#I’m a heathen so I’m posting this on egg day | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nayutai · 5 years ago

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Bad Boy Bakery

↠ Pairing Yeosang x Female OC

↠ Genre fluffy dirty angst

↠ Word Count 11.806

↠ Warnings infidelity (kinda sorta), mutual pining, unprotected sex, oral (f receiving), foul language, crude jokes, fingering, tattooed yeosang, mentions of criminal activity

↠ Summary Yeosang has a storied past and most of it is documented at the local police station. That’s the past though. These days he’s too busy running a semi-successful bakery with his best friends. After securing an order for the engagement party of well-known socialite Ivy Maxwell, he thinks his business might finally be taking off. He may have bitten off more than he could chew though.

It’s decided. Yeosang is going back to jail. Why he thought hiring the seven other misfits he used to run with to work in his bakery was a good idea he’ll never know. Bad Boy Bakery was supposed to be his way to get his life back on the right track and all these heathens do is test him every single day. He does a quick mental calculation of how much money is stashed around his house and he’s positive he’s got enough to post bail for a simple assault charge, but then again they might try to make an example of him considering his impressive arrest record. With the way he’s being tested at this moment though, he’s willing to spend every penny if it means he gets to beat Mingi into oblivion.

“Mingi, I swear to God if you fuck up another batch of egg whites I’m going to shove that whisk in your ear and beat your brains.” He glares at the clumsy giant vigorously whisking a bowl full of egg whites that already look like they’re begging for mercy. They have to have a full dessert spread ready for an engagement party that’s taking place in less than six hours and Mingi has ruined more eggs than Yeosang is even comfortable counting.

“Man, shut up. I did three years upstate. My arms are too damn strong for this which is exactly why I told your dumb ass to do it.” Everybody groans out loud at having to hear that exact phrase for what has to be the millionth time.

“That was over a year ago and you haven’t lifted anything heavier than a bag of flour ever since. Give it a rest.” Wooyoung garners a round of hearty laughter at his dig, looking quite pleased with himself at successfully bashing his friend.

“I make up for it by jacking off five times a day instead of four now so my point still stands.”

“I hope you wash your hands just as much.” The group of tattooed bakers loudly express their disgust when Mingi gives them nothing but a devious grin in response. Mingi, on the other hand, is phased by neither his friends’ disgust not Yeosang’s bristling anger as he dumps his third attempt at the egg whites into the garbage. So much for third time’s the charm.

Yep, Yeosang is going back to jail.

Ivy is resigned as she carefully sweeps her brush across both of her cheekbones. The glittery gold of the highlight powder left in its wake perfectly complements the rich sepia tone of her skin. She’s just as precise in the application of her lipstick. Slowly, but surely, painting her lips a deep purple. She sighs as she gives herself a final once over in her vanity mirror. The inky black curls that normally adorn her head like a crown have been forced into straightened submission indicative of her mother’s urge to impress the crowd of people that Ivy can already hear beginning to gather downstairs. Her left hands feels uncomfortably heavy as it has ever since this nightmare first began.

As if sensing her procrastination, Ivy’s mother Yvette comes striding into her daughter’s bedroom. It’s easy to tell how much she’s enjoying playing her mother of the bride role. She hasn’t stopped smiling since Ivy’s engagement to her long-time “boyfriend” was officially announced last month. Needless to say, she’s the only one finding any joy in this situation.

“Ivy, sweetie, hurry up and come downstairs. Everyone is waiting to see you.”

“Yeah, right.” Ivy scoffs in response. “They just want to see this.” Yvette frowns at the way Ivy glares in disdain at the stunning ring adorning her finger.

“Ivy Elaine Peters, you better get it to together right now. Keeping this family business afloat requires sacrifice and its your turn now stop moping and get your narrow ass downstairs.” Her mother disappears back out the door before Ivy can get in a word of her own. Not that it would have mattered. Her fate has been sealed for the past twenty four years.

She slips her feet into the black patent leather pumps still sitting pretty in the box on her canopy bed. The red soled beauties are sure to provide more status than comfort, but such is life. Ivy gives herself one final pep talk, smoothing out the imaginary wrinkles in her slip dress. She looks more like a fashionable mourner than a blushing bride but this is her silent protest. She’ll make her damn sacrifice but she’ll dig her heels in wherever she can.

Ivy quickly spots her fiancee Seokjin cracking jokes with a few of her cousins near the front door. He beams at her when he catches her eye across the room, breaking away to come greet her. Not for the first time, Ivy wonders why she couldn’t just fall in love with him to make this whole process easier. Their families have known each other longer than they’ve both been alive so they grew up as best friends. Plus, Seokjin is genuinely a great guy. He’s charismatic, kind, and attractive to the point of unfairness. She has no doubt that he’d make a fantastic husband for someone. She just wishes that she wasn’t that someone. The only positive is that Seokjin feels the exact same way. He loves Ivy to pieces in the most platonic way possible. She’s quite possibly the last person he would ever consider marrying, but business is business and this is a merger that must be made.

“You look absolutely stunning, Vee.” She smiles gratefully at his compliment as he bends slightly to kiss her on the cheek. A camera flashes somewhere off to her right so she makes sure to play her happiness up for the photographer. With the combined notoriety of their families, any pictures taken tonight are sure to be all over the local and regional news outlets by morning.

“I could say the same about you, Jinnie.” The tips of his ears turn red as they always do whenever anyone compliments him. Ivy giggles playfully when he ducks the hand reaching up to tweak on of them like she always does, choosing instead to square up like he’s ready for a fight. Oh, Jin, ever the entertainer. The numerous peals of laughter that erupt around the couple as they take turns jabbing at each other like children tells her that their antics are paying off.

The two imposters spend the night putting on one hell of a show. Anyone would be hard pressed to find someone that didn’t think they’re madly in love with one another. Their parents couldn’t be more ecstatic about this outcome if they tried.

Everyone is seated at the lavishly decorated tables set up in the backyard as an army of waiters replaces empty entree plates with various cakes and tarts that look almost too delectable to eat. The cheesecake placed in front of Ivy looks nearly too beautiful to eat. Topped with fresh berries and drizzled in what smells like some sort of hazelnut sauce. She wishes she hadn’t left her cellphone upstairs so that she could take a quick picture of it for her instagram. When she finally gets over her reluctance, she take a small bite. A borderline pornographic moan escapes her lips, catching Jin way off guard.

“What the hell wa-” Ivy cuts him off by shoving a forkful of the cheesecake into his open mouth. He groans in pleased delight, attempting to go in with his own fork for another bite, but she quickly slaps his hand away.

“Let me taste yours. Bite for a bite.” She pretends not to notice him sneaking another bite of her cheesecake while she tastes the chocolate tart in front of him. A hint of red chili lends a kick that perfectly rounds out the sweetness of the chocolate and the fresh whipped cream the dessert is topped in.

“I don’t know what bakery they used but we need to get them to do the cake for the wedding.” Jin declares as he practically inhales the chocolate tart. He signals the waiter to bring them two more for them to try while Ivy hums in agreement at his side. She makes a mental note to ask her mother who was hired to do the desserts tomorrow as she happily digs into the coconut cream cake being set in front of her.

Yeosang stares in awe at the payment he’s just received for the engagement party they’d done three days ago. His bakery has been faring better than most businesses do in their first year but the deposit currently pending with the bank is going to go a long way in making sure it stays that way. They had even sent two grand more than the $1,800 that the contract had stipulated. Yeosang had called immediately to make sure it wasn’t an accounting error because the last thing he wants is to be accused of stealing, but he’d been informed by the woman who had arranged the deal that her employers had been so satisfied with the food they wanted to “tip” him. Rich people are different.

He leaves his small office to clean up a little while it’s slow. He had let everyone else go early since there were no big orders to work on and Tuesdays are notorious dead zones. The bell above the door tinkles lightly as he cleans some wayward chocolate curls out of one of the display cases, cursing to himself because he’d told Seonghwa that he put too many but of course no one listens to him. Doesn’t matter that he signs those lazy bastards’ pay checks every week.

“Hello, how can I help you?” The young woman before him fidgets with the tie on her wrap dress inadvertently drawing Yesoang’s gaze to the womanly curves she possesses. The emerald green of the fabric highlights the warm undertones of her skin in a way that should definitely be illegal.

“My mother’s assistant told me that you did the desserts for my engagement party last night.” Yeosang curses mentally as he finally takes notice of the skating rink sitting on her left ring finger. He misses most of what she says next but tunes back in just in time to hear her ask if he’s available to do her wedding cake as well.

“What’s the date?” He questions, all business now that more money is on the table.

“September 9th. It’s going to be at the old vineyard across town.”

Yeosang nods in acknowledgment. He pencils her in and schedules a day in two weeks for her to come back with her fiancee to do a tasting and make final selections for the other desserts they’d like to have. Ivy is turning to leave when she catches sight of a full-sized version of the cheesecake she’d fallen in love with at the party.

“How much is that cheesecake?”

Yeosang follows her outstretched index finger to the hazelnut berry cheesecake that he’d come up with. It had taken him ages to perfect but hasn’t really taken off like he thought it would. Nevertheless, he makes sure to put one in the display case every day and he’s glad that he did.

“It’s $6 per slice. Did you want one?”

“How much for the whole thing?” Yeosang notices that she has yet to take her eyes off of the dessert.

“I’ll do $35 for you, beautiful.” For a second, he thinks that he may have overstepped his boundaries but she simply reaches into her bra to pull out a flashy, black card. The credit limit on that thing would probably pay off the loan on his storefront and then some.

He tries not to focus on how warm it is when she places it into his outstretched hand. He could’ve sworn that she intentionally let her fingers graze his own in a less than professional way. Yeosang shakes the thought away as that can only lead to trouble. He packs her cheesecake up while she signs the credit card receipt.

“Have a great day,” Yeosang pauses to look at the signature line of the receipt. “…Ivy.”

“Right back at you.” She winks at him playfully and sashays outside to her car. Yeosang’s eyes are trained on her until she’s seated in her seated in the black Audi he’s just now noticing was parked across the street.

Ivy calls Jin the second she steers her car back onto the road, waiting patiently for him to answer. She’s practically vibrating from the few minutes she’d spent with…fuck she’d forgotten to get his name but there is plenty of time for that. One thing she’s sure she’ll never forget is how hot he is. Ivy would’ve never guessed that she’d be attracted to someone with quite so many tattoos but on him they had looked like priceless works of art worthy of being placed in the Louvre.

“Hey, Vee, what’s up?”

“Two things. One, the bakery that did the desserts for the engagement party agreed to do the wedding.” Ivy curses at a slow driver that cuts her off at an intersection, losing her train of thought for a second.

“And the second thing?” Jin presses.

“Oh, I’m going to fuck the owner.” A thrill shoots through as she imagines those tattooed hands roaming every inch of her skin. She shifts uncomfortably in her seat as her body reacts to her impure thoughts.

“Absolutely love that for you. What’s his name?” Of course he asks her the one question that she doesn’t know the answer to. She rolls her eyes skyward as Jin starts talking shit when he realizes that she didn’t ask her new crush his name.

“I hate you.” She pouts as she turns onto her street. “We have a tasting scheduled for the 17th so I’ll ask him then. I’m almost home so I’ll text you later.”

“Smell ya later.” Oh what she’d give to flip him off right now.

The smile on her face when Ivy walks inside her parents’ house is genuine despite the fact that she’s spent all day doing wedding preparations which normally leaves her in a foul mood. Her high spirits don’t go unnoticed by her mother who is in the backyard pruning her orchids.

“What’s got you so happy?”

“The bakery that did the desserts for the engagement party agreed to do the wedding too. Also,” Ivy lifts the box holding God’s favorite cheesecake in the air. “he gave me a deal on the cheesecake that we liked.”

“Are you serious? He said that he was booked up the entire week of your wedding.” Ivy is a bit taken aback as he had specifically told her that he would be available, but she shrugs it off.

“Maybe he had a cancellation. Do want some cheesecake? This is your only offer because I fully plan to eat the whole thing right now.” Her mother tosses her pruning shears back into the box she keeps them in and follows Ivy into the kitchen where they make quick work of the heavenly dessert.

“Yeosang you fucking dumbass. How are we supposed to do a wedding and an anniversary party in the same damn day? Explain it to me.” Yeosang almost flinches when Yunho yells at him. He can’t think of a time the man has ever raised his voice before now and he’s known him since they were three. Not one to accept disrespect, Yeosang would normally react with anger of his own but even he has to admit that thinking with his dick has put them all in a bind. A socialite wedding and an anniversary party with a guest list longer than his body on the same day is going to take a miracle to pull off.

“Listen these rich people gave us two grand more than they were supposed to as a fucking tip. If they had asked me to get ass naked and let people eat pineapple rings off my dick I would’ve said yes.”

“She had big tits didn’t she?” Jongho typically stays out of their petty arguments but he knows bullshit when he hears it.

“Yes, but,” The room erupts into a cacophony of groans as they all simultaneously throw the closest object at hand Yeosang’s hand. Luckily for him he’s always been quick on his feet. “What’s done is done you fuckwads so get over it and start mixing. We still have orders to fill.”

All eight of them are covered in flour from their frantic baking when they hear the bell jingling up front. Hongjoong happens to be the only one able to immediately stop what he’s doing so he washes his hands and goes to attend to the customer. Yeosang nearly falls backwards off of his stool when he hears the voice of the woman that had put them in such a bind. Wooyoung and San exchange curious glances before they wipes their hands on the front of their aprons and head up front as well. Yeosang feels like his stomach is going to fall out of his ass as one by one they all abandon their posts.

“Satan, why are you doing this to me?”

There’s no reason for him to stay in the back like a coward so he follows suit, wiping his hands and going to the front counter as well. They’re all squished together behind the counter trying to get as close to her as possible. Yeosang shoulders his way between Jongho and Seonghwa and he finally understands why they all look like lovestruck school boys. He finds himself looking just as dopey as his friends when she turns that megawatt smile on him. She’s dressed a lot more casually today in a pair of jeans that had to have been painted on and a plain white baby tee. The little jewel glittering in her belly button looks like its winking at him and he has the overwhelming urge to flick it with his tongue.

“Another cheesecake?” He nods his head towards the box cradled in her hands. She looks sheepish at being caught out. Yeosang thinks it’s cute.

“In my defense, it’s tasty as hell.”

“Just make sure you tell everyone where you got it.” He winks at her playfully which was an incredibly bad idea. She sinks her teeth into her plump lower lip and he knows immediately that despite the massive rock on her finger he would still make a move on her. Time to leave before he does something stupid.

“Alright you lazy sacks of shit, back to work.” They protest just as he’d expected but he pushes them all back towards the kitchen, rolling his eyes as they try to resist him.

“Hey, wait!” Yeosang shouldn’t have turned around. He should’ve kept going as if he hadn’t even heard her, but no, he just has to have manners. She’s propped herself up against the counter that makes her breasts nearly pop out of the scoop neck line of her shirt. “What’s your name?”

“Yeosang.” She repeats it back to him, testing it out on her tongue. Her voice curls around the syllables lusciously and he could die right where he stood. At this point, he’s convinced that she’s made it her life’s mission to ruin him.

Ivy is quick to call Jin when she gets back to her car which seems to be the norm every time she goes to the bakery. She knows that he’s going to make fun of her for being so excited, but she can’t exactly tell her other friends about the hot, tattooed bakery owner that she plans to screw so she’ll suffer the consequences. At least now she actually knows his name so he can’t hold that over her head anymore.

The 17th has finally rolled around which means Ivy has another opportunity to draw Yeosang into her trap. Jin currently sits cross-legged on the bed in his guest room where Ivy had spent the previous night as she models her potential outfit for the day. The yellow slip dress has potential, but Jin isn’t totally impressed. He sends her back into the closet to try on one of her other options. She reappears in a fiery orange tank top tucked into a pair of lightly distressed white jeans.

“Your ass looks great in the jeans so that’s a definite yes, but I’m not really feeling this shirt.” Jin comments as Ivy does a slow turn in front of him. He crosses the room to his closet to help her go through the clothes she’d brought with her to see what her other options are. He eventually helps her settle on a simple black tank top that perfectly molds to the curves of a figure.

“Alright let’s go eat some cake and hopefully get your cakes smashed.” Jin remarks as he herds Ivy towards the door.

When they arrive at the bakery, Yeosang has just finished putting out the tasting plates that he’d prepared. Jin is too focused on the fact that he gets to eat cake before lunch without anyone scolding him for it to notice the way that Yeosang’s face falls when he sees him walking in with Ivy. She doesn’t miss it though. Nevertheless, he reaches out to introduce himself.

“Yeosang. Nice to meet you.” Jin reciprocates his greeting before pulling out a chair for Ivy to sit down in.

Things are all business from there on as Yeosang slides the first cake towards them and Ivy has never been more disappointed in her entire life. Gone is the Yeosang that called her beautiful and responded well to her flirting. She blames Jin.

“So this first one is a spiced vanilla cake with a raspberry cream cheese frosting with a little orange zest.” Ivy is so focused on the way Yeosang’s lips are moving that Jin has to elbow her to bring her back to reality. She sheepishly accepts the fork that she hadn’t realized was being presented to her to taste the masterpiece in front of her.

As they talk about what they like and don’t like about the cake, Yeosang hands them each a scoring cards to rank their favorites. Regardless of the way she feels about him on a personal level, Ivy has to admit that Yeosang is incredibly good at what he does. He was able to take her obsession with his cheesecake and come up with such interesting cake options. She’d been slightly concerned that he hand’t asked for her likes or dislikes in terms of taste, but as they move from cake to cake she realizes that he didn’t need to. Everything tastes amazing. It’s no surprise that each cake receives the highest score possible on their scoring cards. Deciding which one to go with is going to be hell.

“If you don’t let me have the spiced vanilla one we tried first I am calling off this engagement and marrying Yeosang instead of you.” Ivy stands corrected. Yeosang chuckles lowly at Jin’s enthusiasm and the throaty sound sends a shiver down her spine. It’s unfair just how effortlessly attractive he is.

“Okay folks, let’s talk decorations.” Yeosang reaches to his right, pulling a sketch pad from the empty chair next to him. His hand loosely grips a pencil as he waits for Ivy and Jin to throw some ideas at him. Ivy would prefer to throw herself at him instead, but someone how she manages to focus her brain on cake design.

Both Ivy and Jin agree on the fact that they want something simple, but beyond that they have clue what they want. Yeosang busts out a quick sketch of a three tier cake with fondant branches bearing dogwood flowers climbing the height of it. When he presents the rough drawing to them, Ivy immediately falls in love. Thankfully, Jin agrees because she was prepared to fight him over this. They spend a little while longer picking out other desserts for people who don’t want or can’t have cake, but all too soon Yeosang is watching the happy couple disappear from his shop.

