#I needed to get it all posted today so I could start something else...

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have found a beautiful perfect humble rock specimen that is light yellow with a weird dark yellowy brown lining, somewhat resembling a chunk of smoked gouda cheese... effervescent

[redrobinhoods]

seconds and years | epilogue

AO3 Link | 1,300 words (approx) | Prologue, Chapter 18

Author Note: A big thank you to everyone who has read this fic and any of the other fics in this series! <3

I'm so excited to finally wrap Foxes and Senators up after just over two years of writing it, most of which I confess was finishing this fic. The last two years have changed my life for both the better and the worse and with the ending of this series, I can close that chapter in my life and move onto the next one.

It was hot on the rooftop, sunlight beating down onto reinforced plating as the man lay there, his rifle waiting at his side. But he liked the heat.

Down below, crowds bustled on the busy street. The work week was over for most beings, leaving them free to return home for a few days rest or, in one particular case, to grab a drink with buddies.

The comm on his wrist buzzed and he slowly brought the rifle to his shoulder, careful lest the setting sun catch the muzzle. He waited with crosshairs on the street corner, finger on the trigger-guard, for his target.

The man appeared less than a minute later.

The bounty hunter took in a slow breath as he tracked the target, exhaling as he pressed his finger to the trigger. When his breath stopped, he fired.

He pushed himself back from the edge of the building as the crowd began to panic, packing up the rifle out of sight from the street below. Before he could sling the rifle on his back he heard a shout from below.

“Here! Give him here!”

“We’ll take him to the medical center.”

From his perch, the bounty hunter could watch as the speeder took off towards the medical center. It would not reach it.

The bounty hunter was waiting when the speeder pulled up to the Misfit II and the two beings disembarked.

“Did you stop for caf or something?” Thire asked as they approached.

Ilven shook his head. “Got caught in a traffic jam, actually.”

“Apparently someone was assassinated and there’s a lot of beings freaking out.” Jek continued.

“An assassination?” Thire raised his brows in mock surprise. “The whole galaxy is going to shit.”

“Right? Give us a hand to get him in the cooler.”

-

Wolffe almost didn’t recognize the man approaching him. The red tattoo of the purge troopers that cut across the right side of his face had changed. The ‘45’ had been filled in, the square extended upwards into his hairline and downwards to meet with the line running down his cheek. Only the pixelation over his brow remained unchanged.

“You look well.” Thire said as he stopped before him.

Wolffe took a moment to take in the black light armor Thire wore before meeting his gaze. “So do you. Civvies suit you.”

Thire’s brows raised. “I don’t think either of us is wearing civvies, Wolffe.”

“Touché.” Wolffe had sold his stormtrooper armor for scrap, exchanging the credits it brought him for tactical clothing left over from the Separatist civilians who had resisted the early days of the Empire. Grey was grey, but the few grey shirts he had found in the exact shade of the 104th had been swiftly purchased.

Thire flicked his finger against Wolffe’s chest, a grin forming at the sound of the impact on a plastoid breastplate. “Subtle.”

Wolffe made a show of hiking his bag onto his shoulders. “Are we going to stand here all day?”

“I’m just enjoying the peace and quiet.” Thire laughed as they turned towards the Misfit II.

-

Fox couldn’t help the wide grin stretching across his face as the four commanders disembarked from the speeder. “You all made it.”

“We couldn’t reach a consensus on who to throw out the airlock.” Wolffe said, returning Fox’s grin as he embraced him. “I rescind all ‘silver fox’ jokes from the war, I can feel grey hair coming in.”

“Why do you think I let Stone and Thorn snatch those two up?” Fox said, looking towards Jek and Thire.

“Because you were too busy throwing Kilo into the bin.” Jek retorted as Fox threw his arms around the two of them.

Fox looked over their shoulders to see Ilven standing a polite distance back, watching them. Fox fixed him with a glare. “Get in here. Just because you’re a poor Corrie doesn’t mean you get to skimp on your duties.”

He could hear Wolffe and Riyo talking behind him as they tugged Ilven into the embrace.

“I hate you.” Ilven grumbled as he obliged.

“I will drown you in the lake.” Fox whispered in return, squeezing the three of them. His Corries. “Right after we chuck Jek in the bin, for old times’ sake.”

Jek’s shoulder shook in a chuckle. “I feel so loved.”

“And what do I get to suffer?” Thire asked as the embrace ended.

Fox frowned. “Therapy.”

-

It had been a long time since Fox had heard them laugh like this. Dinner had come and gone; they had fallen into old kitchen routines from the Misfit that had Riyo shaking her head from the countertop as she directed them with Jek laughing at her side. But the fog of tension that had been present on the ship was gone. Though the cooling evening air had brought its own fog with it, it stayed wrapped around the trees surrounding the small clearing, dancing among them in the light of the fire.

Riyo’s head lay in his lap and he stroked her hair idly as they talked. Thire and Ilven had taken up a similar position with the addition of the tookas, Thire’s head resting against the side of Ilven’s thigh, Astera purred on his chest as he stroked his hands through her yellow fur while Phengari slept, merely a white ball of fur, upon his shoulder. Not to be outdone, Wolffe had lain himself down with his head resting on Jek’s calf, feet nearly in the fire as Jek balanced small twigs from the ground around them on top of his head.

A year had passed by since he had last seen them. A year that had allowed him and Riyo to fall back into their old routine. They had saved enough to purchase the garage they had once rented, and their business had no signs of stopping soon. The first few months home, their days had been filled with repairs that had gone unfinished in their absence, weeks of broken and lagging equipment.

They had nearly missed the three-year anniversary of Fox’s death.

They hadn’t missed the two-year anniversary of Thire’s.

Wolffe had been the one to notice. He had said nothing the day they had decided to travel to Boonta, the day their starship had set before the moons of Iego. It had been brought to Fox’s attention only a few weeks ago, when Wolffe commed him with the idea of a reunion. Now Fox sat an armlength away from Thire, watching the light of the fire dancing through the curls in his hair. He would be all right.

They would all be all right.

Fox bent down to press a kiss to Riyo’s forehead as she laughed with Jek, Wolffe scowling at them. The Empire had failed to take this from them. The Empire had failed to keep any of them apart. Wolffe had brought them rumors of Cody’s movements and of a forming rebellion that kept the purge troopers occupied in the absence of Jedi. Thire had brought a list of bounties for imperial targets, some already claimed. Fox had shared his clean bill of health after the administration of the YMC-delta.

The Empire’s war machine was slowing as it met resistance. Perhaps that resistance would win, perhaps it would merely hold, perhaps it may only be delaying the inevitable. But, for now, they were safe.

Fox kept his gaze on Riyo’s face as the conversation continued to flow. She glowed in the light of the fire, the golden light dancing off the marks on her cheeks. For the first time, he truly accepted the future Numidian Prime held for them. The sleepless nights, the patter of small feet, a family. Not only brothers, but uncles to his children. Their children.

His oath for the Republic had been burned away when he had taken his vows with her, promises of ruin replaced by those of peace.

In that peace, it was time to build anew.

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

for whom good omens is being written

Hey maggots and the rest of the fandom, it's the Good Omens Mascot here. Today I read a post about this tweet:

The accompanying video genuinely made me cry. And I've been thinking about this for a long while, as far back as February, when I saw a lot of conflicting opinions on what people wanted from the third season. It really is true that no matter what you do, some people will be dissatisfied. But what matters is that Neil is writing this for Terry.

And I was reminded of some paragraphs from the Good Omens TV Companion, which I'd read in Amazon's sample excerpt of the book. I know this is a long post, but I really truly do think you all need to read these, I've done my best to select only the most important parts. Here you go:

'His Alzheimer's started progressing harder and faster than either of us had expected,' says Neil, referring to a period in which Terry recognized that despite everything he could no longer write. 'We had been friends for over thirty years, and during that time he had never asked me for anything. Then, out of the blue, I received an email from him with a special request. It read: “Listen, I know how busy you are. I know you don't have time to do this, but I want you to write the script for Good Omens. You are the only human being on this planet who has the passion, love and understanding for the old girl that I do. You have to do this for me so that I can see it." And I thought, “OK, if you put it like that then I'll do it."

'I had adapted my own work in the past, writing scripts for Death: The High Cost of Living and Sandman, but not a lot else was seen. I'd also written two episodes of Doctor Who, and so I felt like I knew what I was doing. Usually, having written something once I'd rather start something new, but having a very sick co-author saying I had to do this?' Neil spreads his hands as if the answer is clear to see. 'I had to step up to the plate.' A pause, then: 'All this took place in autumn 2014, around the time that the BBC radio adaptation of Good Omens was happening,' he continues, referring to the production scripted and co-directed by Dirk Maggs and starring Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap. ‘Terry had talked me into writing the TV adaptation, and I thought OK, I have a few years. Only I didn't have a few years,' he says. 'Terry was unconscious by December and dead by March.'

He pauses again. 'His passing took all of us by surprise,' Neil remembers. 'About a week later, I started writing, and it was very sad. The moments Terry felt closest to me were the moments I would get stuck during the writing process. In the old days, when we wrote the novel, I would send him what I'd done or phone him up. And he would say, "Aahh, the problem, Grasshopper, is in the way you phrase the question," and I would reply, "Just tell me what to do!" which somehow always started a conversation. 'In writing the script, there were times I'd really want to talk to Terry, and also places where I'd figure something out and do something really clever, and I would want to share it with him. So, instead, I would text Terry's former personal assistant, Rob Wilkins, now his representative on Earth. It was the nearest thing I had.'

(...) As Neil himself recognizes, this is an adaptation built upon the confidence that comes from three decades of writing for page and screen. But for all the wisdom of experience, he found that above all one factor guided him throughout the process. 'Terry isn't here, which leaves me as the guardian of the soul of the story,' he explains. 'It's funny because sometimes I found myself defending Terry's bits harder or more passionately than I would defend my own bits. Take Agnes Nutter,' he says, referring to what has become a key scene in the adaptation in which the seventeenth-century author of the book of prophecies foretelling the coming of the Antichrist is burned at the stake. ‘It was a huge, complicated and incredibly expensive shoot, with bonfires built and primed to explode as well as huge crowds in costume. It had to feel just like an English village in the 1640s, and of course everyone asked if there was a cheap way of doing it. 'One suggestion was that we could tell the story using old-fashioned woodcuts and have the narrator take us through what happened, but I just thought, “No”. Because I had brought aspects of the story like Crowley and the baby swap along to the mix, and Terry created Agnes Nutter. So, if I had cut out Agnes then I wouldn't be doing right by the person who gave me this job. Terry would've rolled over in his grave.'

And, finally, this paragraph:

"Once again, Neil cites the absence of his co-writer as his drive to ensure that Good Omens translated to the screen and remained true to the original vision. 'Terry's last request to me was to make this something he would be proud of. And so that has been my job.'"

I think that's so heartwrenchingly beautiful, and so I wanted you all to read this, too, just in case you (like me) don't have the Good Omens TV Companion. It adds another layer of depth and emotion to this already complex and amazing story that we all know and love.

Share this post, if you can, please, so that more people can read these excerpts :")

Tagging @neil-gaiman, @fuckyeahgoodomens and @orpiknight, even if you've definitely read these before :)

[niennanir]

Listen to your elders

So last week I posted abut the importance of downloading your fic. And then three days later AO3 went down for 24 hours. No one was more weirded out by this than I was. But while y’all were acting like the library at Alexandria was on fire I was reading my download fic and editing chapter eight of Buck, Rogers, and the 21st Century. And also thinking about what I could do to be helpful when the crisis was actually over.

So first off, I’m going to repeat that if you’re going to bookmark a fic, you really need to also download the fic and back it up in a safe place. I just do it automatically now and it’s a good habit to get into.

But let’s talk about some other scenarios. Last October I lost power for over a week after hurricane Ian. Apart from not having internet or A/C I did find plenty to do, I collect books so I had plenty to read, but maybe, unlike me, your favorite comfort reads aren’t sitting on a bookshelf. So let’s do something about that, shall we?

In olden times many long years ago around 1995 we printed off a lot of fic. It was mostly SOP to print a fic you planned to reread and stick it in a three ring binder. And that’s totally valid today too, but you can also make a very nice paperback with a minimum amount of skill and materials.

Let’s start with the download; Go to Ao3 and select your fic, we’ll be working with one of mine. This method works best with one shots, long fic tends to need a more complicated approach. Get yourself an HTML download

Open up the HTML download and select all then copy paste into any word processor. Set the page to landscape and two columns, then change the font to something you find easy to read, this is your book, no judgement. This is all you have to do for layout but I like to play a little bit. I move all the meta, summary, notes to the end and pick out a fun font for the title: 

No time like the present to do a quick proofread. Congratulations, you’ve just created your first typeset. On to the fun part.

Now you’re going to need some materials:  8.5x11in paper ruler one sheet of 12x12 medium card stock (60-80lb) scissors pencil pen or fine tip marker sheet of wax paper white glue two binder clips 2 heavy books or 1 brick butter knife

You’ll also need a printer, if you’re in the US there is almost a 100% chance your local library has a printer you can use if you don’t have your own. None of these materials are expensive and you can literally use cheap copy paper and Elmers glue.

Print your text block, one page per side. Fold the first page in half so that the blank side is inside and the printed side out:

use the butter knife to crease the edge. Repeat on all the sheets. When you’ve finished, stack them up with the raw edge on the left and the folded edge on the right. I used standard copy paper, because you’re only printing on one side there’s no bleed to worry about. Take the text block and line everything up. Use the binder clips to hold the raw edge in place.

Wrap the text block in the wax paper so that the raw edge and binder clips are facing out. I’m going to use my home built book press but you don’t need one, a brick or a couple of books or anything else heavy will work fine.

Once the text block is anchored down, take off he binder clips and get out the glue.

You can use a brush but you don’t need one, smear some glue on that raw edge.

Go make a margarita, watch The Mandalorian, call your mother. Don’t come back for at least an hour

In an hour smear some more glue on there and shift your brick forward so that the whole book is covered. This keeps the paper from warping. While glue part 2 is drying we’ll do the cover. Get out your 12x12 cardstock

Mark the cardstock off at 8.5 inches and cut it. Measure in 5.5 inches from the left and put in a score line with the butter knife (the back edge not the sharp edge)

Carefully fold the score line, this is your front cover. You have some options for the cover title, you can use a cutting machine like a cricut if you have one, you can print out a title on the computer and use carbon paper to transfer the text to the cardstock. I was in a mood so I just freehanded that beoch. Pencil first then in pen.

Take your text block out from under your brick. Line it up against the score mark and mark the second score on the other side of the spine

Fold the score and glue the textblock into the cover at the spine. Once the glue dries up mark the back cover with the pencil and then trim the back cover to fit with your scissors.

Voila:

I’m going to put this baby on the shelf next to the Silmarillion.

The whole process, not counting drying time, took less than an hour.

If you want to make a book of a longer fic, I recommend Renegade Publishing, they have a ton of resources for fan-binders. 

[drchucktingle]

my masks

hey there buckaroos. due to all of the attention the TEXAS LIBRARY ASSOCIATION situation has gotten i am going to take a minute to talk about my personal way as an autistic buckaroo. im going to tell you about my masks.

im doing this for a few reasons, some are good FUN reasons full of love and some are not so great. 

lets start with the GOOD STUFF. first of all, i am talking about this because speaking on my way can help other buckaroo feel more comfortable speaking on there own way, ESPECIALLY if they are good at ‘passing’ for neurotypical like chuck is. 

unfortunately the NOT SO GREAT reasons im talking about all this dang stuff are two fold. reason one: i have been put into a position of having to explain and justify my needs and boundaries by the TXLA. this is not something that i WANT to be taking up all of my time, but when large organizations do not make space for those who they have pledged to support, it puts us smaller buckaroos into position where were have to defend our existence. it is not plesent but it is necessary.

the second NOT SO GREAT reason is that ‘passing’ bisexual and autistic people like myself are ALWAYS just seconds from being gatekept from folks both outside and inside these communities. there will probably be a day on chucks deathbed where i take off my mask and say hello to this timeline (mostly so you can all see how handsome i am under here but I DIGRESS). i KNOW with absolute certainty (the same way other bi and autistic buckaroos are probably nodding along right now) that when that day comes i will STILL be accused of ‘not being real’ and ‘faking’ because i ‘dont look autistic’ and i have a beautiful ladybuck partner in sweet barbara.

ALL THAT IS TO SAY, i am taking a moment today to talk FOR THE RECORD about my neurodigence and my particular needs. hopefully i will not have to keep diving this deep every time an organization takes a discrimantory action against me, but i will also say this: at least it is a good fight on an important battlefield

anyway buds, here is the story of my way on the spectrum

when i was a young buckaroo i knew that my thought process was different. i could socialize easily, which is unique in contrast to many autistic buds (it is a spectrum after all), but my social ease was for an interesting reason. I ALWAYS KNEW WHAT OTHERS WERE ABOUT TO SAY. it was like a strange ‘human game’ where someone would say one thing and i would think ‘well you actually mean something else’ in a sort of logical way (this is why i later related to DATA from star trek so dang much). at first i remember thinking ‘well i am just NOT going to play along with this human game’. i quickly learned neurotypical buckaroos do not like this, that there is a BOB AND WEAVE to social interactions that must be learned. 

later i realized ‘actually if i WANT to make friends and prove love is real then i can do this like an expert because i can SEE the game where most cant’. this got chuck many buds and took me on many adventures. please understand, i am not saying these connections are not important to me, they are just different. they are full of love, but i express this in my own unique way.

HOWEVER, while growing up i felt disconnected from this timeline in other ways, like an alien or a reverse twin trotting along in a world that is not quite my own. i did not feel emotions the same way my buds did. they would get upset over the ‘human game’ interactions and i would not be moved at all, HOWEVER i could see the way sunlight hit a window and start crying my dang eyes out over the beauty. so my emotion was still there and VERY STRONG, i just felt it in more existential ways (like hearing the call of the lonesome train). these days that feeling has progressed to where i am pretty much in a constant blissed out state of cosmic emotional connection (make of that last sentence what you will, but it is the truth). when i make existential posts online i am not just FIRING OFF SOME CONTENT, i really mean every word. this is really my trot.

anyway as a young buckaroo these feelings made me worry sometimes. i thought about various mental health dianosises and marked the parts and pieces that matched with myself. am i this? am i that? sometimes, instead of just being’ different’ i worried i might actually be ‘wrong’. 

when i saw david byrne on letterman in my younger days i immediately recognized something connected to myself. i thought ‘wow this is the mystery being solved before my very eyes.’ i could hear it in the music of talking heads too. i started doing research and realized that i might be on autism spectrum, something that was later confirmed by a therapist (back then the diagnosis was called asperger's). it was a glorious and fulfilling moment. i was SO EXCITED TO BE AUTISTIC LIKE MY HERO. i felt very cool because of it, and i still feel very cool because of it.

one of the big reasons i talk so much about being autistic these days is because i want to make sure OTHER buckaroos can have that same moment that i did. they can see chuck and think ‘wow i really like this autistic artist, maybe being autistic is cool’

so what does an average day WITHOUT wearing the pink bag look like for me?

my thought process is exactly like ROSE from CAMP DAMASCUS, which is part of why i wrote the book. we have the same stim (complex order of finger taps), we prepare for social interactions the same way, we analyze things in the same logical trot that neurotypical people might think feels ‘detached’ but for me feels natural (certain reviews of camp damascus are very funny to me in this way. you can tell when a reader is just very confused by existing in an autistic brain for 250 pages.)

from the outside you would not be able to tell that i am on the spectrum. in fact you would probably find me very socially adept. 

the problem is, all of that masking can take its toll. i spent years trotting in and out the emergency room, talking to confused doctors who could not figure out the chronic phantom tension and pain that radiated through my body. i eventually accepted the fact that i would either live a life constantly on heavy painkillers or just stop living altogether.

eventually, however, i started noticing a correlation between the way that i felt, and the space that i allowed for chuck and the pink mask. i was exercising that tension, allowing my mental mask of neurotypical existence to take a rest. i started practicing physical therapy and this time THE RESULTS STUCK because i was approaching from two sides, MIND AND BODY. after a while, i got my pain down to about 5 percent of what it once was. i still have flare ups in times of stress, but the healing has been very real and life changing.

lets get VERY specific now. if i attended the TXLA confrence without a mask and gave my talk i can tell you this: i would do a dang good job. i can work the heck out of a crowd and (not to reveal too much about my secret way) I HAVE BEEN KNOWN TO DO THIS ON OCCASION VERY WELL. however, going home from this event i would very likely be in pain. i would likely need to do physical therapy. i would likely need to stim for a while. i would NOT be emotionally fullfilled in the same way. in other words, without my pink mask i can charm the heck out of buckaroos, but THE SPACE OF CHUCK TINGLE IS NOT THE SPACE FOR THAT. the pink bag is a place for me to not have to put up with that tension. it is a place for me to unmask mentally by masking physically.

this pink bag space SAVED MY LIFE and i am not going to risk blurring these lines. if and when that ever happens it will be MY decision, not someone elses. that is my boundary. the part of me that neurotypically masks could handle a library conference in a purely technical sense, but the part of me that chuck represents absolutely cannot and should not be asked to do that without the pink bag. unfortunately, the complexity of this point makes it even MORE difficult for me to think about and takes up even more of my time, because it forces me to START QUESTIONING MYSELF and my own needs. to be honest, that is the most insidious part of other people questioning your identify and refusing to accept your accommodation needs without ‘proof’.

the thing is, while all of this discussion of disability and accessibility is important, i have a much larger point to make by writing these words.

a conference should not uninvite someone with an unusual physical presentation or a strange way of speaking REGARDLESS of it being classified as a disability. it does not matter WHY i look the way that i look and wear what i wear. i should not have to spend all day writing this post instead of writing my next book, just because my sensibilities are unique and my presentation is unusual. 

fortunately the solution is very simple: let other people be themselves. its not hurting you to simply accept and nod at the buckaroos you think look strange. let us exist

[clockwayswrites]

Birds and Mice and Tea Parties 20

Masterpost

AN: B really was trying his best to protect Danny last time, he just was missing too much information. Poor Danny...

No reading over. We suffer and post at 2am.

-

It had been two weeks since the last rogue Wayne visit.

Danny hadn’t intended to keep track. There was no reason to. One visit from Cass and one from Tim did not a pattern make.

He tried to dismiss the observation. He had plenty to do; it wasn��t like he didn’t have friends. The bi-weekly trivia group would start meeting again soon. He also had a TTRGP session that did its best to meet around all that life threw at them. Tucker and him played online games when they could make schedules match and he and Sam talked when she was stateside. He even had regular lunches with coworkers!

Still, there had been something different about spending time with the family.

So no, Danny hadn’t meant to keep track, but he still knew it had been two weeks and a day. But of course he wouldn’t see the Waynes that often. Bruce was a very busy man and most of the children would have no reason to come to W.E. They had their own lives with work and school and being kids or young adults. The other visits had simply been flukes, as nice as the visits had been.

The subtle feeling of melancholy that had settled over him was ridiculous and he wasn’t having it. His mood was simply off because of the whole Ancient thing. The way it was affecting his health didn’t make feeling better any easier either.

Danny leaned against the wall of the elevator as he tried to catch his breath. He really shouldn’t be walking right then to get lunch, not with the way that he felt, but he hadn’t had anything at his place to make lunch with. He hadn’t had the energy to go shopping. He’d just go somewhere close instead of walking to anything on the other side of the park.

The natural reverb of the lobby assaulted Danny as he stepped out of the elevator.

He just had to get through the lobby, the street, the restaurant, back through the street, and through the lobby again. Then he could hide in his office and eat. Or he could hide in there and eat as long as Lucius didn’t find him. Maybe even Lucius would give him a break today though.

“Dr. Fenton…?”

Danny looked up from rubbing his neck.

It was Tim. Damian was at Tim’s side, flanking him like a little guard dog and scowling. Tim was frowning too. Danny immediately wanted to fix whatever was wrong.

“Look at that, a pair of Waynes. How are you two?”

“That is unimportant,” Damian said with a little sniff. “You are clearly unwell. I assume you are returning to your apartment to rest?”

“Oh, no, I’m just going to go grab lunch. I’m alright, really,” Danny said and put on the best smile he could muster.

Tim and Damian looked at each other in some sort of silence conversation. Danny started to edge away from them, thinking he could escape before they came to some sort of end. He really needed out of the lobby and its echoing sounds.

A startled shriek from the entry way cut off that plan.

Danny twisted to face the sound as he stepped in front of the kids.

Of course it was a rogue, what else would it be in Gotham? It was a rogue, but at least it was the Mad Hatter and his squad of likely mind controlled goons. He usually wasn’t prone to death and destruction like some of the others were. But still, Danny felt his metaphorical hackles rising. The kids were here.

The kids were here and sure to draw the Mad Hatter’s attention if he saw them. Danny stepped slowly backwards, herding the kids away from the scene. At least they weren’t far into the lobby.

“Back up to the stairwell,” Danny said lowly, trying to cast his voice behind him.

“Tch. We can—”

“The elevator, the back left one,” Tim said quietly but firmly over his brother’s protest. “I have a code to take it to a safe room in the basement.”

“If he kills the power,” Danny started.

“The elevators have emergency back up.”

“That’s not very good behavior for a tea party, is it?” the Matter Hatter shouted at someone.

Danny bit back a rising noise of anger in his throat. His fingers twitched to act. But he couldn’t. The best plan was to get the kids out of there away from any action.

“Yes I see, Damian,” Tim hissed. “We’re almost to the elevator.”

“Call it as soon as you can,” Danny said. Was there a reverb to his voice? It felt like there was a reverb to his voice. No, no, he couldn’t, he had to…

“That’s better! See? This is how you behave when someone invites you to a tea party! Now where is that little dormouse?” the Mad Hatter called. “I know I saw him come in here! With an even littler one too.”

He wanted Tim.

“Calling the elevator.”

“Another mouse? A rat? A cat?"

The Mad Hatter wanted Tim and Damian.

“Here mousy mouse mice… where are you?"

Danny would not let that happen.

“Oh there you are! Hiding back by the doors, of course he is!” The Mad Hatter said. The crowed parted in fear. His wide, manic eyes looked right past Danny and he grinned. “Get them. We have a tea party we’re late for.”

“Over my dead body,” Danny growled.

The Mad Hatter blinked at Danny like he just noticed him for the first time. His goons rushed past him and through the crowd. “Oh, who are you? Never mind, if death is what you want, we can make that happen.”

Danny couldn’t hold back the chortling laughter. “See, that’s where you have a problem you don’t even know you could have.”

“And what is that?”

“You couldn’t handle my dead body,” Danny said just as the first goon reached them.

Danny stepped forward. He ducked under the swing of the punch and used the momentum to spin the goon around. With a push of his ghostly power, he sent the attacking goon careening into the next one and they both went tumbling.

“Danny, it’s here!” Tim shouted.

Not turning his back to the attackers, Danny stepped backwards into the elevator. Tim slammed a button and the doors basically snapped closed, much faster than they should. Danny was left staring at the polished metal surface of the elevator. Luminous green stared back at him. Soft black feathers dotted his temples. His fingers ended in talons. And he could feel it.

He could feel the skin on his back started to split.

Wings.

[zaczenemiji]

Hi I hope you are having a lovely day my dear ♥. I was wondering if you could do a Kenji Sato x reader where the reader is an assistant manager to him and one day he like acts arrogantly towards her during one of his interviews when he sees a pretty journalist amongst the crowed of ppl interviewing him and he says some hurtful things to reader and collectively ignoring her and instead choosing to focus on the journalists girl. Ever since that day reader has been silent around Sato and he thought he didn't care but it bothered him because even though she is usually quite, these days she is *too* quite and then there is like a mini celebration for like a baseball game win and reader goes with a guy who is like an athlete but is not as famous as Sato. So the kicker is reader is absolutely DROP DEAD GORGEOUS and ppl at the party even think she is a model. So Sato get jealous and he acts all possessive and protective of her , while she is still angry at him but eventually he makes it up to her over time. If you have anything else to add please do.

Shattered Pride

Kenji Sato x AssistantManager!Reader

Word Count: 1,873

Genre/Warnings: Character Development, Eventual Romance, Forgiveness, Jealousy, Regret, Redemption

Author’s Note: The idea behind this was just fantastic! Thank you so much for the request, writing this was my honor.

MASTERLIST

Being Kenji Sato’s assistant manager is not an easy task. I repeat: Not. An. Easy. Task. Throughout his baseball career, he has had several assistants who quit as soon as they were hired because, for one thing, Kenji is stubborn.

Ghosted interviews, off-topic answers, and insults to other players were just some of the many things about him that gave you a headache.

You remember being referred to him by his last assistant saying that it was a high-paying job. However, you were skeptical at how quickly and willing they were to give off their job to another person.

You understood why the first time you met him. After the meeting, you asked him, “Is there anything else you need from me today?”

In response, he gave an irritated sigh. “If I needed something, I would have asked.”

Thankfully, you were more on the nonchalant scale, and how people respond to you didn’t bother you much. You were here to do your job—and excellently at that, not exactly to be friends with an arrogant baseball star.

Kenji’s behavior was… challenging, that’s the best word for it. He barked orders, rarely said thank you, and seemed to take your presence for granted. But in conditions like these, you thrive the most; you succeed where others have failed.

Today was a usual day with the usual crowd of journalists and fans gathering in the conference room. You stood by his side, ensuring everything was in order for yet another post-game interview.

It was going all smooth and well when Kenji suddenly paused mid-sentence. It was a very short pause that wouldn’t be noticeable to others but you, with all the time you spent as his assistant, noticed it.

Your eyes looked in the direction he kept glancing at. A girl, of course, strikingly beautiful with long sleek back hair that cascaded down in soft waves.

When it was her turn to ask, Kenji leaned forward to give her a dazzling smile. “Why don’t you ask me a question?” he said, ignoring the list of pre-approved questions you handed him before the interview started.

Kenji was holding court with this journalist longer than he should. You noticed that the others in line were starting to murmur in annoyance.

You stepped forward, maintaining your professional demeanor. “Excuse me, Mr. Sato, but we need to move on,” you said. “Other journalists are waiting for their turn.”

“I’m not done here,” he said arrogantly, not bothering to look your way.

You took a deep breath, wanting to handle this situation diplomatically. “I understand,” you said. “But we’ve exceeded the time limit, and it’s only fair to give everyone a chance.”

Whichever agency’s plan was it to send her here to get ahead of other journalists, it’s working. She gave you a polite smile, clearly enjoying the extra attention.

Kenji frowned and turned to you. “Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something important?” He asked. “If you can’t manage your job properly, maybe you should reconsider.”

Your eyes widened. You could feel others’ on you, their stares almost cutting through your professional facade.

Swallowing your pride, you nodded and stepped back, keeping your expression neutral. But as neutral as you looked, deep down you felt a mix of anger and humiliation.

From that day on, you remained silent around Kenji, only speaking when necessary. You remained professional though, and you made sure that your job was not compromised.

During meetings, you no longer offered insights unless directly asked. When you did speak, your tone was strictly professional. Well, it has always been, but the warmth that characterized your interactions was now gone.

Like that one time during a team strategy meeting. Kenji asked for input on a new play. The room fell silent as everyone waited for your usual insightful suggestions, but you simply looked down at your notes, saying nothing.

The coach glanced at you, surprised. "Any thoughts, (y/n)?" You shook your head. "No, Coach. Nothing to add."

At first, Kenji was oblivious to all of this. He was absorbed in his own world and the adulation of his fans, as always. But as the days turned into weeks, your silence grew too loud to ignore that even he finally noticed it.

A month later, the team planned on celebrating a recent major win. This time, they have decided to invite other athletes as guests of honor. The organizers wanted to have a mix of established stars and up-and-coming talents from the sports world.

You decided to take this as an opportunity to have yourself pampered. You have been working hard, after all. Despite the obvious tension between you and Kenji, you were still able to do your job well.

That’s why at the party, you were stunning. Drop dead gorgeous, as the team said. Though the lights were dim, it seemed as if a spotlight was following you as everyone you passed by turned their heads to look.

You decided to settle by the bar for drinks. “Hey there,” came a familiar voice. You turned to see Jake approaching. He was one of the promising young athletes and a rising star in the sports world who was invited to this party.

He plays as a forward for a popular soccer team and has recently garnered attention for his impressive performance in the league. This wasn’t the first time you met as Jake and Kenji ran into each other a couple times before at different events.

He leaned against the bar, signaling the bartender for a drink. “It’s nice to see you again and this time, enjoying yourself,” he said. “You looked like you needed a break at the last event we were at.”

