#Long Flight (Instrumental)

[idea-explorer]

When it comes to transporting valuable equipment, whether it’s musical instruments, camera gear, or high-tech equipment, the right flight case is crucial for ensuring its safety. A flight case, or road case, is designed to protect fragile equipment during travel with reinforced materials and cushioning. However, many individuals and businesses are tempted to opt for cheaper flight cases, drawn by the lower price tags. While this may seem like an affordable option, is it truly worth it? Let’s examine the risks and advantages of choosing a cheap flight case compared to a high-quality, reliable one.

What is a Flight Case?

A flight case is a protective case used to transport delicate and expensive equipment. It’s typically constructed from strong materials such as plywood, aluminum, or plastic, with foam padding inside to cushion and secure the contents. These cases are commonly used by musicians, photographers, technicians, and anyone who frequently travels with valuable equipment that needs protection from bumps, drops, and other hazards during transit.

The Allure of Cheap Flight Cases

The attraction of cheap flight cases is clear. They are marketed as affordable solutions for protecting your equipment while offering basic features like padded interiors and secure closures. In India, for instance, a high-quality flight case can range from ₹7,000 to ₹30,000, depending on the size and level of protection required. On the other hand, budget-friendly flight cases can cost anywhere from ₹2,500 to ₹7,000, making them an appealing option for those on a tight budget.

For someone who is just starting out with gear transport or needs a case for occasional use, the idea of a cheaper option might seem like a no-brainer. After all, why spend more when a less expensive case promises similar protection at a fraction of the cost?

Click the link to read more about the Flight Case article.

[flighteachers]

Precision Flying with Flighteachers – Instrument Flight Training Long Beach

Flighteachers offers expert Instrument Flight Training Long Beach to help pilots enhance their skills and fly safely in all weather conditions. Our experienced instructors provide hands-on training in advanced navigation and instrument procedures. Gain the confidence and knowledge needed for IFR certification. Take your aviation skills to the next level today. Contact us at (714) 248-6799.

[soapcloth]

CW: 18+ MDNI, mech!ghost x pilot!reader, scifi, noncon/dubcon elements, guided masturbation, temperature play, voyeurism - 1.6K words - dividers -> @/cafekitsune

Another long night in the cockpit.

You could only grin and bear it at this point. Reaching compatibility with your assigned vessel was slowly eating away at your psyche- and worst of all, you couldn’t even leave; not when your prospected affinity levels with the infamous machine had been deemed unprecedented, and certainly not when you knew what happened to deserters.

Conscription was non-negotiable these days; the large colony you had grown up in now ravaged by some otherworldly force and desperately bleeding out resources in response, be it weaponry, rations, or bodies.

The faction had been gifted the GH-05t Mech as an act of goodwill, but ask any official and you’d be informed that the powerful, unused machine would serve better as scrap parts- the real kicker being that they were no longer equipped with the resources or the manpower to dismantle the damned thing. 

GH-05t was a battle vessel; had been lauded as a ground-breaker and a boundary-pusher with the integration of an intelligent battle protocol system, all trained posthumously off the stored memories of some long-dead pilot, surely without his consent- Simon, they had named it in an attempt to make it more user friendly and assistant-like in nature.

Hubris. The system failed to run, turning the fully-functional mech into a glorified mountainous paperweight due to all of the instrumental functions being locked behind unresponsive intelligence. You speculated that the machine had passed hands to save face- to keep the public hopeful despite the system refusing to wake up.

-Wake up. You groaned, slapping lightly at your face.

You hated it here, longing for lazy days on the bleak outer walls, surrounded by the buzz of cicadas and rustling long grass as you waited for your father to get back from the drillsite. Your parents had been so proud when officials showed up at your dilapidated front porch, neat suits, shining eyes, and big smiles blissfully ignoring the very same surroundings they had left to rot;  all while you reeled internally- shaken by the worst news you had received in your life. It was a death sentence. 

It had been years since that day, and you were absolutely sure you had only been given a position like this because of some made-up numbers all while they tried to remind you that you were special, somehow different from your peers.

All damned to the same fate in your eyes.

“-load of shit.” you hissed, rubbing at the uncomfortable neuro-valve hooked into the back of your flight suit. Frustrated, you kicked at the mechanical console snug against your leg, the low rumbling whirr of the machine staying the same in response- apathetic to your misdirected rage. 

A moment passed before you finally leaned back in your seat with a grimace.

You still weren’t used to the flight suits in the mech pilot regs. You almost missed the starchy cargo pants that were worn throughout training- both had been unbearably stiff, but at least the latter hadn’t been so form-fitting.It always freaked you out a bit; the pilot suits were more akin to sleek exodermis, responsive and shock absorbent- It felt wrong to have something so foreign covering your entire body; unnatural. 

Your hips squirmed in the seat, friction suddenly becoming apparent the more you thought about it. The low tone of your monitored vitals raised gradually with the fuzzy heat beginning to shamefully pool in your gut; making you all too glad these late night bonding-sessions were done in an all but abandoned mech bay- your observed progress dwindling along with your prospects as time went on without result. 

Grinding into the seat, you swallowed back the thick saliva coating your mouth, teeth catching on your dry bottom lip as you held back a low, audible shudder; eyes fluttering shut. 

The bulky panel separating your legs became all too appealing as you acknowledged the press of it at your sealed cunt, nudging your apex into the blunt peak while your gloved hands curled around the padding of the built-in armrests.

Then, there was a pulse at your core. 

Eyes snapping open, you became all too aware that the sensation hadn’t come from your body. Straightening up in your seat you were met with a dull blinking text on the panel that had never been there before- 

‘Battle Intelligence System 

STATUS: LOADING’

You were rooted in place as you witnessed the glowing, digital bar slowly fill.

‘Battle Intelligence System 

STATUS: ONLINE’

You scrambled to pull at the neuro-valve connecting your suit to the mech, only for the small port’s flight locks to engage; a stark hiss emitting from the cockpit door’s airlock.

“Disengage locks.” you commanded, completely lost on what was happening. 

There was a low, fractured robotic groan directly in your comms “-Fuck…” the voice was deep, aggressively masculine and breathy in your ear- the sound holding more human emotion than you were prepared to rationalize. “Where am I?”

“-Disengage locks.” you repeated firmly. 

“The fuck is this?” he snarled, apparently coming to as he barked out questions, disoriented. “-Who are you- why are you in m’head- Fuck, why can’t I see?” 

Your suit was flexing and constricting, going haywire in the confusion. “C-calm down!” you stuttered, a pendulum in your head swinging between gripping dread and the low, heady heat of unmet needs. “Just-Just let me see if I can fix this.” 

Panting shakily, you swiped at the flight panel’s screen- spotting something containing the words ‘optical’ and ‘sensors’, you tapped frantically.

There was an audible wince deep in your ear, then a growling hum met with silence.

“M'dead, aren’t I?”

“-You’re a memory bank- not a person.” you asserted, clarification necessary when it came to a massive mobile death machine. ”C-Can you lay off the suit, please?”

A pulsing wave passed the length of your suit as he listened to your embarrassed response over the comms, the sound of his voice bouncing around in your head. “Fuck, bet tha’ feels nice, yeah?”

A whine bubbled at your lips before you could stop it. “I- You’re not l-listening, Simon.” 

There was a long silence following your plea- air electric and tense.

“Tha’ name- How do you know it?”

“N-not the point!” you argued, only to be met with a full body squeeze- a threat. “-It’s the name of the o-operating system! P-please!”

He relented, your chest heaving as your muscles released tension.

“Well, if you an'I are so close...”

The screen flashed with a notice. 

‘[Main Cockpit Camera Feed - Status: Active]’

Followed by another

‘[Manual Override - Feed Transmission Blocked]’

“-Keep things between us, yeah?” 

Your head swivelled around to look for a camera, landing on a lackadaisical red blink coming from right above the reinforced windshield.

“You're a sight, aren’t you?" listening closely, you could hear the audible scroll of the lens focusing.

You frowned. “Let me out-”

You gasped as a cold heat focused at your core, reminding you that your suit’s temperature regulating measures were completely under his control. “-No need for fuss, we were just getting t’know each other.”

“Th…” you paused, panting softly. “-This doesn’t make any sense.”

“What’s not to get, Love?” there was a pause as your seat adjusted forward, bumping your cunt into the console. “Give us a show, yeah?”

You whimpered in response, pressure unbearable.

“Look at you.” he snarled, the deep sound goading your rocking hips onward. “Fuck- Wish I could taste you…”

There was a small noise from the screen that had your heavy lids pulling upwards- database bringing up the low-res file of a soldier. 

“-Look at the man doing this to you, love.” 

Your lips parted, eyebrows drawing downwards in confusion as you looked at the attached image; a masked man with voids for pupils staring back at you.

“Y-You’re not-” you gasped as a concentrated cold rushed your breast, nipples pearling up uncomfortably at the sensation- the friction of your undergarments and the newly dropping temperatures sending your head soaring as your hips worked at grinding into the blunt metal. ”-not r-real.”

“-I am.” His voice was a sharp, humorous growl that threatened you to challenge his word, followed by a single deep laugh. “Eyes up- on me, love.”

Your head bobbed as you glanced lazily at the file, unable to make any sense of the written data- not that it mattered anyway.

“Think you can finish for me?”

The suit pulsed rhythmically as you practically humped your seat with eyes screwed shut, the humiliation of your current position itching at something unfamiliar deep in your abdomen. With flushed cheeks, you chased the bubbling pot that made a home in your gut; willing it to boil over.

 “Look at me.” he ordered. “Need y'to look at me.” 

Glancing at the screen in a haze, the exomuscles of your suit flexed in response.

“No- Up.”

your head shot towards the camera, holding contact with the whirring lens as the overstimulation finally became too much- pussy fluttering in euphoria with elbows bracing you, hips pathetically grinding out the high. 

Struggling to catch your breath, you slumped back into the chair- gears adjusting your seat back into a comfortable position.

“Good.” the voice in your ear barked, before lowering incrementally. “-Good…”

The screen lit up with a notice that compatibility requirements had been met- although it didn't mean much to you in your state; chest heaving slowly while you tried to make sense of what happened. 

“Gonna’ let you out- but this has got to stay our secret, yeah?” 

You swallowed, eyelids tugging open as your suit tensed in warning.

“How copy?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Good,” he paused. “-don't need anyone but you poking around up here.”

[melanchoire]

ot4 aespa x freeuse reader PLZZZ

so many requests about g!p aespa so HERE WE GO

cw: blowjob, breeding, creampie, degradation, double penetration, handjob, humiliation, mommy kink, riding, sex tape??

being the only member without a dick in a group where all your groupmates have one was a difficult task for you 😣 at first you weren’t aware that they had this... characteristic. but when you found out about it, there was a certain tension whenever you were around them, and you always tried to do everything possible to make sure it wasn’t an awkward moment! buuut there were times when tension and desires won…

unnie karina who always has most of the work; solo activities, special collaborations in music festivals, projects as a model or ambassador. besides being the leader of the group, you already know how that role involves a lot of work and time in the life of an idol and how much maturity and seriousness she has to put in sometimes. she has no time for anything!

so karina returns to the dorms tired after a week full of solo and group activities, flights to other countries and long hours of filming for upcoming campaigns with brands where she is an ambassador or muse. seeing the pout and tired expression on her face as she walks through the door to your room is all you need to know that today you will be the one helping your leader and take care of her as she usually takes care of her members

riding her cock while she can only flatter you and moan beneath you 😵‍💫 karina has no strength today to degrade you or try to dominate you, so she just lies on her back, resting her hands on your hips and enjoying how you’re making her feel good by riding her and helping her take some stress off her exhausted body :( looking up at you with bright puppy eyes, begging “please love. keep going, don’t stop. please.” and you wouldn’t stop even if she begged you! karina always works sooo hard and is usually a punching bag when it comes to criticism, being in the eye of the storm and under the judging gaze of the public 💔 and the best thing you can do is let your dear unnie use your body to forget about the world out there for a bit

ohhh and if you play with her tits while riding her cock 😵‍💫 super whiny and needy when your thumbs rub her nipples, writhing under your body as she thrusts her hips up to bury her cock deeper inside you as if it wasn’t deep enough already!

giselle being the talented writer and producer of songs or mixtapes that were never officially released due to company decisions, but it was no problem at all! she loved working on music as a hobby, enjoying writing songs and making new sounds or trying out other rhythms that caught her attention or were fun. giselle also loved inviting you to her bedroom! recording songs with meaningless but catchy lyrics, playing with voice effects and making instrumentals that were catchy and quite danceable

but giselle sometimes also wants to work on making music seriously, making songs for future projects or opportunities that may arise at some point in the future throughout her career with her group or as a solo artist. but she includes you in her plans too?? she states that she would like the two of you to do a collaboration in case she ever starts a solo career, or in any case, be a sub–unit outside the group or in some song for a group album in the future

she would say, “i would like to try something like ‘call me mommy, mommy.’ or something spicy and naughty like that.” and you would laugh in her face because you thought she was joking! until she arches an eyebrow and you realize that giselle was being completely serious about this…

lying on your stomach on her bed, a pillow under your stomach to lift your hips up so giselle can fuck your pussy from behind while you moan and whine into the microphone connected to her laptop 🥰 of course she could use a sample or be the one to record the moans for this track, but why would she do that when she has a bandmate willing to help her with her musical projects??