The six months until the wedding seem to blend together. Business has picked up significantly in the previous weeks which has been good for Yeosang in more ways than one. The extra cashflow has allowed him to get ahead on some bills while also giving everybody a bit of a raise. According to Seonghwa, who is primarily in charge of the front counter since accidentally slicing his hand open, a lot of the new customers have been big names in the community that are connected to Ivy or her family in one way or another. The woman in question often stops in for a cheesecake. She always asks to speak to Yeosang, claiming to have questions about the wedding though he gets the feeling that she really just wants to talk to him. Every day it gets harder and harder to resist her flirtatious advances. He refuses to be a casual fling for some bored rich girl no matter how much his dick begs him to. Especially one with rapidly approaching nuptials.

Yeosang has never been a very spiritual person, but when he gets the call that the anniversary party he’d scheduled Ivy’s wedding over had been cancelled due to the wife having the flu, he knows that some divine being is looking out for him. He had planned to do his best, but with only one more week left to prepare he was still very unsure of how he was going to pull off two events of that scale in one day. The husband Johnathan Tooney, current district attorney in the next county over, sounds shocked on the phone when he offers them a full refund despite the fact that his contracts states that customers are only entitled to a fifty percent refund of any money paid if the event is cancelled the week of. Most of his customers pay half upfront and the remaining half afterwards, but they had chosen to pay for everything up front. Something Yeosang had greatly appreciated as it was a $2,600 job. Ultimately, Mr. Tooney tells him not to as they intend to reschedule the party as soon as his wife is feeling better and would still like for him to provide the desserts they’d contracted for.

The guys are all equally relieved when Yeosang delivers the news of the anniversary party’s cancellation. Things are smooth sailing from there as they throw all of their focus and energy into making sure that everything will be ready for the wedding next weekend. Not surprisingly, Ivy doesn’t make an appearance in the bakery that week, but what is surprising is that Yeosang finds himself actually missing her presence. Despite his avoidance of all her flirting, he actually likes talking to Ivy whenever she comes in. She may be a bored rich girl but her mind is just as captivating as the rest of her.

On the day of the ceremony, Yeosang is uncharacteristically antsy. He’s not sure what it is but he can’t seem to sit still no matter what he does. He’s itching to get this day over with so Mingi can buy him the beer he owes him. Wooyoung scolds him for being distracted when he almost drops one of the cake tiers on his way to load it into one of the delivery vans. No one has to vocalize just how disastrous that would’ve been because they all know but missing an opportunity to call people out on their shit is just not in Wooyoung’s nature.

“Look, I know you’re feeling some type of way because your crush is marrying a pretty boy that’s not you but I’m going to need you to at least pretend that you still want to get paid for this job.” Yeosang nods in acknowledgment because while he doesn’t like being yelled at like a child even he knows that he’s got to get his shit together and quickly.

“Notice how he didn’t deny his crush on cheesecake girl though.” San pipes up as he hops into the drivers seat of the van. Everyone snickers, switching to full on laughter when Yeosang flips them all off.

Thankfully, the reception goes off without a hitch. The wait staff helps set up the extensive dessert table to save on time and it comes out just as Yeosang had envisioned it. He snaps a few pictures for the bakery’s website before they leave venue. Ivy and Jin had extended invitations to Yeosang and his staff to stay for the reception, but they’d all politely declined. They’re on their way out of the service entrance when one of the girls on the wait staff runs out with two giant paper bags in her hands. Apparently, Ivy had included enough meals in her catering package to feed the vendors that would be in the building on her big day which coincidentally included Yeosang and his gang of merry bakers. They’re all taken aback by the thoughtfulness of the gesture as Yeosang accepts the bags from the staff member who quickly runs back inside the dining hall.

“Cheesecake girl is a fucking saint.” Mingi hardly ever garners emphatic agreement from the rest of his friend group but today is one of those rare occasions.

Business continues as normal following the wedding. Product is flying out of the display case. Catering orders are still coming in left and right. Ivy still stops in once a week for a cheesecake and to flirt with Yeosang. The guys still tease him for his crush on said married woman. Everything is normal.

Until it’s not.

Jin looks like freshly printed money when he strolls into Bad Boy Bakery for the first time since the cake tasting all those months ago. The silver band on his ring finger glitters even in the fluorescent lighting. Yeosang is finishing up his closing routine when he hears the bell and emerges from his office.

“Seokjin?” The manila folder clasped in the other man’s hands makes Yeosang nervous. The last time someone in a suit approached him with a manila folder he was being presented with a plea deal and ended up doing ten months in jail for assault and grand larceny.

“We need to talk. I’ll wait for you to finish up.” Jin takes a seat at an empty table and hums to himself as he waits for Yeosang to join him.

He doesn’t have to wait long for the young business owner to emerge from his office with his keys and a denim jacket in hand. The mischievous smile on Jin’s face makes him uneasy, but he’s no bitch. Yeosang steels his nerves and schools his facial expression into one of bland indifference. He arches an eyebrow when Jin slides the folder across the table and produces a pen from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. The folder may as well be a poisonous spider with the way Yeosang refuses to touch it.

“Whatever you think it is, I promise it’s not that.” Yeosang stares Jin down for a few seconds, looking for anything at all that would suggest he should end this whole interaction right now. He doesn’t find it.

With a resigned sigh, Yeosang flips through the contents of an envelope. He shoots Jin a look when he realizes that he’s currently skimming over a nondisclosure agreement. It looks to be focused around Ivy and Jin’s marriage. The word arranged jumps out him a few times and his eyes nearly bug out of his head. The agreement is vague on the finer details but Yeosang is comfortable enough with what he’s read to quickly scrawl his name at the bottom of the last page. Jin signs his name as witness and neatly tucks everything back into the manila folder.

“Now that we have that out of the way.” Jin relaxes back into the chair and fiddles with his wedding band. “Ivy likes you. She’ll never admit that because she’s stubborn but she likes you and wants you fold her like a towel.”

“Wait, wait, wait, are you saying that your wife wants to have sex with me? How are you okay with this?” Yeosang has always loved forbidden fruit but ruining relationships was the old him. He doesn’t know what to do with this information. Furthermore, he can’t imagine being married to someone like Ivy and being okay with her sleeping with someone else.

“That’s where the NDA comes in.” Yeosang sits in stunned silence as Jin gives him the true behind the scenes story about he and Ivy’s marriage and it’s nothing like the best friends to lovers trope that they’ve fed to society. Well, he guesses the best friend part is true, but they’ve definitely never been anything close to lovers and never will be. They’re simply holding up their end of a decades-old business deal. According to Jin, he and Ivy have already devised a plan to be divorced in a year.

“So,” Yeosang is a bit unsure on how to proceed. This is uncharted territory. “what exactly are you saying to me?”

“Stop feeling bad about wanting to fuck Ivy and just do it. She’s driving me insane at home talking about how hot you are all the time and I can’t take it anymore. She’s out of cheesecake so she’ll be in here within the next couple of days so make your move. Discreetly.”

Yeosang lays in bed that night still shocked at everything he’s learned today. His mind and body have been at war over what he believes to be right and what his body craves. He’d love nothing more than to worship Ivy from head to toe and before today it had been a pipe dream. Now that he’s been given the green light, he’s still conflicted. It feels too good to be true. But he plans to take full advantage of all the good that comes his way until shit decides to hit the fan.

Ivy gives herself a final once over in the mirror. Her outfit is simple. Just a black bodycon dress paired with a denim jacket and her red converse. According to Jin, she should look like she’s making an effort but not too much of one. She’s hoping that this will do the trick as she grabs for her keys and purse, stuffing her phone into the latter as she waits for the elevator to reach the ground floor.

She wants to call Jin for some last minute encouragement on the way over, but he’s being a boring businessman today and is in the middle of a meeting. Ivy is totally on her own and she’s panicking. Hopefully, Yeosang finds her nervousness cute enough to overlook the awkwardness.

When Ivy enters the bakery, one of Yeosang’s friends is manning the counter. A gentle giant with a kind smile. She remembers that his name also starts with a Y like Yeosang’s but she can’t put her finger on exactly what it is.

“Hey, cheesecake girl!” Ivy rolls her eyes humorously at the nickname the other guys in the bakery have given her. She can’t help that the damned cheesecake tastes as good as it does. Before the wedding, she’d had to up her trips to the gym from zero to one just to make sure she’d still be able to fit into her dress on her wedding day.

Her heart drops a little when she scans the display case but sees no sign of the dessert that her soul craves. Yunho laughs are disappointment before disappearing into the kitchen. He returns with a box, smiling at the way her eyes light up.

“Yeosang is with the other guys on a job, but he said you’d be in today so he boxed it up before he left.” He slides the box across the glass countertop into her waiting hands. Ivy digs in her purse for her card to pay for the cheesecake, but Yunho is quick to stop her.

“This one’s on the house. Boss’ orders.” Ivy is a bit taken aback. Hand frozen in her purse. Yeosang makes sure that she always pays a discount rate for her cheesecake, but she’s never gotten one for free before.

“Oh…okay. Well, have a good day.”

It isn’t until she gets back to Jin’s place — well she guesses it’s her place now too — that she realizes why Yeosang had decided to pre-package her cheesecake this time. A phone number is scrawled on the inside of the lid with a quick message from Yeosang asking her to call him. She squeals as frantically scrambles to pull her phone from the recesses of her bag. Yunho had told her that Yeosang was out on a job so she texts him instead of calling so as not to disturb him.

She is happily digging her fork into a second piece of cheesecake when Ivy randomly recalls something weird that Jin had said this morning when he left for work. She was still half asleep and barely human, but now here she sits at the dining room table replaying the strange sentence that her brain had decided to finally comprehend.

Don’t forget to call the baker.

Ivy hadn’t been in the right headspace to question it then, but now that the puzzle pieces are clicking into place, it’s becoming painfully obvious that Jin had something to do with the reason she’s anxiously checking her phone every five minutes. The part of her that wants to chase him with a butter sock is overridden by the much larger part that wants to thank him profusely for whatever it is that he did. Unlike Jin, Ivy doesn’t have a harem of men, women, and others lined up to satisfy her needs whenever he’s feeling inclined.

She’s three episodes into a Cold Justice marathon when her phone rings, scaring the living daylights out of her. It’s Yeosang. Ivy’s eyes widen comically as she freaks out over what to do. She chugs the rum and coke she’d been nursing and picks up the call.

“Hello?” She cringes at how apprehensive she sounds even to her own ears.

“Hello, Ivy.” He sounds tired which has given his voice a gravelly edge to it that’s making her blood sing. “I saw your message and thought it would just be easier to call you.”

Ivy isn’t surprised in the slightest when Yeosang tells her about Jin’s visit to the bakery the night before. That’s a typical Jin move to jump the chain of command to accomplish a job. Yeosang doesn’t seem to bothered by the strangeness of it all. He seems more relieved that his guilt for lusting after a taken woman has been absolved if anything.

“This is a first for me so I’m not exactly sure what to do.” Yeosang trails off. He’s out of his element here. It goes without saying that there will be no romantic dinners at expensive restaurants or long walks to the beach.

“This is a first for me too, but you’re a hot baker that laughs at my stupid jokes and I like that.” His throaty laugh in response makes her chest swell with pride at

“I still want to take you on a date though so I guess your place or mine?”

Yeosang is sweating bullets as he punches in the elevator code for the penthouse suite in the swanky high rise at the address Ivy had given him. In his Michael Jackson t-shirt, ripped jeans, and sneakers, he knows that he sticks out like a sore thumb, but thankfully no one in the lobby had vocalized that to his face. He adjusts his duffel bag on his shoulder as the elevator smoothly ascends to the top floor. He’s been ecstatic when Ivy had told him that she wanted him to come spend the weekend with her since Jin would be out of town on business. This is going to be the first time that he’s seen her in person since they agreed to their little arrangement and he’s nervous to say the least.

The doors silently reveal a posh sitting area as well a lacquered black door adorned with a silver “P”. Yeosang grins at the door mat just outside the door. It depicts a crudely drawn cat with both middle fingers upturned and the words “fuck off” written in a speech bubble. It looks just as out of place as he does and for whatever reason it makes him feel more at ease. He reaches out to press the doorbell but the door is yanked open before he even gets the chance.

“Jesus Christ you scared me!” If his hands weren’t full of groceries, Yeosang would’ve clutched at his rapidly beating heart. Ivy chuckles, pointing to a little black dot above the door.

“We have cameras.”

She grabs for a few of the bags in his hands, but he twists and turns to block her efforts. Their childish antics continue until Yeosang has finally had enough. He crouches down until he’s able to wrap his arms around her thighs, delighting in her squeal when he successfully lifts her from the ground. Ivy swats at his shoulders, but the brute simply crosses the threshold, kicking the door shut with his foot before walking deeper into her home. This first “date” is off to a great start.

“So what’s on the agenda for today, Mr. Kang?” Ivy drums on the marble countertop enthusiastically as she watches Yeosang unpack the groceries he’d brought with him.

“As much as I love a good paying customer, It’s time for you to learn how to make this cheesecake yourself.”

“You better hope I suck at it or I’ll put you out of business.”

“I don’t mind a little competition.” Yeosang smiles deviously. “Especially when the rivals look as pretty as you.”

Ivy feels her cheeks heat up in the face of such flirtation and she’s never been more thankful for the fact that her darker complexion hides the evidence of it. She’s come to know him well enough to know that he would definitely rib her for that.

As it turns out, Ivy is a natural born baker. Yeosang’s heart swells in his chest as he watches her sway her hips to the music she’d turned on as she stirs the berry compote on the stove. His chest bumps against her back as he steps up behind her and he swears he sees her shiver. He rests his head on her shoulder, covering his hand with hers and slows down the speed of her stirring.

“You have to be gentle with the berries, love.” At the sound of his voice so close to her ear, Ivy’s insides turn to goo.

“Maybe I don’t want to be gentle.” Her words hit him square in the chest and he wants to respond in so many ways, but he settles for a chaste kiss on her temple. He’d briefly contemplated taking it slow with her, but they’ve been dancing around each other for nearly seven months at this point and there’s no point in prolonging the inevitable. The wanton desire is mutual on both sides but he wants to hear her beg. Wants her desperate and needy for him.

He eventually removes his hand from hers, choosing to instead hold onto her hips as he continues to coach her through the next steps. She’s so focused on keeping her berries from sticking that Yeosang is able to catch her off guard when he slips his hands inside her tank top to rest them against her bare skin. The gasp she lets out makes him smile deviously. His hands drift up from her lower stomach until his thumbs are brushing the lacy cups of her bra. It’s Yeosang’s turn to be caught off guard when she presses her ass firmly against his front. The way she subsequently swivels her hips is nearly his undoing, but Yeosang has a game plan and he intends to see it through.

“You’re a naughty girl, Ivy.” He lowers a hand to tug on the elastic waistband of the tiny shorts she’s wearing, letting it snap back in place. She hisses at the sting but, if the way her head lolls back onto his shoulder is any indication, she loved it. Yeosang slides his hand lower as if he’s going to cup her over her shorts only to completely remove himself from her.

He busies himself with other things around the kitchen but he can feel her glare on him the entire time. She grumbles something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like the words “teasing asshole” but he choose to ignore it. For now.

Ivy is visibly on edge as she waits for Yeosang to touch her again, but he doesn’t make a single move to do so. He simply dances around her in the kitchen as they finish up their cheesecake preparation. It has to cool once they take it out of the oven so they migrate to the living room while they wait. The episode of Bones that Ivy been watching before he’d arrived is still paused on the tv so she restarts it and settles in next to Yeosang on the couch. She lets out a girlish squeal when he hauls her into his lap instead. He spreads her legs so that they straddle both of his, letting out a content sigh as he rests his chin on her shoulder. Arms wrapped securely around her waist.

He waits until she’s engrossed in the episode. Certain that he’s going to keep his hands to himself. If he’d been able to see her face, he would’ve been able to see the devious grin as she devised a plan of her own. Ivy shifts her legs around until both of her feet are planted on the floor between Yeosang’s. She swivels her hips in the cradle of his lap, snickering at the groan he lets out. Two can play this teasing game. She grabs both of his hands in her own and lifts them to her breasts. Yeosang just lets them linger there. This is her show now and he wants to see her directing skills firsthand.

With her physical encouragement, he pinches her erect nipples through the thin layers of her shirt and bra. The breathy sigh in response to his touch gives him a high that he can quickly see himself becoming addicted to. She ups the ante by dislodging his hands to remove her shirt and bra. She places his hands back on her chest, sighing once more at the feel of him kneading her breasts without any hindrances. Yeosang licks and sucks at the column of her neck. He’s careful not to leave any marks which he’s sure she’ll be appreciative of later. Her needs grows and grows until she’s craving more than what he’s giving her.

“Yeosang,” The way she half moans his name sounds like the sweetest melody. “Touch me.”

“I am touching you, baby girl.” She grunts in frustration. Looks like she’ll have to take matters into her own hands once more.

Yeosang is shocked when Ivy suddenly rises to her feet. He’s more than confused as he watches her disappear down a hallway off to the right of the living room. His breath catches in his throat when her shorts suddenly fly back into view followed closely by a pair of panties that match the bra on the floor by his right foot. He nearly falls over in his haste to catch up to her. He finds her in the bedroom that she’d pointed out as hers when she’d given him a quick tour earlier. She’s reclined amongst the mountain of pillows circling her swollen clit with her middle finger as she fondles one of her breasts. Her mouth is slightly ajar from the pleasure and he swears that he’s never seen a sight more breathtaking. Yeosang swallows, trying to get his wits about him when she speaks and breaks him out of his daze.

“Clothes off, babe.” His limbs are a blur as he rushes to follow her instructions. With every inch of skin he reveals, Ivy finds herself falling deeper and deeper into his trap.

She’d seen the tattoos that covered his arms and the back of his right hand, but the Hebrew script running down his side is new to her and she makes a mental note to ask him what it says later. Right now she wants nothing more than for him to hold her down with his weight and make her his. Yeosang’s eyes are practically glued to her center so shiny from her arousal. He licks his lips at the thought of how good she probably tastes and the mere idea of having her on his tongue nearly consumes him.

Yeosang tugs on his hardened cock as he slowly walks towards the oversized bed. She’s mesmerized by the appendage standing proud between his legs. It’s not over long but he can barely get his own fist around it so she knows that the stretch will be phenomenal when he finally gets inside. He grabs her by both ankles and pulls her into the center of the bed so that she’s flat on her back. She squirms in anticipation as he crawls over her. Lips and hands caressing every inch of her skin that they can reach. She moans deep in her throat when he finally covers her lips with his own in their first ever kiss. Her fingers find purchase in his hair, holding him to her as they ravage each other. Each exhale from her lips traded for his.