You chuckled softly, appreciating his observation. "Yeah, it's been a bit hectic lately."

Jake's drink arrived, and he took a sip, his eyes studying you with genuine interest. “Well, you look incredible tonight,” he said. “Have you been hearing what the others are saying?”

Jake turned to glance at the crowd, then back at you. “They were all asking if you were a model or something,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think the same.”

“Thanks, Jake,” you replied, smiling. “You clean up pretty well yourself."

He laughed, a warm, infectious sound that put you at ease. "So, how's work been treating you? Still managing the chaos that is Kenji Sato?"

You hesitated, the memory of Kenji's recent behavior still fresh. "It's been… challenging," you admitted. "But I manage."

Jake's expression softened with understanding. "I can imagine. He's got a reputation for being difficult."

Unbeknownst to both of you, the baseball star you were talking about has finally arrived. His presence commanded attention as he navigated through the crowd, exchanging greetings and handshakes.

As he made his way deeper into the club, his eyes caught sight of you. At that moment he froze. Or was it time that froze? He didn’t know. All he was sure of was that for a little while, he couldn’t breathe.

You were stunning. Your outfit, a sleek, form-fitting dress that accentuated your every curve, made you look like you had just stepped off a runway. Your hair was styled to perfection, your makeup highlighting your natural beauty.

Suddenly, he noticed the man you were talking to, Jake. “That rookie soccer player,” he thought. Gosh, you deserved so much better. At that moment, with firm resolve, he declared upon himself that he would work to be the better that you deserved.

Kenjl's jaw clenched as his own possessive instincts flared up, a mix of jealousy and protectiveness surging through him. He made his way over to you, his eyes never leaving your form.

On your end, you noticed the crowd parted slightly, and you saw Kenji making his way towards you.

Turning slightly, you met Kenji’s gaze with a cool, indifferent look. "Kenji," you acknowledged, your tone polite but distant.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" he asked, his voice tight with barely restrained emotion.

Jake looked at you, his gaze asking if you were fine with it. You smiled at him, a genuine and warm expression, something you haven’t given Kenji in a while. “I’ll go on ahead,” you told Jake. “See you around.”

Kenji led you away from the crowd, finding a quieter corner of the club. As soon as you were out of earshot, he turned to you, his eyes dark with jealousy.

"Why didn't you come with me?" Kenji asked, his frustration evident.

You scoffed. “First of all, you didn’t ask me to.” You crossed your arms, fixing him with a hard stare. "And you made it very clear where I stand with you. Or rather, where I don't."

He winced, the memory of his hurtful words coming back to haunt him. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice softer now. "I was wrong. I was an idiot."

You remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

“I've been a jerk, and I know it,” he continued. “I was arrogant, dismissive, and I took you for granted.”

You watch him, seeing the sincerity in his eyes. Yet you looked away, the hurt still fresh. "You hurt me, Kenji,” you said. “You made me feel worthless and unimportant."

Kenji steps closer, his voice filled with regret. “I know, I'm so sorry. I was so focused on myself, on my career, that I didn't see how much I was hurting you. Your silence has been killing me. I miss your insights, your presence.”

He paused for a while before continuing. “I miss you.” He reaches out, gently taking your hand.

“You're more than just my assistant,” he said. “You're the reason I can do what I do. You make everything better, and I've been too blind to see it. Please, give me a chance to make it right. I want to earn back your trust.”

You met his gaze, searching for any sign of insincerity. All you saw was genuine regret and a longing to make things right. "This isn't something that can be fixed overnight, Kenji."

"I know," he said quickly. "I'll do whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. I just... I can't lose you."

You took a deep breath, the weight of his words sinking in. "We'll see," you said. "But it won't be easy."

He nodded, relief flooding his features. "I understand,” he said. “Thank you, (y/n)—for giving me a chance.”

As you walked back to the party, Kenji stayed close by your side, protective and possessive. arm subtly wrapped around your waist, a clear signal to everyone around that you were with him.

As the night came to an end, Kenji offered to drive you home. To which, you agreed. The drive home was quiet, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything else, it was rather hopeful.

One evening, after a particularly grueling day, Kenji found you alone in the office. “Hey," he said softly, "I was thinking we could grab dinner. Just the two of us."

You looked up, surprised. "Dinner?"

He nodded, a hopeful smile on his face. "Yeah. To thank you for everything. And to make up for being such an idiot."

You smiled at him for a moment before nodding. "Okay. Dinner sounds nice."

Taglist is open! Comment if u wanna be tagged on future Kenji oneshots

@eternallyvenus @puppyminnnie

[starkeyisthelastname]

had the absolutely SINFUL thought of reader getting pornstar! Rafe to take photos of her pussy after he creampies it for her only fans

ooooo yes 💦😩

You not only filmed for larger porn companies, but had your own little OnlyFans on the side. Thats how you got started and discovered, a viral video of you that found its way on Twitter. You didn’t post as much as you had use to, with professional filming throughout the week taking most of your time. Most not if all your videos were solos or sexy pictures after you had just done on set, and were freshly fucked.

The constant hate you had received after people found out that the pussy slayer himself was fucking you more than once, had made you upset for the first few weeks. You weren’t use to getting blasted on social media, and the spew of jealous bitches seemed to be never ending. If you were truly the only girl Rafe was fucking more than once, then maybe you needed to turn this negative into a positive and play back.

You were a gasping mess per usual, eyes rolled back and legs spread wide as Rafe’s hung cock pounded into your wanting hole. You were so greedy for him, there was no way that his dick was not made for you. As much as you loved getting paid for having sex on camera, it was almost starting to become a nuisance. You had been faking orgasms every scene you filmed that wasn’t Rafe as he had kept his promise of ruining your holes for anyone else.

“You like that shit whore? Who’s fuckin dick you makin a mess on?” Rafe asked through gritted white teeth, his hand giving you a light but firm slap to your cheek as he continued his brutal pounding.

It amazed you how this man could make you dumb on the dick with such ease. It was like you were learning how to talk again while he gave you pipe, your words slurred and broken as you tried to figure it out. Another slap to your sparkly cheek though, had you snapping out of it real quick as his thrusts slowed down. “You really think I’m playin today? You want Rafe Cameron’s nut in your pussy, I suggest you start speaking the fuck up.” His cerulean eyes completely dark, something you had learned about him when he was close to coming undone himself.

You whined pathetically, knowing you did. Every time he filled your pussy up with his seed, it almost made you feel like you belonged to him in such a deeper way. His dirty words were always a catalyst for throwing you over the edge to your climax, your sopping cunt sucking him as you pleaded him to not slow down. “No no no…. don’t slow down. I need it Rafe… I’m makin a mess a-all over your big cock!” You blabbered incoherently, his thrusts speeding back up as soon as you said his name.

Your words didn’t make much sense, but that didn’t matter to you when he squeezed your throat as you came all over him and a few thrusts later he was spilling himself inside you with a string of loud grunts and nasty words. It was when he slowly pulled out of your swollen cunt, that he leaned back to admire his work. “Such a pretty fuckin pussy filled with my cum.” He mumbled, a blissful smile spreading across your beautiful face.

“Take a picture. I wanna see…” You said softly, an idea coming to your head as you reached for your phone. Not only were you uploading these to your OnlyFans for a little refresher and new content, you were about to make all those other hoes big mad by posting it on Twitter.

There were two pictures with the flash on and a 10 second video of Rafe’s digits spreading your pussy lips open to show his cum spilling out of your fucked out hole and onto the sheets of his bed. Anyone who knew Rafe, knew he always wore a distinct gold signet ring on his index finger. So when you uploaded the video to Twitter with the caption ‘Y’all can still be mad😢 but guess who’s getting creampied by him? Not you. 🤣’

Let’s just say… you got your little revenge.

[giannaln4]

Make You Feel Better

lando norris x fem reader

summary: Lando wasn't feeling the best after a long day of media duties, but he could always count on you to make him feel better. (915 words)

warnings: mdni, + 18, smut, unprotected sex, needy!lando

a/n: heyy everyone! sorry for disappearing after posting literally just one fic, but with uni and then summer i didn't really find the time to write but i'm working on a few fics right now! anyway please send some requests!

↺ back to navigation— send me a request!

Some days were better than others, and Lando always tried to be positive around you, but today just wasn’t his day. He had a long day; media day wasn’t his favourite, too many people to talk to, cameras all around at all times, and on top of that, he was feeling a little under the weather. 

It’s not like he always felt that way, it was a part of his duties and he liked to meet fans. He loved seeing the people that supported him unconditionally so happy just by seeing him. He knew he had to do it anyway, but the triple header was getting to him, and it was only the second weekend.

He dragged himself back into his hotel, dragging his feet out of the elevator and through the hallways. He wasn’t expecting to see you awake, still waiting for him, but he was almost relieved when he spotted you sitting in his bed.

“Hi” You happily greeted him when he entered the room, putting your phone down to pay attention to him.

“Hi” He replied, not as happy as you. You could easily see that he was having a bad day. 

He dropped his bag next to the door and made his way to the bed, collapsing in your arms as soon as he got there. “Bad day” was all he said and you didn’t push it any further. You let him settle in your arms, rubbing his back as you both sink into the mattress.

“It’s okay, baby. You should get some rest, I know you haven’t been sleeping as much as you are supposed to” 

He shook his head into your chest “I had something else in mind”

“Go on” You knew where this was going, and honestly you couldn’t complain.

“I was thinking, uh- you could help me feel better” His voice was a little hesitant, but his hands were confident when they found your hips, squeezing them as if he was trying to give you a hint of what he wanted.

“Yeah? How?”

“I need you, please”

You smile down at him, suddenly needy for him “Is that what you want?”

He nodded desperately, and he immediately lifted his head and reached for your chin, pulling you in for a kiss. It started rough and passionate, you could barely catch your breath. You climbed into his lap, placing your knees to his sides.

“How do you want me?” You managed to ask in between kisses.

“Ride me”

As soon as he said that you got up, taking a step back and slowly undressing in front of him. “Are you gonna keep your clothes?”

“Uh- no” He quickly got rid of them, keeping his eyes on you the entire time.

You were both naked, and you returned to your previous position on his lap. After a moment of making out, you softly pushed him into the mattress and leaned down to meet his lips again.

“Want me to help you feel better? You had a bad day so you need me to ride you?” Lando’s eyes widened and he nodded quickly, bucking his hips up.

You shook your head, pulling away “Words, Lando”

“Yes. Baby, please” He begged, his hands on your hips again.

You smirk, satisfied with his answer. He was still holding onto your hips as you began to get comfortable on top of him, he then placed his hands on your tits, massaging them softly as you started to stroke his needy cock. He let out a loud moan at your touch.

Your pussy was soaking wet, brushing up against his thigh. The contact made you moan softly and you couldn't help but put more pressure, relieving your need a little bit. You kept rubbing your core against him as he let out soft whimpers, your hand still stroking him, but the relief you were giving him wasn’t nearly enough. “Please, baby” Lando moaned as you placed your hands on his stomach.

“Please what?”

“Please fuck me”

That was all you needed to hear, so you situated yourself and slowly sank down on his cock. He moaned loudly, and your hands moved up to his chest, as you began to roll your hips. His hands moved to your hips again as his own bucked up into you, making you whimper as loud as he was.

“You always make me feel so good” He cried out.

Your mind was too focused on your own pleasure you didn’t even answer him. You continued moving, a string of moans of his name leaving your lips. He was deep, deep inside of you and he just hit that place where you both feel incredibly good. 

“Fuck” Lando said with furrowed brows, his cheeks red and forehead full of sweat. His curls were stuck to his forehead, making him incredibly sexy. “I’m gonna cum,” he said when he started to get that feeling in his lower abdomen.

You didn’t say anything but you picked up your pace, bringing Lando even closer to his orgasm. It didn’t take long for him to shoot his release inside you, making you come closer to your own release.

He moaned your name repeatedly, and you collapsed on his chest when your mindblowing orgasm finally hit you. You were barely moving your hips now, dusting off your high.

You finally stopped moving and you stayed like that for a while, catching your breath as your cheek was pressed on his chest.

“Feel better, baby?”

“Yeah”

[no-144444]

lies and flights- o.piastri

pairing: oscar piastri x fem! Skyf1interviewer! reader

summary: you two have a moment, the moment ends, and so does something else...

part one | part two | part three | part four

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He sighed as he walked into the paddock, cameras all over him as question after question was thrown at him. He answered as many as were appropriate and off he went, signing hats and t-shirts as he went. He had so much to do, so much to get through before qualifying, yet all he could think about was you. He didn’t mean to make it a big deal, he just wanted to take care of you. You’d fainted, for god’s sake. He was worried about you. 

He caught a glimpse of you walking in with Lando as he was filming some random content for one of the sponsor's instagram pages, and his mood sank lower than it already had been. You with Lando. 

It’s not like either of you had confessed, but you’d both felt the chemistry between the two of you, right? He finished up with filming and followed Tom into one of the meeting rooms, ready to look over data, when he (literally) bumped into you, sending you flying. 

“Shit, sorry,” he muttered as he caught you, holding you by the waist. “My bad.”

You smiled. “Saving me two days in a row? You should be a bodyguard instead of a driver,” you chuckled. “Thanks Osc.”

Lando’s jaw dropped when he heard you call him ‘Osc’, and a sense of pride bloomed in his chest. Osc was getting the girl! Lando sent him a quick thumbs up behind your back as he also held the camera. 

“What’re you doing here?” Oscar asked, not yet letting go of you. His hands were so warm, radiating heat through your whole body and making you nervous. You had a love-hate relationship with interactions with Oscar. He made you so nervous, no matter what. Your years of media training and professionalism could get stripped back by one small chuckle, one small smile, making eye contact. It was embarrassing. You liked him so much, which was a separate can of worms itself, and he looked at you the same way he looked at everyone.

“Motorhome tour,” you explained, looking up at him. He could’ve sworn he saw something in your eyes, something that practically asked him to make a move, to kiss you here in front of everyone. Then it was gone just as quickly as it appeared, your professionalism taking precedence over your feelings. “Moving on,” you turned back to the camera as Oscar dropped his hands from your waist, allowing you to move on. “To the driver’s rooms!”

He chuckled as he watched you and Lando run towards the other side of the motorhome, and Oscar started walking again, not unaware of the eyes Tom was giving him. 

“You two seem close,” he smirked. “The shoes aren’t a dealbreaker, no?”

He laughed. “Why does everyone bring up the shoes?!”

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“Congratulations on P3, Judgy McJudgy Pants! How did the race feel?” you questioned. You were doing post-race interviews today, and Oscar had gone from P5 to P3. 

“Yeah, it was difficult but we kept a good pace, Max was just too fast to catch,” he nodded, his eyes staring into yours. 

“I’m glad to hear, are you glad for the race to be over?”

He nodded, chuckling. “Very glad.”

“The heat must be something else in those cars, on top of the regular heat. Does that make getting out of the car a lot more of a relief?” 

“It does, but I was more excited about the interviewer,” he smirked. He was not doing this right now. He was not flirting with you on live television. You got the signal that the interview should end and you let out a quick breath of relief. 

“Well thank you, but I in fact need to interview your fellow podium drivers, thanks for your time.”

Lando walked over, ready to take the mic and he smirked at Oscar. “Getting bold?”

He shrugged with a smile. “What’s the worst she can say?” 

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"Oscar Jack Piastri!" Nicole's voice rang out as he lifted his phone to his ear. "My son flirting with people on live television is not something I want to see."

He chuckled as he mother continued berating him, and they chatted about the race for a while, before he had to go to the airport. When he walked to his door, ready to leave, he wasn't expecting a knock at the door, nor was he expecting it to be you.

"Hey Y/n," he smiled. "How are you?"

"I'm good thank, you?" you were out of breath. Had you ran here?

"I'm great, thanks. Are you alright?"

You came in and closed the door behind you. "What are you playing at?"

"Excuse me?"

"The interviews, the pictures, everything. What are you doing?" you questioned.

"Isn't it obvious?" he chuckled. "I like you, like, like like you. I thought I made that clear?"

You grimaced and his heart sank.

"It's fine if you don't-"

"Oscar, no, just... it's kind of awful timing and we can't be together, right? That would never work, we hate each other, right?" you rationalised, willing him to agree with you.

As much as he wanted to scream and rip his hair out, he nodded, a flat smile on his face. "Exactly, that's why I was just joking."

You breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank God!" you chuckled. "Well, congratulations on the win and I'll see you in Qatar, thanks Osc."

"Bye," he smiled half-heartedly, then flung himself back on his bed when you left. You didn't like him back. And what did you mean by 'bad timing'? He spent his entire flight, awake and wondering about what you meant, and thinking over every interaction, wondering if he'd really just made it all up in his head.

But the way you looked at him, it couldn't just be platonic, right?

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yourusername

liked by pierregasly, charlesleclerc, landonorris, oscarpiastri and 2,928,733 others

yourusername: @.f1, you've been my home for many years and I love you, thank you for starting my career, but also for being my favourite series of motorsports since I was a little girl. But now @.skysports is branching out and I'm moving across the pond at the end of this season to cover @.Indycar and @.nascar ! I'll miss everyone so much, but I am so so so excited to see that the future will bring! 6 races left! (also sad to be missing the historic season that 2025 will be, but oh well!)

comments

user83: oh I'll kms.

pierregasly: we'll miss you xxx liked by: valterribottas, zhouguanyu, landonorris, danielriccardo, charlesleclerc, carlossainz, alexalbon, francocolapinto, liamlawson, yukistunoda, estebanocon, fernandoalonso, jensonbutton, aussiegrit, kevinmagnussen, nicohulkenburg, lewishamilton, georgerussell, kimiantonelli, olliebearman, isakhadjar, paularon, arthruleclerc, lancestroll, checoperez, maxverstappen, alexandrastmleux, kikagomez, lilymhe, rebeccadonaldson.

skysportsf1: We'll miss you most! xxx

tedkravitz: It's been a privilege and an honour to work with you. You truly are the funniest person I've ever met. Your segment on Ted's notebook will be thoroughly missed. You will be thoroughly missed.

charlesleclerc: Bonne chance mon amour! ❤️

yukistunoda: who will organise interviews with me and pierre now? 😿 -> yourusername: I'll ask ted :(

danielriccardo: legend of the sport :) -> yourusername: looking in a mirror are we?

mercedesfmg: we'll miss you y/n! 🩵

mclaren: missing you already! 🧡

user72: guys... has anyone told oscar? -> user21: he must be so upset :( -> user92: yeah his best friend and his crush leaving F1 in the same year.

stakef1: missing you 💚 -> yourusername: manifesting hulkenburg podium next year

lewishamilton: I'll miss you, but you definitely have to come back for some hot laps... maybe Austin next year? -> yourusername: I'm there :)

maxverstappen: sad to see you go, but i can't wait for all the stories :)

landonorris: FUCK I'M CRYING WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS YOU TOO MUCH PLEASE DON'T GO -> yourusername: IT'LL BE FINE LANDO YOU'RE A BIG BOY

patooward: YAY WE GET Y/N!

haasf1team: our favourite interviewer ever ❤️

alpine: missing you loads 🩷

jackdoohan: NO I'M FINE THAT MY BEST FRIEND IS MISSING MY ROOKIE SEASON -> yourusername: I'LL BE IN MELBOURNE AND AT THE LAST FEW RACES!!! -> jackdoohan: ...forgiven.

liamlawson: NO DON'T LEAVE ME HERE ALONE -> yourusername: JACK WILL BE THERE NEXT YEAR CALM DOWN

kimiantonelli: miss you xxx

olliebearman: will be in need of your smoothie recipe since you won't be here to make it :( -> yourusername: I'll send it to you :)

user829: someone check on oscar rn...?? -> user36: fr he's probably sobbing his celeb crush is leaving the paddock for good ->user292: BRO IS IN THE LIKES !!!!!!

redbullracing: we'll be staying tuned to watch shine -> user88: wow a better send-off than daniel got lmao

logansargeant: CANT WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN 😁😁😁😁 -> yourusername: ME NEITHER

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He stared at his phone in shock.

What. The. Fuck.

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navigation for my blog :) (masterlist)

part one | part two | part three | part four

[norris55s]

just friends - pato o'ward

sister’s best friend!reader x pato o’ward social media au

a/n: it’s a sister’s best friend to best friends to lovers brain rot. i also needed something to soothe my heart after that last lap on the indy500. i also love pato with all my heart. fc is olivia rodrigo!

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y/ninstagram

liked by patriciooward, elbaoward and 21,546 others

y/ninstagram: the bff + the princess and the prince at their wedding + the bitch ass brother

view all 1,125 comments

elbaoward: love you soooo much 🤍🤍🤍

y/ninstagram: i love u more 4eva, don’t care if ur married ur my wifey above all🤍

elbaoward: wifeys 4eva

patriciooward: I’m the cool brother

y/ninstagram: uncool*

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patriciooward

liked by y/ninstagram, elbaoward and 126,746 others

patriciooward: Woke up with a new brother today. Congratulations to the love birds. 🤍 Also pictured y/ninstagram waking up with a hangover. ☕️

view all 2,332 comments

y/ninstagram: delete

patriciooward: But you look like a ray of sunshine

elbaoward: thank you always baby brother🤍 you look like you had a goood time lol

user46: ayo who is y/n i’m new here

user67: okay I love y/n lore, she is an influencer/model type of deal and she is pato’s sister’s bestie since forever ago and she and pato get along really well, they’re seen together a lot when elba attends races with her. it’s an ongoing joke in the fandom that pato has the biggest crush on her, which has never been denied nor confirmed lol but they’ve never posted each other on their feeds before so the rumors are rumoring

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patriciooward

liked by y/ninstagram, elbaoward and 108,924 others

patriciooward: Pre-Season recharging with some sea salt. Also pictured y/ninstagram on the phone with God. 🌊🍌

view all 2,835 comments

y/ninstagram: posting bad pictures of me is becoming a thing i see

patriciooward: Technically, you started it

user74: now what is going on why are they vacationing together

user82: y/n said on her tiktok live that they’re with a bunch of other friends so there’s that

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patriciooward

liked by y/ninstagram, elbaoward and 183,746 others

patriciooward: Good season start 😊 Also pictured y/ninstagram side eying me when I asked if I could try her ramen 🍜

view all 1,845 comments

y/ninstagram: you don’t just ask a girl to have her ramen, even if you got a podium

user13: anyone else noticing how they’re becoming super close after elba’s wedding

user82: I think everyone is noticing alright… elba isn’t even there

user26: they’re so dating

user98: i thought the same thing but literally every interview today was dedicated to pato saying they’re just friends

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y/ninstagram

liked by patriciooward, elbaoward and 20,724 others

y/ninstagram: it’s rawe ceek + pato’s lil hat

view all 1,835 comments

elbaoward: why are you replacing me with another o’ward?

patriciooward: Sorry, she’s my best friend now. You have a whole ass husband

y/ninstagram: u could never be replaced bby girl 😽😽😽

patriciooward: Wow

user82: are we seeing this fam

user23: maybe the best friend gate is all part of pato’s plan to get the girl

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patriciooward

liked by y/ninstagram, elbaoward and 127,924 others

patriciooward: Did the best we could on that race considering the circumstances 🤪 Also pictured y/ninstagram’s sushi eyes 🍱

view all 2,321 comments

y/ninstagram: maybe u didnt win on track but you won best sushi recommendation

user83: they’re so sus but they also don’t even touch when they’re in public… perhaps they are just best friends

user53: who needs touching when pato looks at her like she put the stars up in the sky

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patriciooward

liked by y/ninstagram, elbaoward and 192,246 others

patriciooward: F1 testing done right 🥹 Also pictured y/ninstagram’s face when I got in the car 🧡

view all 2,725 comments

user24: are we still pretending we believe the best friends bullshit

y/ninstagram: this is so crazy to me because i’m honestly here for a shot with lando norris

landonorris: message received 🫡

patriciooward: Mate 😂

user27: that’s the most threatening laugh emoji i have ever seen

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y/ninstagram

liked by patriciooward, elbaoward and 25,935 others

y/ninstagram: it’s indy 500 time + elba being pretty + pato eating something he definitely shouldn’t be eating

view all 1,983 comments

elbaoward: the support system is in need of support

y/ninstagram: we are doing great! (we are crying)

user45: how are we feeling watching the race personally I want to throw up

y/ninstagram: im fine! (i have blacked out multiple times)

user36: oh man… im so glad she’s there after that final lap heartbreak

user26: please give pato our love ❤️ he gave it all

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patriciooward

liked by y/ninstagram, elbaoward and 293,927 others

patriciooward: I woke up with a big smile on my face today, feeling very loved by all of you. Wouldn’t change a thing about my journey so far, I know it will be so special the day my name is written among the stars and I get to experience the magic everyone talks about. Excited for the rest of the season, wouldn’t want it to be with anyone else arrowmclaren 🧡 #indy500

view all 7,014 comments

y/ninstagram: you inspire me every single day. your time will come and it’ll be epic. 🧡

elbaoward: you are a force of nature and the sun ☀️

user83: im sorry i really want to comment about the race and compliment pato but are we just going to ignore the last picture of him and y/n holding hands

user53: are we going to ignore their hug on national tv i really felt like i was interrupting

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y/ninstagram

liked by patriciooward, elbaoward and 35,924 others

y/ninstagram: lover boy + lover boy + lover boy. you’re amazing. 🧡

view all 3,045 comments

patriciooward: 🧡

elbaoward: been a long time coming 🥰

landonorris: 😔

landonorris: jk ive been in on pato’s crush all along

y/ninstagram: 💀

user94: WAR IS OVER

user52: not the hard launch

user85: at least tell us how it happened after friend zoning each other for months

y/nusername: comfort after a heartbreak go crazy

patriciooward: You’re a natural romantic

[kiwriteswords]

Could I please get a fake dating or like Hotch jumps in to be Reader's date for a wedding or something story?

Everybody Loves Somebody

Masterlist || Ao3

AN: I keep telling myself that I want to post something every day of December, so let's see if I can keep this up! This one I fought myself back and forth if I liked it, so I hope you guys do! I also need to update my masterlist...like bad.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Female Reader||Word Count: 13.5k

Tags/Warnings: Female Reader, BAU Reader, Hotch and Reader are Best Friends, Reader is being breadcrumbed by another guy, insecure reader, reader does not know her worth, weddings, mentions of alcohol in a wedding setting, smut, smut with feelings, smut that you have to use your imagination for in some points, not specified, but unprotected sex, one-bed-trope, romance, fluff, angst, eluding to reader being in toxic relationships before, hurt/comfort.

Sypnosis: At a wedding filled with laughter, romance, and unexpected revelations, You and Hotch find yourselves navigating the fine line between friendship and something more. What starts as a favor soon becomes a night of quiet truths and unspoken emotions, as the two of you grapple with feelings that can no longer be ignored.

Aaron Hotchner had long considered himself an observant man. It was, after all, an essential trait in his line of work. But when it came to you, his closest friend and confidant, observation was more than professional—it was personal. He prided himself on knowing you better than anyone else, even if the knowledge sometimes brought him a frustrating ache he didn’t dare examine too closely.

That ache flared again today as he glanced across the bullpen to where you sat at your desk. To the untrained eye, you were simply busy—typing emails, jotting notes, occasionally furrowing your brow in concentration. But Hotch knew better. The tight set of your jaw, the way your leg bounced beneath your desk, and the fact that you hadn’t laughed at any of Morgan’s jokes all afternoon—those were your tells. Something was wrong.

He waited until the team dispersed for lunch to approach. You didn’t notice him until he leaned against the edge of your desk, his arms crossed, and gave you one of his signature looks—the kind that said he was waiting for answers.

“What?” you asked, feigning innocence as you glanced up at him.

Hotch raised a brow. “You’re upset.”

You scoffed lightly, turning your attention back to your computer. “I’m fine.”

The evasion only confirmed his suspicions. “You’re not fine,” he said softly. “Talk to me.”

For a moment, you hesitated, your fingers hovering over the keyboard. Then, with a sigh, you leaned back in your chair and crossed your arms defensively. “It’s nothing, Hotch. Just... plans fell through, and I’m annoyed. That’s all.”

But it wasn’t nothing. He knew exactly what—or rather who—was behind this.

“Let me guess,” he said, his voice hardening despite himself. “It’s him.”

Your silence was damning.

Hotch felt his stomach twist. He hated this—hated how that man, who didn’t deserve an ounce of your time, could still have this hold on you. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen you like this—hopeful one minute, crushed the next. He clenched his jaw, reigning in the frustration that wasn’t entirely directed at the man.

Hotch remembered every instance in painful clarity.

The blown-off phone calls. The texts left unanswered for hours, sometimes days. The signs of interest one day, only for them to vanish into disinterest the next. It was a cycle so predictable it made Hotch’s blood boil, not just because it hurt you but because you still held out hope every time that this time would be different.

And then there were the worst moments—the ones that left marks even you couldn’t brush off.

There was the time you’d shown up to work after a rare weekend off, a hopeful sparkle in your eye as you mentioned that things finally seemed to be turning around with him. Hotch had wanted to believe it for your sake, but he’d barely had time to hope before you confided—over lunch in the BAU’s break room—that the man had stood you up for dinner, citing a “misunderstanding.” Hotch had gripped his coffee mug so tightly he thought it might crack.

Through it all, he’d stayed quiet. He’d been your friend, your colleague, your confidant. He’d listened when you needed to vent, offered advice when you asked, and let you lean on him when the weight of disappointment became too much. But inside, he’d been screaming.

Screaming at the man who couldn’t see the incredible person standing right in front of him. Screaming at himself for letting it go on for so long without saying more.

“What happened?” he asked, forcing his tone to remain gentle.

You sighed again, this time heavier. “My friend from college and grad school, Annie, is getting married this weekend. I had a plus-one, and—well, he was supposed to come with me.” Your voice wavered just slightly. “But he bailed last minute. Said he couldn’t make it because he’s ‘too busy.’”

Hotch’s jaw tightened further. Too busy? The excuse was laughable, infuriating, and so painfully predictable. He hated seeing the way you tried to downplay your disappointment as if his latest betrayal were somehow your fault.

“I don’t get it, Hotch,” you continued quietly, staring down at your desk. “I thought things were finally going somewhere this time. But he’s always—” You shook your head, blinking back tears. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just—”

He wanted to tell you why. Wanted to tell you that you hoped because you were good, because you believed in people even when they didn’t deserve it. He wanted to tell you that your hope was one of the things he admired most about you—and the thing that tore him apart when it was weaponized against you.

“Stop,” Hotch interrupted, his voice firmer than he intended.

You blinked up at him in surprise.

“This isn’t about you,” he said, holding your gaze. “It’s about him. He’s a coward who doesn’t see what’s right in front of him. You deserve better than this—better than him. You do this because you care. But he doesn’t deserve it.”

You smiled weakly, but it didn’t reach your eyes. “Thanks, Hotch. But it’s not like I have a backup plan. It’s just one weekend. I’ll survive.”

Hotch watched as you tried to bury your hurt under a mask of indifference, but it didn’t fool him. He wasn’t sure when he made the decision—it was instinctive, like every protective impulse he felt when it came to you.

“Then let me go with you,” he said, the words spilling out before he could overthink them.

Your eyes widened. “What?”

“I’ll go with you to the wedding,” he repeated, his voice calm and steady. “If you’ll have me.”

The stunned look on your face made him wonder if he’d overstepped. But then your lips curved into a genuine smile—a rare one that he hadn’t seen all day.

“You’d really do that?” you asked softly.

He nodded, his own lips twitching into the smallest smile. “Of course. That’s what friends are for.”

You laughed—a light, incredulous sound that made something warm bloom in his chest. “Aaron Hotchner, my wedding date. Who would’ve thought?”

“It’s a first for me, too,” he admitted, his tone light but sincere. “But I promise, you won’t regret it.”

For the first time that day, Hotch saw a flicker of hope in your eyes, and he silently vowed to make good on his promise. Because whether you realized it or not, you deserved someone who saw your worth—someone who would never dream of leaving you hanging.

And if that someone couldn’t be him, he’d at least make sure you saw what it was like to be treated the way you deserved, even if just for one weekend.

Aaron Hotchner wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somehow, agreeing to accompany you to this wedding had become the most complicated logistical endeavor of his week. Which, considering he led a team of profilers tracking violent criminals, was saying something.

He sat across from you at the round table in the break room, a notepad in hand as you went over the details for the weekend. You were in full planning mode, leaning forward, your fingers tapping rhythmically against your coffee cup.

“So,” you began, grinning. “The wedding is in Stafford. I already booked a room because I wasn’t sure how late I’d stay, but now that you’re coming, I can probably cancel that and just—”

“You should keep it,” Hotch interjected.

