parts of the otherwise dark room. I’m about to die. My vision becomes blurry. I’m going to die alone. I suddenly see someone entering the room, but I’ve already started to leave my body. I’m now fully separated, hanging in what looks something like outer space… I’m walking through the streets now. I feel like some sort of god, as if I have an indescribable measure of self-confidence and power. I’m in Alexandria during the ancient times of Egypt. The people I meet on the streets salute me in gestures of great respect. After all, why wouldn’t they? A divine, godlike being is walking down the street. I’m not exaggerating: I really mean it. This is the first time I’ve incarnated on this planet, yet I’ve visited this place countless times before. I know life on Earth all too well. I was even recorded in history as a respected deity. Many temples were built in my name, and tourists from all over the world visit what remains of them. They see me all around, and some tattoo my symbols onto their bodies. Such a being was I, but now I’ve decided to come down to earth once again. But why you ask? It’s because I’ve fallen for a mortal woman and didn’t want to just watch her distantly from another dimension—I wanted to live with her, embrace her, hold her tight, breathe her scent, and make love to her night after night. I’ve truly fallen for her, an immortal love for a mortal being, yet if I want to live this love, there is only one way the universe permits it: I had to abandon both my immortality and divine identity. I had to come down to earth and become like every other mortal. And you know what? I did it! The other celestial beings respected me for making such a sacrifice, because none of them dared go to such extents and give up everything that is heavenly about them. I did it, though, and I travelled back in time just to live in her world… * * * I’m strolling down the streets of Alexandria right now. I forgot long ago who I used to be, but still the energy of that heavenly spirit radiates through me. The Egyptians sense this familiar energy, and they step aside when they encounter me on the streets. I may not be conscious of whom I really am, but I know I’m different in some way, so I walk the streets with a great deal of self-confidence. I’m heading for the house I share with my beloved. Yes, we came into this world together, and our destinies are already intertwined with each other. We met, came to know each other, fell in love, walked hand in hand, kissed, hugged, made love, and married. Our love has already borne two beautiful fruits, with a third on the way… * * * I’m waiting at the door again, just as I’ve done twice before, but I feel something is amiss in there. I hear screams, so I rush into the room. My beloved is lying on the ground with her legs apart. Her eyes are dull, and a baby is crying in the arms of the midwife. Her mother and sister are also crying, but I just stare at my beloved. I move closer to her. She’s dead, gone. I go deaf, and everything becomes silent. All I can do is stare at the lifeless eyes of the woman I love. I cannot feel anything; I’m numb, but I know that this is just the lull before the storm. I bend down to kiss her. I want to bring her back to life, and I feel I can do it somehow. A great power awakens within me, and I believe I can resurrect her—I can do this! I try, try, and try, but I fail. I just can’t do it. She’s gone, and I feel something I’ve never felt before. My heart and belly begin to burn, and how it hurts! I feel I’m no good to anyone, and then the anguish turns into anger, a destructive rage, a godlike rage, an enormous rage… My energy becomes uncontrollable. I feel someone’s presence, but I cannot even see whom it is. I feel a desire to destroy anything and everything. I then realize there’s a sickle in my hand. I don’t know how it got there, but it doesn’t matter. I use it to slice into anything and anyone in sight, combining the sickle with my destructive energy. I don’t stop—I can’t stop. I don’t know what this anguish is that I’m feeling, and I don’t know how to deal with it. It’s too much, too much to bear. My energy burns everything to the ground… Then I find myself outside, looking at my collapsed house. My clothes are soaked with blood. I look at my hands, look at myself, and look around. I can’t understand what’s happened. I stand up, walk to the house, and there I see a body on the ground, then another, and another, and another… My beloved is lying on the ground with her lifeless stare. The baby lies beside her, but it’s silent now. The midwife is on the ground as well, along with my beloved’s mother and sister. And worst of all… Argh… I can’t talk about it any longer … * * * “Go on, tell me everything. Let it all out,” says the therapist. It’s too hard, too damn hard. I cover my face with my hands. I’m experiencing a past event, but I’m in the therapist’s office right now. This is actually our first regression therapy together. I wanted to experience a past life that I’m already aware of, because I wondered about the details. Seeing that we can return to past lives through hypnosis, I wanted to be sure if it was real or not. Now I was actually there, experiencing it directly. I was experiencing the pain and suffering of a divine being who became mortal for his love, who went mad with the anguish and rage of losing his wife, and who slaughtered everyone in sight. But now I wasn’t so keen to see it. I was resisting, because I didn’t want to see any more… “Carry on,” urges the therapist. My children, both of my two children, are lying on the ground. I killed them… Argh, the guilt, anguish, rage, and anger: All these feelings wash over me. I was suffering here in İzmir because of my past life in Egypt. Then the therapist asks the question that changes everything, “Are these your memories? Or do they belong to another entity, Hasan?” It’s a question I wouldn’t have expected in a million years. It just couldn’t happen to me, you know. My mood suddenly changed into something like the feeling when you’re riding a carousel at full speed but it suddenly stops. I was dumbfounded. I was experiencing an enormous drama, but the therapist’s question turned everything upside down. Something inside screamed at me to stop, but I already knew