#Basic live fire firearms safety course

[peregrine21]

Firearm Training - Abby Sciuto x Gibbs'!Daughter Reader

Pairing: Abby Sciuto x Gibbs'!Daughter Reader

Includes: fluff, slight hurt/angst?, cute moments with Abby, Abby comforting you, soft Gibbs moment because he’s your dad

Warnings: guns, shooting guns (at paper targets) 

Word Count: 2395 (I hope this finds people who also love Abby bc it’s so rare that I make it to 2000 words)

Brief Description: Your dad (Gibbs) wanted you to learn firearm safety and how to shoot a gun after several incidents of members of his team and/or their loved ones being targeted. You did fine for most of the lesson but did not handle live fire well. You had an emotional reaction to it but tried to push through until Abby came up to comfort you. Your dad took you and her to get milkshakes and cookies after to help you feel better.  

~~~

Firearm training. You were here because your dad wanted you to learn firearm safety and how to shoot a gun. You weren’t fond of loud noises; you preferred bows and crossbows to a gun anyday. However, after several incidents of the team being targeted and even your girlfriend Abby being violently stalked by an ex, you could understand your dad wanting you to learn how to use a gun. Most of the team was there, save for Ducky and Palmer. It was you, Abby, Tony, Tim, Ziva, Director Shepard, and your dad for the day on a private outdoor range with one of your dad’s friends as the instructor. You used one of your dad’s pistols for the day, with “GIBBS”written on the side of the magazine. The guns were all on tables for now as for the first section of the day, your group was reviewed on the build and mechanisms of standard pistols and magazines. 

Sitting in a circle with the team, you learned firearm safety: how to carry and handle a pistol safely; the build and parts of a basic pistol: how to take it apart, clean it, reassemble it; and its functions: how to load rounds into a magazine followed by how to load and unload a pistol without shooting it. You did a few rounds of safety checks and learned to never assume it’s unloaded. You practiced dry firing it and the instructor helped you with your hand positioning and grip; your stance was already solid from your previous years in martial arts. The dry fire shooting felt easy going and made you feel cool as you heard the click of shooting imaginary bullets at the target. Your dad and girlfriend both looked at you often with proud expressions on their faces as you quickly picked up each concept and were doing quite well in the course thus far. 

It was 4 hours into the course and was finally time for lunch. After lunch it would be time to start shooting live rounds at paper targets. However, for now you all just gathered round and decided to go to a local diner for lunch. It was a 20 minute drive there, and despite there being 8 of you, you were all seated right away as the town you were in was remote enough for the diner to be sparse on patrons. You sat next to Abby, Director Shepard next to her, and the instructor at the end of your side of the table. Ziva was in front of you then, Tony, McGee, and your dad filling the other 3 seats on that side of the table respectively. You and Abby ordered fried chicken and waffles to share, your dad and Shepard got steaks, Ziva, Tony, and McGee got sandwiches, and the instructor got a burger. You all took your time to enjoy the meal in each others’ company, you occasionally leaning your head on Abby’s shoulder or her stealing a bite of the waffle you were nibbling on. After much enjoyment and frivolity, you all ended up returning to the range an hour and a half later for the second half of the course. 

You got out of Abby’s car and walked over to the range, Shepard and the instructor already waiting on the course as they rode with your dad, and Tony was close on the way driving Ziva and McGee. You, Abby, your Dad, and director Shepard were already set up as you and Abby were borrowing a pair of your dad’s spare handguns that he stored in his car. Each of your respective guns and accessories were set on the tables, now accompanied by trays of live rounds. Tony’s, Ziva’s and McGee’s guns and gear were with them already, and they would have to set it up themselves upon arriving. The trio soon arrived, and as they got set up, the instructor had the rest of you start with putting on your noise canceling headphones and safety glasses. You glanced over at Abby, adored at how amazing she looked even in the firearm noise canceling headphones and glasses, the headphones set against her bow topped pigtails. The instructor then called for a safety check, followed by loading your magazines with a few live rounds. You were starting to feel a bit anxious as you’d never fired a live round before and the instructor warned you’d need a firm grip to counter the power of shooting live rounds. Before picking up the guns to load in the magazines, Abby leaned over and kissed your cheek— likely leaving a lipstick mark— and gave your hand a squeeze. “You’ll do fine,” she assured you with a gentle smile, clearly noticing your nerves start to kick in. 

You lined up with the rest of your group, the instructor on your left to help with your lesson, and Abby on your right for moral support. The instructor led for everyone to begin. Each in your group aimed their guns forward  and the instructor made minor adjustments to your grip before telling you to place your finger on the trigger and fire when ready. Before you could do so, you heard the first few shots fired from the team and flinched, your eyes closing at the same time. You opened them and took a deep breath trying to brush it off and fixed your own aim. The instructor had held up her hand to signal everyone else to stop firing so as to let you focus. You aimed at the target, took a deep breath, and slowly pulled the trigger as instructed. On the outside you appeared calm, but it felt like winding a jack in the box until *BANG!* You jumped and your hands were shoved up as your body absorbed the inertia of the shot. You looked at your instructor and pasted a smile on your face as she told you that you’d done well. Tears started to form in the corners of your eyes but you fought them, slightly confused as to why they were forming as you didn’t feel particularly sad. You flashed your plastered smile at Abbs, and she smiled in return as she took a few shots herself. You still flinched at every loud bang, but you pushed it all down. It was fine, you were fine. You asked the instructor for some advice on how to avoid losing your grip again, “Uhh, how do I keep my hands from shooting up when the gun fires and keep my grip?”. The instructor moved you into position and put her hands over yours on the gun, “you gotta make sure there is no space between your hands and hold your (dominant) hand firmly with your (non-dominant) hand”. You nodded, giving an ok in response before the instructor took a break to use the restroom. Abbs had finished a few rounds and put her gun on the table before coming up to you from the side. She laid a hand on your back and left a gentle kiss on the back side of your neck, “I’ll be over at the tent babe, you’re doing great!”, she informed you before returning cheerfully to the tent set up for breaks and spectating. It was now you, Ziva, McGee, Tony, and Director Shepard on the range. Your dad was watching from the tent along with Abbs who had just sat in one of the chairs to spectate with him. 

You prepared to take another shot and aimed at the target when Ziva came up beside you, “Fix your grip, there’s a gap between your hands again.” You did as she told you and thanked her before putting your finger on the trigger and slowly pulling it again. *BANG!* You jump again and silent tears form. You try to push through and keep your gaze forward so as to not let anyone onto the tears nearly falling down your face. You take a deep breath your heart racing, fixing your grip before pulling the trigger a third time, *BANG!* Silent tears start to fall down your cheeks, still baffling you as you don't feel sad or upset. A sniffle tips off Ziva who leans over to look at your face. She notices the tears and bluntly inquires, "What are the tears for? You're only shooting at a paper." You feel bad for not being able to stop it and feel pressured to suck it up, responding that you’re fine and start setting up for another shot. Abby heard from the chairs set up at the tent behind the shooting range and immediately made her way over, your father Gibbs behind her. Your calm steadiness starts to waver as your hands begin to shake. You breathe, put your finger on the trigger and take your 4th shot, losing your grip on the gun as your hands start to shake even more. You bring your (non-dominant hand) back onto the gun and aim at the target once more, hands and arms shaking profusely and tears streaming down your face, blurring your vision a bit.

Ziva is baffled at your emotional state, giving you a confused look as to why this is making you cry. You didn’t really understand why yourself, you just knew you couldn’t stop it or hold it back even though you didn’t necessarily feel upset. You hear another couple shots  from Tony and McGee and flinch again. By this time, Abby has finally made it to you and pressed her body against your back, wrapping one arm around you and grabbing the gun out of your hands with the other. You turn and melt into her, tears still falling down your face and she rubs her thumb against your back trying to calm you a bit, “Darling, it’s ok, you did so good. You don’t have to keep going.” Your dad makes it over and looks to Ziva who is still perplexed, “Stop staring and take the gun from Abby would ya?!” You bury yourself further into Abby as Ziva takes the gun out of Abby’s hand and places it on the table. Now with a free hand, Abby turns the volume all the way off on your headphones to reduce the loudness of the gunshots. You look up at her. “It helps a bit to have the volume all the way down” she tells you as she holds your face and wipes the tears away with her thumb. You bury your face into her neck and she wraps her other arm around you, holding you close and whispering affirmations and sweet nothings into your ear. Your dad puts a hand on your shoulder, standing behind Abby to talk to you, “Hey, you did good kid. You can stop if you want to. I just wanted you to know how to shoot if you ever need to. Now you can.” Abby walked you over to the tent and sat against a table, keeping you in her arms as you calmed down, rubbing circles on your back with her thumb. The rest of the team kept on shooting, your Dad taking your place in the lineup. Director Shepard came over and leaned against the table beside Abby, placing a hand on your back and reassuring you, “Hey, you’re ok.” She smiled, and you tried to smile back in return, still shaking a bit. “You can sit over here with us while they finish the course, no need to go back out.” After a few minutes, your breathing had finally evened out again, and Abby brought you around the table to the chairs while keeping you close to her. She sat down and guided you to sit in her lap as Director Shepard sat in the chair beside hers. You sat across her lap, legs over the side of the chair, and leaned into her. You kept your head on her shoulder as she put one around your waist and left the other one free. You still flinched at most of the shots the rest of the team took so Abby pulled out your book to distract you a bit. She held you in her arms and read your book with you until the shooting course was over. 

Afterwards, the team packed up all their gear and put it into their respective cars, your dad packing up for you and Abby as both of you had borrowed his spare pistols for the course. Tony, Ziva, and McGee left first, bidding the rest of you farewell. Your dad came up to you and Abby, both of you still consumed in the book, and pulled it down to get both your attention, “Hey, how about we go to the diner for milkshakes before heading home?” You liked the idea. Shepard joined the three of you; she had felt like a mother to you and Abby. The instructor bid you all a farewell as she had her own car to return home with and still had to pack up the course for the night. 

Around 20 minutes later, you had arrived at the diner and been seated in a 4 person booth, you and Abby on one side and Gibbs and Shepard on the other. Your dad ordered a chocolate malt shake, Shepard a Vanilla one, and Abby a Black and White (think chocolate and marshmallows). You still felt shaken so Abby, knowing your favorites, ordered your favorite milkshake as well as a double order of chocolate chip cookies for you and her to share. Once the waitress had gone to put in your orders, Abby pulled you close by the waist and the two of you sat nuzzled up together. You remained like this still when your orders arrived and as you enjoyed the sugary rewards of the day. After you were done, the sun was starting to set so your dad paid the bill and you all headed out: Shepard with Gibbs and you with Abbs. She had her hand either on your thigh or laced into your hand for half of the ride to your house where she was spending the night. Your dad cooked dinner that night for the four of you and Shepard headed home at around 9pm. You and Abby remained cuddled up for the rest of the night before finally falling asleep, wrapped together in each other's arms.

[deadcaptainn]

due to the demand (the very nice asking of one person who said i should) of people asking for this post here is a very quick guide to firearms and firearm safety! under the break

I will start this off with for the love of god, always treat your firearm like it is loaded. I don’t care if you know it isn’t, always act like there is a live round in the chamber. do not aim your weapon at somebody unless it is necessary (self defence). do not touch the trigger until you go to fire, this will reduce the chance of you hurting yourself or somebody innocent.

now that some of the basics of safety are out of the way, how about some photos?

this is a rather typical size concealed carry firearm, as you can see it’s small fits easy in your hand which is what you’d want for a handgun for self defence. the only problem with this is the recoil, this can be dangerous and it might surprise you (leading you to miss your target)

i recommend practicing, go to a local gun range or even find an empty field and get some targets (you can get some real cheap at walmart or smth)

practice your gun hold, your quick draw, getting good accuracy. these aren’t a mandatory thing, but it will absolutely help you in the long run (wrist pain is a bitch)

now buying a gun is gonna cost you a lot even the cheapest little handguns are still $200, now of course the more you pay the better the quality of your firearm. you also have to get ammo, which if the only goal is using it as a self defence weapon won’t break the bank (like $40)

now i am aware this isn’t the most informative post and is very much baseline, but most of the research will have to come down to you going out and holding one. i have my personal collection of weapons that feel nice in my hand and are easy to shoot, you have to find the gun that works for you on that

also one more time TREAT YOUR FIREARM LIKE IT IS LOADED AT ALL TIMES

[lizzyverydizzyyo]

D.E.A.N | Chapter 27 - Descent

Masterlist and overall summary of the whole novel is here. | Prompt on trope-appreciation-tuesdays that inspired this is here. | @whumptober-archive

Fandom : Original Work

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

AO3

Wordcount: ± 5232

TW: Threat of Kidnapping, Slutshaming, Allusion to Sexual Abuse/Slavery, Weapon, Firearms, Guns, Light Claustrophobia, Gore

Little by little, their area of safety is getting encroached. They have nowhere else to hide. They have to run. Their charge has to survive.

Whumptober 2023 Themes (last 4 only):

Day 28 — Sacrifice | “You’ll have to go through me.”

Day 29 — Troubled Past Resurfacing

Day 30 — Borrowed Clothing

Day 31 — Setbacks

This story is set in the last half of 2016.

——

Mark automatically pulls down his own visor with one hand and grabs Nick’s wrist quickly with the other, pulling the half-Russian to the far side of the wall. Mark is basically putting himself between Nick and the portion of the wall nearer to Helga people. Some agents follow suit by planting their backs on the wall facing away from Helga people.

Anna and Agent Maxwell also pull down their visors quickly, but they stay put, not seeking shelter behind the wall like the rest of them. They instinctively point their guns up to start shooting.

The two sides exchange bullets for a while before Anna and Imani scurry behind the wall too. Mark is guessing those Helga bastards are also seeking cover as he doesn’t hear any shot toward the wall they’re standing behind.

“How the fuck did we forget to put our visors down?” Anna hisses. “They saw him and some of us now.”

The silence doesn’t last, of course. Someone from Helga's side yells at them.

“Give him back to us and we might consider letting some of you live!”

Nick pulls down his visor and shakes even more while inhaling deeply in fear.

“The fuck we will,” Don hisses.

As they stay quiet and do not give any response to Helga’s ‘offer’, they immediately hear another barrage of shootings. Mark can tangibly feel the machine gun ammos hitting the wall quite hard beside the loud sounds. He also hears the concrete starting to get chipped away bit by bit.

Something as strong as machine guns like Helga’s, and theirs too (although he doesn’t know if they have the same exact ones; they only had split second to see those Helga members before hiding), will eventually wear down even the strongest concrete after a while. On top of that, if they get hit on the body repeatedly once the wall gets broken down enough, their bullet-proof vests and helmets won’t do shit because they’ll be too battered.

Machine gun ammos are nothing like pistol bullets.

They can’t keep staying on the defensive like this in this spot, so Lena and Horace take turns now swiveling around the wall to shoot back.

The firings of the ammos still sound extremely loud despite their helmets’ visors being put down again and covering their heads. Nick is visibly more affected compared to the rest of them, whimpering endlessly while trying to put his hands on his ears. His mind is probably too panicked and muddled to remember that he has the bag handle around his wrist weighing his arms down, and that he has helmet on so his hands can’t touch his head regardless.

Lena and Horace step back again behind the wall.

“Fuck, what do we do? We can’t get past them,” Lena hisses urgently, “It’s too exposed and dangerous.”

Mark hears loud muffled breathing from the four of them who were just done shooting as they look at each other.

“Come oooon, you communist slut! Come with us nicely like a good boy you are… and we’re not gonna be too mean to you back in the port!”

At the disgusting sing-song voice of a different Helga member, Nick now shifts his arms to hug his own body tightly, muttering ‘no, no, no, no’. He is trembling so badly that Mark can palpably feel the shaking against his own arm that touches Nick. Mark can see those thin fingers looking pale as they squeeze his own upper arms in a death grip.

The others look at Nick, then to their right where they know that if they turn around the corner, they’ll face those Helga people again.

“We can’t let them get away either,” Horace states urgently and hurriedly as he looks back to the others, “They’re gonna tell the rest of their members that the real Bel is here.”

Mark looks at Nick, sure that the boy is crying despite not being able to see through the visor clearly. He then firmly stares at Horace.

“We gotta turn around.”

They all visibly look confused and even dumbfounded by his suggestion.

“We clearly can’t get past them here, because they’ll know he’s with us and will chase him even if we manage to get to our escape van,” Mark explains tensely, “but look,” he raises his wrist to show his watch the drags the screen to the left, seeing many pulsating dots concentrated in the center area, “if we bring them around their other members while we also mix up with our other agents, we might be able to confuse them again.”

“That’s too far, Mark!” Lena argues incredulously, “You’re just putting Bel in danger too by bringing him to the center of the battle.”

“Well, how are we going to get past them?” he retorts back, “and how are we going to keep them from snitching to the other members?”

They all immediately turn to their right again, instinctively flinching and bowing their heads down when the shooting from the other side starts. Imani and Anna swivel around to shoot back for a few seconds then return to behind the wall.

“Listen,” Mark tries again as the shooting is paused, “there are 12 of us here. Enough to protect him while we mix up in the center.”

They bow down again when the shooting starts, now with Agent Smith and Doctor Lowe attacking back. Mark doesn’t have too much time to ponder how adept the surgeon surprisingly is with his weapon before they return to their hiding position.

After that, Mark looks to his left shortly from where they came before trying to reach the back door. He then turns back to the rest of Claws.

“We can even contact Eclipse in the meantime to start being loud and making a ruckus again, so that those Helga handlers don’t know which members have the right info on Bel’s whereabouts.”

Horace tsks, conflicted and distressed. He looks back and forth between their right side where they’ll see Helga people as they turn around the corner, and their left side to go deeper into the center of the headquarter.

Unexpectedly, Doctor Lowe hisses out, “Fuck it.”

He immediately crouches-walk to their left side, basically making the choice on behalf of everybody else in Claws. They are too dumfounded and anxious to argue, so they start following the surgeon. While doing that, Doctor Lowe’s hand goes up to his shoulder to click several times on his upper vest, speaking quietly but repeatedly, “MA56 to Eclipse. Over. MA56 to Eclipse. Over.”

The physician hisses out ‘fuck’ again, clearly upset and a little bit more panicked that he can’t connect to the decoy team. Mark is sure that the surgeon and everybody else share the same concern that something might have happened to the decoy team, judging by their tense and worried body language.

Even as they crouch-walk back towards the direction they came from, they still feel and hear bullets from Helga people they faced before, seemingly starting to shoot again. It almost feels like those people know where Claws is going and are following them with their bullets.

He is unfortunately correct about that because even when they’re leaving the wall before they saw the backdoor, they feel the shots following them to their left side now.

It’s a good thing that Marcus and Agent Van Hoven are quick and well-trained enough that they can quickly pull back and push at Nick. They abruptly and effectively stop the rest of Claws—who are now behind them both—from continuing to walk. They will be going to the uncovered and unprotected area beside the wall, exposing themselves to Helga’s people’s relentless ammos, otherwise.

“We know you’re going that way, assholes! We’re not leaving until we get that bitch back!”

“Fuck,” Mark curses quietly after the yell from that Helga man.

He realizes now Claws is basically stuck behind this particular wall because those Helga members are going to shoot them anyway, whether they’re going to the right or left. It’s not helping that they might have noted how Nick is dressed and therefore can easily track him down no matter what happens.

“How do we get away now?”

The rest of Claws turn urgently to Agent Maxwell, who is now taking the rear after the turn-around. Then they look away again. They’re really all stuck here.

Helga people start shooting things again, so Mark looks towards Agent Van Hoven beside him. They both nod to each other before swiveling to the other side of the wall, now that they’re the closest to the edge this time. They start shooting back continuously until they see that Helga people are crouching again and hiding for cover.

“We need to make a break for it,” Agent Van Hoven immediately tells the rest of them with rapid breathing after he and Mark go back to hiding behind the wall, “We need to immediately go to the center now.”

Mark can tell from their body language that they don’t like the sound of that, but they dejectedly nod anyway when they realize they really have no choice. They need to confuse Helga people and get the help of other agents to protect Nick, and also to shake off Helga members from their backs who have seen Nick to make sure Nick’s delivery is safe.

“Okay, three of us—” Mark informs the rest of them while pointing at himself, Agent Van Hoven, and Don, “—will cover you all while you go there.” Mark now cocks his head to the side where there is another wall they can go to that is more closed-off. That way, they’re not exposed to Helga people anymore.

The other 8 agents nod gravely at him, and that’s all he needs to see to swivel around the wall with the other two agents. He, Agent Van Hoven, and Don are walking sideways to keep facing and shooting those Helga members, providing cover for the crouching Claws agents and Nick so that they can cross to the other side.

“Aghr,” he cries out, staggering backward slightly as he feels several bullets hitting his lower abdomen. The power of Helga’s machine gun ammos feels quite strong and painful even despite his bullet-proof vest.

He senses them pausing slightly behind him, especially Nick who is trying to stand up and touch him.

“GO!” he shouts instead, pushing them to keep moving until they’re safe on the other side.

While still walking sideways and continuing to cover the rest of Claws, he hears swearing from those Helga people, shouting at each other to fall back—accompanied by several thudding sounds of bodies hitting the ground. He doesn’t know whether they’re his bullets, Agent Van Hoven’s, or Don’s, but he feels relief and somewhat sickening satisfaction anyway knowing that some of those people are now dead.

Good. Fewer degenerate Helga members to worry about.

Once they’re close enough to the other wall they’re trying to cross, three of them follow the rest to crouch-walk behind the wall for cover. All 12 of them then continue walking further inward to the headquarter’s center, away from the Helga people they were just attacking.

It’s only now that he allows himself to feel the pain from the bullets before. He is sure that he is badly bruised under his shirt and vest, but no bleeding yet.

Which is good because there is no identifying condition or signs on his body to tell the rest of Helga's people which agent he is. Those Helga members will hopefully not be able to tell if Mark is one of Nick’s chaperone agents, so they won’t suspect the person escaping with Mark is Nick, if he has to go solo.

They start running again once safe from the group of Helga members they were in a standoff before, trying to find a roundabout way to go to the backyard again while mixing up with the other agents. They are thinking that this is going to work, but they see some Helga members again halfway through their run, although those members can’t see them.

“Listen,” Mark hears a static voice from one of the members’ radios, “we saw the kid there. We’re trying to follow him. There are two tall guys with a short woman and another woman who is black. If you see those people, the whore is with them.”

Uh oh. That’s not good. They’re snitching to this group now.

“Goddammit,” Horace growls, keeping his voice low still. He then instructs hurriedly, “Go faster! Don’t let them see us!”

Obviously, they do go faster, knowing that it’s impertinent that they mix with the other agents as quickly as possible.

But Lena suddenly pushes a hand at Nick again with Anna and Imani stopping abruptly. These new people happen to be turning in their direction. If Claws walked too fast and didn’t stop in time, those men would have seen them.

“You sure this lot are the ones who have our kid? We can’t see them yet,” Mark hears one of the men says to the HT he puts close to his mouth.

“Yes, I think there is also an old fat guy with a rifle attacking us before,” a person on the other side of the radio says to the Helga person using the HT, “and another really muscular guy, but not too tall.”

The static familiar voice belongs unmistakably to the man they were attacking before. Mark is guessing that man is talking about Doctor Lowe and Don respectively.

“That ain’t shit,” one man of the new enemy group spits out almost irritably, “There are other tall muscular guys and some fat ones too we saw before. These elite SWAT guys are all wearing similar clothes. We can’t tell them apart.”

Mark can palpably feel Nick sagging beside him in relief, as do the others who also sigh in relief surreptitiously.

Trying to mix up with the other agents and using the decoy team still seem to be viable options right now.

“That whore isn’t. He is wearing a deep red jacket under his vest. I saw the hood on his upper back. You can’t miss him.”

Oh shit. That’s bad. They recognize Nick specifically.

Beside him, Nick whimpers weakly, whispering ‘Oh god’.

“You need to get the rest of those pieces of shit too. They got 4 of our guys here.”

That’s really not good. They’re going to be vengeful and out for blood now.

Lena turns to lean back against the wall, breathing deeply and audibly anxious.

“We need to create distraction,” they say to the rest.

Lena waits for a while, but no one responds. They end up tsking in annoyance and frustration.

“Listen,” they start again, “See that?”

Mark and the rest of Claws look towards where Lena is pointing with their chin nod.