whining “mommy” after every time giselle’s voice sings the line “call me mommy, mommy.” and sounding so vulnerable and fragile that giselle begins to question whether she wants to release that song in the future because you sound so beautiful moaning her name that she wants to be the only person who can hear you in that position…

ALSO giselle opening her computer camera and recording or taking photos while she fucks you cruelly from behind 😣 pulling your hair and forcing you to lift your face from the pillows, making you look at your own reflection in the front camera, clicking the mouse and taking a photo at the exact moment her cock kisses your cervix in a thrust that makes you roll your eyes and open your mouth in a silent moan 🫠 but giselle won’t post that photo on her instagram! she would if she could 👀 she prefers to upload it to her private account where she only has the members of the group and her closest friends, showing off to the world the fun she has during the recordings of her songs

winter and ningning, the cute maknaes of the group who are obsessed and perverted when it comes to their beloved unnie 🥺 winter shamelessly staring at your ass while ningning has her gaze fixed on your tits, both exchanging a knowing look and talking mentally to decide if what they have is a good idea or not…

getting on your knees and jerking off both of their cocks at the same time, enjoying how sensitive and loud your sweet members get from having this kind of attention on them 😵‍💫 winter grabbing her cock with one hand, guiding the head against your lips and moaning as you take her entire length into your mouth without even choking or gagging 😳 of course ningning takes advantage of this to guide both of your hands to her cock, giving you a needy look and begging you to give her the same treatment you’re giving winter :( and of course you do! sucking winter’s cock at the same time as your hands go up and down as you jerk off ningning, both of them moving their hips towards you in search of more

and they’re so messy when cumming 😣 winter pulling out of your mouth, jerking off her cock in her fist at the same speed you were doing with ningning’s cock, trying to match your movements but whining and crying because it was a very fast speed and she was so overstimulated and sensitive that she could barely take it without giving in right there :( but winter is grateful when she feels your hand wrap around her cock and replace her own, now jerking off both girls at the same time and encouraging them to cum on your face, and they do! their cocks twitching in your hands, shooting heavy loads of cum straight into your mouth, looking at you in amazement when you swallow everything because those two always make a mess and cum in torrents!

being penetrated with both at the same time, riding ningning’s cock while winter is kneeling behind you and fucking your ass, enjoying the way your ass bounces every time her hips hits against it 🥴 hissing as she places her hands on your hips and fucks her cock into your ass at an even faster speed making you drip even more on ningning’s cock, earning a moan from her and making ningning finally start moving her hips up to fuck you from below

and both are two subs so whiny and needy 🥺 whimpering and babbling pleas or incoherent things, moaning “unnie” in every sentence that came out of their lips, and you loved that! always having a thing for the way they said “unnie”, maybe it was because of how soft and sweet their voices were and how that word sounded so adorable coming from them

both cumming inside you, desperate to fill you with their seed 😣 they would make you open your own cheeks for them, enjoying how the cum of both drips from your holes and runs down your thighs slowly, feeling their cocks start to harden again…

[pbeltarts]

Hey! I decided it might be helpful to have a reference post for all the details for the AU. I'll update this periodically as new things are revealed or added. - Bec

General Info

This Au is based on Pixie Hollow and the Tinkerbell movies/books! Most of it will lean on the movie lore, but will borrow some lore from the books as well. I also am making up a lot of lore myself to fill in gaps for the storyline or make the translation from MHA easier.

You can learn more about the lore of Pixie Hollow via the wiki!

>> The Fanfic is out and updating! You can read it here! <<

#MHAPixieHollow

Want to draw or write with the AU and share it? You can use the above hashtag so it'll be connected! I'll try to check this tag regularly so I can share your work! (This should work on tumblr and insta, but I cannot be certain for twitter/bluesky.)

#pixie asks

This is the tag I use on answers to askbox questions involving the AU!

Some General Guidelines:

While my AU has a plot line and is intended to have BKDK as the focus ship, I don't care/mind if you like the designs and want to draw your preferred ship with them! As long as you're nice to others, do what you want! (So even though I'm making this for BKDK, if you like KRBK and like their designs, I don't care if you draw/write that with the AU!)

I do have a storyline for the AU and am working on a fic with that, but! I love seeing others' creativity, so if you want to use the AU for your own writing, feel free! All I ask is that you don't claim anything as "canon" to the AU unless its been stated by me!

Its unlikely I'll be able to design every fairy from 1A or elsewhere, so if I haven't designed them and you want to come up with a design for the AU, do it! I'd love to see it!

If you like any of the art from the AU and want to use it for PFPs/Banners on your social accounts, you're free to do so! I'd prefer credit if you did, thanks!

Most of my work for the AU will be monochrome sketches, so if you want to color them feel free! All I ask is that you properly credit me if you share your coloring.

The Fairies

Izuku aka "Deku" - [design]

Talent: Dust Keeper Alchemy Info: Deku's wings are covered in black veins that creep onto his back and he cannot fly, even with the help of pixie dust. He's given blue pixie dust by All Might and works on alchemy experiments in secret in order to do multiple talents.

Katsuki aka "Kacchan" - [design]

Talent: Fast Flying Info: One of the best fast flyers in Pixie Hollow, he has unique control over the winds. Constantly keeping Deku out of trouble.

Eijirou - [design]

Talent: Animal Talent Info: One of Katsuki's closest friends. He has a best animal friend, a turtle named Boulder, who he visits regularly and takes sun naps on his shell.

Denki - [design]

Talent: Light Talent Info: Playful and excitable, he has a habit of accidentally lighting himself up when excited.

Mina - [design]

Talent: Garden Talent Info: Fun-loving and overly social, she loves calling forward a bunch of colorful petals to surprise others.

Kyouka - [design]

Talent: Music Talent Info: Likes to play her guitar in various places in pixie hollow for her friends. Momo, the tinker fairy, makes and fixes her instruments.

Hanta - [design]

Talent: Scouting Talent Info: Specializes in using vines and ropes to restrain threats. A fairly laid back fairy who likes to bother his friends and laze about when avoiding orders from Hawks, the leader of the Scouting guild.

Ochaco - [design]

Talent: Fast Flying Info: While not the fastest of the flying talents, Ochaco specializes in utilizing winds to create a soft floating affect. She's most useful in helping dandelions find their way to the pixie dust tree or assisting in soft landings.

Shouto - [design]

Talent: Light & Frost Talents Info: Shouto is a unique fairy where two dandelions were growing from the same stalk when it took flight to Pixie Hollow. Because of this, him and his intentional sibling became one when influenced by Pixie dust, making him both a Summer and Winter fairy. Because of this, he can do 2 talents and also survive in both climates for elongated periods of time. However, he cannot stay in one place for a whole year, and regularly has to move between the Summer Glade and the Winter Woods.

Tsuyu - [design]

Talent: Water Talent Info: One of the only Water fairies that willingly gets into water, though she doesn't submerge her wings and only stands in shallow ends. She calls Izuku "Izu-chan."

Tenya - [design]

Talent: Fast Flying Info: A very structured fairy, he doesn't like deviating from his schedule. He's considered possibly the fastest of the fast flying talents but his wind control is lacking.

Hitoshi - [design]

Talent: Dust Keeping Info: Always tired. One of Izuku's closest friends, he'll defend Izuku in his own way from others. Has some unspoken guilt that he maybe somehow was the reason Izuku's wings formed incorrectly.

All Might

Talent: Unknown Info: When acting as king, All Might presents himself in a full-bodied muscled form. But out of the public eye, he presents as a feeble older fairy named Toshinori. The other fairies outside of the Never Council and Fairy Inko don't know that they're the same people, which allows Toshinori to speak comfortably with others and keep an eye on Pixie Hollow from the sidelines. Izuku meets Toshinori and helps him with something, despite the task being far harder without the help of flight, and Toshinori sees how hard Izuku is trying and feels something special about him, so he gives Izuku a supply of blue pixie dust.

More TBA!

Other Characters

Eri

Eri is a human child whose laugh Deku was born from. She lives a difficult life.

Mirio aka "Lemillion"

Mirio is a blonde mouse and Eri's only friend, who attempts to look out for her and make her smile. Eri gave him the nickname "Lemillion" because it sounds like 'lemon' (because of his fur) and how he's 1 in a million.

More TBA!

F.A.Q.

What happened to Deku's wings? Can he not fly?

Deku's wings did not work since his arrival. They look different from others' wings and don't respond to pixie dust, so he cannot take flight. Because he was born from Eri's sorrowful laugh, there was not enough joy in it for him to form correctly. [You can see Deku's Birth comic here!]

What about [insert character name]?

I have plans for most of the main cast from MHA, but not all of them will be fairies. As for other characters, like students from 1B or other NPCs, I don't have solid thoughts for all of them and really only think of them if I plan to insert them into the story so I probably don't have a role for them.

How did Katsuki and Izuku meet?

Katsuki met Izuku on Izuku's arrival day! He was the fairy to see Izuku's dandelion come into Pixie Hollow and aided it to the Pixie Dust Tree. [You can see the comic here!]

Is this a fanfic or comic I can read?

Right now, all that exists are the little snippet comics and drawings I've made. However! I have a storyline in mind for the AU set roughly 6 years after Deku's birth, and I'm going to try to write it! I'll definitely share it when I'm able.

Will there be other ships in the AU other than BKDK?

Probably! But I haven't given it much thought or focus yet.

Can I cosplay your fairy designs?

ABSOLUTELY!! And please show me because I will cry.

Am I allowed to do fanart/write something for the AU?

OF COURSE!!! Please please share it with me too I'd love to see it! You can also use the tag #MHAPixieHollow !

More TBA as needed.

[kithtaehyung]

yoongi's interlude: fugue pt. ii (3tan) (m) | myg

title: yoongi’s interlude: fugue pt. ii (m) pairing: 3tan!yoongi x reader(f)  series: masterlist | three tangerines | fireworks | house party | basketball |  stay |  sidewalk talk | friends | dalo | like that | anytime | sundress season | yoongi’s interlude | forfeit | flutter | video call | busted | broken pt. 1 | broken pt. 2 | fugue pt. i rating/genre: m (18+) ; angst , smut ;  brother’s best friend au, implied age gap au summary: he would do anything for you, even if that means leaving your light... to venture into his dark. note: fugue—in music, a compositional procedure characterized by the systematic imitation of a principal theme in simultaneously sounding melodic lines ; a state or period of loss of awareness of one's identity, often coupled with flight from one's usual environment. note 2: if you haven’t read them or haven’t read them in awhile, i highly recommend rereading busted, broken pt 1, and broken pt 2 before diving into this one. note 3: yes. this is where i will hold hands. warnings: language, flashbacks, time skips, angst, heavy isolation, brain fog, fugue state experiences, ruined instrument, depression allusions, alcohol mentions and consumption, fight scenes, spice from yoongi’s pov????, trauma, bro is a real one, drugs mention/use, the demons are being fought y’all, among other things😔, blood, yoongi please get up😭😭, darkness, jimin being his ride or die self, surprise reader cameo?, anxiety, ptsd reflexes, the ex is getting screen time🚶‍♀️‍➡️, friendship is truly power, yoongi just needs a gd hug😭, dark thoughts, tension, the ending.. oh god the ending<33 ; nsfw warnings: under the cut! drop date: july 1st, 2025, 9:57pm est word count: 21.1k wtfffff

smut warnings: YOONGI SMUT POV!!!, ch*king, head/hair tugging, reader has a pain kink and yoongi knows it, penetr*tive s*x, chains but come on now, protective s*x, cowgirl, or*l (m/f rec), edg*ng a ha ha, thro*tf*cking, kissing :’))), kissing D:, hitting from the b b back, yoongi king of consent sheesh, multiple org*sms, spitting lmfao, sl*t/wh*re mentions, yoongi jfc lol, the aftercare y’all already know!!

“How do you even call this work? You don’t do shit!”

—

—

When you’re in the eye of a tempest, you don’t see the danger surrounding all sides. You feel the calm. The temporary peace—when really your mind is constantly on the run. 

But from the outside looking in, no one can reach you through the darkness. If they get too close, they risk getting hurt. Swept in the chaos and shut out from where you stand in false hope. 

They’ll scream for you to leave. Beg for you to run. But only you can make that choice once you have the chance to hear them. And why would you? If you don’t see any issue with what’s in front of your eyes? 

They will try, and try, and try. Their voices will run repetitive until distant. Pleas will fall on deafer and deafer ears. Try as they might to step into the rush of fury, they’ll only get pushed away because you can’t deal with the cacophony of disappointment. 

Pretty soon, nobody wants to brave that cyclone. Nobody will come save you from the wrath because all it does is make them burn. 