the answer and had to accept it. The words rolled from my mouth: “They’re from another entity…” The therapist asked his second question, “When did you first encounter these? Tell me the first thing that pops into your mind.” I’m in Ankara, and I’m eight years old. My parents are fighting yet again. Actually, I’m not so sure about my age; I may be even younger, but I can’t remember. The scene is vivid, however. We’re at my aunt’s house, and my parents are fighting violently. My aunt and her husband are also there. I try to hide between two armchairs because I’m utterly ashamed. I want to lose myself between the seats. “Did it come to you at that moment?” asked the therapist. My energy was extremely weak. The next day, I watched a TV series about Ancient Egypt. It was called “The Dream Island.” They were trying to realize a dream about Egypt. I was very scared yet also thrilled. The entity entered my energy field at that moment and started accompanying me… “So, let’s summon this entity now,” said the therapist as he continued to speak… It’s not a malevolent being. It came to me to help me grow stronger, but I didn’t let it go later on. It says I’m ready now, and it has to leave. We experienced this moment for this reason, and I’m now ready to say goodbye… * * * I listened to the advice of the therapist and said goodbye to this admirable entity. He didn’t just accept mortality for his love—he incarnated on this planet knowing full well what would happen. All in all, he had the chance to live with his beloved for just fifteen years before the slaughter came. I looked into the eyes of this entity, this hawk-eyed entity. We were conversing telepathically, and I asked him if it was worth it or not. His eyes clouded, and for me that was as good as a “Yes, it did.” He killed eight people altogether, and after dying in that adobe room, he had to reincarnate eight more times just to clear up his karma. Yet before that, he had confined himself to a different dimension for maybe hundreds of our years, trying to pay his cosmic bail… He needed to leave and return to where he belonged, and he did it using me as the medium. He gave me strength when I collapsed, and I told his story for the whole world to hear. Isn’t that the whole point of this journey of life, after all? We’ll have wonderful stories to tell each other when we return to the source. Life is just to live, isn’t it? When we’re dead and gone, the only thing we’ll leave behind is the dash between the dates of our births and deaths, but isn’t all this adventure for this very dash? The therapist told me some words to recite to this beautiful entity, but I didn’t even need to repeat them. We both knew that the time to depart had come when the therapist’s words merged with my feelings. Slowly he faded out, and then he was out of my energy field… * * * The therapist explained, “Basically, there are many people in this same situation, but they just don’t realize it. Such cases happen very frequently. We call it an ‘attachment’ situation, where an entity is attached to the energy field of an embodied entity.” I asked the therapist if this was the same thing as “possession,” but honestly, I didn’t feel anything negative during his companionship. Possession evokes scary notions of being controlled or haunted, but I never felt anything like that from this entity. “Those are very, very rare cases,” the therapist explained, “and you usually only see them in movies. I’ve handled more than three thousand cases so far, and only one or two of them had an element of possession. The funny thing is that we don’t even try to chase them away when we really do encounter such entities. On the contrary, it’s better if we can get them to talk to us, because they need healing, so we use therapy. Again it’s very rare, but it’s not like I’ve never witnessed a case of possession. Yours was not a negative experience, as you sensed as well. Your frequencies were similar, and it somehow entered your field to accompany you. It surfaced when things became heavier for you, since it was time to say goodbye. You’ll see the effects of this in a couple of weeks. Let’s see what difference it will make…” * * * It’s now three weeks since the therapy. In that session, when I bode farewell to that beautiful soul, my therapist took me back to the scene where my parents were fighting. He summoned them on a spiritual level, and there also appeared their parents, and their parents, and their parents, and so on. I’d attended many family constellation sessions before, but I had never experienced anything like this in a spiritual dimension. We worked on my immobile ancestors at the suggestion of my therapist and helped them to heal, to get their energies flowing, and to reach out and embrace me. I had seriously never experienced anything like this… We initially set out to solve my sudden bursts of anger, and it took us somewhere I never would have imagined. In the three weeks after, I realized I wasn’t as short tempered as before. Yes, I’ve had some small, brief tantrums, but they were less intense and definitely not as frequent as before. I still need time to observe the changes, however. It’s like I was crippled and had an operation. I can walk a little now, but I’m not ready to play sports yet. Spiritual practices are much like this. You have the operation, but the results need time to show, although you can still feel the changes during the healing process… The most prominent change is probably the relief. It’s like there’s now a huge space for me to grow into. Once the entity, which I respected greatly, left my energy field, it created an enormous space, and now I can fill this space with myself. Perhaps I wasn’t quite ready for it before, but I am now… I feel like a tiny flower growing in a huge pot. I can now feed on the energy flowing freely from my ancestors and grow. Are you wondering what happened to that entity? I can feel him around still. He became like a spiritual teacher for me, and he assures me he’s with me whenever I need him. I sometimes feel his stare on me, and I stare back right into his eyes. We look at each other with love and gratitude. Endless thanks to our Creator, who allowed this scenario to flourish, and to dear Horus for participating… Read the full article