“Probably only few dozen meters away from the middle of this headquarter. We can all hear them, right?”

They all visibly strain their ears at Lena’s words.

Even covered by several layers of walls, they do hear other agents shooting, shouting, and running around. Mark also hears the crackling of his earpiece with so many agents trying to communicate one after another, audio relentless.

He is sure the rest of the people with him right now also hear them.

Once in a while, they also hear a booming and some screams, knowing that some explosive traps have been set off.

“You all need to keep forward there with Bel, while me and Don will go right there to the back again.”

Lena now cocks their head to the left where the unassuming Helga people are standing. Don immediately spins his head to the left almost in shock.

“What?!” he asks incredulously.

“We’re supposed to guard the backyard anyway. Might as well distract these men by going there together.”

Don, despite his head still covered by his helmet, visibly appears confused and conflicted.

Lena decides to take matters into their own hands.

They reach out a hand before the rest of Claws can process it, taking a block of chipped concrete and holding it tightly. Without warning, they throw it powerfully to the side so that it flies far out away from where they’re all hiding.

“Shit, those SWAT guys are here!”

They hear people from Helga now cocking their guns and running to where the concrete block landed.

“Come on!” Lena rushes Don.

Don falters a bit, but he finally relents and crouches to the left to follow Lena.

“Listen, you’re Bel. Remember that,” Lena says to Nick while pausing shortly with a palm firmly on his shoulder.

Nikolai frantically nods, so Lena crouch-runs again, followed by Don.

Just like with team Eclipse, Lena yells out, “Nick, come on!”  although more strained and whispery, probably to make it believable that they’re really trying to secretly run with Nick.

“I hear them! There!”

The team waits for a bit until they hear shootings, presumably from both Don and Lena versus those Helga members. Mark can only hope they’re careful enough not to get hit or injured.

After that, team Claws crouch-run deeper into the middle of the headquarter.

They keep looking down to their watches once in a while, following the structure of the building with its many zigzagging walls, basically retracing their steps before they got ambushed by the first Helga group they faced previously.

Mark hears clanging of bullets hitting some concrete and metals, and he sees the people in front of him ducking even deeper with hands over their heads. Once in a while, they abruptly pause and plant their backs on a wall—noticing some Helga people near them—so that they don’t get caught. Sometimes, they have no choice but to show themselves and return the bullets.

Mark gets grazed slightly, and so do several agents in Claws, but Nick is still unscathed. Even so, their injuries can be noted, and the more they’re injured, the less effective they are in protecting Nick.

Along the route they are using, they get more and more mixed up with the other agents outside of Claws, just as they planned before, and they hiss some short information quietly to each other while they pass those agents. Some Helga people see them, and Mark notices with heart pumping even harder and faster that there are way more Helga people than they anticipated.

Before Claws started running to the backyard for their escape vehicle, the briefing agents did say that there are more Helga people coming in than what they predicted, but Mark didn’t think it’s this numerous. He tries to hold on to the fact that the chaos does seem to successfully confuse Helga people, apparent from those members they occasionally pass by and attack.

Until a group calls out, “That’s the kid! Red jumper!”

Imani pulls Nick’s wrist to drag him away, crouching fast to hide behind some desks turned over to their sides. The rest of Claws follow suit.

“I just fucking saw the kid there before! Where did they go?” they hear again from different man this time.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Doctor Lowe hisses out.

Fuck, indeed, Mark thinks.

Even if they manage to hide at the last second, he knows it’s only time before they’re discovered again.

He has no doubt now that many—if not all—Helga people know what Nick is wearing, and there is no way their plan to mix up is going to work as well anymore.

Or at all.

“What do we do?” Agent Leonard says now.

Horace slightly looks over the desk only to duck quickly as he narrowly misses a bullet shot in their way. Mark doesn’t know whether that bullet is shot by a D.E.A.N agent, or Helga person. Whether it’s a stray bullet that just happens to be shot this way, or if it’s intentionally directed here.

Horace tsks and pulls up his visor, and some follow suit. It seems that the claustrophobic space inside the helmet is making them all more panicked and not think straight.

“There is no other way now. We have to run to the back again to get to the van. We don’t have time to go round and round,” Horace says firmly to them all. “We need to get to the backup as soon as possible. Otherwise, Bel is gonna get stuck here.”

“They saw us! They know that Bel is here!”

“Yes, Doctor, but we’re already in the middle of this headquarter and we’ve mixed up again, but clearly they know which one is Bel, so it doesn’t mean shit,” Horace explains.

They all look towards each other again then at Nick who is audibly breathing and trembling even harder while gripping the medical bag so tight. He is currently keeping quiet under his closed visor, at least.

On the other side, they hear more yelling of Helga people informing their own lot about the possible whereabouts of Nick. The voices, shootings, and hitting sounds get closer and closer to where they’re hiding, as shown by their watches too with brown pulsating dots approaching their spot.

“Give me your jacket,” Robert suddenly says to Nick with an arm put out.

The others, including Nick, look at him in puzzlement.

“Give me your jacket,” he repeats more firmly, “I need to distract them so that you can go.”

“What? How?” Agent Maxwell asks, still as confused as the rest of them.

“I can pretend to be him and go with some of you to be the new decoy team.”

He can see understanding and agreement dawning on the faces around him.

“No,” Nick says firmly while slamming up his visor, now aware of what Agent Van Hoven is planning. Nick looks furious.

“Bel… that might work. We can safely deliver you to the backup team that way,” Mark now responds, more comfortable and at ease now with calling Nick something else.

“No, absolutely not. I’m not about to throw someone under the bus,” Nick states again, even more adamant. “If I’m gonna go, I’m going together with all of you.”

"Look, they already saw you. They know what clothes you're wearing," Agent Van Hoven continues hurriedly. "We can't use the original decoy plan to just send random agents to a vehicle and drive away. Helga guys aren't gonna take the bait."

Robert peeks over the desk for a bit.

“God knows where Eclipse even is at this point.”

Nick has a petulant face. He is not budging.

"I'm the only one here with body shape similar enough to become your decoy. No one else is. Right now, we need to distract them so you can get out of here," Robert tells him again, probably hoping that technical explanation will sway Nick.

Robert's head turns around a bit to see behind him again. They're still not spotted yet, but the clash is getting closer.

"But they're gonna kill you if they find out you’re false me!" Nick hisses to be quiet, although his face looks somewhat angry and aghast by the idea.

"We can take care of ourselves, all right?" Robert tries to encourage him again.

"I made that server to save my own ass and that got a lot more people hurt," Nick argues again with a determined voice, "I'm not gonna sacrifice someone else to save myself again."

Some agents—like 1082's commanding officer Agent Imani Maxwell, Doctor Lowe, and Agent Barbara Smith from 1023—hiss in frustration, while Anna massages the bridge of her nose, whispering "god fucking dammit". Angie, Horace, and Agent Harry Leonard message their temples instead. Even Mark feels irritated and impatient by Nick's idealist steadfastness while in a dire and time-sensitive moment like this.

Unexpectedly, Robert's face softens, and he talks gently.

"Listen, bud."

His expression is without a trace of the impersonal professionalism that he had before, which the other agents still sport on their own faces. Robert doesn’t seem to prefer the same approach of being forceful and unfeeling towards Nick.

"We all signed up for this. We were given an offer to join D.E.A.N, and we took it. We're trained and paid for this."

He chuckles softly then.

"And by god, we're paid a shit load of money."

Robert's dark eyes search for Nick's heterochromatic ones, serious again.

"But you didn't. You never signed up for any of this. Not even creating that server. Did you?"

Nick still seems unsure and reluctant.

"If you need to know," Robert now has one hand on Nick's shoulder with an earnest look, "this is legit the first time in my D.E.A.N career—no, in my life—that I feel like I'm doing something useful and meaningful. Something bigger than myself."

Even with the chaos of screaming and shooting and all kinds of ruckus in the background, Mark doesn't expect to feel the same softness displayed by 1034's deputy's face, and the same hope that all of his training—his informal training with Jackson his whole life, and then his formal ones with D.E.A.N—will bear fruit. That he is doing something right, for once.

"You're the key to bringing down Helga, doesn't matter with D.E.A.N or whoever else. You want that, right?" Robert asks with conviction on his face now, "destroying Helga so no one is getting hurt by them again and they can be held accountable?"

After a while, Nick gives the smallest nod, almost imperceptible to Mark.

"You're more important than any individual agent here," Robert continues, "than me."

He waits a little until Nick looks more receptive to his sentiment and words.

"So give me your jacket, and let us do our job, okay?"

They all wait with bated breaths for a while, seeing whether or not Nick is going to be convinced, so they can't help sighing deeply in relief when Nick starts to take off his helmet, unzips his bullet-proof vest, and pulls up his jacket. He hands it to Agent Van Hoven before putting on his vest and zipping it up again while putting on his helmet.

Everyone here is already wearing similar fitted cargo pants, so that's not a concern.

"Good," the 1034's deputy says again, his professionalism back on his face.

The light-brunet haired man immediately lifts his rifle strap from his shoulder and puts it down. He then takes off his helmet too before unzipping and shedding his own vest to quickly pull Nick's jacket over his head and his body. Right after, he wears his helmet and his vest properly again, then he pulls the hood of the jacket completely out from under the vest to make sure it is visible from afar.

"This is gonna hide my light hair so they will believe I'm you," Agent Van Hoven now explains while pointing at the helmet covering his head.

“Who’s coming with me?”

Agent Maxwell crouches just ever so slightly to Agent Van Hoven, as does Horace and Agent Maxwell’s own deputy.

Angie is about to join, but Horace pushes his hand on her shoulder.

“You’re our best driver and paramedic. You need to go with him.”

Angie then nods and crouches closer to Nick instead.

“As planned before, Doctor Lowe will go with Bel no matter what,” now 1082’s commanding officer is the one instructing, “for medical protection and…” she looks slightly at the rifle slung over the surgeon’s shoulder, “… other forms of protection.”

She then turns to Horace and Anna.

“And at least either 1056’s commanding officer or the deputy too. So that will be you, Agent Basset.”

Anna nods too and follows Angie.

All of them turn to Mark without saying anything. They know automatically that he won’t leave Nick even if he is dragged kicking and screaming.

So Agent Smith crouches to Robert instead.

Since Robert's rifle is already taken off when he was wearing Nick's jacket, he now shoves it towards the dark-skinned woman.

"Imani, hold this for me. Those bastards aren’t gonna be convinced if I'm suddenly good at shooting them," he explains again to 1082's commanding officer.

She simply nods, but Nick doesn't seem to like the idea.

"How are you gonna protect yourself?!" he cries out quite loudly, earning a glare from the rest of them.

"Don't worry about it. They’re not gonna injure me as long as they’re still convinced I am you,” Robert says hurriedly, pulling out the sleeves and the hem of the jacket too, making it even more of an obvious metaphorical beacon. “Besides, Agent Maxwell, Agent Leonard, and Agent Smith are more than enough to make up for my skill. As I’m sure Agent Fernandez is too."

Agent Van Hoven turns to Nick shortly to lightly say with a wink, "And I'm pretty crafty, believe me."

Nick still looks disapproving, but the deputy pulls down the visor of his helmet, effectively cutting short the conversation.

"Pull down your own now and go."

Agent Van Hoven instructs with muffled voice to several of the agents who have their visors up. They all follow Robert’s command, then lift themselves to half-crouch. The team for second decoy is turning to the left where they’ll leave the safety of the desks’ cover and out into the open, now preparing to commence their plan and basically jump into the headquarter’s battle area, while Nick's chaperone team turns the other way.

Unexpectedly, Robert turns around again and holds Nick's shoulder quickly.

"I'm really sorry about this," he says with regretful voice.

Before anyone can process it, he turns around again, saying "Come on" to the rest of the second decoy team. It's not until that team is far enough into the actual battle area that the chaperone team realizes what Robert means.

As the chaperone team starts to crouch away slowly, Mark sees Agent Van Hoven's right arm going to his front to pull out a rectangular device, which he assumes is from 1034’s deputy’s front pocket under his vest and Nick’s jacket. Mark doesn’t think he saw the deputy holding it before.

He then sees Robert raising his arm as high as possible, and suddenly, there is a recording of Nick's voice being played really loudly for several loops before he lowers his arm again.

"Please don’t touch me, don’t hurt me, please!”

Mark is in too much adrenaline rush and urgency to get Nick to safety that he doesn't have the time to feel pissed. He doesn't have enough space in his brain to fully process that Agent Van Hoven—or anyone at all—has decided to record some of the audio from Nick's molestation footage.

"Hey, that's his voice!" he hears someone yelling with a voice that Mark knows doesn't belong to one of the D.E.A.N agents here.

"That fucking whore!"

"He is going there, I see him!"

That's his cue to push Nick and crouch-run faster with the remaining chaperone agents.

“Go, go, go!” he rushes them from behind them.

He’s desperately hoping the second decoy team is effective enough to basically draw out most of Helga people to the middle area and away from the back, because he doesn’t know how else they will survive with only 5 people here.

He might have seriously fucked up previously by suggesting going back to the middle of the headquarter and converging with the other agents, so now this is their very last plan in their arsenal.

It has to work.

***

(I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (VI) (VII) (VIII) (IX) (X) (XI) (XII) (XIII) (XIV) (XV) (XVI) (XVII) (XVIII) (XIX) (XX) (XXI) (XXII) (XXIII) (XXIV) (XXV) (XXVI) (XXVII) (XXVIII) (XXIX) (XXX) (XXXI - END)

[fullcircletactical]

CRITICAL DISTANCE COMBAT

CRITICAL DISTANCE COMBAT 1 (CDC 1)

CDC-1

 Welcome to the Basic Critical Distance Combat course offered by Full Circle Tactical Training. This comprehensive training program is designed to develop functional handgun skills within a range of zero to five feet. this is 2 days of instruction, participants will learn to effectively navigate and resolve life-threatening situations in close-quarters combat scenarios while armed. CDC takes an interdisciplinary approach, integrating verbal and physical skills to address the unique challenges of criminal assaults at a critical distance. The course aims to enhance situational awareness, social literacy, and threat management techniques.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

- Develop functional compressed handgun skills within a range of zero to five feet.

- Integrate verbal and physical skills for effective threat management.

- Enhance situational awareness and social literacy.

- Improve techniques for managing unknown contacts and navigating public spaces.

- Enhance pistol draw stroke for real-world scenarios.

- Master pistol retention shooting and weapon retention techniques.

- Learn efficient strategies for grounded weapon fights.

- Develop skills for weapon retention, recovery, and disarmament.

- Engage in realistic problem-solving exercises involving multiple threats.

COURSE STRUCTURE:

Day 1 :

The CDC 360 compressed Positions

OODA Loop Combat Applications (OLCA)

The 6R’s Frame Work

The Seven Survivals

The 4C’s Framework

The Human Vision and Shooting

Quite Eye Gazing

- Surveillance Detection.

- Managing encroachment and movement tactics.

- Task Fixation problems.

- Hostile car exiting problems (parallel and perpendicular).

Day 2 :

- The 6 R’Ss continues

Heuristic Decision VS. Hasty Decisions

The Death Loop

Cognitive Dissonance

Engaging exterior targets front, sides, and rear (live fire).

- Engaging interior targets (live fire).

- Utilizing the vehicle as cover and positional shooting dynamics.

- Exit vehicle under fire.

- Managing passengers and children.

- In-traffic positional tactics.

- Minimizing target profile while driving through ambush.

- Pushing through other vehicles.

- Optimal in-vehicle movement (modified Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu).

- Managing collisions and the Airbag Ambush.

- Oncoming traffic concerns.

- Live fire vehicle penetration demo.

PARTICIPANT REQUIREMENTS:

 - Quality holster.

- Handgun with 350 rounds of ammunition.

- Safety glasses.

- Ear protection.

- Comfortable clothing.

- Mouthpiece and cup.

- Trainer knives (if available).

- M.M.A. gloves, if you have them.

Note:

Participants must possess basic weapons-handling skills and be able to safely and competently deploy from a holster, shoot, and manipulate their firearms. Individuals lacking these skills will be asked to step off the firing line. Please come prepared with all required items and expect an intensive, immersive training experience.

 This course is physically demanding. If you have health problems, are out of shape, or have any other medical condition, you will have difficulty finishing this course. Please consult your doctor before you sign up. By signing up for this course, you acknowledge all possible risks and injuries and take full responsibility. not holding Full Circle Tactical Training or its instructors liable for anything now and forever.

[mspfirearmstraining]

How to Choose the Right Maryland Firearms Training

Finding the right firearms training in Maryland will ensure responsible carry and ownership for anyone interested in owning or carrying a firearm responsibly. The first-timer gun owner or an experienced shooter aiming to brush up their skills, finding the right program that will meet your needs is therefore something of prime importance. With so many choices to make from, a decision has to be well-informed to get the best education and training. In this guide, we will show you the key factors that can enable you to choose just the right firearms training course in Maryland.

Identify Your Training Needs               

When you know what kind of training you need, selecting the right firearms training in Maryland becomes much easier. Not all courses are created equal, and your choice will depend on a few factors:

Are you a first-time gun owner or an experienced one looking to hone some skills? Concealed carry training: Getting a concealed carry permit, or are you looking for advanced tactical training? Defensive skills: Want to learn about home defense and self-defense or personal protection techniques?

Knowing specifically what you want to get out of the course will help narrow down your choices and select a class that is aligned with your goals.

Confirm Instructor Qualifications

The expertise and qualifications of the instructors largely make a good firearms training program. In Maryland, it usually involves trainers who are best certified by known authorities such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) or Maryland State Police (MSP). Such kind of training ensures that the instructor knows how to handle weapons, abides by Maryland state laws, and contributes positively to the best shooting practices.

This training in Maryland involves firearms. Generally, the instructor should have practical experience and certifications. Ideally, look for trainers in Maryland having backgrounds in law enforcement, military, or competitive shooting. These professionals can provide real-world insights and even advance tactical training beyond what is being covered in basic courses.

Course Content and Structure Evaluation

The content and the design of the training course are crucial factors in determining whether it is the right course for you. A good training course on firearms in Maryland should include the following:

Firearms Safety Handling: Safe loading, unloading, storage, and transportation of firearms.

Marksmanship: Basic shooting skills, including stance, grip, trigger pull, and sighting.

Maryland Law: Comprehensive knowledge about the state's weapon laws, where and when a person is allowed to legally bear arms.

Live Fire Training: You will get some actual time behind your firearm on a shooting range.

You can expect certain classes to offer specific defensive shooting techniques or even home protection plans. Inquire with your instructor as to whether the courses you'll be taking will meet your goals-whether you're looking for some basic safety information or are seeking to build more advanced tactical skills.

Respect Maryland Law

If you own or carry a firearm in Maryland, your training must follow the state's legal requirements. Handgun Qualification License and Maryland Wear and Carry Permit shall have their specific distinct training requirements to fulfill the state's legal requirements.

When you are in the process of looking for Maryland firearms training, make sure that the class is certified by the Maryland State Police and fulfills all the training requirements for the permits you want to get. Many times, to get a Maryland Wear and Carry Permit, you must do some classroom instruction and live fire training. A course that meets these requirements will leave you more than adequately prepared to apply for your permits with no unpleasant surprises.

Look for Multi-State Permit Programs

Many Marylanders would like to have the ability to carry a concealed firearm in other states as well. To better serve that demand, some training providers offer courses that also qualify you for out-of-state permits, such as Utah, Virginia, Florida, and Arizona permits. These permits are affiliated by reciprocity with Maryland to ensure you can lawfully carry in several states.

If you wish to expand your carry options outside of state lines, look for a course that has multi-state permit coverage-such as the MSP Firearms Training program. These courses give you the ability to extend the places in which you may lawfully carry a handgun a great bargaining chip for those who travel often or live near state lines.

Class Size and Availability of Hands-on Training

Class size and the availability of hands-on training are two very important factors in your considering having fire weapons training in Maryland. Class size will be a determinant that can determine the amount of personal interaction that you will receive from your instructor, since it will offer you a personable way of learning, and smaller classes allow you to have more time to ask questions and improve skills.

Furthermore, courses that involve a lot of hands-on training tend to be better than those who only lecture and read through books.Live-fire training at the range really becomes much more comfortable with this handling and application of your firearm in real-world settings. Always make sure you ask the provider of your training how many hours there will be in hands-on training versus in a classroom so that you can ensure the course has enough balance to meet your learning style.

Reviews and Testimonials of Research

The only way to know how good this Maryland firearms training is by reading reviews and testifying from previously trained students. Much as past participants talk about the instruction delivered, curriculum effectiveness, and the overall experience of learning.

Look for courses that get high kudos concerning instructor professionalism, the training organization, and the success their students achieve. For example, MSP Firearms Training has been known for comprehensive, quality training by expert instructors and a high level of customer service. Hearing positive experiences from other people will give you confidence in your choice of training provider.

Convenience and Location

A good factor would also be to ensure that the training provider fits one's schedule, considering instruction might take several days. MSP Firearms Training offers classes in a variety of locations, including Brandywine and Annapolis, so there should be one near you.

Besides offering courses in the permits of all Maryland locations, MSP Firearms Training offers courses in permits for state students such as Utah, Virginia, Florida, and Arizona. This provides you with a wide range of options on where you can carry your training and expand your legal carrying rights.

Conclusion

Determine your goals, qualifications of the instructors, structure of the course, and how well the program is compliant with state laws before selecting any good firearms training in Maryland. Selection of a program that will offer you some comprehensive training and experienced instructors will guarantee preparation to handle your firearms responsibly and lawfully.

MSP Firearms Training offers a wide variety of courses for all types of shooters, from new shooters to experienced ones. With two locations in Brandywine and Annapolis and options for multistate permits, you'll find the perfect training to get you where you need to be safely and effectively.

Original Sources: https://mspfirearmstraining.blogspot.com/2024/09/how-to-choose-right-maryland-firearms.html

[ptpgunmedia]

Preparing for Maryland HQL Classes: Tips for Success and Common Pitfalls

Obtaining a Handgun Qualification License (HQL) in Maryland is a critical step for anyone interested in purchasing, renting, or receiving a handgun within the state. This process includes completing a four-hour training course covering firearm safety, state firearm law, handgun mechanisms and operations, and a live-fire exercise. Here, we provide a comprehensive guide to help you prepare for your HQL classes, ensure your success, and avoid common pitfalls.

Understand the Requirements

Before you dive into preparing for your HQL classes, it's essential to understand the requirements set by Maryland law. To obtain an HQL, you must:

Be at least 21 years old.

Be a legal resident of Maryland.

Have completed a certified HQL training course within the last three years.

Pass a background check conducted by the Maryland State Police.

Choose the Right Training Provider

Selecting a reputable training provider like PTPGUN is crucial for a successful experience. Look for providers with certified instructors, comprehensive course materials, and positive reviews. A quality provider will ensure you receive thorough and accurate instruction, preparing you adequately for the HQL process.

Tips for Success

1. Familiarize Yourself with Basic Firearm Knowledge

Before attending your HQL class, take some time to familiarize yourself with basic firearm knowledge. Understanding the fundamental parts of a handgun, types of handguns, and basic firearm terminology can give you a head start. Resources like online videos, articles, and firearm manuals can be very helpful.

2. Study Maryland Firearm Laws

A significant portion of the HQL class focuses on Maryland firearm laws. Studying these laws in advance will make this section of the course much easier to grasp. Key areas to focus on include:

Firearm purchase and transfer laws

Safe storage requirements

Maryland's approved handgun roster

Carrying and transporting firearms

Self-defense laws

3. Practice Safe Handling Techniques

Safe handling is a cornerstone of firearm training. Before your class, practice the following techniques:

Always treat every firearm as if it is loaded.

Keep your finger off the trigger until you are ready to shoot.

Never point the firearm at anything you do not intend to shoot.

Be sure of your target and what is beyond it.

Practicing these habits will not only help you in the class but will also instill safe handling practices for the future.