You raised an eyebrow, your grin morphing into something sly. “Aaron, are you worried about your reputation? Afraid of being seen walking out of my hotel room in the morning?”

His lips quirked into the faintest smile. “I’m worried about getting enough sleep and having to share a room with someone who steals the covers.”

“Wow,” you deadpanned, pretending to clutch your chest. “Accusing me of being a cover thief without evidence. Profiling me already, Hotchner?”

“Call it an educated guess.”

Your laugh was light and easy, the sound wrapping around him in a way that momentarily made him forget you were planning this trip because someone else had let you down. He knew better than to dwell on that, though, especially now that you were in good spirits again.

“So,” you continued, brushing a strand of hair from your face, “you’re driving, right? You’ve got the serious FBI Dad car that won’t break down.”

Hotch raised a brow, unsure what quick-witted joke you were making at him. “FBI Dad car?”

“Yeah, you know,” you teased, gesturing vaguely. “Sturdy, reliable, no-nonsense. It practically screams, ‘I’m an authority figure, and I have juice boxes in the back seat for emergencies.’”

He chuckled softly, shaking his head. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Yes, I’ll drive.”

Before you could respond, Morgan’s voice drifted in from the hallway.

“Sounds like we’re right after all,” he said, loud enough for both of you to hear.

Hotch turned to find Morgan, Prentiss, and Rossi standing in the doorway, all wearing expressions ranging from smug to amused.

“Right about what?” Hotch asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.

“Oh, nothing,” Morgan replied, but the grin tugging at the corners of his mouth said otherwise.

You leaned back in your chair, crossing your arms and raising an eyebrow at the trio. “Okay, spill it. What conspiracy theory are you cooking up now?”

Prentiss smirked. “Oh, it’s not a conspiracy. Just a little… friendly office speculation.”

Rossi, ever the instigator, folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Let’s just say there’s a reason the betting pool has been so active lately.”

Hotch blinked, confused. “Betting pool?”

“On what?” you asked, your tone equal parts curious and incredulous.

Morgan didn’t miss a beat. “On when you two were finally going to get together.”

For a moment, there was silence. Then, simultaneously:

“What?” Hotch said, his voice clipped with disbelief.

“Excuse me?” you said, your tone higher and filled with mock outrage.

The trio in the doorway looked utterly unfazed.

“Oh, come on,” Prentiss said, rolling her eyes. “You finish each other’s sentences, you bicker like an old couple, and don’t even get me started on the way you look at each other.”

You snorted. “The way we look at each other? What is this, a rom-com?”

Hotch held up a hand, his expression stern but his tone baffled. “This is absurd. We’re colleagues and friends. That’s it.”

Morgan raised a skeptical brow. “Friends, huh? You’re going to a wedding together. And if I’m not mistaken, Hotch just volunteered to drive—sounds pretty couple-y to me.”

You leaned forward, resting your elbows on the table. “Oh, Derek, sweet, sweet Derek,” you said, your voice dripping with exaggerated condescension. “Are you trying to tell me that I can’t ask my best friend to be my date to a wedding without it being some grand romantic gesture?”

Morgan grinned. “Not saying it, just calling it like I see it.”

Hotch sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is ridiculous.”

Prentiss gave him a mock-serious look. “It’s not ridiculous if it’s true.”

“It’s not true,” you and Hotch said in unison, which only seemed to amuse the team further.

“Uh-huh,” Morgan said, exchanging a knowing look with Rossi.

Hotch turned to you, his lips pressing into a thin line. “They’re crazy.”

“Oh, 100%,” you agreed, giving him a quick, conspiratorial grin. “But let’s not correct them. Let’s just let them spiral into their own delusions. It’ll be fun to watch.”

Prentiss smirked. “You know we can still hear you, right?”

“Then you’re welcome for the entertainment,” you shot back, standing and grabbing your coffee cup.

As the team finally dispersed, still laughing and muttering amongst themselves, Hotch shook his head, bemused.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered.

“Hey, look at it this way,” you said, bumping his shoulder lightly as you passed. “At least now you’ve got a reputation as a fun wedding date. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Despite himself, Hotch felt a small smile tug at his lips. “Right.”

Hotch arrived at your apartment a few minutes early, the morning sun casting long shadows across the quiet street. He adjusted the cuffs of his suit jacket while waiting, catching himself fidgeting—a rare occurrence. He told himself it was because of the unfamiliarity of the situation, not because of you.

When you finally emerged, his breath hitched. You were dressed simply but elegantly, exuding a confidence that he found himself noticing more than usual. As you approached the car, you waved with a teasing smile.

“Wow, Aaron, I didn’t think punctuality extended to wedding duty,” you quipped, opening the passenger door.

He smirked as you slid into the seat. “You make it sound like this is an interrogation.”

“Depends. Will there be a polygraph at the reception?” you shot back, buckling your seatbelt.

Hotch chuckled softly, pulling away from the curb. “Let’s hope not.”

The silence between you was comfortable as the car rolled onto the highway. Hotch found himself glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. You were scrolling through your phone, your brow furrowing in that way it always did when you were deep in thought.

“So,” he began, breaking the quiet, “what’s the plan for the reception? Do I stand in the corner and look intimidating, or are you expecting me to charm your college friends?”

You turned to him with a mock-serious expression. “You’re under strict orders to charm, obviously. What’s the point of bringing you along if you’re just going to brood in a corner?”

“I don’t brood,” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, you absolutely brood,” you said with a grin. “But don’t worry—I’ll coach you. Step one: smile occasionally. It won’t kill you.”

Hotch shot you a dry look. “I’ll take that under advisement.”

Your laugh was light, but it held an edge of something deeper—something that lingered in the air between you like a static charge.

After a beat, you shifted in your seat, your voice softening. “You know, you really didn’t have to do this. I would’ve survived.”

He glanced at you, his expression unreadable. “I know. But I wanted to.”

Your eyes met his, and for a moment, neither of you said anything. There was something in your gaze—a mix of gratitude and something unspoken, something he didn’t dare put a name to.

“Well,” you said, your voice tinged with a sly edge as you broke the comfortable silence. “If we’re doing this, we might as well make it fun. Tell me, Hotch—how’s your dancing?”

Hotch glanced at you, arching an eyebrow as his lips quirked into the faintest smirk. “Impeccable.”

You blinked, your grin faltering in mock surprise. “Wait, really? You can’t just say that and not elaborate.”

“I don’t think there’s much to elaborate on,” he said, his tone light but confident. “Years of events, fundraisers, and... the occasional gala. I can hold my own.”

For a moment, you simply stared at him, then let out a sharp laugh. “Oh, this is going to be fun. The FBI’s most stoic agent is secretly a Fred Astaire in disguise? Who knew?”

Hotch chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Don’t get your hopes up. I didn’t say I was flashy.”

“Flashy is overrated,” you replied, leaning back in your seat. “Grace, timing, presence—those are the real markers of a great dancer.”

“And you’d know this how?” he asked, shooting you a sidelong glance.

You shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I took some lessons in college. Turns out I have two left feet, but I’m a great judge of talent.”

He smirked. “Two left feet? I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe it,” you said, grinning. “So, looks like I’ll be depending on you to keep us from embarrassing ourselves on the dance floor.”

“I think we’ll manage,” he replied, his voice steady but laced with a quiet warmth.

There was something in the way you looked at him then, your teasing smile softening just enough to give away the unspoken tension humming beneath the surface. Hotch forced his attention back to the road, though his mind lingered on the way your presence seemed to fill the space around him so effortlessly.

“You know,” you said after a moment, breaking the silence with a playful tilt to your voice, “if you’re this good at dancing, I’m starting to think I’ve been seriously underestimating you.”

“Is that so?” he asked, his tone carrying the faintest hint of a challenge.

“Yeah,” you replied, tapping a finger against your chin in mock thought. “What other hidden talents are you keeping from me?”

Hotch smirked, but instead of answering, he let the question hang in the air, his silence calculated.

“Oh, come on,” you pressed, laughing lightly. “You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and leave me hanging.”

He shrugged, his expression unreadable but his tone unmistakably amused. “Maybe I like keeping you guessing.”

You scoffed, shaking your head. “You’re infuriating, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

Your laugh filled the car again, bright and unrestrained, and Hotch allowed himself a small smile. It was moments like this—when the walls between you seemed to lower without effort—that he felt the tug of something deeper. Something he’d long ignored, even as it grew impossible to deny.

As the miles stretched on, the banter gave way to quieter moments, but the tension never left. It simmered beneath the surface, in the way your knee brushed against the center console, in the way his name sounded when you said it, in the way his gaze lingered on you just a little too long at every red light.

By the time you reached the venue, Hotch found himself gripping the wheel a little tighter, his usual composure shaken just enough to make him wonder if this was really just about being a good friend.

And judging by the way you looked at him as you stepped out of the car, he suspected he wasn’t the only one wondering.

By the time Hotch pulled into the parking lot, the late morning sun hung high in the sky, casting a golden glow over the small boutique hotel nestled on the edge of town. He stepped out of the car, grabbing your overnight bag from the trunk and trying not to notice the way your dress caught the light as you smoothed it out.

The lobby was quaint, adorned with rustic charm, and the check-in process was quick. Hotch couldn’t help but notice the faint blush that crept up your cheeks when the receptionist handed him a single key card.

“Enjoy your stay,” the woman said with a knowing smile, though Hotch couldn’t decipher if it was genuine or merely part of her routine.

As you both stepped into the elevator, you glanced at him, your lips twitching with amusement. “So, any guesses on the room situation?”

Hotch gave you a sidelong glance, his voice steady. “I’m sure it’s fine.”

But the moment the door to the room swung open, he realized "fine" was a stretch.

There it was. The single bed. Large and neatly made, taking up most of the modestly sized room.

You stopped in the doorway, your bag slung over one shoulder as you surveyed the scene. “Well,” you said after a moment, turning back to him with a raised eyebrow, “this is cozy.”

Hotch cleared his throat, stepping inside and setting your bag on the chair in the corner. “It’s practical,” he said, though even he didn’t believe the words.

You smirked, closing the door behind you. “I didn’t realize practicality came with a built-in proximity test.”

He gave you a faint look, his lips twitching despite himself. “If it’s an issue, I can take the floor.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” you said, brushing past him to set your phone on the bedside table. “We’re both adults. I think we can survive one night.” You looked back at him and had almost a nervous laugh, “Plus, I have to prove to you I’m not a sheet thief.” 

The confidence in your voice didn’t quite match the flicker of something else in your eyes—nervousness, curiosity, or perhaps the same undercurrent of tension he’d felt since the drive.

“Well,” you continued, shaking off the moment as you dug through your bag, “we don’t have much time before the ceremony, so I’m claiming the bathroom first. Try not to miss me too much while I’m gone.”

Hotch chuckled softly as you disappeared into the bathroom, the sound of running water quickly filling the room. He loosened his tie, sitting on the edge of the bed and glancing around. The space was neat, understated, with soft lighting that made everything feel strangely intimate.

He caught himself staring at the bathroom door longer than necessary, then stood abruptly, running a hand through his hair.

When you emerged a few minutes later, your face freshly washed and your lipstick reapplied, you looked radiant. Hotch found himself at a loss for words, though he masked it by stepping into the bathroom with a curt, “Your turn to wait.”

The cool water on his face did little to clear his mind. By the time he stepped back into the room, fully composed, you were seated on the edge of the bed, slipping your shoes on.

“All set?” he asked, his voice steadier than he felt.

You glanced up at him, your smile soft but teasing. “Ready when you are, Fred Astaire.”

He smirked, grabbing his jacket and gesturing toward the door. “After you.”

As you walked ahead, Hotch allowed himself a brief moment to exhale, the weight of the growing tension settling over him like a second skin. The day had barely begun, and already, he found himself wondering just how long he could keep his thoughts—and his feelings—in check.

The sun filtered through the trees, casting soft, dappled light on the guests as they made their way toward the outdoor ceremony space. Hotch walked beside you, the sound of gravel crunching underfoot filling the brief silence. He couldn’t help but glance at you as you adjusted your dress, the soft fabric shifting gracefully as you moved.

“You look...” Hotch began, his voice quieter than usual. He cleared his throat, glancing ahead at the clusters of chairs. “You look incredible.”

You turned to him, surprised. “Hotch, was that a compliment? Are you feeling okay?”

He smirked, his lips twitching. “I’ve been meaning to tell you all day,” he admitted, his gaze steady now. “Just... took a bit of courage.”

Your playful grin faltered slightly, your eyes softening as they met his. There was a flicker of something in your expression—something unspoken, almost vulnerable. Before you could respond, a voice cut through the moment.

“Oh my God, is that you?”

You barely had time to turn before a woman approached, her enthusiasm unmistakable. She was around your age, with bright eyes and a warm smile that radiated familiarity.

“Wow, it’s been forever! How are you?” the woman gushed, pulling you into a quick hug.

Hotch stepped back slightly, his hands tucked neatly into his pockets as he watched the exchange.

“I’m good,” you replied, your voice friendly but a bit guarded. “Hotch, this is Taylor. We were in the same program in grad school. Taylor, this is Aaron Hotchner.”

Taylor’s eyes lit up as she turned to him, her smile widening. “Oh, Aaron. You must be her boyfriend!”

Hotch blinked, the words catching him off guard. He opened his mouth to respond but paused, glancing at you as you froze slightly, your lips parting as if to correct her. But something stopped you—curiosity, maybe, or hesitation.

Instead, Hotch smiled faintly, extending a hand. “It’s nice to meet you,” he said, his tone calm and composed, deliberately sidestepping the assumption.

Taylor shook his hand enthusiastically. “I’ve heard so much about this wedding. You’re both going to have such a great time! Anyway, I should grab my seat before I lose it. So good to see you again!”

She darted off, leaving the two of you standing there in her wake.

You turned to Hotch, your brow raised. “Boyfriend?” you asked quietly, your voice low enough that only he could hear.

Hotch glanced at you as the crowd began to settle into their seats, his expression calm but with a glint of dry humor in his eyes. “Is ‘boss’ better?”

Your lips quirked into a smirk as you shook your head, letting out a soft laugh. “Touché.”

The ceremony began before either of you could say more, but the weight of the word lingered between you. Hotch tried to focus on the officiant’s words, the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze, and the quiet murmurs of the gathered crowd. But his mind kept drifting back to your reaction—and to the flicker of a thought he didn’t dare voice.

Maybe the assumption wasn’t as far-fetched as it seemed.

Hotch settled into his seat beside you as the ceremony began, the soft murmur of conversation fading into a respectful silence. The bride and groom stood at the altar under an archway adorned with delicate flowers, the golden light of the late afternoon casting everything in a warm, dreamlike glow.

He tried to focus on the ceremony, the gentle cadence of the officiant’s voice blending with the rustle of the trees. But your presence beside him made it difficult.

The chairs were close together, the space between you almost nonexistent. He could feel the warmth of your arm just brushing against his, a subtle contact that sent a current through him more powerful than it should have. You shifted slightly, your knee brushing his, and Hotch held his breath for a moment, willing himself to remain composed.

When the officiant spoke about love—about commitment, vulnerability, and the courage it took to give yourself fully to another person—Hotch found himself watching your profile instead of the couple at the altar.

Your expression was soft; your lips curved into a faint smile as you listened. There was a light in your eyes, one that made his chest tighten unexpectedly. You looked beautiful, yes, but it wasn’t just that. It was the way you seemed so present, so genuine, so effortlessly yourself.

And for a moment, he let himself imagine.

He imagined reaching for your hand, letting his fingers curl around yours in the quiet simplicity of the moment. He imagined what it might be like to sit beside you at a ceremony like this as something more—more than friends, more than colleagues. The thought was fleeting but potent, leaving a weight in his chest he couldn’t quite shake.

When the bride and groom exchanged their vows, their voices filled with emotion, Hotch stole a glance at you. A soft smile played on your lips, and you leaned forward slightly, your focus entirely on the couple.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” you whispered, your voice so quiet he barely caught it.

He nodded, his throat tightening. “It is.”

Your gaze flicked to him briefly, your smile widening just a fraction before you returned your attention to the altar.

The ceremony continued, the romantic atmosphere growing thicker as the couple’s love story unfolded in front of the guests. When the bride’s voice cracked with emotion as she promised to love her partner for the rest of her life, Hotch’s gaze shifted back to you.

You were blinking quickly, your hands folded in your lap, and Hotch recognized the subtle effort to hold back tears. It was a side of you he rarely saw—vulnerable, unguarded—and it stirred something deep within him.

Without thinking, he let his knee press more firmly against yours, a quiet gesture of solidarity. You didn’t pull away. Instead, you tilted your head slightly toward him, your shoulder brushing his for just a moment.

By the time the ceremony ended, with cheers and applause filling the air as the bride and groom shared their first kiss, Hotch found himself acutely aware of every inch of space between you—of how close you were, yet still not close enough.

As you turned to him, your eyes bright with unshed tears and a soft smile lighting up your face, Hotch realized he’d never been less composed in his life.

The cocktail hour unfolded in the garden, a charming space strung with delicate fairy lights and buzzing with soft laughter and the clinking of glasses. Guests mingled near tables laden with hors d’oeuvres, the scent of fresh flowers mingling with the crisp evening air. Hotch stood by your side, his hands resting lightly in his pockets, watching as you stared out at the crowd, your expression thoughtful.

You hadn’t said much since the ceremony ended. It wasn’t like you to be quiet for so long, and he could see the internal battle playing out behind your eyes. Your shoulders were slightly tense, your gaze distant as you watched couples and old friends chatter happily around you.

“Everything okay?” he asked softly, his voice low enough that only you could hear.

You glanced up at him, your lips curving into a faint smile. “Yeah. Just… thinking.”

Hotch didn’t press. He knew you well enough to know that if you wanted to share, you would. So, he waited, his presence steady and unintrusive as you worked through whatever was on your mind.

Finally, you let out a soft sigh, leaning slightly against the high-top table between you. “You ever watch something beautiful—like that ceremony—and feel… I don’t know, happy for them, but also kind of… sad?”

He tilted his head, his brows furrowing slightly. “Sad?”

You nodded, your fingers idly tracing the rim of your glass. “Not for them, of course. They were perfect. It’s just…” You hesitated, then let the words spill out, your voice quieter. “It makes you wonder if that kind of thing is in the cards for you, you know? If someone could ever love you like that—unconditionally, fully. If someone would show up for you, every single time.”

Hotch’s chest tightened at your words. He could see the vulnerability in your eyes, the doubt you were trying so hard to mask. For a moment, he was at a loss for what to say—not because he didn’t know the answer, but because the truth came so quickly and easily that it startled him.

He straightened slightly, his voice steady as he replied, “It’ll happen for you. And when it does, the guy will be the luckiest man in the world.”

You froze, your glass halfway to your lips, your eyes snapping to his. The disbelief on your face caught him off guard, and he realized too late how much he’d revealed.

He cleared his throat, quickly adding, “Not that I’d know, of course. Divorced, widowed, single father—not exactly a stellar track record.” He offered a small, self-deprecating smirk. “I’m hardly an expert on what works.”

You blinked at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. The sound was light, genuine, and for a brief moment, Hotch felt a flicker of relief that he’d managed to deflect.

“Wow, Hotchner,” you said, your laughter fading into a warm smile. “Way to lift me up and immediately knock yourself down.”

“Just keeping things balanced,” he replied, his tone dry but his eyes warm.

You shook your head, still smiling, but he could see the wheels turning in your mind. Your expression softened, and for a moment, he wondered if you were going to say something else—something that might push the conversation back into deeper waters.

Before you could, a cheerful voice interrupted.

“Oh my God, there you are!”

Both of you turned to see a small group of your college and grad school friends approaching, their smiles wide and their arms outstretched as they greeted you enthusiastically.

Hotch stepped back slightly, letting you take center stage as they enveloped you in hugs and started chattering all at once. You lit up in their presence, your wit and charm on full display as you bantered back and forth with them effortlessly.

And though he stood quietly on the periphery, Hotch couldn’t help but smile. Watching you like this—vibrant, confident, and so fully yourself—he couldn’t imagine a world where someone wouldn’t see what he saw.

But as he met your gaze briefly across the group, catching the subtle flicker of something lingering in your eyes, he knew the conversation wasn’t over. Not yet.

The introductions at the cocktail party unfolded with an ease that surprised even Hotch. One by one, your old college and grad school friends greeted him, their initial curiosity about the date you brought quickly melting into admiration. He’d never thought of himself as particularly charming—polished and professional, yes, but charming? That was usually Morgan’s department.

But as he exchanged handshakes and polite banter, he could feel their approval growing. They teased you relentlessly about him, their questions playful and occasionally pointed. And you, ever quick-witted, deflected with a grace and humor that kept the mood light, though your blush betrayed you more than once.

“He’s even more put-together than you let on,” one of your friends teased, nudging your arm.

“Don’t let it fool you,” you replied, smirking at Hotch. “He’s secretly a pain.”

Hotch raised a brow, his tone dry but warm. “Only when necessary.”

The group laughed, and you glanced at him, your smile softening in a way that made the noise around him fade for just a moment.

If your friends noticed the subtle looks passing between you and Hotch—the way your eyes lingered on him or how his posture seemed to relax in your presence—they didn’t say anything outright. But their knowing smiles spoke volumes.

By the time the cocktail hour wound down and everyone was ushered toward the reception hall, Hotch felt more comfortable than he had in weeks. He hadn’t expected to enjoy himself, but with you by his side, the evening felt lighter, more vivid.

The reception began with all the hallmarks of a joyous celebration: a lively band, glasses clinking in toasts, and the soft glow of candles casting a romantic haze over the room. Hotch and you were seated at a round table with some of your friends, their easy chatter filling the gaps between the speeches and the plated courses.

At first, the chemistry between you and Hotch was subtle—a shared glance during the bride and groom’s first dance, the way his arm brushed yours as he leaned closer to hear you over the music. But as the evening progressed, it became impossible to ignore.

“Are you going to dance?” you asked, your tone teasing as you sipped your wine.

“Eventually,” he replied, his lips twitching into a small smile. “Are you?”

You tilted your head, your eyes sparkling with mischief. “I don’t know. That depends. Are you going to make me dance alone?”

Hotch leaned slightly closer, his voice low enough that only you could hear. “I’d never let you dance alone.”

The words hung between you, the air charged with something unspoken yet undeniable. For a moment, neither of you moved, your gazes locked in a way that made the noise of the room fade into the background.

One of your friends called your name, breaking the spell, and you turned with a quick laugh, brushing off the moment as though it hadn’t happened. But Hotch noticed the way your hand lingered on your wine glass, the slight flush creeping up your neck.

As the reception continued, the moments between you grew bolder. A comment from you that lingered just long enough to feel intimate. A brush of his hand against yours as you both reached for something on the table. The way his gaze followed you when you stepped away to talk to someone else, his focus sharper, more intent than he realized.

By the time the band struck up a slower tune, Hotch found himself standing, offering you his hand before he could think twice.

“Care to dance?” he asked, his voice steady but softer than usual.

You blinked up at him, surprised for only a moment before your lips curved into a smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

As you took his hand and allowed him to guide you onto the dance floor, Hotch felt a quiet certainty settle over him. Whatever lines had existed between you—coworkers, friends, allies—were beginning to blur. And for once, he wasn’t in a hurry to redraw them.

Hotch turned to face you, his other hand resting lightly at your waist as you settled your free hand on his shoulder. The contact was light at first, almost cautious, but as the music swelled, he felt you relax, your movements fluid as you let him guide you through the gentle rhythm.

“You weren’t kidding about being a good dancer,” you teased, tilting your head to meet his gaze. “Where’ve you been hiding this talent?”

Hotch smirked faintly, his lips twitching upward. “It’s a rare occasion that calls for it.”

“Well,” you said, your voice soft but tinged with mischief, “consider me impressed.”

He didn’t respond immediately, his focus shifting briefly to the way your hand fit so perfectly in his, the way your eyes lit up even under the dim glow of the candles. Finally, he said, “You should be. I don’t make exceptions for just anyone.”

Your laugh was quiet, a warm ripple that he felt as much as heard. “Is that right? I should feel honored then.”

“You should,” he replied, the faintest hint of a smile still playing at his lips.

The conversation lulled, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. The silence felt full, weighted by the unspoken tension that had been simmering all day. You swayed together, your movements perfectly synchronized, and for a moment, Hotch allowed himself to forget everything else—the cases, the team, the boundaries he usually held so firmly in place.

As the music slowed further, you tilted your head, your eyes searching his. “What are you thinking?”

Hotch hesitated, his gaze holding yours for a beat too long. “That you shouldn’t doubt what’s in store for you,” he said quietly. “Not after today.”

Your brows furrowed slightly, confusion flickering across your face. “What do you mean?”

He paused, considering his words carefully. “You deserve what you saw at that ceremony. Someone who shows up, who doesn’t hesitate. And when it happens, it’ll be because they know just how lucky they are.”

Your breath hitched, and for a moment, he thought you might pull away. Instead, you blinked up at him, your expression unreadable but undeniably softer. “Hotch—”

Before you could finish, the music swelled into its final notes, the moment broken as the song came to an end. Couples around you began to clap politely, the spell of the dance slowly lifting.

You stepped back slightly, your hand lingering in his for just a moment longer than necessary. “Thank you,” you said, your voice quiet but sincere.

Hotch nodded, his throat tight. “Anytime.”

As you turned to head back to the table, Hotch stayed where he was for a moment, watching the way your shoulders seemed a little more relaxed, the way you glanced back at him briefly before rejoining your friends.

He exhaled slowly, his hands falling to his sides. Whatever line you’d both been toeing all evening had grown impossibly blurred, and he wasn’t sure if it was something to step back from—or cross entirely.

The soft hum of conversation and clinking glasses surrounded Hotch as he followed you back toward the table, the energy of the reception lively yet intimate. Before either of you could sit, the bride approached, her radiant smile lighting up the room. Her white gown swayed slightly as she moved, the sparkling embellishments catching the light.

“There you are!” the bride exclaimed, her voice warm and effusive as she wrapped you in a quick hug. “I’ve been looking for you all evening.”

“Hi, Annie,” you said, your tone fond as you pulled back. “You look stunning. Everything about today has been absolutely perfect.”

Annie beamed, her hands clasping yours. “Thank you. But ook at you! And you must be...” She turned to Hotch, her expression curious and eager.

“This is—” you began, but Annie cut you off before you could finish.

“Oh, I knew it!” Annie said, clapping her hands together and glancing between you and Hotch with unrestrained glee. “I always said you’d find someone who looks at you the way he does. You deserve it so much. After everything you’ve been through. Terrible guy after terrible guy. I’m so happy for you.”

Hotch froze for a fraction of a second, her words catching him completely off guard. He glanced at you, noting the way your eyes widened slightly, a faint blush creeping up your neck.

Annie, oblivious to the tension she’d just created, kept going. “I mean, honestly, it’s about time. Look at you two—you’re such a beautiful couple. And the way he watches you? Like you’re the only person in the room? Come on.”

Hotch’s lips parted, his usual composure slipping as he scrambled for a response. Should he correct her? Deflect? Or...

Instead, he did neither.

“You’re right about one thing,” he said, his voice steady but quieter, as if weighing each word carefully. “She deserves everything. More than anyone I know.”

His gaze lingered on you as he spoke, watching the way your expression softened into something he couldn’t quite name. For a moment, Annie’s chatter faded into the background, the room seeming to grow smaller around the three of you.

You opened your mouth to respond, but Annie’s delighted laughter filled the silence first. “See? I knew it,” she said, her tone triumphant. “I knew you’d get that fairytale ending you always talked about wanting.” 

Hotch smiled faintly, his hands slipping into his pockets as Annie hugged you again. “Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice still warm as she pulled away. “It means so much to have you both here.”

You nodded, your voice unusually soft. “Of course, Annie. We wouldn’t have missed it.”

Annie turned back to the dance floor, leaving the two of you standing there, the weight of her words hanging heavily in the air.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. You glanced at him, your brows knitting together slightly as if you wanted to ask something but weren’t sure where to start. He’s sure from the array of comments he’s thrown at you tonight or the charged energy building between you, you must have a few.

Hotch offered a small smile, his voice low. “She’s a good friend.”

“She’s... enthusiastic,” you said, a weak laugh escaping you.

“Enthusiastic,” he repeated, amusement flickering briefly across his face. “And observant, apparently.”

Your blush deepened, but before the conversation could go any further, another group of your friends waved you over from the bar, calling your name.

“I guess we’re popular tonight,” you said, your tone lighter as you gestured for him to follow.

Hotch nodded, trailing behind you, but his thoughts lingered on Annie’s words. He wasn’t sure what had prompted him to agree with her so openly, but as he watched you laugh with your friends, something told him he wasn’t wrong.

You deserved everything. And perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn’t impossible to imagine being the one to give it to you. He was just glad he could try, even if it was just for tonight.

The energy in the room shifted as the bride announced the bouquet toss, her cheerful voice drawing a crowd of eager participants to the dance floor. Laughter and playful shouts filled the space as single women jostled for prime positions, their eyes gleaming with competitive determination.

You, however, stayed firmly rooted at the edge of the room, leaning casually against a table with your arms crossed. Hotch stood beside you, holding the glass he was nursing on the table.

“Not interested?” he asked, glancing at you, a teasing flint in his eyes.

“Not a chance,” you replied, your tone wry. “I’m perfectly fine over here, out of the line of fire.”

Hotch chuckled softly. “Strategic decision. I can respect that.”

You grinned, turning your attention back to the bride, who was hyping up the crowd with exaggerated gestures. The band struck up a playful tune, and the anticipation in the room reached its peak as Annie turned her back to the group, bouquet in hand.

The toss was dramatic, the bouquet soaring high into the air in a perfect arc. The crowd erupted into shouts and cheers as hands shot up, grasping for the bundle of flowers.

But no one caught it.

Instead, the bouquet ricocheted off a hand, sailed over the group entirely, and arced straight toward you.

You barely had time to react before it bonked you squarely on the head.

Hotch blinked, momentarily stunned as the bouquet bounced off you and landed unceremoniously on the table beside you. There was a beat of silence before laughter erupted around the room, the crowd clearly amused by the unexpected trajectory.

You stared at the bouquet, your mouth slightly agape, before looking up at him, your expression caught somewhere between mortification and disbelief.

“Seriously?” you said, your voice rising just enough to carry over the laughter. “I wasn’t even participating!”

Hotch’s lips twitched, his amusement barely contained as he raised an eyebrow. “Looks like fate had other plans.”

“Fate needs to work on its aim,” you muttered, grabbing the bouquet and holding it up like evidence in a court case.

Hotch allowed himself a full laugh, the sound rare but genuine. “Or maybe it’s trying to tell you something,” he teased, his voice lower as he leaned slightly closer. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

Your eyes narrowed at him, though the corners of your mouth betrayed the start of a grin. “Are you enjoying this?”

“Immensely,” he said, his tone deadpan but his eyes gleaming with humor.

You shook your head, muttering something about cosmic irony as you placed the bouquet back on the table. But Hotch could see the faint blush creeping up your neck, and the way your lips curved into a reluctant smile despite your feigned indignation.

As the laughter in the room began to settle and the bride called for the next event, Hotch leaned slightly closer to you, his voice quieter now.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, his tone softer but no less teasing, “I think the roses suit you.” He pulled a few petals from your hair.

You shot him a look, but your smile widened, and for a brief moment, the space between you felt smaller than ever. “I’m more of a sunflower girl,” You played along. 

The band’s leader tapped the microphone, his cheerful voice cutting through the chatter of the reception. “All right, folks, this one’s for the happy couples out there! Join us on the dance floor for one last dance before we call it a night.”

Around the room, couples began to rise, hands intertwined as they made their way to the dance floor. The lights dimmed slightly, casting the space in a warm, golden glow. Hotch stayed in his seat, his gaze drifting to you as you sipped the last of your wine, clearly intent on remaining at the table.

He set his glass down with deliberate precision and stood, extending his hand toward you.

“Come on,” he said, his voice calm but firm.

You looked up at him, your brow furrowing. “What are you doing?”

“We’re dancing,” he replied simply, his tone leaving little room for argument.

Your lips parted in surprise. “Hotch, that’s for couples—”

“According to your friends,” he interrupted, his lips quirking into the faintest smirk, “we’re a couple tonight. Might as well play the part.”

For a moment, you stared at him, clearly torn between amusement and incredulity. But then you sighed, setting your glass down and placing your hand in his. “Fine,” you said, standing with exaggerated reluctance. “But if this ends up being another metaphor, I’m blaming you.”

Hotch chuckled softly, leading you to the dance floor. The band struck up a slow, tender melody, the kind that wrapped itself around you and seemed to quiet the world.