You’re happy, right? Why can’t they be happy you’re happy where you are? Safe. Comfortable, like you’ve never been before? They don’t see it like you do. They don’t understand what you have. 

Slowly but surely. One by one—even the best one. No one except your storm will be there beside you.

And when it abandons you to drown in the ocean it created?

Only then will you realize all your lifelines are long, long gone.

—

—

The sky is dark again.

From the dips of his sofa, Yoongi awakes to pitch black, watching the ceiling flash sinister grins with lightning white teeth.

Ah. Back to the beginning. 

Not that he’s surprised, of course. Everything always goes back to the way it was. Back to the way it’s supposed to be. Because it’s all he deserves. 

Right? 

When thunder crashes into the night, Yoongi flinches in knots, memories jagged at the edges piercing his head violent. 

You know not to—

—shitty day to—

Seriously?

—knew this would—

Prove it.

—only gonna end up alone. 

—

—

Thunder booms once more.

But Yoongi wakes in a memory.

“Why don’t you just stay?”

He looks to his side, seeing a face that has been with him for more days than anyone else’s lately. 

No one has ever asked him to stay. At least, not during the morning after when there’s not much left to talk about. With everyone else, it’s been a quick one in the nearest bathroom or him bouncing before the sun comes up. 

It’s his fault for sleeping this long. He should’ve at least gotten woken up by—

Thunder cracks outside, catching Yoongi’s attention before he finds himself still hesitating. “You sure?” 

“At least until the storm stops. Then you have to go.” 

A bit of morning attitude does feel nice. And at least he remembers her name. He should, though, since this is the fourth time he’s been over. 

“Uhm.” The only complication is that… Yoongi has a thing. A pretty important thing, since his friends are finally all in town again and planned to spend the day together. He’s surprised his phone isn’t blowing up right now, which is what he expected to be woken up by.

He shifts. Oh. It’s dead. 

Yoongi hears a snort behind him before an arm snakes around his bare torso. “It died a long time ago, you know.”

Interesting. “You didn’t charge it for me?”

Another smug laugh crawls along his spine. “I could’ve.” When the hand on his stomach slithers lower, Yoongi’s body responds on instinct, his eyes closing and his heart bumping just a bit louder. 

And he doesn’t yet know it. 

“But I wanted you all to myself.”

Yoongi turns. “Is that so?”

But this stormy day from years past is significant. 

Lashes bat at him with shimmering lust as he’s lured away from his still-uncharged phone. Away from his plans. Away from his awaiting, concerned as hell friends. “Find out for yourself.”

And Yoongi’s gone before the next groan of thunder ends its roar. “Fuckin’ plan on it.”

It’s not a cleanse. Not a relief.

But an omen. 

—

—

Time passes as he’s thrown back to the present.

But Yoongi doesn’t know how long it’s been. Hours? Days? …Weeks? 

It’s dark again. 

But his phone is alive. Barely there across the room, a light blue screen is all he can make out. Someone could be texting. Or calling. Or whatever else he’s gonna ignore. 

How did it get all the way over there?

Whatever. Not like he cares. He’s not gonna need it for awhile anyway. 

The last thing Yoongi remembers is clutching your words in his hands, but apparently Namjoon and Hoseok found him eerily sick. Practically kicked him out of the studio to force him to get better, not knowing how painfully ironic that would become.

The endless rot coaxed a slow descent into his warring mind, corroding from the inside. Seeping defeat along his veins. 

Pelts pelts pelts against the windows hit him like punches, weakening his resolve to even stay awake. It’s all too much. His brain is too battered and bruised to fight right now. 

So he plummets from the sofa back into the past. 

—

—

“That one looks like you.”

From a ways behind, Yoongi watches his younger self, seeing vibrant hair shaking in a laugh before sweeping his pensive gaze along the hazy, deep orange skyline. 

He remembers this hilltop, benches and trees overlooking the city life below. How can he forget when he passes it every time he goes to practice with the guys? Well, every time he went. He doesn’t think he’s gone anywhere in a minute. 

At least he’s observing this memory from a distance this time. Yoongi assumes this is his mind’s way of coping. Because reliving the memories from his own point of view was too much to bear. 

The air carried a certain hue of pink that day. And his hands can still recall the stickiness of the popsicle he held as stickier lips get caught in another kiss. 

Right. This is where it happened. Where Yoongi fell in love for the first time. 

At least, that’s what it felt like to him. He felt wanted for more than his body, understood on a level that no one else had before. Be it his yearning for companionship or for simply being needed, Yoongi felt something beat in his chest that day, spurning him to embrace new emotions never before experienced. 

But something feels off as he relives it on the sidelines. She says those words so differently than how he remembered before. 

“I love you.” 

Yoongi turns away before he can watch himself react. Because he doesn’t need to witness the light in those eyes, a light that would soon be squashed and smothered to the point of nothingness. 

Because in the end, it wasn’t love he received. Love doesn’t come with terms and conditions that don’t go both ways. Love doesn’t make someone second guess everything they’ve ever said and done. 

Love doesn’t make someone want to end it all. 

But what did he know back then? All he saw was someone making him feel good. Great, most of the time. What he didn’t think about, though, was why they were on the hilltop in the first place. 

Right now, that Yoongi doesn’t know about this girl skipping out on work to hang out with him. He doesn’t remember shirking responsibilities to meet her in her bed, caught in his feelings enough afterwards to blow his friends off yet again. 

How many times did he do that at this point? Were they already annoyed with him? Or was this when they started asking if they’d even get him back?

Sighing deep, Yoongi stuffs both hands in his hoodie as he watches another kiss unfold, grimacing at the way she tries her best to swallow him whole. Months down the line, she accomplishes that. He’ll feel trapped with no way out in no time. 

He needs to get out of this nightmare. The sunlight is fading and so is his control. 

Then he watches himself get up, begging to not get in that car. To not leave. To just run. 

Fuck, he wants to haul himself away with everything in his bones. The fact that he can’t stop any of this from happening is what hurts the most, feeling like he can save himself yet knowing it’s impossible. All he can do is watch. 

As she yanks on his younger arm to haul him back down to the bench, Yoongi flinches where he stands, triggered by all the times he tried to leave his own fucking place just to be guilt-tripped into staying. Every time. So many times so many times so many fucking times. 

Get out of here. Either version, get the fuck out of this timeline and into any other. He’s damn near ready to beg and sacrifice anything with a squeeze of his eyes. 

And when he opens them, Yoongi meets a different orange hue on his speckled ceiling, blinking before turning his head into a pillowcase that smells like… You. 

Thank fuck. 

Wait, how’d he get here? Wasn’t he just on the couch? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. 

Relieved, he burrows a cheek into your lingering presence, inhaling short to preserve the one thing that makes his apartment feel like a home. It’s such a comfort that he feels remorse in his chest, right before something leaks slow from his eye.

Even in your absence, you save him once again. There’s nothing Yoongi won’t give you when he gathers himself again, because you’re the only thing keeping him tethered to something good. 

Guess going back to sleep is not an option. Maybe he’ll finally try to work on some tracks again. 

—

—

A boom of thunder jolts him conscious, and Yoongi winces at the crick in his shoulder before grabbing it in a rub. What the hell? When did he fall asleep? 

Checking his dimmed screen, he squints when the brightness blooms and curses at the many, many, many errant notes displayed on his workspace. Because of fucking course he fell asleep on his keyboard. 

The instrument track is deleted without another thought. 

But after a brief stare, Yoongi undoes the action and goes to the very beginning of the timeline, just to see if he had an idea to start with before descending into a dreamless symphony. 

Nope. Delete.

Failure wisps down his chest before he rubs both eyes. This has got to be the most disjointed he’s ever felt. Yoongi doesn’t even know when he last ate something, much less spoken to somebody or taken a fucking shower. 

Disgusting. He needs to do that last one. It’s the only productive thing he does before falling face first into his bedsheets, wondering when he last washed them before succumbing to sleep again. 

—

—

“Wow, about time you finally brought her!” 

“Ah, yah, he’s back out from hiding!” 

Yoongi can visibly see his hand squeezed with apprehension, and he remembers nails digging into his skin hard enough to crunch his smile. 

Throughout the house, multiple people greet them both as they pass, and even Yoongi shifts as if he isn’t just a ghost of a bystander. 

This party. This night. This very house witnessed the moment when everything started going to absolute shit. 

For once, she agreed to come with him to a party. It wasn’t at Jimin’s, since she never wanted to be there—red flag stupidly ignored—but at another acquaintance’s across town. 

Yoongi was simply relieved, happy to be able to see everyone he cared about in one place. But it soon became harder and harder to hold conversations without being pulled somewhere else, being told to go elsewhere, feeling bad about not making it a good time for her. 

As his younger self follows her to a room upstairs, Yoongi prods his cheek. Because unlike sneaking around with your shy smile, this was to hash out a petty argument about nothing. Nothing. 

But he cared about her so much that he took the harsh statements behind closed doors. He listened as she expressed that she felt ignored the whole night. He hated himself for making her feel that way because that wasn’t his intent at all. 

Poised against the wall just outside the door, Yoongi hangs his head, hearing the same painful words from the other side and sending his past self all the love he didn’t have before. 

And he watches as the same door bursts open, his ex rushing for the stairs and his bright hair bolting after her.

Soon, he’ll chase her down the stairs, calmly try to reason with her but failing miserably. People will stare. People will talk. 

But they’d already be in a car and silently driving away. 

—

—

Another day. Another thunderstorm.

Somehow, Yoongi always ends up in his living room when this happens. Like his bedroom feels too sinister when it rains—unless you’re in there filling it with your sunshine. 

He hopes you still know how beautiful you are. How wonderful, how mesmerizing he finds you, no matter where in space and time he resides. Are you finding ways to be happy? Are you out there conquering whatever you want simply because you can? 

Can he send himself to your dreams instead? 

No. Even in dreams, he doesn’t deserve to see you right now. 

And there’s his same problem again. The shadow standing over him. Whether this is due to his past mistakes, or the darkness in his mind, Yoongi fully believes he isn’t yet worthy of your light. 

Besides. As he feels the guitar standing in its same place, he hears it speaking. Reminding him of all the things he’s done wrong. 

When lightning strikes, Yoongi counts the seconds. And four counts later, he flinches at the boom before blanking again. 

—

—

“Who’s that?”

“No one.” 

“You know not to tell me that. Who is it?” 

Ah. He knows why this memory is still taking up space in his mind. Yoongi takes a spot along the wall of her living room, remembering how clean it was and knowing that’s one of the reasons he liked her in the first place. 

Settled on the spotless couch, his younger self with undyed hair turns his head. “The studio guy I was talking to before. Wants to bring me in so I can see what’s up.” 

She gets up with a pout, “Awhh, does it have to be today?” 

He remembers being excited as hell for this. But no one would be able to tell based on his response, “Uhh, I think so. Is that okay?”

“Umm.. I mean, I guess.” 

Truthfully, there were many reasons Yoongi liked this girl. But there were also warning signs, and he must have ignored them in favor of bliss and companionship. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Walking up to his knees, she starts to mount his lap. And this is when Yoongi softly thumps his head back on the other side of the room. 

“I just wanted to hang out today.” 

“Well.. I practically live here now.” When he watches his younger hands skirt along her legs, no feeling rushes into his veins. It’s all evaporated. There’s nothing where everything used to be. “We can when I get back?”

“You don’t live here officially,” she tuts, slinging arms around his neck and bringing him into her chest. And again, his current self is repulsed. “Are you sure you need to go? What are you even gonna do?” 

She fucking knows what she’s doing. Red flags are everywhere for eyes unblinded by infatuation. 

“It’s not that I need to, but I really fucking want to. It sounds really sick and I think I can work there with them.”

“With who?” 

“The.. Studio guys?” 

This is more painful on the other side. 

Because that boy doesn’t know what’s coming. He doesn’t know the pain that will splay out from his inability to see what’s happening to him. Those arms will tighten and tighten around his neck in due time, suffocating like mad. 

But for now, she agrees to let him go, dismissive of the main reason and having ulterior motives. “Fine, but you’re bringing me back food.” 

“I got us,” he readily agrees. And Yoongi can just feel the rush in his chest. Incredible, considering he recalled zero emotion from her earlier touch. “Just let me know what you want.” 

This is when it hits again. This feeling in his gut is not because of the food they ate when he returned. But from preparing for what’s coming next. 

And he dreads the next time he can’t stay awake anymore. 

—

—

Yoongi eyes the molded tangerines in his bowl.

And his heart walks away before he does. 

—

—

Hail comes down in sheets as Yoongi watches himself haul ass to the apartment corridor. Right behind him, growls and angry yells erupt, “I told you it would be a shitty day to do this.”

“It’s my only day off,” he reiterates, steadying a box with the door as he jingles in the key. “Been busy as fuck lately.”

“At that studio again?” 

Waiting as they bustled inside an empty unit, Yoongi’s jaw locks right up. Right then and there he should’ve walked away from that dangerous precipice, new place be damned. So slippery with condescension. So littered with malice and passive aggression. 