[delwray-blog]

PEOPLE, HELL SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF GOD

You and I can never imagine all the depths of hell. Shut out from us by a black veil of darkness, we cannot tell the horrors of that dismal dungeon of lost souls. Happily, the wailings of the damned have never startled us, for a thousand tempests were but a maiden’s whisper, compared with one wail of a damned spirit. It is not possible for us to see the tortures of those souls who dwell eternally within anguish that knows no alleviation. These eyes would become sightless balls of darkness if they were permitted for an instant to look into that ghastly shrine of torment. Hell is horrible, for we may say of it, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive the horrors which God hath prepared for them that hate him.

As a man lives and dies, so will he be throughout eternity. The drunkard here will have all a drunkard’s thirst there without the means of gratifying it. The swearer here will become a yet more ripe and proficient blasphemer. Death does not change but fixes character; it petrifies it. “He that is holy let him be holy still; he that is filthy let him be filthy still.” The lost man remains a sinner and a growing sinner and continues to rebel against God. Would you have such a man in heaven? Shall the thief prowl through the streets of the New Jerusalem? Shall the atmosphere of Paradise be polluted by an oath? Shall the songs of angels be disturbed by the ribaldry of licentious conversation? It cannot be.

We know that when impenitent sinners are gathered at the last their characters will be the same. They were filthy here, they will be filthy still. Here on earth, their sin was in the bud; in hell, it will be full-blown. If they were bad here they will be worse there. Here they were restrained by providence, by company, by custom—there, there will be no restraints, and hell will be a world of sinners at large, a land of outlaws, a place where every man shall follow out his own heart’s most horrible inclinations. Who would wish to be with them?

Beloved, the eternal torment of men is no joy to God.

Scripture does not speak of the fire of hell as chastening and purifying, but as punishment which men shall receive for deeds done in the body. They are to be visited with many stripes, and receive just recompence for transgressions. What can there be about hellfire to change a man’s heart? Surely the more the lost will suffer the more will they hate God.

What will be the development of an unregenerate character in hell I cannot tell, but I am certain it will be something which my imagination dares not now attempt to depict, for all the restraints of this life which have kept men decent and moral will be gone when they come into the next world of sin; and as heaven is to be the perfection of the saint’s holiness, so hell will be the perfection of the sinner’s loathsomeness, and there will he discover, and others will discover, what sin is when it cometh to its worst.

If you anxiously desire to see sin at the full come hither, and gaze down the fathomless abyss. Listen to those blasphemous execrations. If you have the courage, hearken to those mingled cries of misery and passion which come up from Tophet, from the abodes of lost spirits. Sin is there ripe; here it is green. Here we see its darkness as the shades of evening, but there it is ten-fold night. Here it scatters fire-brands, but there its quenchless conflagrations flame on forever and ever. Oh! if we have but grace to be rid of sin now, the riddance will save us from the wrath to come. Sin, indeed, is hell, hell in embryo, hell, in essence, hell kindling, hell emerging from the shell: hell is but sin when it has manifested and developed itself to the full. Stand at the gates of Tophet and understand how fell the disease for which heaven’s remedy is provided in the stripes of the Only Begotten.