Ivy is brought back to the task at hand when a needy thrust of Yeosang’s hips has the engorged head of his erection pressing against her clit. She bites down on his bottom lip at the sudden onslaught of pleasure, rolling her hips up to get more of the addictive friction.

“Gotta taste you. Want you to cum in my mouth.” Yeosang’s words don’t match up with his actions as he continues to peck her lips over and over again. Eager to discover if his tongue is just as talented as his hands, Ivy pulls away to gently push at his head until he gets the message.

The first swipe of his tongue on her soaked flesh is purely self-indulgent. He’s thrilled to discover that she tastes just as sweet as he thought she would. Like the nectar of a fresh honeydew. He sucks her clit into his mouth, biting down on it gently before swirling his tongue around it to soothe the ache. Her eyes roll into the back of her head and she can’t decide if she wants to run from or towards his mouth. She doesn’t get the chance to decide as Yeosang anchors her squirming hips to the bed with one of his arms.

He teases her entrance with a single finger, smirking at the filthy curses falling from her lips as she begs him to make her cum. He gives her clit a particularly harsh suck as he sinks his finger in deep. Her breathing starts coming in quick pants when he adds a second finger and then a third. When she starts folding in on herself, he pulls his fingers from her dripping hole. Her suddenly empty hole clenches around nothing as she complains about being denied the orgasm she was dancing on the edge of.

Her complaints die on her tongue when she takes in the sight of Yeosang walking on his knees towards her. Ivy sits up and meets him halfway. She can taste herself on his tongue as their lips meet for the second time and it has a fresh tidal wave of arousal all but gushing from her. His waning self-control is evident in the way he turns her around to face her headboard, pushing on her shoulders until she’s face down in in the sheets.

She whimpers at the heavy smack he rains down on her ass. He groans at the way it bounces before he grips both cheeks in his hands, pulling them apart to get a proper view of her waiting entrance. Part of him wants to tease her some more, but he doesn’t have it in him to wait one more minute. She nearly sobs at the satisfying stretch of him sinking into her eager flesh in one smooth thrust. He grinds his hips against her ass, relishing in the way her walls are hugging him so tightly. She clenches around him, trying to draw him back in as he eases his hips back only to roughly thrust his length back into her. He repeats that action a few more times to open her up before finally breaking loose.

All forms of speech beyond broken curse words and his name are lost to Ivy as Yeosang demolishes her. His pace builds till it’s almost frantic. It feels like his length is vibrating within her and she can feel her orgasm approaching quickly. She tries to warn him, but he is already well aware. He slows his hips down to a gentle roll and the change in pace has her seeing stars as he can now expertly target that sensitive spot deep within her. He reaches underneath her to rub circles in her clit and she’s lost. Black dots dance around across her vision as the pleasure threatens to completely drag her under. His hips never stop moving as he fucks her through it. The erratic clenching of her inner walls soon proves to be too much for him. He pulls out of her wet heat just in time to release his seed onto her back.

Ivy collapses onto her stomach. Exhausted beyond measure. Yeosang falls next to her breathing just as hard. He’s not going to lie and pretend that he hasn’t dived into more than his fair share of pussy, but that was easily the best sex he’s ever had. He can barely breathe but that doesn’t stop him from leaning over to press his lips against hers once more. Their chests are still heaving when they separate, choosing instead to lean his forehead against hers.

“I can’t feel my legs.” She whispers on a breathless laugh.

“Good thing I’m the king of aftercare.” He pecks her lips once more before crossing the room to her en suite bathroom to get a warm towel to clean her up with. By the time he returns, she’s fast asleep much to his surprise. Normally, Yeosang likes to end his trysts with a massage, but she’s sleeping so peacefully. He cleans up his mess before sliding back into the bed next to her as he pulls a spare blanket over them.

Yeosang awakens the next morning to an empty bed and the smell of coffee brewing. A shower is definitely in order before he seeks out Ms. Ivy. He walks into the kitchen a little while later to find her cooking breakfast in his t-shirt. It’s so domestic that for a moment he forgets that she’s legally spoken for until her wedding ring catches the sunlight from the picture windows.

“Morning.” He whispers into her ear. She jumps at the sound, obviously not realizing that he was awake yet. She relaxes against him when he wraps his arms around her midsection.

“Good morning, handsome. I’m almost done if you wanna grab some plates.” Yeosang preens at the compliment, kissing her cheek an obnoxious amount of times before grabbing plates and some silverware.

The sound of their forks clinking against their plates as they eat fills the pleasant silence as the two adults make faces across the table at each other like children. Yeosang can’t remember the last time he was this comfortable with a woman he was seeing. For the millionth time since he woke up this morning, he finds himself resenting the fact that she’s married.

“I can feel you staring.” Yeosang doesn’t bother looking up see Ivy’s facial expression at being caught as he rinses the last breakfast dish to put in the drying rack. “Spit it out before I get old and feeble.”

“What does the tattoo on your side say?” He looks up at her then, searching her face. Ivy is beginning to feel that she shouldn’t have said anything the longer Yeosang remains silent. He drys his hands on a towel, walking towards Ivy where she sits sprawled across one of the cushy armchairs in the living room. He lifts her only to set her back down in his lap.

“May you rescue us from the hand of every foe, ambush along the way, and from all manner of punishments that assemble to come to earth.” Yeosang absentmindedly strokes his fingers back and forth across Ivy’s bare thigh. “It’s part of a Hebrew prayer of protection that my mom made me get when she realized that her scolding was falling on deaf ears.”

Ivy can’t help but giggle as Yeosang enthusiastically re-enacts his mother’s words all those years ago. She’s seen the articles in the local magazines. They all tell the same story of a young street kid that found his calling and turned his life around, but words on a piece of paper doesn’t capture the nuance of who Kang Yeosang is. He doesn’t shy away from who he was. He embraces it with open arms. She listens intently as he tells the story that will never be found in any magazine. The story of how he successfully graduated from small-time dealing to running guns, drugs, and the occasional fine artifact when he was only twenty three.

“Would you do it differently if you had the chance?” Ivy picks at the hem of the Thriller he’d been wearing the day before as she awaits his answer. She’s admittedly shocked when he he gives an emphatic no.

“It wasn’t exactly something I could put on my resume, but it set this part of my life into motion.” She leans her head into the crook of his neck. Lulled into comfortable security by the vibration of his vocal cords. “I learned how to run a business. Granted, it was illegal, but I baked my first cake in jail which is what ultimately led to me opening the bakery and then meeting you.”

Time is a forgotten concept as they sit in the armchair sharing embarrassing childhood stories and fleeting kisses when they just can’t help themselves. That’s how Jin finds them. Giggling like teenagers that have finally earned closed door privileges. Yeosang freezes when he notices Jin’s still unsure how to act around him. Ivy on the other hand is excited to welcome her best friend back home.

“Jinnie!” She hops up to give him a quick hug and peck on the cheek before returning to her perch on Yeosang’s lap. Awkwardness is radiating off of the man beneath her in near tangible waves. He visibly relaxes when Ivy buries her fingers in the hair at the back of his head to scratch at his scalp.

“I missed you too, Vee. Good to see you again, Mr. Kang.” Jin winks conspiratorially at Yeosang as he cracks open the bottle of water he’d snagged from the refrigerator. “Take good care of my wife.” He adds as a parting shot on his way down the hall to his bedroom which sends Ivy into a fit of curses. Yeosang finds himself cracking a smile at the sound of Jin’s laughter somewhere down the hall.

It’s not the most conventional situation by any means, but Yeosang feels like he can make this work. He glances down at the grumbling woman in his arms. Yeah, he can definitely make this work.

Yeosang is elbow deep in bread dough for a new recipe he’s working on when he hears his phone ringing where he’d left it on the charger in his bedroom. He’s supposed to be heading to Ivy’s later tonight and he’s hoping to have her taste test his new bread when he gets there, meaning he can have no interruptions so he lets his phone go to voicemail. His phone rings again, but this time the song it plays catches his attention. The Alina Baraz song he’d set for Ivy’s ringtone drifts down the hallway. He instantly cracks a smile at the thought of the woman on the other end of that phone call. Passing up an opportunity to hear her voice is beyond Yeosang’s capabilities so he extracts himself from the dough, making a mad dash for the ringing device.

“Hey, babe.” She sniffles in his ear and all of his sense are suddenly on high alert. In all of the months since they started dating he can’t recall her crying. Ever. She’s just too happy. His mind runs through a myriad of horrible possibilities like film cuts. “Ivy, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“I need you.” Yeosang has absolutely no idea what’s going on but his heart feels like it’s being ripped in two at the sound of her crying. He pulls his phone away from his ear when it pings. He has to swallow to keep himself together when he sees that Ivy has sent him her location.

“I’m on my way, baby. I’m coming.”

The other cars on the road look like blurs as Yeosang weaves between and around them at break neck speed. The hospital that Ivy is at is supposed to be a twenty seven minute drive according to google maps, but Yeosang is parking his mustang exactly sixteen minutes later. He’s honestly surprised that he wasn’t pulled over on the way, but his euphoric disbelief is short-lived as he dashes towards the front doors of the hospital.

“Can I help you?” The woman manning the front looks at Yeosang with a barely concealed air of distaste. He follows her eyes to his tattooed arms on display in the short sleeved shirt he’s wearing. He’s still pretty much covered in flour from his bread making and he can tell that she doesn’t think much of him. Normally, he would make an attempt to assuage people like her and show that tattoos don’t make the man, but he doesn’t have time for that.

“I’m looking for Ivy Kim.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny whether or not we have someone here by that name.”

“Listen, lady if you-” Yeosang is on the verge of falling into the trap of the old wench’s bias when he hears his name being called. He turns his head to see Jin waving him over from where he’s holding the elevator doors open. He flips the old lady off, delighting in her scandalized gasp as he jogs towards the bay of elevators.

Now that he’s closer, Yeosang notices the cuts and bruises that litter his friend’s face. He looks like he’s been beat pretty good, but he brushes off any questions about what happened. Yeosang is on the verge of choking on his nerves as he follows Jin off of the elevator to room 437.

“I’m going to get some coffee. You guys need to talk.” Jin claps Yeosang on the shoulder once as he goes back the way they came.

He’d risked life and limb to get here, but now he’s afraid to take one more step. He has no idea what’s going on, but he can feel it in his bones that nothing will be the same once he steps through this door. Yeosang’s phone vibrates just then with a notification from the Nike app about some stuff he left in his cart. The little nike swoosh on his phone screen feels like a divine sign for him to stop being such a pussy and go in the room.

Seeing Ivy curled into a ball in the middle of the hospital bed is nearly his undoing. The tears steadily streaming down her face catch the light from the hallway when she turns her head to see who it is. A sob racks her figure as she reaches for him. Yeosang shuts the door, plunging the room back into darkness as he rushes to her side. He’s not used to her looking this fragile and it’s killing him. He kicks his shoes off and climbs into the bed next to her, careful not to jostle the IV needle in her arm. She leans into his touch as he brushes her hair away from her face. The fabric of his shirt is no match for the barrage of tears that Ivy dumps on it. He lets her cry until she has nothing left. For a moment he thinks that she’s fallen asleep, but she whispers something against the skin of his neck. Her voice is so low that he can’t make it out even with her lips being mere inches from his hair.

“You’ve gotta speak up for me, love.” This time when she speaks, he hears her loud and clear.

“I lost our baby.”

He can hear her saying something about a car accident and blood, but her words don’t register in his brain. Yeosang feels like the ground has opened up beneath him, but he’s not falling. Simply hovering, drifting in the void. He hadn’t even known she was pregnant and that’s definitely something Ivy would have told him so he’s guessing that she didn’t know either. Visions of a tiny child with her doe-like eyes and his nose flash across his minds eye. Yeosang has never given much thought to being a father, but knowing that he’d created a child with Ivy only for them to be ripped away like this is tearing him apart. He holds her impossibly close, trying to anchor himself to reality. Tears are flowing down his own face as he attempts to process what they’ve lost.

“This is all my fault.” The guilt in her voice is nearly palpable. Yeosang cups her face in his hands to force her to look him in the eye.

“You did nothing wrong, Ivy. Get that thought out of you head right now, do you hear me?” Ivy nods her head slowly but Yeosang is not naive. No matter what he says, it’s going to take a while before she actually believes the truth in his words.

Jin hates to interrupt them. He loathes it, but life is cruel and Ivy’s parents just texted him that they just parked their car and are on their way inside. His feet feel heavy as he treks back down the hallway. He pokes his head into the dark room and winces at the muffled sound of them crying together.

“I’m so sorry guys, but Ivy’s parents are on their way up.” Yeosang gets the urge to laugh despite the fact that absolutely nothing is funny. This is just adding insult to injury.

Ivy clings to him like a koala when he tries to stand and he’s got half a mind to say fuck the consequences and stay. That wouldn’t be fair to Jin though. He harbors no ill will towards the man even though he’s living the life he wants so for his sake, he extricates himself from Ivy’s grasp to put his shoes on. Her bottom lip quivers dangerously as he leans down to softly kiss her forehead. Jin pulls Yeosang into a hug before he can walk past him and it takes a herculean effort for Yeosang to keep it together. His heart aches with every step he takes towards the exit stairs. It feels like someone is taking a jackhammer to his chest.

He leans his head back against the headrest when he finally reaches his car. A pained yell bursts from his throat before he can even think of trying to stop it. His horn beeps erratically as he pounds at his steering wheel in anger. Yeosang has been through hell in his twenty six years on Earth and yet, he can’t recall a time when he’s ever felt this much mental anguish and despair. Part of him wishes that he’d never stopped slinging coke and running the streets because he’d have never met Ivy and thus would’ve never experienced this. He hates that thought the second it materializes.

The shrill ringing of an old school phone that Yunho had insisted on having as his ringtone breaks through his misery. Yeosang has no desire to utter a word to anyone other than Ivy but Yunho is a persistent bastard. He’ll just keep calling until he gets an answer. He clears his throat and hopes that his childhood best friend is having an off day with those damn spidey senses of is.

“Hello?”

“Dude, have you been crying? No wonder my spirit is unsettled. The fuck is going on?” So much for eluding Yunho’s questions. Yeosang huffs out a shaky breath. He’s not even sure he’s even fully grasped what’s going on himself. He can hear the sound of keys jingling on Yunho’s end.

“Listen, I’m gonna go buy an obnoxious amount of alcohol and then I’m coming over to you place. See you in twenty.” Yunho doesn’t wait for a response, hanging up the phone with a sense of finality.

True to his word, Yunho’s car is parked in front of his building when Yeosang makes it home. His car is empty, so he’s guessing that he must have used his key and gone inside already. He’s not surprised to find Yunho nursing a beer on his couch as he scrolls through something on his phone. His eyes widen slightly as he takes in Yeosang’s haggard appearance. He knows he looks like shit so Yunho’s reaction isn’t unexpected.

It’s nearly three in the morning when they finally crash. Yunho is passed out in the guest room but sleep evades him despite the multiple beers swirling through his system. If he was sober, he probably wouldn’t make this decision, but he’s far from it so he reaches for his phone to FaceTime Ivy. The second her face replaces his on the screen, Yeosang immediately feels like he can breathe again. He’d been avoiding the feeling before now, but after everything that’s happened in the last twenty four hours? He’s tired of beating around the bush.

“I love you, Ivy.” The smile that spreads across her tired face brings Yeosang so much joy. There’s no telling how long it’s been since she’s graced the world with one of her radiant smiles. He takes it as a victory that he was the one to bring that out of her.

“I love you too, Yeosang.”

#ksmutclub #kang yeosang #ateez #ateez yeosang #ateez fanfiction #yeosang fanfic #yeosang x black oc #yeosang smut #yeosang fluff #yeosang angst #yeosang x poc oc #ateez scenarios #ateez smut #ateez fluff

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dragons-bones · 4 years ago

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FFXIV Write Entry #26: Lunch Dates

Prompt: when pigs fly | Master Post | On AO3

Head empty for so long, forced this out while missing my absolutely favorite ramen joint in all of Boston. I would kill a man for a bowl of tonkotsu as big as my head right now.

“Oh my gods where is she.”

Alakhai held up the fore, middle fingers, and thumb of her right hand, holding them straight, and then snapped those three digits closed in a locking motion. Then she immediately followed it up with a derisive flick of her two fingers.

Rereha raised both of her hands and flicked back twice with a sneer.

“Ladies,” Heron said without looking up from her book.

Alakhai rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, and Rereha sighed dramatically, bracing herself on her palms and leaning back on the bench, kicking her legs.

“Sorry I’m late!”

All three women looked up to see Synnove jogging towards them from the direction of the aetheryte plaza, wearing the halter top, rough canvas work pants, and heavy boots she would throw on before one of her gathering expeditions for crystals or ore or gems. Her sledgehammer and pick were slung over her shoulder, and Tyr trotted next to her, converted saddlebags slung over his back stuffed full of material.

Alakhai shuffled over on the bench and Synnove slid in next to her, setting her tools down on the ground and then leaning over to help Tyr out of the saddlebags and shoving them with a chime of crystals under the table. Tyr hopped onto the stool, carefully settling his tails around himself so they wouldn’t be stepped on by a waitress or other patron, and boofed happily when Heron reached over to scratch his neck.

Rereha pushed herself upright, hands raised in the air. “All right, we can eat!” she sang out, doing a happy dance in her seat.

One of the waitresses, Tatsu, came over and she smiled and bowed to them. “The usual, ladies?” she said.

“Yes, please!” they said in chorus.

Tatsu turned to Tyr. “And for you?”

The carbuncle made a deep burbling noise as he thought, ears flicking back and forth, before he finally mrowed. The katsudon, please! And some miso soup on the side?

“Of course,” the waitress said with another bow. As she rose, she made her way towards the ramen stall, calling out in rapidfire Hingan.

The group of friends settled in to wait with a round of gossip. Synnove had spent the morning out in the hills of Onokoro, collecting elemental crystals for a test back at the Guild, plus searching for spinels for another experiment. “Not carbuncle summoning,” she said with a wave of her hand, “but testing for suitably for industrial use of some sort. Any of the nicer specimens, of course, we’ll cut ourselves and sell to go into the Guild coffers.”

Alakhai would be teleporting to the Doman Enclave later for a promised sparring match with Yugiri. “Need to brush up on some of the traditional shinobi bladework versus the rogues’ style,” she murmured, sipping at her tea. Heron, meanwhile, had finished a short bodyguard contract for a Hannish merchant the previous night and was indulging in some sightseeing and shopping in Kugane before heading home. And Rereha was attending a complete, full day performance of a kabuki play entitled Kanadehon Chushingura (Rereha sounded it out carefully in the measured way of forcing the Echo not to translate it) at the Mujikoza.

“Of course, since half the audience are foreigners, there’s a two-bell intermission so everyone can get lunch,” Rere chirped.