He turned to face you, his hand resting lightly on your waist as you settled your free hand on his shoulder. The contact was familiar now, but this time, the air between you felt heavier—charged. You moved together effortlessly, swaying in time with the music, your steps perfectly in sync.

“See?” he said quietly, his voice just loud enough for you to hear. “Not so bad.”

You rolled your eyes but smiled, your fingers tightening slightly on his shoulder. “You really are impossible, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” he replied, his tone dry but his expression softer than usual.

The conversation lulled, and for a moment, there was nothing but the music and the quiet sound of your breaths mingling in the space between you.

Hotch’s eyes dropped to your face, taking in the way your lashes cast delicate shadows on your cheeks, the faint flush that lingered from the evening’s laughter and wine. You looked up at him then, your gaze meeting his, and the intensity of the moment hit him like a wave.

“You’re staring,” you said softly, your voice tinged with nervous amusement.

He didn’t look away. “Maybe I am.”

Your breath hitched, and Hotch felt your hand shift slightly on his shoulder as though you were steadying yourself. The tension between you was palpable now, a tangible thing that neither of you seemed willing—or able—to break.

“You’re full of surprises tonight,” you said, your tone quieter now, almost tentative.

Hotch’s lips quirked into a faint smile. “So are you.”

The song began to wind down, the final notes stretching into a soft, lingering cadence. The room seemed to grow smaller, quieter, as though it held only the two of you.

As the music ended, Hotch realized he hadn’t let go of your waist, and you hadn’t stepped back. For a brief, breathless moment, you both stayed where you were, the silence between you heavy with possibilities.

And though neither of you said it aloud, the line between what you were and what you could be had never felt thinner.

The walk back to the hotel room was quiet, the air between you and Hotch humming with the kind of unspoken tension that had lingered all night. The elevator ride was no better; you stood beside him, close enough that your arm brushed his, and though neither of you spoke, the weight of the evening seemed to settle in the confined space.

By the time the door to the room clicked shut behind you, the silence was thick. You slipped off your shoes with a sigh, placing them neatly by the door as you turned to him with a tired but genuine smile.

“Well,” you said, your voice soft, “that was... something.”

Hotch nodded, setting his jacket neatly over the back of a chair. “It was.”

You glanced at him, your smile tilting into something teasing. “That’s all you’ve got? Just ‘it was’?”

He smirked faintly, loosening his tie. “I think the bouquet toss and the dance floor antics speak for themselves.”

You laughed, the sound warm and familiar, and Hotch felt his shoulders relax slightly despite the tension coursing through him. He watched as you moved to your bag, pulling out a pair of comfortable clothes before disappearing into the bathroom.

The sound of running water filled the room, and Hotch took the opportunity to change into a plain T-shirt and sweats, folding his dress shirt with precise care. When you returned, your makeup washed off, and your hair pulled back, you looked softer somehow—more yourself than you had all night, and it hit him with a quiet force he wasn’t prepared for. Sure, he’d seen you in casual clothes before, but something about the soft cotton clothes, the clean face, and the messy pulled-back hair…it was a sight that warmed him somehow. 

“You’re up,” you said, gesturing toward the bathroom.

Hotch nodded, slipping past you and closing the door behind him. The cool water against his face did little to calm his thoughts, and when he looked at his reflection in the mirror, he found his usual composure slightly fractured.

By the time he returned to the room, you were already under the covers, your head resting against the pillow as you scrolled absentmindedly through your phone. He hesitated for a moment, the sight of you there—so comfortable, so familiar—stirring something deep in his chest.

“Are you going to stand there all night?” you asked, glancing up at him with a raised eyebrow.

He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head as he moved to the other side of the bed. Sliding in beside you, he was acutely aware of the space—or lack thereof—between you. When was the last time he shared a bed with someone?

The room fell into a soft silence, the dim light from the bedside lamp casting long shadows against the walls. You set your phone down, turning onto your side to face him, your expression unreadable but open.

“Thanks for tonight,” you said quietly. “For coming with me. For... everything.”

He met your gaze, his voice steady but softer than usual. “You don’t have to thank me. I wanted to be there.”

Your lips quirked into a faint smile, your eyes searching his as though you were trying to decipher something you weren’t quite ready to name.

For a moment, neither of you moved, the silence stretching but never feeling uncomfortable. Hotch could feel the warmth of your presence, the subtle weight of your gaze, and it was enough to make his throat tighten.

“You’re staring again,” you said, your tone light but tinged with something quieter, something unsure.

“Maybe I am,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your breath caught, and Hotch felt the space between you shrink—not physically, but emotionally, the air thick with everything unspoken.

“Why do you do that?” you asked after a moment, your voice quieter now.

“Do what?”

“Look at me like that.”

Hotch hesitated, his throat tightening as he searched for the right words. “Like what?”

You huffed a quiet laugh, shaking your head. “Like you’re trying to figure me out. Like you already know something I don’t.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, his voice soft but steady. “Maybe I do.”

You blinked, your breath catching just slightly, and Hotch felt the air between you grow impossibly still.

For a moment, neither of you moved, the silence crackling with tension that neither seemed willing to break. Then, as if pulling yourself out of the moment, you let out a small laugh, your tone turning lighter.

“You’re an enigma, Aaron Hotchner,” you said, your smile faint but genuine as you turned onto your back, breaking the spell.

He exhaled slowly, his gaze lingering on you for a moment longer before he reached over to turn off the lamp. “Goodnight,” he said, his voice quieter now, more thoughtful.

“Goodnight,” you replied softly, your words carrying a warmth that settled over the room like a blanket.

As the darkness enveloped them, Hotch lay still, the steady sound of your breathing filling the silence. The unspoken connection between you—the moments that had lingered and stretched throughout the evening—felt as tangible as the bed they shared.

And though he knew crossing the line between friendship and something more was fraught with uncertainty, Hotch couldn’t shake the quiet realization that maybe—just maybe—you were worth the risk.

Hotch stirred awake in the dark, the faint glow of moonlight spilling through the curtains casting soft shadows across the room. For a moment, he wasn’t sure what had woken him—a sound, a shift—but then he became aware of the warmth pressed against him, the steady rise and fall of your breathing.

Somehow, in the night, the two of you had gravitated toward each other. His arm was draped over your waist, his hand resting lightly on your hip, and your head was nestled against his chest. Your hand, delicate and warm, had found its way to his side, clutching the fabric of his shirt as if anchoring yourself to him.

He froze, his breath hitching as he registered the intimacy of the moment. Every instinct told him to pull away, to put space between you before you woke up, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to.

The soft scent of your hair drifted up to him, and without thinking, his thumb began to trace small, absent circles against your side. The simple act sent a rush of warmth through him, a tenderness he couldn’t quite contain.

You stirred slightly, your body shifting just enough for him to realize you were waking up. His breath caught again, his heart thudding heavily in his chest as he waited—half expecting you to pull away or panic.

But you didn’t. Instead, you tilted your head up, your eyes blinking sleepily in the dim light as they met his.

Neither of you spoke. The silence between you was thick, electric, the air charged with a tension that felt almost unbearable.

Hotch’s hand stilled on your side, his palm now resting against the curve of your hip. He watched you closely, his eyes searching yours for any sign that he should pull back. But you didn’t move away. If anything, you seemed to lean into him, your gaze softening as you stared at him in the quiet.

His chest tightened as he felt the weight of everything unsaid hanging between you. The feelings he’d been trying to push aside for months—years, maybe—were suddenly impossible to ignore.

And then, you moved.

Your hand slid upward, hesitating briefly before coming to rest against his chest. Slowly, tentatively, you shifted closer, your lips brushing his in a kiss so soft it sent a shiver down his spine.

For a moment, neither of you moved, the kiss tender and delicate, as though you were both testing the boundaries of something fragile and new. But then he felt your hand tighten against his chest, and his restraint broke.

Hotch deepened the kiss, his free hand sliding up your back to cradle the base of your neck, his fingers threading gently through your hair. Your lips parted for him, and the kiss grew more heated, more insistent, as though all the tension that had built between you over the years was finally finding its release.

You shifted closer still, your body pressing against his, and Hotch couldn’t help the quiet sound that escaped him. He felt your hand slide up to his jaw, your fingers brushing against the stubble there as you tilted your head to deepen the kiss even further.

It was slow but consuming, a meeting of everything unspoken and everything undeniable. He couldn’t tell where he ended, and you began, the lines between friendship and something more completely and utterly erased.

When you finally pulled back, your breaths mingling in the dark, your forehead rested against his as you looked up at him with wide, searching eyes.

“Aaron,” you whispered, your voice soft but steady, filled with something he couldn’t quite name.

He swallowed hard, his fingers still tangled in your hair, as he let out a shaky breath. “Say my name like that again,” he murmured, his voice low and rough, his lips curving into the faintest of smiles.

You laughed softly, your hand brushing against his cheek as you leaned in again, this time with more certainty.

And as your lips met his once more, Hotch felt the last of his walls crumble, leaving only the quiet, undeniable truth: he didn’t want to hold back anymore. Not with you. Not ever.

Hotch’s pulse quickened as your lips met his again, this time with a heat that left no room for hesitation. The kiss deepened, slow and deliberate but charged with the kind of intensity that came from years of unspoken longing. Your hand slid from his jaw to his chest, your fingers splaying against the fabric of his shirt as if grounding yourself in the moment.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. The world outside this room ceased to exist, leaving only the two of you tangled together in the dim light of the night.

When your leg shifted, brushing against his, a low sound escaped his throat—a soft, guttural hum that he hadn’t meant to let slip. You froze for the briefest moment, your eyes flicking up to his, and the sight of you—so close, so vulnerable, so his in that instant—was almost too much.

“Is this okay?” you whispered, your voice breathless and tinged with something fragile, like you were teetering on the edge of disbelief.

Hotch cupped your face gently, his thumb brushing over your cheek as he nodded. “It’s more than okay,” he murmured, his voice rough with emotion.

You smiled softly, and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning forward, pressing another kiss to your lips. This one was slower but no less fervent, his hand sliding from your face to rest against the curve of your waist, pulling you closer.

Your body shifted against his, your hands wandering—tentative at first, but quickly growing bolder. One hand curled around the back of his neck, your fingers tangling in the short hairs there, while the other slipped beneath the hem of his shirt, your palm pressing against the warm skin of his chest.

Hotch’s breath hitched, his own hands growing less restrained as they skimmed your back, tracing the line of your spine. The soft, sleepy rhythm of your breathing was broken by quiet, barely audible gasps as his hands found the curve of your hips, pulling you flush against him.

“Aaron,” you murmured against his lips, the sound of his name sending a shiver down his spine.

His lips left yours, trailing a path along your jawline to the soft curve of your neck. He felt the way your body arched into his touch, the subtle press of your hips against his igniting something deeper, something he could no longer hold back.

“You have no idea,” he whispered against your skin, his voice low and uneven, “how long I’ve wanted this.”

Your fingers tightened against him, and when he pulled back to look at you, your eyes were glassy, your lips slightly parted. “Me too,” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper.

His restraint was unraveling with every second, every touch, every soft sound that escaped your lips. But he forced himself to pause, his forehead resting against yours as he took a steadying breath.

“Tell me to stop,” he said softly, his hands stilling against your waist even as every fiber of his being begged him to keep going. “If you need me to, I will.”

You shook your head slightly, your fingers brushing against his cheek as you leaned up to kiss him again, slow but filled with unmistakable intent. “I don’t want you to stop,” you whispered, the words a quiet promise.

Hotch exhaled shakily, his lips capturing yours again as he shifted, rolling onto his back and pulling you with him. The weight of you pressed against him, the warmth of your skin beneath his hands—it was everything he hadn’t let himself dream of, and now that it was happening, he couldn’t imagine ever letting it go.

The kisses grew more urgent, more consuming, the sleepy haze between you dissolving into something sharper, hungrier. His hands roamed your body with a reverence that bordered on worship, memorizing every curve, every tremble, every quiet sigh that spilled from your lips.

Hotch’s breath hitched as you shifted over him, your hands braced on his chest for balance. The delicate weight of you, your thighs straddling his hips, was intoxicating in a way he hadn’t anticipated. Pressing your center against him, a breathy groan left his lips. His hands found their way to your waist, his fingers splaying across the soft fabric of your shirt as though memorizing every detail of this moment.

Your hair fell slightly into your face, and you looked down at him with a mixture of nervousness and desire that sent his pulse hammering in his chest. He met your gaze, his eyes dark and searching, trying to convey everything he felt but couldn’t say aloud.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice low, the words a quiet plea for confirmation. He knew after this there was no going back. 

You nodded, your smile soft but steady as you leaned forward, your lips brushing against his in a kiss that was equal parts tender and heated. “I’ve never been more sure,” you whispered against his mouth.

The kiss deepened, slow and deliberate at first, but quickly growing more fervent. Your hands moved to his shoulders, gripping him as though anchoring yourself to him, while his hands slid upward, pulling your shirt over your head and tossing it to the side.

For a moment, he simply looked at you, his gaze tracing the lines of your body, the soft glow of the moonlight making your skin seem almost ethereal. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, the words spilling out before he could stop them.

You flushed under his gaze, but instead of shying away, you leaned down, kissing him again with a new intensity. Your hands found the hem of his shirt, tugging it upward until he helped you remove it entirely. The cool air brushed against his skin, but all he could focus on was the warmth of you, the way your touch left a trail of fire in its wake.

As the last remnants of clothing were shed, the barrier between you dissolved entirely. You settled back over him, your bare skin pressing against his, and he let out a low, shaky exhale as his hands gripped your hips, steadying you.

“God, you have no idea what you do to me,” he admitted, his voice rough with emotion as he looked up at you.

You smiled softly, your hands resting on his chest as you leaned down to kiss him again, slow and deliberate, as though savoring every moment. “I think I’m starting to figure it out,” you murmured against his lips, your voice filled with a quiet confidence that made his chest tighten.

Hotch’s hands guided your movements, his touch firm but reverent, as though you were something precious—something he didn’t want to break. The connection between you was electric, every touch, every kiss deepening the bond that had been building for years.

As your bodies moved together, the world around you faded completely, leaving only the quiet hum of your shared breaths and the unspoken promise that whatever had changed between you tonight was something neither of you could—or would—ever take back.

As you rocked against him, his breath hitched, and he couldn’t stop the quiet groan that escaped him. “You’re incredible,” he murmured, his hands cupping your face as he pulled you down into a kiss that was as tender as it was consuming.

When you pulled back, your gaze locked with his, your expression soft but filled with intensity. “I never knew it could feel like this,” you admitted, your voice quiet but raw with emotion.

He swallowed hard, his thumb brushing against your cheek as he whispered, “Neither did I.”

The words hung between you for a moment, the weight of them adding a new depth to the passion that had overtaken you. And as you moved together, Hotch felt a sense of completeness that he hadn’t known he was missing—something he realized, in this moment, he could never let go of.

Hotch’s breath came in uneven gasps, his body attuned to every shift of yours, every quiet sound that spilled from your lips. His hands gripped your hips, his fingers pressing into your skin just enough to guide you, to hold you steady as you moved together.

“You’re incredible,” he murmured again, his voice thick and low. His eyes traced the line of your jaw, the way your lips parted as you moved, your body responding to his in a way that made his pulse race.

Your hand slid up his chest, your fingers curling lightly around the base of his neck as you leaned closer. “I don’t think you realize,” you said softly, your voice trembling with emotion, “what you’re doing to me.”

His lips curved into a faint, breathless smirk as he leaned up, capturing your mouth in a kiss that was deep and consuming. “I think I have an idea,” he murmured against your lips, his voice a husky whisper. “But I wouldn’t mind hearing it.”

You laughed quietly, the sound trailing off into a soft sigh as his hands slid up your back, pulling you closer. “You make it hard to think,” you admitted, your tone teasing but edged with something deeper, more vulnerable.

“Good,” he replied, his hands shifting to cradle your face, his thumbs brushing against your cheeks. “Because right now, all I can think about is you.”

Your eyes met his, and the intensity of your gaze made his chest tighten. “I want this,” you whispered, your voice trembling slightly. “I want you.”

Hotch exhaled shakily, his forehead resting against yours as he slowed your movements, savoring the connection between you. “You have me,” he said quietly, his voice steady but filled with quiet intensity. “You’ve always had me.”

Your lips parted as if to respond, but instead, you kissed him again, your fingers threading through his hair as you pressed closer, deeper, until there was no space left between you.

The rhythm between you was slow but deliberate, each movement, each touch, carrying a weight that neither of you could ignore. It wasn’t just passion—it was everything you hadn’t said, every unspoken feeling finally given form.

When you pulled back slightly, your breath brushing against his lips, Hotch found himself gripping your hips just a little tighter, grounding himself in the reality of you above him. Your skin glowed in the faint moonlight, and the look in your eyes—dark, heavy with desire—took what little restraint he had left and shattered it.

“Aaron Hotchner,” you whispered, your voice breathless, a mix of teasing and reverence. “You’ve been holding out on me.”

He let out a low, quiet laugh, his hands sliding up your back, his fingers tracing slow, deliberate lines. “I could say the same about you,” he murmured, his voice rough as his lips brushed the curve of your jaw.

You shivered under his touch, your lips curling into a small, wicked smile. “Are you saying I’m full of surprises?” you asked, your tone playful, your hips rolling against his in a way that made his breath catch.

Hotch let out a soft groan, his head tipping back against the pillow as his hands found their way to your thighs. “I’m saying,” he said, his voice low and filled with heat, “that you might just be the death of me.”

You leaned down, your lips hovering just above his, teasing him with the barest of touches. “I guess that makes us even,” you whispered, your words trailing off into a kiss that was anything but tentative.

The kiss deepened, your movements growing slower, more deliberate as your hands roamed over him, pulling him impossibly closer. Hotch’s fingers tangled in your hair, tilting your head to deepen the kiss, his other hand tracing the curve of your back in a way that made you arch into him.

“You feel incredible,” he breathed against your lips, the words spilling out before he could stop them. “Like you were made for me.”

As the room filled with nothing but the quiet sound of your breaths and the faint rustle of sheets, Hotch couldn’t help but marvel at how natural this felt—how right it was to have you like this, in his arms, every unspoken word replaced by the undeniable connection between you.

And as the tension between you reached its peak, he realized with startling clarity that this wasn’t just a fleeting moment—this was something neither of you could ever undo. And he didn’t want to.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Your face was still buried against his neck, and he could feel the rapid thrum of your heartbeat gradually slowing against his chest. Hotch tilted his head slightly, pressing a soft kiss to your temple, his lips lingering there as he tried to find the right words for what he was feeling.

It wasn’t fleeting. It wasn’t casual. It was something far deeper, something he hadn’t allowed himself to believe he could feel again.

You stirred slightly, shifting so you could meet his gaze, your hair falling messily around your face. Your eyes searched his, and the vulnerability there—soft and unguarded—made his throat tighten.

“Well,” you murmured, your voice quiet but tinged with a nervous laugh, “that just happened.”

Hotch’s lips twitched into a faint smile, his thumb brushing lazily against your back. “It did,” he replied softly, his voice steady despite the emotions threatening to bubble to the surface.

You blinked down at him, your brow furrowing slightly. “Are you okay?” you asked, your voice carrying a hesitance that tugged at his heart.

He shifted beneath you, his hands settling on your hips as he met your gaze. “I’m more than okay,” he said, his tone quiet but firm. “Are you?”

Your lips parted slightly, your gaze flickering between his eyes as though trying to read him. Slowly, a small smile tugged at the corners of your mouth. “Yeah,” you said softly, nodding. “I think I am.”

The tension in his chest eased slightly, but his thumb continued its soothing motion against your hip. “Good,” he murmured. “Because I don’t—” He paused, exhaling quietly. “I don’t want this to be something you regret.”

“Regret?” you echoed, your smile widening faintly. “Hotch, do I look like someone who regrets this?”

He let out a quiet huff of laughter, his fingers tightening slightly against your skin. “No,” he admitted, his voice lighter now. “But I had to make sure.”

You leaned down, brushing your lips against his in a kiss so soft it made his chest tighten all over again. “You’re impossible,” you whispered against his mouth, your tone teasing but filled with affection.

“And yet, here we are,” he replied, his lips curving into a smirk as he kissed you again.

You laughed softly, resting your forehead against his as your hands slid to his shoulders, your touch light and lingering. “Here we are,” you repeated, your voice quieter now, almost reflective.

Hotch let the silence stretch for a moment, his hands tracing gentle patterns along your sides as he memorized the feel of you against him. Whatever this was—whatever it had turned into—he wasn’t going to let it slip away.

“You should probably get some sleep,” he murmured, his voice tinged with humor as he glanced toward the faint glow of the bedside clock.

“Sleep?” you teased, raising an eyebrow as you shifted slightly, your lips brushing against his jaw. “After all that? I’m not sure that’s possible.”

Hotch chuckled softly, his hands sliding up to cradle your face. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

You grinned, leaning into his touch as your eyes softened. “Good. You should.”

As the quiet settled over the room once more, Hotch let his eyes drift closed, your body still pressed against his, your warmth anchoring him in a way he hadn’t felt in years. For the first time in what felt like forever, the world outside could wait. All that mattered was here and now, with you.

Hotch wasn’t sure how much time had passed, the quiet rhythm of your breathing against his chest blurring the line between minutes and hours. His hand rested against your back, his fingers tracing slow, idle patterns along your skin, grounding himself in the reality of your presence.

“You’re quiet,” you murmured after a while, your voice soft and drowsy, the words more of a thought spoken aloud than a question.

He glanced down at you, your head still resting on his chest, your hand lazily draped over his ribs. “I’m just... thinking,” he admitted, his voice low, the weight of the night settling over him in a way that felt both overwhelming and comforting.

You tilted your head up to look at him, your expression sleepy but curious. “About what?”

His fingers paused for a moment, resting lightly against your side. “About how different this feels,” he said honestly, his eyes meeting yours. “How right it feels.”

Your lips parted slightly, your expression softening into something vulnerable, open. “It does,” you agreed quietly, your hand sliding up to rest against his chest. “It scares me a little.”

Hotch’s chest tightened at your words, but he leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. “It scares me too,” he admitted, his voice steady but filled with quiet emotion. “But not enough to make me stop.”

You smiled faintly, your fingers tracing small circles against his skin. “What does this mean?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. “For us?”

Hotch exhaled, his hand moving to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “It means I don’t want to go back to what we had before,” he said softly. “Not after this.”

You blinked up at him, the weight of his words settling between you. “Me neither,” you said after a moment, your voice carrying a quiet strength.

The room fell into a comfortable silence, the unspoken understanding between you growing stronger with each passing second. Hotch shifted slightly, pulling you closer against him, his arm wrapping around your waist as if to keep you there, to keep this moment from slipping away.

Your fingers curled against his chest, and you tilted your head up, your lips brushing against his in a kiss that was softer now, slower, as though sealing the unspoken promise you’d just made.

When you pulled back, your eyes searched his, a faint smile tugging at your lips. “I guess we’ll figure it out,” you said softly, the words carrying a quiet certainty that made his chest tighten.

“We will,” he replied, his voice low but firm.

Hotch lay awake long after you’d drifted off, your body warm and relaxed against his. The weight of what had happened between you lingered in the air, a heady mix of tenderness and an undeniable shift in the foundation of your relationship.

He let his fingers trace idle patterns along your back, his touch feather-light as he memorized the curve of your spine, the subtle rise and fall of your breathing. For years, he’d been disciplined in keeping the boundaries of your friendship intact, maintaining the line that separated what was and what could never be. But tonight, that line had dissolved completely, leaving in its wake something deeper, something that felt achingly right.

You stirred slightly, letting out a soft sigh as you nestled closer to him, your hand sliding across his chest as though instinctively seeking him even in sleep. His chest tightened, a quiet warmth spreading through him as he pressed a soft kiss to your hair.

He’d spent so much of his life thinking he wasn’t allowed to have this—not after everything he’d been through, not after the sacrifices he’d made. But with you, it didn’t feel like he was taking something he wasn’t entitled to. It felt like finding something he hadn’t realized he’d been searching for all along.

Tomorrow would bring its own questions, its own complications. The team would notice the shift between you, and the world wouldn’t wait for you both to navigate whatever this had become. But for now, in the quiet sanctuary of the room, with you tucked safely against him, Hotch allowed himself to just be.

And as the first light of dawn began to creep through the curtains, he held you a little closer, silently vowing that whatever came next, he would be ready. Because for the first time in a long time, he felt whole. And he wasn’t about to let that go

Hotch’s gaze lingered on your sleeping face, soft and unguarded in the early light. A quiet determination settled in his chest, stronger than anything he’d felt in years. You deserved to know—without question or hesitation—that you were worth everything. Worth the quiet moments and the stormy ones, the laughter and the tears, the time and the effort. Any man too blind or foolish to see that had only done him a favor, because now, you were here with him. And he would never take that for granted. He would make sure, every single day, that you never doubted your worth again. Because with you, Hotch finally understood what it meant to have something—and someone—he could never let go. And he wouldn’t let you forget it.

Tag List:

@zaddyhotch

@estragos

@todorokishoe24

@looking1016

@khxna

@rousethemouse

@averyhotchner

@reidfile

@bernelflo

@lover-of-books-and-tea

@frickin-bats

@sleepysongbirdsings

@justyourusualash

[soapybutt17]

The Ex and Why's

Summary: No one knows much about Simon’s life aside from what was listed on his files. The family that had died a tragic death, the trauma that came with his actions, and the rank that made him what he was today. No one had realized that behind the balaclava wearing man from Manchester was a man that once had a heart and signed divorced papers he had constantly regretted signing all those years ago.. Character: Simon "Ghost" Riley x Ex Wife!Reader. John Price. Kate Laswell. Johnny "Soap" MacTavish. Kyle "Gaz" Garrick Word Count: 9,787 Chapter Warnings: Angst with Happy Ending. Miscommunication. Mention of Minor Character Deaths. Mention of Divorce. Life threatening Injuries. Mention of Simon's tragic past and trauma. Not edited (sorry!) AN: I can now sleep in peace. If you enjoyed it why not visit my mini celebration and post your own requests I can write just like this.

Masterlist || Request are Open || 500 Followers Celebration

When you had learned about this new job, one thing you had so gotten used to doing was letting Simon know about it. But not this time, something about letting him back into your life wasn’t something you should do anymore. You were no longer married to him by your own choice and no one else’s. So you know it was time to wear your big girl pants now and stopped letting him know about it.

You no longer had any reason to give your ex-husband any updates about your life. A more selfish reason was how you just wanted to start a new life, away from him and away from anything that was related to him.

“Ms. Riley?”

You turned smiling at the man that would now be your new boss. You learned his name to be John Price, a Captain.

Being married to a man like Simon Riley once upon a time, you know some thing or two about what goes on inside of a military base. Even when he hasn’t talked much about it with you during your relationship or if he even gone as far as mention your existence to the people he had once worked with. You chalked it up to overprotectiveness and fear that they would get to you, and some night thing that he was simply embarrassed about you. Maybe it’s another reason why you had opted out of telling him about this new job of yours.

“Captain Price, it’s good to finally meet you.” You firmly shook the man’s hand. A good first impression was the best thing for you to do if it meant making sure you work for the man for the foreseeable future.

“Likewise, Laswell as spoke great things about you and I’m hoping to be able to experience it firsthand.”

You nodded with a smile. Working for Kate’s wife for nearly a few years beforehand, you had appreciated the suggestion for this new role as a secretary for the Captain ever since your divorce. She had understood you needed this change in pace in your life and this was much of a welcome change.

“I do hope it’s all good things.” You quipped right back earning a deep resonating chuckle from the older man.

“Well I think now that introductions as over and done with, let me show you to my office. I do hope you’re up for dealing with a handful of documents for me on your first day.”

“More than happy to.” You beamed following the man, his larger hand holding onto the small of your back as you began your journey into the heart of the base.

All throughout the walk, he was giving your directions to where most things were. You were warned how some men could be rowdy at time and he was more than happy to help in the off chance that any of his men would give you problems.

All you could do was smile, not wanting him to know that you were more than well equipped to punch or kick anyone that would get too handsy with you. One of the perks of having an ex-husband working for the military.

He continued on with how things go around in the base. Schedules for meal time and the curfew in the event that you would be staying in the base overnight. He had also showed you to where your new room would be located in.

“You would be a few rooms away from my own as well as the Lieutenant and Sergeants that I trust most. In the event that I’m unavailable, they will be more than willing to lend you a hand if you need it.”

You nodded before you finally arrived in his office. Opening the door for you, you were greeted with a spacious office. Even in the chaos of the military base, the man’s office was pristine, a few knick knacks and photos that littered his walls, as well as a bookshelf that housed an array of military strategies books. But the most alarming thing about his office was the other table that housed stack upon stacks of folders, papers practically spilling out from each and every single one of them.

“I may or may not have underestimated the help I truly need in this situation.” The Captain said sheepishly as you began opening the folders and gasped that most of them weren’t even ordered correctly even with the page numbers printed on them.

“I think I can manage this.” You blinked hoping you didn’t bite more than you could chew in this moment.

For the next few hours, your time was spent removing staplers upon staplers from the papers for each and every single one of the folders while you were inquiring to John the calls you would be fielding for him from now on and how he would want you to deal with it.

You had learned so much about the man in the few hours being in the same room as him. He was a man that wanted to ensure the safety of the world, even if it meant bloodying his hands up a little just to make sure of it. It showed with some of the missions reports that you may or may not have accidentally read too much into. You’ve also learned how much he hated talking to upper ranking officials if not needed, he was a man that hated authority yet he was working in the field that he was in right now from the way his comments about letting calls from upper ranks go to voice mail if possible.

“Will there be anything or anyone that I should be worried about for now?” You inquired making sure that you did not stir anyone in the wrong way if possible.

“I’m sure Laswell has told you enough to understand our work. Some men are more scarred than sane and if possible, I want you to make sure that you do not give anyone the wrong impression if possible.”

You know what he was implying and with your own experience you know far too well that getting yourself involved with another man in uniform would lead into.

“I’ve done my fair share, Captain. I don’t think that would be much of a problem with me.” You reassured him.

“Laswell told me you were divorced.” He began, huh, who would have thought the man would be the gossiping type.

“It’s been a few years,” You shrugged attention solely on rearranging the files at hand. “It took months before my ex-husband signed the papers, I wanted to think it was because he was deployed but I knew otherwise.” You muttered.

When you had made the decision to finally break things off with Simon, it was like pulling teeth with the man and his near avoidance about the discussion or where you would be sending the divorce papers. You had enough of it, leaving the home you once shared instead with everything you owned and left nothing more of you than the divorce papers alongside the wedding ring and engagement ring he had given you all those years ago.

“He was military too?”

“Something like that.” You nodded not wanting to think too much about the man. Even after everything, you still worried about you giving the man too much information in the event that he works for the opposing side if the chance may have it.

“Well his lost is my gain.” He snorts turning his attention back to the freshly arranged folders courtesy of you that were now ready for his signature. “No offense.”

“None taken, Captain.”

Eventually the man had excused himself for a meeting and had instructed you that no one would be allowed inside aside from him. He had also reminded you about lunch which you could head on out first or you could join him once his meeting was done. You’ve decided it would be best to join him for lunch for now, just to get a feeling of anyone that you would get into contact with on your first day.

With a quick goodbye, you were left on your own and you all but groaned at the folders still stacked up and yet to be touched. It truly made you wonder how the man could be so good in his job yet be so horrible with his paperwork. You will never understand.

Your eyes fixated for a moment on one of the pictures on the wall. It was your boss with three individuals. A blue eyed man with a horrible cut Mohawk but the biggest beaming smile on his face, his arm wrapped around a much younger man with darker skin but a bright eyes that twinkled with happiness for whatever was going on when the photo was taken. But amongst the camaraderie and enjoyment was a man in a skull balaclava mask that had such an empty but somehow familiar eyes, the man stuck out like a sore thumb even with the Captain’s hand resting on the taller man’s shoulder and beaming smile and a cigar between his lips. It was an odd mix of people but it was like family—it made you miss Simon for a moment before your attention got right back to the paperworks.

You can’t think of him now. Not anymore.

After the events of Las Almas, Simon Riley had truly fought the urge to call you, to tell you how much you mean the world to him and how he was now more than willing to give you the compromise you had always longed from him. But a part of him, the bigger and much darker part of him had refused, slamming his own phone onto the wall in the sheer anger of everything that had occurred in the moment. You had made your choice because of his own action and he would be cruel to take that away from you.

“Heard Cap had a new Secretary, old man’s gonna finally keep his paperworks in check now.” Soap had ruining Simon’s sulking in the cafeteria.