4. Get Comfortable with the Basics of Shooting

While live-fire training is a part of the HQL course, getting comfortable with the basics of shooting beforehand can be very beneficial. If possible, visit a shooting range and practice under the supervision of a qualified instructor. Focus on:

Proper stance and grip

Sight alignment and sight picture

Trigger control

Breathing techniques

5. Prepare Mentally and Physically

HQL classes can be intense, requiring both mental focus and physical stamina. Ensure you are well-rested before attending the class. Dress comfortably, preferably in clothing that allows for easy movement. Wear closed-toe shoes and consider bringing ear and eye protection, even if the provider supplies them.

6. Take Notes and Ask Questions

During the class, take detailed notes. This will help reinforce the material and provide you with a reference for future study. Do not hesitate to ask questions if something is unclear. Instructors are there to help you understand and succeed, so make the most of their expertise.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Procrastination

One of the most common pitfalls is procrastination. Do not wait until the last minute to start preparing for your HQL class. Give yourself ample time to study and practice the necessary skills. Early preparation will reduce stress and improve your overall experience.

2. Skipping Practice

Some individuals assume that attending the class is enough preparation. However, practical experience is crucial for success. Skipping practice, especially in safe handling and shooting basics, can hinder your performance and confidence during the class.

3. Ignoring Legal Study

Overlooking the importance of understanding Maryland's firearm laws is another common mistake. These laws are critical for responsible gun ownership and compliance. Ignoring this aspect can lead to misunderstandings and potential legal issues in the future.

4. Overconfidence

While confidence is good, overconfidence can be detrimental. Approach the class with an open mind and willingness to learn. Even if you have prior firearm experience, the HQL class covers specific state laws and regulations that you need to understand thoroughly.

5. Disregarding Instructor Feedback

Constructive feedback from instructors is invaluable. Some participants may disregard this feedback, assuming they know better. This attitude can prevent you from correcting mistakes and improving your skills. Listen to your instructors and apply their advice diligently.

Preparing for your Maryland HQL class is an important step towards responsible firearm ownership. By understanding the requirements, choosing the right training provider, and following these tips, you can set yourself up for success. Avoid common pitfalls by staying proactive, practicing regularly, and approaching the class with an open mind.

Ready to take the next step in your firearm journey? Enroll in a Maryland HQL class with PTPGUN today! Our certified instructors are dedicated to providing you with the knowledge and skills needed for safe and responsible gun ownership. Visit our website or contact us now to secure your spot in our upcoming classes. Don't wait—prepare yourself for success and become a confident, knowledgeable gun owner with PTPGUN.

Original Sources: https://www.ptpgun.com/post/maryland-hql-classes-tips-for-success

[elite-shooting]

Learn About Shooting Sport From Elite Shooting Academy

ABOUT SHOOTING SPORT

 Shooting is a collective group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting, using various types of ranged weapons, mainly referring to man-portable guns (firearms and airguns, in forms such as handguns, rifles and shotguns).

Different disciplines of shooting sports can be categorized by equipment, shooting distances, targets, time limits and degrees of athleticism involved. Shooting sports may involve both team and individual competition, and team performance is usually assessed by summing the scores of the individual team members.

Due to the noise of shooting and the high (and often lethal) impact energy of the projectiles, shooting sports are typically conducted at either designated permanent shooting ranges or temporary shooting fields in the area away from settlements.

ADVANTAGES OF SHOOTING

It is an injury free sport.

There is no age limit applicable to candidates.

Multiple problem-solving activities involving logic, creative thinking, etc. are employed to succeed in sports shooting thereby, developing the concentration levels of the candidates.

Sports shooting can act as stress buster by relaxing mind & building mental discipline

This sport builds discipline and patience which are an important key to success. Increased strength, improved stamina, elevated hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills are few of the physical disciplines acquired in the shooting sport.

ENSURING SAFETY               

Approximately 6000 shooters from age 10 to 70 years participated in the National Shooting Championships in this year. Not a single stray incident was reported, this is a testimony for how serious the safety of shooters are considered. Safe gun handling is the first and most important rule in all Shooting Sports. We train young trainees to not only hit the target, but also keep up the discipline and ensure that safety is maintained. The following are strictly followed to ensure the safety of the trainees:

The trainees will be allowed into the shooting range only in the presence of the coach or trainer.

All applicants are to go through Basic Safety Introductory Course mandatory, on which they will be assessed, at the end of the course, before being enrolled into the coaching program.

All shooters will only be taught to how to safely handle the air weapons at the beginning and live shooting will only be introduced if the coach deems the student ready.

Live shooting will only be done in the physical presence of the coach under strict supervision.

Shooters must only shoot forward direction, in the assigned lane, and at the assigned target and nothing else.

All non-shooters must wait in the assigned staging area. Non shooters are prohibited from stepping onto the firing line with active shooters.

Proper care is given during introduction and individual attention is given to supervise all safety norms are followed for safe shooting environment.

[christiangrest]

Firearms Training…Quite an Eye Opener

Training is something that I can guarantee that the majority of us lack in and should seek out whenever the opportunity presents itself. Training opportunities are easy to find and recommend to take advantage of these opportunities when you can. I had been wanting to take some rifle or carbine courses for a number of years. A variety of reasons became my excuse for not capitalizing on these training events. Now I do spend some time dry firing occasionally with both rifle and pistol. But the only organized firearm training I’ve attended have been my military training back in the Navy, service rifle competitions and concealed carry training. Never had I been to a rifle course of any type in order to learn correct doctrine in the handling of a carbine for defensive use.

So a month or so I saw a chance to register for a rifle intro course at my local range. I had this course on my radar for quite some time mainly because in order to take rifle/carbine 1 course, I was required to take this introduction course first. I did have the ability to test out if I showed proficiency, but so glad I decided to just go ahead and take the course. My intentions was to attend the course using my Brownells built Geissele DDC 10.3” SBR build using a Rugged Razor 5.56 suppressor, Law Tactical side folding stock and an Eotech EXP3 optic. My reasoning behind using this rifle setup is that it had been vetted by shooting quite a number of rounds and it’s intended use as a defensive tool. Regardless of how nice a firearm may look, one must view them as a tool that may get beat up. This rifle has impressed me ever since I first sourcing the parts and pieces from Brownells a year ago.

Part of the preparation to attend this course was a good bit of online material explaining basic safety and function of a rifle or carbine, but also a series of drills to run through to prepare for the course. The drills were also some of the same drills that would be ran and observed during the course itself. While going through the material, I quickly found out that I didn’t know quite as much as I thought I did in regards to the proper way to accomplish certain tasks such as unloading, reloading and malfunction clearing. Not to say that how I did these things was horrible, but they weren’t the proper way. This was a humbling experience…I felt like I was learning a lot of things all over again. One must keep an open mind when going through a training like this. The day of the course, we practiced the drills we were prepared for, but also shot live fire to work on accuracy and proficiency. Since this was an introduction course, speed wasn’t needed, but rather proficiency.

At the end of the course, I came away enlightened shall we say. Hungry for more and attending future classes… this is definitely my plan. The Brownells Geissele SBR rifle functioned perfectly and I couldn’t have asked for a better setup to start my training journey.

[texasconcealedcarry]

LTC Training in Texas: A Comprehensive Guide

Get you Texas License to Carry - Texas LTC with our LTC Training in Texas Texas, the second most populous state in the United States, is known for its strong commitment to the right to bear arms. The state has a long history of gun ownership, dating back to its days as an independent republic, and has some of the most permissive firearm laws in the country. To ensure that Texans are able to exercise their right to self-defense, the state requires all residents who wish to carry a handgun in public to obtain a License To Carry (LTC). In this article, we will discuss the process of obtaining an LTC in Texas, including the requirements, training courses, and frequently asked questions. LTC Training in Texas: A Comprehensive Guide Requirements for LTC in Texas - The first step in obtaining an LTC in Texas is to meet the eligibility requirements set forth by the state. To be eligible for an LTC, an individual must: - Be at least 21 years of age 18 years old now (or 18 years of age if they are active duty military) - Be a legal resident of Texas or a U.S. citizen (Texas does offer Non-Resident LTCs) - Not have been convicted of a felony or have a Class A or B misdemeanor on their criminal record - Not be currently charged with a Class A or B misdemeanor - Not be chemically dependent - Not be delinquent in paying taxes or child support - Not have a restraining or protective order against them - Complete a firearms training course (Our online Class is the most Affordable and Convenient class at $40) LTC Training in Texas Courses To meet the firearms training requirement for an LTC, individuals must complete a firearms training course approved by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS). The course is tailored to teach the individual basic firearm instructions and it must consist of at least four hours of classroom instruction and live firing exercises. During the classroom portion, the instructor must cover topics such as: - Texas laws related to the use of force and deadly force - Non-violent dispute resolution - Handgun use and safety - Proper storage of firearms During the live firing portion, the student must demonstrate proficiency with a handgun by completing a shooting test. The test must include the firing of at least 50 rounds and must be completed within a timeframe of no more than three hours to ascertain the proficiency of the student. There are many LTC training courses available in Texas, offered by a variety of instructors and organizations. Some popular options include the National Rifle Association (NRA) Basic Pistol Course, the Texas CHL Course offered by the DPS, and various courses offered by private firearms training companies. It is important to note that the instructor and the course must be approved by the DPS in order to meet the requirements for an LTC. A list of approved courses and instructors can be found on the DPS website. Frequently Asked Questions Q: Can I carry a handgun in Texas without an LTC? A: No, Texas law requires all residents who wish to carry a handgun in public to obtain an LTC. Exceptions are made for peace officers, military personnel, and individuals who are on their own property or have the property owner's permission, and in some cases spouses of people with an LTC. Q: Can I carry a handgun in my car without an LTC? A: Yes, as long as the handgun is not in plain view and is not readily accessible to the driver or passengers. Q: Can I carry a handgun in a restaurant that serves alcohol without an LTC? A: No, carrying a handgun in a place that sells alcohol is generally prohibited, regardless of whether the individual has an LTC. Exceptions are made for peace officers and individuals who are dining and are not drinking alcohol. Q: How long is an LTC valid for? A: An LTC in Texas is valid for five years from the date of issuance. When you’re ready to get your Texas License to Carry (LTC), make sure you choose a premier training provider. Conceal Carry Academy is committed to offering the best firearms training possible. When they need information on firearms safety or they want to take a Texas LTC class, gun owners trust the expertise of the pros from Conceal Carry Academy. If you have questions about any aspect of gun ownership in Texas, contact us today! Read the full article

[professor-dumbledope]

Free emergency smartphone apps for techy trekkers

While we should try not to rely strictly on technology (or anything, really, that requires electricity or charging) in survival situations, we can't deny that having certain apps on our phones can definitely prove helpful in some situations. Not all circumstances will be the same, and if you're the kinda person that keeps a full-charge on your phone (because you never know when you'll really need it!) and feel safer out in the wild with technology on your side, then this list of apps is for you.

Androids and iPhones both already come factory with some safety features you may need to manually enable, such as location tracking.

Please feel free to add to this list by posting your suggestion in the comments.

American Red Cross

Emergency [Android / iOS] // This free app is available in English and Spanish, and location-specific alerts can be set so that if (or when) they're under threat of "climate-affected hazards" (such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, etc.), you'll be notified in time so you and your family can take emergency measures. It includes a live map so you can track the hazard in real time as it's happening.

First Aid [Android / iOS] // This helpful app includes preloaded content providing step-by-step instructions for basic first aid needs and life-threatening situations; it also provides a list of the hospitals nearest your location.

Pet First Aid [Android / iOS] // This is a must have for every pet owner! It not only collects your vet's information and keeps it handy for your for emergency situations, it's a database of knowledge for determining what may be affecting your furbaby and when it's time to get them to a hospital. Similar to the First Aid version for humans, this app also provides detailed instructions on how to handle common and basic first aid pet situations.

Compass Steel 3D [Android]

Free AND ad-free, this helpful app serves as a "marine-style compass" that offers two navigational modes, one using True North and the other using Magnetic South. Also provides sun and moon positions, and tells you the times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) app [Android / iOS]

This app tells you how to prepare for emergency situations by preparing bugout bags, having an effective communication plan, etc. It also provides real-time weather and emergency alerts for any five locations you choose, as well as directs you to safety evacuation shelters nearest you. If your area is affected by a disaster, you can apply for assistance directly through the app.

iHunt Calls [Android / iOS]

One of the worst case scenarios I can imagine (aside from death) would being lost in the wilderness with no food and desperately needing something to eat. Of course, you'll need a firearm or some sort of homemade weapon or trap. But let's imagine you've considered this beforehand and now just need a way to attract some wildlife. This app has 600 hunting calls from 47 different animals. Just scroll down the list, pick the animal and then set the delay time between calls and let the rest happen as it will.

Rescu [Android / iOS]

Rescu is perfect for when you need emergency ambulance, fire, and/or police services to arrive and unable to talk for whatever reason. Tapping any of the three options three quick times will send the desired service to any of four addresses you have programmed into the app via GPS. In addition, you can store an unlimited number of personal contacts to be alerted at the same time.

Scanner Radio [Android / iOS]

This app turns your phone into a police scanner with "live audio from over 7,000 fire and police scanners, NOAA weather radio stations, ham radio repeaters, air traffic, and marine radios from around the world."

[idavidwilliams]

(Live-Fire, LTC, F.I.D) Massachusetts/ Connecticut/ RI/ Utah Multi-State License to Carry (LTC) or F.I.D Firearms Safety Courses 02/05, 02/12, 02/27/2022

(Live-Fire, LTC, F.I.D) Massachusetts/ Connecticut/ RI/ Utah Multi-State License to Carry (LTC) or F.I.D Firearms Safety Courses 02/05, 02/12, 02/27/2022

This is a SHOOTING course.   The only way to learn is by seeing, hearing and doing.  You will learn: Safe handling of several different types of firearms, firearms storage laws, self-defense laws, transportation laws and much more. . (This course completes the live fire requirement that Springfield, MA, Ludlow, MA and Chicopee Police Depts.  require to apply for a License to Carry…

[chaoticminhos]

crash and burn

pairing: han jisung x reader x hwang hyunjin

genre: angst, smut (hyunjin) mafia au

warnings: bomb explosion, injury.

word count: 10.5k

a/n: mafia jisung was requested, as was power play/fighting for dominance with hyunjin, so I combined them together to make a spicier plot >:) not very proof read

run away.

what a powerful human instinct. when put in a situation of possible danger, humans have two options; fight through it or run away from it. you’d always been one to run if the possibility came up, and your current situation was no exception.

your heart pounded against your rib cage as you ran with the little bit of effort you had left inside of you. the meeting had gone south and you received one order from chan- get back to the base safe.

being the only girl on the mission, you were the most heavily followed when your team split, aside from chan, of course, nothing was more important than capturing the leader.

you didn’t know exactly how many people were following you, but you heard at least three sets of feet running behind you. luckily for you, you were in your side of town. you knew the terrain and they didn’t.

you bolted into a dim alleyway, running through it and towards a crowded part of the town. even at night, there were bound to be people. way too many people for the people chasing you to do anything and not get caught.

you didn’t make it to your destination, though. as you ran past a particular building, a door swung open and you were dragged in as the door slapped behind you and you heard the lock click.

immediately you began to struggle. you were so damn close to safety, you were not getting caught now, not by some bastard who-

“y/n, jesus christ, calm the fuck down.”

you relaxed at the voice, but still worked to free yourself of his grip.

“what the fuck, jisung? i was almost safe in town.”

he kept his hold on you, holding your body close to his, “and now you’re safe here. and you’re with me, that’s an added bonus.”

as much as you wanted to be mad at him for scaring you like he had, you couldn’t bring yourself to keep a scowl on your face when he was holding you so close and looking at you like he was.

he leaned down and placed a kiss to your lips before taking your hand and leading you through the building and towards an exit on the other side.

“you were the only one not home yet, chan got worried.”

you laughed, “so he sent the least trained team member to save me?”

he raised an eyebrow, “just because i’m newest doesn’t mean i’m not trained well.”

you shrugged, he wasn’t wrong. jisung had only joined your brother’s group a couple months ago, but he was one hell of a learner. he picked up on firearms almost immediately despite having only basic experience with them. he was amazing at hand to hand combat, already better than hyunjin despite him having nearly a year over jisung in training. that wasn’t to say hyunjin was bad at combat, it just meant jisung was freaky good.

he cracked open a door and peaked out before deciding it was clear and leading you back outside. he seemed calm, but his free hand, the one not holding onto yours, was secure to the weapon in his waistband. it could be assumed that the men chasing you had given up by now, but one could never be sure.

it wasn’t a far walk to the mansion, not that you’d mind if it was. you had no problem spending time alone with jisung.

he wasn’t your boyfriend, but you’d say you had a romantic relationship with him. you’d hooked up with him too many times and he held your hand far too often not to classify it as a relationship. that’s how you thought of it, anyway. the two of you never discussed it.

jisung typed in the code to unlock the door and stepped in before you. you were met with the rest of the members sitting and waiting for your return. it was usual to have a full group meeting after a mission, especially one that went as wrong as this one had.

the only open places were separate from each other. so you released jisung’s hand from yours and took the closest one, which was between hyunjin and your brother, chan. 

“obviously we took a blow tonight. it was stupid of me to think we could trust them despite their connections to our enemy. i’m fine with the hit as long as none of you got hurt. still, we can’t let them get away with stealing from us. we’re going to have to retaliate.” he stood, he was referring to the thousands of dollars in the bags he’d brought to make a fair trade that ended up being stolen, “get some rest and we’ll discuss a plan in the morning.”

it didn’t take more than that to convince the majority of you to head to your rooms. you stood to leave, but jisung stopped you by calling your name.

“y/n,” he smirked, “my room?”

your face flushed at his question, more at the fact that he asked it so loudly in front of everybody than anything else. it wasn’t like what was happening between you two was a secret, but still. your best friends and older brother were in the room, for christs sake.

you nodded and made your way to jisung, following him to his bedroom. 

“can you two at least be quiet this time? if you wanna be up all night that’s on you, but let the rest of us sleep.”

you sent a wide eyed glare at changbin for his words, but jisung just laughed.

“no promises.”

you were woken up the next morning by jeongin pounding on jisung’s door to say that chan wanted everyone downstairs. it seemed he’d already came up with a plan to get the money back.

you didn’t bother to get dressed, instead just pulling one of jisung’s oversized shirts over your head and calling it good. 

you walked down the stairs with jisung and were met by a glare from changbin, “you weren’t quiet.”

chan didn’t allow you or jisung to reply as he got right into his plan.

it wouldn’t get stray kids their money back, but it would ensure that ateez, the gang who’d stolen it, wouldn’t be able to use it for anything other than repairs.

the plan was to set fire to a building known to be home to a lot of their business. it’s where they stored things and made the drugs they sold, so burning it to the ground would cost them a lot. not only would it destroy their headquarters, it would burn thousands of dollars worth of product. it was technically a government building, a law firm, but it obviously didn’t cost more than ateez had to bribe the government to let them make drugs in the basement of their building.

it wasn’t a super elaborate plan. he would just send a couple of you in to light the basement up and one of you in to pull the fire alarm once it was on fire. he didn’t care about getting ateez’s men out safe and alive, but there were a lot of innocent people in that building. 

“my target is the building,” he made it very clear, “the target is not the people.”

still, you all had permission to shoot any ateez member you came in contact with as long as you were absolutely sure they were actually a part of the whole thing, not just some unknowing employee at the firm.

“we’re going in tonight. they had last night to feel like they won, i’m not giving them a second good nights sleep.”

you all nodded in understanding.

“you’re excused. but stay open, i’ll let you know further details soon.”

naturally, you and jisung took the option of a mostly free day and decided to go to town. he never called it a date, but he held your hand while he walked you to the restaurant and let you choose where to go. he even payed for your meal. he did everything a boyfriend would. a title wasn’t needed.

you lead jisung through the small restaurant and into the back corner where you liked to sit. it was one of your favorite noodle places to go to, you’d been there enough to have a favorite seat.

you didn’t bother with a menu, you knew what you wanted. jisung didn’t grab one either. he’d taken here you way too many times not to know what food he liked. the waitress approached the table.

“can i get you drinks to get started?”

“we’re ready to order, actually.” jisung smiled at her. you noticed the way she scanned his features as she smiled back. 

“what can i get for you then, sir?”

you had to stop yourself from rolling your eyes at her flirty tone. wasn’t it obvious you were there together? as a pair?

jisung ordered his regular and you mustered up a fake smile as you voiced your own order as well. she assured you both that your drinks would be out soon and left to put in your orders, but not before gently placing a hand on jisung’s shoulder for a moment. you chose not to mention your frustration to jisung.

he reached across the table and took grip of your hand, “who do you think chan will send in?”

apparently he wouldn’t voice his opinion on the waitress, either.

you shrugged, “i’m not sure. minho and changbin maybe.” you thought for a moment, “but they might recognize changbin. he’s always at negotiations.”

“you?”

“maybe. it can’t be hard to get a girl into that place.”

jisung let out a small laugh, “that’s true.”

just then, your drinks were placed in front of you. you slid your hands out from under jisung’s to make room for the glasses. you smiled and thanked her for the drinks, expecting her to leave and get back to work. instead, though, she stayed. she brought her hand back to jisungs shoulder. she addressed both of you as she spoke, but you could tell her focus was on jisung.

“what’s the plans for today?”

“nothing really.” jisung spoke, “probably heading home after this.”

she raised an eyebrow, “you two live together?”

you were going to respond, but jisung got there before you.

“our whole friend group lives together.”

she nodded but was called off by her boss before she had the chance to respond.

again, you ignored her actions and went back to casually talking to jisung. it wasn’t long before she was back again, this time with your food.

“enjoy your food!” she chirped before walking away.

she didn’t bother you anymore while you ate, only reappearing when jisung flagged her over and asked for the check. she brought it and he payed. you took note of the tip he gave, not overly generous but not skimpy. 

she lingered for a moment before speaking as you were getting up and ready to leave.

“if you don’t mind me asking,” she was speaking to jisung, “could i get your number?” 

he chuckled, raising his hands in defense.

“oh, no, i’m sorry.” 

he took your hand and looked to you in hopes that she’d get the point.

“oh,” she pretended as if she hadn’t noticed the signs of you two being together the entire time, “i’m sorry! i didn’t realize she was your girlfriend!”

you missed the way jisung faltered for a moment at the word. girlfriend.

he assured her it was okay before the two of you hurried out of the restaurant. the second the door shut behind you, jisung laughed.

“that was uncomfortable.”

you chuckled back, “little bit.”

your hand still in his, jisung walked you back to the mansion and you spent the rest of the day curled into his side watching television on his bed. after the restaurant incident, you two decided to just go home instead of staying in town.

you were right in the middle of an episode when your phone rang, indicating that chan had called a meeting.

“looks like it’s go time.”

“y/n, hyunjin, and felix will be going in.” chan explained the plan, “felix is the distraction. he’ll be pretending to be a customer and speaking with anyone that needs to be distracted while y/n and hyunjin get to the basement and light it up.”

“why them?” changbin questioned. it wasn’t that he didn’t agree with his choice, he just wanted the reason behind it. he needed to be able to think like chan. if anything happened to him, changbin was next in line.

“it’s unlikely that anyone will recognize y/n. she’s just another girl to them. hyunjin is there in case someone does.”

and just like that, you were sitting in the back of a truck with rigged up bombs shoved between you and hyunjin. it would be too hard to get a ton of accelerant like gasoline in there without someone noticing, so chan opted for explosives.

seungmin was driving and jisung was in the passenger seat. no one was speaking, it always got deadly quiet before missions.

she car stopped in front of a big building that you recognized as the law firm and jisung stepped out to open the door for you and hyunjin. you got out, doing your best to block the contents of the car from anyone walking by as you loaded the devices into every pocket you had on you. another car pulled up behind you and the rest of the boys stepped out, including felix. chan gave the signal to go.

jisung stopped you before you could enter the building, though. he leaned down and placed a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“be careful.”

you smiled and followed the two boys into the building. 

felix split off immediately to the front desk. his task was to distract everyone as you and hyunjin found your way to the basement. his first conquest was the lady at the front desk. it was working so far, he had the desk attendants full attention and she didn’t even notice as you and hyunjin slinked into a staircase clearly labeled employees only.

it took a while for the two of you to find your way to where you needed to be, but you got there. 

the first obstacle was the workroom packed full of people that you needed to get past in order to get to the planting location. chan had showed you a map of the layout of the building and told you to pack most of the bombs into the warehouse where storage was. he had told you over and over again, the target was the product. and where was product stored? the warehouse.