“Hence your impatience for Synnove to arrive,” Heron drawled.

“Listen, I need at least three bowls of the good stuff to get me through the rest of this show, they don’t let you snack during the performance.”

At that moment, Tatsu returned with one of her sisters in tow, both of them carrying large trays. They set them on the edge of the table as the group cheered, and then began passing out the steaming bowls of ramen.

“Large tonkotsu with extra noodles, pork belly, egg, bamboo shoots, and seaweed,” the waitress said cheerfully as she set that one in front of Rereha.

“Aw, yeeeeaaaaaah.”

“Large tonkotsu with extra noodles, pork belly, egg, steamed fish cake, and bean sprouts.”

Alakhai grinned, the limbal rings around her irises glinting.

“Large tonkotsu with extra noodles, pork belly, egg, seaweed, corn, and butter.”

“I know I’m a heathen foreigner and I thank you and grandmother for indulging me,” Synnove gushed, rubbing her hands together as her bowl was placed in front of her.

Tatsu laughed. “You are not the first foreigner to ask for unusual toppings, and Grandmother enjoys expanding her palate! And for Heron, large tonkotsu with extra noodles, pork belly, chicken, extra egg, and bamboo shoots.”

Heron sighed happily and took a deep, appreciative sniff of her bowl.

“And last but certainly not least, for Master Tyr, the katsudon, miso soup—and four soft-boiled eggs, halved.”

Tyr boofed in delight, his feet tappity-tapping happily on his stool. Oh, thank you, Tatsu!

Each of the dishes had a generous sprinkling of green onion on top—extra for both Heron and Tyr—and Tatsu and her sister passed out chopsticks, soup spoons, napkins, and jars of condiments: hot sauce, plum sauce, tonkatsu sauce, and minced garlic. The waitresses bowed. “Please enjoy!” they chorused, and went to help another customer.

Tyr had been given a wide, shallow bowl for his katsudon to make it easier for him to have a mouthful of all three of the rice, fried cutlet, and eggs at once, and he chewed with a table rattling purr. Synnove poured a serving of the tonkatsu sauce on half his katsudon, and Tyr burbled his thanks, alternating bites of non-sauce with sauce covered lunch, sips of miso, and halves of egg.

The two-leggers dug in with equal gusto as the carbuncle; Rereha added enough hot sauce to her ramen that the broth turned a violent red—“I can enjoy bowls two and three plain, I gotta blow my brains out first!”—and almost immediately started sweating with the first bite of noodle and pork belly she shoved into her mouth. Alakhai went heavy on the minced garlic, and loaded up her spoon with broth and egg and sprouts, slurping it up with a pleased hum. Heron enjoyed her ramen without anything for her initial few bites, savoring noodles and broth and toppings all, before adding a dash of the plum sauce and a bit of minced garlic. Synnove went without any of the condiments for this serving, instead letting her pat of butter melt and muddle into the broth and expertly using her chopsticks to pop her egg into her mouth, following it with a slurp of broth.

They ate in silence, focused on the good food, working at a fast, methodical pace—the joys of working their arses off for a living was needing to keep their energy levels up—until, as one, they all lifted up their bowls and slurped the remaining broth until the vessels were empty. At that point, Tatsu arrived with fresh servings and took away the used dishes. For round two, their pace was much more leisurely, and they began to chat once more.

“Do you think if we give her one of those fancy spinels, Grandma Tsuru will finally share the secret of her magical broth?” Rereha said around a mouthful of noodles.

Her friends all snorted.

“That woman is unbribable,” Alakhai said.

“And you are in the unfortunate situation of not being a blood relative,” said Synnove, drizzling more tonkatsu sauce onto Tyr’s fresh serving of katsudon.

“Also, it means we keep giving her our business and gil,” Heron said with a snicker.

Rereha huffed and turned around, shouting towards where the old woman who made the best ramen in Kugane sat chopping green onions, “Hey, Grandma Tsuru! When will you give me your tonkotsu recipe?”

“When you can go one day without a smartass comment!” Grandma Tsuru hollered back.

“Oh, godsdamnit.”

Synnove, Heron, and Alakhai all began cackling as Rereha sulkily slurped more noodles.

#ffxivwrite2020 #final fantasy xiv #oc: rereha reha #oc: alakhai noykin #oc: dancing heron #oc: synnove greywolfe #synnove's carbuncles #dt's writing #also included some more squad hand signs #i think the context lets you figure out what they mean ;)

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ktwritesstuff · 4 years ago

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twin size mattress (a cobra kai fanfic) pt. iii

Title: twin size mattress Fandom: Cobra Kai Rating: M Characters: Robby Keene, Johnny Lawrence, Original Characters Summary: Robby and his foster sister have a heart-to-heart. Set post-season 2. See previous chapter for more notes. Content Warning: Mature themes, death mentioned, vulgar language

iii. But I will help you swim. I will help you swim. I'm gonna help you swim.

There was a point on Sunday morning when Robby became aware of his alarm sounding. There was a moment of struggle between sleep and wakefulness, but ultimately sleep prevailed. The next time he opened his eyes, the clock on his bedside table read 9:38. Robby sat up in bed. The alarm had been silenced and his freshly laundered and pressed shirt and pants were waiting on hangers on the closet door.

He jumped in the shower, thankful that Amy had gone over where to find everything the day before, and got dressed in a hurry. By the time he made it to the kitchen it looked like the rest of the house was finishing with breakfast

“Don’t you look nice,” Amy greeted him, pouring hot water from the kettle into a mug. Hector was at the table eating a plate of scrambled eggs.

“Roll up your sleeves and you won’t look so much like a Mormon,” Jordana quipped as she loaded the dishwasher.

“Don’t tease him,” Amy said. “He looks very handsome.”

Begrudgingly, Robby unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt to fold them over and scrunched the crisp fabric up toward his elbows.

“No time for a hot breakfast,” Amy instructed him. “Cereal is in the cupboard.”

Robby opened the pantry and found a box of off-brand frosted flakes and poured himself a bowl.

“Do you have coffee?” he asked as Amy handed him the milk from the fridge.

“You don’t need that much caffeine,” she said. “Do you want tea? It’s nothing special, but it’s hot.”

Robby said that he would try it and she dropped another tea bag into a mug and poured the remaining hot water from the kettle over it. She passed him a jar of honey and a slice of lemon.

“Give it another minute or two to steep,” she advised.

The resulting reddish-brown liquid was a little bitter, but even before the honey and lemon it was a heck of a lot more palatable than the powdered green stuff that Mr. LaRusso had painstakingly whisked up for him a time or two, before Robby finally admitted he couldn’t stand the stuff. To be quite honest, Robby suspected Mr. LaRusso hadn’t cared much for traditional matcha either, and was just excited to share the ritual with Robby the way Mr. Miyagi had shared it with him.

Robby took another big gulp of tea, not minding that it was still hot enough to burn a little on the way down. Though it wasn’t quite as bracing as a cup of coffee, with a big spoonful of honey and lemon it was actually pretty good.

“Out the door in ten minutes,” Amy instructed.

Robby finished his cereal, cleaned up after himself, and brushed his teeth with just a few moments to spare before Amy ushered them all out the door and into the little Altima. Jordana was in the passenger seat upfront and Robby sat in the backseat with Hector.

Before Amy started the car and the radio came on, Robby had never heard gospel music. After the twenty minute ride to the church he had decided that it was similar to pop music, except that when you listened to the lyrics they were all about Jesus instead of sex.

Although Robby couldn’t remember the last time he had been to a church, he wasn’t a complete heathen. He had been baptized by a friend of his dad’s when he was a baby. He was confident he could remember the Our Father and Hail Mary if someone held a gun to his head. And he knew who the dude on the cross was supposed to be, even if they weren’t on speaking terms.

The sign outside the church read ‘Our Lady of Perpetual Help.’ A short, heavyset man greeted them on the steps and held the door for them. In the vestibule, Amy dipped her fingers in a bowl of water near the door and crossed herself before heading inside. Hector did the same. Robby wasn’t sure if he should attempt to mimic them and decided against it.

Amy ushered them all into one of the rows and bent one knee to cross herself again before taking the seat on the end. She brought a little stool down from under the bench in front of them and knelt on it, folding her hands to pray. Hector followed her example, but on the other side of him Jordana sat rigid, her eyes fixed forward, so Robby stayed seated, too.

The mass started with an out of tune organ accompanying a couple of songs sung poorly by an older woman with frizzy red hair. Robby got the impression she expected the congregation to sing along and was disappointed when she was joined by just a few half-hearted voices.

Over the course of the next hour everyone stood up then sat down. Then they stood up while someone read from the Bible, then they sat down while the priest talked for close to twenty minutes. Then they stood up again, then knelt. Then everyone got up and held hands during a prayer. Hector reached for his hand, so Robby took it, although the words turned out to be a little different from what he remembered.

Then everyone shook hands and told one another “peace be with you.” Hector shook his hand and Amy shook his hand, then the couple in the seats in front of them turned around and he had to shake their hands, too, or it would have been weird. Then everyone knelt again. The whole experience was way more confusing than the kata Mr. LaRusso had taught him, and he had no idea how anyone could be expected to meditate while keeping track of it all.

After a few more prayers, everyone started walking up to the front to take the bread and wine, so when Amy and Hector stood, Robby got up as well. But then Jordana grabbed him by his belt and pulled him back down into his seat.

“You can’t take communion if you’re not Catholic,” she hissed at him. “They get real funny about it.”

“Oh,” Robby said. “What about you?”

“Can’t take communion when you’re in a state of mortal sin either,” she said.

Robby wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but he was pretty sure it would have excluded him from communion even if he were Catholic.

Once everyone had returned to their seats, it was just a few more prayers and songs before the whole thing was over and Amy had them back in the car.

On the drive home, Robby thought about survival. He knew he needed money. He couldn’t stay with Amy forever, and there was no way he was moving back in with Johnny when he turned 18. But the terms of his probation kept his options pretty limited.

He had to stay in school. He had to do community service—which would take up most of his Saturdays. Amy insisted on church on Sundays. They’d signed him up for Track & Field which met four times a week after school. He had to keep his appointments with his counselor and his probation officer could drop in on him whenever he saw fit. Even if he had time to find a job, let alone work one, he doubted anyone would be excited to hire a 17-year-old delinquent with no car and no experience.

There wasn’t a hustle he could think of that wouldn’t violate his probation, but the alternative was ending up on the street the moment he turned 18.

Back at the house, Amy and Jordana were in the kitchen making chicken and tater-tots for lunch while Hector sat in the living room painstakingly reading a book about penguins. Robby threw a random pile of his clothes into the hamper in his room and carried it around to the kitchen.

“Is it alright if I work on some laundry?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” Amy said, her hands coated in buttermilk and breadcrumbs. “Give a shout if you need help.”

Robby slipped down the stairs and into the laundry. He hit the fill button on the wash and tossed in all his clothes with a capful of detergent and closed the lid.

He came out of the laundry room and stole a quick glance up the stairs just to be sure everyone was still occupied, before he slipped into Jordana’s room. He knew it was a bad idea before he did it, but it was the best he could manage under the circumstances. Girls always had tons of stuff--maybe there was something small, something she wouldn’t miss (at least not right away,) something valuable enough to sell.

He was disappointed to find Jordana kept her room incredibly neat. He got the sense that she knew where everything was. Her bed was made with a white comforter and faux fur pillows. She had her own minifridge under the desk. Instead of a closet, she had an open clothes rack with dresses, blouses, purses and shoes all carefully arranged in the corner.

Robby didn’t know much about fashion, but he could tell some of Jordana’s things were really nice--even nicer than Sam’s. Of course he didn’t dare touch them. Instead he tried her messenger bag on the desk. She had a laptop, but she’d obviously notice if it disappeared.

She had sketchbooks and textbooks on fashion and marketing. And shoved into one of the inner pockets of the bag, under a wad of tissues he found a baggy of cannabis flowers and a handpipe. That was something he could work with. Even when she did notice it was gone, he doubted she’d be forthcoming with Amy about her pot going missing.

“Are you kidding me?”

Robby closed the messenger bag and did his best to appear nonchalant. He had meant for the sound of the washer to cover any noise he made routing around, but apparently it had also kept him from noticing Jordana coming down the stairs. She came into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Two days,” she said. “You couldn’t go two days without stealing something? I guess you really are fucked up.”

Robby knew she would tell Amy. Amy would call Rhonda and he’d be stuck in a group home with a garbage bag full of wet clothes later that day. But Jordana didn’t scream. She didn’t yell. The more he watched her, he realized she didn’t even look angry. She actually looked bored.

“You want it, take it,” she said. “Just don’t smoke it in the house--Hector’s got asthma.”

Robby stood frozen, unsure if she was setting him up. That she would tell Amy the drugs were his and get him back that way.

“What?” she challenged him as he watched her, trying to guess her next move. “You want money? I’ve got like 26 bucks--it’s yours if you just stay out of Amy’s shit, okay?”

She went into one of the purses arranged on the clothes rack and pulled a few folded bills out of a small leather wallet and held them out to him.

“Aren’t you going to tell?” he said, uncertain.

Jordana laughed. “You want me to break her heart? You can do that for yourself.”

“Why aren’t you pissed?” Robby stammered. Again, Jordana rolled her eyes.

“You think I wasn’t pulling this same crap when I got here?”

The last words struck him.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Amy’s not my birth mom, dingus,” Jordana scoffed at him. “I guess you think all black people are related?”

“She said you were her daughter,” Robby said, defensive.

“She adopted me,” Jordana said. He could tell the ‘duh’ was implied. “When I was fourteen.”

Robby blinked. He didn’t even know teenagers could get adopted.

“My mom died when I was little. My gran had diabetes real bad--eventually she got too sick to take care of me,” Jordana explained, quickly, as though she was trying to get the words out all at once. “I was in the system for a couple of years before I got here. I was pretty messed up, but Amy took me to visit my gran whenever I wanted. I didn’t have any other family so she was able to adopt me.”

Robby felt a familiar pang of envy. How good must it have felt to be chosen, to be wanted. He had thought he had found that once.

“I’m really sorry,” he said, handing her the bag of pot. “It won’t happen again.”

“You can’t con a con, kid,” Jordana warned him. “I know we’re not going to be friends. But Amy cares about you and I love Amy, so I’m genuinely going to try to give you a chance.”

“I thought you hated me,” he said.

“You thought I hated you?” Jordana snapped. “You got here and you wouldn’t even look at me. What was I supposed to think?”

Robby frowned. He hadn’t considered that.

“It...wasn’t about you,” he tried to reassure her. Jordana did not look persuaded.

“For a while,” he continued. “I was staying with my girlfriend’s family. It went bad. I was worried that if I paid too much attention to you things would go bad again.”

This time Jordana laughed. She laughed and laughed as though it were the funniest thing in the world. Robby wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or offended.

“Woo, buddy,” she said at last. “You are barking up the wrong tree.”

“Obviously,” he agreed.

“Look,” Jordana held the neatly folded bills out to him again, sympathetic, pitying. “If it’ll make you feel better, just take the money, okay? You don’t have to go around stealing shit.”

Robby reached out and touched the cash. He hadn’t intended to actually take it, but the moment he had the paper between his fingers he felt a wave of relief wash over him.

“Why?” he asked.

“I already told you,” she said. “I fucked up. I don’t want you to make the same mistakes. I’m not putting her through that again--not if I can help it.”

Robby took the money and pocketed it before she could change her mind. He wondered what Jordana had done that made her feel so bad, but he didn’t dare ask. He didn’t think she liked him, but he did believe her.

#cobra kai #cobra kai fic #robby keene

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justlookfrightened · 5 years ago

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Zimbits bingo post #1

“Your dog is in my yard again”

Bitty looked out the kitchen window and sighed.

The dog from across the way was in his yard again.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like dogs. Dogs were great. They were warm and furry and wagged their tails and could be taught to sit and lie down and come when called and STAY WHERE THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO BE.

Which was not in Bitty’s backyard, drooling at the gate of his chicken coop.

Bitty growled, grabbed the broom from its hook next to the back door, and headed outside.

Not that he’d actually hit the dog or anything. He just wanted to be able to keep his distance. The dog was a black and white pit bull, probably more than 50 pounds, with a massive head, and Bitty had heard things about pit bulls. About how they clamped down and never let go. While the dog didn’t look threatening now, who knew what it would do when confronted?

Well. Bitty had a pretty good idea, because this was the second time this week and the fourth time this month that he’d had to shoo the dog out his yard.

At least the coop was strong and secure. Coach probably never thought that when he taught Bitty to build things he was just encouraging his baking habit; Bitty had decided to get chickens as soon as he moved to a house with enough property to care for them because he wanted the constant access to fresh eggs. But now his chickens were pets as much as egg suppliers,and he’d be heartbroken if this goldang dog hurt any of them.

He stalked out the back door brandishing the broom.

“Hey!” he yelled. “You! Skedaddle!”

The dog turned from the coop to face Bitty, tail up, ears pricked forward, tongue lolling out.

Did that mean he was mad? He certainly didn’t look scared.

Bitty jabbed the bristles of the broom in the dog’s direction.

“Go ‘way,” he said. “Get!”

Instead of running, the dog jumped towards the end of the broom, trying to pounce on the bristles. The dog ended up down on its elbows, rear end in the air, tail waving like mad. Bitty could have sworn the dog was smiling at him. It didn’t seem mad.

“No, I don’t want to play,” Bitty said, swinging the broom towards the dog yet again, even more careful not to hit … him? her? It. Definitely it.

The dog stood up and trotted back towards the rear of the yard, a blue identification tag swinging merrily from its red collar. If Bitty got close enough, he could maybe get the owner’s name. At least an address or phone number, so he could give the guy a piece of his mind.

Bitty followed at a distance, watching the dog slip under a loose section of chain-link fence at the bottom the yard then bound up onto the back deck of the house not directly opposite, but one over.

Well, at least Bitty knew where the dog lived now.

That evening, Bitty buttoned up his shirt, shined his shoes and tied his favorite red bow tie around his neck. Maybe it was overkill, but Bitty knew he had a baby face, and he didn’t know what he was walking into. What kind of owner would that big black dog have? Someone who liked to intimidate people? Or a family that didn’t know they were harboring a potential chicken-killer?

Bitty hoped the jaunty red tie would strike the right note either way.

He picked up the pecan pie he’d baked in a disposable tin that afternoon and a plastic container with a half-dozen eggs and marched himself out the front door, down the sidewalk, and around to the other side of the block.

If he wasn’t sure he had the right house (a mid-size colonial with blue shingles), he could have told from the deep barking that came from inside as soon as he rang the bell.

He could just write a note and leave it with the eggs and pie …

The door opened.