It’s been a grueling few days. With new recruits he was forced to deal with in the morning and nightmares that you no longer could vanish for him at night. His life was nothing more than misery personified and he has no one else to blame but himself.

“Can’t say I’m surprise. Laswell probably set it up for him.” Simon muttered being more than within earshot when he heard both Laswell and Price arguing about the man’s need for necessary help with files. It was Laswell’s decision above anything else, it’s just a matter of time if the secretary would actually last with how everything goes around here in the base.

“Still, hope we’ll have a new bonnie around. Getting sick and tired of seeing Bampots all around.”

Simon didn’t even had the energy to question the man’s slangs, his attention solely back on his cup of tea and lunch—how horrible it was compared to your cup and cooking, but he never truly appreciated it until it was gone. His tea was too bitter even with the sugar and cream he added and the food that didn’t have the special kick compared to your own cooking. Even years after the divorce he was still so miserable without you in his life.

“Steamin Jesus.”

Simon could practically hear Soap melt from where he sat in front of him, his eyes directed at whoever was behind Simon. His curiosity got the better of him and his head turned and he was welcomed with the last person he would have ever believed to be walking besides one John Price.

“Yer lookin’ a bit peely wally.” Soap pointed out breaking Simon from his trance.

“English, MacTavish.”

“You look a lil’ pale, Lt. Like you’ve seen a fucking ghost.”

Simon could have at this point. As you walked besides Price towards the table he sat in. He noticed how unaware you were even at the sight of him only for him to realize that you had never seen him with his mask on, or in anything that has to do with his line of work—until now.

“Right, I think it’s time to introduce this lovely lass.” Price cleared his throat but he should have known by now that both Simon and Soap’s attention were already on them both. “This is Y/N Riley, my new secretary.”

Simon’s brows rose at that little tidbit. You still had his last name. He understood to a degree why you did so—your family that you had long cut off from your life after what they had done to you, but after everything that had happened between the two of you he wouldn’t have expect you to choose the lesser of two evils—being his last name.

“Riley? She a sister or wife to you, Lt?” Soap’s quick remark earned him a glare from Simon before his attention was back to you, how your brows furrowed before your eyes finally widen in realization.

“Purely coincidence.” Simon muttered.

“This is Sgt. Johnny “Soap” MacTavish and Lt. Simon “Ghost” Riley.” Price introduced almost realizing at this point the similarity of the last name you both shared in this moment.

“Nice to meet you two.” You smiled, quickly to compose yourself and shaking both men’s hand.

Even with the glove Simon wore, he could still feel the all too familiar electric shock of your touch against his own. He looked at you how easy your eyes dilated at his touch. It scared him still how you had so much of an effect on him even after the years apart from each other.

As you and Price excused yourselves to get lunch, it left Simon wondering if this was the world finally punishing him for everything he has done in his cruel life. Give him the very thing he had wanted the most only to pull it away at every instance.

“Bloody fucking hell.”

It’s been two weeks since you’ve began your new job as Captain John Price’s secretary. Two weeks since you had tried and succeeded in making sure you had avoided the man known in the base as Ghost—or to you, simply known as Simon Riley, your ex-husband. Every single instance that you were both placed in the same room (mostly in Price’s office), you both acted like you didn’t know each other, it was hard knowing just how close the man was after so long of a separation from each other.

But as much of an avoidance you’ve made for the Lieutenant, the same could not be said for the two Sergeants that had been dead set in making themselves both your companion while in the base but as well as your guard dogs from the ballsy few that would dare ask you out on a date. You appreciated the effort as much as it was not needed knowing it earned a dangerous glare from your ex in the process.

“Looks like you’re right at home.”

You jerked your head up from the files you were arranging at the voice of an all too familiar woman. A smile rested on your face at the sight of one Kate Laswell, your former boss’ wife.

“Kate.” You smiled an exhausted sigh escaping your lips at the sight of the woman. Both her and her wife had been the pair that knew what you had been through since your divorce and she was one of the two people that saw behind the façade you had decided to show the world.

“How are you holding up?” She inquired.

“Doing better.” You assured her. “Just a slight problem but nothing I can’t deal with now.”

“Oh no. Is your ex-husband bothering you again? I told you to just say the name and I’ll find some dirt on him in a heartbeat.”

You chuckled, knowing how that would be close to impossible with the man’s stand and rank in the Taskforce.

“Simon Riley.” You said instead and watched the way her eyes widen upon realization.

“Why did I not put two and two together?” She snorted realizing the small misjudgment on her part. “Does John know?”

You shook your head. You didn’t know how, but in the weeks of working at the base, you had been successful enough not to let the small detail spill. It was for both of your sakes and you feared that if you told the man, you would be fired and not him, not that you would want him to choose between the two of you.

“It would be a shame if John couldn’t keep you working for him because of your past with Ghost. I’m actually able to see his files being sent to me on time for once and he’s less stress in this past week for once.”

You blushed, knowing that that was a compliment, something that was rarely spoken by one Kate Laswell in the years of working for her wife.

“I genuinely don’t want to go either.” You spoke honestly. “Even with the situation.”

“Will you keep the information to yourself for now?” She inquired. “What does Ghost think of this?”

“I haven’t talk to him since I’ve gotten here.” You spoke honestly. “And I think it would be better if don’t talk to him about it either.”

“Talk to who about?”

Both of you had jerked your head towards the owner of the voice and it was Price with your husband, Soap, and Gaz in tow. You looked panicked at Kate hoping she could help you out this predicament with the man in the very room with them.

“My wife’s been asking how she’s been holding up since the divorce and if she’s gotten around to talking to her ex.” Kate brushed off and you wanted to face palm yourself, not the answer you were hoping for her to give.

“Wait you were married?” Gaz piped in with surprise.

“Was.” You corrected, eyes glancing towards Simon for a moment before turning your attention right back to the younger man. “But it’s nothing to worry about, you know how Kate’s wife is.” You tried your best to reassure everyone.

“Well that bloke lost something good that’s for sure.” Soap quipped right back with a flirty wink. You’ve learned this was the default with the man. “Right Lt?”

Both you and Kate found yourself looking at the man and it somehow clicked to him that you both were now more than aware of the currently predicament that fell before you and without another word left the office, slamming the door behind him.

To this very day, Simon still can’t understand why he had signed those papers. Why didn’t he just talk with you and made a compromise. Instead he became an asshole that avoided any forms of communications with you until he was left with no other choice but divorce papers waiting for him at home and every single trace of you no longer in the home you two once shared.

In the deepest depths of his bedside drawer was the divorce papers that officially separated him from you, the two ring boxes that housed his wedding ring and the engagement ring he had bought for you. Around his neck, alongside his Dog tag was your wedding ring—the same wedding ring you had left on top of the coffee table of your home, with the divorce papers right under it.

It was his fears that finally came to life and he truly didn’t know why his body automatically signed without even reaching out to you first. To this day, in the years that has passed he still wonder what his life and relationship could be if he fought for your marriage.

Would he still be married to you right now? Would the two of you finally have the family you had always wanted? Maybe by now your first kid would have been three, he had always dreamed of having a daughter. A darling little girl that was a spitting image of you, a daughter he would protect with his life over and over again.

That could have been his life, but he was far too stupid for his own good. He was too much of a bastard that ruins everything good that comes into his life. He pays the price every single night he comes home to his apartment—empty and lacked the warmth that only you could ever give to someone like him.

He made his bed and he was sleeping in tears because of it.

“There he is, good you’ve got your arse here, LT.”

Another one of the mistakes he seems to be making in his life was joining the rest of the team in the pub and realizing that you have come to join them this time around.

Bloody fucking hell you were as beautiful as the first day he had ever laid eyes on you. There was the twinkle in your eyes he had once thought he had diminished as you continued on with whatever conversation you were having with Gaz with Price listening on. You had on your favorite red crepe dress that slightly showed some cleavage but not enough to be indecent, with your favorite locket that he had brought for you while you were still dating, and the first ever expensive Cartier watch you had brought for yourself (which Simon would have more than willingly bought for you if you allowed it) while saving up your checks.

Fate was nothing but a cruel sick man for giving this sight of you in front of him and never allowing him the taste he always craved. A gift that wasn’t his to accept—anymore.

“You know how traffic is, Johnny.” He muttered finding himself sitting beside the man and in the process finding himself sitting right in front of you in the process.

“Bullshit,” Soap snorted. “Stopped by a bonnie we didn’t know about?”

Simon glanced towards you, the momentary hurt that passed through your eyes before you continued on with your conversation with Gaz, now hearing you were both talking about your Uni days and how you found yourself involved with working for Laswell’s wife all those years ago.

“Don’t have the time nor the energy for another headache in my life.” He spoke realizing that it was the wrong thing to say with you in front of him. He could have said it if you were not here, but not in your presence, it diminishes every single thing he had ever had with you.

It wasn’t what he meant but he couldn’t truly take it back.

“I can second that.” You spoke finally meeting his eyes this time. An unrecognizable look in your eyes as you stared right at him. “And this is coming from someone that’s already made a mistake of ever getting married to a man in the military.”

This has opened the floodgate for everyone in the table to question you about your apparent divorce. He had no one else to blame for this than himself. He listened in now as you continued on answering questions about your relationship with him and the eventual divorce, but made sure it was vague enough not to have fingers pointed at him.

“So, you loved the man more than life itself and all that, why divorce?” Soap had asked the million dollar question.

“It’s gets tiresome to love someone that doesn’t want to help himself.” You spoke honestly. “Year of trying to understand him, only to push shoved away over and over again, it hurts and it gets tiresome. I just had to go before the love turns to hate.”

In the years since the divorce, there was never closure between the two of you. The forms of communications that you both had were mostly about him being deployed again or of you and your plans of moving around or changing careers. Never did either of you had the much needed closure that you both deserved—until now, not directed at him.

“If any of you ever attempt getting involved with a guy or girl make sure you’re serious about the relationship a hundred percent, not fifty, not seventy-five, not even fucking ninety. Because that small fraction you’re not giving them might be the very reason why everything falls apart.”

Simon finds himself blinking at the words that now escaped your lips. The downright resentment that still lingered in your tongue even after everything that had occurred between the two of you. He shouldn’t have signed those fucking divorce papers.

Marriage Counseling, they should have had marriage counselling like you had begged from him all those years ago.

He stood, excusing himself to order the next round of drinks. He doesn’t have it in him anymore to listen to your words cutting him to the very core.

One of the biggest mistake about accepting Price’s offer of going out with the rest of the team for a quick drink was forgetting your non-existing alcohol tolerance. As the drink was now swimming through your blood stream, your lips become looser and there were few moments were you had almost spilled the fact that your ex-husband just happens to be sitting in front of you in the table you shared with the rest of 141.

“You sure you’ll be alright to head home on your own?” Your boss has inquired the moment it was announced the pub was closing up for the early morning.

You nodded with a smile, but the warmth that you were certain painted your skin and the dazed eyes, you were all too sure that it would be a big mistake for you to do. Go knows how dangerous it would be for a drunk like you to head home all on your own.

“I’ll take her home.” Simon announced and before you could protest, John had nodded agreeing that it would be the best thing to do and you couldn’t protest or show even a smidge of irritation as you were given a death glare by your ex-husband.

“Thank you for letting me join you guys.” You spoke towards your boss, the giggly duo of Soap and Gaz. “I’ll text once I get home.” You promised them following Simon out of the pub.

You took a deep breath as the cool morning air sobered you up for a moment as you waited for the man with his car. Frowning when you realized the man didn’t have his car with him but rather his death machine known as his motorcycle.

“Here.” He muttered practically shoving an all too familiar helmet towards you.

Like quick work, you had put on the helmet, ensuring to adjust the strap before the man does. You were still unprepared to be in close proximity with the man but here you were.

Watching him pull down the foot peg, he turned to you waiting for you to ride him—ride his motorcycle. With a deep breath you rode behind him, the skirt riding up your legs and he was quick to pull it down for your own decency before revving the engine on.

“Hold on tight.” He ordered and your body was on autopilot as you wrapped your arms around his waist as he sped off.

You know it was the alcohol but you find yourself smelling him, the all too familiar smell of his musk and cologne—the same cologne you had given him when he told you were promoted to Lieutenant. Your head rested on his back, cheek squished against the expansion of his back, feeling the way his back tense at your touch as it had the same effect for you feeling his warmth all over again.

“Where?” He questioned you as the bike halted at the stoplight.

You slurred your words, but you did your best to tell him directions to where your apartment was. Your sober self would have slapped you at the back of the head for letting Simon know about your whereabouts, knowing it wasn’t something he needed to know anymore.

For a moment as the winds blew against your cheeks, you were brought back to the memories of your time together. How you feared his driving and his bike more than anything else in the world but every single time he made sure you were at your safest with him, always did even in this moment.

You remembered the dates you would both have at night when he was at his most sleepless. By the park, your arms wrapped around him as his head rested on your shoulders. How you had carried so much of his nightmare even when you truly knew nothing but what he would let you know which wasn’t much and would only be in the instance that you would have accidentally heard during his nightmares.

You remembered how tired you were as much as you loved him, how much he had meant the world to you in that very moment but slowly but surely it wasn’t the same anymore. You felt the resentment before the anger for everything he wasn’t willing to give you. You gave him everything thing but he could barely give you anything in return.

“We’re here.” Simon announced, pulling away from him you turned and he was right. You were back in your apartment and you didn’t realize how fast time has flown since as you were deep in your thoughts.

Hopping down the bike with the man helping you, you turned to him and your mouth moved before you could stop yourself.

“Want to head inside—for coffee at least as a thank you?”

“I think coffee and a conversation would be the best thing for the both of us to do at this point in time, Love.”

You felt your pulse quicken as everything single thing you had talked about in the pub was coming back to bite you in the ass. Simon has his ulterior motive after all for wanting to escort you back home.

All you did was nod, heading to the door with the man following closely behind. You felt your hands shaking but you had succeeded in keying the door open. Opening the door for him, you walked further inside, opening the lights and toeing off the flats you had on.

You placed your wallet and keys on the coffee table and found yourself sitting on the couch waiting for the man to follow you.

You heard Simon close the door, the sound of the lock being turned and the sound of his leather jacket had you worried for what was to come.

“I fucking take you seriously with the bloody helmet still on your head.” He pointed out as he stood right in front of you, unclasping the helmet from your head and for the first time in a long time, you saw him up close and the way the darkness of his eye bags was the most prominent about him—it had gotten so much worse than when you were still married. Was it because of you?

“Sorry.” You mumbled as you watched him place the helmet on top of the coffee table alongside most of your things.

“Where’s the kitchen?”

You pointed towards you left and the man had made himself at him. The sound of cupboard being opened and the all too familiar muttering of horrible instant coffee you always wanted was heard. You wanted to let out a giggle but the sudden fear of the reality of your decision brought back something you never thought you would ever relive.

You sigh elbows digging onto your thighs, as your slumped your face into your hands. Why did you offer to have him here? Why did you accept the offer of him taking you back home? Why did you accept Kate’s offer of working for John? Why did you decide to divorce Simon?

In your own mini-panic attack, the smell of vanilla latte had you pulling away from your hands and you saw the cup of coffee already in the table and Simon was already sitting in front of you, without the surgical mask and without the figurative mask he was wearing at the base.

“Why are you doing this to me?” He questioned.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of all the places you could work why the base?”

“It’s not like I knew you were working for Price.” You snort. “It was Kate that suggested I work there—a new environment for me after everything that happened.”

Kate had called it her own version of exposure therapy. You truly appreciated her help even after knowing your ex-husband was working there in the same vicinity as you.

“You could have left?”

You snort. Aside from everything that came with the military, the money was too good to leave—but that was not something you would want to discuss with Simon knowing his intent to still provide for you even with the ink on the divorce papers were still drying.

“Why would I? You and I have nothing between us.” You spoke, knife sharp as his own words of calling you a headache to him.

“What you said to the team is that the real reason why you filed for divorce?”

All you could do was nod.

“You could have talk to me that you weren’t happy anymore we could have made it work.”

“No you won’t, Si.” You shook your head, arms crossed against your chest, you feared the words that would be thrown between the two of you now especially at your state. “I would have made it work.”

“What do you want me to do then? What could I have done then? You say one thing but mean something else?”

“Because every single time I wanted you to open up to me, you closed yourself up even more!” You spat right at him now. “Do you know how hard it was for me to bare myself to you about the shit in my life and in my family only to be reciprocated with how your family was fucked up but not an explanation for it?”

“That’s none of your business.” His voice grows dark, it was a sensitive topic.

“Then why were we even married if it wasn’t my business?” Your voice growing louder now, exasperated by this conversation. “What was the use of our vows if you would keep the smallest things a secret from me?”

“It’s not fucking small!” He screamed right back at you and you instinctively flinched at his voice then. Why was he being so cruel to you now?

“When I married you, I accepted you for who you are, I accepted that you can’t truly tell me what your missions were about or about whatever details about your deployment were. But even just something, anything that would make me believe that I was something more than a whore you could fuck and a maid that would take care of the house and cook you fucking food would have been appreciated.”

“You were my wife, wasn’t that enough?”

“No it was not, Simon.” You spat. “You never made me feel like I was truly your wife when you shut yourself down after coming home to me. You weren’t the same man that I had accidentally spilled coffee on when we first met.”

“If you knew me for the things I’ve been through you wouldn’t look at me the same way.”

“And how would you know that?” You questioned him. “How could you think for me when you don’t even know what I would think of you after everything we’ve been through?”

“You want to know the truth?”

“Yes. Maybe that way I can finally move on from anything that has to do with you.”

You know that was the wrong thing to say as the man cracked his neck and began to talk. About his life, about the abuse he had to endure at the hands of his father. He began to talk about the new beginning of his life when his father died and everyone tried their best to recover. He told you of his mother that he loved more than anything else at that point, of his brother, of his sister-in-law, and of his young nephew Joseph.

He told you about how he was finally at peace with the trauma of his life back then before things gotten to hell and back. He told you of the man named Roba, he told you of the abuse he had to once again go through at the hands of Roba’s men, physically, mentally, and sexually. He told you why he hated confined spaced after being buried alive in a coffin with a man named Vernon, a rotten corpse that he had to use the jaw of to escape death.

He told you of the death of his family, of Marcus Washington killing his family. Killing his mother, his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephew that didn’t deserve being involved in anything the mission was about. He told you how he had to burn the bodies of what was left of his family and his identity in the process. You learned then why he was called Ghost and what it had meant for him and his past that continued to haunt him.

You were left stunned, unable to form words about everything that has happened to your husband. But it was the fact that now everything about him made sense. All the little things about his personality of why he was the man that sat in front of you today. It all made sense and it scared you that he was right. How you truly didn’t know what to say or what to feel now that you’ve learned of his past that he tried so hard to hide from you.

“Happy?”

“Don’t be cruel, Simon.” You whispered now, the tears were slowly forming from your eyes now, you wanted to cry for him, to mourn the family that he had lost and for adding yourself into the pain he was now enduring.

“Cruel?” He laughed, no humor in his words, malice was more evident. “What’s cruel is you still using my last name and airing out our dirty laundry to the men I work with instead of talking to me first.”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” You shook your head, stung by his words. He was right but you weren’t going to admit it right now. A small ounce of pride still clawing its way out of you. “And you know why I still used your last name.”

It was your family. You wanted to erase was little traces of your family remained. Even in the divorce, you always had it in mind to remain a Riley. It was better than having to be the ghost of your former self all over again.

He stood now, knowing it was all he needed to know. He walked away but somehow a lingering thought had you opening your lips all over again.

“Why didn’t you fight for me, Si? Why did you sign the papers back then if you truly didn’t want to break up?”

“Because no matter how much I loved and needed you in my life, I will always choose your happiness before my own.” He answered, opening the door and leaving.

The sound of his bike echoing as you were left to mourn the closure of your relationship with the man that had meant the world to you. With all the regret finally coming full force you were left knowing that you had broken the man more than he already was and there was no turning back from it anymore.

It’s been well over a year now since you have been hired as Captain John Price’s secretary. Things were slowly but surely getting better for you and your career. Since the day you had talked with Simon, you wouldn’t say things between the two of you were getting better but you were civil with each other. You’ve interacted with him a few times, especially when it came to paper works but nothing more was said between the two of you.

Even with Price’s rule of not getting yourself involved with anyone in the team, it was becoming a mission for both Gaz and Soap to set you up with people on the base. Doctors or medics were somehow their number one target for you, but every single time, you find yourself relenting to just one date but never pushing for something more.

After knowing the truth about your ex, you didn’t have the heart to be so cruel to him more than you already were working in the base as him. Your free time away from base were spent with hobbies you had while still being married to Simon, baking and journaling, it was relief to be able to do it now with a new light was shed to the events of your marriage failing. You’ve also come to accept the offer of Kate’s wife’s therapist. It was a big help to be able to talk to someone else about everything you’ve been through.

You’ve learned to accept that you had your own mistake in the failure of your marriage just as much as Simon did. But your therapist has also come to mention that you needed to begin your own journey of healing from the what ifs of it, and live in the aftermath as painful as it was for you now.

“That dangerous?” You found yourself fearing for the worse at the conversation you were having with your boss as he explained to you the vague details of the upcoming mission him and the rest of the Task Force had for today.

With the chaos of prepping and planning, your boss was constantly on his feet and you were following him every step away for most of it to field calls and handle most of the paperworks to be sent out to sign and shipped to the higher ups. But to know a glimpse of what was happening and how your ex-husband would be involved in all of this worried you more than you would like to admit.

“It is what it is, if it meant a safer and better world, we would do it over and over again.” He explained.

“Just be careful, I still want to keep my job and I can’t if you’re dead, Boss.” You teased.

“Laswell can still be able to deal with you if I’m gone.” He retorted right back earning a quick laugh from you.

One thing that you had gotten so used to was his humor and how you had showcased your own as time went by working for the man. You appreciated him for being one of the two best bosses you had ever had in your career.

“Shouldn’t you be preparing for the mission?” You quipped right back.

“I should.” He chuckled standing right up in his full height. “Can you go check on the boys for me while I do?”

You could have refused, but a small part of you wanted to check up on Simon. Standing up, you had made your round, first stopping by Soap’s room to check up on him and notify him about the mission. Soap being the man that he was already suggesting you another man in the base beforehand.

“How about Micah? Pretty bloke that just joined the Medic team.” He began shoving the rest of his things into his duffle bag.

“Johnny, for the last time, I’m not into those pretty type you think I’m into.” You tried to indulge him in the conversation for now knowing it would ease him from the mission.

“What is your type so me and Gaz could actually find someone for you?” He pouted.

“Tall, blonde, dark and broody and with a heavy Manchester-accent.” You indulged him with description of the only man you actually loved.

“Why the fuck are you describing Ghost?” He snorts. “You got a thing for him? I thought you swore off anyone from the military?”

“Never said it was Ghost, Johnny.” You quipped right back. You hugged him and have him wrap his arms around you right back. “Be careful for me will you, I can’t live my life here in the base knowing you or Gaz aren’t here trying to set me up with anyone and everyone in the base including the married ones.”

“Hey we didn’t know Wilson was married.” He protested as he pulled away to look at you in offense.

“At this point I’ve already had dinner with half of the base, let’s keep it to a minimum when you get back. I might show you my ex so you can have an idea of what my type is.”

“Deal.” He grinned kissing you on top of the head before leaving to head to the meeting room.

You next stop was Gaz which wasn’t much of a journey with how close his room was to Soap’s. Knocking inside, you were immediately welcomed into the arms of Gaz. Unlike Soap that had been fixated with setting you up with someone in the base, Gaz was more focused on the next get together you could go to after the mission.

“I think me and Soap could convince Price to have a weekend in his vacation house in Cornwall.”

You nodded knowing it wouldn’t take much to convince Price if it meant helping the rest of the team with de-stressing and ensuring everyone has recovered mentally from the mission. But it also meant that you would be in charge of cooking knowing you and Price were the only ones that knew how to cook and you wanted your boss to actually have time to recover himself in the process.

“As long as you help me with grocery and prepping then you got a deal.” You winked pulling away from him with a smile already excited to bake them your famous apple pie they constantly beg you to make for them since the first time making it for them.

“Deal.” He grinned kissing you on the cheeks and just like Soap, finding himself heading out with his bag already at hand.

It now meant you had one last person you needed to stop by before the mission prep. You took your time somehow rehearsing what you could probably say to the man for his upcoming mission. You had your worry and you knew this was a dangerous mission.

Knocking on his door, you heard the gruff response from the other side of the door.

“Simon?” You called and immediately heard the door being unlocked.

You were faced with him wearing his skull balaclava mask. This was the side of him that you never gotten used to see but it was a part of him that you could never truly erase from him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked you allowing you to walk inside.

“Price told me to notify you about heading out for the mission.” You explained. “And I just—I just wanted to ask you to be careful on the mission.”

“Always.” He nodded.

A moment of silence has passed between the two of you before you were reminded of your therapist’s words. There was nothing wrong if you extended an olive branch to the man after everything was out in the open.

“After the mission, I would love to have you join us in Price’s cabin in Cornwall for a quick vacation too.” You added. “I know you’re busy with whatever you need to do to distress after a mission, but I would think it would be good to you if you joined. I can opts this one out if you’re more comfortable with that.”

“I’d go.” He nodded. “But I want you to join along and I want you to make me that lovely cheesecake you always make for me after I come home from deployment.”

You smiled knowing that it was always the same, a way to a man’s heart is always through his stomach.

“Anything else you want?” You asked wanting to give in to his all too simple request.

“And I want us to at least be friends, you’re part of the team now and they care for you and it wouldn’t do anyone good for us to act like we can’t stand each other.”

You nodded, heart aching a little at what he wanted. Friends. That was all he wanted and you would gladly compromise this time for him if that was what makes him truly happy.

“Friends.” You smiled, taking a hesitant step towards him for a hug but stopped mid movement as he pulled you right into his arms. The all too familiar warmth that consumed him.

“I wished things would have been different between the two of us.” He whispered kissing the top of your head. “I’d give you the world when I couldn’t give you myself fully.”

You closed your eyes wrapping your arms around his broad back.

“I wished I was strong enough for the two of us.” You whispered the tears slowly forming your eyes. “I wished I stayed a little longer for the two of us.”

“I never stopped loving you, Love. We might not be married anymore but you will be the only woman I will ever love truly with all my life and with all my soul.”

“You too, Si.” You whispered looking up at him allowing the tears to flow freely from your eyes now. “After everything that had happened between us, I will always love you.”

It was the middle of the night when you heard the familiar ringtone of your old phone. The same phone that only Simon knew the number to. You blinked away the sleep as you pulled the phone right out of the bedside table.

An unfamiliar number took you by surprise and for a moment you wanted to not answer it thinking it might be a telemarketer—but something had pushed you to press the answer button and hear whoever was on the other line.

“Hello?” You whispered clearing your throat.

“Mrs. Riley?” The familiar voice of John had you tensing. You found yourself sitting up from the bed as he began to introduce himself and why he had called.

“What happened to Simon?” You questioned checking your bedside clock to see what time it was.

It was just past midnight, three weeks since they had left for their mission and this was the first time you had gotten any contact to any one of them.

“As of right now, we are not sure if he would make it through the night. If you want we could have you someone fetch you to see him.”

You felt your world still at the news. Just when things were finally moving into the right direction between you and Simon.

“I’ll be there as soon as possible.” You assured hanging up and changing into some sweatshirt and sweatpants.

The travel to the now familiar base was a daze to you as you drove. You weren’t much of a religious person, but your lips did not stop moving as you prayed. You prayed that your husband would be alright, you bargained that you would make things right with him if it meant he would stay.

“Don’t leave me, Simon.” You whispered over and over again until you arrived to the base.

You had ignored most of the surprise that the soldier on duty had shown at your sudden appearance—the fact that you were in just your ratty clothes was also something you chose to ignore as you made a beeline to where the infirmary was.

Huddled in front of the door was your boss, John, Soap, and Gaz. Each and every single one of them injured in their own way—mostly superficial from the bandages that plastered all over their beaten faces.

“John.” You called having three heads turning to you in question. “How is he?” You questioned as the tears begin to fall from your eyes at the reality of the situation coming to crush you. “How is my husband?”

The realization washed over all of them, of the secret you and Simon had hidden from everyone. The weight was too much as you were wrapped in the arms of the family you had found yourself becoming a part of.

“Will he be alright?” You pleaded, holding onto John’s vest. “Please tell me he will be alright.” You begged falling to your knees in front of him.

“The doctors are doing their best, Love.” John reassured kneeling in front of you, wrapping you into his arms as you continued to sob. “But Simon took most of the impact from the explosion.”

The reality scared you so much. You tried you best to remember the last interaction you had with Simon, the hug, the promise of a new beginning, and everything else in between. It all came crashing down to this very point.

There was a very big chance that you will finally lose Simon and it scared you so much more than anything in this world. You couldn’t lose him, not like this, not when there was so much left between the two of you to make up for.

“He can’t leave me, John.” You whimpered. “He promised me he wouldn’t leave me like this.” You screamed at the top of your lungs.

You were made aware of the vows you had made to each other when you got married at the court house. Of how he had promised to the best of his abilities that he wouldn’t die in the line of duty before he could have the chance to retire. He promised you a family, he promised you the world, and he promised you your happiness. He was your family, he was your world, and he was your happiness that you realize only when it was too late.

For the next few weeks, the world around you had become blur. You were now much of a permanent fixture of the Taskforce’s base. Morning and the afternoon was spent still working for Price, especially with the piling number of paperworks the mission had caused and your nights were spent in the infirmary, watching over Simon that has yet to awake from his slumber.

When the doctors had given you the green light that you can see him—it took you hours before you did. Even after John, Soap, and Gaz had finished with their own visit, it took so much of what little strength you had to finally see him in his state.

Broken bones, laceration, head trauma, blood loss and amongst the other injuries that the doctors has informed you should have killed him but he was still alive even in his current state. He still had fight in him, he was still fighting to keep alive.

“I’ve come to realize that post-mission Price was a whole different breed of a grump, more than he usually is.” You began talking to your still unconscious ex.

The doctor had told you about him being able to hear your voice and you took the opportunity to talk his ear off with him unable to give his usual sarcastic comments or grunts as response. There were days you told him about your day at work, days where you told him about what you had been doing since you left your home and tried and failed to move on from him, and there were days where you apologized to him, regretting the divorce and everything else that been the reason for the demise of your marriage.

“I think since the divorce I’ve realized a lot of shit about us.” You sighed leaning against the uncomfortable plastic chair. “If you wake up, I’ll try to do my best to convince you to take me back.” You mused arms crossed against your chest. “I know you don’t have as much of a happy memory after what happened to your family, but when you wake up, I want to make sure we make as much happy memories as we could together, I want you to tell me about what your Ma was like, what kind of brother Tommy was like, and how adorable Joseph was, I want all of that and more with you.”

You wiped away the tears that have yet to fall, you didn’t want to cry. You thought that you didn’t have any more tears to shed. The gravity of almost losing Simon was the wakeup call you needed and now it was nothing more than a waiting game until he wakes up.

“I fucking can’t be your friend, Si.” You admit. “I can’t be happy with just being your friend. I want you to be my husband again, Si. After almost losing you I know I can’t live knowing we haven’t fixed our relationship. I’ll do anything and everything to make it up to you, all the pain and hurt I’ve caused you.”

“Anything?”

You almost jumped from where you sat at the sight of the man whose eyes were now focused on you.

“Simon?”

“Am I just high or did you say what you did?”

“What?”

“That you would make up for everything?” He muttered groggily.

“I did.” You nodded blinking in disbelief that he was here, awake. Alive.

“Then marry me. Let me make it right this time, Love. I promise I’ll make it work, I’ll do my best to make you happy the way that you deserve.”

“Yes.” You answered almost immediately, finding yourself giggling about how ridiculous his second proposal was with his current state—but you didn’t want it any other way.

He requested for you to take his dog tag around his neck off and only then did you notice that your wedding ring enclosed around his necklace. Even with the years that passed, he still had it with him. The very same ring you two had brought together before you had headed to the courthouse for your marriage.

“Can I add another stipulation?” He held onto your free hand.

“Anything.” You smiled rubbing your hand against the callousness of his hand. “Anything to make it work, Si.”

“No more blind dates from the Sergeants.”

“They could never hold a candle to you, Simon.” You giggled leaning in for a kiss, the weight that rested on your shoulders slowly easing away.

You were home, you were back in the arms of Simon after all was said and done.