hyunjin lowered his head and gestured for you to follow him as he began to cross the room. you were worried at first, wouldn’t someone notice you? wouldn’t you seem out of place?

the answer was no. it seemed that most of the workers couldn’t tell one person from another.

it was obvious that their payment for working was a cut of the product, not money.

finally, you reached two big, swinging factory doors. that had to be the warehouse.

you watched as hyunjin scanned the room to make sure no ones eyes were on you before leading you into the warehouse. 

it was empty for the most part, just a couple people. that meant that you’d seem more out of place than you did in the busy workroom. you had to be careful about being seen. you saw now why chan chose hyunjin specifically as the one to go with you, he was excellent at avoiding detection. he was trained and brought into the group for his spy work. despite his tall figure and clumsy nature, he was quiet and quick on his feet. you had to be careful not to lose him yourself.

the two of you began packing explosives into any space you could find, trying to spread them out evenly but still close enough that they would set each other off. you slowly moved through the entire large room together, one watching the others back as they carefully placed a package. you and hyunjin worked quickly as a team, yet another reason chan had sent the two of you in. he knew the dynamics, he knew who worked well together and how well they worked.

you were covering hyunjin’s back as he placed his last few bundles when an alarm rang through the building. you quickly registered it as the fire alarm. that meant felix had pulled the fire alarm. he pulled it before there was any sign of fire. 

you and hyunjin were supposed to be the ones to pull the alarm when you were finished placing the bombs. you were supposed to be the ones letting felix know when it was time to get out, not the other way around. there was only one time felix was ordered to pull the alarm, and it was if the two of you or himself got compromised. 

felix had pulled the alarm, and that meant get out, they know you’re here.

you tossed the last few bundles you had and watched as hyunjin lit the fuse to one of the bigger bombs, one that was sure to set off all of the ones near it and bring the building crashing down. the explosives looked small, but they could tear down entire buildings with enough of them, and oh boy, you and hyunjin sure had planted enough.

you allowed hyunjin to take grip of your wrist and lead you out of the warehouse and through the crowd to the exit. you were nearly there when you felt his hand leave your wrist and someone else’s arms around you.

“i thought i recognized you.”

that’s funny, you thought, because you didn’t recognize him. from his word choice and location though, you figured he was part of ateez.

you struggled in his arms and desperately tried to find hyunjin in the crowd, but you’d lost him. 

you knew the rules, if something were to happen in a situation like this, your orders were to get out. there wasn’t time to try to get your partners out. if hyunjin lost you like you lost him, he wouldn’t spend more than a few seconds trying to find you before turning and leaving the building himself. it wasn’t anything personal, it was chans orders.

you thrashed in the strange mans arms. he obviously wasn’t taking the blaring fire alarm seriously, as he made no attempt to get closer to the door. you tried to reason with him, screaming that you’d rigged the place and it would go up in flames any second, but he wouldn’t budge. either he didn’t believe you or he didn’t care. 

you managed to break free from his hold and your eyes locked with the exit. you felt your legs ache as you ran as hard as you could to get out of the building that was set to blow up any second. 

the last thing you heard was chan’s voice screaming in your ear to get out and get to safety with the rest of them before the earpiece was blown off of you from the shock of the impact coming from the exploding flames.

watching from a safe distance away outside, hyunjin fell to his knees in guilt as the boys watched the building crash and fall with you still inside.

you struggled to hear past the ringing in your ears as three men kneeled down beside you. their lips were moving, but you couldn’t make out any words. 

you tried to fight back as they roughed you around, not registering the situation. they got you onto a backboard and someone placed something over your mouth and once again you tried to fight it off, but you didn’t have the strength. 

you barely registered the change in scenery as you were carried out of the building and lifted into an ambulance. your eyes were blurry from the smoke and you swore you could still hear the alarms blaring in your ears.

the doors of the ambulance were being pulled shut when someone put their body in the way, jumping onto the ambulance with you. the emergency staff tried to push him back, but he insisted on staying.

“it’s my sister.”

you didn’t process the new body as chan. in your haze, it was just another person smothering you and refusing to turn off whatever the fuck was ringing in your ears.

you couldn’t say how long the ride to the hospital was. in all honesty, you couldn’t even say with certainty that you recalled the ride at all. you were drifting in and out of consciousness and you barely made the connection they you’d been taken from the vehicle and into the hospital building.

you felt someone squeezing your hand before they were pushed away and you were rolled into a room full of doctors and bright lights. you remembered asking someone to turn the lights down before everything went black.

you woke up in a hospital bed with your head pounding like crazy. the lights were dim as you looked around the small room, but you still recognized the boy sitting in the corner.

“channie?”

his head shot up and he made his way to you.

“hey, i’m here.”

your mind coming off of it’s tired haze finally began to register the pain coursing through your body.

“what happened?”

“you were still in the building when the bombs went off.”

you glanced around the room and, finally processing that you were in an actual hospital and not being cared for by one of the boys, began to panic.

“why am i here?”

he grabbed your shoulders and made you lay still, “EMTs found you before we did. it’s okay, they don’t know you started it. they think you were just an innocent civilian in the building.”

you calmed down upon hearing that he wasn’t angry at you for being hospitalized.

generally, you avoided hospitals the best you could. the whole team opted instead to let their injuries and illness he cared for by one of the others. it was safer than putting yourself in the public eye with questionable injuries.

chan backed away from you when a nurse stepped into the room, dragging a large cart behind her.

“hey,” she softly greeted, “your monitor showed you were awake. i need to take your vitals.”

she smiled at chan and gestured for him to sit back down in the guest chair as she checked your vitals. apparently nothing was out of the ordinary, because she smiled at you before wheeling the cart out of the room and calling behind her that she would let your other guests know you were awake.

only moments after she left, hyunjin, jeongin, felix, and jisung stepped into the room.

“the others are at home tending to injuries.” chan informed you, “none of them are hurt as bad as you.”

you nodded, heart falling when you looked up and saw the tears running down hyunjin’s face. he leaned down and wrapped his arms around you and you laughed.

“what, you big baby?”

“i’m so sorry, y/n, i’m so sorry.”

you hushed him and pushed him off of you with a wince. your entire body was sore, and although he didn’t mean to, that boy hugged like he wanted to suffocate you.

“it’s not your fault.”

you scanned the room and greeted the other three boys. it was odd to you that jisung hadn’t said a single word or made a move to hug you, or even be anywhere closer to you than the door, since they’d walked in.

you weren’t given time to think much of it before who you assumed was your doctor walked through the door, immediately turning to speak to chan.

“your sister could go home today or we could keep her and monitor her for a few more days just to be sure. it’s your call.”

chan nodded, politely stating that he would prefer to take you home. the doctor nodded before handing chan your release papers. 

you felt slightly frustrated that he wasn’t addressing you, you were an adult and could sign your own papers, but you understood why he was going through chan.

as if reading your mind, the doctor turned to you.

“would you like me to send in a nurse to help you get dressed or will one of these boys be helping you?”

you looked expectantly towards jisung, but his eyes were trained out the window.

“i’d like a nurse to help, if you don’t mind.”

he nodded kindly and lead the boys out of the room. chan left last after placing a bundle of clean clothes on the foot of your bed. you guessed the ones you had been wearing were torn up from the shrapnel and impact.

it didn’t take long before a nurse was stepping through the door and pulling a curtain over the windows to the rest of the hospital to give you privacy.

she helped you stand and step into your clothes and you couldn’t stop thanking her for being patient with you as you slowly moved your aching body. you winced as you lifted your arms above your head and let her slip a sweatshirt over your body.

you expected it to be awkward, having a random lady dress you, but she was so kind that it didn’t feel too uncomfortable.

she slipped warm socks onto your feet before helping you into your shoes and offering you an arm to help you stand. she walked you out your hospital room door where there was a wheelchair waiting for you. she gently lowered you down into it and turned to the boys.

“no heavy lifting for a few weeks and she may need help with things like showering, changing, or getting up from lying down or sitting. i would suggest keeping her in bed for a few days or at least until the bruising and swelling has gone down.” 

she continued to go through precautions regarding your health, including keeping you away from bright lights and loud sounds to prevent your headaches from getting worse. she seemed skeptical as chan declined setting up a follow up appointment for you to come back and be checked again, but she eventually let it go. she waved you goodbye as chan wheel you down the hallway and out of the building. he, jeongin, hyunjin, and jisung waited with you as felix went to pull the car up for you.

you couldn’t help but feel worried and confused as jisung continued to ignore you. he hadn’t said a single word to you since you’d woken up.

felix pulled up and hyunjin opened the car door as he and chan carefully lifted you into a seat. chan returned the wheelchair back to the hospital and hyunjin climbed in beside you.

it was obvious he felt guilty about leaving you in the building when he himself had gotten out without a scratch.

the drive home was relatively quiet. you started out the window while hyunjin held your hand in his. 

felix was careful to stop the car slowly as not to hurt you when he parked at the mansion. chan and hyunjin helped you out of the car just as they had helped you in a few minutes before and they walked slowly with you to the door and to your room where hyunjin softly layer you down on your bed.

chan left to inform the others that you were home and doing well, leaving you alone with hyunjin.

he pulled your desk chair next to your bed, taking your hand in his again.

it was hard to be upset that jisung wasn’t the one sitting there with you when hyunjin was such a sweet and loving caregiver.

“did we at least get the building good?”

hyunjin laughed, “we did. took out the whole foundation and police investigating found traces of drugs among the debris, so the corporation is being investigated.”

you nodded with a smile, “hell yeah.”

you weren’t left alone for the next few days. at least one person was always with you in case you needed something. more often than not, that person was hyunjin. chan tried to be with you as much as possible, but he had things to deal with as the leader.

jisung had yet to visit you by himself even once in the days you had been on bed rest.

you were absentmindedly playing a game on your phone and talking to hyunjin when jisung and minho softly knocked at your door before stepping in.

“hey there,” minho smiled, handing you a plate of food, “don’t tell chan but i snuck you an extra pudding.”

you thanked him and he and jisung turned to leave the room, but you stopped them.

“sung?”

he turned around, shocked that you’d called for him.

“yes?”

“can i talk to you?”

he nodded and hyunjin took that as his cue to follow minho out of the door, leaving you alone with jisung. he had been just as focused, if not more, on the fact that jisung had been avoiding you.

he sat down where hyunjin had previously been but made no move to reach for your hand comfortingly like your gotten accustomed to hyunjin doing.

“why haven’t you visited?”

“i have been.”

“no,” you tried to sit up a bit, wincing when pain shot through your body. jisung instinctively reached out to help you, but he pulled his hands away the second you were secure and leaning against your backboard. “you haven’t. everyone but you has spent time with me. you haven’t even said a word.”

when he didn’t speak, you continued, “what’s wrong?”

you reached out for his hand, shocked when he jerked it away. he stood up abruptly, “i’m not required to visit you, y/n, it’s not like i’m your boyfriend.”

you frowned, where was this coming from?

“yeah jisung, you kind of are.”

he shook his head and you were too clouded by confusion and frustration to notice the tears building up in his eyes, “we’re coworkers, y/n. nothing more.” 

really? because the way he held you at night and kissed you and told you you were the most gorgeous person he’d ever seen said different.

he didn’t give you a chance to respond, immediately leaving your room. the second he was out the door, hyunjin was stepping back in. he rushed over to you and wiped a tear that you hadn’t even realized was there from your cheek.

“hey, what happened? jisung looked upset.”

you shrugged, “i think we just broke up.” you let out a dry laugh. 

or not. he seemed sure that there wasn’t anything to break in the first place.

you missed the hint of happiness in hyunjins eyes hidden behind his sympathetic expression.

he sat on the edge of your bed, pulling you into a gentle hug, careful not to hurt you.

“i’m so sorry, y/n.”

he meant it. he felt for you, he understood how much it hurts. he understood how badly it hurts to have someone you care for blatantly ignore you like that.

still, though, jisung putting you through that pain might end the same hurt for hyunjin.

maybe now you would let yourself see him.

jisung didn’t come in your room for the remainder of your healing process, not even to drop of meals with minho. he didn’t try to see you while you tried desperately to shove down the want to see him.

it was your first day up and you were struggling to get down the steps and to the kitchen as you clung onto hyunjin, who was supporting you. 

it wasn’t so much that the injuries were still that bad, it was just that your muscles weren’t used to being used. even with that, you probably didn’t need all of the help hyunjin was offering, but you didn’t want to decline it, either.

he helped you to your seat around the big dining table, pulling the chair out for you and gently helping you sit. you mentally thanked him as he slid into the seat beside you, the one jisung usually sat in.

it had been about a week since the whole thing, and today would be your first time seeing him since then. he couldn’t avoid you anymore, and you didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. 

jisung took a step into the kitchen and his eyes went right to you.

definitely bad.

hyunjin placed his hand over yours, redirecting your attention back to him. you smiled, he was good at keeping your mind off of jisung.

chan wanted to have a group breakfast all together to welcome you back from bed rest. you knew he meant well, but you would have preferred not to have to sit at the same table as jisung for an hour.

did the news get around? probably not. why would he have told people about the break up if he didn’t see it as the end of a relationship?

well, if the news hadn’t already been spread, everyone definitely knew something was going on by the end of the meal. jisung had spoke and engaged in conversation, but not a single word he spoke was directed at you. 

you let felix take your plate when you finished and slowly moved to stand up from your seat. hyunjin widened his eyes in surprise and moved to help you, causing you to laugh.

“i got it, jinnie.”

you didn’t notice jisung cringe at the nickname. why would you? you had no reason to look in his direction if he wasn’t going to look in yours.

hyunjin let you stand by yourself, but he kept his hands out and ready to help you if you needed it. you stood and smiled at him. he smiled back, giving a few claps to congratulate your progress.

you were surprised how much easier it was to get around once you got past the initial shock of using your muscles again for the first time in a while. you were able to walk to the lounge and sit down on the couch without help.

hyunjin sat down right next to you and you chuckled.

“i’m okay, you don’t need to stay with me anymore.”

he frowned, “i’m not doing it because i feel bad.” he shrugged, “or only because i feel bad.” 

he blamed himself for leaving you in the building, even though he did exactly what he was supposed to and you ended up fine.

“i’m doing it because i like spending time with you.”

if he had said the same words any time before your accident, before you and jisung ended whatever it was you had, you wouldn’t be blushing the way you were. but for some reason, you heard his words differently now.

it was his turn to choose a movie. the two of you had been watching a lot of movies since you’d been stuck in bed, and you always alternated who got to choose. not that it was a big deal, you had similar tastes.

the day wasn’t spent much differently than it would have been if you were still stuck in bed, other than you being able to actually eat meals with the others and sit in the living room instead of cuddled next to hyunjin in your small bed while watching movies.

the sun was set already and many of the boys had gone to sleep, but you and hyunjin wanted to finish the hundredth, (not really, but it felt like it), movie of the day. 

throughout the day, some of the others had came and watched whatever was playing with you and hyunjin. felix complained about you two taking up the biggest television in the house, which he liked to use for gaming.

now, though, you two were alone.

the credits began to roll and you went to sit up, hyunjin immediately wrapping his arms around you to help.

you chuckled at him, “you don’t need to baby me so much.”

he pouted, his arms still around you, “but you’re my baby.”

his words were nothing out of the ordinary, all of the boys babied you and jeongin. still, his close proximity and the way his eyes locked with yours and the confusion and frustration inside of you caused you to process it differently.

apparently he did, too. before you knew it, he had his lips on yours as he snaked his hands across your body, careful not to hurt you.

you felt his hand run down your body and to your ass, giving it a small squeeze.

he maneuvered you into his lap, and for the first time since you’d woken up days before, he didn’t do it as if harsh movements would break you.

you liked it.

you straddled his waist, hands combing through his hair. he let out a whine as you took a fistful of his hair and tugged his head back, exposing his neck to you.

you trailed your tongue along the sensitive skin, the heat in you building with every soft sound he let out. you bit down on a specific spot and he let out a sound that made you think maybe you’d hurt him, but before you could ask, he was begging you to do it again.

so you did. you peppered kisses and bruises along his neck, unconsciously grinding your hips down against his.

he hissed, fingers digging into your waist has he stilled your movements.

“knock it off.”

a smirk played at your lips as you removed yourself from his neck and looked him straight in the eyes, going exactly against his words and rolling your core against his clothed crotch.

“or what, prince?”

with that, he had you off of his lap and your back pressed against the seat of the couch.

he kissed you roughly, and you let him. you moaned into his mouth as his tongue danced with yours. he tasted like lust and craving.

his hands crawled along your body, reaching under your shirt and trailing up your bare stomach.

“or i won’t be able to hold myself back from fucking you so hard you forget everything but my name.”

his words sent a rush through you, and at that moment, you couldn’t think of anything you wanted more than what he was offering.

you slipped a hand between your bodies and groped his clothed bulge, “then do it.”

practically growling, he slipped a hand to the small of your back and held you up to allow your shirt to slip over your shoulders. he brought a hand to your breast, cupping it and attaching his lips to the top of it, sucking a deep purple hickey onto the soft flesh.

you let him have his fun, let him admire your body and paint it full of his marks, before you decided it was your turn again.

you placed your palms flat against his chest and pushed him away from you. he looked confused at first, but you saw excitement flash in his eyes as you continued to push him back until it was his back to the cushions, him underneath you.

you rolled your hips against his as you leaned down and whispered in his ear, breath grazing the skin of his neck, causing his breath to catch.

you grabbed a hold of his hands, bringing them to cup your chest over your bra.

“tell me, baby,” another roll of your hips, another sweet sound from his lips, “have you ever thought of me before?”

his answer came almost before you finished speaking, “yes.”

you hummed, “when?”

he swallowed hard, “all the time. especially when...” he trailed off.

you hovered your lips above his, “especially when what, hyunjin?”

he let out a shaky breath before responding, and his voice sounded almost ashamed, “especially when i could hear you and jisung.”

you ignored the sting in your heart at the name and smirked against his lips, “did you listen a lot, hm?”

he nodded and you raised yourself so you were sitting up, guiding his hand behind you and to the strap of your bra. he got the hint, fumbling to undo the clasp.

he groaned as the garment fell, exposing your breasts.

“you like to listen?”

he nodded, eyes trained on your chest.

you paused your words for a moment to guide his hands once again to your boobs, whispering to him that he was allowed to touch you.

you continued, “what did you do when you listened, hyunjin?”

his breath caught in his throat as you trailed your hand down his chest, pushing up the shirt that he regretfully still had on and slipping your hand past the waste band of his sweatpants and under his boxers.

“did you touch yourself,” you squeezed his hard member, “here?” 

he nodded, too far lost in his fantasy coming true to provide a verbal response.

he made a sound of protest as you removed your hand from his pants, depriving him of the touch he so desperately wanted.

you chuckled darkly at the whine, “what a little bitch.”

that seemed to snap him out of his daze as he flipped your positions so he was once again on top, hissing his words out.

“what did you call me?”

you ignored the growing pool of wetness between your thighs, “a little bitch.”

“yeah?” he attached his lips harshly back to yours, speaking between rough kisses, “i’ll show you who here is a little bitch, y/n.” he broke the kiss to lock his eyes with yours, “and it’s not me.”

he disconnected from you for a moment to slip his shirt over his shoulders, and you couldn’t even be upset with him for stealing back control. not when he gave you such a good view from beneath him.

he stepped back, gripping your thighs and pulling you to the edge of the couch as he kneeled in front of it. he tugged your own sweats and underwear down your legs, allowing you to kick them off before he took his spot between your thighs.

he placed wet, open mouth kisses to your thighs, drawing nearer to your aching core with each one.

“god, having to hear you with jisung all the time really got to me.” he practically moaned out the words, “you sound so hot moaning for him. but i think it’ll be even better when it’s my name.”

with that, he attached his lips finally to where you’d been waiting for him.

you couldn’t hold back a moan from ripping through your throat as he sucked harshly at your clit.

not only had it been a while since you’d done anything because of your injuries, so you were sensitive, plus hyunjin was insanely good at what he was doing.

he pulled away for a moment, a string of saliva and your arousal connecting from his chin to your core, “you taste so good, baby.”

he went back in, this time slipping two fingers into you easily with how wet you were.

a hand flew to your mouth to cover the obscenely loud moan that fell past your lips, but you let it fall. the mansion was big and no ones room was that close to the lounge, it should be fine. you could be as loud as you wanted.

and with the way hyunjin curled his fingers perfectly inside of you, god, were you going to be loud.

with his skills, it wasn’t long before you had your thighs tightening around his head and body shaking as the knot inside your stomach came undone.

he worked you hard through your orgasm before standing up and slipping his pants down his legs in one swift potion. your eyes fell to his angry red member and you couldn’t have stopped yourself from staring if you wanted to. 

you let him position you however he wanted, which happened to be with your back down to the cushions again, as a thought crossed your mind.

were these feelings real? or were you just grateful for him caring for you while you healed? for taking your mind off of jisung?

it didn’t matter. he obviously wanted to help keep your thoughts off of jisung, and this was definitely doing a great job of that.

you brought your hands to the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss as he began to slowly sink into you.

the stretch was painful, but you liked it. he was much larger than jisung, and he seemed to be better at using what he had. 

maybe that last thought was just the anger and frustration speaking, or maybe it was because of the way hyunjin began to fluidly pound into you at the perfect pace, sliding himself against your walls in such a way that you couldn’t have stopped yourself from letting out the sinful sounds from your mouth.

“say my name.”

you didn’t hesitate to comply, “fuck, hyunjin, you feel so good. so, so good.”

he groaned at the sound of his name leaving your mouth as a moan. he pulled out of you for a moment, but you weren’t given time to complain before he had you turned around with your back pressed firmly against his chest and his cock buried deep inside of you once again.

the new angle let him hit places that made your mind spin even faster than it had been before, which you didn’t even know was possible.

his breath grazed your neck and he bit down right on top of one of the marks he’d left earlier.

holding you secure with one hand across yours chest, he snaked the other down your stomach and attached his fingers to your clit.

if it were possible for you to moan any louder, you would have.

with a couple more firm and direct thrusts to your g-spot and one hand working expertly on your clit while the other squeezed your boob harshly, you were coming for the second time that night as his name fell off of your lips.

“oh my god, hyunjin, fuck, you’re so big, so good.” 

praises fell freely from your mouth as he carried you through your high. those, mixed with the way his name sounded coming from your mouth and the way you were clenching around him threw him over the edge too.

you whimpered as he fucked you into overstimulation, but praises and a chorus of his name kept falling from your mouth. 

you couldn’t stop telling him how good he was, how good he felt. he deserved to know.

you swore you could have came again just from the feeling of him filling you up with his cum, fucking it deep inside of you.

he pulled out, a mix of your and his cum slipping out of your hole along with his cock,

he groaned at the sight, and if you hadn’t looked so worn out from your aching body and the ride he’d just given you, he would have fucked it back into you and made sure it stayed.

instead, he stood and shoved his cock, which was already growing hard again thanks to the sight in front of him, into his underwear.

you barely even registered that he had left the room before he was back and maneuvering you so he could clean you up.

you whined at the warm cloth against your core.

“please, hyunjin...”

he chuckled, “we’re done for tonight angel, i’m just cleaning you up.”

you whined again in response, and you didn’t really know if it was because of the feeling of the cloth against your core or as a protest to hyunjins statement that it was over.

“baby,” he spoke softly, “you gotta use the bathroom.”

you groaned, this time from annoyance and not pleasure.

he laughed, “i know, but i don’t want you to get sick.”

you reached your arms out to him, “then carry me.”

he chuckled again, but he did as you requested. he picked you up bridal style, careful as always not to hurt you, and carried you to the bathroom.

he let you do your business as he went back to pick up the clothes you two had left scattered on the lounge floor, you wouldn’t want anyone stepping in there in the morning to find that surprise.

he returned, and after you arguing that you didn’t want to shower or bath, you just wanted to go to bed, he carried you to his room and crawled in next to you.

you buried your head in his chest, and in that split second before you fell asleep, you felt safe and in jisungs arms.