The guy definitely was big. And buff. And way underdressed, at least compared to Bitty, in loose athletic shorts and a dri-fit T-shirt. His dark hair wasn’t long but managed to look a bit of a mess anyway. His light blue eyes felt ice-cold as they stared down at the offerings in Bitty’s hands.

“We don’t need any —”

“I’m not selling —”

There was a snuffling noise, and Bitty looked down, taking in the man’s highlighter-yellow sneakers along with the black muzzle of the dog, trying to work it’s way around the man’s knee.

Bitty took a large step back, almost falling down the top step in the process. The man’s leg straightened, effectively penning the dog in the house.

“Puck, sit,” the man said. “Sorry about her.”

Well, that was one question answered.

“What do you need?” the man asked, still brusque, but maybe not quite as terse as before.

“I wanted to give you these,” Bitty said, holding up his offerings.

“Ooo-kay,” the man said, not reaching to take the pie or the eggs. “Who are you? I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“I’m your neighbor from around the other side of the block. Eric Bittle.”

“Are you bringing everyone eggs and pie?”

Now the man just looked puzzled. At least he wasn’t grumpy anymore. But Bitty was probably going to make him grumpy again.

“Um, no,” Bitty said. “It’s your dog.”

“The pie is for my dog?” Jack said, glancing down at the dog, who was staring at Bitty from behind the man with … was that a hopeful expression?

“No,” Bitty said. “The pie and the eggs are for you. I don’t even know if a dog can eat pecan pie.”

“No,” the man said. “Pecans aren’t good for dogs. But she can eat eggs. In moderation.”

Bitty stopped his eyes from rolling at the last comment. This man clearly took his diet — and probably his dog’s diet — seriously. Maybe pie hadn’t been the way to go?

“Of course,” Bitty said. “I meant I wanted to talk to you about your dog. It — She keeps getting into my yard, and she’s terrorizing my chickens.”

The blue eyes blinked as the man processed that.

“You brought me pie because my dog is scaring your chickens?” he finally said.

“And eggs,” Bitty said. “Really, I just wanted to ask you to please keep the dog in your yard.”

The man nodded.

“You’re the one with the chickens,” he said. “I wondered. I heard them.”

“I don’t have a rooster because I didn’t want to wake the neighborhood every day ...” Bitty started.

“No, not that,” the man said. “I’m usually up early anyway. I heard the … clucking? I guess … when I went for a run in the morning the other day, when it was really quiet, and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.”

Bitty’s arms were starting to get tired from holding the pie and eggs, but he didn’t dare set them on the step, especially if dogs shouldn’t eat pecans.

“Um, can you take the pie, Mr. —” Bitty thrust it towards the neighbor again.

“Zimmermann,” the man said. “Jack Zimmermann. I’m sorry, I didn’t know Puck had been getting out. I travel a lot for work, and I just got back a couple of hours ago. I have a friend who comes and takes care of her when I’m gone, but he didn’t say anything about her escaping. But I don’t really eat a lot of pie.”

Jack took the pie anyway, and the eggs, and set them on a table inside the door.

Bitty let his arms relax and said, “It’s happened several times now, usually a couple of days in a row, in the afternoon, and then not for a few days. I followed her today to see which yard she went into. I live behind you and over one.”

“Huh,” Jack said. “Okay. The yard is fenced —”

“She’s getting under it,” Bitty said.

Jack nodded.

“That would explain the scratches I found on her back. Shitty said she hadn’t run into any other dogs. He didn’t mention chickens.”

Shitty? Bitty silently mouthed.

“With all due respect,” he said, “how would Sh — your friend knew what she encountered? If she’d getting out of the yard.”

“He probably hasn’t realized,” Jack said. “He likes to stay here when I’m gone because it’s quiet and he can study — he’s a law student — so he probably thinks she’s in the yard while he’s studying. Hold on, he hasn’t gone home yet.”

The man, Jack Zimmermann, turned to call into the house, “Shitty! Can you come out here please?”

The dog, Puck, took the opportunity when Jack turned to get out, coming right up to Bitty. Instead of jumping, she was snuffling around his knees while Bitty stood stock-still, hands up in what he hoped was a non-threatening pose.

“Puck!” Jack turned back. “Sorry about that. We have to keep working with the trainer, especially on ‘stay,’ but I’m pretty busy. You can pet her — she likes people.”

Bitty very gingerly lowered his right hand, reaching past Puck’s head (well away from her mouth) to pat her muscled shoulder. She turned and bumped his hand with her head, swiping across the palm with a wet nose.

Bitty’s fingers found themselves resting behind her ear, so he obliged her by scratching. Puck let out a contented sigh.

“Who’s this, Jackabelle?”

Jack had been joined by a man in nothing but Wonder Woman briefs. His shaggy hair was a mess, including the full mustache, and his eyes looked tired.

“This is my neighbor Eric,” Jack said.

Shitty stuck out a hand to shake. “Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Did you bring that pie? It smells delicious.”

“It is delicious,” Eric said, because while Jack had been polite, Bitty was not used to having his baked goods ignored to this extent.

“And the eggs,” Jack said. “From his chickens. Which apparently Puck has been terrorizing in the afternoons.”

“She has?” Shitty asked. “But she goes out and then she’s still in the yard —”

“She’s back in the yard when you notice her,” Jack said. “I’ll have to get the fence reinforced. Or install a new one she can’t get under. In the meantime, she has to go out on a leash. Or a tie-out in the yard, I guess, if she wants to play fetch or something. But I don’t want her tied up alone. Only if you stay outside with her, all right?”

“Sure, brah, whatever,” Shitty said. “Wouldn’t want the Puck-princess to get hurt, would we?”

He glanced at Bitty. “Or to hurt your chickens. Sorry, man.”

“Yes, I’m sorry my dog has been bothering you,” Jack said. “Puck, come.”

The dog reluctantly got up from where she had settled half on Bitty’s foot.

“You’re not going to invite your neighbor in to share a slice of that pie?” Shitty said. “What kind of heathen are you?”

“I —”

“You don’t have to,” Bitty said, even though he was kind of curious now. A tall, gorgeous man with a sort-of-trained dog and his friend who seemed to think clothes were optional? Jack said Shitty — really, Shitty? — stayed when he was traveling, but that had been three weeks in the past month. What did he do?

“He doesn’t have to, he wants to,” Shitty said to Bitty, then he turned to Jack with a look Bitty couldn’t interpret. “Don’t you, Jackie-boy?”

“Fine,” Jack said. Bitty somehow thought the exasperation was more for Shitty than for him.

“If you don’t want just pie, I could make an omelet,” Bitty said. “If you have some vegetables.”

“Even better,” Shitty said. “All the protein even you could ask for.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Bitty squinted one eye open and looked at the clock. The sun was up. Almost seven. Puck would have to go out.

She must have heard Bitty move because she bounded onto the bed and lay on top of him, her elbows pinning his shoulders while he she tried to lick at his face.

“Puck, get off,” he said, holding her midsection with his hands and rolling over, dumping her onto her back next to him. He sat up, scratched her belly for a moment, and got out of bed to find his running clothes. Bitty had learned that a nice run in the morning did wonders for her behaviour the rest of the day, and it was good for him as well,

Then he would have time to feed the chickens, make a couple of videos and tidy the house. Jack would be home late tonight, after his game in St. Louis. There should be plenty of eggs to make an omelet for their breakfast tomorrow.

Tagging: @zimbitsbingo

Read Chapter 2: Mutual Pining

Read on AO3

#zimbits #my fic #zimbitsbingo

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kinetic-elaboration · 4 years ago

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November 25: 1x25 Devil in the Dark

This episode truly is one of the greats. Like I remember that about it, and yet it is also always even better than expected.

I forgot how many nifty 50s looking painted background this show had, but they’re really beautiful.

The Enterprise is coming to save the day!

Wow that random miner was right, his phaser was useless.

See, the Horta tried to destroy just the machines first; she was being very nice and reasonable.

Something “big and shaggy” lol. Well, I guess that’s sort of accurate?

Jim looked so smug when Ed Appel said he was tough. “Oh yeah I am, I’m tough and I have a big ship.”

Spock, stop playing with that egg! I know it’s very aesthetically pleasing.

I feel like Spock doesn’t like Vanderberg very much.

Acid monster!

I’m glad they explain why exactly this pergium stuff is important because otherwise it just looks like “well capitalism must go on” as opposed to “this resource is used to keep whole planets functioning and without it people die.”

What a smart Horta. Taking the machine that the mean people use to survive.

Spock legitimately seems so amused by this whole thing. I love that particular Spock attitude: fascinated and slightly detached.

I love Scotty. “Yeah, I can make that old, obscure, outdated part myself.” What a nerd.

Spock’s still thinking about that pretty purple ball.

Silicon based life, you say. That’s an interesting concept. Kind of forgot that was part of the whole Horta thing.

Phaser one and Phaser two.... what a good retcon of why they have two different phaser designs.

Spock finally gets to be right about stuff!

“You seem fascinated by this rock.”

“Dr. McCoy’s been mean enough to me today, I don’t want to say anymore.” Spock’s bullying flashbacks lol.

I distinctly remember a meme using this exact shot of Kirk and the line of red shirts and the line “I want no more deaths” in the subtitles.

I love these cave sets.

So they discover that the Horta would make very good tunnels for them.

It’s an ASBESTOS monster??? That didn’t age well.

The last of a race of creatures... to kill it would be a crime against science.

This is like the salt vampire but with a happy ending.

Kirk doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for random creatures, at least not in the abstract. He always wants to protect his people first.

I love that Spock was JUST TOLD they were going to kill it and then he's like "Yeah but what if we captured it instead don't tell the Captain?"

This scene is hilarious because it starts with Kirk telling Spock “who’s the Captain here?” and then very quickly pivots to Jim being protective of Spock, and then this comical interlude with the math, and then Jim just being really turned on by Spock and the math. A little amused but also really in love.

Did Jim... memorize the chart? He just knows where all the tunnels go.

The Horta looks kind of like an ugly muppet.

Jim acknowledging Vulcan telepathy/mind melding as a very personal and intimate thing for Vulcans, and very difficult, because it involves taking down mental barriers.... very interesting. Very, very interesting.

She’s in agony because you took a big old chunk out of her YOU HEATHENS.

Love that Kirk calls McCoy to care for “a patient” without specifying who it is lol.

I love McCoy’s face when he watches Spock meld with the Horta. Like he doesn’t know what kind of nonsense this is but he’s also impressed. Like “Spock and the Horta are So Dramatic...but that’s pretty cool he can do that.”

Kirk is ready to kill for the Horta.

As am I.

She’s the mother of her race... intelligent, peaceful, mild.

Lol at “why are they down here?” / “This is where they live!” Why do you think they’re done here, fool?

Jim is very fond of Bones too. He can cure a rainy day!

Also not to get into it but like I was legit thinking about Sevin a bit during that scene.

What a happy ending. Everyone gets what they want. A good partnership. Lots of little Hortas.

Most unbelievable thing about this episode is how Kirk and Bones pretend that they don’t understand why the Horta liked Spock’s ears.

Fuck this was such a good ep. Lots of Kirk being a great captain, ordering people around, coming up with plans, being authoritative, gathering information, but also caring about people, and aliens, defending the innocent, brokering peace. I loved the way he just knelt down and talked to the Horta when he found her. Just showing he was open to communicating.

And an excellent Space Husbands ep too. Like generally I don’t think they actually got together until post-5 year mission / TMP but this is one of those episodes that you could read as like an established relationship. Spock calling Kirk “Sir” a lot just to really conspicuously switch to “Jim” later. Two distinct scenes where they are being protective of each other. Spock’s “Screw science, kill it now” attitude when Jim is in danger.

Got some good triumvirate action in there too.

Good science fiction.

A story that is well plotted and well paced, without loose ends, and an ending that is satisfying both from a story telling and a...happiness point of view.

Cannot believe I’ve watched 25 episodes of Star Trek over roughly 25 weeks.

Next up is Errand of Mercy. The first Klingon episode, I guess? A good one, and an excellent K/S one, even if the Klingons are, in general, meh.

#star trek tos #the year 2020 #2020: fandom thoughts #2020: star trek

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willow-salix · 5 years ago

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Isolation update and one of two planned offerings for @gumnut-logic 's "Touch" prompt. Enjoy!

Day 80 of Isolation on Tracy Island and it started with Alan breaking into the bedroom while we were still asleep. I woke to him rummaging around in the bedside drawer.

“Dude? Whatcha doin’?” I mumbled, it was far too early, I was far too snuggly warm and getting up was in no way on my radar for at least another few hours.

“Oh, I just wanted to borrow your contact lens solution.”

“Huh?” I groaned, having kinda half dozed off again while he had continued to search through the drawer. “What lens solution?”

“That stuff you got with those coloured lenses you wore at halloween.”

I prised one eye open again and poked the sleepy hamster in my brain that had fallen off the wheel and was far too lazy to get up again.

“Oh...that…” where was it? Where did I even put it? I tried to mentally rewind more than eight months… it wasn't easy. Hell, without this diary I wouldn’t even know what day of the week we were on or what I did two days ago…come to think of it, what did I do two days ago?

Fingers snapped in front of my face, making me jump.

“Did you drift?”

“Yeah, sorry...lens stuff...it’s in the…” where was it? I could picture it…”drinks cabinet in the lounge!” I finished triumphantly, that was it. We’d had a small party and I’d taken the lenses out half way through as they had made my eyes itch and I’d stashed them in the first place I had come across, which just so happened to be the place where I was returning to the most that night. I blame Scott, I always blame Scott, if there is ever a drinking game happening or karaoke is started, he’ll be there.

“Alan, I…where did he go?” The drawer was still open and the bedroom door was ajar, but at least it was quiet again. I yawned so wide I almost turned my face inside out and curled back up against the warm body next to me and closed my eyes…

Coffee...I smell...delicious black gold...I sat up a little without even opening my eyes and reached for the mug, taking a sip before I felt able to face the world.

Perfect. Milky, silky, smooth, sweet perfection in a mug. I opened my eyes to see that he'd put it in one of my favourite mugs, the black one shaped like a cauldron that said "witch's brew" on the side. The paleness of the milky latte was broken up by a swirl of coffee and caramel syrup that floated peacefully on the surface like a miniature galaxy. Top ten reason to marry a guy, he makes the most amazing coffee, even if he doesn't do it very often.

“Gods that's good, thank you, I so needed this.” I sipped again then put the mug down on the bedside table, I wanted to savour this...why was that drawer open and all my stuff messed up? Not that I was the tidiest person in the world but I know it wasn't that bad. My sluggish brain managed to kick up an image of the blond baby… “Did I dream Alan coming in at stupid o’clock this morning looking for something?”

“Hmm?” John stopped rummaging in the wardrobe to look at me. “I don’t know, I don’t remember anything after we started watching that film with the puppets in it.”

“They are Muppets, you heathen and I have no idea how you could fall asleep watching that, it’s amazing.”

“Because it was after two and I was tired?”

“Pathetic excuse. Anyway, back to the original question, did I dream Alan? What did he want?”

“Again, I don’t know, you’ll have to find him and ask.”

“Mm,” I agreed, picking up my coffee again. “I’ll go in a minute, it can’t be that urgent.”

An hour later I was actually up, showered, dressed and had even had breakfast, that’s how organized I was. OK, so it was technically after lunchtime but that's beside the point. I tracked the small one down to Virgil’s studio, which is never, ever a good thing. No one is allowed in there without permission on pain of death. I caught him just as he came out with a bottle of glue in his hands.

“What are you up to, Squirt?”

“Nothing!” Unfortunately he said that at the same time as he hastily tucked the glue behind his back.

“Nope, not falling for it. What’s going on?"

"Nothing!" he insisted again.

"I can see you hiding something behind your back."

“OK,” he sighed. “ But promise you won’t get mad?”

“What did you break? Because that’s only craft glue for paper, it won't fix broken things.”

“I know that! And I didn’t break anything, you always think the worst of me.”

“Sweetie, I don’t think that, I just know you.”

He opened his mouth to argue but then shut it again.

“OK, that’s fair," he admitted

“So why would I get mad if you didn’t break anything? Not that I’d get mad if you had broken anything as I’m sure it would have been an accident.”

“Thank you for your faith in me.”

“So, what are you doing?”

“Well, I was bored-”

“Understandable.”

“And I started looking around the internet and I kinda fell into a search hole-”

“Also understandable, I’ve been there myself far too many times to count.”

“Anyways, I found this post about things that kids did in the early two thousands and one of them was to make slime. Apparently everyone was obsessed with it.”

“Really? Slime?” I found that quite hard to believe.

“Yeah, there were even whole video channels dedicated to making it and playing with it.”

“People actually wanted to watch videos of people playing with slime? That’s disgusting.”

“No, it’s not like, super sticky slime, but more of a cool slime.”

“That makes zero sense, little dude.”

“I don’t understand it either, but it seemed too cool to not at least try, you know?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I get that, I’ve done many things that seemed too cool not to.”

“Really? Like what?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

“It’s not anything gross with my brother, is it?”

I gave him that look that says all and nothing, it’s always fun to keep them wondering just what the heck I even meant, the puzzlement on their faces is priceless.

“Wanna make slime with me?”

“Sure,” I shrugged. “How bad can it be?”

***

“So you pour the glue in the bowl,” Alan instructed.

“Done that, what's next?”

“Then you add a… what does that symbol mean?”

I glanced at his phone. “Tablespoon.”

“One tablespoon of baking soda.” We both dumped that in the glue.

“A couple of drops of food colouring.” We both added green, him because he wanted to make fake snot, me because I wanted it to look like Slimer had been visiting.

“Now we add one or two tablespoons of the contact lens solution and mix.”

“Better add just one first,” I suggested, “if it’s anything like baking it's always better to start with less and add more.”

“Yeah, it says the more you add the sloppier it gets.”

We dumped in a spoonful each and mixed...and mixed...and mixed. I added a little more but wanted more of a thick consistency, he added a whole tablespoon more as he wanted ‘the whole slime experience’.

“No we have to knead it,” he instructed me.

“O...K” I didn't like the sound of that. I thought I'd just be mixing, not getting my hands in it. I poked the goo with a finger. “It’s cold!”

Alan, being Alan, just dived right in, sticking both hands in the bowl.

“Coool,” he grinned, squishing the gooey mixture so that it oozed out from between his fingers. “This is so weird.”

I was a little more delicate. I pushed my finger in knuckle deep and felt around. I don’t know what for or what I hoped to achieve. It was like poking barely set jelly, it left a bit of a dent and closed over my finger like it was sucking it in. “Ewwww.”

“This is great!”

“I don’t like it.” I wiggled my finger around in the slop then withdrew it, feeling the stringy strands stick to my skin. “Ewwww.”

“I love it!”

“You would, you gross little munchkin.”