[mejaemin]

6 hours- lee chan

wc: 1.7k

summary: you’re mad at channie, and he’s trying soso hard to get ur attention

warnings: mentions of throwing up (it doesn’t happen, channie is a drama queen okay), fluff, cheol cameo, nothing else rlly!

an: the way i would literally get backshots from a horse if it meant i could get a bf as clingy and desperate as chan (looking for more svt reqs rn !! pls hit my inbox guys)

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it’s officially been six hours.

six hours since chan upset you, and six hours since you last spoke to him.

it may be petty, but waking up to go eat your leftover slice of cake (unhealthy, but so what?) and finding the container in the sink is not cool. not cool at all. so, being the petty one you are, you’ve essentially left your boyfriend on heard all day.

the morning started off great, waking up in his strong embrace and sharing a few kisses in bed. you even talked about your excitement for the chill day ahead of you, not even wanting to get up to use the bathroom. after he fell back asleep, that was when you decided to get up and finish your cake.

you didn’t even have to open the fridge to notice it was gone. as soon as you entered the kitchen, you saw the container sitting by itself in the sink, staring right at you. chan woke up when you left, leaving to go find you, however he regretted slightly when he saw what you were staring at. you turned to him, looking him up and down as he played with his fingers, guiltily staring at the floor. his expression really was too cute, looking like a sad puppy with his pouty lips, and it tempted you to let him off the hook, but something in you changed your mind. with a heavy sigh, you look him up and down before brushing past him and going back to sleep. he would be getting tortured today.

he’s wordlessly following you the whole time, and you walk with your eyes squeezed shut to avoid his extremely convincing puppy dog eyes. you and him both know that as soon as he gives you that look, you’re forgiving him. however, not this time! you really weren’t all that upset, but giving him the silent treatment for even thirty minutes gets him treating you like you’ll fly away if he doesn’t hold you close. for a whole day? you can only imagine what benefits you’ll reap.

after another few hours, you wake up once again. heading out to the kitchen, deciding that starving yourself is not the best way to spite someone, you go to look for something to eat.

this time, when you walk in the kitchen, the sink is cleared of any dishes. you’re grateful that he at least did that (even if he could’ve bought more cake) instead of.. doing whatever he was doing. likely sulking somewhere. however, as you get closer to the sink, you frown. yes, chan may have washed the dishes, but he left a bunch of crumbs at the bottom of the sink!

you turn around to look at him, and he’s staring right back at you from the living room. he’s looking at you with hopeful, glossy eyes, and before your facial expression can give away that you’ve already forgiven him you turn away. he doesn’t need to know yet. so, instead of scolding him and having him clean it himself like you usually do, you wipe it up yourself.

after finally feeding yourself, choosing not to eat the last of chan’s favorites, you retreat back to your room for another hour or two. he’s left you alone so far, aside from the dozen notifications of him liking your posts across every platform you own. he’s even commented on a few, and to be a little mean you liked one or two without replying. you and him both consider that basically being left on read.

after a few moments of relaxation, including you watching videos on your phone, it ends when your phone breaks out into a shrill ring. seungcheol’s contact photo fills the screen, and you already know what’s coming.

“hello?” his voice comes through the speaker.

“hi, cheol.” your sigh is heavy as you wait for him to finally relay whatever chan’s message is.

“hi. so, don’t shoot the messenger, but chan thinks it’s really important for you to know that, his words, if you don’t talk to him soon he’s going to throw up.” you hear his chuckle come through as he tries to relay the message seriously, but you know he’s already aware of his dramatics.

“oh… well, i hope he knows he can just throw up. because he knows what he did, and he has yet to address it.” you deadpan in a way that’s almost comical, expressing just how much you don’t care.

“well, you said it. trust me, i know damn well what kind of situation you’ve got him in, and i am not meddling. see you.”

“bye, seungcheol, sorry you’ve been caught up in his mess.”

“it’s fine.” he hangs up the phone, and you’re finally left alone again. you’ve made a mental note to tease your boyfriend later about how desperate he is, but for now you think you can hold out a little longer.

after speaking with seungcheol, the “cherry man” as you used to call him, you’re suddenly craving a jar of cherries. not the healthy ones, the ones you put on ice cream. you get up and return to the kitchen, pulling the jar out of the fridge. on the way you see chan, sitting in the exact same position you left him in, hugging a pillow as he stares through the tv. he’s really too cute, and you want to go over there so bad, but you remember how much happier your day would’ve started with your cake and decide he can wait a little longer.

as you go to open the jar of cherries, the lid is stuck. usually, you or chan will leave them a little loose for you to open them better, especially if he’s not there to help you open it. you look up, seeing him turned to you expectantly, and you sigh. you reach into the drawer with all the utensils and oven mitts, reaching for the silicone jar opener you had from before you and chan got together. you haven’t touched it a single time since you started dating, his pride being hurt by the idea of you using anything but him and his strength to open your jars and other containers. you take a fork and begin eating the cherries from the jar, pretending not to see his extremely crushed expression in your peripheral.

after finishing your snack, you return to your room once again, spending more time in solitude. you played music, watched a few episodes of your current drama, and even read a book. you were completely unbothered, and even forgot there was someone else in the house until there was a knock on your bedroom door.

calling him in, the door swings open and chan is standing there. he immediately sits on the foot of the bed, resting a hand over your blanket-covered legs.

“baby i know you’re upset but just please listen to me just this one time.” he looks at you apologetically, and when you don’t make a move to leave he scoots up to the top of the bed next to you and grabs your hand. “i’m really sorry i ate your cake. i just saw it in there by itself and i couldn’t help it.. but i’m really sorry!” he looks to you for a reaction before continuing

you lock your fingers with him. “go on, love.”

“i really hate it when you’re mad at me and i hate it even more when you don’t talk to me.. like i swear, i was gonna start throwing up. and maybe dying. but i bought you a new cake in case it makes it better!” his eyes are so big and glittery, and he’s got a hopeful gaze as he speaks.

you’re now sitting upright, scooting closer to him. “plus interest?”

he nods enthusiastically, getting off the bed and helping you out of the bedroom. “yes! plus interest! i got takeout too! come, i’ve already set it up.”

he leads you out to your dining table which he’s set with your new cake, larger than the size you had previously ordered it in, and your favorite takeout place already plated at yours and his seats. you turn to him, and he’s still got that timid look, gauging your reaction.

it’s then that you break completely, wrapping your arms around his waist and giving him more than enough kisses to make up for the entire day. “oh channie, you’re the sweetest. you didn’t have to do all that.”

he sits you down, then seats himself and pulls his chair so close to yours that your shoulders are touching. “but i did! i tried everything in the world to get your attention and it didn’t work, so i had to do this. and i saw what you ate today.. you know you can’t survive off of a bowl of cereal and cherries.” he rests his head on your shoulder, watching as you indulge in his apology meal.

“well, it was quick and one of the few things i could do by myself. i even opened the cherry jar, did you see?” you kiss the top of his head.

“yeah i did.. after you left i threw that thing out, by the way. because i’m here to do these things for you. and this is why you can’t be away from me! who’s gonna make sure you’re being healthy, huh? ’cause it’s clearly not you.” he sits up, popping his eyebrow while looking you up and down.

taking another bite of your food, you return the look. “don’t get too confident, lee chan, because i can go back to how we were twenty minutes ago.”

immediately he’s cuddling back into you, nuzzling his cheek into your shoulder. “please, please don’t do that to me again! i’ll actually cry. actually, i’ll just die. i can see the light just thinking about it.”

you pick his head up off your shoulder, holding his cheek in your hand while giving him a kiss to the other. “okay, you big baby, there’s no need for all that. just eat, okay? and then when we’re done we can make up for lost time, how’s that sound?”

immediately he shoots up, beginning to clear his plate with an alarming speed, eager to spend time with you. you can’t tell, but he’s hoping you mean that in multiple ways because he’s been so deprived of “you time” that he needs to be as close to you as possible. thus, the rest of your day bleeds into night with him spending it crawling under your skin.

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[nichuuu]

Scatterbrain

Word count: 18k+

They say it takes a village to raise a child. 

To raise a girl as fine as Jang Wonyoung, you’d probably need 3 whole villages.

Two of those three villages would be used to train the way she walks because it’s perfect: classy, poised, elegant. The other one would have to work on her outfits because god would she need those. Hopefully the village doesn’t operate a Shein style manufacturing line. She’d hate that.

Her face is the definition of “striking the gene pool lottery”, and so is the rest of her body. Lanky arms and legs; toned, slim tummy; big, bright eyes that glimmer under the flashing lights. Personally, you like her “you’re on camera” smile the most. She knows this, and she always makes it a point to shoot it your way as she struts towards you. She stops half way to get a flute of Champagne, make that two actually, then grabs another. Those long legs can cover one hell of a distance, and they bring her right to you in a matter of seconds.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” she hands you the Champagne flute in her left hand, and the rings on it shine in the light, “cause it’s starting to feel like you’re just stalking me now.”

Of course, it’s the snarky remarks that open the conversation. Jang Wonyoung, airheaded as ever m’lady, and you sip on the Bubbly that she’s very nicely delivered to you. Wonyoung is, of course, a little bit of an airhead in your books (only because she believes that you’re always there for her, nothing else), and it’s never not hilarious to watch her draw her lips into a thin line. It’s not the first time she’s hearing this from you; it certainly won’t be the last. You can’t control where you’re posted to, but you know for a fact that you’ll see her again a couple months down the road.

Cause your meetings with Jang Wonyoung are through pure serendipity really, and you certainly will start calling it that after you read that one story. You know: the one where this guy cheats on his idol girlfriend, who he has a tense relationship with, with another idol that he happens to meet just about everywhere. There’s 0 communication between the two of you when these types of events come around, and neither of you know if either of you will be there or not. Actually, it’s just you really; neither of you know if you will be there. 

“Here for Kwon Eunbi again? Or are you finding someone else?” This question of her’s is customary at this point. Never once has it been perfunctory.

“Well, I was actually here to try and catch an interview with Jo Yuri, but I guess you’ll do,” you reply. Wonyoung scoffs—so I’m second place then?—and you have to assuage her oh-so-damaged ego, “you’re making this inference on your own Princess. I never said anything remotely close to that.”

And it’s that smile on her face that makes you want to kiss her really. It’s gorgeous, it’s cute, it’s beautiful. She’s given you that damned smile so many times that you could probably draw it from memory, though you’d definitely butcher it. The dress is certainly doing it justice, and you watch it brush against the skin of her legs as she shifts her weight to the other foot. I’ve never been that good at inferences. You’re far better than me, Prince, and she’s playing with her hair: twirling and untwirling it around her finger. That ribbon atop her head… Her stylist certainly knows their stuff.

“Think I’ll win an award this year?” Her question draws you away from your thorough examination of her. You take a moment to think, and you have to say, it depends, but I think you could definitely get something in some category. She gives you this inscrutable look, and she’s chuckling to herself as she looks at the crowd and sips on her champagne. You can guess what she’s about to say next: quite the crowd today, huh? And you’d reply, “Don’t think that they’re all here for you”, and that would prompt her to shoot back with, “Then who are they here for? You?”. 

But of course, when do things ever go according to plan?

“Have you thought about my offer?” she asks, and you’re caught off guard. 

Cause here’s the history between you two: Middle school best friends, always kind of inseparable. She was the beauty queen, it girl, and she still is; you were the writer, head of the school magazine, and you’re pretty much writing for the rest of your life. Wherever you went with her, rumours followed—Are they dating? I think they’re just friends. Maybe she’s trying to be the front of the magazine?—but you never thought much of it. It was just a simple friendship to you, nothing more. 

Then the kiss she gave you in high school changed it all.

It was a party, hosted by one of your mutual friends. She kissed you, and no, it wasn’t a Spin The Bottle forfeit, nor was it a dare of any sort; it was a sincere, tender kiss in the garden—unprompted, and away from any prying eyes and soft like silk chiffon. You have to admit, the sensation had your brain mired for a minute or so. But when you came back to your senses, you kissed her right back, and things got complicated after that. 

No one knew of it; it was your little secret. Wonyoung became closer than ever, and next thing you know, she declares the two of you “exclusive” but not dating. It’s because her agency has that funky dating ban thing, and Wonyoung was desperate to find a loophole, albeit a little complex. Of course, you’re willing to stay “exclusive” with Wonyoung in secret, but you started to worry that it can’t stay this way for long after the two of you get out of high school. 

But as fate would have it, your career paths meet at the crossroads, and now you see her every other month or so. You still text her when you can, and the “exclusive” relationship has sustained. Now that she’s an adult and she’s bringing in mad bucks for the agency, she’s informed you of some changes in her contact. From there, the offer was birthed, and you have left it unchecked for the past four months or so, “grey ticked” as she liked to call it.

“You haven’t texted in a while, thought you died,” she continues, leaning on her elbows against the table. “Thank god you’re alive, huh?”

You hoped that she’d just forget about it, but she’s more of a mnemonist than you give her credit for. An award show is the last place you expected to be caught off guard by Jang Wonyoung, but she’s definitely a master of surprise. I uh… I haven’t really thought about it, is a lie you tell her and yourself. She smiles enigmatically, downs the rest of her Champagne. 

“Let’s talk about it tonight,” she touches your chest, and it’s soft like silk chiffon, “you know where to find me, Prince.”

She struts off to join the rest of her members, stops halfway to return her Champagne flute, then looks back at you over her shoulder to give you a small wave. You sip on your Champagne as the silk brushes against her skin. 

It’s a heavy breath that leaves your mouth, and it’s the rest of the Champagne that goes in.

*

302.

Gold lettering, black plaque. It’s grand, pretty elegant. Suits her well. 

Then the door opens. 

In her bathrobe, Jang Wonyoung shoots her “you’re on camera” smile. You’re earlier than expected—she lets you in—Matter of fact, I thought you might not show at all.

And it’s a must to quip back, “thought you’d be asleep by now you big baby.”

When the door closes, it’s straight to work, and here’s how that normally goes: kissing, undressing, foreplay, then finally—fucking. Not that it has to follow that order or anything, but it’s the unspoken schedule that Wonyoung’s written up. God forbid anyone goes against what the princess is comfortable with, not that you’d ever try to either way. Your voice is barely a mumble past her lips—aren’t we supposed to talk about something?—and Wonyoung’s quick to dismiss any queries, “later. There’s always time for it later”. 

So it’s the kiss that’s pulling you back into her. Her front teeth capture your bottom lip, pull, drags it back a little like she’s trying to unwrap you like a present. You hold her waist, and with gentle hands, you push her back against the wall. It’s not that you’re trying to get control or anything; you’re just attempting to give her something to work with, a place to rest as she starts to work on the buttons of your shirt. 

“Are you already naked underneath that?” you whisper, though it’s more of a drawl than a whisper. In response, she momentarily stops with your buttons to slide a section of her bathrobe away, giving you a good look at a column of her naked, milky skin. 

In short: Yes, she is very much naked under that robe.

“Don’t get distracted, my prince. Eyes up here.”

“You’re the one that made me look, princess.”

She’s evidently struggling with the last button of your shirt, and you have to let go of her for a moment to help her get it done. Then it’s off with the shirt, and she flings it against the door for convenience sake. Your belt’s next, and that’s taken care of before you can even say, let me undress you Princess. It does make her hesitate at the clasp of your trousers for a bit. Just for a bit.

“I’d like,” her fingers are moving again, and they’re awfully quick at unfastening your pants, “for you to unwrap me on the bed instead.”

How raunchy of her. Makes you want to try her on.

Your pants fall. Your hand slithers into the bathrobe. Her jaw drops. Wonyoung my darling, and your fingers have captured one of those perky breasts, the right one to be exact. How do you ever—it’s light pressure to the nipple for you; it’s mind melting for her—get away with being such a big slut? Look at you, I’m barely even squeezing here. You’d like to save that face she makes in a supercut of her other memorable faces: eyes wide, mouth agape and her chin tucked into her neck. Frame it up, take a step back, admire it. It’s the face of someone who’s pent up, the expression of a needy girl who’s been aching to get some dick. Maybe if you guys had met a little sooner, she wouldn’t be this sensitive. But now? A twist of your forefinger and thumb is all it takes to draw a cry out of her, a little more pressure is enough to rain hellfire upon her. What a crazy-hot mess she is; only god knows how to clean her up and get her sorted out.

Open mouth straight to your ear, Wonyoung lets out a breathy gasp. In your fingers, the stiff peak rolls between the pads—back, forth, back, forth: motions that make her weak in her knees. It’s with great effort that she pulls your face back to hers, captures you in her quivering lips. Elegance has long been thrown out the window by now, and it’s not going to be returning for quite some time, as if you ever need it at a time like this. She’s barely holding herself up at this point. Where did the prim proper Jang Wonyoung go? 

The answer’s in her kiss—gone, dusted, she was here just a minute ago though. She’s grasping at whatever inch of your skin she can find, and her nails are definitely gonna be leaving marks on the sides of your neck. You let out a small, wry laugh as you silently observe her behaviour, watching her implore without speaking, badger without requesting. It’s an art form really, the form of expression for the horny and desperate and bratty. When her hands grip your face and her nails sink into your cheek, you pinch a little harder and relish the pleasant vibrations that are sent into your mouth as she gasps. Her palms press into your jaw, and they’d probably crush it if you press any harder. Her feet patter against the wood as she starts to direct you to the bed. You kick off your shoes together with your pants. 

It’s definitely a sight to take in: Jang Wonyoung in a massive king size bed, a thin bathrobe being the only thing between you and that wonderful body being the bathrobe. Maybe if she wasn’t in this state she’s in, she’d gesture to you with a come hither motion, and invite you to remove the fabric from her body. Instead, she opts for a spine tingling mewl, and that’s your invitation to her body. It’s hardly an insinuation; the fact that she wants to be unwrapped like a present is undeniable, she used the word unwrap herself. The bunny knot holding the two pieces of fabric is symmetrical—has Wonyoung’s fingerprints all over it. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s watching you with a half-open mouth, maybe you’d compliment her on her efforts a little, maybe even call her “princess” a couple more times before you properly ruin her.

(But she’s already ruined, ruined by a mere bit of pressure to the nipple. What else can make her tick now?)

Her body is at your mercy and it, quite literally, jerks as you start to pull at the knot, undoing it centimetre by centimetre, millimetre by millimetre, inch by inch. You want to see how long she can watch for, how long she can witness herself be undressed in a painfully slow fashion. Needy as she is, she’s patient as she watches one end of the rope grow longer. 

Longer. 

“Do you want me to speed this up, baby?” The smirk on your face would earn you a pout from her if her nerves weren’t in a bundle at the given moment.

“W-Whatever you want,” she answers, and her voice is brimming with breathy arousal. How are you getting away with all this? She’d grab your wrist and pull by now if she wasn’t so damn needy right now.

You give a dry laugh. “Then I’ll keep at this then.”

Longer.

“Fuck. Just pull it all the way already.” She looks you right in the eye as she begs you to hurry, and now you can see the need brimming in those large, round eyes, the ones that stare back at you with soft intensity, if that’s even possible. She’s good at mixing emotions into her stare.

“I thought you said—”

“Just fucking do it!”

Slack.

And the knot comes undone, and together with it, the robe falls off to the sides of her body—it’s beautiful. Never have you taken so much pleasure in undressing her, but you sure-as-hell have taken this much time to admire that wonderful, slender frame. From your standing view over her, you get down to her level to get a better look at her. It’s all part of the game of course: the way you look her in the eye, the way you touch her jaw ever so slightly to turn it towards you. The kiss is sickly sweet, and she’s starting to taste more and more like that cherry lipstick you gave her when you saw her some time ago at another event. Into your mouth, she lets out a sonorous moan. Your fingertips brush along her skin, slither down from her collarbone to her cleavage—down to that flushed pink region between her equally flushed thighs. Almost instantly, the tip of your digits are coated in slick fluids, and you raise an eyebrow at the girl on the bed.

“I literally touched you.” It’s amusement permeating your voice more than anything. In the sheets, she squirms in the slightest, eyes locked on your fingers that rest against that dripping heat and breath caught in her throat. You know that if you were to shift your finger in the slightest, you’d trigger a chain reaction that you have no power over. Her legs would clamp, her abdomen would tense, her eyes would roll. In the midst of it all, she’d maybe scream, or maybe she’d moan; either way goes. As far as you’re concerned, she’s needy as fuck at the moment, and she’s not going to let anything stop her from cumming.

“Yea, well… I can be sensitive.” Her defence is hardly a solid one, more of a perfunctory reply. Her head’s far from able to formulate a quip to throw back at you; that ability went out the window together with classy Wonyoung. “Put them in.”

You go against her request, and your fingers start to skirt the edges of that swollen, pink slit of hers. A crime—you’re going against the princess’ wishes, but realistically speaking: she can hardly be called a princess at the moment, so why comply? 

A portion of the bathrobe is still clinging on to her breast. You use your other hand to push it away, and the split second of contact makes her flinch. “Jesus. You’re so fucking turned-on right now,” you can’t help but muse, all while your fingers retrace te outline of her swollen lips. She’s shivering, she isn’t breathing quite right. “Do you want to moan, baby? Do you want to moan like a good little slut for me?”

And she fixes you with a glare. “F-Fuck you… Put them in.”

No “please” this time. Shame. If she were more polite, you would’ve obliged; now you’ll just have some more fun with her. 

Your thumb finds the swollen nub, and a little brush is all you need to get her straining like a psycho in a straitjacket. What will I ever do with you Wonyoung?—and she’s getting wetter by the second—You look so pretty when you’re so needy, you know that?—why would you ever, for a second, think that she’d be as refined as the last time? She doesn’t play with herself when she needs to get off; she waits till she sees you again to get off on your cock, your fingers, your mouth. Sexting was off the table, she wants you to be physically there, driving her insane as she lets herself come undone. 

“You know,” and you’re almost laughing as you watch her face twist even further, “that I could do this forever right? I could just lie here, tease you for as long as I want… Or maybe that’s what you want?

She’s messy, so fucking messy. Juices are starting to soak the bed—you can feel it as your fingertips round the bottom of her slit. Housekeeping would certainly question the spot, and the two of you wouldn’t be there to reply anyway. Her cheeks are flushed, the veins of her throat are popping. It takes a considerable amount of effort to stay this composed, but you know that she’s breaking more and more. With each round your fingers make, cracks start to form along that perfectly sculpted face. The fine lines on her forehead begin to show as her brows start to furrow. Strained sounds are coming from her throat as the urge to moan is slowly winning the battle against her will. She wants control, but she can’t have it when she’s a wet, hot mess next to you. She’s being bratty for the sake of it. Your fingers are your leverage against her. It’s killing her. It’s delighting you.

And just like fine China thrown against concrete, her will shatters. 

“Please! Put them in!”

And your fingers stop just at the top of her pussy. It feels like a long minute, but she isn't about to take another second of this. Her thighs clamp against your arm. Her fingers wrap around your wrist in desperation. She begs again. And again. And again. And again, again, again. The bed starts to creak as you start to move your fingers down her lips, down to the very end of her cunt.

God is she dripping.

“Will you moan for me?” you drawl huskily. A finger, two, three rest themselves against her heat. 

“Yes.” There’s barely any of her original self left in there. “Please just—”

The fingers breach her opening. She screams, a high-pitched, keening cry. The noise makes your cock strain in your boxers, and you have to grit your teeth as her inner walls wrap tightly around your intruding digits. A moment of stillness comes, a moment where she’s just breathing raggedly, struggling to process this pleasure that’s racking her body faster than she can comprehend. She’s a ticking time bomb of nerves; the slightest movement in this state could send her into perdition, and she’ll barrel past that point of no return faster than both of you can imagine. God, she’s sensitive. God, she’s a mess. 

The chuckle that departs from your mouth is one of perverse pleasure. “Baby,” you whisper, right into her ear as she struggles to catch her breath. She squeezes her eyes shut, and you watch with a grin as her chest rises and falls. The grip on your wrist is a vice, knuckle-white and unrelenting. She’s begging you, with her eyes, to start moving, and you have to tell her, “I can’t start till you let go of me, baby.”

And it’s with reluctance that she slips her hand off your wrist, but that hand won’t stay empty for long. You guide it to her own breast, and with a soft whisper, you tell her to squeeze. She’s servile. She complies without protest. Her eyes slowly open themselves, and you relish the way they’re lust-glazed appearance looks under warm light while her breaths level themselves out. For a moment, there’s calm. For a moment, it’s tender.

Then your fingers start to move. All hell breaks loose.

Everything she did to calm herself quickly becomes futile; it becomes undone as her back arches in a way that catches your breath in your throat. Your fingers graze her walls, pressed into each other as they slowly draw in and out of her. And mind you: you’re going slow, slow enough to make her feel every bit of your fingers brush against her insides. But it’s enough to make her curse, enough to get her mewling like a damn kitten while her hips start to rock, rubbing her clit against the base of your palm. There’s no way to describe how needy she looks; her want is beyond words, and you’ve barely even started. Three fingers is the most you’ve ever put inside her. Clearly, it’s working wonders for her.

And now you yourself have to admit: you’ve wanted her for some time now. Since the last time you saw her, you’ve fantasised about that slim tummy twitching, about holding that snatched waist once more, about those long legs wrapped around your neck while your tongue and fingers turn her into a pliant plaything. For weeks, you’ve wanted nothing more than pulling Jang Wonyoung apart, reduce her into a withering mess wherever you guys are and get her screaming till she’s sore. You can’t even begin to describe what you’ve done with her in your dreams, nor can you ever convey how it feels to desire her as much as you have. So, you put all of it into action, sordid sentiments channelled into your fingers that are making those cute features twist and contort in perverse pleasure. She’s rambunctious, and her juices are quite literally soaking your hand, spilling the strongest sillage of lust all over the bed. 

“Why do you always have to be so fucking messy?” You’re really just trying to see how much you can get away with at this point, though the answer seems to be: just about everything. Your fingers start moving faster. You love the way her cheeks are starting to flush even more. “Are you always this wet? Or is it just for me?”

The squelching is lewder than you can ever imagine. The sound of her slick, wet heat being breached by your fingers is enthralling. Add the sounds she’s making into that and you have the ultimate erotica audio that can bless mankind. She’s panting, she’s moaning, she’s whining—she’s doing it all really, and you’re just using your fingers. God knows how she’ll react once you’re inside of her, rock hard meat stretching her out instead of a few fingers fiddling around in warm walls. 

But hey, the sounds she’s making are ever so erotic, and she’s definitely making your blood flow to all the right places. She feels out of place; you can’t put your finger on what’s wrong in this whole thing. It’s probably a small detail, something you’d overlook over the sight of her chest heaving as air shoots out and gets sucked back into her mouth, her whole body straining and convulsing against the bed while you get a thumb on her clit and rub at a languid tempo. Probably something miniscule, not worth mentioning because all your attention is focused on the look on her face (you want to mess up the makeup so badly it’s almost frustrating). And no, you’re not trying to make her cum in five seconds; she’s just really riled up—bundle of nerves and trigger happy. Probably hasn’t been treated this way in a while, probably hasn’t had three fingers twisting around, sliding in and out of that tight wet hole slow enough to make her feel every bit of skin against her walls; fast enough to make her combust if you were to speed up, in, like, forever. 

“I–I…” She’s quite literally mewling, and the sharpness in her voice is so cutting that it makes an incision in a bag inside you that’s keeping all the perverse thoughts at bay. The thoughts are leaking out now, and it’s almost impossible to stuff them back in. You want her against the glass: tits against the window and ass in your hands while you pump and pump and pump into that slick tight hole; you want nothing more but to pick her up and have her lock her legs around you, tight frame flushed against you while you nail her against one of these walls that surround you; you want to unhinge that jaw and watch that pretty mouth—now parted to let the stream of moans flow—take your cock in and out between those kiss-swollen lips and watch the drool leak out the corners of her mouth. Shit. It’s killing you. Jang Wonyoung, dolled up. She’s killing you. 

(No way in hell are thighs meant to be this hot, and lips are not  supposed to look this delicious. Yet Jang Wonyoung somehow goes against every fucking norm, fights it naturally and effortlessly and wins like a seasoned warrior. So just for her case: her thighs can be this hot and flushed, and her lips can look this fucking appetising. You kiss her; it’s sloppy, it’s lewd, it’s hot and everything in between. Mark her neck, mark that row of skin above her right collarbone, mark her everywhere. Cusses are flying—god forbid her agency finds out about the things hse says while she’s getting fingered. She's making a mess out of herself. She’s making a mess out of you.

Fingers, just fingers and she’s already looking like this: hair fanned out, frazzled, looking like she just went through a car wash and yet somehow has her make-up intact. Fuck. You want to watch the mascara run, watch it streak while she tears up as she’s choking down cum and she’s struggling to take in air. Pretty little princess, messy and glacially being turned into some improper slut. It’s hard to not smirk while you ruin her with the same fingers you use to type articles about her—fingers that sing praises and can also make her moan enough to make her throat hoarse.)

The rhythm of your hand makes her body roll. Her toes–painted over, fresh manicure—curl into the sheets. Doe-like eyes stare back at you, plump red lips part to gasp your name, throat muscles strain trying to  curse and moan at the same time. The fingers are gliding in and out and in and out and she’s begging you to not stop (like hell you ever would) in those choke up little sobs while she’s—

Oh fuck baby I can’t I can’t I can’t — Anything. I’ll do anything. Please just let me cum. I’m so fucking close baby. Please just let me fucking cum. I’ll be a good girl. I-I promise I’ll be a good fucking girl for you just… Fuck!

—blue screening on your fingers: lost in the sauce or whatever. Pliant plaything, docile doll. You’re certain she hasn’t gotten off in at least a month if the way she’s taking it is any sort of yardstick. She’s far beyond drenched, far beyond salvation and way off the deep end of the “needy” pool—drowning herself in her own sea of sighs and gasps and moans and loose phonics that slip out of her mouth. Ostinato of your fingers squelching in her cunt; half time rhythm of the creaky bed; melody of the chorus of Jang Wonyoung’s voice—music to your ears.

And there’s lots to unpack from the moment you locate that soft spot at the top of her pussy. There’s a lot of cussing, a lot of jolting, a fair amount of whining and your name is thrown somewhere in that mix. You find her lips, she kisses back, one of her hands grabs your arm, nails dig in and stay there. Flurry of actions, filthy language—fucking hell, someone stop her.

Bottom line: lots of action. You find it congenial to start from the part where it quite literally ends her world. Once your digits curled up into that sensitive patch of flesh, it was all over for her.

You can pinpoint the exact moment where the orgasm rips through her body, the exact moment where her muscles seized so perfectly that her back arches. The pulse around your fingers is strong, walls tight around your digits and your thumb gently rubbing on her clit while the pleasure rolls through her body, molten iron libido converting the feeling between her thighs to electricity that makes her short circuit. The moan is breathy if anyone’s asking, and the look on her face—twisted, perverse satisfaction: superimposing need and want—has a whole foot over the line of pornographic. Wires are fraying in her head, her vocal cords are strained, she’s ruining the sheets with her juices; you’re complicit in every damn part of this, and guilt is the last thing on your mind.

Then her back falls back flat against the mattress, and the sheets ripple as her body makes a dense thump against the bed, punctuating the sigh she releases into the air. Nerves are unbundling themselves. She’s sweaty and panting. Your fingers are beyond soaked.

“Messy,” you muse, slowly drawing your juice slicked fingers out of her cunt. You bring them to her mouth. She languidly tastes herself, sweat-darkened sheets hugging the muscles of her shoulders and lining her ribs. She looks so tiny in the bed if you looked over the fact that her legs were dangling over the edge of the mattress, and that’s easy to do once you lean in for a kiss.

(It’s not hard to slip your tongue into her mouth, and there’s barely any fight left in her as you roll her nipple between your index finger and thumb. The sweat-matted hair sticking to her forehead adds a nice touch to her face.)

“Such a good girl.” Your tone is warm as you praise her, and a hand moves to cup her cheek in an act of tenderness. Her eyelids flutter shut. She puts the weight of her face into your palm. 

“Do I get my reward now?” she whispers, and it’s more of a plea than a question really. You take a moment, not to think, but to drag out the suspense for a little more before you give her an answer. You take guilty pleasure in knowing that you could keep her on tenterhooks for the whole night—the only thing stopping you is the throbbing of your cock in your boxers and the look of sheer need on her face. If you could: you’d drag this out a little longer, maybe tease her a little and call her more names. You still could do that, but you’d much rather fuck her instead. 

“Where do you want it?” your thumbs hook into the waistband of your boxers and hook them down. Your cock springs free from its cottons confines, and Wonyoung’s eyes instantly dart to it. She may be a little obsessed with your cock, but only a little when she’s depraved (which is right now). Before you can even react, she has your shaft in her hand, lanky fingers wrapped around it and pumping it with considerate strokes. 