Then, O ye impenitent, there shall come to your eyes a tear which shall drip forever, a scalding drop which no mercy shall ever wipe away; a thirst that shall never be abated; a worm that shall never die; and a fire that shall never be quenched. There are two flaming jewels of Jehovah’s crown which shall be terribly seen in hell; his wrath and his power. “What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction?”

The torments of the lost will be self-inflicted, they are suicides to their souls, the venom in their veins is self-created and self-injected.

What, if it could be proven, as it never will be, that there are no pains of hell and no eternal wrath, yet is not this enough—to have lost this immortality of glory, this immortality of honor, and of likeness to God? This pain of loss, may none of us ever incur it: for it is hell to lose heaven, it is infinite misery to miss infinite felicity. I am not like yon flatterers who tell you that there is a little hell and a little God, from which you naturally infer that you may live as you like. Both you and they will perish everlastingly if you believe them. There is a dreadful hell, for there is a righteous God.

There they come, streams of them, hurrying impatiently, rushing down to death and hell—yes, eagerly panting, hurrying, dashing against one another to descend to that awful gulf from which there is no return! No missionaries are wanted, no ministers are needed to plead with men to go to hell. No books of persuasion are wanted to urge them to rush onward to eternal ruin. They hurry to be lost; they are eager to be destroyed.

The Lord will, at the last, put us among those whom we are most like; in the day when he shall separate the people gathered before him as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats, the sheep will be put with the sheep and the goats with the goats. If you have lived like the wicked, you will die like the wicked, and be damned like the wicked.

Hell is sinfully developed,—a man’s own soul permitted to go to extreme limits with that which it now carries out in a mitigated form, and so, becoming like a furnace heated seven times hotter than usual, tormenting itself beyond all power of imagination.

There is a place where there is a dreadful prayer-meeting every day, and every hour in the day; a prayer-meeting where all the attendants pray,—not merely one, but all; and they pray, too, with sighs, and groans, and tears; and yet they are never heard. That prayer-meeting is in hell. There is a begging meeting there, indeed. Oh, that there were on earth half the prayer there will be there! Oh, that the tears shed in eternity had but been shed in time! Oh, that the agony that the lost ones now feel had but been felt beforehand! Oh, that they had repented ere their life was ended! Oh, that their hearts had been made tender before the terrible fire of judgment had melted them!

Moreover, we are persuaded that the penalties of sin will differ; and that, albeit all the wicked shall be cast into hell, yet there will be degrees in the anguish of that lost estate.

Would it not be better to go to heaven side by side with a poor old almshouse-woman, or a chimney-sweep, or a pauper from the workhouse, than to go to hell with a lord, a duke, or a millionaire?

No human preacher ever gave such graphic and harrowing descriptions of hell as did Jonathan Edwards

Yet the only greater was Christ who has given sublimely more. You say you believe the Words of Jesus; you do not suspect a loving Saviour of exaggeration. Oh, my readers, I ask you now in the name of God, if it is true, why do ye not believe it? You do not believe it; that is clear enough. Would you sit quietly in your seat this morning, young man, if you really believed that in one instant you may be in hell? Old man, old in years and old in sin, would you be as quiet in your soul today as you are if you knew and believed that there is but a step, one heartbeat and just a single breath between you and the flames of hell,?

I do not wonder that ingenious persons have invented theories which aim at mitigating the terrors of the world to come to the impenitent. It is natural they should do so, for the facts are so alarming as they are truthfully given us in God’s Word, that if we desire to preach comfortable doctrine and such as will quiet the consciences of idle professors, we must dilute the awful truth.

Diminish your idea of the wrath of God and the terrors of hell, and in that proportion, you will diminish the results of your work. In some professed Christians their pity for the criminal has overcome their horror at the crime. Eternal punishment is denied, not because the Scriptures are not plain enough on that point, but because man has become the god of man, and everything must be toned down to suit the tender feelings of an age which excuses sin but denounces its penalties, which has no condemnation for the offense but spends its denunciations upon the Judge and his righteous sentence. By all means, have Sympathies manward but at the same time show some tenderness towards the dishonored law and the insulted Lord.