“You gotta get your whole hand in there, don’t be shy.” He slapped his sticky hand down on top of mine, smaming it into the ick. I screamed. It was disgusting.

“You horrible little worm!”

“Wiggle your fingers!”

“No!”

“Do it!”

“No!”

“Dare you.”

“Dammit.” I wiggled and shuddered in revulsion. “It’s horrible.”

Alan was kneading his like he was making bread, putting in far more effort than he had that time we made pizza dough. I glanced into his bowl and yes, it was looking far better than mine was.

“Urghh I’m gonna have to do it, aren't I?” I took a deep breath and stuck both hands into the bowl. “Yuck, yuck yuck, yuck, yuck,” I chanted as I smacked and punched at the mess. Slowly but surely, it came together, becoming far less sticky and turning into a silky smooth substance that, I hated to admit, was actually quite satisfying to play with.

“You’re having fun, aren't you?” Alan grinned.

“I admit nothing,” I sniffed, though he was right and he knew it. I picked up the mess and pushed the bowl aside.

If he was treating it like dough, so would I. I dumped it on the counter and began to knuckle it, pulling and stretching with my hands, just as I would to add air to bread. Suddenly seized by the unholy urge to whip I, I grabbed hold of one end and flung my hand back, whipping it forwards to stretch out the slime and splat against the counter. OK, that was actually pretty cool.

“I wonder if this bounces?” I balled it up again and dropped it onto the counter top where it landed with a wet splat, flattening into a puddle.

“Coooool,” Alan whistled, doing the same to his, although his was a lot sloppier and spread across the counter. Mine looked more like a fried egg, his was like spilt juice.

“Oops,” he tried to pick it up but it was far too slippery, sliding between his fingers and plopping out of his hand.

I helped by grabbing a spatula from the utensils pot and trying to pick it up like it was a pancake. It didn't work. Strings of goo slid between the slats of the spatula and dripped downwards.

“Grab the bowl!” I yelped and he held it underneath to catch the run off. I scraped the spatula against the side of the bowl and peeled the last, stubborn bits off and flicked them into the bowl along with the rest.

“What are we actually going to do with this stuff?” I asked him.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got plans,” he grinned.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” I groaned. “Just please, keep me and John out of it, he doesn’t need the extra stress, he already has to put up with me.”

***

I was sensible with my weird goo, I added a few drops of essential oil having found, much to my amazement, that it actually was quite relaxing to squish it and play with it. I found myself taking it out of it’s tub frequently that evening while we watched a movie, smoothing out the cool jelly, kneading it in my palm and squeezing it until it smushed in between my fingers. The soothing scent of lavender wafting up to fill my nose.

“OK,” John said after watching me for quarter of an hour. “I’ll bite, what do you have there?”

“Slime, I made it with Alan,” I held out my hand and dropped the ball of eww into his palm.

The look of disgust on his face was everything.

“Squish it,” I instructed.

“Squish it?”

“Yeah, like this,” I plonked my hand down on top of his and mashed the goo between our fingers.

“That is the most revolting thing I’ve ever felt in my life.”

I pulled my hand away from his, the slime clinging desperately for a few seconds, stretching between our hands before it gave way and boinged back into one mass in his palm.

"I don't like it," he poked it with one finger.

“It’s not that bad, it’s actually quite ni-”

A pained yelp and then a bellow that sounded like an enraged bull echoed around the villa.

“That sounded like Scott,” I gasped, sitting up.

Scott skidded into the lounge, face like thunder, naked apart from a towel wrapped around his waist.

“What the hell happened?” I asked in shock. “What happened to your head?” I got up to look closer, seeing that a red bump was rapidly forming between his eyebrows.

“I was going to take a shower, but no water came out. I turned the water up higher and something green oozed out of the holes and then the whole shower head popped off and clonked me on the head.”

I bit my lip, trying hard not to laugh.

“What do you have there?” Scotts eyes narrowed, zeroing in on John’s hand where he still held the slime.

“Run!” I yelped and John, pulling on his old track and field days, leapt off the couch and ran for the door, grabbing my hand as he went and towing me after him. It was safer to hide in the bedroom.

Apparently Scott wasn’t the only victim of the slime pranks. Alan had gotten rather creative. He had sneezed goo on Gordon and had mixed up a new batch that included peas and chopped up carrots and was a lovely yellow colour which he had dropped on the floor of Two’s cockpit at Virgil’s feet after making a series of increasingly violent retching noises. Jeff has yet to discover that there is blue slime in the soap dispenser in his bathroom. I dread to think where else it’s going to turn up. But what I do know is that Alan had better avoid Scott for the next few days, because that’s going to leave a bruise.

#alan tracy #thunderbirds #thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds 2015 #thunderbirds fanfiction #isolation island #social isolation #isolation #self isolating #thunderbirds in isolation

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daebakinc · 5 years ago

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Hero Among Thorns - Pt 4

Pairing: Hyunwoo x Reader Genre: Undercover Detective AU, Action, Romance Word Count: 2.5K Summary: When a mistaken connection results in your kidnapping by one of the city’s most notorious gangs, the undercover detective Hyunwoo has no choice but to rescue and protect you, and, most dangerously of all, fall in love with you. Warning: Mentions of violence and blood. Parts: See Masterlist for previous parts. (Sorry, but Tumblr won’t show posts with links in tag searches.

“But you have to.” Minhyuk stares you down, his happy demeanor gone without a trace. “Didn’t you hear what we just said Yew has done? You can’t just let him walk free.”

“I also heard that all your witnesses end up dead. Getting shot once is an experience I don’t want to repeat, especially if the next time ends with me not breathing.” You drop your face into your hands. Your heart beats in a rabid tattoo, hastened by imagining your dead body sprawled bloody in some dingy alley or dumped in some lonely shallow grave no one will ever find you in. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. Well I did, but I want to put this guy who can’t even do his homework and kidnaps the wrong person in jail, clearly. It’s just… do you have any idea how scary this is?”

“The other witnesses never had us. Our team is the best there is,” Hyungwon says.

“No one is getting close to you unless we let them,” Hyunwoo adds so firmly you almost believe him.

Almost.

You shake your head and hug your knees. It does little to comfort you. “I don't know.” Your voice comes out as a whisper, but you know everyone hears you.

Minhyuk lets out a huff that's somewhere between frustrated and disgusted. The legs of the couch squeak against the floor with the force of him standing. You instinctively pull your legs closer to distance yourself from his angry disapproval. Without giving you another glance, he crosses in front of you. A few seconds later, the door to the apartments slams behind him.

“Don't mind him,” Hoseok says, breaking the tense silence. “Min's just tired and ready to go home. This hasn't been the easiest mission for us.”

“I'm sorry,” you instinctively reply. You're already regretting your impulsive statement. A lot.

“Don't be.” Hoseok smiles, rolls his shoulders as he stands, and crosses the carpet to give your uninjured shoulder a gentle squeeze. “He'll be fine by the morning. Don't worry about all this. Just concentrate on getting better.”

Hoseok looks to Hyunwoo, asking, “We'll see you two at the shop tomorrow?”

Hyunwoo shakes his head. “I'll probably stay here with her for a few days. Might look weird if I go right back to work when my girlfriend was almost killed. Yew's going to be keeping a close eye on us for awhile. Watch your backs.”

“Always. Come on, Hyungwon. I'll give you a ride back.”

Hyungwon dislodges himself from the couch, flashing a salute at Hyunwoo and nodding at you before following Hoseok out the door.

“Guess I better head out, too,” Kihyun says, “since I open tomorrow. Need to be there early for that parts-shipment from Kyushu.”

Changkyun goes to the counter to slip his laptop and tablet into their respective cases. “Can you drop me by my place? I rode with Minhyuk but I doubt that asshole remembered and stuck around.”

“Sure.”

They both say good-night and leave. Jooheon follows, but only after checking your vitals again and repeating his instructions for your medication to Hyunwoo.

Silence fills the space left behind. Mentally exhausted from having to go through the night over and over again, you slump on the couch. Opposite you, Hyunwoo sits in his armchair, lost in thought or half asleep, you can’t tell. With being an undercover agent, keeping up chatter with someone not on his team probably isn’t a frequent occurrence.

As you open your mouth to ask if you can get more items from your apartment eventually, Hyunwoo gets up and moves toward the kitchen. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” he asks.

You think about it before replying, “No, thanks. Do you have any tea though?”

“I should.” He squats down to look in a cabinet and you glance away from the lovely view provided by the sweatpants. Where isn’t this guy perfect? “Ah, yeah, here it is. There’s raspberry, green, and honey chamomile. Kihyun can pick us up more if you prefer something else.”

“Chamomile is fine for now, please. Thank you.”

“Sure.”

Curiosity gets the better of you after Hyunwoo turns the electric kettle on and sets out a green ceramic mug beside it. He starts rummaging through the refrigerator. You see him glance at you from the corner of his eye as you climb onto a stool on the opposite side of the counter. But he doesn’t comment, continuing to place different things on the counter.

A packet of kimchi. A can of spam. Eggs. Cabbage. Soy sauce. Sesame oil. Packaged noodles.

Your stomach gives a muffled gurgle. Maybe you will take him up on his offer of a meal.

With quiet competence, Hyunwoo moves around the kitchen with the uncommon ease of a man who knows his way around cooking, measuring, prepping. When the kettle boils, he pours the water over the teabag and sets the mug in front of you with a small bowl of sugar and a dainty bottle of honey shaped like a teddy bear.

As he turns, you ask, “You don’t talk a lot do you?” Realizing you sounded rude, you add, “Not that anything’s wrong with that. It’s nice being around someone who’s okay with not talking.”

Hyunwoo shrugs. “I’m not always good at it. I make things awkward when I speak sometimes, so I don’t unless I need to usually. Does it make you uncomfortable that I don’t?”

“No, no. Definitely not.”

He smiles and turns back to his work.

After fixing your tea to your liking, there's nothing else to do but wait. But you can only sit still so long. You never did do well sitting idle. “Can I help?”

“Sure.”

Despite his quick answer, Hyunwoo has to look around for something to give you. He finally settles on giving you some cabbage to shred for the soup. You clumsily grip one end of the leaves with your injured side’s hand as you tear, your tongue unconsciously poking out the corner of your lips. Quickly, the only noises in the apartment return to the clicks of utensils and rips of your work.

With how chaotic your days usually are, the majority of your hours full of people whining, yelling, and demanding in your ears, quiet when you get home is welcome. But it isn’t always so. More often than you would care to admit, when you’re alone in your apartment in worn pajamas, sitting on your couch with your laptop and a snack in peace, the quiet reminds you how alone you are. No roommate, not even a fish for a pet. Your dating life has been about as dead as Frankenstein's wife. For years now. An embarrassing number of years.

You had underestimated the comfort of having another living, breathing human living in the same space as you when you shared a room with a friend in university. The knowledge that someone else was there, that you could talk to them if you wanted, reach out to touch them. Someone to share your thoughts with that wasn’t yourself. Someone to just kick back and enjoy a movie and pizza with without having to deal with the pressure of maintaining the perfect, polite image work and dates demand.

Yes, you were lonely. Are lonely. If that somehow lowered your standards for human interaction, so be it. Yet, you didn’t feel like you were settling for Hyunwoo’s quiet. Like the man himself, it feels solid, wholesome. Even if it is literally now Hyunwoo’s job to keep you around, you appreciate his company. Watching his hands as he cooks and listening to him clink and bang around the kitchen, the normalcy of it, brings back the warmth to your bones as much as his hoodie does.

“You sure you’re not hungry?”

Meeting Hyunwoo’s eyes through the steam of the cooking ham slices, you shrug with a half-smile. “Maybe a little.”

“I figured you would be.” He takes two bowls from the cabinet. Smoothly, he deposits a healthy amount of noodles into one of them and puts it in front of you. The steam of the soup mingles with that of the two slices of ham he places on top of the noodles. Together, they may be the best thing you've ever smelled.

Kihyun's soup earlier hadn't been bad, but it'd been decidedly bland. Probably under Jooheon's orders. As soon as your spoonful of Hyunwoo's soup hits your tongue, it's heaven. Salty, earthy, noodly heaven.

You rush another spoonful to your mouth, happily chewing away at the ham. As you go for a third, you pause, the hair on the back of your neck tingling. Looking up, you realize Hyunwoo is watching you. He's leaning against the counter, arms crossed, mouth tilted in a smile that shows just a hint of teeth.

“That good?” he asks in an amused tone.

It takes conscious effort not to drop the spoon in embarrassment. You just stuffed your face like a heathen in front of one of the most attractive people you've crossed paths with in awhile. Like an idiot.

Lowering your spoon and your eyes, you sheepishly reply. “Yeah. It's really good.”

“Good.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Oh,” he sets down the bowl he'd picked up for himself and drags a bag of medication, “you should take these now. Jooheon said you should take them with food, remember?”

You nod and gulp down the pills as Hyunwoo serves himself. The earlier quiet descends again, broken only by your spoons clinking against the sides of your bowls and the occasional slurped noodle. It's beyond nice.

Just as before, it hits you how isolated you've been the last few months of your life. When you think about it, it's hard to tell if it was because of your job and its accompanying exhaustion or your personal choice. Maybe a little of both.

“Want more?”

Hyunwoo’s words break through your mood. Noticing your bowl is empty, you shake your head and push it away. “I’m good, thanks.”

“No problem.” He takes the dish and puts it in the sink, looking back at you. “Does your shoulder hurt?”

“No. Why?”

“You’re frowning.”

Not for the first time, you lament your utter lack of a poker face. Admitting just getting to eat with someone made you over the moon isn’t an attractive option. “No, it's fine. It feels pretty dull. I was just...”

You run a hand through your hair out of habit. The strands feel greasy. A perfect excuse. “I was just wishing I could wash my hair. But it'd be really hard to do without getting the bandages wet. Maybe we could cover it with something to keep it dry? Like wrap a garbage bag or plastic?”

“That should be okay. I might have a spare trash bag.” He reaches towards the cabinet under the sink, but pauses before opening the door. Hyunwoo straightens and says, “Or you could just wash it here if you just need to wash your hair.”

“Here as in the kitchen sink?”

“Why not? I’ll just move the dishes to one side. It has one of those hose things so that would make it easier to rinse. That way your bandages don't have to get wet at all. I've had to wash my hair in a sink a lot when a shower wasn't an option.”

“I guess that'll work...”

He smiles. “I'll get the shampoo and a towel for you.”

You refill the space in front of the sink after Hyunwoo vacates, eyeballing the hose. Maybe if you just bend forward with your face in the sink that could work. But then the shampoo would get in your eyes. You try bending backwards, but the height of the counter proves your undoing. Even with your flexibility, a must for a dancer, your head barely comes anywhere near the sink.

Still half bent over backwards, you glare at the upside-down sink. “Stupid,” you mutter.

“Is that comfortable?”

You stumble as you right yourself to find Hyunwoo returned with a fluffy black towel and a very large black shampoo bottle. “No. Maybe the sink isn’t such a good idea. Even with the hose, I think it would be too weird an angle.”

Putting the towel and bottle down, he studies the sink. His fingers drum against his hips as he thinks. Hyunwoo grabs one of the stools and pulls it around the counter. He moves around you to put it in front of the sink. “If you sit on this, I can wash it for you.”

“You’d do that?” you ask, caught by surprise. You haven’t had anyone else wash your hair since you were a child. Not even when you get a haircut. Certainly no past boyfriend had ever offered.

“It’s not like women wash their hair any different from men.” Hyunwoo says. “Or do they?”

You can’t help your laugh. “I guess not. Okay, thanks.”

He nods and hands you the towel. Once you have it draped around your neck with your bandaged arm safely covered, you slowly lean back until the back of your neck touches the cool metal of the sink. Hyunwoo leans over you to turn on the water. As you stare up at his chest, just how big he is hits you all over again.

Thank goodness he’s on your side.

You jerk in surprise when instead of the warm water you were expecting, Hyunwoo’s palm comes to your forehead and pushes it back. Despite your discomfort, you keep your mouth shut. He’s doing you a favor afterall.

But when Hyunwoo starts trying to massage the shampoo into your hair like it’s a stubborn stain in a rug, you hiss and clap your good hand over his. “Ow!”

He stops immediately and asks in a worried tone, “Did I hurt you?”

“Just a little softer, please.” Readjusting to a more comfortable position, you move your hand on top of one of his. It doesn’t quite fit, but Hyunwoo lets you manipulate his fingers in much gentler motions. He seems to get the hang of it after a few moments, but you keep your hand where it is a little longer than necessary. The warmth of his hand feels too good.

“Sorry, for hurting you,” he says. “Never done this before.”

Snatching your hand back into your lap, you reply, “So you're not like the Zohan.” You chuckle at your own joke.

“The what?” He stops.

“The Zohan. Zohan Dvir. From 'You Don't Mess with the Zohan.' The Adam Sandler movie?”

“Never seen it.” Hyunwoo shakes his head and shrugs apologetically.

“It’s okay. It’s kind of a lot of stupid, but it’s good for when you want to just laugh. You don’t have to think about anything. It’s about an Israeli special forces agent who fakes his own death so he can pursue his dream of being a hairstylist.”

“Seriously?” He laughs, which makes you smile. It’s too cute.

“Yeah. I haven’t watched it in forever. Too many movies to watch, too little time.”

“You like to watch movies?”

You’re grateful for the excuse to close your eyes when he starts rinsing your hair. “It passes the time well when you’re alone a lot.”

To your surprise, Hyunwoo answers, “I get that. I sleep or workout, but movies sound fun. Sorry, I don't have anything more girly smelling, by the way. I can ask one of the guys to grab you some of whatever you like using from the store and drop it off.”

“It’s okay. Yours smells good.” You open your eyes when you feel Hyunwoo lift the towel from your front so he can help you sit up. He drapes the towel around your shoulders and starts drying your hair. His hands are much gentler than before so you can’t help but sag into your seat a little. The simple comfort makes you feel like a cat, ready to curl in a purring ball. “Are you sure you’re a secret agent?”

“Pretty sure.” You can hear the smile in his voice. “Why?”

“You’re better at this than you think.” And despite his size, he has the personality of a teddy bear. It’s hard to equate the person tenderly drying your hair with the badass who rescued you.

“You have to be a quick study to survive at this job. Otherwise you don’t stay alive long.” His voice lacks any hardness in spite of the bluntness of his statement, as if he’s just stating a normal fact. Hyunwoo pauses, then says, “That was a little dark, wasn’t it?”

“A little, but I guess it’s true. You can’t deal with the underbelly of humanity and get by on a whim.” Hesitating, you add, “Thank you, by the way.”

“No need for that. It’s just hair.”

“I mean for saving me from those men.” You feel Hyunwoo’s hands slow, but keep your eyes straight ahead. “I don’t think I said that to you yet, but really, thank you.”

“It was nothing. Just another day for us.”