“I want a big load in my ass.” she requests, far from innocent and banking more towards improper, which seems to be a pretty big theme of hers tonight. “I’ve been wanting to feel daddy’s  hot load leaking out of my ass for a long time…” The strokes delivered to your length grow firmer and firmer by the second. “Please?”

The spikes of pleasure her small hand delivers to your system is really making it hard to say no at the given moment. Of course, she’s well aware of it, and she’s definitely feeling so damn smug right now. And so with a very clouded mind, you nod. She smiles smugly, unaware that you’re about to fuck that smug little smirk rig of her pretty face. Conveniently, she’s already on her back—it’ll make the process so much easier. 

“I take it that the lube is in your bag?” You raise. She grins and nods. 

Sure enough, you find it in the exact same place as it usually is: side pocket, right next to her lipstick. You toss it towards her and move around her, slip her ankles over her shoulders. She lies still, unmoving and obedient as her left calf goes past her head, then her right. You lean forward, and she gasps as she's almost bent her completely in half. She’s flexible; this position won’t bring any harm to her, but it is congenial to ruin her asshole and leave her sore for the next day or so, which is exactly what she wants, but probably not how she imagined herself getting it. She cracks open the lube, and with precision, squirts a generous amount of it on the tight ring of her ass, making eye contact with you all the while as the clear liquid gathers at the puckered ring of muscle. The tube is discarded to a side when she’s done, and she uses her hands to spread her asscheeks for you, inviting you to take your liberties with her hole.

“Come on Daddy,” she urges you. “Come fuck this ass,” she continues, her hands spreading her ass cheeks even wider as you start to line yourself up with the tight ring. “Wreck this fucking hole Daddy, I can fucking take it.”

To hear her say those words was almost enough to have you cum right there and then. You press the tip of your cock at the open, gaping hole of her ass, swirling it around the entrance, collecting more of the copious amounts of lube around it. She was generous with the amount of lube she dispensed; you're about to be generous with the strokes you're gonna make inside that ass.

(She yelps when you slide inside her ass. God does it feel so fucking divine.)

She is so tight and wet and hot that you think you could’ve cum with your first thrust inside her. Her pussy was tight and hot, but her ass was even tighter and even hotter. Even though your cock was slick with lube, it did close to nothing to keep the sheer tightness of her asshole from clenching around you like it was a really small glove. It wasn’t the first time you’ve been inside her ass, but it sure as hell felt like a novelty every single time you entered that tight ring of muscle. Fuck. The heat, the tightness—sublime. You think you could cum in a matter of seconds if you didn’t have self control.

“Go!’ she hisses, through the pain and discomfort. “Fuck me. Fuck my ass!”

You would have been happy to stay there, buried balls deep in Wonyoung’s ass, but her own words goad you into moving—slowly at first, but with a steadily increasing pace, you begin to fuck Wonyoung’s ass with long, slow strokes. She hisses—part glee, part discomfort—as your shaft starts to pump itself in and out of her ass. You draw yourself out till only the base of you tip remains inside of her, and then you thrust back in, hard, hard enough to make her yelp out in pained pleasure while she grits her teeth and watches your rock hard shaft fill her ass. It's a perverse show for her, and it brings you a sort of dark satisfaction in knowing that past all that discomfort she’s feeling, she loves the way your cock stretches her out and fills her defenceless little hole. 

With her ankles over your shoulders, you’re practically spearing yourself vertically into her ass, fucking her deep and making her feel every inch of your throbbing meat inside of that hot, tight hole. Every penetration is punctuated by a deep, guttural groan from Wonyoung, sometimes a curse, or something along the lines of: fuck. So fucking full. You know for a fact that the pained sounds you hear now will turn into airy gaps of pleasure once she gets used to the discomfort, and that she’d probably be a mewling mess by the time you reach the stage where she can take you in and out of her ass with only pleasure in her system and no pain. For now, you’ll settle with the pace you have—slow, long strokes in and out of her ass while she squeezes her eyes to block out all sensations distracting her from enjoying the sensation of her ass being filled with cock. You have to admit that she’s doing a great job at it, and your praise vocalises itself in the rather harsh form of, “what a good little slut.” 

(And here’s something interesting you noted: never once in this whole thing did she ask you to stop, nor did you ever think about stopping to let her adjust. If this was anyone else, you would have given them a moment to breathe upon entering, and you certainly would be checking on their wellbeing throughout it all. 

Thing is—the two of you know her too well to know that you could only dream of stopping once you got started with her, and it could only end in two ways. 1) You cum in her. 2) You cum on her. Edge her and you’ll never get the end of it, you would know. The last time you pulled a stunt on her like that, she left you tied to a chair with a vibrator taped to your cock till you were begging and a cummy mess. It wasn’t pretty. She could dominate if she wanted to, but she preferred to be a manipulative brat instead.)

It’s not long before she’s desensitised to the pain, and your slow pace is not enough, no, not for Wonyoung. Next thing you know it, she hissing for you to go faster, fuck her harder—I told you to fuck my ass Daddy. Don’t hold back on me now—and deeper. She swears, all three languages that she knew strung together shabbily like they were put together on some shitty production line and thrown out at random—and while you made little sense of the sounds coming out of her filthy mouth you knew what they meant.

Harder. Faster. Rougher.

Then you fuck her ass. Hard and fast.

You almost surprised yourself with the liberties you were taking, drilling in and out of her butt with the same speed and depth that you would use with her mouth and pussy.

“Yes!” she shouts—a loud, full shout. “Yes! Fuck me like this! Pound me, fuck me until you cum in my slutty little ass!”

You grunt in reply, because it was all you could do. The faculties of human language have long since abandoned your grasp and ability, and nothing else exists in your mind except the thought of filling her tight, hothole with warm, white semen. Her eyes lock with yours and you only find that they’re full of need, nothing else (not like she’s capable of displaying any other emotion at the moment). The rest of you, every fibre of your being, was focused on pounding Wonyoung’s tight little hole as hard and fast as you possibly could. Her ankles bounce helplessly behind your head, her knees press into her shoulders and her breath is ragged; sweat drips off your forehead and onto her tits, and your hot breath mixes with hers as you struggle to keep yourself propped up with your arms.

In short: the two of you are sweaty and messy (one more so than the other. Take a pick, not sure if there’s a prize for guessing right), victims of lust and slaves to pleasure. You blame Wonyoung just because you can.

For a few delicious moments, there is absolutely nothing in the world aside from the tight hot sheath of flesh around your cock, the warm flesh of her legs against your shoulders and the strands of sweat-slick hair that fly just about everywhere, all topped with the lewd, filthy, obscene words spilling from Wonyoung’s mouth. For a few delicious moments, she feels nothing but the feeling of her tight hole being stretched and used by the cock that turns her face into a wrought outlet of pleasure while she lets filthy words and exclamations spill from her lips. 

Try as you might, you couldn’t have it last forever. Not when you were already so turned on from watching her writhe and twitch under your fingers. Not when the sheer, pure pleasure overwhelming you was more than enough to cause you to cum at any moment.

And when she orgasms for the second time, her ass tightening exponentially around you—there is little you or anyone else could have done to stop the inevitable.

“I’m gonna cum in your ass, Wonyoung,” you hiss through gritted teeth, your lust and pleasure-addled brain on the edge of losing all comprehension.

“Cum with me! Fill me!” 

And so you do it, burying yourself hilt deep inside the quivering woman’s asshole before filling it with the last of your cum, giving her every last drop you had left in your body, leaving rope after rope inside her sore, well-used, cum-filled asshole. You almost black out, and you quite literally have to dig your nails into the sheets while Wonyoung’s own orgasm takes over her body, making her twitch and her ass contract—milking every last bit of cum from your throbbing, twitching length till it was nothing but a dry, hard rod inside of her creamy asshole. 

There’s silence that is punctuated by both of your ragged breaths. She looks at you, you look at her. And the two of you can’t help but chuckle at the mess you’ve made of each other. You want to remember the way her nose wrinkles as she teases you, “you fucking animal”, and you want, so badly, to burn the image of a sweaty, weary Jang Wonyoung, folded in half beneath you like she was a piece of origami paper, panting and gasping as a fresh load of cum spills out of her ass. 

It takes energy, but you bend down and kiss her, letting her sweaty calves slide off your equally sweaty shoulders as you do. She’s satisfied, for now, and she pulls you down next to her on the hotel bed with one hand and gathers the cum leaking out of her ass with the other. 

“Look at this,” she whispers, and your eyes train themselves on the pearlescent, sticky, slimy, fluids that run down from her fingertips slowly. “You made such a big mess inside my ass,” she chides before bringing her fingers to her mouth and sucking your cum right off her fingers like it’s a delicacy. “Now I have to clean all of this up. You’re lucky I like the way your cum tastes.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Um… Ew?”

Wonyoung smirks and gently nudges you with her left foot.

“It’s okay,” she tells you, all smug and everything. “I know you love the way I taste too.”

* In the dark, her small hand creeps around your torso and grasps yours. 

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” She’s whispering right into your ear, and it’s a sensation you want to be able to hold on to for the rest of your life. “I know your eyes are open.” The feel of her small fingers rolling the knuckle of your index finger sticks itself in your head like a post-it. “ I can hear and feel you tossing, you know?”

Okay. No dodging. 

The sheets stay still as your shoulders turn. You roll over, face her, and you really just want to capture the way the night lights paint her face: doe-like eyes reflecting glimmering pools of moonlight, warm yellow light painting her cute-yet-so-fucking-gorgeous face in a manner that not even Van Goh could copy, lips parted slightly as if in mid speak. She’s right there—you can kiss her if you really want to.

“Are you still mad at me?” She asks, tender with her tone. “I know that I fucked up, okay?” You can tell that she’s not even trying to look pitiful at the moment, but the way her face is sculpted really makes you want to just hold her to your chest and stroke her hair. Sincere are her words—heart heaved into her mouth. “I don’t blame you if you’re still mad. It’s your right. But… Just hear me out? Please?”

If you were mad, you wouldn’t have let her hold your hand the way she was now. If you were mad, you would’ve pretended to be fast asleep; ignore her pleas and just close your eyes and fall asleep. Alas, you can never stay mad at her for too long.

“I was… Never really angry, Wony.” Your tone is a lot softer than you would ever expect, but you know it’s because you probably needed this talk more than she did. “I... I’m sorry if it came across that way.”

And she studies you for a moment, lets the sound of your breathing fill the space as she furls her upper lip into her front teeth, and it’s a perfect moment for you to try and understand what’s happening in her head. She’s a complex creature really; understanding her is like finding a meaning that everyone can agree on when you look at abstract art.

Down below, you can still hear the cars moving through the street. Billboards and screens are still on, and from the window in your bedroom, multi-coloured lights filter into the room past the blinds like moonlight through bamboo leaves. The sheets you lie in are fresh, and they feel nice and smooth against your skin, and they smell like roses. The mattress creaks a little as Wonyoung shifts her weight, and you have to admit that you’re half-drunk on the scent of her shampoo. 

“You must have been scared,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I got really emotional. I… I shouldn’t have walked out. I’m sorry.”

You didn’t know how to reply to that. Not now at least. Maybe it’ll come to you the next morning.

You give her a sweet smile. You hug her to your chest. You want to remember how she feels in your arms.

*

The gentle trickle of water down the arch of her spine is really something—a steady stream flowing down her back, running over the muscles of her shoulders, the curve of her breasts and fraying at her plump ass. You can’t remember the last time you showered with her, but you certainly remember the view being this good. 

In the shower of room 302, Jang Wonyoung lets the warm water hit her skin from the rain shower nozzle. Her hair—wet and freshly shampooed (and conditioned)—sticks to her back. Creamy skin glistens, small beads of water affix themselves to random parts of her body, stay there for one or two seconds, then roll down in streaks, almost as if they too were admiring Wonyoung’s well-sculpted figure.

Slim fingers grasp locks of hair. She lifts and looks over her shoulder, the whisper of a grin on her face as she shoots a beckoning wink. “Are you gonna help me soap my back? Or are you just gonna keep staring at my ass?”

“Don’t you have to, like, turn off the water first?” you ask, and you already know what she’s gonna say, but you just want to hear her say it. For memory sake.

“Mmmm.” Her humming as she ‘ponders’ reverberates in the shower, floating over the sound of water from the shower head falling to the floor like rain. “No… Adds to the atmosphere, don’t you think?” 

Ah. There we go.

“Then could you at least step back?” you request. This shower is comically huge—long length, breadth about the same length as your arm span. In the space, she looks so tiny, but you know for a fact that she could probably walk to the other end of the shower in a stride. You’re not one to disregard the facts, but you do like to live with a bit of imagination.

Wonyoung chuckles, low and sonorous. She pushes her hair over her shoulder, then—painfully slowly—walks back till she’s out of the stream of water. Water wastage is the last thing on her mind. She stops when she feels your hands on her back, and she looks over her shoulder, expectant. You move your hands and the soap lathers as it’s spread. You start from the centre of her back, rubbing gently in the section where the muscles of her shoulders meet and working your way outwards and upward to her shoulders. Then it’s down from there, your palms moving in small circles and covering every inch of skin.

“You’re good at this,” she mutters, watching with intent as your hands start to trail to her lower back. “Maybe you should’ve been a masseuse instead of a writer.”

“Uh… Patronising much?” You chuckle, watching as her back muscles twitch a little when you apply gentle pressure. “The pay’s about the same,” the soap makes patterns across the area above her ass—spirals of foam that stick to her skin like styrofoam flowers. “The hours are probably the same… But I don’t think I can live on rubbing someone’s back really hard. I Think I’ll just save this service for you, but only for when we meet.”

Humored, Wonyoung offers a giggle, high pitched and cutting above the sound of water striking the floor tiles. She shifts her weight to her right foot, making her body slant a little. Her skin is soft under your palms. Your hands are going lower and lower, slowly spiralling towards the curve of her ass that’s literally just a centimetre away.

“You know…If you take up my offer, you can do this for me everyday.”

Your hands slow to a stop. You raise your head a little to find her searching for your gaze over her shoulder. “Oh?”

“Yea.” Her voice is low, like a mother trying to persuade her child to eat their vegetables. “Every night, we can be like this: you soaping my back, us chatting… Doesn’t it sound wonderful?”

Your lip furls behind your front teeth. “Yea… It really does.”

And in her gaze, you sense her sensing your apprehension. “What’s stopping you from taking it up then?”

(For context, here’s the deal proposed by her company: the two of you go public with the relationship, get clout for the company, and Starship will let you lead your lives together—no qualms, no disturbances. She can visit you whenever, live with you, appear outside together with you like it’s a regular Tuesday night; you get to date the girl you fell in love with all those years ago for real. Only issue: once you get the last stroke of your signature out on the contract, you practically agree to blurring the line between your private and public life. Press will be all over you like ants after you step on their nest, you probably won’t get to enjoy a cup of coffee in peace, everyone will suddenly want to curry favours with you… Was it worth the sacrifice?)

You find it hard to meet her eyes, and so your gaze affixes itself on your hands. It’s not like you don’t love her or anything, but your apprehension makes you feel like shit. It shouldn’t be this hard to say yes, yet the idea of selling your life of privacy to live a life with her makes you screech to a halt at the crossroads. Sometimes (in these moments), you wished that you didn’t always make decisions with your head and your heart. 

As the shower continues to run, Wonyoung slowly turns around. One hand finds yours, the other gently takes you by the chin and raises your eyes up to her. She’s tall, and the two of you are staring eye to eye; same height, different trains of thought.

The hand on yours guides you to her breast. Eyes locked with yours, she lays your palm flat against her tit. The skin beneath your fingers is slippery, but it doesn’t remove any of the familiarity from the sensation. Then she squeezes, and the flesh spills out between your fingers like putty. She gasps—airy. 

“Don’t you want me?” She whispers, and it’s raunchy more than anything. It isn’t aggressive, but it’s certainly blurring the line between demanding and caring. “Don’t you want to be able to fuck this pretty little pussy every night?”

She’s really far from home base. “Wony…”

“Don’t you love owning me?” She’s squeezing harder. Her knee twitches. Sopa’s spilling out of your fingers. You’re certain that you’re gonna mark her. She doesn’t care. “Don’t you want me all over you? Every night?”

“It’s not that Wonyoung.”

“Then what’s on your mind?” She’s not prodding for an answer, nor is she trying to demand a reason for your silence. She wants to understand you, to internalise what’s going on inside your head. You have no reason to lie.

“Will it all really be okay?” you ask sincerely. “My family, my life… Will… Will it all really be…”

She understands where you’re coming from (if the relieving of pressure around her own breast is any indication), and she’s starting to tune herself to the frequency of your worries. “If you’re wondering if you’re gonna be harassed—you won’t.”

“Yea but—”

“I promise you: I will do everything I can to make sure that you will be safe. You and your family–if so much as a finger is laid on any of you, I will quit.”

“Wonyo—”

“No one will intrude on you. You won’t have to live with the flashing lights. I give you my word: I will make sure that everyone who wants to invade your privacy will leave you alone. You and your family will all be left alone.”

If it’s possible for sincerity to ring clear, Jang Wonyoung has absolutely made it happen. Sweet like honey; she’s left you feeling like you had a spoonful of it. And just for good measure, she steps closer and repeats once more: “I promise.”

Considering that your hand was at the left side of her chest, this was really a “I swear. Hand to my heart” type of deal (whether it’s intended or not is purely up to your discretion). 

And as you gaze into those eyes, you want to remember the way she gazes at you softly, gently, tenderly. If it weren’t for your hand on her tit, you would’ve considered this one of the more tender moments you’ve shared with her. Not that it’s not or anything… Just that it’s a little hard to call this a loving moment when you can literally feel her nipple poking into the flesh of your palm at all times of the conversation.

“Are you sure you won’t land yourself in trouble?” you ask her, and she’s quick to scoff.

“Of course. I make too much fucking money fo those higher up fuckers to not listen to me,” she reminds you. 

Well… Then that settles about everything then.

“Okay,” you tell her. “Okay… I’ll do it.”

The corners of her lips play up in a smile. She leans in, kisses you—no tongue, closed mouth—and lets the hand keeping yours at her breast fall. Long arms wrap around your waist and she pulls you close, flushing her tight frame against your body. When lips part, she whispers a soft I love you, a sparkle in eyes that lingered for a moment.

But only for a moment.

Then—without you noticing—her hand snakes down and grips your rapidly hardening shaft, and she squeezes. This time, the line between demanding and caring is clear as day, and she’s chosen to play her ball to the court of demanding. With a gleam in her eye, she begins stroking with her closed fist, and she pumps your stiff length at a slow but steady rhythm, adding an occasional twisting motion to her wrist, corkscrewing her fingers around your cock, increasing the pleasurable shocks she was sending through your system with each pump of her hand. It was almost like she wasn’t the sweetest, loving girl in the whole world just two seconds ago.

“Jesus fucking…” You can’t even finish your sentence. Your teeth grit. Your fists clench. It’s hard to breathe. “Maybe… A little bit of a heads up next time?”

She smirks proudly, watching as you tilt your head back and let out a groan. “Where’s the fun in that?” And gently, she pushes against your chest, guides you to the wall. When your back presses against the cool tile, she presses herself against you. She leans in, hot breath on your skin, and then the feeling of her lips against your jaw almost makes you yelp. She kisses a path down your jaw, paves a way towards your neck to get cheeky: sucking, nibbling, licking the skin of your neck while she keeps the movement of her hands slow and considerate. The shower continues to run.

Do you know—she breaks contact with your skin for just a second—how fucking horny—her breath’s tickling your ear, sending shivers down your spine—you make me?—and she squeezes a little harder around your shaft, not enough for it to hurt, but enough to feel you throb in your hand and make you gulp a little. She starts going faster—jerking, fucking pumping your length in her closed fist, and it’s almost impossible to keep your eyes open; your eyelids flutter shut. Your head rests against the wall, a sigh slipping past your lips. It’s filthy really—down from the way she catches you off guard to the way she makes your skin sore after she’s done feasting. Almost every interaction with her in a private space is as X-rated as this; it’s hard not to get into a situation like this around her. You know: a situation where the two of you are naked and getting really touchy and actively trying to get each other as many times as humanly possible. 

“Fuck yes baby…” you rasp, your nails starting to eat into your palms as she the sound of her hand sliding up and down your dick starts to cut above the steady stream of water. With each rise of her hand, the pad of her thumb plays with the head of your member, and when it sinks down, she twists her wrist in a screwing motion. Rinse and repeat; up and down and up and down and fuck. “You’re so fucking good at this.”

She hums in reply, and she has your earlobe between her teeth the next second, nicking you mischievously, sending small pricks of pain shooting through your system as she adjusts her grip on your cock without ever breaking her motion. Next thing you know, your tongue is inside your ear, and she’s leaning in so close that when you open your eyes, you’re practically looking over her shoulder, looking down the curve of her back that glistens with moisture and soap bubbles.

“I love this cock so fucking much,” she whispers, a bit of a hiss in her words as she takes the head of your cock between her forefinger and thumb and pinches lightly. “It stretches me out when I need it.” her fingers start to trail down your slipper shaft, letting the smoothness of her palm rub against your whole length, “fills me when I want it.” She’s milking the precum out of you, making you all leaky and squirmy as she starts pumping faster. “And it’s so fucking big that I can choke on it. You know how much I love being choked.”

She chooses that last bit to make eye contact with you, and she’s practically served you what she wants next on a silver platter. The next move is clear cut and simple; no words need be spoken. You were going to fuck her—and you mean properly fuck her—with a hand wrapped around that small throat. How you were gonna do it was still a mystery, but you figured that it’d slowly come to you, but it will definitely be related to the mirror and the sink outside and the mirror in front of it. At once, you reach over to the handle of the shower, and you turn it down to the handheld showerhead mode. Wonyoung bites her bottom lip, perverse glee painted all over her face as you use it to wash the soap off her back. She’s watching, waiting, probably drenched down there and aching to be stuffed full of cock.

She’s almost shaking with excitement as you finish washing all the soap off her body. You’d hardly consider her clean, but it won’t hurt to hop back into the shower again once you're done with her. The shower door swings open and you’re cupping her pussy, dripping wet while stumbling out with her, lips locked on hers and her hand on your cock as you push her against the sink of her hotel room. From the moment her mouth opens and let the moans pour out while you rub her clit to the moment her hand leaves your cock to cradle your face, she’s practically radiating need from the pores of her skin. You can’t help but playfully remark, “you’re such a fucking loser”, while your thumb thumps against her clit and sends pleasure tearing through her system. Weak in the knees, she holds on to you for support.

And the moans (those fucking hair-raising moans), they tumble out of those plump lips like marbles down a ramp, and they mix with the sound of your lips smacking against her skin as you start to leave a trail of kisses down her neck, doing to her what she did to you in the shower; you give her a taste of her own medicine, and the way she’s titling her head back to let you mark her freely makes it almost seem as if it’s the intended outcome of her actions. It’s like she knew that you would get back at her, and it wouldn’t come as a surprise if you ever find out that she gets off on knowing that she can manipulate you in her own bratty ways—get you wrapped around her finger and have you doing all the things she wants you to do without having to tell you. Not that you have something to gripe about it, but you’re just so amused (and that’s just one word to describe how you feel) by how she goes about her ways.

“Come on,” she manages to whisper, all while you’re busy sucking on the skin just below her collarbone till it’s sore. She has a lot of pride in her voice for someone who’s quite literally quivering. “You know you want to fuck me. Give me a good creampie again.” 

You lift your head for a moment, and you take in the look of almost childlike excitement on her face as your hand finds its way to her throat. It’s perverse excitement, that lewd exhilaration of knowing that she was about to get what she wanted, and albeit a little messed up, it was pretty hot in its own way. When your fingers gently wrap themselves around her throat, you can feel every muscle in her body tense in anticipation, as if she didn’t get enough from the bedroom earlier.

“Up on the counter baby. Let me see how messy you are down there,” you whisper.

She knows what to do, and she has herself propped up on the counter and engaged in open mouth kissing. She doesn’t need you to tell her to spread her legs, and she definitely doesn’t need you to tell her how cute she sounds when your fingers slip inside of her, feeling around the mess you’ve made of her and coating your digits in her fluids. Your index and middle finger are slick with her juices when you retract them from inside her, and you can’t help but chuckle. 

“Messy as ever,” you muse, making a show of sucking her juices clean off your fingers. She’s sweet and borderline tangy—a taste that you’re accustomed to, and you will never get tired of it. She’s biting down on her lower lip, the skin wrinkling under the pressure of her front teeth as she makes a sound that’s close to a purr. 

“You made the mess.” She has her eyes locked on yours as you raise an eyebrow, prompting her to follow up after her first statement. Not that you didn’t know what was coming, but more that you wanted to gently coax it out of her, because it was so fucking hot to hear what she had to say next. “You clean it up.”

And you’re more than happy to oblige. She watches you with intent eyes as you sink down to your knees, waits with bated breath as you lower your face till the glistening, pink folds of her pussy are right in front of your face, flushed thighs around your ears. Her excitement is almost palpable, and you can hear the sharp inhale she takes when your palm finds its place on the inside of her left thigh, pushing gently to give you better access to her heat (you’re really just trying to drag out the tension if you were being completely honest with yourself). You lick your lips, lean forward till your mouth is hovering above her slit. 

“You better moan for me this time,” you tell her, and you’re making sure to make your breath hit her slick as you speak. “You have such a wonderful voice. Put it to use.”

Praise mixed with the slight hint of authority—it’s enough to make her nod furiously and implore you with doe eyes to just get on with it. With a smirk, your lips find the swollen nub at the top of her entrance. You suck on it. Hard. And almost at once, her thighs clamp around your ears and her hand is on your head, like it’s some sort of natural instinct for her when you’re eating her out. Keeping to her word, she cries out—keening, whiny and ever so fucking bratty, and it’s the the holy grail of every wet dream. Nothing in the world could bring you more satisfaction than that shrill, airy cry she lets out when the pleasure ripples through her body, and you’re just getting started. 

Your mouth opens and your tongue flattens itself against her folds, (She tastes so good. You want all of it, all of her) and you drag it up her folds, deliberately, painfully slow as you start to lick up that wet cunt. Her back arches; you can feel her struggling to keep a hold of your head; she throws her head back and lets out a gasp; her thighs clamp down a little harder around your head. The pleasure in her system builds up with the slow movement of your tongue, only rising and rising as you lick from the base of her slit to the mid section to the top. When the tip of your tongue flicks her clit, it's almost like an explosion, enough for her other hand to join its pair atop your head, enough to make her cry out in a perverse plea, “Daddy, please!”

(For the record: she’s wanted this from the moment you guys stepped into the shower. She’s willingly turned herself into some pliant little plaything, and she’s probably getting off so hard to it. Frankly, if she wanted to order you around, you’d be up to it, but this is what she prefers.)

And nothing else needs to be said really. You put your whole mouth on her—relishing the shiver that runs up from her thighs up to her body—and get right into making a wreck of her. You lick, you devour, you ravish her: working your mouth on her pussy, lapping up the juices that spill forth from flushed lips with broad, sharp strokes that make her body grow taut and her legs quiver. You tongue her clit, lick up sweet fluids, make her messy and needy and hot in all the right areas till she’s drilling her nails into the back of your scalp and pushing your face against her sweet slick. In half whispers, she tells you just how good you make her feel—oh Daddy I’m so fucking wet!—and you feel a dark part of yourself be fed by these lecherous words—Oh god oh fuck I’m gonna fucking cum if you keep… Fuck!—that leave her half-parted mouth and linger in the air, reminding you of just how wanton she is and how you’re the only person in the world she ever wants to fuck and be satisfied by. You’re hers; she’s yours—a relationship with Jang Wonyoung that any guy would kill for. 

“Daddy—” she gaps, her voice a whole octave higher than it should be as her nails turn into claws at the back of your head. “Fuck I’m cumming. Daddy I’m cumming!”

The pulsing of her pusy against your tongue grows. You continue licking, lapping. One stroke, two strokes—three. She moans, blue screens. You hazard a look up.

Nothing else matters. Only: the sight of that back arching off the marble counter, her thighs around your head trembling and quaking as her hips roll and her mouth parts in a silent scream. You’re certain that there’s blood being drawn from the back of your head, but you're more certain that she’s got enough heat in her core to melt molten iron but a lack of breath that makes her gasp for air as you lick and lick and lick your way into her. You can feel her orgasm getting closer by the second, it’s in her breathing, and in the way her hips are practically thrusting her into your mouth.

And just like the bathrobe from earlier, she comes undone—falls apart and ceases to keep control of her body. She tenses, her thighs go rigid around your ears. Her breath is caught in her throat, her eyes are closed. You stop your work, admire the way she glows as her body twitches and her face twists. Pleasure rips its way through her muscles, her nerves—splits her very being in half as the orgasm rolls through her system. She’s beautiful, and she’s a messy work of art that you’ve created. 

You rise to your feet as she winds down, and her hands leave your head to rest on the counter while her body struggles to process the aftermath of that orgasm. It’s not the first time she’s cum for the night, and it certainly won’t be the last. Her eyes open, and she instantly locs them on you as you brush back some of the hair that sticks to her sweat slicked face. You take her hand and give a gentle tug, and she slips off the counter obediently. You grip her jaw—tenderly but rough enough for her to like it—and tell her to turn around. Servile, she obeys, and in the reflection of the mirror, she watches as your hand snakes its way to her throat and grips it. You’re not squeezing, not yet. 

“I’m gonna fuck this pretty little pussy now,” you drawl, gripping your shaft in your hand and slapping it against her slit. The contact makes her shudder, but she remains silent as you place a kiss on her cheek. “Your face is gonna be so pretty when I choke you and fill you.”

“Yes Daddy.” Her reply is a whisper, a borderline drawl that’s airy and raunchy and makes your hairs stand on their ends. She’s looking at you through the mirror, plump lips slightly parted and eyes glassy. “Own me. I’m yours, forever.”

And you’re all too happy to hear that from her.

You slip into her, hilt yourself inside her in one swift motion. 

(Tight. Hot. Wet. So tight.)

She lets out a sigh, low and sonorous, harmonising with your own groan as you press her against the edge of the counter and make the fingers around her throat squeeze. The sound that leaves her throat is the sound of her sigh being truncated, and it delights that dark part of you. Being inside Wonyoung was otherworldly, as it always was, but here, in the bathroom of her hotel, on the night where you’ve agreed to seal a deal with her, she felt downright heavenly.  She squeezes her walls around you, her body thankful for the sensation of being filled by cock, if the intense tightness and slick wetness were any indication; she looks over her shoulder and bites her bottom lip. And when she has your gaze, she mouths something. 

Fill me.

The silence is deafening, but it’s all you need to hear. 

When you withdraw your glistening shaft for the first time you relish in the feel of her walls gripping you, not wanting to release you—but just as quickly they welcome you back inside as you penetrate her again. Soon you are pumping in and out of her at a slow, steady pace, her soft gasps turning quickly into long, drawn out moans as she is fucked against the marble. Her hands steady her body against the counter, her back arched in a way that lets you get a wonderful top-down view of her breasts as they roll together with her body. It’s a concerted effort, but she makes it seem effortless. 

“Be honest.” With the hand around her throat, her voice sounds a little hoarse. It’s hot. “Do you think about this, Daddy? About fucking me like a good little slut?”

“Wonyoung,” you reply, speaking through your gritted teeth. “You have no,” and you punctuate the sentence there with a deeper thrust into her tight slick, a thrust strong enough for her to let out a strained gasp. “fucking idea…”

(In the mirror, you watch as she curls her lips into her mouth and tilts her head back into your shoulder, like she’s submitting her whole being to you and letting you take liberties with her body. You take the invitation, and your free hand finds itself on one of her soft mounds and gives it a squeeze—rough but tender enough to elicit a low moan from her throat that makes your hand around it vibrate pleasantly. 

At the given moment, she’s doing all she can to make herself a pretty little fuckdoll for you, doing her best to encourage you to treat her rough, treat her like you own her. She wants nothing more but to feel the rockhard meat penetrating her tight little cunt stretch her out and fill her the way she wants, all while she’s begging and pleading obsequiously while being obsessed with your cock. It’s a lot to take in for her for sure, but she gets off on it, and you get off on it too—the fact that she’s being all needy and pleading just so she can implicitly tell you to fuck her till she’s raw and can’t fucking walk the next morning. The fact that she’s actually in control while being such a bottom. Bratty manipulation.)

“Then fuck me Daddy,” she tells you, almost pleading. “Use this pretty little pussy. I want it. I fucking need it.”