The doctrine of no punishment for any man is popular in this day and threatens to have even greater sway in the future. Believe me, dear friends the Words of God about the doom of sinners are very dreadful. Hence, there are some that try to pare them down, and cut the solemn meaning out of them; and then they say, “I could not rest comfortably if I believed the doctrine about the ruin of man.” Most true, but what right have we to rest comfortably?

Suffice it for me by saying, that the hell of hells will be to you poor sinner, the thought, that it is to be forever. Thou wilt look up there on the throne of God, and it shall be written “forever!” When the damned jingle the burning irons of their torments, they shall say, “forever!” When they howl, echo cries “forever!” Forever knoweth no end; eternity cannot be spelled except in eternity. Still, the soul seeth written o’er its head, “Thou art damned forever.” It heareth howlings that are to be perpetual; it seeth flames which are unquenchable; it knoweth pains that are unmitigated; it hears a sentence that rolls not like the thunder of earth which soon is hushed but onward, onward, onward, shaking the echoes of eternity, making thousands of years shake again with the horrid thunder of its dreadful sound, “Depart! Depart, depart ye cursed!”

A million years shall not make so much difference to the duration of his agony as a cup of water taken from the sea would to the volume of the ocean. Nay, when millions of years told a million times shall have rolled their fiery orbits over his poor tormented head, he shall be no nearer to the end than he was at first. The eternity of punishment is a thought which crushes the heart. You have buried the man but you have not buried his sins. His sins live, and are immortal; they have gone before him to judgment, or they will follow after him to bear their witness as to the evil of his heart and the rebellion of his life. The Lord is slow to anger, but when He is once aroused to it, as He will be against those who finally reject His Son, He will put forth all his omnipotence to crush his enemies. “Consider this,” saith he, “you that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver.” It will be no trifle to fall into the hands of the living God. He will by no means clear the guilty. Forever must his anger burn. We have nothing in Scripture to warrant the hope that God’s wrath against evildoers will ever come to an end. Oh, the wrath to come! The wrath to come! The wrath which after ages and ages will still be to come, and still to come, and still to come! It needs a whole eternity to set forth, in hell, all the justice of God in the punishment of sin.

Do you hear this man as he speaks to himself? “Oh! If I could ever escape from this dreadful dungeon, it would be a heaven to me. If these awful fires could be quenched, if this gnawing worm would but die, then I would be content. If, after ten thousand, thousand, thousand years, I could hope to make my escape from this pit of woe, I would set all the bells of my heart a-ringing for very joy at the bare possibility that, At last, I might escape. But what is it that I see written before me? Forever! Forever on my chains; forever, branded on my limbs of pain; forever, on those waves of fire; forever in the angry gaze of an incensed Deity; forever in those hungry depths, which seem to yawn to suck me into deeper woe; forever, forever, forever, forever!” It is the hell of hell that everything there lasts forever. Here, time wears away our griefs and blunts the keen edge of sorrow; but there, time never mitigates the woe. Here, the sympathy of loving kindred, in the midst of sickness or suffering, can alleviate our pain; but there, the mutual upbraiding and reproaches of fellow-sinners give fresh stings to torment too dreadful to be endured. Here, too, when nature’s last palliative shall fail, to die may be a happy release; a man can count the weary hours till death shall give him rest; but, oh! Remember, there is no death in hell; death, which is a monster on earth, would be an angel in hell. But the terrible reality is this, “Their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

He speaks of the “fire that never shall be quenched.” Now, do not begin telling me that that is metaphorical fire: who cares for that? If a man were to threaten to give me a metaphorical blow on the head, I should care very little about it; he would be welcome to give me as many as he pleased. And what say the wicked? “We do not care about metaphorical fires.” But they are real, sir, yes, as real as yourself. There is a real fire in hell, as truly as you have now a real body, a fire exactly like that which we have on earth in everything except this—that it will not consume, though it will torture you. You have seen the asbestos lying in the fire red hot, but when you take it out it is unconsumed. So your body will be prepared by God in such a way that it will burn forever without being consumed; it will lie, not as you consider, in the metaphorical fire, but in actual flame. If the wooing of Christ’s wounds cannot make you love Christ, do you think the flames of hell will? A piece of news about a fire in another continent makes a sensation in all our homes but the fire that never shall be quenched is heard of almost without emotion.