Just another day. And you’re just another mission, you remind yourself. Your gaze falls to your hands as you fight that tiny feeling of disappointment. “Oh. And I’m sorry for pulling the gun on you.”

That makes Hyunwoo laugh again. He comes in front of you and leans against the counter, still smiling. “It was empty, remember? No harm, no foul.”

“Still… it wasn’t nice.”

“Trust me, I’ve had much more dangerous people point loaded guns at me. I’ll take you pointing an unloaded one at me any day.”

“Are you saying I wasn’t intimidating?” you ask, only half-joking.

He smiles and walks away with the towel and shampoo. “Yes.”

#shownu scenario #monsta x scenarios #kpopwritingnet #kwriterskollection #kwritersworldnet #monsta x #shownu #son hyunwoo

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canyouhearthelight · 6 years ago

Text

The Miys, Ch. 26

I know the last few chapters have posted earlier in the day, but I’m excited I at least got this up on the right day. Yay!!

Life has been going on over here, and it keeps happening... Which is a hazard of living, right? Better than the alternative.

As always, feedback is a glass of wine and dark chocolate for me (which I love, sincerely), so please leave any feedback you may have!

After a mild panic, the Council was able to calm down everyone who heard Tyche’s exclamation of poisoned food. Grumbles were still plainly audible, but any rioting had been averted for the moment. We had no choice but to clarify and explain what we suspected, but begged everyone not to let the information out until an official statement had been released. Huynh had suggested blocking everyone’s communications access, but the idea was – thankfully – shot down immediately.

Once all the food and drinks were tested, Miys was able to determine that anything not sealed had been tampered with. It was no surprise that nearly everyone on Level One had traces of the drug in their systems, the only exclusions being Derek and Maverick. Derek, I knew all too well, had severe aversions to food textures and mainly lived on what amounted to granola bars and room temperature bottled water, so the fact that he didn’t have any hydrocodone in his system was almost expected and confirmed that it was only being put in the food.

I motioned for Maverick to sit down with me and Antoine. After some debate on what amounted to a criminal investigation, Eino had pointed out that I had the most experience of the people present when it came to interacting with anyone on the autistic spectrum. Antoine was with me in his capacity as a companion, as he would be the least threatening back up I could have with me while still being more than capable of intervening if it became necessary.

“What did the short you say about poison?” Maverick asked almost immediately, eyes wide with mild panic.

“Someone put Vicodin in most of the food and drinks,” I explained. I didn’t see any point in sugar coating it, having noticed in the past couple of days that Maverick was nearly impossible at picking up on subtlety. “Most of us have had symptoms, and Miys tested us. They say the majority of us have enough in our blood to affect us. You don’t, and I need you to explain why.”

He relaxed immediately, to my shock. “Is that all? I’ve only had bottled water and black coffee since I came up here,” he shrugged like it was no major deal.

Antoine’s eyebrows furrowed. “You are saying that, in nearly forty-eight hours, you have not eaten a single thing?”

“Well, yeah,” came the response, as though it should be obvious. “I didn’t like any of the food that was brought in, so I didn’t eat. I’ve been taking supplements!” he declared defensively as I started scowling when I found out he hadn’t eaten. “It happens, like, a lot, so I always carry them with me just in case.” He took the bottle out of his jacket and rattled them for emphasis before handing them to me.

A glance at the label gave me the impression that they were just robust multivitamins. I handed them to Antoine, knowing he would have a better idea of what he was looking at. He nodded and confirmed. “They’re just vitamins, but these are for geriatric patients?”

With a shrug, Maverick stated matter-of-factly, “Those are designed for people who don’t eat enough to meet their basic requirements. Usually, yeah, it’s old people, but I end up missing meals pretty frequently, so those are the best ones. That’s what the doctor told me back on Earth.”

To say I was horrified was a dramatic understatement. How long had he been just skipping meals because he had what sounded like food aversions? “Maverick. Jake. You can just tell me what you like, and I’ll make sure we have food for you. I do it all the time for Derek, and for his friend Sam. Hell, I do it for anyone just about. You don’t have to starve yourself and live on multivitamins and water.”

“Nah, I know I’m being a pain in the ass about food. It’s fine, really. But please top calling me Jake. It’s legally Maverick. I changed it. I earned the name Maverick.”

I was so confused. “But you introduced yourself as Jake?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Terran Defense never updated my records, so they are all under that name. I wanted you to be able to find them. But it’s not my name.”

Oh. I was starting to get angry, not at him, but at the people who made him so nonchalant at the sheer level of fuckery people had used in regard to him in the past.

“Can you go get Derek?” I asked Antoine quietly before looking back at the pilot on the opposite side of the table. “You aren’t being a pain in the ass. I believe that you’ve been told that for a very long time, but that doesn’t make it true, and it certainly doesn’t make it right. I am the one who will be deciding what food is brought up from now on, and Miys will be testing it. So, if I say you can ask me for whatever you will actually eat, no one else gets a say in that. Does that make sense?”

“Whatever,” he grunted.

I was saved by the arrival of Antoine and Derek. “Maverick Okima, I would like to formally introduce to Derek ‘That Guy’ Okafor, scourge of sysadmins everywhere. Derek, I am trying to convince Maverick that it’s okay to ask for different food if he doesn’t like what we are bringing in.” I focused on using Maverick’s own term – don’t like – rather than calling it a food aversion, mainly because I wasn’t sure he had ever had the difference explained to him from what few clues I was able to pick up.

<Sophia’s okay> Derek signed. <She likes feeding us food we like. She says if we don’t like it, there isn’t a point in having food to begin with.>

Maverick looked very confused. “My father said something like that before he died. It’s a very Japanese thing to say.”

I pointed at my face. “Cajun, among other things. I do not believe in ‘eating to live’. In my family, we live to eat. The short me, as you call her, is gluten intolerant, some of my family doesn’t like spicy food, I love spicy food, so does Antoine. I still manage to make one meal a week for all of us, cooked by hand I might add, and try to include Derek as much as possible when he feels up to.”

Derek snapped to get Mavericks attention before adding, <No spicy, no sour, no squishy.>

“He likes food with firmer textures,” I clarified on the ‘squishy’ comment. “Nothing mushy, or creamy, no cake, ice cream, or gelatin, that kind of thing.”

“Don’t you get mad that they’re picky?” Maverick asked, still suspicious.

I shook my head vigorously. “Absolutely not. It’s a challenge, and if they don’t like it, that’s a failure on my part, not theirs.”

“She makes very good turkey,” Antoine mused before smirking. “Although her sister makes amazing doughnuts.”

<The mushy fish was gross.> Derek wrinkled his nose in an exaggerated fashion.

I just rolled my eyes. “I literally told you that you wouldn’t like it. I don’t like poached fish because of the texture.”

That seemed to be the comment that Maverick needed to hear. “Wait. You cooked something you don’t even like for someone else, because they wanted it?”

“Kind of?” I squeaked uncertainly. “Arantxa over there. She didn’t ask for it, but as a holiday gift from me to her, I learned how to make one of her native dishes. I had no clue that it was poached fish when I made that decision. But she mentioned it the day I met her, and also that she didn’t know how to make it….” I trailed off and shrugged. “Personally, I like my fish seared, grilled, baked, or sashimi. Poached is just… too weird for me.”

Antoine nodded very seriously. “It was very good, as a person who does like poached fish.”

“Rants seemed to like it,” I shrugged again. “All that mattered.”

“So, if I wanted mochi, because I didn’t get any the first time, that would be okay?” Maverick asked tentatively. “Even red bean mochi?”

I moaned, “Oh my gosh, absolutely yes. If there were any red bean mochi last time, I am sorry to say I didn’t get any. You and I can just hog them all.”

<Hide them from Zach,> Derek joked. <I think he ate most of the gross dumplings last time.>

“Heathen,” I muttered jokingly. It was really no surprise that Derek didn’t like mochi. Glutenous foods definitely fell in the category of ‘squishy’. I patted Maverick on the arm gently. “Okay, I’m pretty convinced you didn’t drug the food, mostly because you’re a terrible liar, which is something to be proud of. On the food thing, please just make me a list of foods you like, or at least a list of stuff that makes you not like certain foods, and I will happily make sure to take that into account. Real quick, though, I’m about to put in the request for tomorrow, so other than mochi, what do you want? Try to give me as many things as you can think of off the top of your head, because I want to be sure it’s in the system.”

“Miso soup, for sure. Boiled eggs? Scrambled eggs are weird, but I don’t know if the consoles can do boiled eggs, and I never asked. Savory crepes are good, though. Ooo! Pizzza! I love pizza, especially anchovy. I know a lot of people think it’s gross, but it’s really good, I swear. Fried pies are good, too.”

“So, strongly flavored, savory and/or salty dishes. Got it,” I murmured as I made a note in my data screen. I flicked my wrist absent-mindedly to dismiss it before musing “You probably would have liked the bacalao al pil pil.”

“Is that the mushy fish thing?” he asked skeptically.

“Yep.”

“Nope. I can’t do mushy fish. Mushy means it isn’t cooked right, which means I’ll get sick.”

I chuckled. “I totally agree. The good news is, at least now I have someone other than Tyche to share pizza with!”

“No one else likes pizza!?” he gasped. “No way! That’s sacrilege!”

“Oh, tons of people like pizza,” I assured him. “But Tyche is the only other person I met who likes anchovy pizza.”

“They’re stupid. It’s awesome!”

I shot him a look. “Please don’t call people stupid because they don’t agree with you. It’s rude, and I can’t stand rude people.” It was a slight exaggeration; I had a pretty flexible definition of what was and wasn’t rude, but calling someone names because they disagree with you definitely fell firmly in the rude category. “A lot of people don’t like fish, or can’t have too much salt, or just don’t do well with really strong flavored foods.” I nodded toward Derek, who flipped Maverick the bird.

“Okay, okay,” he apologized. “That was wrong of me. I didn’t think of that. Still, it’s really good.”

“Well, you have two other people to eat it with now,” I smiled.

Rather than celebrating, Maverick looked like he just realized something. “Wait. Who is Tyche?”

“My sister.”

“You – Wait. That’s short you?”

“Yes, and for the love of whatever your favorite body part is, do not call her that to her face.”

“Noted,” he nodded seriously and gulped. “She’s scary. Like, scarier than you, scary.”

<Be nice. They own the cat.> Derek warned him, slapping him lightly on the arm.

“I like Mac,” he considered. “I guess that makes you less scary. I’m still pretty sure your sister could kill me, though.”

By this point, Antoine looked completely confused. “Why is everyone afraid of Tyche? I don’t understand.”

<Why aren’t you afraid of her?> Derek rebutted.

I shot Antoine a dirty look before he could reply. “I have absolutely zero desire to hear whatever tooth-rotting, fluffy nonsense is about to come out of your mouth,” I told him flatly. The last thing I wanted was him to accidentally de-fang my sister’s well-earned reputation.

He balked slightly before straightening his shoulders. “Fine. I will let them be afraid of her. I was just going to say I’m not afraid of her because I am her partner, just like you are her sister. And Maverick has three other people to eat the anchovy pizza with.” He pointed to himself. “You never asked me, Sophia. Do you really think Tyche would not have me try it?”

I held my hands up placatingly. “Fair, fair. I didn’t know you had tried it since the last time I mentioned it.” I turned back to Maverick. “So, now that we’ve established your alibi - can’t consume drugs when you aren’t consuming anything at all - I’ll have Grey and probably Pranav fact-check it, just to completely rule you out as a suspect, okay?”

“Yeah,” he exhaled in what sounded like relief. “Do you think it will take long? I have to pilot the ship to Meenie pretty soon, and I don’t know if they’ll let me while they’re doing all that?”

“That’s honestly Xiomara’s call, since we decided the flight crew fall under her jurisdiction. It shouldn’t take more than a day, but I understand that we only have a couple hours before we’re done at Eenie, right?”

He nodded enthusiastically. “Can you check with Councillor Kalloe, please?” he begged. “I don’t want my flight privileges revoked.”

“You bet. Antoine, are we done here?”

He gestured affirmatively. “I don’t know what else we can do right now, so yeah, I would say we are done. You,” he pointed sternly at Maverick, “will eat. I will send Noah for the food myself. It is not safe for you to do something as important as piloting a ship when you have been starving yourself, but I also do not want to make you sick. You said you like miso soup, yes?” When Maverick nodded, Antoine stood. “I will ask our host to get miso soup, and I will watch you eat two hundred milliliters before you pilot. Sophia, if you could relay this to Councillor Kalloe when you speak to her, please?”

“Absolutely,” I agreed.

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#the miys #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #earth is space australia #fiction #original fiction #aliens #apocalypse #science fiction

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stardust-and-blades · 6 years ago

Text

Shatter: part 2

This comes in two parts since I couldn’t condense it in one damn post like a hEATHEN

Part 1

Summary: Keith and Lance are set up on a mission to gather supplies within a small town. It was meant to be an easy errand, one they have done before. But the situation turns dire when Keith ends up getting bit and doesn’t tell the team. Nor Lance.

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When Keith was awakened, an hour had passed and Lance was gone. Curious as to where he went, Keith lifted himself on his elbows, set to find him and the rest of the team when he was hit by a bout of nausea and a sharp pain on his side. He clasped a hand over the bite, collapsing back in place and trying to push the sickness down. Shove back in the dark corner it came from.

But it pursued, much like the zombie who bit him. It came it waves, clashing and swirling until he was dizzy with sickness. His vision spun, the room’s colors combining all at once and his sense of reality shifting upside down. He fell off the bed, landing hard on his bite. He ignored it, clawing for the small trash can at the foot of the bed, his knees shaking and his chest heaving to expel the little food he ate the day before. Even when he was dry heaving did the nausea continue, solace in ridding himself of the toxins never arriving.

By the time Lance returned from his trip to the kitchen--a tray filled with powdered eggs, fruit, and water--Keith was still on the floor, his head laying on the cool wood of the bed and the trash can close to him. Lance, seeing his face far paler than usual and shivers running down his body, put the tray on the dresser and knelt in front of Keith.

“Jesus, Keith. You look horrible.”

“Thanks.” Keith croaked out.

Lance placed the back of his hand against his forehead, grimacing as he retracted it. “You are burning up.” He grabbed the blanket they were using and wrapped it around Keith’s shoulders. Keith felt hot. But also cold. It was strange, it almost being like a bad case of the flu. Keith wanted to stand up. To proclaim he was fine, yet his body remained unresponsive, the fatigue hitting him at every chance he made to move his limbs.

“There must have been something in the water...” Lance mumbled, frowning. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was e-coli or some other parasite in there.”

Lance trailed off, a thought coming to him. It darkened his eyes, his aid slowing as he calculated the contents of the water. Keith did not need to ask. Did not need to hear, because he could read Lance like a book. And i he wasn’t careful, Lance would figure out Keith’s secret in no time.

He couldn’t allow that. He had to be strong. Be a warrior. Be ready for later, even if it hurts.

“The water didn’t have the virus.” Keith said, tired but confident. “If it did, we all would be infected by now. We bathed in it. Used it as a survival tactic when we weren’t in towns or homes. It’s probably just a stomach flu.”

“I don’t know...the food bank was pretty old. The corners looked as if moss was growing in from the constant moisture.”

Keith shrugged. “Then maybe it is e-coli. Either way, it’s treatable. We did score a slew of medication.” Keith said, smiling weakly to ease Lance’s nerves. “I’ll be fine. You worry too much.”

Lance searched his face. Analyzed him for flukes in his story, ready to call his bluff. But as his search came up dry, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Only because you’re reckless. I’ll go get some medication from Hunk. He should know which one could help.” He tightened the blankets around Keith for emphasis. His eyes screaming for Keith to stay. “You, mister, need to get back in bed.”

“I’m fine--” He again tried to stand up, but only toppled over, his legs jelly beneath him. Lance caught him, laying him on the creaky mattress and tucking the annoyed boy in.

“You are obviously not fine. Stay here. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

He turned to leave.

“Wait--Lance?”

He stopped, hand on the edge of the doorway and an eyebrow curved upwards, a question mark above his head. “Yeah?”

Keith rested against the pillow, watching Lance. Taking in his pulsing light. His sky blue eyes. The little scar he got on his eyebrow from when they first met, Keith almost chopping his head off thinking he was a zombie by how quiet he was. Keith would laugh at the memory if they weren’t burning at the edges. Flittering away with his time, the hourglass he thought to last at least two years dramatically shortening. His vision began to waver once more, but he took a breath and gave the best lovestruck, sweet, adoring gaze. Something he wanted to leave Lance with. The last image of him. Not as a dying comrade, but as the lover he spent the best of times with.

“I love you.”

Lance was stunned into silence, never seeing such a look from Keith before. Not this intense. Lance wondered why it made him both giddy and sad, as if there was an unspoken secret between them. A kiss with far too much feeling. A glimmer of nostalgia mixed with loss. Lance couldn’t pinpoint it. Even when his heart melted and froze at the same time.

Lance shook the thoughts away and, as if controlled by another source, walked over and kissed the top of his burning head, not caring for the sweat and noise of surprise.

“Love you too, Keith. Get some rest.”

Then, he was gone.

----------------------

Lance eventually came back with Hunk, the two checking Keith again and giving him some medication. Keith took it, hiding the pills under his tongue and burying them underneath the mattress when they left. They would make him more tired than usual, and he needed to have energy for tonight.

For tonight, he and Shiro would be gone, a note for the others to find. To tell them Shiro would be back.

And he will.

Just not with Keith.

In the meantime, Keith spent as much time as he could with the others. Pidge stopped by to play pokemon with on her nintendo 3DS, the young girl figuring out how to charge it up and use it like in the past. Hunk brought food, but also suggested Keith come down to the living room for a fun game of charades. It was difficult, but he managed to make his way down the stairs, his violent shivers covered by the heavy blanket.

Lance remained by his side, holding his clammy hand as Pidge and Hunk acted out whatever they were trying to convey, the others shouting guesses and groaning in defeat when Pidge thought of a ridiculous one that only she would know. Hunk was a little easier, though only because Pidge continued to stunt the players. Keith himself worked to contribute, stating his interpretations and proclaiming them cheaters when they withheld points. The day was filled with laughs, curiosity, and fun. Feelings they hadn’t been able to achieve since the outbreak. Since Pidge lost her brother and father. When Hunk was separated from his family during the quarantines, him and Lance victims of families being torn apart.

As for Shiro, he kept a brave face like Keith. Continued the fatherly figure and told them when to quiet down and when it was time for bed, always on guard for zombies, yet allowing himself some joy by the chuckles ravaging his chest as Lance made a silly impression of Pidge.

By nightfall, they all had passed out in the living room, refusing to go to bed until their love for charades and board games died down. Hunk was sprawled out on the couch, limbs draping over each edge. Pidge was curled in on herself on the floor, her glasses lopsided on her face as she drooled on the carpet.