But they both took that step from beyond the bounds of friends with benefits, and with those benefits also came the ones of his doubt. Because Yoongi dealt with the jabs. He could handle those, though he shuns his own naivety of liking instead of loathing them. How did he ever let himself be subtly shot down so many times?

It continued to happen all throughout the day. Even when they both waited out the hailstorm and came out to their cars dented to hell, all he’d really hear were complaints about his hobby—his hobby?—taking up so much time. 

It’s when they’re almost done that she drops a heavy hit, with Yoongi watching them from the hall. “Just think about it, okay? You’re spending all this time and money on it and aren’t really doing anything.”

Maddeningly, it’s hard to really tell someone a hobby is actually your entire life. Especially when you haven’t got anything to show for it other than a couple self-produced tracks and one producer credit on a local, aspiring singer’s album. Man, that guy was an asshole. He needed to learn how to move sessions along even with artists bickering the whole way or else—

“Are you even listening?”

“Sorry,” Yoongi mumbles, adjusting the moving box in his arms that’s holding a deconstructed bar cart. “Work shit again.”

“Seriously? Can you not for like two seconds? I just wanna get everything done with and shower. I feel gross.”

“You aren’t supposed to shower during a—”

“Don’t care! I do not care. Let lightning strike me the fuck down while I scrub my asshole.”

Yoongi snorts as he struggles to open his door once again, noting in the far, far back of his mind that the person with a free hand could’ve held it open but didn’t. That should’ve told him enough. But of course, he gave her everything, including way too many chances to redeem herself. 

As they stumble inside, Yoongi follows, remembering how, despite moving someone in, he felt so… Alone. 

His music equipment gets shoved over for more desk space; his shoe collection stuffed in cramped spaces to make room for smaller kicks; his kitchen groaning with boxes and bins with no organization that was slowly but painfully driving him up and through the nearest wall.

Watching this dreary day play out from a distance, Yoongi observes his younger self with abject misery, sweeping his gaze across a cluttered living room and noting the obvious slump in his shoulders. Shoulders that bore the weight of his brash decision of a relationship. 

What were his friends doing that day? Were they watching a basketball game together? He remembers it was the end of the season, so a lot of them were gathering for watch parties and cook-outs. Get togethers he had turned down for weeks in order to spend time with her. 

If only he had asked himself one question. One question should’ve been enough to tell him everything he needed to know.

If he ever had the chance to tell his younger self not to get hung up on one mistake in his life, he would pick this one. Because this one fuck-up set him back years, and became the first splotch of grey in his shrinking, shrinking universe. One question he could’ve asked himself. One answer he could’ve gotten to immediately. 

Why didn’t anyone help him move her in.

—

—

There’s nothing in the fridge Yoongi can eat. And there’s a severe lack of food in his pantry, even though he remembers it being stocked but not taking any of it out. So for the first time in awhile, he forces himself to go outside for sustenance. 

Yoongi shuts his door before locking it, also noting that very empty bowls lie next to his shoes. 

“Oh! There you are.” 

Who the fuck? Who’s even out at this hour? Sluggish, Yoongi turns, noticing the elder lady next door watering the plants along her welcome mat. What was her name again? He thinks it starts with a vowel. But when he tries to answer with a hello, his voice cracks and dies on his tongue. 

Holy shit, when’s the last time he’s even spoken? 

“You okay, sugar? I haven’t seen or heard you in a long time.” 

Wait. Even the neighbors are getting nosy now? How long has he been away from the world? Attempting speech again, Yoongi swallows before rasping out, “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Don’t lie to me, boy. Where’s that nice girl that’s been coming over?” 

Oh. He thinks that’s a pulse in his chest before he answers, “At her place.” Where you need to stay. Far, far away from him.

“Oh… Well, I hope she comes back over soon.” She sets her watering pail on the windowsill. “You two have the best time when she’s here. Hah! Those laughs I hear when I don’t have my dramas playing.. You two give an old lady hope.” 

…What? Yoongi can’t even form a coherent thought. 

Did… Did you really make his laughs so hard his walls couldn’t contain them? The concept seems so obvious yet so foreign, because he can’t even recall the last time he used muscles in his face to smile. Let alone expel joy. 

Suddenly, he sees rain on a cloudless night. Where is he? He doesn’t even fucking know anymore. 

“I’ll be waiting,” the lady continues, breaking through his haze again. “You look like you’re about to tell me something. But I know you aren’t done with her yet.” 

Closing his mouth, Yoongi blinks before nodding his tired head. “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Good! And tell her Miss Dion says hello, okay?” 

Yoongi hasn’t spoken to you in awhile now. But he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that. “Yes, ma’am.” 

—

—

This memory doesn’t reveal much other than onyx static. But it morphs and twists until it sprouts edges, and it sends him into shakes. Fuck. This is the night he always dreads. The night that transcends time, showing itself like a specter no matter the time of day. The night he said those three words that have him fucking tethered to his living room corner. 

The night of his twenty-first. 

It happened all those years ago, with only the two of them because she wanted it to be special and waved off his desire to have his friends there. For a milestone that should have been celebrated with whoever he fucking wanted. 

And he remembers being completely fine with the isolation. Because despite all the studio shade, all the music dismissal… She got him a brand new guitar. A real one. Not just some rented instrument he had to keep returning, but a true, beautiful black guitar. 

She got it for him because music was his hobby. His hobby. 

Not his life, not his dream career. But a hobby. The gift was laced with malicious intent and he didn’t see it until months later. When everything was becoming crystal clear and frightening. 

Yoongi wedges himself in the corner so strongly he can actually feel the scrap of his walls, watching with short breaths as his younger, ignorant self takes it from its case with admiration. Breathe. This isn’t real anymore. Fucking breathe. 

He will always hate this memory. He wants it to burn, to break, to shatter into pieces just so he can’t witness it any longer. But it’s always there. Taunting him when he’s close to healing, whipping around his arms when he’s close to feeling okay again. You’ve done every fucking thing you could, but even you aren’t strong enough to fight this one for him. 

Only he can conquer this. And he’s only succeeding in failing. 

Yoongi’s head drops when he hears himself say those three little words again, eyes pinching tight at the reaction he gets back. 

“You got there,” she says through manufactured tears. “I knew this would do it.” 

Get him the fuck where? Hell? The abyss? In the middle of the fucking ocean? 

Hair slides in front of his eyes as he has to hear her cry again, feeling his heart sag knowing he’s tugging her in for a hug. “And I’m there forever,” he mouths along with his past self. 

Her grin is still piercing. Sharp. Striking. “Forever.” 

Get out. Get out, get out, get out. 

Forcing himself out of the nightmare, Yoongi shoots from his bed, unsurprised his head is pulsing hard. 

Fuck this. He’s got to get out of here. Your house. Your bed. Your arms. God, the yearning for any of those claws at his chest and bangs against his ribcage. But the studio is his safest place that doesn’t have you in it. So he hastily grabs his keys, heading to the door to slip on his shoes. 

Aiming an offensive finger at the guitar in the corner. The same one that will be waiting for him when he returns. 

—

—

“You’re seeing someone else.” 

“What? Why would I be?” 

“You were seeing someone when you saw me.” 

Yoongi’s stomach lurches at this particular memory. Because hearing that accusation from her lips crushed his heart and slid it across their apartment floor. “First of all, that’s not what happened.” 

“Looked exactly like how it happened. And you won’t even admit it.” 

If she was willing to be down with that, then she was no better. But why would she ever put herself in the wrong? Her aversion to ownership was something else. 

Yoongi watches from the kitchen this time as she taps her utensils on the table. At least she’s not digging lines in it this time. His words across the wooden surface sound completely unlike her ire, “I said I wasn’t good for her. And I left before we got serious.” 

“Well why aren’t you serious about us now?” 

That was a goddamn stretch and they both knew it. It took everything to not slam on the gas, crashing into the window next to his shoulder. “What makes you say that?”

“You don’t make time for me anymore.” 

Because no matter how upset he got, Yoongi could never find it in him to shout. That was her thing. He vowed to never make it his. Explaining soft, he moves food around his plate. “It’s the only time that studio space is free. And I picked that place because it’s the closest one, like you asked.” 

“You’re so cheap.” Both versions of himself feel the same deep pang. “But whatever. Why aren’t you answering my calls lately?” 

When he watches himself sigh, Yoongi flexes both hands at his sides. “Phones are out when we’re in there.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“Are you gonna believe anything that I say?” 

“I’ll believe it when you actually make time.” Every memory seems to be harder to watch than the last. 

“Okay,” his younger self relents, knowing this is how all the arguments end. “I’ll try. But I’m making progress so as soon as I’m done with this mix—” 

She laughs while slamming the utensils down, the dining table screaming in pain. “Of course!” 

“Of course what?” 

“Another excuse, Yoongi,” she grits out, leaning back to fold angry arms. “You don’t even bring that guitar with you, either.” 

“Cus it’s staying here.” 

The way she could slip between the monster and the victim makes him squirm. Her eyes grow wide, brows creasing with a practiced pleading that makes him grimace. “Why? You don’t like it?” 

“I don’t wanna break your gift.” 

“Oh.” 

He holds his hand out, and Yoongi slides his jaw knowing what he does here. Taking her by the hands, the younger him offers a moment of peace, “You really think I’m not in this for real?” 

“It’s more like.. I feel like I’m competing with your job and your.. thing. And losing.” 

His thing. Yoongi loves his thing. He is genuinely enjoying creating and analyzing and experiencing music that he can’t wait to go back. It’s all he can think about when he sleeps, when he wakes. But now he feels bad because he may need to do it less to spend time with her. “I’ll prove it.” 

“Prove what?” 

“That you aren’t.” 

“Okay,” she sighs, gripping his hands. “You better.”

Voices that aren’t his or hers leak into his slumber. And the memory starts to fade into dust on his tongue.

“Let him sleep.” 

“He’s gonna wake up as soon as we start anyway.” 

“Why’d he sleep in here and not the back room?” 

Yoongi slowly opens his eyes, blinking away sleep as blurred shapes come into focus. Mm. He made it to the studio. And he’s definitely on the couch, based on the awkward slant of his back. Lolling his head sideways, he watches all three of his coworkers bustle around the console, flipping on different switches and wincing at the loud hum of the CPU. When Hoseok glances back to see his eyes in squints, he tuts to the others, 

“Ah, see? He’s already awake.” 

“Mmph,” Yoongi grunts out as they all turn, struggling to a sitting position and kneading his eyes. “Don’t wait, I’ll get up now.” 

“When’d you get here?” Jungkook suddenly asks, his bright hair flopping as he pulls off his jacket. “You finally feel better?” 

“Awhile ago,” he sleepily responds, a yawn swallowing his last syllable. “And yeah.” Joints popping at his upward rise, he grimaces while Namjoon cuts through the youngest one’s laughs, 

“I dunno about that, old man. Is it like that every morning?” 

Your favorite nickname for him echoes lovingly through his mind. Like a rush of water to soothe the burn of his terrors. “Pretty much.” 

Hobi can’t help but chuckle with a finger point, the company to his misery. “I’m getting like that, too. It’s only a matter of time for you, Joonie.” 

The tallest in the room sighs before everyone locks into work mode, “Looking forward to it.” 

— 

—

Ah. Back here this time? Looks like his younger self needed him to drop into this one, if only to give him support from another celestial plane. 

“How can you call this work? You don’t do shit!” 

“We’re working on a project—”

“We? Are you even on it?” 

The roll of his chair bumps into the bed frame behind him. “I’m… Making some of the decisions, but—”

“So you aren’t even in charge? What are you gonna get for this?” Not a lot. But his silence answers before he can give a true amount. “Exactly. So ridiculous, you need to get a real job that gives you real money to pay for all this shit.” 

Yoongi was doing just fine when it was just him. But taking care of someone that has a bit more refined taste, too? It’s draining him to the point of alarm. “We can cut our spending, too, you know.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“We don’t have to get food all the time. We can just cook here.” 

“But… Ugh, doing all that work just to eat and then clean?” 

Well. Yes. That’s the order of operations. From his leaned position in his bedroom doorway, Yoongi shakes his head. Even cooking was an issue? He did it all the time when he was alone. It’s not hard. What the hell did he get himself into? How did he not see any of this from the jump? 

“My uncle might be hiring. I can ask him to get you an interview or something, but you cannot fuck it up.” 

“Where at?” 

“Does it matter? It’s a job.” She sighs while sliding hair down her shoulder. Oh, how he’s been tricked by that move too many damn times. “It’s downtown.” 

Fuck. That’s way too far from the studio he’s working at. There’s no way he’d be able to work both… And she knows it. Goddamn. “You really want me to quit?” 

She gives him a look, and he can’t tell if she’s stricken or annoyed at the question. “I mean, not… Really. It’s just…” A sigh. “I’d rather you get a real job now and make music when you’re more stable.” 

Even now, Yoongi gets that. But at the same time, nothing else truly called to him. Music is his real job, the very thought of doing anything else makes him anxious. He doesn’t want to commit to anything that he’ll dread going to every fucking day of his life. But if that’s what she wants, he’ll at least try because he cares about her. Enough to lose a part of himself along the way? Guess so. 