With her invitation to do more with her body, you’re more than ready to do what you’ve intended to do from the very start. You increase your tempo, and before long you are truly fucking her, drilling in and out of the tight hot warmth of her body with quick, deep strokes. With each stroke you don’t pull out more than halfway—you concentrate instead on pumping hard and fast, getting as deep as you could inside her given your standing position. She takes it well, like she was made for this. In her world, this was what fucking looked like, and it was the only definition that she was going to live with and she’d take it to the grave. She indulges in the roughness, the almost animal-like way your cock fills her again and again and again, all while she encourages you with cries and moans and sighs that are music to your ears. 

And a notion hits you: she’s going to make you fuck her till she’s the only thing you can possibly think about. She’s going to draw out every single primal urge within you, make you want her like she’s some form of drug and you’re the abuser, and then she’s going to get exactly what she wants—your cum in her pussy. You can’t let her win like that, you can’t. You can tell that to yourself now, but you’re not sure if you can remember it later, not when she practically reeks of the strongest possible sillage of sex. 

Her pussy throbs around you, pulse strong and just a beat behind your thrusts as you thrust yourself in and out of her slick walls, filling her up and drawing yourself out before filling her up yet again. Pure filth spills from her mouth, expletives, sordid sighs and cries and any sound or word that comes to mind. She's a quivering and squirming mess, and from the mirror you enjoy the way she’s almost writhing in against the counter. Ample breasts bounce with each thrust that shocks her body, and it’s almost hypnotic if it weren’t for the fact that that pretty face was stealing the show. The face that was marvelled, the face that was the source of jealousy, the face that was on the face of so many magazines and posters and adored by millions, if not billions—scrunched up, improper and so fucking lewd that it looked like it belonged in a porno instead of an idols face, and you take pleasure in the fact that your cock is ruining the face of a princess, turning her dissolute and so fucking needy that she was as good as a fan begging her for an autograph. This side of her was reserved for you, and only you—her duality is reserved for your eyes only. 

Her body is slick with sweat, rubbing against your own sweaty torso while her body rolls together with your thrusts. “Fuck—” you’re saying, but it comes out as more of a growl than anything given how hard yur teeth are clenching. Your fingers squeeze tighter around her throat. The slightly reduced airflow at her throat causes her pussy to clench even tighter around you—and the added tightness brings succulent pleasure to your mind that makes you think you’re going insane. You probably are at this rate. “This pussy. It’s so fucking good baby.”

Her reply is a strained gasp, but you get the gist of what she wants to say. She wants, so badly, to tell you how good your cock is making her feel, how well it fucks her, how well it fills her and stretches her and how it’s her favourite thing in the whole world. The squelch of your cock filling her pussy is loud, but not loud enough to drown out the smacking of skin against skin as you press more of your weight against her, pushing her a little more into the corner of the counter and a little more over the line of pathetic. She moans in response to your actions, and it’s telling you: fuck. Harder. It’s better when it hurts. 

And you can feel her juices leaking down the back of her thighs, wetting your crotch and making the smack of skin against skin louder than ever, almost as if it was an announcement: I’m being fucked like a good little slut and I love it. She doesn’t know what she’s doing to you,and for clarity, it’s something along the lines of turning you absolutely feral with her moans and the divine tightness of her pussy that makes you want to cum on the spot. Okay,maybe she is cognizant of how crazy she makes you when you fuck her, but you barely have the capacity to think, let alone rationalise wether thai girl in your arms that your chocking and fucking feel smug in knowing that she’s driving you insane. 

Oh and she loves it when you play with her tits. The way you fondle them is almost aggressive. Scratch that—it’s really fucking aggressive. You’re slapping her tits, leaving red marks all over the milky white skin and pinching and twisting the stiff nubs atop her breasts, all while she mewls and cries out in that strained voice that makes you throb even harder inside of her wet walls and makes you grit your teeth like your a dog waiting to chew on a bone. 

“D-Daddy,” she pushes out, past the fingers that close her airways and past her groans and moans and sighs. “Harder.” And your thrusts are starting to cut her off, but she has more to say. When it comes out, each word that she spits out is punctuated by a thrust of cock into her pussy, and it’s the hottest thing you’ll ever hear. 

Fuck.

You thrust deep inside her. 

Me.

Your cock drives itself deep into her, slicking itself with her juices.

Harder.

And if words could linger in the air, hers certainly would. 

You fuck her hard, and fast, and deep—hammering her into the counter, nailing her defenseless pussy with a pace that you would have thought was rough and callous were it not for the fact you knew this was exactly how she wanted it. All she can do is hang on, grasp onto the counter with a knuckle-white grip with her hands as you take your liberties with her body, fucking her as hard as you can, as deeply as she can take it. The cups on the counter shake, the toothbrush inside one of them shaking under the force. It’s loud,  but you hear none of it. You hear only the sharp sighs of pleasure that leave Wonyoung’s lips, and the wet slap slap slap of your crotch as it hammers her cunt again and again and again, your cock drilling her, pounding her, making her yours if you weren’t already doing that.

It takes a little long, but the haze of lust parts for a moment for you to realise that you're getting closer and closer to getting what she wants out of you. While the thought of burying yourself inside of that quivering, pulsing pussy to let it milk every last drop of cum from you is ever so enticing, that small part of you that wants to own her pushes you to fight against the urges. Not that there’s any harm in giving her what she wants, but it’s just that you don’t want to reward her bratty, manipulative tactics. She knew for a fact that she could tie you up and ride you over and over till you were dry—she’d done it before. But instead, she’s chosen to fulfil her needs in a less direct manner, maybe for fun or maybe just because she felt like it. 

“Yes,” Wonyoung hisses, spit flying into the mirror and her palms slipping on the counter. “Just like this Daddy.” And she’s making sure to make eye contact with you through the mirror, letting her eyes do most of the talking. If anyone’s curious, the look she gives you is saying, I’m your good little slut. Fuck me. Use me. Fill me. Please, and it's nothing short of hot and tethering far over the line of lewd. At this point, neither of you are in a state where you're capable of coherent thought, nor are you capable of thinking about anything else except each other’s bodies and the wet, lewd squelching of cock filling Wonyoung’s pussy. It goes on and on and on, a cycle of your hips hammering the back of her legs and your cock spearing deep into her cunt.  She takes it so well, drinking you in hungrily, coiling around your shaft like a snake as if it was begging for you to stay in her forever. The sight is enough to make your balls tingle and your toes curl, and your hand around Wonyoung's throat tightens to the point where the only thing that can leave her lips is a groan as her airflow is reduced. 

She’s tighter, hotter, wetter. Her pussy fits you like a glove, moulding around your cock as it pumps in and out of her at a pace that you had no idea you were capable of. The hand around her neck is nothing but an outlet of pleasure for you, and she’s loving it. “Such a good girl,” you mutter, watching from the mirror as her mouth slacks and opens while she’s being pumped full of cock. “You were made to take Daddy’s cock, weren’t you?”

Her equivalent of a yes is a sharp, strained groan—an amalgamation of phonics and whatever sounds the lack of air flowing to her throat permits her to make. She’s so fucking messy down there, and your cock is sliding in and out of her with ease, aided by her slick juices that coat your shaft and let it disappear and reappear from between her legs with ease. The motion is almost graceful if it weren’t for the fact that it was a sordid one, and you take a moment to admire the way your shaft glistens in the light of the bathroom while you fuck her the way she wants it: rough, hard and tethering over the edge of callous. If it weren’t for the hand around her throat, she’d be making herself hoarse with all the moaning she’d be doing.

And the hand around her throat is bringing her so much pleasure, if the way her pussy squeezes around you when you choke her is any indication. She wasn’t lying when she said she liked being choked. While she didn’t like gagging on your cock, she sure as hell loved it when your fingers clasped around the muscles and made her gasp. She liked the sensation of being deprived of air, be it when she was riding or when she has her kness buried into her shoulders and was being fucked into the bed like a slut. You were always afraid of hurting her, but when she shots you that look, the one that says, come on, you can do better, you know that she’s getting exactly what she wants, just the way she likes it. It was just a matter of how hard you squeeze around her throat before she either cums or passes out, though the latter has rarely happened before the former.

“Daddy!” she chokes, and you know exactly what she’s about to say next. So you release her throat from her grasp, bunch a lock of her hair in your closed fist and you pull back. Her eyes squeeze themselves shut. Her back arches deliciously, her voice now free to finish shat she’s aching to announce. “I’m fucking…”

You never expect her to finish her sentence. Wonyoung’s eyes open, and a gasp leaves her open lips. Her walls, already vice-like, tighten so hard around you that you think you might come there and then. You feel how close she is. 

“Fucking cum for me, Wonyoung. Cum around my cock like a good little slut.”

Wonyoung does as she is told—and the quivering, trembling orgasm she experiences is almost frightening in the way it overwhelms her body, turning her into a wet, hot mess. Her pussy tightens and pulsates, her fingers claw against the marble counter, and her entire lower body shakes violently, as though she had lost control of her nerves and muscles. For a few beautiful seconds she is utterly overwhelmed by the sensations, until finally she slumps forward in your grasp, breathing heavily. 

It's good. It's so good, but it's not quite enough to get you to your finish. Not yet.

(And if anyone’s asking: it’s not that the sex isn’t good. It’s mind blowing, amazing, and whatever word that can be used to describe “fucking incredible”.  She’s hot, so tight and fucking soaked down there. You’re horny, throbbing and on the verge of filling her full of your seed. But you’ve said it before and you’ll say it again—you’re not rewarding bratty manipulation. As tempting as it would have been to simply pound her from behind until you gave her needy pussy the load of semen she so desperately wanted, you knew that there was something even better that you could do.)

You pull out of Wonyoung, your shaft glistening under the hotel light. Her eyes are wide with shock as you withdraw yourself from her body, pulling her away from the counter—but only enough to have her lean back against you and not stand up completely. Her mouth opens to say something, but she's interrupted when you turn her face to you and kiss her. She moans into your mouth, and you swallow it, your tongue slipping into her mouth and massaging her own, lapping at the roof of her mouth as her tongue swirled around your own. You bite her lower lip, and it's not rough, but enough to get her attention. When her eyes flutter open, you whisper, "I'm not finished."

She nods, and you relish the disappointment in her eyes. You turn her around, push down gently on her shoulders. She goes with the motion, and you're not sure if you can ever get over the image of Wonyoung on her knees with her pretty little face staring at you with anticipation. You think about fucking her face, letting your cock thrust into the back of her throat over and over and over till you finally bury yourself inside and cum down her throat, but that would just be a repeat telecast of every other night with her. Spice things up; give her the liberty of creativity with your cock. 

And of course, Wonyoung perfectly understands what has to be done. You step up to her. She parts her lips and takes your cock right into her mouth. Grasping the base of your cock and pumping it with one hand while she gently cups and squeezes your balls with the other, Wonyoung quickly launches into a hard and fast blowjob, taking the top half of your cock in and out of her wet mouth with a rapid pace while her fingers work your shaft in a corkscrew motion, just like she did in the shower. The suction of her mouth is almost lethal, and the audacity she has to look up at you while she takes your cock in and out of her mouth is so exhilarating that it makes you weak in the knees. Your hand finds a clump of her sweaty hair, and you close your fingers around it, holding them in your fist. No, you weren’t going to push her head down onto your cock; you had to give her the space to work on her craft. 

And of course, she exceeds every expectation out there. Your eyes shut involuntarily, your brain unable to handle any sensations beyond the wet, hot cavern of Wonyoung’s mouth sealed tightly around your shaft with tight, soft lips. With the first entry into her mouth her wet tongue is pressed tightly against the underside of your shaft, lathering it with her spit. With each subsequent entry her tongue becomes more adventurous, beginning with quick swipes left and right on your shaft with each entry and ending each exit with a swirl of the tip around the head of your cock. While she tastes herself on your cock, letting her juices mix with saliva, her hands work in perfect concert with her mouth, one joining her lips at your shaft and pumping up and down, a twisting motion to her wrist while her free hand works gently with your dangling balls, fondling them with considerate fingers. She plays with them softly yet hastily, her fingertips working their magic between the sacs with expert attention.

You are content to stand there with your eyes shut, simply enjoying the feel of your cock pumping in and out of her mouth at a fervent pace, but a small part of you knew that you had to see it happening in order to truly believe it was all real—and so with a not insignificant amount of self-control, you force eyes open to watch the spectacle unfolding between your legs. Black locks bob up and down frantically above your cock, doe-like eyes glazed with pure lust staring right up at you as her cheeks hollow and her jaw unhinges even more to accommodate your length. 

It all becomes too much, and it hits you all at once—having her pump your shaft in the shower, eating her out then fucking her—and you quickly find yourself nearing that inevitable peak.

“Fuck, Wony—” is all you manage to say before your orgasm overtakes your world.

Wonyoung releases your cock from her mouth a split second before you erupt, shooting long, thick strands of hot semen all over her pretty little face. Her face glazes over in pleasure and you are all too happy to watch as strand after strand of cum lands on her cheeks, her pretty little nose, and finally her open mouth and jaw. You watch, through half-lidded eyes drunk with pleasure, as the thick streams of cum flow down her face, dripping onto her upper chest and those perfect breasts of hers. Her face is flushed and her mouth open, as though she herself was on the verge of orgasm (she probably was, and she was going to make it your problem as soon as she got your cum off her face).

You want to remember the way she wipes your cum off her face with the back of her hand, how she licks it all up like a cat licking its own paw before moving to clean the stray strands of cum off the tip and sides of your cock. You want to remember how she rises so gracefully even though she was a sweaty mess, and how she gently takes your hand and guides you back into the shower for another clean up.   

And back under warm water, you want to remember how she kisses you, and how she whispers, “next time, I want that big load in my pussy.”

*

“What?”

And it’s hard to meet Wonyoung’s eyes as you set down the papers from the doctor. You can feel her confusion, her frustration, her rage from across the dining table in your apartment. It isn’t pretty. Nothing about this situation is. 

“It’s a neurological disease,” you tell her, all while you’re looking at the MRI that’s in the middle of the table. You’re really just regurgitating what the doctor told you—it’s the only thing you have the capacity to do right now. “They ran their tests. They told me what I suspected. I’m losing my ability to read and write, to understand language. In 2 years—give or take —I won’t be able to express my thoughts. I’ll be spouting gibberish. What people say, what I see — on pages, street signs, everywhere — they’ll all be unintelligible to me.” She’s silent, and it unnerves you in every way possible. You haven’t even gotten to the worst part of it all. “My mental competence will deteriorate. I’ll have to live off a tube cause I’ll forget how to eat and drink. Dementia will follow shortly.”  

Now would be a great time for her to say something, anything to break this silence. But she is silent, unmoving and reticent in her seat from across you. You have no choice but to gulp and deliver, in your personal opinion, the worst part of it all, “By the time I forget how to breathe I… I would’ve lost all my memories by then.”

She chooses the moment after the last word leaves your mouth to pick up the MRI scan and look at it. 

“So… Everything we’ve built up till now will just… Disappear?” she whispers. She sounds hurt, scared and everything in between. You bite your lower lip. 

“Yes.” There’s no point sugarcoating it, it’s inevitable anyway. Face it now, sulk later… You think that’s the best way to deal with this piece of news. You hope that the matter-of-fact tone of voice that you’ve chosen doesn't betray how frightened you are by the prospect of losing everything you know. “We can’t stop it. It’s in my genes.”

She sets down the scan, and when you look up, you see the tears flowing down her cheeks and it makes you want to cry as well.

She stands up, shoulders her handbag and walks towards the front door. 

“Where are you—” you begin. “I’m going somewhere else to think,” she interjects. 

When she slams the door behind her, you feel like you’ve let her down in so many ways. There’s a burning in your chest that you can’t describe. The first hot tear rolls down your cheek, and you let the rest that well in your eyes flow down without resistance. 

You don’t want to remember what it feels like to be helpless—the emptiness, the rage, the sadness, the confusion is all so overwhelming. But you figure that you’ll have to feel it again at some point down the road. 

Might as well figure out how to cope with it now, when Wonyoung isn't there and you're all alone with your thoughts.

*

When you awaken later that night in your bed in the apartment, it takes you a few moments to determine whether the soft, slim body climbing atop you is real or part of some wonderful dream—but the familiar warmth of your girlfriend, and the soft, pleasant smell of her hair, convinces you that this was all real.

Wonyoung places soft kisses on your neck and jawline, before moving to your mouth and kissing your lips softly. You are still only half awake, but your senses and instincts take over, and you find your mouth welcoming her kiss and returning it with one of your own, your hands moving to either side of her hips and finding, to your surprise, that there was only bare skin there and no clothing.

“Wony…” you begin, as she deepens her kiss, her lips pressing more firmly against yours.

“Shhh,” she answers, “please. I need this. I need you, right now. Please.”

She’s suddenly reappeared after walking out on you, and you have yet to process the slew of emotions that have come your way. Part of you wants to stop her, to talk things out with her so that you could: a) figure out if she was still mad at you and; b) verify that she wasn’t drunk. But the part of you that formed the majority of your conscience knew that she needed comfort as much as you did, and that she needed something to assuage her and make her feel like everything would turn out alright. So you find yourself relaxing underneath her, letting her scent fill your nostrils as her tongue dances with yours.

She straddles you, and your hands begin to run up her naked body, up from her slim thighs to her chest where the ample mounds sat proudly, her nipples erect and stiff. She isn’t wearing any underwear, and your fingers brushing against the slick of her pussy is enough to verify that for you. She’s naked atop of you, kissing you like you just confessed your love to her or like you’re about to go on some mission and never return. It’s not lustful, but it’s full off passion and aims to soothe not stir. 

She breaks the kiss. Her eyes flutter open. In the dark that is pierced by the street lights of the city, you want to remember the way her eyes glimmer and shimmer as she breathes heavily. There’s no alcohol on her breath, and from the way she’s cradling your face, you can infer that she’s not mad at you in the slightest. 

“You okay?” she whispers, and her tone is soft and warm, like that time she spoke in the shower of her hotel about signing that contract with her company so that the two of you could officially start dating. It’s been some time after that, but you still hang on to the way her words made their way to your heart. “I didn’t mean to startle you if I did.”

You respond by nodding, and it’s enough to convey: I’m alright. You brush away the hair that falls in front of her eyes, and you really want to remember how silky smooth her hair feels in your hands. 

“What are you doing?” you ask her, making sure to keep your tone as warm as her own. She blinks, goes silent for a moment, then answers, “I’m making amends.”

She holds your gaze, you hold hers. The staring contest ends when you gently pull her in for another kiss, and you want to remember how she softly moans into your mouth while her thumb, smooth and tender, caresses your cheek.

When the kiss breaks again, her hands snake their way down to your sweats. You assist her in removing your shorts—a very clumsy affair: tangled hands and arms and lots of chuckling. But your cock does finally spring out from your boxers, the ones that have been discarded in the corner of the bed, together with her clothes. When it’s all done, you have the pleasure of witnessing the sight of her slim frame straddling you once more, long legs surrounding you on either side of your thighs while she peppers kisses on your chest. 

“I’m sorry I left you to deal with… Everything. Alone.”  she begins, “I shouldn’t have walked out on you like that… I’m sorry. I hope you aren’t angry”

And from your lying position, you lift a hand to cup her cheek. “We can talk later.”

She gets the message, but bends down and kisses you nonetheless. You’d probably have trouble falling asleep later in the night, and she’d wake up and you’d have this same conversation again. You’d rather have it later than now, not when the wound is still fresh.

Wonyoung lets a soft smile play on her lips. You are slightly aware of her raising her hips, her right hand finding its way between your bodies to grasp your wet, erect shaft, and line it up with her entrance. She breaks the kiss for the third time that night, searches your eyes for approval to continue with this. Was it make up sex? You didn;t know if it was for sure, but it sure as hell felt like it. What you do no for certain is: you’d like to experience this now, and you want to etch this in your memory for as long as you can before it fades with the rest of your mind. 

You give her the slightest of nods, and you feel the head of your cock press against her wet, tight opening. Slowly, carefully, Wonyoung lowers herself down onto your shaft, your cockhead parting her tight lips to impale her pussy. She gasps loudly as she impales herself fully, and she opens her eyes slightly to match your gaze. You brush stray locks of hair away to reveal her face fully, and you bring her mouth back to yours to kiss her deeply. As your tongues duel, she begins to raise her hips, drawing your shaft out of her body before lowering it once more, and soon she has found a soft, slow rhythm as she rides you, grinding her warm, tight body against yours. 

She raises herself upright and lets her hands rest on top of your chest. You’d like to save that face she makes in a supercut of her other memorable faces: eyes closed, lips slightly parted and the wisp of a smile on her lips as she rocks her hips. From where you lie, you watch as Wonyoung takes you in and out of her body with soft grinding motions, riding you slowly, enjoying every entry and exit of your shaft as it fills her over and over in slow, tender strokes that make her shiver. You watch as your shaft appears for a split second or so before driving back into her, each disappearance accompanied by a soft spike of pleasure. As always, she’s letting moans and sighs and gasps tumble freely from half-parted lips as she takes you in and out of her slowly, rocking her hips with innate grace and elegance. All you do is let your hands rest on her thighs, moaning softly to encourage her as she rides you lovingly, tenderly, a far cry from what you’re used to when it comes down to sex with Jang Wonyoung. 

Through the night, your cock glides in and out of that perfect pussy, elicits moans and gasp and sighs and cute little cusses when you hilt yourself deep inside of her and tug a little at her hair. Her hands were always active, sometimes caressing your chest, sometimes on your jaw, sometimes behind your head as she snaked an arm behind your head to keep you locked where you were just so she could sneak in a kiss. You came in her mouth, her ass, her pussy. She came on your fingers, your cock, your mouth. She cussed a lot, almost passed out once or twice. You cussed a lot two, and you caught her when she almost rolled off the bed (the two of you laughed for a minute about that situation before you ended up spooning on the floor, her leg in the air and your cock pumping in and out of her while she had your back to you and your face in her right hand). 

Bottom line: it was wonderful, wonderful make up sex that ended with both of you sweaty and panting and wanting more from each other but you guys just don’t have that energy to keep going. It was a novelty for both of you, and you wanted to remember just how special she could make you feel, even in the impurest of acts. 

*

The flash of the polaroid camera is almost blinding, but you power through and keep your eyes open. Like a child that’s seeing snow for the first time, Jang Wonyoung watches excitedly as the polaroid emerges from the slot in the camera, and she’s all too eager to grab it and lay it face down on the coffee table in your apartment.

“I thought you’re supposed to shake it?” you ask, watch as she fiddles with the camera for a little bit before she snaps a selfie with her newest purchase. She gives you a look that basically translates to, “uh, are you dumb?” and waits for the next polaroid to emerge from the slot before she launches into her lecture. 

“Shaking the polaroid to make it develop faster is a myth,” the way she sounds so official and everything is so cute. You can’t help but smile a little as she sets the other polaroid down. “It shifts the pigments and blurs the photo, but an idiot like you would need a genius like me to tell that to you.”

The remark is clearly meant to be biting, but it’s nothing short of hilarious to you. “When did you become a camera nerd?”

“Ever since I got this,” she lifts the polaroid camera up and hits you with that you’re on camera smile. “Maybe I should do an ad for this brand. Increase their sales, you know?”

She leaves you to think on that and retrieves the first polaroid she took: a picture of you and her on the couch of your apartment. Not the grandest first photo, but hey, a memory is a memory, and you really are just focusing on cherishing those at the moment. As she leaves the couch to clip the polaroid onto the photo rack (a bunch of metal wires on a metal frame with wooden clips to hold photos) she just set up, you grab your journal next to you and flip it to the page you wrote on a few hours before. With your pen (that you now carry around just about everywhere with your journal), you scribble down a new part of today that you want to remember. It was her idea to journal down everything you wanted to remember. 

The entry goes right under the one about Wonyoung’s new camera.

She looks so happy with that new camera. Bet she’s going to go back to the dorm and show it off to all of her members because she’s a fucking child. I hope that…

And you trail off in your writing, What you wanted to say was just on the tip of your tongue just a second ago. Why can’t you remember it? It was literally just in your head a minute ago…

No. 

You shut the journal. It makes a soft yet substantial thud as the leather cover slaps against pages. You place your pen in your pocket, set the journal back down on the couch and stand up to walk towards your girlfriend, who is currently adjusting the angle that the wooden clip holds the polaroid at. She senses you walking up to her, steps aside and makes a space for you to watch her struggle. You would offer help, but you know that it removes half the fun for her when you do something for her. 

She fiddles around a little more, makes a couple of grunting sounds under her breath, curses a little, and next thing you know, she exclaims, “tada!” while pointing at the first occupant of the photo rack. You roll your eyes, throw an arm over her shoulder and look at the slightly blurry photo within the white frame. 

“With the camera,” she tells you, her tone soft and warm like… Like… Fuck. “I hope that we can help our memories live on. Sounds pretty deep huh?”

You can’t help but chuckle in agreement. You take a moment to stare at the two faces that occupy the space in the polaroid, and you hope to God that they will never, ever look foreign to you. It’s a futile prayer, you know, but a glass-half-full mentality is the best chance you have at not spiralling out of control. 

Wonyoung lays her head on your shoulder, silent and all sentimental as she closes her eyes and takes in a deep breath. She lets out a shuddering sigh, and you know that she’s trying not to cry, cause in this situation she’s the one that will end up hurt at the end of it all. You’ll forget the pain of forgetting; she’ll remember the pain of being forgotten. It sucks, but it’s just the way it is. You hug her, hold her close and stroke her hair. You don’t want to forget what she means to you, what you mean to her.

How many more polaroids left till it all ceases to matter?

____________________

Hello! Hope you guys enjoyed this fic. I'm a bit rusty so this one might be a bit funny, but hopefully the style of storytelling I chose didn't fuck you up too bad. Non-linear storytelling will be the death of me. Also: I kinda didn't edit this one too much. My bad hehe.

This was really more of a PSA to cherish the ones you hold close to you, because you never know when they will just disappear. Love the people close to you, cherish them forever.

~Lots of love Nichuuu

[artinvain]

pls pls pls more abby strapping/scissoring. make it NASTY NASTY NASTY 🫶🏾🏃🏾‍♀️

+ pervy/creepy roommate abby bc why not, if i'm going to be nasty!!

cw: manipulation, slight overtones of sacrilege, grinding/scissoring, strap usage, finger n oral, crying, sub!top abby, squirting, possessiveness.

no men, minors blank or ageless blogs allowed!!!!!!!!!!!

abby has been pining over you for months. it started as soon as she had met you for an interview about the room she was leasing. she opened the door and there a scent permeated from you, she swore it was an aphrodisiac. your soft skin and plush hips under that sundress. she was completely infatuated.

abby was head over heels and she'd be damned if she didn't see you again, so she lowered her rates for you after you'd mentioned the place was a little out of your budget (though, completely worth it -- you added). when you tried to politely decline out of respect for her. It was her father's apartment after all. however abby insisted in such a way that you couldn't say no.

she offered to help you move in, to show you around the city. she was already prattling on about dinners her father would pay for and roomie movie nights. you really couldn't say no to her offer if you tried, lowered rates, clean, spacious and a nice roommate? you were new in the city -- every other apartment you saw in your budget was loaded with roaches, dirty needles and loud noises. this was probably the best it would get.

to you abby seemed quiet, innocent and very very kind. she'd mentioned she didn't have many friends as she helped you move in, and slowly but surely she became your best friend. and of course a part of you had fallen for abby. how could you not? she was beautiful, funny, smart, protective and nurturing and god she was so fucking hot. but you weren't sure if a relationship was something you wanted, let alone not if it ruined the great friendship you finally had.

abby disagreed, she had read it in your journal and she wasn't worried about ruining your friendship because she was convinced that all roads let to bringing the two of you together. what else could explain how much she loved you?

what, if not love could explain why the scent of your panties, worn and damp from the day made her so wet. what but love could explain how hard she cums from looking at the pretty little bikini posts on your Instagram while her nose is filled with your scent, her tongue laps at the wet spot on your panties.

she's only worried today, about how long she's waited, when you mention how well your date went earlier that day. you hadn't stopped speaking about ellie since you walked back into the apartment this afternoon. abby tried to hide her agitation. how could you actually consider dating someone else. the thought nearly made her sick.

she'd seen it everywhere - the way you look at her, when you bring her coffee in the morning or fall asleep in her lap. you love her. and she loves you. it was simple and maybe now she needed to show you, really let you know how she felt instead of beating around the bush.

"abby?" your voice cracks the glass of her dissociation and brings her back into her body. you shift so that abby's long legs and entangles with yours. it's normal, you sit like this all the time, knees up and face to face but this time, her body so tight with need for you -- abby groans under her breath at the heat between your legs near her thinly clad thigh.

the familiar smell of your pussy dizzying her and she can't help that her hips buck. and your breath hitches when her warm cunt bumps yours.

"abby," you gulp, eyes low and meeting hers a small smile etched on her face. you've barely touched and yet your stomach is tight with lust. "tell me you want me to stop and i will," abby whispers, bucking her hips again and moaning when you meet her thrusts.

"see? baby we're made for each other," she groans at the feeling of your warm thick thighs on hers, "she could never make you feel like this." abby says very matter-of-fact. abby licks her lips and grips your thighs pulling you close and grinding her clothed pussy against yours.

"f-fuck you feel so good," abby whines, closing her thighs tight around you and watching your eyes roll back at the feeling of her winding her hips against you.

"abby - god," you groan "fuck, fuck please," you're already so desperate, your pussy wet and slippery against the lace of your panties and dampening your shorts.

"hmpfuck that's it baby, m'so glad you're finally mine," she whimpers, grunting and humping you, her blunt nails biting into your thighs. her statement flies over your head as you reach your highs, your bodies twitching as abby grinds you through your orgasms.

"god, sweet god, look at you, you're so pretty all fucked out for me," abby moans, looking over your flushed face scrunched up in the aftershocks of pleasure. abby leans down to kiss you and your tongues taste each other, sweet and wet and you're both moaning into each other's mouths.

abby's hands come to play with your nipples like she'd watched you do that once you left your door open a crack. her fingers roughly tugging and twisting your nipples as you moan, your back arching at the sweet pain. abby's hand slither down into your panties and circles your clit.

"god, you're so fucking wet," abby moans, her fingers sinking into you as you pull your shorts and panties down. abby groans at the sight of your pussy wet and swollen and swallowing her fingers all the way to the hilt and she curls them, watching your eyebrows raise and your mouth fall open.

"yeah honey? that feel good?" abby cooes, her forehead pressed against yours so she can taste your moans and squeaks when she starts strumming your clit, rubbing so quickly your breath can't keep up. she can feel you twitching erratically around her.

"cum for me, please baby i need to see you - fuck you're so beautiful," her teeth gritting and she moans as you do, your cum leaking down her wrist and abby whimpers, going down to lick and tase you. her hips humping you leg desperately as she sucks your clit into her mouth and stills her fingers if only to readjust them so she can keep fucking them into you.

you cum so quickly around her "jesus fuck, abigail," you yelp -- her full name falling from your mouth like a command and her body twitches as she cums, whimpering and moaning around you clit. tears leaking down her face as she sputters into you, fingers locking up inside you.

"god, so good -- you're so good to me abby," you gulp and abby licks her fingers and then comes up to kiss you. "i am, and i'm gonna keep you safe - treat you good, no one will ever treat you like i do, i love you baby," abby kisses you before you can reply.

her fingers sinking into you so deep again your eyes cross and when abby hears you say "i love - love it abby love you" she grunts, her fingers fucking faster into you - kissing and sucking marks into your neck and chest.

"mine," she grunts into you, "you're mine baby, not letting you go - ever," you'll agree with pretty much anything she says at this point, dizzy with pleasure you can't quite compose yourself as she clambers onto the bed and handles your legs, folding you in half and sinking her lubed cock into you.

abby bucks and snaps her hips into you. her strap stretching you, so deep your belly aches with each thrust. "god you're so fucking tight," abby moans, one hands starting to play with your nipples and then rubbing your clit and the other wrapping around your throat.

"my girl," abby whimpers with such faith as if it's the end of a prayer. your legs twitch and you hum lowly as you squirt around her, "christ, yes yes thank you baby, god give me your cum that's it," she moans, snapping her hips and then pulling out gently just to lap at your pussy, her legs falling over her shoulders.

abby has to hold you down as she cleans and licks your taste from your thighs and cunt. "good girl, so good for me," abby whines laying kisses to your mound and then belly, your breasts and chest. she kisses you neck and cheeks and eyelids. pressing a final kiss to your mouth.

"mine," abby sighs happily as you cuddle into her side.

🤫🏷️ @lesbian-useless @sexysapphicshopowner @iamaboringrattat @lavendersgirl @emiliabby (comment to be added to tag list xx)