And Lance, sweet Lance, was resting his head atop Keith’s, snuggled up to him like he did when they slept next to each other.

“Are you ready?” Shiro asked quietly. Keith didn’t need to ask if he was alright. His knuckles white from his harsh grip on the gun strapped to him and the shine in his eyes spoke volumes.

Keith nodded, carefully removing himself from Lance, leaving behind the blanket. Leaving what he worked so hard to preserve, his soul screaming for him to stay. To die here, surrounded by friends. Yes, he would turn. But Shiro would kill him in time. He wanted to stay. He wanted to stay goddamnit--

“Lets go.” Keith said, his movements sloth-like as he reached behind a dresser for a bag. It held some items he would like to be buried with. Not including the knife, since he left it by Lance, a horrible gift to give. But one that would serve a purpose. Do what Keith wasn’t able to do.

They left the house. Their goal was to make it to a quiet field in the back woods where the gunshot would not be heard. if he were to die, he would die a human. As long as his humanity remains intact, regardless of his arms and legs decaying, if he could keep ahold of his human side Shiro would be able to take him out easily.

The whole time they walked, though, his movements slowed. His legs creaked with an incredible amount of difficulty, his breathing labored. He kept a hand on his side, pushing down to relieve the growing pain spiking across his abdomen. God, it hurts. His vision split in two, and Keith swore the river up ahead disappeared.

Keith leaned against a tree, sweat coating him from head to toe. He checked the bite again, sure enough it engulfed in a disgusting, rotted green and puss yellow, the veins popping out with infection from his side to his chest.

“Shiro...” Keith said, struggling with words. “I can’t...I can’t go any farther. My legs. My body. It--”

“Shhh,” Shiro cooed, rubbing his back in comforting circles. He was just as scared as Keith, but had to be the big brother. The example. The strong one. His chest shuddered; an iron chain squeezing his heart enough to produce an extra layer of shine in his eyes. He wanted to protect Keith. Take way what he was feeling. But all he could do was bend down in front of Keith, back to him and arm extending for him to take.

“Your body is shutting down. Climb on my back, we aren’t far enough.”

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, eyes kept forward. “Yes.”

Keith was hesitant, but seeing his legs wouldn’t lift him past a couple of inches, he wrapped his arms around Shiro’s throat. There was a struggle, Keith’s strength severely depleted. Shiro hiked one arm around to capture his leg and leaned farther forward, allowing all of Keith’s weight to fall on him.

He didn’t mind. Keith didn’t weigh much to him. In any other circumstance, Keith would grate on how he felt like a toddler. Now Shiro only wished he would so much as talk, the boy’s skin ice and his breathing ragged.

“Thank you.” He mumbled, closing his eyes. He felt so tired.

“Mmmhm...”

They continued on their trek, the crisp leaves beneath Shiro’s soles being the only sound in the sleeping forest. Among the carnage, the forest was serene. safe.

“Hey, Shiro?” Keith whispered, Shiro only able to hear is too soft voice because he was next to his ear.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think Lance will blame himself?”

Shiro stopped, glancing at him. “What?”

Keith covered his face with Shiro’s neck, hiding from the surprised lilt. “You heard me.”

Shiro took a second to mull it over, his steps resuming at a slower pace. They knew the answer. But Shiro didn’t want to say it.

“I think he will mourn.”

Keith dug his nails into his wrist.

“I was a fool to fall in love.” He said, his fire crackling to life. “I shouldn’t have kissed him when we were surrounded. I shouldn’t have held him close to me when he had nightmares. I shouldn’t have let him come close to me, touching my soul. I should have let him hate me. If he did that, he wouldn’t mourn.”

Shiro shook his head.

“I think you’re wrong, Keith.”

“How?” His voice broke, a vase tipped over and water spilling out. “How could I be wrong? I’m leaving him, Shiro. I’m breaking his heart. When he wakes up, all he is going to have left of me is the stupid knife. We live in a dying world, and here I am slamming down the last nail on the coffin where our hope was. It hurts to think about him hating me, but it would have been a better option. Hatred breeds survival. A safety net over the heart.” Blood seeped from his nails. “To lose someone you hate is easier than losing someone you love.”

“Is it, though?” Shiro questioned. “Say you and Lance never fell in love. Say you let him despise you with every fiber of your being. You let him call you names. You let him isolate you. You let him leave you behind in the school we were trapped in. Allow him to do every despicable thing your brain can think of. But while you may believe you would have spared him pain, that route would have caused a worse turn of events.”

“How?”

Shiro, for once after leaving the house, looked at Keith with tender eyes. “He would have lost his humanity. Through you, I believe he learned to love being alive. There is me, Hunk, and Pidge, but you were the one to unlock his affection for the days we have remaining. He may hurt after this. But at least he will be able to feel. To be human. To let hatred consume you, you might as well be one of the undead.”

“I’m not so sure he would agree...”

“You know Lance. Which would he rather have? Hatred in his heart, or love?”

Keith did not say anything, being an answer enough. They arrived at their destination Shiro carefully unlatching Keith’s arms. Keith crawled to the tree, Shiro offering his help but the boy ignoring him. As he leaned against it, he seem to deflate; his eyes fluttering closed and his chest rising at an unnatural slow pace. He shivered, a remaining leaf withering away from the approaching snow.

He was exhausted. All his energy has been sapped, despite not doing much. Shiro should be the one tired, yet here Keith is, struggling to breathe. It was like a cloth had been cast over his lungs, plugging in every crevice. in invisible tar suffocating him.

Though Shiro knew his fate, he still put a blanket over Keith. He wiped the sweat from his brow, checked his wound, and shook off his jacket for Keith to rest his head on. It was a vain effort to ignore the inevitable, but he still tried being the big brother he swore to be.

“You don’t need to do that...” Keith said, hollow and soft.

“You looked uncomfortable.”

He was delaying the inevitable. Keith was blunt, but didn’t think he’d have to be this blunt.

“Shiro, I’m going to die. Please don’t sacrifice more than you already had.”

And there it was. The realization the walk and the small discussion being their last settling in. his skin blanched. His eyes averted to the gun, his shoulders hunched and quivering. He denied the reality of the situation, and he would continue until he lifted the pistol to the middle of Keith’s brows.

He thought he could do it. Could give Keith one last gift by him not allowing him to turn. But his hands wouldn’t move. There was dust in his eyes, Shiro vigorously wiping them away though they grew in size. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. He couldn’t kill him. Couldn’t stare at those dark, heavy eyes and clean their slate to a matte black, the vibrancy sucked out. He couldn’t do it.

Something touched his shoulder. Keith was grabbing the gun, nudging Shiro lightly.

“Go. I can do it myself.” He said. “I have enough energy.”

“But--”

Keith held up a hand. “Like I said, you sacrificed enough. It was stupid of me to ask you to take up the responsibility. You’ve done well in taking care of us, now I should give back to you.”

He gave him a last, weak smile.

“Go. Thank you for everything, Shiro.”

Keith began to cry, hard and shook to the core. He fought against the tremble in his throat, it aching from the pull to reel in his bottled up emotions. Before, he kept them to himself. Silent. Just short of a trembling sigh, an expert in locking away the darkness behind iron doors.

But in his last moments, he wanted to be as human as possible. Even if that meant crying.

“Tell everyone thank you. And that I loved them. You and the others were the best family I could have gained.”

“Keith, no. I can stay. You don’t have to be alone--”

“GO!” He roared, clutching the weapon closer. “Don’t make this any harder than it is. Please...just go.”

“Why must you insist on being alone so much when you hate it?”

Keith jumped, the voice not belonging to Shiro. The two whipped their heads around, three figures emerging from the trees. On the left was a man with a bandana, brown irises filled. On the left was a girl with large round glasses, her vision clouded by specks of water.

And in the middle was a taller man, tear tracks carved deep into his cheeks, a thin, crumbled note in his palm.

“Lance...?�� Keith felt like he was punched in the gut. “Hunk? Pidge? What are you doing here?”

“I can’t sleep well without you near me, remember?” Lance said, unsteady. “I woke up, and suddenly you and Shiro were gone. We thought there were zombies you were fighting, but it turns out...turns out...” He dug the heel of his palm into his eyes. “Goddamnit, Keith. Why didn’t you tell us? Tell me.”

Keith didn’t say anything. Couldn’t look at either of them. To think he was sneaky. He should have known he couldn’t hide the bags under his eyes and the glaring signs of the disease.

“Keith, please say something.”

He bowed his head lower. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“Shouldn’t have come?” Lance said, dangerously low. “Shouldn’t have come? Oh yeah because that is a great fucking idea when the people who love you would have woken up in the morning wondering where you were. Because it is a fantastic idea for us to stumble upon an emotionally wrecked Shiro. Because it is a wonderful idea for him to lead me to your corpse without having the chance to say goodbye or to have one last kiss or to at least say ‘I love you’--!”

Lance’s voice grew with each sentence, bordering on screaming. But he really wasn’t angry. No, he was bleeding. Keith has a physical wound, but Lance’s chest was drenched in red, tears of blood drenching the soil in a dark crimson. Spreading to the others, encircling around Shiro and Keith, the two respectively hurting with him.

Keith too bled out, wishing to staunch the wound. To take it away, say it was all a sick joke.

Life is not kind.

“I’m sorry,” was all Keith could say. “I’m so sorry.”

“We want to be there for you, Keith,” Hunk said. “We are your friends. We understand why you did it, but not informing us is equivalent to the time Shiro went missing with Matt. We were stressed. Worried sick. We couldn’t fathom anything else but finding you. With keeping us in the loop, at least we could have closure.”

Pidge stepped closer. Her calm, cool facade had broken, the adult side of her stripped away for who she really was. An innocent child thrust into an apocalypse.

“I remember Matt shoving me in a closet,” She said, hushed. “I remember the groans and moans of the undead. I remember the decaying children chasing after me in the school, Matt noticing I was unable to shake them off. I remember him telling me he would be back, his dopey, stupid smile being the last thing I saw between the cracks of the closet, the loud crackle of a pot and spoon echoing down the hallway. It grew faint. So faint, it became one with silence. And that silence was the only remnant of my brother, never reuniting. Never seeing the family blonde hair in a messy ponytail.”

She sniffed, her armor relinquishing its stability, cracks formed and bursted out to reveal a small girl begging for her family back.

“You’re an idiot if you think by you disappearing you would relieve us of such despair. Either way, you’re gone. Either way, we lose someone we love. The least--the leas you could have done is hugged me close and said goodbye like the brother you are to me! Give me the chance to do what I couldn’t with Matt. Stop trying to protect us and let us love you, you fucking dumbass!”

She ran into his arms, the gun casted aside for him to catch her. She held onto him for dear life, crying into his neck. “I don’t care if you turn right now, let me have this. Please let me have this...”

Keith never thought the brains--the steel in their team would be crying over him. For her to be reduced to a puddle of tears, despite being known for her high end mental shields and knack for staying logical even in the most stressful, time crunched situations. Keith forgot how scared she was.

Keith forgot about the love they all held for him.

He held her close, and soon the others joined, surrounding Keith in enough love, his heart was full. his two best friends, his brother, and the love of his life were there. Yes, he was dying. But he still thanked the universe for allowing him the short window of true living. One he hadn’t fully embraced until now, death knocking on his door to remind him of what he had.

He will be leaving them behind. But they will be fine as long as they had the few blessed minutes together.

“I love you all.” He said. “Thank you for reminding me what it means to be alive.”

“Please don’t go,” Lance begged. “Please, we can fix this.”

“Lance...” Hunk said, sympathetic, but realistically speaking. “We can’t...his bite isn’t on a part of his body we can remove.”

“Where is it?”

Keith shut his eyes, reminded of his wound pulsing with infection. “It’s...It’s on my side. My waist.”

“We can search for a cure--”

“Lance, we don’t have enough time.” Hunk reasoned, hating the fact he cannot state the opposite. “Keith is already at a stage where he can’t move. The most we have is thirty minutes before--”

Just then, Shiro threw a hand out, silencing Hunk. The four of them directed their gaze to him, confused.

“Guys,” Shiro said, a warning in his tone. “Listen.”

They did. The color drained from their face.

The grass was shifting. The forest was no longer vacated, several packs of humanoid figures out in the distance, the moonlight providing a glimmer of what was coming.

The hanging jaws. The exposed, decaying teeth. The wretched stench of decomposed flesh. The stringy, loose hair, eyes clouded with disease and the desire to feed overwhelming.

They were no longer alone.

Keith, leaving no time to hesitate, firmly pushed them off him. “You need to leave, now. That much means there is a horde nearing. Get in the truck and drive off, it should have enough gas for the next town over. “

Pidge opened her mouth, ready to fight him on the matter. But she realized why exactly they were crying. Why they were there, and her eyes immediately went to his bite. Keith lifted her face to meet his, not wanting her to focus so much on his injury.

He smiled, a brother looking down on his sister. “Don’t make Matt’s sacrifice be in vain. You’re smart. Get these guys to a safe place for me.”

Her eyes still glistened, but a new brand of determination took over. “Right. Hunk, Get our supplies set when we book it to the house. Shiro?”

“Yeah?”

She took one last look at Keith, her squeezing her wrist and processing what he was saying through his expression.

“Grab Lance.”

Lance shoved himself away from them, not liking what it meant.

“W--Hell no! I’m not leaving without Keith!”

“Lance, we don’t have time for this.”

“The fuck we do. We can’t just leave him for dead.”

“Lance--”

“NO!” He screamed. “What kind of people are we if we leave him here? What kind friends are we if we run away? They will tear him apart. He can’t so much as stand up, there is no way he is going to be able to fight them off like he used to. The least we can do is bring him with us and take him somewhere safe. Have our last moments in a safe environment. Whether it is at the house or a couple blocks down, I don’t care, but we are not leaving him to them.”

“Lance,” Keith said, stopping his tirade. It was hard, but Keith dragged himself in front of his love. The words on his tongue was poison, the ache shockwave down his throat, constricting it into the familiar sensation he had the day he was bitten. He fought the rope around his neck, swallowing as he stared deep into the blue gems he came to adore with a fiery passion.

He cupped Lance’s face in his palms, requesting his attention. He wiped the bubbling drops from his eyes, the flow increasing as Lance read what Keith desired to convey.

“Keith, don’t. Please don’t.” He gripped Keith’s wrists hard enough they should hurt, but Keith had gradually lost his sense of pain in his nerves. He was fighting down sleep; fighting the shut down in his veins. He had to get this out. Get Lance out. If he fought anymore with the others, it could be too late for them and himself. He would be damned before he witnessed their demise because of him.

“Lance, listen to me, please.” Keith quietly said. “You need to listen to Pidge and leave now. They won’t devour me. I’m one of them n--”

“No you’re not!”

“Yes I am.” He stated, hard and to the point. “I am infected. I am in the last stage before being completely consumed by the virus. There is nothing you can do. You can’t find a cure in thirty minutes, and you can’t lug me around to find a safe place for me to die, because you wont make it. You are my skilled sharpshooter, but you’re not a miracle worker.”

Right there is where it finally hit the both of them. Slapped them hard in the face, Keith’s voice choking up and Lance’s loud crying reduced to a silent suffering. Keith wished he could go with them in confidence. But he could not. He had a job to do, and the job did not involve them.

But oh how he wanted to savor the last few seconds he had with his beloved, making everything he say count to the very last period.

Though Lance fought it, Keith kept his eye contact, gently settling his extremely hot forehead to Lance’s cool one.

“My beloved Lance,” He started. “You are strong. You are smart, sweet, and so, so, so strong. I would give anything to have one last night with you in our bed. One last hunt with you, one last meal. But time is not on our side. I will cherish the moments we had together while we could, whether it was when we were stuck in a garage for two days because of a horde, or we were hand in hand along a beaten path in the middle of a field, soaking in the sun and summer air. You made me smile when I thought I wouldn’t be able to. You brightened my life when there was nothing but black and white. You were--are--my shining beacon. Now I need you to be that beacon for the team. I need you to guide them out of the darkness you did with me. I’m sorry I can’t stay. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Keith, please...”

“Remember what I taught you. Go with your gut, it is what kept us alive so far. Find your family. Find the remnants of the CDC and search for a cure. Promise me that. Promise me.”

A sob escaped Lance, his hands forcefully removed from Keith’s wrists and something being pushed into his palms.

He looked down. It was Keith’s blade.

“I can’t...I can’t take this.”

“You can, and you will.

“Please...” Lance continued to beg, whether it was towards Keith or to the heavens, he cared not. Whoever was listening, don’t rip them apart. They found each other. They finally found a piece of hope in all this destruction. Revived the part of Lance that was confident and sly, resisting to be in a comatose state of thinking like he was after the outbreak.

He woke up. But now it was like he was being forced to go back to sleep again, cracks lining his mind.

Gingerly, Keith lifted Lance’s head up and kissed him. He was soft; light, a feather gliding atop Lance’s lips. The last piece of a bird flying away, a single strand of life leaving a sliver of what once was in its wake.

And Lance kissed back, knowing it would be his last. Sensing the separation, the pull as the doomed lovers are split apart.

He didn’t think he could cry harder, but he did, his heart shattering.

Keith forced himself away, and with one last tear-stained look, he smiled and whispered “I love you.”

His eyes were sunken in. His skin an ash grey. His hair limp, and his veins popping out, his lips being the only sign of living by its small rose color.

Next thing Lance was processing is his entire body being flung towards Shiro, the boy weak but enough strength to attempt to send Lance to safety. Yet, as Shiro caught him, Lance gripped Keith’s hand, shaking his head.

“No. No I promised I wouldn’t let go.” Lance said. “I won’t let go.”

Keith gave him a squeeze and pulled away.

“Keith, don’t do this!” Lance couldn’t hold on. The boy in front of him his literally slipping through his fingers. He clawed to stay connected. To hold the warmth which kept him sane. But as Shiro inched farther away, as Keith remained sitting against the tree, his lids blinking in slow motion and his hand limp, Lance was unable to achieve the impossible.

Their fingers brushed one another, and then...

Then he was gone.

The last image he saw was Keith clasping the gun at his side, the undead surrounding him in a trapped circle. The enemy moving in, Lance screaming his throat raw and fighting against Shiro, none of his efforts slowing the one armed man.

By the time they arrived at the house, a gun shot was heard in the distance.

As the gun shot reverberated throughout the forest, it was followed by a whimper and a howl.

A howl so deafening, the team was sure his soul was stripped away from him.

The glass shards of his heart reduced to ash, and his memories a torture device, the events of the night on repeat.

He was shattered.

#shania writes #klance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #VLD #voltron #zombie apocalypse au #shatter #this is way too fucking long maybe i should make this an AO3 #shitty writing but i wanted it dONE

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