you sat at breakfast the next morning in a comfy pair of sweats and a tank top that hyunjin had gotten for you from your room. part of you wished he had gotten you a sweatshirt, or at least something at covered all of the marks he’d left along your neck and collar bones, but the other part, whether you were conscious of it or not, wanted jisung to see them.

breakfast was going find until chan asked how you were feeling.

you pouted, “sore.”

jisung scoffed from the other side of the table. you wanted to ignore it, but something in you wouldn’t.

“what?”

he looked up from his food, surprised that you had called him out. he just stared at you, waiting for you to elaborate further.

when you didn’t, he set his fork down, eyes avoiding yours.

“come on,” he shrugged, “you can’t be that sore.”

you frowned, “what do you mean?”

his eyes flashed to hyunjins, who held his gaze.

“you can’t be in that much pain if you let him fuck you like that.”

you nearly choked on your food at the bold statement. 

it wasn’t like the boys, even chan, didn’t know you were sexually active, but bringing it up at the dinner table? 

some of the other boys stuttered to, apparently the lounge had been far enough from some rooms, and not others. or maybe he just got the point from the hickeys littered across both your and hyunjins bodies.

you quickly regained composure, staring at him as if you were challenging him. before you could speak, hyunjin cut in.

“maybe that’s why she’s sore.”

jisung let out an unamused laugh, “don’t act like that.”

“like what?” you questioned, eyes still locked on him.

“like he owns you. like you’re his whore. like-“

chan stood up, hands coming down harshly on the table.

“okay,” he drew the word out, “let’s all finish breakfast on our own, yeah?”

everyone around the table nodded and hurried off, eager to get away from the awkward atmosphere, but hyunjin and jisung stuck around with you.

hyunjin spoke, “i’ve been around a lot fucking longer than you, han. you have no clue what happened before your sorry ass was accepted into this house.”

it was bullshit, hyunjin knew that the previous night was the first of anything to happen between the two of you, and jisung probably knew that too, but he was just speaking from anger and jealousy.

“so, what?” jisung laughed, “she was with you, i came along and she ditched you, and the second i walk away she goes crawling back to you?”

you expected hyunjin to blow. you forgot he was a skilled liar.

he smirked at jisung, “who says she ever left me? i’ve got plenty of ways to make her mine without putting my marks on her, han.” he reached over, fingers brushing over the marks he’d left the night before, “even when she was wearing your paintings, she wasn’t yours.”

hyunjin grabbed your hand to pull you away and you stole one last glance at jisung. you could have sworn you saw something, guilt or sadness, flash across his features.

chan decided to keep the rest of the meals for the day independent, too. he would rather arguments be settled alone instead of at the dinner table, especially arguments revolving around his little sister and who was fucking her.

the next morning, breakfast was held as normal, but jisung didn’t show up. you assumed by the way no one mentioned it that chan had given him permission to eat his meals alone until things calmed down.

along with no one mentioning jisungs absence, no one mentioned the fight from the previous day or the apparent relationship between you and hyunjin.

it was like that for the next few days. meals were normal, minus jisung not being there, and days were filled with hanging out with hyunjin, whatever that may include.

you felt bad in some ways, he had been missing out on missions, which meant missing out on pay, in order to stay with you. he insisted he didn’t mind, and you knew he meant it.

plus, it’s not like he wasn’t getting any payment. chan still gave you and him your weekly allowances. it came with being part of the family.

things seemed to be calming down and you were getting used to hyunjin being the one who held your hand and kissed you goodnight. you still thought of jisung often, obviously, feelings don’t go away that quickly. but it was getting easier and every time you kissed hyunjin, it felt a little bit more genuine. you’d even continued sleeping in his bed with him, even now that you could get around fine by yourself.

you slowly lifted yourself off of his bed, careful not to wake him, and made your way to the kitchen for a glass of water.

you frowned as you noticed the light already on and voices coming from the kitchen.

you paused in the hallway to listen. it wasn’t that you wanted to eavesdrop, it’s just that if it had sounded important you would have went back to hyunjins room instead of interrupting.

“everyone gets weekly pay no matter what, jisung.”

it was chans voice.

“yeah, i know.” you recognized jisungs voice as he replied, “i just think it’s funny that you’re paying him to stay home and fuck your little sister.”

you heard chan sigh, “everyone is allowed breaks from missions, regardless of the reason.”

jisung started to argue again but your brother cut him off, “this isn’t a work issue, jisung. this is a personal issue between you, y/n, and hyunjin. hyunjin, who, by the way, you’re losing her more and more to every single day you sit here bitching to me about being in love with her instead of doing something about it.”

there was a pause before jisungs voice broke it, “i never said i was in love with her.”

“you didn’t have to.”

you decided that the conversation was important enough for you to ditch the idea of getting a glass of water and hurry back up to hyunjins room.

he groaned and shifted as your weight was added to the bed. he reached out towards you, pulling you close.

he mumbled through his sleepy state, “where’d you go?”

“i was thirsty.”

he hummed, falling back asleep almost right away.

you, however, didn’t shut your eyes for the rest of the night. you sat there in hyunjins arms thinking about jisung.

if he still liked you why did he end it? it didn’t make sense. who was he to break up with you and then get mad at you for moving on?

so there, secure in hyunjins arms, you spent the night staring at the sealing and trying to block out the thoughts that kept wishing they were jisungs.

you pouted as hyunjin packed a bag to go on an overnight trip. he was finally back to going on missions, but chan still wouldn’t clear you yet.

even if hyunjin had wanted to stay home from this mission, he was needed. it required skill and spy work that none of the other boys had, and it wasn’t something they could just choose not to do.

you followed hyunjin to the front of the house. you met only chan standing there, waiting for hyunjin.

“where are the others?”

chan gestured outside, “in the car already.”

you nodded, turning to hyunjin and giving him a kiss before he and chan walked out the door, pulling it shut behind them.

you sighed as you made your way to the lounge. watching movies wasn’t the same when you didn’t have a cuddle buddy. 

you weren’t allowed to go on missions and hyunjin had to go on this one, meaning you were left alone. 

or so you thought.

about half way through the movie, it started to sink in that you were alone. pouting, you paused the movie and made your way through the house and towards hyunjins room. surely he wouldn’t mind if you stole a hoodie or two while he was gone.

you had a specific hoodie in mind, a black one with some logo on the front. you didn’t really know the brand, you just knew that it was the softest sweatshirt he had.

what you didn’t have in mind was to see jisung leaving his room just as you were about to step into hyunjins.

you turned towards the noise of a door opening, surprised when you were met with jisung. wasn’t he supposed to be on the mission? chan had failed to mention that just because hyunjin was required on this mission, that didn’t mean it was an all hands on deck type of thing. who else was still home?

he scanned you and looked at where you were headed before scoffing.

“you don’t have to keep pretending. he’s not here.”

you frowned, “i’m not pretending anything, jisung.”

you took a step into hyunjins room, not expecting jisung to follow. he watched as you dug through the closet for that one specific hoodie. 

“right.”

you couldn’t find it anywhere.

“you’re suddenly in love with him when i break things off.”

maybe he’d taken it with him on the mission?

you glanced back at jisung, playing into the lie hyunjin had started days prior, “suddenly? nothing was sudden.”

he must have brought it with him. or maybe it was in the laundry? you wouldn’t mind that, it would only smell more like him. you moved across the room to his laundry basket.

ignoring your comment, jisung replied, “what are you looking for?”

offhandedly as you searched through hyunjins basket you responded, “a certain sweatshirt.”

he took a step closer to you, “want one of mine?” the question sounded more like a plea. 

your eyes snapped up to his, what game was he playing? 

you hated how badly you wanted to say yes.

your eyes narrowed in a glare, “i don’t want anything of yours anymore.”

lie.

“i’m over you, jisung.”

lie.

“i wish you’d just leave me alone.”

lie

“i’m happy with hyunjin.”

as much as you wanted it to be the truth, it was a lie.

and he knew it.

“y/n,” you took a step away from him when he took one closer to you, “please.”

his tone went from jealous and spiteful to begging, almost pitiful.

“can we just talk?”

you scoffed, remembering the words he’d said to you when you made the same request weeks earlier.

“there isn’t anything to talk about, jisung. we’re just coworkers.”

you snatched a random sweatshirt from the laundry and made a move to pass him, but he stepped in front of you, effectively blocking your way. he reached out and took the sweatshirt from your hands, tossing it right back into the laundry.

“y/n, just listen to me.”

you tried to move past him again, but this time he reached out and grabbed your arm to stop you.

you hated how good it felt to be touched by him again.

“when you got caught in the explosion, i was afraid, okay?”

you let your eyes meet his, “of what, jisung?” you pulled your arm from his grip, “i was the one who got fucking blown up!”

instead of raising his voice back, he kept it soft and calm.

“i was so worried that i was going to lose you. i didn’t want to get attached further and then babe you taken from me.” he let out a dry laugh, “and then, seeing you with hyunjin, i realized i’d just given you up.”

he was right. you felt your blood boil, he didn’t even try to fight for you. he ran away like a coward. 

“and i’m glad you did.”

his face fell, “you don’t mean that.”

you blinked away the tears building up in your eyes, “yes i do. i’m so happy you ended whatever pathetic excuse for love we had.”

you could practically see his heart shatter.

“y/n, you’re angry, i get that, but-“

you reached out suddenly, pounding your fists against his chest.

“yes, i’m angry! i’m so angry at you, jisung.” you allowed him to grab your wrists and pull you against him into a hug, “i’m so angry. i’m angry at you for breaking my heart. i’m angry at you for keeping me from being happy with hyunjin, and i’m angry with you because no matter how bad i wanna hate you, i can’t.”

he held you close to him, violently aware of the wet spot your tears were leaving on his shirt. the tears that you had because of him.

“i know baby, i know.” he held the back of your head to his chest as you cried into it, “i’m such an idiot. i never should have let you go.”

then he said something you never would have expected, no matter how many times you felt like saying the words to him yourself.

“i love you.”

to say he was relieved when you wrapped your arms around him would be a huge understatement. 

you raised your head and looked him in the eyes only to see that he had tears in them as well.

“i love you too.”

he pushed your hair from your face and spoke softly, almost as if he was afraid he would ruin the moment if he made too much noise, “can we try again?”

you smiled up at him and he didn’t miss the sadness laced in it, “if you promise not to break my heart again.”

of course, hyunjin wasn’t happy about the news, but he understood. deep down, he knew you would never feel the same for him as you did jisung. but he didn’t regret the time he spent with you or the words he’d shared. 

you didn’t regret it either. although it could be argued that he was just a rebound, he was much more than that to you. he held you and made you feel safe when you needed it most, and although you didn’t love him in the same way you loved jisung, you did love him.

months had passed since you and jisung had reunited, and this time it was official. he showed you off everywhere the two of you went and he used the words girlfriend and boyfriend like they were his favorite things to say. he knew what it felt like to lose you, and he never wanted to feel that way again.

he treated you how he should have from the start, how hyunjin had, and he kept his promise.

he didn’t break your heart ever again.

[downwiththeficness]

In the Bond-Chapter 9

Summary: Lilah often wished she’d never said yes to working with the Gecko brothers—usually while dodging gunfire. At no time was she regretting that decision more than when she’s hanging upside down from the ceiling, staring down a group of hungry culebras and one (1) extremely powerful sun god.

Word Count: ~6,300

Warnings: Blood drinking, Light Smut

A/N: This is an AU of my Story In the Blood, which can be read here. Basically, this fic explores what would have happened if Lilah had met up with Geckos before she met Brasa.

Taglist: @symbiont13

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Lilah wandered the familiar path, her hands stuffed deep into her coat. It was cold enough that she’d lost feeling in her nose about a mile back, and her breath puffed visibly in front of her with every exhale. Snow crunched under her boots, the air crisp and fresh. The sun glinted off the hills that surrounded her, the frozen lake to her left a mirror of ice.

Outside of the occasional woodland creature and one terrifying encounter with a moose, Lilah had been alone for the last three months. She hadn’t left the solace of the cabin except to go on her daily walk around the lake. A five mile trip, it gave her time to think about the only thing she really had to think about—the bond.

As soon as she had gotten unpacked and the internet up and running, Lilah was translating the book. It was slow going, but she had made it through her first read through of the thick tome. She’d had to purchase a second notebook with her weekly groceries, her thin scrawl filling page after page. Going over her notes was her bedtime story, translating new pages was her full time job.

It was in the second reading that Lilah could tell she was going to have some very particular problems. Clearly written by a male and very thoroughly filled with the male perspective, Lilah found herself rolling her eyes several times a day as she gathered more and more context from the words. There were whole pages dedicated to the subservience of the one bonded, the full authority of their word. As she got deeper into the text, Lilah could see why Brasa had been so frustrated with her. She was supposed to be completely tied to him, in his ‘keep and care’. It irked her that she was supposed to give up her entire life for him—that he had been taught that she would, that he fully expected her to.

No, ‘irk’ wasn’t the word. Enraged was how she felt. Lilah had an entire career, was well known and well versed in her craft.  She had a reputation that spanned across the globe. Why should she have to give that up? Although, Lilah was beginning to wonder how she was going to continue to work long term—really long term. After another fifty years, would people even believe she was still Lilah McNamara?

Immortality was not something she ever thought she’d have to consider beyond a theoretical thought experiment. Now, with the possibility right in front of her, Lilah found herself unable to make a decision one way or another. She was under no illusion that she could go back to the way she lived her life before. Soon enough, everyone around her was going to start asking questions.

Brasa checked in with her periodically, usually a text asking how she was. The first time it had happened, Lilah stared at her phone for about three hours before replying ‘I’m fine’ and setting it aside. He hadn’t taken the conversation further that time, and hadn’t done so during any of the following check ins. Lilah never initiated it, but she always replied. That was, until she’d shattered her phone screen about six days ago. A replacement was on its way, but shipping was notoriously slow in the Canadian winter.

As she rounded the final bend towards the cabin, Lilah stopped short and eyed the black SUV sitting next to her own four wheel drive truck (rented). After the moose encounter, she’d started carrying her preferred firearm, holstered on her thigh. Her hand reached for it now. There were several possibilities as to who had tracked her down, but they would have had to be pretty savvy. Lilah had used a card and id that she had made to put in her burn bag, a fresh name and backstory at the ready. No one really knew where she was, not even her partners.

Ducking down, she stepped carefully, wishing the sun didn’t glint so powerfully off the snow. The truck was running, air from the exhaust wandering upwards. The windows were so dark that she doubted she could see through them, even if she got close. The tracks from the wheels led back towards the far end of the property.  Through the trees there was an opening that led towards the main road, about three or four miles away.

Both hands cradling the gun, she flicked off the safety and let her finger rest gently on the trigger. More slow, stalking steps, the snow and ice crunching underneath her boots.  Stopping behind a group of low hedges that demarcated the boundary between the cabin’s yard and the surrounding woods, Lilah waited. Her breaths puffed out in front of her, eyes narrow and focused.

There was no movement in the windows of the cabin, the door was closed and looked like it was still locked.  Not here to rob her. Vaguely, she wondered if Seth had decided to make a visit.  He’d been working on finding a book Brasa had contracted for them to acquire.  From Seth’s near constant complaints, the effort was slow going.  Lilah firmly refused to perform any research on the project, claimed over and over that this was a vacation. Besides, she had another book to take her time and attention.

She grew quickly tired of waiting for something to happen, the feeling in her fingers slowly growing non-existent.  With careful steps, she left the copse of trees and shrubs, making her way into the open.  If push came to shove, she knew the trail and surrounding woods well enough to turn tail and run.

Moving ever closer, Lilah kept her pace slow, kept her gun pointed at the ground, but ready to fire. One step in front of the other, planting her foot before shifting her weight to take the next step. Seth’s voice rumbled in her ear…

Biggest mistake most people make is they get clumsy—fall, and you’re easier to kill.

The SUV shut off. She froze, lifted the barrel an inch or so. The door opened and Brasa stepped out. He was wearing a heavy wool coat, buttoned all the way up to his chin. She spotted his usual leather gloves and tailored slacks. Heavy boots. Gold-rimmed sunglasses. Lilah held her position, unsure.

He closed the door, his shoulders rolling as if to loosen stiff muscles. Lilah remained where she was despite the way her arms were beginning to protest. She watched him take a few steps forward, coming to a stop out of arm’s reach. His shoulders were hunched against the wind the blew lightly around them, hands pushing deep into his pockets.

The cold seeped further into her body, leeching heat from her as she stood, immobile.  Lilah swallowed around a dry throat, her hands cramping a little around the grip of the pistol. She wished like hell she’d worn gloves. The cold metal bit into her skin, a burning sensation that made her think she wouldn’t be able to fire, if necessary.

Brasa looked calm, his mouth pressed into a thin, displeased line. His posture was hunched, arms close to his body. Her eyes narrowed around the line of his ears and the small bit of skin between his jawline and the high collar of his coat. Steam was rising, a phantasmal smoke drifting upwards. Her arms dropped a fraction as she noted the way his flesh was prickled with goosebumps.

Very carefully setting her jaw, Lilah said, “What are you doing here?”

Head tilting to the side, Brasa regarded her for a moment before saying, “You weren’t answering my texts. I worried.”

There it was, as simple as could be—a logical explanation. Lilah felt her shoulders tighten with frustration. Of course it was logical. The logic of it only made her more frustrated, because she couldn’t think of a single explanation as to why he shouldn’t be standing right where he was—not when she thought about it logically.

He let her think in silence for a long time. The steam rising from his skin felt like the only thing moving between them. Lilah struggled to come up with words that would accurately reflect the ire she felt at his arrival.  She was supposed to be taking time to figure things out. She was supposed to be reflecting on what she wanted and how she was going to move forward. She was supposed to be afforded some space.

And yet, beyond that feeling was the understanding that, while Brasa could probably feel that she was physically well, he might hesitate to breach the bond to check in on her after she failed to respond to their typical communication. He had given her as much space as she’d requested, asking for only confirmation of her well being every few days.

That didn’t make Lilah any less pissed off. With a curled lip, she holstered her gun and allowed her stance to relax enough to take the strain off her thighs and arms. Curling her hands into little fists, she shoved them into her pockets to get them out of the cold.

“I’m fine,” she responded, eventually.

“I can see that,” he drawled, his expression shifting into half amusement.

That pissed her off more. She didn’t want him to be amused. Lilah didn’t know how she wanted him to feel, but amusement was not on the list.

“Well,” she quipped, “I guess you don’t have to be worried, so you can head out.”

Brasa’s mouth quirked up on one side, “Have you been reading the book I gave you?”

Lilah sighed, realizing that she wasn’t going to get out of this situation quickly or easily. He was here, and he was going to assure himself of not only her safety, but also her feelings on their bond. Efficient.

“I have,” she edged, “There’s a lot in there that I don’t agree with.”

Lips pulled between his teeth, releasing a second later, Brasa took a minute step forward, “Is that why you stopped answering me?”

The shake of her head was automatic, “I broke my phone, I’ve got another on order.” Eyes glancing behind him, she caught sight of the box on her porch, “Looks like it arrived while I was out.”

Weight moving from side to side, just once, Brasa’s attention left her and went to the trees that surrounded the plot of land the cabin sat on.

“Where do you go?”

She shrugged, “There’s a path that goes around the lake. I walk it in the afternoons.”

This particular afternoon was fading into evening, the sun sinking ever lower towards the horizon. Shadows of the trees around them stretched towards her, bringing colder air in the light that wasn’t yet dying.

Brasa nodded a little distractedly, “Tell me about this disagreement you have with the text.”

Lilah drew in a breath and held it, unsure where to start. She could talk about the way the bond tied them together eternally. She could talk about how she would be asked to be subservient, as the party bonded to him. She could talk about how she couldn’t figure out how to continue her career when the people who might recommend her for work would die long before she would. Instead, another thought took precedence, a niggling little thing that she’d found in a footnote.

“Will I really go crazy if we’re apart too long?”

His mouth opened and closed, pulling up a bit at the sides as if he wanted to laugh, but had caught himself at the last possible second. Lilah thought that she might use the gun holstered at her thigh, if he actually did laugh.

“It is possible,” he began, taking another step forward, “But unlikely.”

The book had been pretty clear. Prolonged separation would lead to symptoms that had read, to her, like psychosis.  Hallucinations, aural and visual, inability to sleep, extreme lack of emotional control, outbursts, convulsions, self-harm, physical aggression without provocation.

“Why is it unlikely?”

Brasa jerked his chin forward, “We’ve been apart for three months. Are you going crazy?”

Sometimes it feels like it, she thought. But no, she was still a rational, thinking being. Again, with the fucking logic.

“No,” she said, eventually.

He shrugged, as if that was all the answer she needed.

“Maybe it hasn’t been long enough,” Lilah commented, more to herself.

“Its been long enough,” he replied, a little heat in his voice.

Eyes falling to the snow on the ground, Lilah lifted her toes in her boots, flexing the muscle as she thought.

“So, what else in the book is wrong?”

Brasa cautiously took another step forward. They were now within a few feet of one another. Lilah could see his boots just outside the focus of her gaze.

“Not wrong,” he corrected gently, “Just unlikely.”

Lifting her eyes to his face, she glared at him, “What else is unlikely?”

He looked as if he was choosing his words carefully, “I don’t know.”

She scoffed, “Well that’s very helpful, Brasa. Thank you.”

For the first time since he’d stepped out of the car, Brasa’s face twisted in anger, a snarl sounding from his chest, “Sarcasm is not needed. We are in the same situation, Lilah. I have the same questions you do.”

Lilah’s frustration bubbled over, her hands flying out in front of her to emphasize her words, “Isn’t this a part of your culture? Didn’t they teach you about it at...at whatever correlates to school for you?”

“Yes, of course,” he shot back, looking surprised that she’d even asked the question.

“Then,” she reasoned slowly, “How do you not know what’s going to happen?”

“Because you are human!” He said loudly, just short of a yell.

“So?” She replied, her voice rising along with his, “Kate’s human. She and Richie—.”

He cut her off, “Richie is Culebra. I am Xibalban. There is a difference.”

“What’s the difference?” Lilah asked, shrilly.

At this, he paused and rolled one shoulder. His voice, when it came, was lower and slower. Controlled. “I am older, stronger. I have walked in the daylight since birth. I am a sun god, Lilah. Now that I have been released from my fealty to Amaru, there is little I cannot do.”

A kind of helpless confusion washed over her, “I don’t know what that means.”

Brasa closed the distance between them, reaching out to grasp her arms above the elbow, “It means that   we must work through this together. I have given you time, but running away will only prolong the inevitable.”

Brows drawing together, she whispered, “What is inevitable?”

“That I am yours and you are mine,” he murmured, “Everything else will follow.”

Rhythm and ritual filled his voice, sending a frisson through her body. Lilah felt physically deflate at the finality of it. This was too much for one person to deal with. It weighed on her, a physical thing that dragged at her feet no matter where she walked.

Face scrunching with the effort to hold back the strange well of emotion she was feeling, Lilah croaked, “How do you know that?”

His expression softened, mouth pursing in empathy. Lilah tried not to feel like a child being comforted. An attempt that failed miserably.

“Because,” he said as he stroked a finger down her cheek, “We are bonded”

She hissed a breath, “You keep saying that, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Brasa gave a small shrug, “For me, this is all the assurance there is.”

Shaking her head, Lilah croaked, “I need more than that.”

He nodded, hands squeezing her elbows, “That will come. In time.”

Jaw clenching, Lilah eyed him, seeing her own reflection in the lenses of his glasses, “And I have plenty of time, don’t I?”

Brasa drew in a deep breath through his nose, his chin tilting down in defeat, “I apologize for not telling you. I thought you might need time to accept it. Accept me.”

That was… a fairly accurate description of what she needed. Lilah’s entire world had shifted on its axis and all she wanted to do was slow everything down so that she could fucking think for two seconds about how she wanted to react to it. Instead, she received hit after hit of new information that so fundamentally altered her worldview that she just couldn’t take anything more.

Warily, she asked, “Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”

He shook his head in the negative, “I don’t think so.”

Her eyes narrowed, “You don’t think so, or you don’t know?”

Brasa paused for a long moment. Lilah watched him think, her attention diverted periodically by the little wisps of steam that were curling around his ears.