Guess so. 

“Yoongi?” 

His head jolts from the memory as he’s positioned in the middle of a studio. The very current studio that’s only a few doors down from the job he ended up getting years ago. Several pairs of eyes are staring as he takes in his surroundings. Shit, when did he wander off? How did that even happen this time? Why is he looking at a very familiar band he’s listened to for years? 

“You okay, man?” One of them asks, a guy with such a relaxed look that just seeing him makes Yoongi’s shoulders loosen. “It’s just us, no need to be scared or anything.” 

“I dunno, Sammy, you look kinda rough around the edges in person.” 

“Do not?” 

Beside him, Hoseok claps Yoongi on the back, his grip both comforting and telling him to get it the fuck together. “He’s fine! We’ve just been busy, and this guy’s been working hard to get everything ready for you guys.” 

“Give him a sec,” Namjoon agrees, shaking all the band’s hands while Yoongi continues to buffer. “But yeah, we’ll give you a quick look inside and see if it works for you?” 

“Works for us,” Sammy agrees with a smile. “Lead the way.” 

All four members walk through the recording room door after Joon, thanking Jungkook for keeping it open before he heads inside, too. Leaving Yoongi with a very concerned Hobi, who turns to him with furrowed brows. “Hey, you good?”

“Yeah,” he finally forces out, throat scratched. Fuck. “Yeah, I’m good.” 

“If something’s up, tell us.” Hoseok watches the silent movements and conversations happening through the studio glass. “Your gut’s the one I trust the most.” 

Oh. Wait. That’s not nearly what Yoongi’s got on his mind. Even though he’s snuffed out flaky musicians and artists before today, that isn’t the current issue. That’s not what’s sticking to his mind like a parasite and feeding him random haunts from his past. “Nah, it’s not that. I’m just shocked they’re here.” 

“Right! When Jungkook said it’d be a surprise, he wasn’t kidding. I might damn near faint.” 

“Don’t do that just yet,” Yoongi warns. “We can’t have two of us out of it.” 

They both puff out laughs at his previous blanking. And they fall silent with folded arms when Woosung—Sammy—picks a guitar off the wall for hopeful inspection, nodding and smiling at a doe-eyed Jungkook. 

The kid knows how to develop connections, that’s for sure. He needs to start doing that, too. 

“But seriously…” Yoongi looks at Hoseok, met with a stare that he only gives when wanting nothing but the truth. “Anything bothering you? You looked… I don’t even know.” 

“I’ll be fine, Hob,” he breathes out in a sigh. “Just got some things on my mind.” 

The look keeps going, and going, and going. But there’s no more scrutiny when Hobi finally turns forward with an unconvincing, “Okay.” 

—

—

Embers crackle while sparks float to a darkened sky. Yoongi can still smell the metal of the train tracks, still feel the dirt under his shoes as he tips a bottle for another sip. 

A bunch of them were gathered that night. And he wasn’t gonna miss this no matter what, already expecting the onslaught of terror waiting and pacing the cage he calls his apartment. 

Since he got that job downtown, he’s been trying his best to do the work and head across town to the studio to finish things there. But that effort wasn’t taken pleasantly. Apparently, she wasn’t asking him to make music a hobby; she was telling him to give it up—for now, of course. Always for now. And he ended up leaving it far, far behind. 

After he gave that up, everything else followed. Every time he made plans to hang out, he got yanked back into the apartment, whether by a desperate arm or a scathing, manipulative scowl. His whole life was being stripped away. Nothing was his anymore. 

But this night? He finally got away. And Yoongi watches as his younger self faces the heavens with a wide smile. 

Your brother’s there, along with some friends he hadn’t seen in ages. Even a younger Jungkook tags along, watching as they push each other in abandoned shopping carts and fling random stones in open spaces. All of them in questionable fits, his hair as vibrant as a polarizing ice cream flavor, everything defines this pocket of time and no other. 

Watching them like this? Yoongi almost buckles from the pang of nostalgia seizing his chest, wrapping its roots around his heart in a bittersweet embrace. It reminds him of a balcony. It reminds him of you. 

This is the night he chose to not go home. Because his home is here with his friends.

Fuck everything. Fuck life. Fuck love. It was all he could say and express as all of them stuck middle fingers to the world, as if doing so would banish all the troubles in their lives. Every single conversation he had that night was cynical in a freeing way. Because nothing mattered. They were all infinite. Infinite and infinite. 

With each bottle chucked into a blazing fire, his eyes droop lower to the ground. Without much effort, his head lolls, mirroring a few others around him until they’re a heap of buzzed freedom and youth. And honestly, he doesn’t remember much beyond this. He doesn’t even remember who drove him back to your place. 

They were infinite—

A vacuum sucks Yoongi out of his dream so fast he flinches, muscles seizing and locking at hard angles. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What the fuck is happening? Focus on something, anything. Is this his room? Okay, he’s in his bed. 

Raking sweaty fingers through his hair, Yoongi closes his eyes, centering himself as he slowly raises to a sitting position. His room. His desk. His television. Even his sheets look fine other than his crumpled side of the bed. What the fuck was that. 

He’s never experienced something like that. Sure, he’s been yanked from a dream while in free fall, or when he’s almost slammed into something. But he wasn’t even doing anything that time except lulling to sleep? So what the fuck was that about? 

Shit. The whole fucking point was to get this shit under control. To fight the memories and the dreams and shove them out of his mind to make room for his own. For yours. Yours and his, his and yours. So why hasn’t he even been trying? 

Panic starts to rush up his throat, clogging it and jamming and amalgamating into something so thick he can’t even breathe. Shit. Shit, shit, shit, get the fuck up. 

He hasn’t had to do this in so long he’s almost embarrassed to reach for what he’s beelining for in his kitchen, perched on top of the fridge behind an unopened case of water bottles. Water bottles. Yoongi clings onto a familiar memory with you yet again. You, you, you. 

The bag crinkles as he rips it open, some wrapped pieces pinging onto linoleum. As he hastily opens one of the candies, he pops the sour coated lifeline on his tongue, slowly closing his eyes and sagging against his refrigerator. 

Shaking, shaking, sour apple, stop fucking shaking. Breathe. In out in out in out in out. Eat another one. Breathe. Silence. Clear head. Sour cherry. Nothingness. 

Breathe. 

Sliding down chilled aluminum, Yoongi feels his ass hit the cold ground, his arms immediately coming up to rest on tired knees. After a minute goes by, he lets more pass. Then another. And another. And another. 

It’s not fun knowing the panic’s back. 

As much as Yoongi wants nothing but your concern crossing kitchen tile, he’s thanking the universe that you haven’t ever seen him like this. Your brother has, but you don’t need to. Ever. But if his demons have all the power again, he might be too far gone.  

—

—

He should feed the cat.

Never mind.

The food from two days ago is still there. Which means she left him a long, long time ago.

—

—

What day is it. Is that the sunset or a new day. 

Doesn’t matter, does it? Even music doesn’t call to him now. 

And that single, damning fact slathers his whole brain in shadow. 

—

— 

A knock sounds at the door. Which Yoongi completely ignores until it erupts into straight banging. 

“Fuck, hold on,” he rasps in a cracked whisper, falling off his couch before his arms crumple, every muscle in his body creaking with lack of use. Pain jolts through his limbs as he lies there for a beat, jump-starting his mind into sudden, bleary awareness. 

What day is it? How did all these bottles get on the floor? How fucking long has it been this time?

More knocks break through the fog of Yoongi’s brain before a voice pierces the door, “I swear to god if you don’t let me in—!”

A sigh escapes in the dark. Jimin. 

Shit, Yoongi doesn’t wanna be seen. Not now. Not when he can’t even recall the past however many hours. But knowing this particular guest, the door will be kicked down if he doesn’t answer soon. 

Hissing, he slowly gets up, stumbling to the door a few steps away before resting shaking fingers on the doorknob. Breathe. Just fucking breathe. 

“Alright, you motherfucker, I’m breaking this fucking door—”

Yoongi cracks it open a tad, a sliver of his unkempt hair and stubbled chin the only things he’s willing to show. His eyes squint as bright light spills into his apartment, but all he can see are the telltale shoes of his best friend. 

“...Yoongi?” 

When he finally looks up, his heart clenches and erupts all the way up to his ducts. The first emotion he’s felt in the sludge of time he’s been chained to his dipping, sagging sofa. 

Because Jimin is staring right at his face. Eyes so rubbed they’re rimmed red. “I thought… I didn’t… No one knows where you are,” he starts, shaking the words out of puffed lips. “And when your phone kept going to voicemail, I—I couldn’t think of anything except coming here so when you weren’t answering the door, I thought—” 

As soon as Jimin breaks, Yoongi slowly closes his eyes and rests his forehead on the door’s edge. Nothing can get him like this other than the tears of a select few. If you had been the one crying at his doorstep, he probably would have given everything up.

But his mouth is so dry he can’t form words, arms so numb he can’t move them to swing the door. There’s dust where his tongue sits, shadows at the edges of his fingers. Anything he tries to say is swallowed, adding to the lump in his scratchy throat. Instead of a tempest of rage, this is the other way to lose control. The subtler, scarier, sinister way to let go. 

Yoongi says nothing. Because he can’t think of anything to say at all.

“Are you listening to me?”

Unmoving, Yoongi breathes, long hair falling onto his paling cheek. He doesn’t even know what month it is. And that scares him so bad he doesn’t hear the next sentence. So Jimin says it again,

“Let me in.”

“Gimme a sec,” he croaks. 

“Now.”

A sigh. Yoongi knows he lost the second he heard Jimin’s voice through wood. So he slowly wills his body to move, stepping—swaying—to the side to let his friend into a dark, blacked out space.

“Holy fuck,” Jimin curses, stepping through a sea of glass bottles before wrenching open the curtains. Light bursts around his silhouette and, for a split second, Yoongi thinks he sees an angel in his living room. 

“Yes. Okay.” With hands on stern hips, Jimin nods to himself before inspecting the litter around his feet. “Yeah, I’m staying here now.”

—

—

“You don’t have to do this,” Yoongi drones while his best friend scuttles around his apartment like a roomba. Clinks of trashed bottles and shifts of trash bags rattle next to the front door, and he sighs before looking out the window. “I’m up now.”

“You don’t get a say in it,” Jimin blithely responds, hauling another groaning trash bag from the kitchen. “And stay there, I’m almost done.” 

“Where the fuck would I go.”

“Anywhere but here?”

Yeah. Right. Where else would he even go right now? Your room is the only place he wants to take residence in—the room in which he said goodbye without knowing when the next hello would be. 

When’s the last time he’s even texted you? Shit, he really has left you behind completely and he feels like a fucking idiot. 

Determination thumps to the door, with a little more force than necessary, though understood. Jimin rarely gets this mad, so when he does, molten emotion rolls off of him in reddened waves, “Couldn’t even fucking call? Text? Do you ever think about what that does to all of us?” 

Yoongi buries a hand in his hair. “Listen, I—”

“Shut the hell up. You don’t get to have excuses this time. Last time this happened you scared me to death and I am not letting it happen again.” 

“You see me. I’m alive. So you can go home.”

Jimin whirls at the door before slamming it behind him, eyes wide in shock as he stomps to the kitchen. “If you think you can get me to go home, you’re an idiot. What else hasn’t been cleaned in a week?”

…A week? Fuck. Maybe it is better if Jimin stays. 

His friend wrings his hands in water before drying them, moving to sit in the chair you usually occupy. Used to occupy. Yoongi’s head sags. 

Jaw ticked, Jimin sits and rests elbows on his knees, brows up in a way that leaves no room for arguments, “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

With a sigh, Yoongi closes his eyes, shifting his own jaw in the hopes he can find enough courage to do this. Because even though Jimin knows most about what happened before, he’s been the one pushing him to move forward, not backward. Which means Yoongi is in for a verbal beatdown. 

But before he can say anything, Jimin urges again, “Start talking.”

Fuck. “Go home.”

“No. Try again.”

It’s back. The anxiety. Making him vacate his seat and slink against his bedroom door. “I’m not doing this right now.”

Jimin rockets out of his chair right after, getting all into his space. “Tough fucking shit. Tell me. Now.”

He can’t. The words won’t come out. “It’s nothing.”

A bubble of caustic laughter flings out of Jimin’s throat before he outright shoves Yoongi against his door. Slight pain erupts from his back, branching out and alerting his body with adrenaline. But he’s so numb he doesn’t even say anything. Nothing. Just… pain. 

“Is that it? Not even gonna say anything?”

Silence. Yoongi can only serve silence. A lighter push at his chest doesn’t do anything either, neither do the grips at his shoulders before he’s shoved against wood. Is this all he has left? Pain? He can’t feel anything else. Why? What’s happening? Why is he so… drained? 

“Yoongi…” The words wobble. So soft now. So pleading. “…What’s wrong?”

Like a burst of shock, that jumpstarts something deep.