“I believe you have all the relevant information I could confidently give you right now.”

How very diplomatic, Lilah thought wryly.

“The book talked about...submission—that I would have to submit to you,” she edged around the subject she most wanted to clear up.

Brasa’s head tilted to the side, “Ah, there is that.”

Lilah blinked, her jaw clenching as she waited for him to continue. She resented the little smile that threatened to bloom on his pretty face, resented that he didn’t appear to be taking it seriously.

“It is mostly cultural. As the elder in the bond, I would typically be tasked with leading our household. I have taken measures to ensure that you have as much choice as possible, But, when we are among my people, they will look to me to make the decisions for us.”

Her mouth thinned, “I don’t think I like that.”

Brasa shrugged, “I cannot change what has been true for centuries.”

She shifted on her feet, uneasy with the information, then, “Am I really going to live forever?”

He breathed in, the rays of the dying sun catching against his skin and illuminating his face in amber and gold, “You will live for a very long time.”

Tears formed, she blinked them away, sniffing, “I don’t think I like that.”

Gloved fingers touching her cheek, he whispered, “In this, I can’t give you a choice. I am sorry.”

The words hung between them. Lilah’s chest clenched in helplessness, unable to make this one decision—the most important decision—in her life. Everything was changing, had changed, and no amount of thinking could take her back to the place she was in a little over a year ago. Still, she struggled with how to move forward in this strange, new world.

“Let’s go inside,” he prompted suddenly, turning her gently to guide her towards the house, “Its cold.”

Lilah rolled her eyes, “Its Canada in January.”

“Still,” he responded, his voice tinged with an odd strain, “The cold is not my preference.”

Lilah supposed that it wouldn’t be. A sun god would naturally prefer fire and heat. She made a mental note to ask him, when they warmed up, how that worked. Was it a moniker? Did he have special sun god powers? Would he show her, if he did?

Walking with her up the stairs, Brasa stumbled a bit, but righted himself almost immediately. She glanced at him sideways, following his gesture towards the lock on the door.  Lilah reached into her pocket and pulled out the key ring for the cabin. A single key hung from a little kitschy wooden maple leaf that swung daintily as she unlocked the door.  

Inside, she pulled off her jacket and scarf and threw them over the back of the couch. The fire she kept going every day was, thankfully, gas. It took little to no effort to get it roaring again, the heat wafting out to fill the room. She stared at it for a few moments, then pushed her hands into her thighs to stand.

Brasa remained near the doorway, unmoving.  His skin looked strangely pale, his jaw set in such an odd way that Lilah felt her brows come together in confusion.

“You okay?” She asked, even as she took a step towards him, her hand outstretched.

He didn’t say anything. Just...stood for another moment, and dropped to the floor in a heavy, unbroken fall. Lilah felt her throat constrict around a shout as she rushed over. She pushed at his body, maneuvering his bulk so that he rested on his back. Tearing off his glasses, Lilah patted his face, trying to rouse him. His skin was ice cold, frigid even as the room began to warm around them. She’d never felt him cold before, not once.

Leaning down, she rested her ear against his chest. Nothing. No breath moved in or out of his body. Shaking, Lilah rose up and gave him a once over. He looked...dead. By all appearances and by all measures of normal functioning, Brasa was laying on the floor of the cabin, dead.

She didn’t know what to do. Lilah had no fucking idea what to do. Shoving her body upwards, she tripped over to the dining room table and grabbed her notebooks, thumbing through the pages. The book contained an entire (mind-numbingly boring) section on formal bonding contracts for major families—there had to be something here about treatment for heat loss. That was her best guess as to what this was.

Desperate for answers, she tore several pages as she went through them, until she found where she’d written out the words ‘magical first aid?’ in the margins. Eyes scanning the pages, Lilah read over the section a few times.  In cases of injury, blood could be used to treat wounds, bonded blood being the most effective. Lilah looked at him over the edge of the page.  He still wasn’t moving.

“Magical first aid, it is, then,” she breathed, setting the notebook on the table and returning to his side.

On her knees, Lilah ran a shaking hand down his chest, unnerved by the cool body beneath the fabric of his shirt. He needed to get warm. She calculated the distance between where he lay and the fire burning merrily in the hearth. This was going to be a real bitch.

It took several minutes of grunting and cursing at how fucking heavy he was, but Lilah managed to get him within a few feet of the fire. She told herself that this was definitely not a stalling tactic. He’d wake up easier if he was warm. Maybe. Possibly.

Hovering once more over his lifeless body, Lilah tried to figure out how she was going to do this.  He’d always initiated the blood exchange—the knife...She patted her hands over his pockets, finding the little pocket knife he kept on him. Delicately, she flipped the blade open.

Heart in her throat, Lilah rolled up the sleeve of her arm and pressed it to her skin. Lips peeling back, she tried to force her hand to press harder, to break the skin deep enough that he’d be able to get more than a few drops. Lilah, it turned out, was a bit of a coward.

Feeling her eyes burn angrily, she dropped her arms and looked at him. He was pretty much dead and she couldn’t even give herself a little cut to potentially save his life. The disappointment and self loathing that she was pretty good at keeping at bay rolled over her in an ugly, sad wave. She continued to stare at him, her chest tight. He’d done everything she’d asked him to do—she asked him for secrecy, he gave it. She asked him for time, he gave it. He hadn’t even really asked for her to help him in this moment, and she couldn’t bring herself to give it. Selfish little coward.

Taking a deep breath, Lilah moved a little closer, her eyes catching a very slight movement behind his lids.

“Hey,” she called out, tapping the sides of his face lightly, “Hey. Please wake up.”

He didn’t respond, but his head tilted into her palm as she touched his cheek. His skin felt warmer, that was good. Maybe she wouldn’t have to pull a Buffy after all.

“Brasa,” she urged, “Wake up.”

He turned his head further and inhaled against her palm, his eyes opening to slits of nothing but black. His fangs peeked out from his parted lips, more warmth seeping from his skin. Lilah’s heart beat quickly in her chest, the faint relief at seeing him awake overshadowed by how he wasn’t saying anything. He looked unfocused, half conscious, as he blinked lazily at her.

“Are you okay?” she asked, ducking down a little to catch his eye, “The book says I’m supposed to give you blood if you’re hurt.”

No answer. He looked at her, much as he had done that first night, all soft, tender awe that in any other situation might have been off putting to her. Lilah swallowed and started to pull her hands away from his cheeks. He caught one and yanked hard. Off balance, Lilah fell into his chest with an audible exhale. Before she could make any attempt to right herself, Brasa rolled her beneath him.

In the few times they’d been this close, he had made an effort to keep from putting too much of his weight on her, always allowing her space and leverage to get free if she wanted. This was not the case as he pressed her into the unforgiving floorboards. A quick glance to the knife in her hands, and then it was clattering away. Lilah did her best to keep calm, but his unfamiliar behavior made her cautious. His expression was relaxed, and he didn’t look like he was going to hurt her, but he hadn’t said anything. It was his silence, more than anything, that made her reach out and touch him.

She traced along his jaw with two fingers, searching his eyes for some clue that he knew who she was. Still no words, but he nipped at the pads of her fingers with sharp teeth, smiling a little when she squeaked and pulled them back into the safety of her chest. Dropping to his elbows, he nosed at her neck, inhaling. His chest squished her hands between them, air pushing down into his belly.

“Brasa,” she tried again, “You have to tell me what happened. Are you alright?”

Elbows on either side of her, he kept nuzzling at her neck and beneath her jaw, drawing in deep, hungry breaths. Lilah set her palms to his collarbones and pushed as forcefully as she dared. He rose up marginally, nose tracing over her cheek and over towards her mouth. He breathed her name, kissing her once gently before diving in for a harder, deeper kiss.

Lilah gripped his shoulders, the heavy coat crumpling in her hands. The slingshot of emotions she’d just been through had nothing on the deep seated pleasure she felt as he slid his hands down to her thighs and pulled them up and over his hips so that he could lay more comfortably atop her. His mouth was soft, contrasting with the scrape of stubble on his chin and cheeks.  Lilah moaned quietly as he traced the seam of her lips with his tongue in a slow tease.

Lilah had forgotten how much she liked kissing him in the last three months. She had also forgotten how the sweet taste of venom would color their kisses, how it zinged over her tongue and the inner lining of her lips, leaving them warm and tingling. She had just enough brain power to be relieved that he’d said her name, knew who she was, before all she could focus on was how good he felt against her.

Brasa nipped at her, catching her lower lip on a fang. The skin split open so cleanly that it took the sting of his tongue laving over it for the implications to even register. He sucked on the small wound, eyes closed, a happy little growl rumbling in his chest. Lilah felt herself smile even as he resumed the kiss. He was adorable even while delirious.

They’d practiced some with getting around the sharp points of his fangs, but Lilah had not yet mastered  it.  She felt one prick her tongue as she slid it along his, could taste the blood almost immediately. Above her, Brasa groaned and pulled away for half a breath before he was returning to the kiss and sweeping his own tongue into her mouth eagerly.

He was diligent in gathering every drop of blood, alternating between giving soft little pecks and enticing her into deep searching kisses that left her more than a little lightheaded. And, when she turned  her head to draw in a much needed breath, he mouthed along her jaw and down the column of her throat, sucking hard on the skin at her pulse point.

Lilah carded one hand through the short hair at the back of his head, pulling on it lightly when he placed his teeth against her skin, pausing in question. She tilted her head back to give him more access, arching into the heavy weight of his body.

Under his bulk, Lilah had little to no leverage to move, her body sinking further into the floor. She surprised herself by how much she liked the feeling. His arms wrapped around her securely, pulling her up and into his chest even as he held her down.

He’d grown hard as they kissed, his erection heavy behind the fly of his slacks. Lilah rolled her hips up into it, enjoying the surprised sound of his moan against her neck. He might be the elder in this relationship, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have any power. To prove the point to herself, Lilah swiveled her hips against him in another slow grind, her breath catching when he followed the motion.

Without much more preamble, Brasa sank his teeth into her. She sucked in air, her eyes squeezing closed in response to the pain. The hand in his hair closed to a fist, and he growled. The vibration of it rolled over her, down to her bones. And then the venom was hitting her system. The muscles of her face, her arms, her chest, and legs all began to relax as her heart pumped it through her extremities. Arms flopping onto the floor next to her body, Lilah let out a relieved breath.

He drank greedily from her, his mouth flexing with each swallow. One hand kept her head still for him while the other roamed her body, grabbing handfuls of her hips and ass. Lilah felt her eyes roll back, a kind of wailing moan ripped from her throat as her body bowed up beneath his weight. Brasa shoved his hand underneath her, pulling her up with inhuman strength as he sat back on his heels.

A surge of adrenaline moved through her, giving Lilah enough energy to grip his biceps in an attempt to remain upright. She needn’t have bothered. Brasa let go of his bite, shifted his grip, and pushed to his feet. She dangled helplessly in his arms as he took two steps, dropping heavily onto the couch.

There was a clarity in his gaze when he looked at her, now. She tried to form words, but she felt like she was going to crawl out of her skin. Every brush of her clothes, the heat of the fire at her back, the heat of the male pressed all along her front, even the throbbing ache at her neck—all of it swirled together into one unending loop of feeling that kept her just below the threshold of functioning.

She tried to catch her breath, barely sitting upright, most of her weight leaning on the broad expanse of his chest. Brasa wrapped an arm around her hips, his free hand patting his pockets. Lilah laid her heavy head on his shoulder her hands wandering underneath his coat. Fuck, but she loved the feel of him. All of that strength wrapped up in sinewy muscle and otherwordly heat. She needed more of it.

Rocking a little from side to side, Lilah spread her knees wider to get a little more friction. She could feel how wet she was, her body swollen with the need that was making itself ever more apparent. Fingers curled into his shirt, Lilah ground down on him, eliciting a choked groan.

“The knife,” he bit out, “Where is it?”

Lilah’s head lolled to the side as she flung an arm out, “Somewhere over there.”

She congratulated herself on how coherent that sentence was, especially given how focused she was on getting the angle between them right so that she could have the orgasm her body was desperately asking for. Her hips circled, using the seam of her jeans to drag over her clit. It was so, so good. But, it wasn’t enough to get her there.

Beneath her, Brasa visibly struggled to keep on task. He pulled off his gloves, throwing them to the floor. Then, he was shrugging one arm out of the sleeve of his jacket. Lilah leaned back a little, bracing her hands on his stomach as she gave another experimental shimmy. She whimpered, her chin dropping. Much, much better. At this angle, she could glide over the whole length of him, from the base to where he was straining up towards his waistband.

He hissed, eyes shut, brows together, his hands gripping her hips hard enough that she felt the first bloom of pain. Lilah took advantage of his gasp, kissing him roughly. She sucked his lower lip into her mouth, biting down a little more harshly than she intended. He didn’t seem to mind, if the way his hips jerked up to grind against her was anything to go by.

Pulling away, Brasa held her chin and forced her to look at him, “Took too much. Need to give you some.”

Through her muddled thoughts, Lilah rebelled, “Uh uh, need you first.”

She tried to kiss him again, whining when he leaned away with a shake of his head.

“Blood first, then you can have whatever you want.”

She pouted, trying to dislodge his hands so that she could get at his mouth. When he held her still, when his arm turned to steel as he held her hips immobile, she found herself begging, “Wanna come. Then, blood.”

He chuckled, his voice affectionate and not a little chiding, “If I let you come now, you’re going to pass out.”

At this, Lilah rolled her eyes, “Big talk.”

She, perhaps, knew better than to taunt him. Possibly, it was the venom running rampant through her. Possibly, it was the shock of having him so close after such a long absence. Possibly, Lilah was just the kind of person to goad powerful, immortal beings to get what she wanted. At any rate, she felt her heart miss a beat as he stilled beneath her, his eyes narrow.

With brusque movements, Brasa uncuffed his sleeve and rolled it back, biting into his wrist messily. He guided her to the side, her head turned almost uncomfortably so that she could seal her mouth over the wound.

Like the last time she’d done this, Lilah almost wished she hadn’t. He was so goddamned sweet. Every swallow was tainted with sugar, the aftertaste hinting at copper. Brasa held her there until he was sure she’d stay. And then he leaned over where he’d bitten her and gently laid his teeth over the mark. He didn’t bite, didn’t reopen it. Just laid his teeth there, fangs giving a gentle push.

It took several long seconds for Lilah to realize that he was giving her another dose of venom. When the rise of the second wave began, the first wave having never fully receded, she felt her entire body twitch, nearly unseating her. Eyes closed, everything in her both relaxed and contracted at the same time.

Head tilting back, Lilah let him go, her body fully supported by his arms as he eased her over and to the side. She swallowed, drawing the last bit of him down, a gasp already building in her lungs. She felt nearly lifeless, and too alive at the same time, her limbs out of her control. Pleasure coasting along every neural pathway only to be answered by ecstatic nerves.

Brasa shushed her gently, leaning over her on all fours, “Do you need something, querida?”

Lilah had just enough sense to sneer up at him. He laughed, dropping to one elbow and touching her cheek softly. She tried to lift up to get a kiss, but he turned his hand to hold her down with gentle pressure on her throat. Then, he slid that same hand down the center of her body to rest on her belly.

Mouth next to her ear, he whispered, “Tell me what it is that you want. I will give it to you.”

Lilah struggled to form words, her mind consumed by the feelings crashing over her. She took great, heaving breaths—coffee and caramel. Fuck, but she loved that smell.

He pushed his fingertips beneath the fabric of her shirt, tracing the sensitive skin beneath her belly button. Lilah shuddered, her hands clenching the pillow beneath her head.

A kiss to her cheek, soft and chaste, “Tell me what you want, Lilah. Tell me, so that I can give it to you.”

She writhed. Wordless sounds melted from her lips, tainting the air between them with need. He watched her with a hot gaze, his body still except for the occasional tremor.

“I need,” she rasped, swallowing around a dry throat, “To come. I need it.”

As if a cord within him had snapped beneath the pressure of his patient waiting, Brasa dropped his stance a little and rotated his hand, pushing beneath the waistband of her jeans. Lilah might someday feel shame for how little it took—just the brush of his fingers, really—before she was coming. Arching upwards, her head flung back, her mouth open in a silent scream. It wracked her. It shattered her.

And, before it was even close to over...Lilah lost consciousness.

[godsofmonster]

Bangtan MC ≽ IV.

Reader x Bangtan- Motorcycle Club

Word Count- 8.9k

Warnings- sexual content, death, murder, guns, drugs, violence, betrayal,  mentions of suicide, mentions of rape, etc.

For as long as I can remember back, I always wanted to be in a motorcycle club. Since I was six years old, the only thing on my mind was getting my hands on a Harley and a cut. I was a wolf, a wild cur, cut from the pack with bloodstained on my fur. Every wrong has marked a debt because a beaten dog never forgets.

My foot tapped against the pavement while I kept shuffling in my seat. The surrounding tables were empty, despite it being lunchtime. I could see over the balcony from my place at the table. My eyes watched down the street for any oncoming cars. I played with the glass of water in front of me, swirling the straw and knocking the pieces of ice against the rim. 

"(Y/n)?" 

I caught a glimpse of his figure from the corner of my eye. I immediately rose to greet him but hit my knee on the metal edge in the process. The feeling tickled my bone and shot down my leg.

I attempted to groan quietly but could not mask the injury in my expression. 

"Are you alright?" 

I felt his hand on my shoulder as I leaned over in pain. Great first impression, I thought. 

"Yes, I'm fine," I replied, sucking up the pain and standing straight. When I turned to look at him, I was taken back by a pair of dark eyes. A set of thick black brows hung over his eyes, matching a head of full black hair cut short on the sides. His skin was tan and his jawline was cutting, I didn't expect him to be so young. 

"Anthony Romero," He said gently, offering his hand out for me to take in a greeting. 

I held his hand and couldn't help but stare at how attractive he was. "Please, sit."

I looked down to take my chair, being wary of the edge of the table, before seating myself. He took the opposite seat across from me, allowing us a moment to settle before speaking, 

"Well, you certainly look the part," He joked lightly, trying to break the tension between us. 

I looked down at what I was wearing. It was a rendition of what I had been wearing this entire week; dark-colored jeans, a Guns and Roses t-shirt, and my leather jacket. It was definitely a 180 to his city boy outfit. 

"I haven't had time to go shopping," I replied, stiffly. Even though, my current style was simply a more mature version of this. 

"Have you looked through the-" He took the menu in his hands, speaking casually. 

"I'm not very hungry." I cut him off fairly quickly. I didn't mean to be rude, however, I was uncomfortable being seen in public. 

I had advised him beforehand, that meeting, and staying out of Blackburn would be the best idea. The town could recognize an outsider from a mile away. In my opinion, the next town over was not far enough. "I'd like to say something first before we begin," 

"Of course," He set the menu down and gave me his full attention. 

There was a switch in his head that brought him from casual to business. I could see it on the night of his eyes. It was almost intimidating.

"I've been working with the DEA for three years, this job has given me a sense of moral direction- if you will," I said, hoping for him to understand where I was coming from. "I've had to leave this life behind a long time ago. I literally left everything here in California."

Romero watched me intently, his eyes searching my being for any signs I could give off. He read my body language, how tense and worried I was. 

"I can still leave all of this behind, but I can not- will not let this club die."

He sighed at my words, sinking back in his seat, as I continued,

"I want to help you take down the Camilo Cartel, but I need to know that our investigation isn't going to hurt the MC."

"(Y/n) I understand your relationship with the club, but you said it yourself, you haven't had a connection to them in seven years." I grabbed my drink, taking a sip of the cold water as I felt my body heat with emotion. "Bangtan has been on ATF's radar for years. They aren't a Robinhood club anymore- they're a gang. One that's been dealing arms to gangs all over California."

"We aren't ATF," I told him bluntly. 

He looked at me severely offended. I knew what my words sounded like to his ears. I had looked at him in the eyes and told him I didn't care. 

"You want us to cut a deal with the club?" He scoffed at the idea. "You know they'd never take it."

"No, I want you to make a deal with me," I tried not to sound demanding, but I needed to be honest with him if this was going to work. “Nothing I say about this club can be used against them.”

"You had a deal," He snapped. He didn't have to raise his voice to make me feel his rage. I could see it in his gestures, the fire burning in his eyes. "Don't forget, you came to work with us so you wouldn't serve a ten-year sentence for heroin possession."  

"The deal was I helped the DEA put away a shot caller," Back when I was shooting up heroin nearly twice a day, I had grown close to a high ranking gang member, who was part of a large network of dope dealers. "I came to work afterward because it was the only good thing I had ever done with my life."  

His stare only became more troublesome. I sighed to myself, also leaning away from the conversation. "I understand if you can't make me this deal. But then, I need you to fire me and find another way to get to the Cartel. I'm not going to destroy this club or let them destroy themselves."  

"You think you can save them?" He asked as if I was filled with senseless hope. 

"If they don't taste this drug money, I think we can," I was stubbornly hopeful.  

"The DEA just wants the Cartel. As long as you help us through the information from Bangtan, we won't prosecute them." Agent Romero stood from his chair and pulled out his phone. "I'll make the call and get you the paperwork."

I could finally breathe easy once he stepped away to make that phone call. Bangtan could never understand my situation, why I would be working with the DEA in the first place. It was everything our lifestyle preached against. We were anarchists. 

Emma Goldman said,

Anarchism stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion. The liberation of the human body from the coercion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government. It stands for a social order based on the free grouping of individuals. 

That's what Bangtan was supposed to represent and it did, a long time ago, before it knew the payment of sin. When your life is moved off the social grid, you give up on the safety that society provides. On the fringe, blood and bullets are the rules of the law and if you have convictions, violence is inevitable. When you take action to avenge the ones you love, personal justice collides with social and divine justice. You become a judge, jury, and god. Some people cave under the weight, others abuse the momentum. But the true outlaw finds the balance between the passion in their heart and the reason in their mind. 

Bangtan was lost under my father's leadership. I didn't realize that until I was gone from his side. I hated to admit that maybe, under Namjoon, the club could find their way back. I just had to make sure that happened.

"I'll have the paper ready for you later tonight," Agent Romero said, returning to the table. He pulled the chair out for himself, "I'm hoping to just go over some basic information with you for right now." 

"Alright," I would still be mindful of the information we discussed, nothing would be set until I signed those papers.  

I moved into the front of my jacket, taking hold of a pack of cigarettes that I regretted at the moment of purchasing, but now was grateful for. Romero remained with his phone in his hands, looking through images that I couldn't make out from my seat. 

"As of right now, the number of members in the club is unknown to us. However, we think it's somewhere between twenty-five to thirty." He said, his eyes still trailing over the screen. I pulled out a square from its tight pack, arranging it between my dry lips and flickering my zippo lighter. Romero reacted to the sound, his eyes finding their way to me but not daring to say anything against it. "Of course, there are the eight members who are at the head of the table as of right now- well, seven now,"

He stammered over the sensitive information. Romero looked over my expression for any sign of discomfort. The only thing he found was the nicotine leaving my mouth in smoke form. "Bangtan was established in 1987, all of the original founding members are either in prison or dead. They are what is identified as part of the 1% of motorcyclists that practice in criminal activity for a living."

That was something that Bangtan wore as a patch on their cuts. The 1% patch referred to a comment by the American Motorcyclist Association, that 99% of motorcyclists were law-abiding citizens, implying the last one percent were outlaws. "According to ATF reports, Bangtan established a direct line to a secret Russian group that dealt with firearms. Despite constant observations and raid attempts, they've never been able to catch them with a large possession of illegal firearms."

"Bangtan doesn't cross their money streams, the bar is a legitimate business. They have a separate location for their illegal activity." I said to him. 

They learned that the hard way. The only thing you would find in the bar is watered down alcohol and burner phones. 

"They built a compromise with the Pure Brotherhood fifteen years ago, to keep the drug trade out of Blackburn." My father knew what drugs could do to a person. He didn't want me, or any of the youth in the town to grow up knowing that trouble. 

"Until now," Agent Romero placed his phone on the table and sighed. He knew my words were true and that things were about to get much worse. 

"You have to know, as well as I do, that Bangtan joining the Cartel is a matter of when- not if." I did know. I just didn't want to admit it. "If it comes to supporting a neo-nazi group, who are preparing for the great race war- or an organized, billion-dollar trade. The option is pretty clear to me." 

Romero was right. Supporting a racist organization was never something the club appreciated. It was bad business and the Camilo Cartel was the perfect way out of it. 

"The club knows how commanding Camilo will be. They won't give in without some kind of backlash of other members." I said, hoping that was enough to stall them. 

He didn't seem very convinced by my reasons as a waitress came by with a glass of water for him. He thanked her and ordered something for himself that I didn't quite hear. 

"For you?" She politely smiled at me. I waved her off with a hand gesture, trying to be as pleasant as I could. 

We observed her leave the balcony to place his order. Romero set the notes of his phone away and began to ask me questions.

"What can you tell me about the local law enforcement?" There wasn't much to say.

"They obviously don't appreciate the sense of authority the club has over the town. But they have let a few things slide from time to time." I took another drag, a deeper one than before. "Are they going to assist in this investigation?"

"We'll have to let them know so that they don't interfere with anything." It was just courtesy but I didn't trust the Blackburn police. Bangtan would definitely have cops who were on their side. 

"How is your relationship with the current members?" A combination of the question and the nicotine made my hand tremble.

"I went to school with some of them. They're rather polite to me because of my father." I'm sure he wanted more detail than that. 

"What about your step-brother? Namjoon Kim?" 

"It's complicated," I said growing sick of the cigarette in my hand, tossing it to the floor. 

"Can you get close to him?" I looked Romero in the eyes and knew what his words meant. 

However, with our history, his words took on a whole other meaning in my head. A twisted smile appeared on my lips. 

"Yes, I can." 

-

After I met with agent Romero, I retreated to my crappy motel. I sat on my standing Harley in the parking lot and dreaded entering the depressing space. Then I recalled the comment Romero had made about my outfit. I decided against entering, taking his advice, and putting my father's money to good use. 

I left my bike parked at the motel and went on foot to the nearby boutique shops. I might have been raised by bikers, but I liked to think I still had decent taste in fashion. At least, when it comes to dressing myself, I'll wear anything as long as I can put my leather jacket over it. 

I stared at the racks filled with hanging clothing, the colors arranged in no particular order, made me feel discouraged. There was nothing but low-cut blouses that would slip off the second I hit 20 miles on my bike. I was pleased to find pants that weren't ripped or acid dipped. This particular store also had a fine selection of vegan leather. It wasn't as nice as real leather, but it was certainly cheaper. 

"Hey, (Y/n)." 

I didn't recognize the male voice at first, but when I turned around, I was greeted by a sunny smile. Hoseok was standing a few feet beside me, and Yoongi was just behind him. "Doing some shopping?"

"Uh, yeah," I responded, placing the brown leather jacket in the pile of clothes I had already picked out. I turned to face them a little more before asking, "What are you guys doing here?"

I specifically referred to the fact that this was a female boutique. The two of them looked humorously out of place in their leather cuts, standing in the small, soft-colored store. 

"His sister's back in town," Yoongi responded fairly bored. 

"I wanted to get her something," Hoseok explained further. I assumed he had dragged Yoongi along for some reason. "But honestly, I have no idea what to look for."

Hoseok looked a little flustered in his expression. I sensed that he was entertaining the idea of me offering him guidance. I suppose this could be my chance, to put my fashion senses to the test.

"Well, what does she like?" I prompted, hoping he would have some kind of outline for me to think in.

 "She's really into fashion but I don't know what size she wears," He said. His hand lazily pushing through the rack of clothing, like he didn’t know where to start.

"If that's the case, you can get her accessories," I told him. I figured that would be easiest for both of us. My eyes peered around the room, remembering having seen some stuff earlier. 

I spotted some things hanging on the wall on the other side of the store. I advanced in that direction with Hoseok trailing behind me. We pushed through some racks of clothing to reach the large wall of accessories. 

"There are hats and scarves,” I said, reaching out to touch some of the fabrics. Jewelry also hung in packs and pairs, the false metal reflecting the sunlight. “Maybe not this jewelry though, it looks cheap."

Hoseok chuckled as he eyed the things on the wall. Any of the things on the wall didn't seem too horrendous. I even kept my eyes open for anything I might like. Most of the wall was fool’s gold of necklaces and earrings. The bottom shelf held hats, nothing I found particularly interesting though. Some of the items looked to have been savaged by kids who could reach. That only left the scarves. They were dangling, one after the other, rows and rows of them. I came across a silk scarf that was cool to the touch. 

"Look at this," I said, getting Hoseok’s attention. It was a square shape scarf, with berry colors of flowers and patterns. "These colors are in right now, since it's almost autumn. The silk also won't stick to her in this California sun." 

"Yeah, this looks nice." He sounded satisfied with this item. He fiddled with the material in his fingers and then found the price tag. "$80?!"

I knew that silk scarfs were expensive, especially in a little boutique like this one. I patted his shoulder and gave him a fake empathetic look,

"That's the price of beauty," I joked. 

"As if this scarf is going to do all the work," He responded, a little annoyed. 

Hoseok settled on the scarf as a gift, regardless. I felt content with the hangers in my hand. It was enough clothing to keep me from looking like an angsty adolescent.

"I didn't see your bike parked in front," Hoseok mentioned as we strolled together to the register. 

"I'm staying at the motel nearby," I replied vaguely. Hoseok stood back and allowed me to put my things down first. I greeted the woman politely and turned back to look at them.

"That lousy place down the street?" Yoongi then questioned. Just by the look on his face, he seemed to know exactly which one."That place has roaches." 

"Thanks for reminding me," I bantered lightly. I should definitely look for a better place, I thought as the woman began to scan my items. I leaned against the counter, my feet aching a bit from just being up and around. 

"I thought Namjoon told you to stay at his place," Hoseok said, recalling the exact moment. 

"The prince doesn't always get what he wants," I shrugged. 

Then I failed to hide the sneer on my mouth as I found myself to be hilarious. I made eye contact with the other two also, only Hoseok smiled at me, while Yoongi awkwardly nodded his head. I thought they were a strange pair as I searched for my wallet on my person.

"Well, you should check out my new Harley," I was admittedly intrigued by Hoseok's offer. I located my purse in the depths of my jacket and peeped his way. By the look on his face, I could tell he was excited to show off. He was like a child in a candy shop.

"Oh, yeah?" I was interested to find out more. My eyes scanned the monitor of the register for my final price of the clothing. 

"Year model," He beamed proudly. 

I counted the bills of twenty in my hand before handing them over to the women. I grabbed a hold of the three large paper bags where my purchases had been stuffed into. Hoseok set the dainty scarf on the register next. 

"You still got your Deluxe, Yoongi?" I asked out of curiosity, recalling just barely the bike he used as a prospect. He simply nodded his head as an answer. 

I had been thinking of getting myself one a while back. I loved vintage style bikes, especially when they had modern engines. 

"Yeah well, I left the cruiser for a street bike," Hoseok remarked as we waited for him to finish paying. 

I thought a bike could say a lot about a person. I personally liked cruiser bikes over any other style. However, everyone in the club had their own preference. Jimin and I had a similar taste in bikes. We mostly found interest in the same Harleys, except that he owned a Low Rider, which was a billiard blue color. 

"What is it? An Iron 833?" I guessed. Thinking, in my head, that it was a well-suited bike for him. 

"Close," Hoseok laughed, as he took hold of a smaller version of my bags. We all began to walk toward the exit, the woman wishing us a good day. "It's an Iron 1200, solid black." 

I had an idea of what that bike looked like, but I had yet to see the new model for the year. "I just picked it up yesterday morning,"

Yoongi held the door open for me to step out first. Hoseok was still speaking in my ear as they followed out the door of the shop. His talking came to a soft silence as we were faced with the two member's Harleys. Their bikes were parked right in front of the boutique. Except, it appeared that Hoseok's new Harley was being used in a photoshoot.

There was a pair of strangers, a man who was posing on the bike with his motor racer jacket. A woman stood in front of him, trying to capture the image on a cell phone. 

"Take the damn picture, already." He cursed at her. The man looked annoyed every time he wasn't posing for the picture. 

"I'm trying," The blonde woman responded. She sounded very apologetic like she didn't want him to get upset with her. Like she knew what would happen if he did. 

Before I could even think to look at the boys, Hoseok was handing me his shopping bag. I took a hold of it and followed behind them as they approached the scene.

Hoseok walked up the woman as Yoongi circled his bike. 

"Here, let me do it." Hoseok smiled at her, gently taking the phone from her hands. The woman looked startled. 

"Shit," She was wide-eyed. "I-I told him on to,"

"It's all right," Hoseok was sympathetic to her. I came around to her side, gently taking a hold of her arm and guiding her away from the position.

Hoseok’s eyes rearranged to look at the man. "He looks like a guy that knows how to get what he wants,"

She followed my advice and stepped aside with me. Now seeing her face more clearly, I took notice of the healing injury on her mouth. "Did you do that to her lip?"

Hoseok questioned casually. The guy didn’t seem alarmed by any means, not even when he stepped toward him.

"Bitch has a mouth on her," The man said chuckling. He spoke to Hoseok as if he would understand where he was coming from. "You know how it is, right?" 

"Yeah, I do." Hoseok laughed, returning the man's smile. I was painfully aware of how close Hoseok was getting to him. He, who still hadn't moved from his seat on the bike. "So you like Harley's, huh?" 

"Well, they look good," He replied, patting a handprint on the metal of the gasoline tank. That made even me. even a little angry. "But I'm more into the slant bikes, for their speed." 

I eyed the Kawasaki Ninja 300 that was parked a few spots over. There was no way this couple was from Blackburn- people around here knew better. He was in for a rude awakening. 

"Right, right." The courtesy in Hoseok's voice brought an uneasy feeling in my stomach. He looked back down at the phone in his hands and tapped the almost sleeping screen. "Here,"

He said, holding the phone up to take the picture of the man. Yoongi stepped around his bike, standing right beside Hoseok. "Say cheese,"

I almost felt bad for the guy who dared to smile for the picture. After the phone clicked, Hoseok handed the phone to Yoongi. 

"That's before," Yoongi muttered loudly. 

It wasn't until then that the man noticed something wasn't right. 

"Before?" He asked. 

Hoseok grabbed his helmet off the handlebar. He gripped it tight in his hand as he used the back of it to swing a blow to the guy's face. The single impact was strong enough to make him drop off the Harley. He landed on the cold, hard ground. Blood was draining from his nose and into his mouth.

"Don't ever sit on another man's bike," Hoseok spat. 

"Oh my god," The blondie gasped beside me. You couldn't fail to recognize the giggle in her voice. 

"Shut up, bitch!" The man barked as he was still struggling on the floor with pain. 

Yoongi stepped in as Hoseok went to take care of his bike. He swung his boot into the man's rib cage, making him groan and spit out his own blood. 

"A little respect for the ladies," He warned, squatting down to get a good angle on the man's phone. The shutter of the phone went off again, capturing the man's new state of humble. "That's after."

Yoongi stood back on his legs and allowed the phone to slip from his hands, hitting the floor. 

By the time I thought to check on the blondie next to me, I caught her gawking eyes at Hoseok. I was half surprised to see Hoseok returning the look. He leaned forward on his bike, 

"So, where are you heading?" He flashed her a killer smile.

"Oh," She blushed under his stare. Her fingers fiddling the ends of her clothing as she tried to remain casual. "Nowhere special," 

"Me too," He smirked. Looking the girl up and down before gesturing his head behind him, "Hop on, angel."

This girl wasted no time hesitating. There was even a little kick in her step as Hoseok handed her the helmet he had just used to break her boyfriend's face. I stepped forward to return Hoseok's gift as she straddled on behind him, slipping the helmet over her face. I lost interest sometime before they exchanged names. 

I glanced at the man still laying on the ground. His eyes were wandering over the blood that stained his hands in disbelief. I imagined the blow to the face had left him a little hazy in the head.

"Why don't you let Yoongi give you a ride, (Y/n)?" Hoseok then suggested. The engine of his new bike began to roar. 

The thought wasn't well-received in my head. I had a personal ordeal with men seeking to have me on the back of their bikes. Though I was well aware this wasn't the situation, I couldn't help but be hesitant. 

"Unless you want to stay with the likes of him," Yoongi pointed out, motioning his head to the unfortunate figure on the pavement. 

He gave me the time it took to light his cigarette to think about it. I wasn't afraid of that guy, not after what Hoseok did to him, not after what I had tucked into my jeans. But I figured avoiding the confrontation would be beneficial for everyone. 

"Alright," I said stepping off the sidewalk into the street.

Yoongi left his helmet on the handle of his bike for me to grab. Unlike mine, he had a half helmet that would only serve my brain on a platter if we crashed. I adjusted the loose straps around my chin and switched all my bags to one hand. 

"Better hold on, princess." Yoongi teased as I mounted the seat behind him.

"Don't call me that," I groaned, starting to get irritating flashbacks that made me doubt my current judgment.  

The engine of his Harley trembled under me as I hooked my free hand around his waist. 

His Delux wasn't necessarily meant to hold a passenger but we weren't going very far. I had to scoot in closer to his body, to make sure the weight distribution wasn't too off-center. Many inexperienced riders don't know the difference between riding solo and with someone else. In addition to the extra weight, a passenger changes the center of gravity and how the bike rides. Though, I was certain it wasn't the first time Yoongi had company during a ride. 

"Gem?" I heard the man call over the rumble of the motor. "Gem!"

We were already backed into the street, Hoseok obnoxiously hit the gas on his bike. Yoongi and I followed closely behind him, leaving the man to stumble onto his feet. 

The motel was roughly five minutes away from the shop. Hoseok and his new friend accompanied Yoongi to drop me off. Riding in the back reminded me a lot of being young, I would beg my father to take me for a spin. I would wrap my arms tightly around him, as my head rested on his back. Down these same roads, he would drop me off at school or take me for ice cream. It didn't help that I stared at Yoongi's cut the entire way. Those were some memories I didn't visit very often because they saddened me. Now, more so, than ever. 

The Harleys pulled up in front of the motel. Hoseok parked just beside my bike. Yoongi pressed on the break gently, allowing the bike to come to a complete stop, before planting his feet on the ground. I freed his torso from my arm, adjusting my other grip around my shopping bags, before patting his shoulder.

"Thanks for the ride," I said a bit stiffly. I had to depend on Yoongi's shoulder for stability as I attempted to unmount the bike. 

"No problem," He spoke, still maintaining a cigarette in his mouth. 

He took his hands off the handlebars and rested back in his seat. "I'm sure you could have handled yourself,"

His comment fell ghastly on my ears. I transferred my bags to my other hand, my left-hand aching from having been gripping them as I watched him. 

"I mean, I've seen what you could do with that foot." He said, taking his cigarette out of his mouth and between his fingers. He was clearly referring to the night I arrived when I lost my temper with that PB member. 

"Yes, well, I have my old man's passion," I replied calmly. Though, something in Yoongi's stare made me feel a bit uneasy. His words were hinting at something else. 

"And you're pretty passionate with a gun." The way he looked at me when he said that it was full of doubt. Our eyes correlated, and I felt like his black orbs could see right through me. 

"It reminded me of a cop,"

 A shiver crept down my spine, and my shoulders fell heavy. My manner of confronting that PB member screamed police to any outlaw. My impulsiveness had kept me from thinking that through. 

It was the first time I was being questioned about it. I thought it had slipped by everyone's mind, but not his. 

"Did I scare you that bad, Yoongi?" I teased, trying to react the way I normally would. "I'm just cautious like the rest of you," 

Yoongi didn't appear to be swayed by my words. He brought his cigarette back to his mouth, his cheekbones hollowing in as he took a drag. I was debating on waiting for him to say something else, or on trying to keep justifying myself before Hoseok cut into our conversation. 

I had never been so grateful for Hoseok's existence. 

"Yoongi," Hoseok called out in front of us. We both turned to look at his place still sitting on his Harley. 

We then realized that Hoseok was gesturing to the other side of the lot. We followed his gaze over to a set of people by the sidewalk. 

They were too far away to distinguish any particular details of their identity. However, it looked like two males that were having an eager conversation. I noticed their head kept turning from side to side, and they couldn't keep still. Just when I began to think that it was nothing, one of them reached out for a handshake. 

No one was supposed to deal in Blackburn.

"Jesus Christ," I caught sight of Yoongi flinging his cigarette in a fit. He beat down his kickstand with the bottom of his boot, before making his way off the Harley. 

"Looks like PB," Hoseok stated, accompanying Yoongi's action. 

When he unmounted his bike, blondie gave him a confused stare as she reached out to touch his hand. Her eyes like a lamb gazed at Hoseok sweetly.

"Stay put, angel." He said, using the touch to bring her in closer. He gently touched her chin and planted a kiss on her busted lip. She smiled, uncertain by his words but agreed, regardless. 

"Let's go," Yoongi called, his hand reaching behind him. Without drawing his weaponry, he maintained his hand resting on the handle of the gun under his leather cut. I followed in his footsteps, unsure of what I should do in this situation. 

 Should I attempt to interfere? Or will there be a shoot out right here?

I set my bags on the floor before catching up to Yoongi who was already by Hoseok's side. 

The hooded man remained standing at the end of the parking lot, near the street corner. His customer had vanished but he was still occupied with his cell phone. 

Hoseok noticed me trailing behind Yoongi, 

"Keep an eye on her," He told me, gesturing his eyes to the scared woman on his motorcycle. 

I had to babysit his groupie? 

I stopped where I stood, just beside Hoseok's Iron. I could see blondie looking in my direction, but I was watching Hoseok and Yoongi approach the standing figure. I forced strands of hair away from my line of sight. I could feel my heart begin to beat against my chest. My limbs become stiff as stone. 

I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do in a situation like this. This was my first event as a field agent, and I was about to let a shootout take place. With a liability sitting right next to me. 

"What's going on?" She urged me, but I neglected her completely. 

The hooded figure was so distracted he didn't take any notice of the impending threat. The two members quickened their steps, Hoseok dawdling just a little more ahead of Yoongi.

Without warning, Hoseok skulked behind the body, his arms both wrapped tightly around the torso. It was like a kidnapping scene. He used his large hand to shield the man's mouth. The force of Hoseok's legs pulled them back as he was able to dominate him easily. Yoongi kept his eyes peeled for any potential bystanders as they stumbled their way against the wall of the motel. The wall cast a shadow and provided them with coverage from the view of the street. 

"Oh my god!" Blondie gasped in disbelief. 

She took a hold of my arm in panic. She pulled on my arms as if she wanted us to run. Her frenzy state pestered me greatly.

I yanked her hand from my arm, my fingers clutched around her wrist tightly. She heaved at the pain, I could feel her pulse quickening against my fingertips.

"You make a fucking noise," I hissed at her between my teeth. Her eyes remained full of fear as I pushed her from my hold. "It'll be your last,"

Her eyes followed my actions as I withdrew my Glock from its cover on my hip. She froze with fright, only continuing to remain silent in her place.

I guess I wasn't very good at being a good guy.

The next I looked back, Yoongi was holding the barrel of his gun against the guy's head. He was still fighting against Hoseok's restraint but he was becoming more frantic and less functional. Yoongi's lips were moving, saying words that were too far away for my ears.

Just then, as if things couldn't have been complicated enough; I noticed an oncoming party. Approaching from down the sidewalk was a large white man with a bald head. His arms revealed a clash of tattoos, the only one that I needed to make out was a black swastika peering out his shoulder. He also wasn't shy about the gun tucked in the front of his jeans. He appeared to be searching for his lost friend.

"Shit," I cursed to myself. I had to do something.

I took a moment to look back at blondie, making sure to be as intimidating as possible when I warned her. "Don't move from here,"

I took off immediately, my feet moving at a jogging pace. I attempted to not appear alarmed. I discreetly lead my gun to my side, trying to go unnoticed for the time being. I made it to the end of the parking lot, sitting between me and the sidewalk was a few bushes at waist level. 

Yoongi and Hoseok were preoccupied with the man in front of them to worry about their surroundings. 

The bald man was only a few steps away from reaching the corner, where he would surely find his buddy taken captive.

I moved closer toward the building, both parties coming more clear in my line of sight. If he makes it around that corner, he could catch them by surprise and gain an upper hand quickly. One of the boys could get injured for sure.

I had to follow my instincts. 

I leaned into the bushes for more security. They couldn't have been more than fifteen feet from me. I clutched the metal weight in my hand, raising my arms and seeking to find aim. 

Aim small, miss small. 

I concentrated on the man's shoulder. I took in a deep breath to steady my hands. He was getting bigger with each step. When I exhaled the breath from my nostrils, I pulled the trigger. 

The gunshot rang through the open air and into my ear. Blondie's scream echoed somewhere behind me. The man stumbled on his legs, he clutched his right bicep and his face tore with shock.

Yoongi found me by the bushes. He quickly recognized that my target wasn't far from them. 

My victim quickly discovered me at the end of the sidewalk. He reached for his firearm, but at that moment, Yoongi stepped out of the shadow. He pulled two quick shots before the man could ever hold up his gun. 

He tumbled onto the floor, his legs giving out at the bullet that pierced his foot. The second one ripped through the flesh of his arm and caused his gun to fall from his grip. 

I ran up behind Yoongi, I kept my gun drawn and pointed at the fallen form. With my foot, I stretched for the dropped pistol, dragging it across the cement into my area of reach. I was able to pick it up with ease after that. 

The bald man stared at me with hate emitting from his eyes. He spit at my feet.

I noticed Yoongi's eyes on me, as well. It was almost as if he was conflicted by my actions. With a nod of my head, I assured him that I had their back. Whether he believed me or not, he returned to the current situation.

Hoseok remained holding down the other guy who, was still yelling through his muzzled mouth. His face was red and his eyes were watering with anger and fear. Hoseok released his mouth after the bastard threw a bite at his hand.

Yoongi had enough.

He pushed his hair out of his forehead and, in that same step, hurled his fist to the guy's jaw. Yoongi growled at the impact. He left the man silent in Hoseok's arms. His nose was dripping blood, a gash on his cheek also overflowed with the red liquid. 

"Tell me where the PB is cooking the meth!" Yoongi demanded.

He cocked his gun and pressed the pistol against the fabric that covered the man's genitals. The man cried, he begged Yoongi to not pull the trigger.

"Now, you son of a bitch!"

Hearing it was hard enough, I couldn't watch it.

"I-In Blackburn! In Blackburn!" He ratted instantly.

My stomach churned at his answer. I looked at the scene unfolding beside me. I could see Hoseok and Yoongi were as startled as I was.

"They've got a lab down Riverside road! I-It's an ugly little red house- you can't miss it!"

Yoongi freed the man's crotch from gunpoint as Hoseok shoved him onto the floor. Hoseok stepped around the man's body and came directly to my side. I maintained my aim on the other guy, who was still sitting on the floor, blood oozing out of three different wounds. 

Hoseok rested his hand on my shoulder, gently guiding my arm to lower my gun.  

"Let's get out of here, angel." He whispered sweetly. 

His words somehow managed to ease the knots of tension in my chest. I took a breath of relief and handed him the extra gun I had confiscated. Hoseok smiled at me and tucked the gun away from my sight. He then put his hand on my back, escorting me back the way we came from. 

We had no problem turning our backs to them. They were both disarmed, one was bleeding out, and the other was frightened beyond recognition. There was no need to stick around for the police to show up. If those two guys were smart, they would find a way out of here before they came. The Blackburn policemen would know what happened to them and why.

Yoongi followed right behind us. I could hear his footsteps on the pavement as we strolled toward our bikes. From where we were, I could see blondie was still sitting on Hoseok's Harley.

Except, she appeared to be making a phone call.

"Oh, for fuck's sake." I groaned. Hoseok noticed my gaze and soon saw the same thing I did. She saw us walking in her direction and quickly hung up the phone. 

She looked frightened when we finally approached her. She swung her leg over the bike, getting off on the opposite side of us. As if the Harley would keep us from getting to her. I allowed Hoseok to handle her. 

"Sorry about that, angel," Hoseok's voice was something dangerous. He leaned his hand on the handle of the bike and smiled. "Who was that?"

"M-My boyfriend," She stuttered, trying to not buy into his enchanting smile, not after what she just witnessed. "He's coming to pick me up."

"Good," I muttered. I locked eyes with her for just a moment while I passed by to pick up my shopping backs. I imagined I had traumatized her enough for one day.