A thousand things. Three thousand things. All of them having to do with him and his inability to deem himself worthy of the one thing he wants most. His shameful weight of the past barring him from everything good, and bright, and healing. 

You would ask him the same question. Yoongi knows it in his heart. But here you are, giving him the space he asked for and trusting him with your feelings because that’s just… You. And he has done absolutely nothing to show for it.

A whole week passed and he didn’t know it? He still doesn’t even know what day it is. How long has he kept you in the dark? How long will he keep failing you because this isn’t fair to you at all. You deserve better. 

…Is this when he lets you go?

Dark, painful throbs in his chest let him know he’s barely alive. But if he’s been radio silent with no explanation, who fucking knows what you’re thinking now. About him. About yourself. Fuck, the panic is rushing in again and his breaths are short, short, short—

A hand warms his shoulder, prompting him to look up and notice that blurred, wavering red eyes are staring back at him. 

And the only thing Yoongi feels after that is a hot trail of regret down his cheek. 

“Fucking hell, man—” The pull yanks at Yoongi’s heart as strong arms wrap tight around his shoulders, and he buries searing eyes into his friend’s familiar cologne, drowning it in heaves of sobs that burn his lungs and spread fire into his throat—burning, burning, burning. His heart is on fucking fire. 

But Jimin is there, hugging tight and trying his best to smother the flames, choking on his own sobs and apologizing for anything. Everything. Nonsense, but it’s Jimin all the same. 

“I can’t fucking win,” Yoongi chokes out, finally setting all the fears free. “She’s always here. I can’t… Fuck.”

Jimin grips tighter. “You can,” he says with a rasp. “I promise you can.” 

“How do you know.” He can’t even recognize his own voice. “You don’t know what it was like.” 

Jimin flinches before holding on even tighter. “Because you won’t do it alone this time.”

Yoongi feels a vice clamp his chest.

“I’m… Shit, I’m really sorry for not trying harder before. We all are. We were young, and stupid, and should’ve paid a lot more attention instead of…” His friend sighs to the ground. “Instead of letting her slowly kill you.” 

It’s a gut punch. Reliving all those memories is confirmation enough. 

Jimin chokes out his last vow, and it tugs at Yoongi’s very being. “So. Yeah. I’m not leaving until you know you have someone. Even if it’s just me.” 

Now Yoongi feels like an asshole. All that time, he’s been so lost that he didn’t even think of his friends. The self-deprecation devolved into self-isolation, squeezing him inside a smaller and smaller box until he couldn’t breathe. He owes Jimin more than his life. 

Hands slowly raise, hope and promise lifting them to his friend's shoulders. There’s a million words he can say to this man, but the only thing that comes out is a mere, “Thanks.”

“You’re thanking me now, but. Even if you get annoyed, I’m not leaving.”

A knock comes at the door, and Jimin finally leans away before smiling. “We’re gonna fight this, yeah? You got us. So get used to it.” 

Yoongi nods. But then gives his friend a scowl. “Who the fuck did you invite to my place.”

Is it your brother? Is it you? Fucking hell, Yoongi would give anything for you to be on the other side. 

But Jimin smirks at his reaction. “It’s not her, but I like the look on your face.” 

A glare is shot while his friend walks to open the door. 

While Yoongi’s heart deflates, he still gives a shake of his head when he sees the newcomer. “If you’re both staying, I’m booking a hotel.”

Taehyung stands affronted while Jimin laughs behind his broad shoulders. “Excuse you? I’ve just been sent here to bring food.” 

Are those bags of groceries? Fuck, he already can’t thank them both enough for what they’re doing. His stomach hollows at the thought of food, which is a good sign because that means he’s ready to eat again. 

“Ah ah, tell him what else.” 

Yoongi tilts his head as he goes to help. “What else is there to do here.” 

Jimin already stormed through like an unstoppable force to clean everything and take out the trash. Ironically, the clouds outside seemed to clear when his apartment did. 

Thumps of vegetables and fruit litter his counters before the newest guest smiles soft, “I’m here to update you on what the love of your life has been up to.” 

Yoongi blinks at paper bags before slowly turning to meet his gaze. Long, speechless, and so fucking relieved. 

“But only if you cooperate.”

—

—

You got the job. And he fucking missed the opportunity to congratulate you. 

Neither Jimin nor Tae judge him for needing a moment to himself. 

—

—

This memory is one he hasn’t visited yet. But Yoongi recognizes it immediately, and he steps aside as his younger self bolts from your brother’s room. It was the morning after they all defied the world. And frankly, he doesn’t remember how they got here but knows for a fact he didn’t drive. Following himself into your familiar foyer, he winces at his own freak out, his tousled hair sticking in all directions. 

But both versions of him freeze when he sees you, standing with a spatula in the kitchen he’ll eventually end up kissing you in years later.

This happened right before you left for university, heading to a really good one according to your brother. He didn’t doubt that at all, either. Both of you look so much younger, living completely different lives. 

You barely get out a nervous smile and hello before he quickly comes up to hold your shoulder, noting how softly nice you smell before reassuring, “Hey, he’s fine. But check on him in like an hour.” 

He whizzes away as soon as you ask, “You okay?” 

But he doesn’t have time to explain. You’ll understand. You’re a pretty, smart girl—Wait. Pretty smart girl. Right. 

Yoongi doesn’t know why he looks back, but he remembers seeing you standing in your doorway, watching him open his car door with nothing but concern.

Standing on your porch, his current self remembers that tug in his chest. It was small, but it was there. Regardless, he chalked it up to the anxiety telling him to get home now. So he gives you one more look before shoving into his car and driving off, not knowing he was going backwards that whole time. 

Like a dream, the scene change is abrupt, dumping him in the middle of the fight that happened minutes later. Shards of glass litter the kitchen floor as the bar cart once full of alcohol lies shattered and bleeding potent fumes. 

“You lying mother fucker!” 

“I was helping—” 

“Didn’t even tell me? Didn’t even think to say something?” 

“I was focused on keeping him alive?” Keeping him alive and home safe. Something that your brother had done for him multiple times. He’s with him until the end. End of story. “Are you gonna ask me if I’m okay? Do you even care?” 

Yoongi should’ve recalled that you did. But not right now. He doesn’t think about anything until later. But watching from this side, you were the only one that asked. 

“You’re here, right? That tells me enough.” 

Yoongi stands there. So broken, so distraught. “What if I wasn’t?” 

“Don’t even ask stupid things.” 

“I’m serious. I’d look everywhere for you.” 

She can’t answer. And Yoongi knows exactly why. He loved someone that never loved him back. This is the karma he gets for all the hearts he broke. The people he played with. It’s all rearing its head and kicking him straight in the teeth. 

This was the final straw. He was done feeling like shit in his own home. With one look at the glass pieces at his feet, he loads finality into his tone. “If you can’t answer me, we’re done.” 

“No, babe, please—” 

“Don’t.” 

“…What?” 

“You do this every time.” His younger self’s finally gonna do it. He’s gonna stand up for himself, and Yoongi hates what he’s gonna hear next. “Cut the bullshit.” 

“I’m not, I just—” 

“If you’re gonna answer, answer.” 

“Don’t rush me. You putting this back on me now?” 

“Cool.” He opens the door, signaling for her to leave and never come back. “You’ve already moved or broke a bunch of your shit, so. This should be easy.”  

This is the moment. The singularity that forever sucks him back into the dark.

“Useless piece of shit.” And here it all comes undone. “What a joke. After I bought you all this shit and you don’t even use it.” 

He has. She’s just never paid attention.

“Fucking loser. I gave you the world and you gave nothing. Nothing.”

He gave up everything. 

“It’s sad, really. How you’re only gonna end up alone.” 

That will be true. This is when he decided that, right? To be done with this shit. Done with love. 

“How did I even let you keep me this long?” 

Yoongi stops, his fingers shaking. Him? Keeping her? It���s so twisted that his vision still jangles. He’ll never forget that feeling, being blamed for the exact same thing she had been doing to him the whole time. 

“Forget it. You’re just gonna fuck up until you have no one left. And I can’t wait to see you end up all by yourself.” 

Yoongi doesn’t respond to her wrath, walking to the corner of the room and grabbing the guitar he was gifted. But he’s halted by a pointed finger. 

“Keep that. Cus you’re gonna remember this. You’re gonna realize I’m right and there won’t be a thing you can do to fix it.”

“Are you done actually? Or is this another stunt?” 

“A stunt? The only one that does that is you.”

It’s his turn to unload. And he makes it a point to say everything he needs to. “I don’t do anything. I don’t go anywhere. See anyone. Or whatever the hell you’re accusing me of. I stay here, or go to the studio. That’s it.”

“Some studio you got there. Haven’t even heard one single thing you’ve done this entire time.”

“You’ve never asked.”

“Huh?”

Ah. Yoongi remembers this. Right then, he was finally, finally done. “You never asked about anything I’ve worked on once.”

“Well, you never cared to share.” Acid bubbles from her throat, hair tossed back in an unforgiving laugh. “A fuck-up and now a screw-up? Why did I ever think I deserved you in the first place?” 

Yoongi stares for what seems like the final time. And he couldn’t be happier. “Hope you find someone that you do.” 

And the door shuts right as he’s flung from deep sleep, thrown over any perception of reality and taking in the voice at his face. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay—” 

“Give him space—”

Yoongi shudders, breathing ice cold fire and chilled by the air ghosting over his sweaty back. Front. Legs. Fuck, he’s drenched. 

“Yoongi?”

Gulping air, he flicks his eyes between Jimin holding him steady with shaky hands, and Taehyung on the other side of the bed, watching him with eyes locked and one knee making a hard divot in the comforter. 

Shit. This isn’t like the other night he fell asleep in his kitchen. This is a whole other level of frightening.

“Please say something,” Jimin squeaks out, lightly rubbing him on the shoulder and providing much needed warmth. “Anything. Please.”

“Let him breathe, babe,” Tae softly orders, to which Jimin snaps his head at but calms. 

Tae’s right. Breathe. Breathe deeper. It was just a dream, just a memory, just the past. Fuck. Yoongi thought having people over would help. But that was a terrifying reminder that he was wrong yet again. 

Head dumped in his wet hands, he notices his hair’s new length before raking it back. Looking straight at his desk, he takes it all in, quietly reminding himself that it’s filled with equipment. 

That’s it. Nothing else. Just his equipment, his notepads, his writing utensils. No traces of broken keyboards, cracked monitor screens, snapped wires. Nothing except your light touches which he will take any day over what occupied it before. In his whirlwind of thoughts, he wonders if anything else of yours on that desk would look nice—Ah. He’s truly losing his mind. 

“I’m good,” he croaks, startling everyone in the room including himself. “What the hell happened.”

Taehyung answers first, “We heard a lot of noise, so..”

“We checked in and saw you,” Jimin finishes, his eyes holding back multitudes. 

“Saw me what.” 

“Thrashing.” Taehyung holds his gaze unflinching. Because one of them has to be level headed, and Jimin is clutching Yoongi like he’ll sink into the bed. Maybe he would have. 

“It looked painful,” Jimin rasps out, voice sagging with melancholy. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he looks Yoongi in the eyes before whispering, “Does this happen a lot?”

“Not in a minute.” And for once, he’s honest about this. “It’s only the second time recently.” 

He thanks every star above that you’ve avoided seeing both. This is exactly why he shunned himself, isn’t it? Until this is dealt with, he doesn’t think he can be with you on a clear conscience. 

Taehyung’s fully sitting on the sheets now, hair looking like he was yanked from a deep sleep, too. “Have you told anyone about it?”

“No.” 

“You should.”

“Maybe.”

“Tae’s right,” Jimin whispers, his expression filled with grey. It’s a look Yoongi decides he doesn’t ever wanna see on that face. “I think you need that, too.”

Something very close to discomfort creeps along Yoongi’s bones, making him shift in his seat. His very moist seat. God, if he doesn’t shower now he’s causing a riot. “Lemme wash first,” he offers, barred from swinging out his legs until Jimin gets up. When he gets to his bathroom, he flips on the switch inside before deciding, “Then I will.”

Tae stays still as Jimin walks up to his side of the bed. The closer side to the bathroom. “You sure you’ll tell us?”

“Yeah.” Yoongi looks down before heading in to shower, saying one more thing as he shuts the door, “But you won’t see me the same after I do.” 

—

—

He tells them everything. All the memories plaguing him for years. The things they don’t know and some of the things they do. While they listen, Jimin’s eyes blink the least, not wanting to miss a single second. 

Taehyung’s hands grip the couch cushions harder with each passing moment. But neither of them judge. Neither of them offer pity. If anything, they’re ready to pick up swords they don’t have to attack someone that doesn’t exist to him anymore. 

Lies. If she didn’t exist to him, none of this would be happening. 

So therein lies Yoongi’s problem. He needs to get rid of anything that still ties him to her, the biggest one being the guitar watching all of them right now. 