"That's too bad you've got to go," I could hear the suggestiveness in Hoseok's voice. 

I walked past Yoongi's bike to my own. I had never been so happy to mount my Harley. The way the engine roared when I turned the gas made me shiver with delight. I walked the bike backward, turning slowly to line up beside Yoongi's. Who was taking advantage of Hoseok's flirting to light up another cigarette.

I followed in his thought and tried to locate the same pack from earlier. 

"I didn't expect you to step in like that," Yoongi suddenly muttered as he stood next to his bike. 

I took the smoke between my two fingers, putting the pack back on my jacket pocket. I held it between my lips and fiddled with my lighter. 

"You didn't think I was trying to arrest you?" I mocked. 

I flicked the lighter a few times, a flame igniting out of the chamber. I held the frame between my palms and used my fingers as a shield from the wind.  

"I'm trying to thank you, here, princess." He sighed.

I smiled and brought the fire to the end of my cigarette. I sucked in the burning tobacco, quickly flicking the lighter shut. 

"Go ahead," I smirked as I held the smoke in my lungs. 

I could tell Yoongi didn't do this very often. His brown eyes glared at me from underneath his black lashes. 

"Oh, forget it." He hissed, inhaling another drag.

Yoongi held his cigarette between his lips and turned his back to me. He mounted his own bike and called out to Hoseok. "Let's go already!"

Hoseok seemed to be working his magic on blondie all over again. He was still leaning on his bike, and she had taken a few paces closer to him. She wasn't scared anymore.

If it wasn't for the obnoxious speed bike coming down the road, Hoseok would have probably been able to convince her back to his place. The black and green bike came to a screeching stop. His face was covered by a full style helmet, so we weren't able to see the aftermath of his humbling experience. 

Hoseok stood up straight, a smirk jeering onto his lips as he viewed the new arrival. Blondie looked over her shoulder and gave Hoseok a sympathetic look. She didn't want to leave now. 

Hoseok grabbed her hand, bringing her knuckles up to his lips. He sent her away, drifting on a cloud. 

Blondie slipped on her matching helmet, before mounting his motorcycle. 

"Ready?" Yoongi asked sarcastically. 

Hoseok's smirk remained on his face as he climbed on his bike. He was just on time as we began to hear police sirens off in the distance. 

"Ready," He replied. 

-

We had made it to the lot of the House of Cards without any trouble. The other handful of Harley's left in the front indicated a full house inside. Standing along the wall of the entrance, Taehyung held a conversation with Yeonjun as he smoked. 

I followed the boys in parking alongside the other bikes. Removing my open-face helmet from my head, I relieved myself of the pressure of its protection. 

"Prospect!" Yoongi called from his place, on his Harley, beside me. 

I set my kickstand down, resting on my bike as I watched Yeonjun leave Taehyung's side. He was wearing his prospect cut over a dark blue flannel, his feet moved quickly, down the open lot. Taehyung remained against the wall, finishing his cigarette alone. 

Once Yeonjun presented himself in front of us, he took a moment to acknowledge me with a smile. Before Yoongi demanded his attention,

"Listen closely," He said, also removing his helmet and slumping in his seat. "You're going to take (Y/n)'s bags, go to the motel on 15th street and check her out."

It made sense that I couldn't stay there after the disturbance. If what the man said was true, it meant that the PB was already taking action against the club. Blackburn wasn't safe anymore. 

"Grab all her things and bring them back here." 

Yeonjun nodded his head in understanding. Both his hands reached down to feel around in his front pocket. From his right one, he pulled out keys to his Harley. 

"Woah!" Taehyung came up behind the young prospect. He reached around him and snatched the keys from his hands. "Who said you can take your Harley?" 

Taehyung stuffed the keys into his pocket and wore a grin while his lips still held his cigarette. 

"Oh come on, Tae," Yeonjun attempted to not sound too annoyed. He sighed, " It'll be easier if I-"

"I bought you a brand new bike, Yeonjun." Taehyung's voice was teasing. "Don't be ungrateful." 

Taehyung took the smoke from his mouth and watched the poor boy give up. I could hear Hoseok chuckle from the other side of Yoongi. I was questioning what they had him doing this time. 

Yeonjun left without another word. He walked toward the back of the bar, I lost sight of him as he disappeared around the corner. Taehyung was left with a permanent grin on his mug. He then turned his attention to the three of us that remained on our bikes. 

"Where are you all coming from?" He asked. We were an odd combination to anyone who saw us.

"We ran into some trouble while shopping," Hoseok replied. He set his helmet on the seat of his bike as he rose from it. "And we picked her up on the way." 

"Lucky me," I quietly joked. 

"What kind of trouble?" Taehyung seemed to be more interested in that. 

Hoseok sighed as he removed his leather gloves. He stuffed them into his front pocket and slowly advanced toward his friend. 

"The kind that we should bring up at church," Yoongi replied. 

Hoseok slipped his arms around Taehyung's shoulder and reassured the gravity of Yoongi's words with his slow head bob. His brows furrowed as he adjusted the bandana that was holding his hair back. 

"Everyone's here now," Taehyung informed him. "I'll let Joon know to call a meeting." 

Yoongi joined the rest of the boys in standing. I was the only one who remained mounting my Harley. 

There was no doubt in my mind that they were going to discuss forms of retaliation. With the new information, it would have to be something powerful. It was going to be a declaration of strength. It was already long overdue. 

"Check it out," Hoseok suddenly called. He was laughing as his eyes were staring down the back of the bar. 

My mouth dropped as I finally got a glimpse of what he was referring too. Literally, on a brand new bicycle, Yeonjun came pedaling down the sidewalk. It was painted black, with rainbow streamers and a gold horn. Yeonjun looked miserable wearing a matching rainbow helmet.

My soft giggle was masked by the loud laughter of Hoseok and Taehyung. They were barely breathing in between the enormous amounts of joy. Even Yoongi failed to conceal the smile on his face as he shook his head in disapproval. 

Yeonjun had no other choice but to accept his cruel fate. 

He came into the parking lot. He stood on his bicycle right beside me, staring at his laughing elders. I put my hand on his shoulder and gave him my most honest look of compassion.

"I'll take your bags now, (Y/n)." The bitterness in his voice was adorable. 

"Thanks, hun." I handed him the shopping bags. "All of my things should be in a backpack on the floor."

He pushed the bags up his arm so that they rested in the crook of his elbow. I also pulled out and handed him my room keys, making sure to give him the money to pay for my short time there. 

"Be careful prospect," Hoseok said. He sounded sincere at the beginning of his statement. But he ultimately couldn't hold back his urge to make jokes. "Don't get a speeding ticket." 

Taehyung broke out laughing all over again. His arms came hurling at his crime partner. The actual image of Hoseok's words killed him. I had never seen them laugh so hard. They looked like a pair of schoolboys. 

"Yeah, yeah," Yoenjun muttered. 

He took off, down the parking lot exit without saying goodbye. Hoseok and Taehyung continued to tease him even as he rode off. They yelled out a combination of mockeries and whistles. 

"Come on!" Taehyung cheered. "Honk your horn for us!"

A distant sound of honking down the street melted my heart. It sent the two boys into another giggling frenzy. One that continued as they turned to walk toward the entrance. Only through the doors is that it finally dissipated from my ears.

Yoongi and I were the only ones who remained. Like me, he watched the pair wander off into their own world.  

"Idiots," Yoongi muttered to himself. 

I was amused by his criticism since he participated in their laughter just moments ago. Yoongi slowly turned my way. His eyes noticed that I had failed to make any sudden movements. 

"You coming in, princess?" He questioned. I tried to accept the new nickname but continued to not endorse it.

"I will," I said, reaching for the whereabouts of my phone. I held it up for him to acknowledge. "I'm just going to look for a new place to stay,"

He didn't need any other form convincing than that. He gave me a single nod and retreated to follow the boys inside. I watched his slim figure walk down to the entrance. He must have sensed my eyes because he looked back before opening the doors. All I could do was send him a wave and a barely visible smile.

I needed to be alone to make this phone call.  

I pressed the phone to my ear and hunched over the fuel tank of my Harley. The ringing made me anxious as I coped to remain calm after everything.

"Yes, Ms. (Y/n), I've just received your final paperwork. You'll be happy to know, the agency has agreed to all your terms just as long-" I had to cut him off. 

"That's going to have to be activated as of right now because I have something," I still kept aware of my surroundings, making sure my voice wasn’t too loud.

I looked out for anyone, even just bystanders on the street.

"What did you find out?" His voice asked instantly.

"They have a possible chance for retaliation, with location and everything," I muttered into the phone, still trying to remain vague for several reasons. 

"Listen, (Y/n), we need to be there when they make their choice. Stay on the club- when they move, so do we." He spoke to me sternly. His voice wasn't comforting at all. "Do you understand?"

Bangtan's next moves would decide the future of this club. Their alliance with the PB was beneficial. Did they have the necessary tools to cut that deal on their own? Or were they going to turn to Camilo for help?

I sighed.

"Yes,"

Masterlist ≽

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

"Seriously I wrote a 2000+ word short story about a Cryptek looking for his Phaeron’s pet scarab that got stolen." WHERE CAN I READ THIS

 Here you go. I’ll put it under a read-more so it doesn’t eat up space.

The facility was in an uproar. Sirens wailed, alertingeveryone within the surrounding area of the breach that was currentlyoccurring. Local PDF and members of the Adeptus Mechanicus skittered about inhurried formations, attempting to both lock down the warehouse and subdue theintruder with a flurry of panicked activity that was, said intruder thought,uniquely human.

He was not human, of course, and that fact alone had createdsome of the uproar that was currently raging on around him as he strode slowly,almost leisurely, through the metal-and-concrete confines of the building. Itwould have been quicker, perhaps, to simply exterminate the humans and thenproceed without any of the concurrent ruckus, but he wasn’t one for avoidablekilling.

He was Zahtek of Misaphris, after all, not some jumped-upSautekh lord with an ego complex.

Unlike other Crypteks, Zahtek wasn’t innately stooped andlow-set, instead opting for a deliberately tall, broad frame woven from darkenednecrodermis and highlighted with silvered strands. Excess ornamentation such asthe traditional postiche found uponthe chin of many a Necrontyr of individual rank, had been removed, as had hiscape and pauldron accoutrements. They served as little more than ornamentationon a body that was, in his mind, extravagant enough already. Besides, suchthings had no place in a lab environment where they might snag on equipment.

Which wasn’t to say that he had no interest inindividuality, however, because Zahtek did, like many a Cryptek, enjoy a senseof being outside of the political flow that led even the mightiest crownworldsaround in waltzes of political intrigue and subterfuge.

His aforementioned height and breadth were one such tailoredaspect, serving to both mimic his stature before the biotransferrence and allowhim to stare evenly into the eyes of demanding lords the galaxy across. He knewhow much those with designs of elitism valued something as simple as impositionvia physicality, just as he knew that many a noble had been verticallyempowered by their new, metal bodies.

He rather enjoyed denying them the novelty of both.

Zahtek’s eye was the standard, cyclopean Cryptek affair,although the traditionalist green hue within had been replaced by a flickeringblue-purple that roiled through endless shades and compositions like lightningbehind clouds. The same glow was present through his thick ribcage, shimmeringout from deep within his artificial core in a way that, were he feelingsuitably dramatic, he might say looked soul-like.

His interfacing tail, another component of most Crypteks,was coiled thrice neatly around his waist, which was itself wrapped with aplated, rear-oriented fauld-tasset combination made of smoothly interlinkingplates that flowed like material, halting just below his knees. Designed byZahtek himself and possessing of the ability to displace any kinetic forceevenly throughout its entirety, the garment protected both his legs and alingering sense of modesty he had never been able to get rid of, even aftermillions of solar cycles.

The only item the Cryptek carried was a long staff, tallerthan even his own eight foot height and fashioned from the same dark metal ashe was. An orb, roiling with the same colours of energy held within his body,sat in a cuboid frame at the top end of the weapon, framed on two opposingsides by a pair of long, angular blades that were slanted gently inwards, asthough forming a loose, triangular foci for the sphere in between them.

Zahtek used the staff now to slice off the corner of a largestorage crate, the dark blades soundlessly shearing the corrugated metal ontothe floor. Leaning down, he peered into the now-exposed box, his eye casting astormy glow upon its contents.

He sighed.

Machine parts. Not useful.

Where was it? Who would know-A lasbolt sizzled off his upper arm barely marking it, and he turned to beholdthe source. A human, pale and wide-eyed, clad in a basic uniform, was shakilypointing one of the species’ primitive weapons at him. A laspistol, if hisengramic databanks served him correctly. Basic but quaintly broad in potentialuses, the human weapons of “las” weren’t very good in small numbers. Not thatit would do to tell the human before him such; the poor thing didn’t look likeit could take much more stress before suffering heart failure. Instead hepointed.

“You.” His internal lexicon program, self-tweaked, easilytranslated his words into accented Gothic, his modulator rendering them deepand even, if tragically robotic. “Do you know where I might find-“He was cut off by the human screaming and firing its gun with terrified speedat his head, mostly missing him, though one shot pinged across his eye.

Another sigh, a mildly exasperated wave of his hand, and thegun simply liquefied, dripping apart in the human’s hands in a slurry ofdulled, heatless metal and oozing plastic. The human froze, and they bothwatched with silent attention as the laspistol’s battery pack, still intact,slipped through the human’s fingers and clattered gently to the floor.

Zahtek’s olfactory readouts informed him that the human hadurinated.

“As I was saying, could you perhaps tell me- ah, you’vefainted.” He said to the human, who was indeed currently an unconscious lump onthe facility floor. It wasn’t a lost cause, though; the sounds of booted feetrapidly closing indicated more of them approaching with some haste, no doubtdrawn by the gunfire. Would any of them know?

He highly doubted it.

With a mental command, Zahtek extended his audial receptorsmore widely, sifting through layers of sound data in an attempt to glean thequickest way to complete his mission. Rubber treading upon rockrete and metal,the hum of background machinery and basic environmental controls, the whirr ofmechanised limbs- got you.

Three of them. Partially inorganic. Talking in thatelectronic tongue of theirs – binaric.

A new heading located, the Cryptek started to march determinedlyonwards, around the mass of containers he’d been investigating and onto themain thoroughfare within the warehouse. It was a fairly simple, two levelaffair, with the ground floor being a long maze of stacked boxes and cratesrendered in innumerable sizes, and the upper area little more than an expansivecrisscross of gantries and walkways.

Walkways which, irritatingly, were currently teeming withhumans.

Zahtek assumed they were there to serve as simplisticspotters, designed to report his location to those he sought. Much like withtheir las weapons, he thought, they liked to make up for their individualdeficits with numbers. His theory was proven accurate when, no more than ahandful of steps out from his hiding place, a loud cry went up.

Quite suddenly he was being pelted with volleys of lasfire.

His irritation, an emotion that he quite wished he didn’thave but valued all the same by dint of simply existing at all, was growingwithin him. There weren’t a lot of humans, by his scan approximations, maybetwo dozen, but their erratic volumes of fire were flashing about his head andinterrupting his progress. Myriads of small holes were scored in his chassis,only to be quickly repaired, only to be inflicted again, only to be-

Irritating.

He didn’t want to fight the humans, he wanted to go aroundthem, to the sealed, hydraulic sliding door at the end of the ground floor. Thedoor with the mechanicus humans behind it. The door-

Crack.

Something that was not a lasbolt knocked his head sideways,jarring him out of his internal aggravation. He look up for the source of theimpact just as another one struck his shoulder, jolting him and leaving aswiftly healing crack in his pauldron. There was a human on one of thegantries, dressed in more elaborate clothing. He had a chunky, black firearm inhis hand. He levelled it for another shot, even as the other guns whined andburned at Zahtek’s body.

That was quite enough of that.

He raised his staff and slammed it into the ground, bladedend first.

The effect was instantaneous; as soon as the weapon’s focalorb impacted against the rockrete, shattering it like glass, a violent nimbusof purpled lightning exploded outwards from the point of contact, traversingthe entirety of the warehouse in moments with a low, threatening hum. Theartificial lights on the ceiling detonated as their circuits fused, airpurification units and power boxes overloaded in showers of sparks. The humanswere launched off their feet, propelled by the split-second convulsions oftheir muscles coming into contact with an electrical charge of immense power.Many of their guns blew up in their hands, the battery packs reaching aconductive cooking point instantaneously and melting down in little starburstsof red and orange. Not overly harmful, Zahtek supposed, but it stopped thelittle things from working.

The humans on the upper level had been hurled clear of theirfootholds, tumbling down onto the flat bulks of the containers below withvarying levels of force. He was pleased to note that the one with the largergun had missed the relative safety of such a landing entirely, instead fallinghard onto the floor at an angle that had snapped his neck.

Most of them would live. Some would not. It was more thanmost others would have done for them.

The now-dark building flickered sporadically as remnant arcsof his strike jumped between the metal crates and twisted in the recesses oflight sockets. He pulled his staff free of the ground, now buckled and glowingwhere he’d hit it, and marched as quickly as his legs would allow him to thesealed door.

It was quickly evident the lightning had all but obliteratedthe access panel to the room beyond the door, and for the third time in a shortwhile, Zahtek sighed.

Then, he raised his hand and knocked, calling out in araised voice.

“I’m going to enter now. I would prefer not to fight you.”

The Cryptek pointed his staff at the door.

“I advise standing clear.”

Lightning, honed to amolecular-thin tip, beamed in a jagged line from the tip of his weapon to thelock-seam of the door. Intensely hot, it generated a wash of vibrantly whitesparks that would have seared the retinas of a human into blindness.

Zahtek had the strangest urge to squint.

Layers of metal were burned away effortlessly as he directedthe crackling energy from the base of the door to the very top, analysing thematerial thickness to ensure he didn’t overshoot the mark and bathe the roombeyond in beyond lethal dosages of electricity. He didn’t want to harm hisprize, after all.

When he sensed, rather than saw, that the cutting processwas complete, he dispelled the lightning and wedged his hand into the still-hotmetal where he’d burned the door away from the wall, slicing the lockingmechanisms away so that it sat, heavy but free. Slowly, he pulled, readingrather than feeling information about weight and lode-strain, and altering theamount of force put into the action as required.

Gradually, he slid the door open, forcing it back into itswall recess with a grinding rumble. Only then did he behold the room beyond it.

It wasn’t very big, in all honestly, a few metres squared,more of a vault than anything else. Perhaps, Zahtek though, that’s what it was.Had the humans been hiding from him? He’d just wanted to claim the objectiveand leave. Why were they always so belligerently obtuse?

The humans in question, the three members of the mechanicus,were clearly dead; their bionics and mechanical parts fused and overloaded byhis initial attack in the main room. It was apparent, based on theirhalf-melted clothing and rigidly warped death-poses, that their bodies hadconducted the electricity much more intensely than the regular humans outside,and their hearts and brains had ruptured almost immediately. Zahtek feltsomething akin to regret at the unintended loss of life.

At least it had been quick.

Casting his cyclopean gaze around, the Cryptek felt a stabof concern. If his electricity had reached this far in, did that mean histarget was-?

“Are you in here? Are you… intact?”

He waited a moment, then tried again, grip tightening on hisstaff.

“It is I, Zahtek. I was sent to find you.”

Nothing, not a sound. Zahtek’s shoulders sagged in anincredibly organic manner that the transference hadn’t been able to take fromhim.

He turned to leave.

Then, one of the bodies moved. Zahtek started. He wasentirely certain the human was dead-

A tiny, mechanical chirp, slightly muffled, emanated fromunder the charred cadaver, along with a good deal of metal-on-metal scuffling.Zahtek made a relieved sound, lifting the corpse one-handed and tossing itaside like debris.

“Oh, thank goodness.” He scooped the scarab up, fingersgentle, and held it in front of his face.

It wiggled.

“You have no ideahow worried Lord Amenhotekh was about you!”

[mspfirearmstraining]

Common Myths About Maryland HQL Classes

When it comes to firearms training in Maryland, particularly Handgun Qualification License (HQL) classes, there are numerous myths and misconceptions that can mislead prospective students. As a leading provider of firearms training in Maryland, including Handgun Qualification and Concealed Carry programs, we aim to clarify these myths and provide accurate information. Here’s a breakdown of some common myths about Maryland HQL classes and the reality behind them.

Myth 1: HQL Classes Are Only for Experienced Shooters

Reality: Training for All Levels

One of the most persistent myths about Maryland HQL classes is that they are only necessary for experienced shooters. In truth, these classes are designed for all levels of experience. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned firearm owner, Maryland HQL classes are structured to ensure that everyone understands the legal requirements and safe handling of handguns. The curriculum includes basic firearm safety, legal responsibilities, and practical handling skills, making it suitable for novices and experienced shooters alike.

Myth 2: The HQL Course Is Just a Formality

Reality: Comprehensive Training

Another common misconception is that the HQL course is merely a formality and doesn't offer substantial training. This myth undermines the importance of the HQL classes, which are rigorous and comprehensive. The Maryland HQL classes cover essential aspects such as firearm safety, legal regulations, and the ethical considerations of handgun ownership. These courses are not just a checkbox but a crucial step in ensuring responsible firearm use and ownership.

Myth 3: You Can Complete the HQL Training Online

Reality: In-Person Instruction Required

While many aspects of training can be conducted online, Maryland HQL classes require in-person instruction. This is due to the hands-on nature of the training, which includes practical demonstrations and exercises that cannot be effectively completed online. For example, live-fire exercises and hands-on safety training are integral components of the course, ensuring that participants gain practical experience in a controlled environment.

Myth 4: HQL Classes Are Too Expensive

Reality: Cost vs. Value

Cost is often a concern for many, but the investment in Maryland HQL classes is justified by the value they provide. The training is an investment in safety, legality, and responsible firearm ownership. Moreover, many providers, including us, offer competitive pricing and various payment options. It's important to view this as a long-term investment in both personal safety and compliance with Maryland's firearm regulations.

Myth 5: You Don’t Need HQL Classes for Concealed Carry

Reality: Separate Requirements

Some believe that obtaining a Concealed Carry Permit in Maryland negates the need for HQL classes. However, the HQL is a separate requirement that all handgun purchasers in Maryland must fulfill, regardless of whether they are seeking a Concealed Carry Permit or not. The Concealed Carry Permit requires additional training beyond the HQL, including specific instruction on carrying a concealed weapon. Therefore, completing Maryland HQL classes is a prerequisite for those looking to pursue further firearm training.

Myth 6: HQL Classes Are Only Required for First-Time Gun Owners

Reality: Ongoing Education for Everyone

While first-time gun owners are a primary audience for Maryland HQL classes, these courses are also beneficial for experienced gun owners who are new to Maryland or who want to refresh their knowledge. Laws and regulations can change, and ongoing education ensures that all gun owners stay current with the latest legal requirements and safety practices.

Myth 7: HQL Classes Provide No Practical Benefit

Reality: Essential Practical Skills

This myth overlooks the practical benefits of HQL classes. Beyond fulfilling legal requirements, these classes provide practical skills that enhance the safety and effectiveness of firearm use. Participants learn about safe handling, storage, and transportation of handguns, which are crucial for preventing accidents and ensuring responsible ownership. The skills gained in Maryland HQL classes contribute significantly to the overall safety of firearm handling and use.

Myth 8: Completing an HQL Course Means Immediate Approval

Reality: Process Beyond the Course

Completing a Maryland HQL class is a significant step, but it is not the final step in obtaining a handgun license. After completing the course, you must still go through the application process, which includes background checks and additional paperwork. The HQL course prepares you for this process and equips you with the knowledge needed to navigate it successfully, but it does not guarantee immediate approval or issuance of a license.

Conclusion

Understanding the facts behind these myths can help demystify the process and underscore the importance of Maryland HQL classes. As a leading provider of firearms training in Maryland, including Handgun Qualification and Concealed Carry programs, we are committed to ensuring that all participants receive accurate and thorough training. Whether you're located in Brandywine MD, Annapolis MD, or any of the other states where we offer training, our goal is to provide high-quality education that supports responsible firearm ownership and compliance with the law.

If you have any questions about Maryland HQL classes or need to enroll in a course, feel free to contact us. We are here to assist you in achieving your firearm training goals with clarity and confidence.

Original Sources: https://mspfirearmstraining.blogspot.com/2024/08/common-myths-about-maryland-hql-classes.html