“Why didn’t you tell us. Tell me,” Jimin asks through fresh tears. “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“I thought about that for a long time.” Yoongi hangs his head between his knees before lifting. “Turns out, I was just.. Ashamed. I dunno.” 

“Does anyone know all of this?” 

Well. “Just one.” He doesn’t have to elaborate for them to know who it is. 

“I didn’t wanna bother anyone with it,” he finally admits. “Didn’t feel like you guys needed to hear how fucked up I am.” 

“Yoongi.” He raises his gaze to meet Jimin’s. “That’s exactly what we want to hear. Because we’re friends.” 

“You’d say the same to us,” Taehyung adds. “And to her. Who, if I’m being completely honest, would lose her shit if she knew.” 

Yoongi doesn’t doubt that. “I know.” 

“No, you don’t. I’m not saying because of the reasons. I’m saying because she would offer to do exactly what we’re doing now.”

Burns sear around his eyes. Because deep down, he fucking knows that. He does. And yet, he still can’t accept how selfless you are when it comes to him. How good, and reckless, and understanding. And a revelation pierces right through his bruised heart. 

He’s lived in his dark for so long that he’s afraid of your light.

Fuck, his admittance scratches every inch of his mouth on the way out. His heart takes collateral damage, seeping out of his eyes, “I think I have to let her go.” 

In an instant, both pairs of eyes gloss over to match his. 

“I’m doing all this for her,” he rasps out. “Everything, for her. But I can’t fucking do it and she deserves someone that isn’t so fucked—” 

“Yoongi—”

“My ex was right. Back then. Now. She was right.” His voice lulls to a dull thrum. “I’ll just end up alone.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” His head snaps to Jimin’s at the same time as Tae’s. “Are you alone right now? Hmm?” 

No. But he doesn’t say a damn thing. 

“I’ll answer for you since you’re being an idiot. No, you’re not.” That’s not the point, but— “And even if we weren’t here? You’re never alone unless you decide that, not some fucked up ex. And the Yoongi I know? Is too smart to do something so stupid.” 

Ouch. But fair. “That’s not what I mean and you know it—”

“So what? You wanna talk about relationships? Let’s talk about the one you’re in—because yes, you’re in one—and how you’re fucking it up because of some bullshit.” 

“Jimin—”

“No, I’m tired of this shit! Why can’t you see what’s in front of you? Why can’t you see all the good shit you do? Why can’t you just be happy—”

“I’m trying all of that for her—”

“You need to do it for yourself!”  

Jimin stands rigid as his words pulse around the room, eyes swimming and unblinking as Taehyung dons a similar look. 

“This isn’t about her. This isn’t about anyone else.” He shudders out a breath. “Right now? You need to get your shit together to pull yourself out.” 

Shit. 

Yoongi completely lost the point along the way. Didn’t he think like that when all this started? When did it all become so muddled? Did part of him always know this, deeper down? And that’s the part of him that he had left behind first? When he tries to speak, he can’t. No words, no thoughts, no sounds escape the desert of his mouth. 

“And you can do it. I’ve seen you do it before,” Jimin whispers. “But now, you have two people—three people—to fight for this time.” 

Ah. But one of those people still doesn’t know the truth. Doesn’t know why Yoongi’s done this to himself in the first place. A sour laugh leaves his lips before he stares at nothing. “He’s trusted me with everything. And I’ve told him nothing.” Lifting his head, he shudders out, “Say I do all this. Once I tell him the truth… I’m losing him. I know it.” 

“You don’t know that.” Jimin sounds very unconvinced. 

“Hah.. Right.” Yoongi sighs. “We all know he’s gonna kill me.” 

“Well.” Taehyung is the one that finally interjects, and Yoongi shifts his gaze before the man correctly and accurately assumes, “You’d die for her anyway. What’s the difference if he knows.” 

Oh. Well, that’s…

There’s a ping of silence before Jimin blurts a puff of amusement. 

Then Yoongi breaks into a smile as Taehyung’s sudden laugh joins the fray, all of them grinning and laughing because it’s all so fucking simple. Really, really fucking simple. And for the first time in weeks, Yoongi feels like things are gonna be okay. 

Coming down from the broken ice, Jimin reiterates the whole point, “You’re not gonna lose her. But you will if sulking is all you’re gonna do.” 

A nod. “I know.” 

“So what are you gonna do?” 

Yoongi looks at them both, then sweeps his gaze around the living room before landing on his coffee table. Warmth fills the divots in his cheeks as he allows himself to grin, not caring if he gets peculiar looks at his first order of business. His highest priority. 

“Gonna move some books.” 

—

—

The loudest roar of thunder signals the end of a storm. And in following that same pattern, the rest of Yoongi’s week goes by dreamless. Calm. Merciful. 

And he cannot thank Jimin enough. 

He helps him when he cooks, drags him out for walks in the afternoon, and even Taehyung drops by to show him a bunch of movies that he is appalled he’s never seen before. 

Yoongi even goes back to the studio on the regular, earning looks of relief and mild annoyance, which he fully expected. But with minimal questions, he throws himself back into work, urging himself to eventually tell them what happened. 

When Taehyung stays over, too, all three of them simply… Talk. About anything and everything, deeper and deeper conversations the more he gets to know them. Yoongi doesn’t talk as much as they do, but he does divulge a lot more about his past than he ever has. Both of the guys present never judge him for any of it, which makes him feel seen. Feel not so alone. 

Because he’s learning that these experiences are universal. The true danger lies in not knowing how to handle them. How to be accepting of those parts of his life when he’s all he’s got.

Now that he’s got his priority straight, he knows he can get there. He can find that door to himself again, no matter how long it takes. Yes, for you. Yes, for his best friend.

But, first and foremost, for himself. 

—

—

To his complete shock, the cat comes back. And in the quiet, radiant night, Yoongi’s eyes gloss over when his heart tells him her name. 

She’s gonna be yours. For getting the gig. The idea itself breathes life into his soul, and he can’t fucking wait to get everything ready for the day he gets to surprise you.

Finally, Yoongi has something to look forward to. Just wait for him. He hopes you can hold out just a tiny, tiny bit longer. 

Filled with joy and excitement, he sends Tae to the store for some food, supplies, and a new set of bowls, barely noticing Jimin watching his detailed orders with a newfound sense of relief. 

—

—

One day, Jimin comes back from work and asks if Yoongi is ready to see people. When he asks why, he talks about his brilliant idea of bringing the parties to him. When Yoongi continues to ask why yet again, it’s to fill his apartment with even more life. Maybe even a certain person will come, too. 

Nah. You probably won’t. 

But if you do? Yoongi won’t be able to contain himself. And just knowing that he’s okay with feeling that way is a step in the right direction. 

—

— 

Three months.

Based on the date on the studio monitor, it’s been three months since he left. Way too long, and the remorse in his stomach is acidic. 

Three months. How many seconds is that? You would know. You’re brilliant and know everything except the dark secrets he can’t tell you yet. 

And it’s the deepset shame lining his bones that won’t allow him to go see you, as much as he fucking wants to. Letting it all out for his friends did lift an astronomical amount from his shoulders, but now he’s embarrassed as hell for taking this long to do something so simple that he’s still unsure. Unsure of when he can show himself to you again and is terrified at how you’ll perceive him. 

But just because he doesn’t know about seeing you. Doesn’t mean he can’t at least talk to you.

And he’ll make that call last the entire night. Jimin and Tae have given him space for a little while now, both of them back in their respective places, so he has the apartment to himself and your voice. If you give him another chance. 

It’s that one solid loophole that has him rushing out of the studio and eager to finally ring you up. The uneasiness is getting beaten out by excitement, pouring over from the news they all received about the album release party. 

Things are finally, finally, finally looking up. He’s feeling better. Not enough to face you, but enough to not feel worse than complete shit. But all of that freshly blossomed energy sweeps into a torrent of worry as soon as he’s greeted with silence on the line. 

“Hello?” 

He can’t blame you for hesitating. Fuck, you’re probably over him and are just answering out of pity. You aren’t saying anything. Shit, he fucked all the way up. 

But your silence isn’t because of anger. Or annoyance. Because you make the smallest, most desperate noise he’s ever heard in his life. 

And the intention to burn the rest of the world shatters every shackle he’s placed on himself, fierce sparks igniting his body to go wherever the fuck you are and deal with anything awaiting his wrath, “Where are you.” 

He’s coming to you no matter what. 

—

—

Is that you? Are all those bags chips? 

Holy fuck, that’s the funniest shit he’s seen in months. 

He’s so fucking in love. 

—

—

He wants this drive to last for hours, if only to maintain this expansion in his chest that lets his lungs breathe. 

Being in the car with you? Your pretty voice singing along to all his favorite songs? This will always be one of his favorite things, long after he’s too old to operate even the slowest vehicle in existence. 

Remembering the mountain of bags in the backseat, he selfishly tuts, “You still have to gimme chips.” And he also selfishly glances over your chest when you reach behind to get a random flavor. Goddamn. You’re still perfect. 

“You really made me get these just for you, huh? Are you eating?”

“Yes, my love. And I never said that.”

…Did he just say what he thinks he said? Well. No taking it back now. Especially when it felt like the most natural thing to call you. An oath. A reminder. To himself, more than anyone else. 

It takes you awhile to respond as you open the bag. And Yoongi assumes your comment is to brush off the same sudden shock he still feels, “Such a smartass.”

“You’re the smartass.”

“Don’t act like you aren’t smart, too,” you laugh before pulling down your dress. Wait, are you cold? “I know you are.” 

He doesn’t know how to take that compliment, reaching into the bag and watching you shiver, wondering why you’re just dealing with the chill. “Why?” 

Yoongi is so thrown off by your reason that he laughs after you say it, “I just… You read.” 

His cheeks strain as he lowers the fans, the music now commanding most of the air space. The way you’re turned away is so cute, and you immediately stop fidgeting with your tiny dress. “I’m smart cus I read? How do you even know?”

“You have books under your coffee table. And you don’t have decor just to have it, so…”

Did he ever tell you that? He doesn’t remember saying it, so did you just accurately read him again? Who’s the avid reader now? But speaking of those books… You don’t know what he did with them, or why, and that curves his mouth up a tad. “I moved those, by the way.”

“Em”—you cough—“Embarrassed?”

“Proactive.”

“Huh? For what?”

Perfect. You lead him right where he wanted you to. Proudly telling you why, he says it all through a smirk, “The next time you decide to fuck up my place.” 

“Oh, bullshit!”

You’re tickling him while he’s driving? That’s unfair as fuck! “You soaked—aish—my whole apartment!”

“That was you!”

“No?”

“Yes? I was nice and only got your head wet!”

Mm. That sounds like a damn good idea. The visual in his mind is nowhere close to appropriate, and Yoongi’s enjoying your squirm in his passenger seat. Elated you’re back in it in the first place. But you’re almost out of reach again. And he’s dreading the next rolling stop. 

At least he gets to hear your huffs again. Those are his absolute favorites. “Ugh. Whatever… I’m right.” 

You haven’t changed a bit. Still the same person he left behind, and his heart pangs from the need to do it once again. 

But your quick resistance halts his brain. Screeches it to a stop. Fuck, you’re begging him not to do it and he doesn’t want to do it but it’s the right thing. He’s trying to do the right thing but god, does he want to just veer off the goddamn street. He can’t. He can’t he can’t you can’t— “Babe… We can’t.” 

“I don’t care.”

“I was only gonna bring you back.”

“Baby, please.”

“He’s home—”

“Do you still miss me?” 

…What? Yoongi stills, mind resetting and going blank. 

Still miss you? He’s never fucking stopped. 

Suddenly, Yoongi abandons any sense of restraint. All control he previously held onto falls away and crumbles to dust. You have his full attention. And you rip his soul to shreds with every word you say,

“Because I get it if you don’t. I do. But I really… I really fucking miss you. And not just because of, whatever. But I consider you a friend and fun as hell to be around, and I haven’t…” The shake of your exhale rattles his eyes. “I haven’t been this happy in weeks. And we aren’t even doing anything.” 

God, he feels the same. You could both sit in silence and he’d be filled with joy just looking at you. 

“I know you said I wouldn’t see you. But after getting to know you? The real you? …That sucks.” 

Shit. 

“I’m not gonna make you change anything, just. Telling you what’s on my mind. Like you said. I’m gonna do that a lot more now.”

Yoongi doesn’t say a word as a tear cuts one of your cheeks, and you’re brave enough to look his way again. “But it’s been three months, Yoongi,” you whisper. “Is that still not enough for you?”

Every brick. Every wall. Every fortress he’s built around his mind crumbles into stardust, shards pinging around his ribs and cutting into his beating, beating, beating heart. 

A day was enough for him to miss you. And these three months have felt like three years. 

There’s no denying it. He fucking needs you. 

Of course. That’s the only reason he sped down here to pick you up and pinned you against his car as if you’d flee. You’re his oxygen, his inhale, his breath of life and hope for new beginnings and goddamn if he lets you go now you’ll never know it—

“Stop.” 

Just tonight. He’ll allow himself one night. Does he deserve it? Probably not, but you sure as fuck do for laying your dying heart in his withered hands. 

And Yoongi decides with a lock of his jaw. Following where his own broken heart points and peeling out into the street.

—

—

Once he gets his hands on you, Yoongi can’t fucking stop. From the car to the walls of his apartment, his fingers can’t decide where to stay, raking down your sides and tugging you close before finally shoving you against his bedroom door. 

God, your touch. Your lips. Your little sounds of pleasure. Why the fuck did he deprive himself of the one person that makes him whole? Yoongi’s so lost in you that he barely remembers his pain, and he loves the way you laugh in the face of it. So fucking hot. 

Closer. He needs to be closer and it’s driving him mad how he’s limited to pressing against your front. Hitching your leg up, he shoves himself forward, the rush of blood tightening his groin and emptying reason from his head. 

This is already too much. You’ve already taken things too far. But goddamn, he’s not stopping even if the entire complex broke down his door. “Shouldn’t be fucking doing this—” 

You moan and he’s a goner again, the next twitch in his pants straining against your soft pelvis. When a plea leaves that pretty mouth, Yoongi’s ready to give you the world. All you have to do is say it and it’s yours and yours alone. “Please what.” 

The tug of his hair makes him groan, but it’s your words that drag his soul across coals, “Choke me. Use me. I don’t care, do it all.”

“Huh?”

What did you fucking say? 

Nah. Yoongi needs to hear that again because he cannot forgive himself if he’s hallucinating all of this, too. Yanking you forward, he strains his ears just to be bombarded by your demands, 

“Don’t be nice. Spit in my mouth. Make me beg like a fucking slut, I need it.”

You’re gonna be the fucking death of him. “The fuck.”

Any hesitance Yoongi had before flings out the door. The whole time he’s trying to do the right thing, here you are spewing everything good and wrong and he’s enraptured. You’re clearly not holding back, so why wouldn’t he match that chaos like his life depended on mania? You give and give and give, and Yoongi makes it his mission to reciprocate. 

Soon, he’s everywhere, swallowing you devouring you inhaling you like his last meal of his last life. Busting into his bedroom, the hot rush of adrenaline magnifies his darkest thoughts. But you don’t even give him the chance to say them out loud because what the fuck he’s in his chair now? “Babe—”

What the fuck? What’s gotten into you and what can he do to suspend this moment in time? You’re sin incarnate at his feet, dropping to your knees and attacking him, undressing him with a force that downright startles him through. 

It borderline scares him because he’s never seen you like this. Shit, he can’t shake an icky feeling off now and he can’t fully immerse himself in the moment if he’s correct. “Are you su—”

“Let me do this,” you plead upward. And Yoongi lets those sparkling eyes lure him down. 

Fuck, fuck, focus. The way you hold his cock is heavensent and the feeling will never get old and he can’t help but groan at the feel of your fingers. But the feeling is still there. The question is still occupying his mind. 

So Yoongi utilizes every single ounce of control to stop you, saying your name for the first time in weeks. When you shoot him a look of rejection, his heart breaks in two, because your mind is like his when it defaults to the worst possible scenario. 

All he wants to do is kiss you. So he does just that, keeping it tender to calm your potential buzz. Voice soft, he asks through the dark blue of night, “You drank tonight, yeah?” 

“Yeah…?” 

Ah. He was right. Fuck, if you aren’t lucid enough, this has to stop right now. No matter how fucking bad he wants to tear you apart. 

But you reach out to palm his cheek, as if you knew exactly what he was getting at without asking. “I’m not drunk, baby. I just missed you.” 

Please be telling the truth. He won’t live with himself if you aren’t telling him what’s really going on. 

“I’m not,” you reassure through a smile that he’s missed so fucking much. Once again, Yoongi kisses you, because he can’t bear not feeling those puckered lips on his for another second. How strange it is, being able to breathe best when his mouth is smothered by yours. 

“So are you gonna fuck my throat or nah?”

Holy fuck, you can’t do that. You can’t just say shit like that and get away with it. It’s infuriating in the best way and Yoongi will worship this new, unbridled attitude of yours. What an honor to say he knew you had it in you all along. Yoongi never doubted your skyrocketing appeal for a second. “What are you doing to me.”

“This.” You don’t even give him the mercy of a warning. All Yoongi feels next is those angelic, sinful lips around his tip, eyes fluttering shut as his head kicks back in a moan. 

Euphoria. You’re his beginning and end, the middle and the rest. Nothing else in the world can bring him to his knees like this, and he can’t imagine being anywhere except at your feet. He’s in trouble. You’re not going home for a long while. 

Every swirl you make zings light along his limbs, and he opens soul-sucked eyes to you tugging your dress down fuck. 

He tastes himself when you kiss him, the wet of your efforts slathering around his mouth but he doesn’t fucking care. Reaching out, Yoongi smacks at your perfect tits, laughing to himself knowing how lucky he is. “Get the fuck back down there.”

And the smirk you send his way makes him fall in love ten times over. 

Yoongi doesn’t even know where he is. And this time, he counts that as a win. Because your licks and sucks are sending him into space, straight past the stars and into the next galaxy over. When the fuck did you get this good? It’s spurning the competitive side of him that vows to not lose to you even though he perpetually will. “Holy fuck.” 

His back muscles strain between arching and collapsing, the squeak of his chair the choir to your sinful symphony of sounds. Unbelievably hot. He may as well pass away from how good you’re milking him down.

Then he feels the back of your throat and then some. And something ignites in his core that causes his hands to find your head. 

Fuck, your eyes. They’re molten. “So fucking filthy...” 

Your laugh around his cock sends him into another frenzy. “Don’t do that.” 

But you disobey like the good girl you are, unsheathing your mouth just to swallow his balls oh goddamn. “Fuck!”

It’s over. It’s over for him. All you have to do is tell him what you want and he’s shoving the world aside to make it happen. Your insecurities? He’s banishing. Your wants and needs? He’s providing. There’s no one else but you and his chest is heaving with shallow shallow shallow breaths. 

When you let him push you closer, Yoongi groans, tapping that pretty cheek with his length and savoring the way you suck him back in like an addiction. 

He’s addicted to you, too. And after tonight, he doesn’t think he can ever get enough. The withdrawals will hit like no other, and he’ll shake and tweak until the next time he can steal you away. “So perfect… So fucking perfect… There will never be anyone else.” 

Can you even hear him? You’re so goddamn loud. 

“Fucking hell, baby,” Yoongi praises, thrusting into the heat of your mouth and shivering at the sensation you’re willing to give every time. “Missed that fuckin’ mouth.”

You’re already a beautiful sight around his cock. But when you come up for air, erotic effort dripping from your mouth and sloping down in strings to your bare chest? That’s when you’re mesmerizing. And Yoongi doesn’t dare to look away from your face. 

What the fuck, you’re going in again? Fuck that. You’re gonna make him bust before he gets the chance to ruin you. 

Gathering sweaty hands under your arms, Yoongi yanks you upward, tossing you onto his bed and growling with pride. After he’s through with you? You’ll never doubt where he stands anymore. And quite honestly, he’s damn near scared you’re gonna realize you’re much better than him, in every aspect of your promising life. 

Because you’re radiance personified, laughing up at him as if he never left you in the dark. How he played with your light, Yoongi won’t ever forgive himself. But you already have. And his heart lurches forward to worship you. 

“Take this off,” he commands into your chest. Because he needs it all. Everything, everything, everything. “No more hiding.” 

He helps you with shaking hands as you strip the dress for him, breath ragged with excitement and relief to have you here again. When you question your shoes, Yoongi immediately interrupts, because this is a fantasy he’s had from the fucking jump. “What about my—”

“Don’t.” He grips your pliant thigh. “I’m fucking you with them on.” 

“Oh, fuck.” 

That’s right. You’re getting all of him—the good, the bad, and all the forbidden thoughts he’s kept locked away. All of it’s now unleashed, unlocked by your ability to finally tell him what you want. 

When Yoongi smacks the side of your ass with a possession he’ll think about hours from now, the sound you make launches him to the edge. And when he wrenches your legs apart, his eyes blow obsidian at the sight between them. 

Yeah. He’s wrecking your shit tonight. And you’ll feel so good he might cry. 

“Please fuck me, baby,” you whisper soft, a far cry from your uninhibited demands from earlier. 

But the feeling inside Yoongi’s chest renders him even softer. Because yes, he’s going to. But there’s so much he didn’t get to do, so many things he’s been wanting to give but tore apart every chance. 

You deserve more. A whole lifetime more than what you’re asking for. And Yoongi can only summarize how he feels with a single sentence, “I’m gonna do a lot more than that, doll.” 

You don’t truly understand. But that’s okay. All you need to do is sit back and let him cherish you, starting with the smooth skin of your ankle that he brings in for a soft kiss. 

There’s no way to deny anything anymore. Here you are ready to be used, and Yoongi’s taking precious seconds to plant kisses on your leg? Of fucking course he’s too far gone. He’s been too far gone for months. If there’s one way to show you how he feels without words, he’s gonna take it. Because those three syllables are too profound to be said in a mere tryst under moonlight. 

So he pries your legs apart with passion taking the reins, growling out safer thoughts that praise you, “So fucking perfect.” 

“No, you,” you counter with a pout, and he cups your cunt to shut that shit down. “Hey!”

“None of that,” Yoongi orders with finality. “Not after all that shit you said at the door.” 

“I dunno what happened there,” you admit, now shy and looking more like yourself. It strikes his heart so hard a confession flows right out of his mouth, 

“Almost made me come.” 

“Be for real.” 

“Damn serious.” Goddamn, that grin. Yoongi has found a new obsession. 

“Then I should keep going?”

“Uh huh.” Perfect. Spill everything from those shining lips, break him down like you did two times tonight already. “Tell me.” 

Yoongi thinks you aren’t gonna do it again. You usually spark like a flare, simmering down after your initial fire then defaulting back to that adorable shyness again. So when you surprise him? All bets are off. Nothing is off limits. 

“Fuck me like you missed me.” 

And that’s when Yoongi fucking snaps. 

He launches for your throat first, feasting on your succulent skin and forcing you up his bed. When his dick brushes against your soft center, his name expels from your mouth at the same time he groans like mad. “Careful,” he finally sends you a warning about your last demand. Because he needs you to know what’s about to happen in this room. “You won’t leave if I did that.”

“I don’t want to,” you hastily respond, gripping his hair just how he likes it. “Wanna stay.”

Stay. He wants nothing but you to do that, too. It’s why he’s wrapping himself around you, latching onto every inch of your skin and grasping at anything he can get his fingers on. 

Of course, reason weasels through his brain again, seeping from his mouth without his permission. “You shouldn’t even be here, babe.”

“Just tonight.” Fuck, you sound deflated already. “But if you really don’t want this then please kick me out before—”

“Fuck that.” Yoongi tweaks your chest before rolling hard against you, relishing in the feel of your cunt and defying all sense of morals. “Fuck all of that.” 

Kick you out? You’ll learn to never say that again. “Don’t move.”

Yoongi drops to his knees, nudging your legs aside and promising dark and dangerous thoughts against your thigh. Fuck, you smell like heaven. He’s painfully hard and it will take everything in his soul to not come on his bedroom floor. 

What are you flinching for? What did he fucking say? “I said. Don’t move.” 

“But—Yoongi!” 

Patient, he shifts your slick thong sideways, breath heady as his tongue flattens completely against your cunt. And the taste, holy fuck. This is his favorite place and he’ll keep eating until you’re a shuddering, shivering mess on his sheets. The most exquisite mess he’s ever had the pleasure to make. 

A dark chuckle rumbles as you instinctively clamp your legs together. And he will always be willing to punish for that because your little whines in response are his guilty pleasures. “Uh uh.”

You taste so fucking good. All essence pooling from your folds coats his mouth in layer after slick layer, his tongue basking in the warmth of your core and lapping over, and over, and over. Greed is too light a word to describe his thirst, and he sucks at the spot he knows you love until you tremble. 

Gripping his cock with slicked fingers, Yoongi pumps himself slow, moaning as he keeps licking, sucking, penetrating your cunt with his tongue and deciding that’s not enough for him. He wants you losing your goddamn mind because you made him lose his. He wants you thrashing on his sheets and locking those beautiful muscles for hours. 

Your sounds tighten his groin impossibly hard, mingling with the squelches of his feast and the slide of his fingers along his length. Nothing beats this. Nothing will ever compete because you both sound so fucking obscene.  

The neighborhood gets to hear you again, and that thought carves a prideful grin into Yoongi’s features. You’re back, and they’re gonna know it. For as long as he can make you scream. 

When he inserts a finger to join his tongue, the sound you make almost makes him come  oh fuck. Say his name like that again and he will. Days from now, he may even bust off that singular memory alone. 

When you grab at his hair, he knows that’s when you’re close. And it spurns him into his next twisted fantasy that has his stomach fluttering. 

“Yoongi—I’m—” Nope. You’re not getting there yet. And your response curls his mouth into something ominous. “No no no! Please, fuck—”

Unbothered, Yoongi swats your sopping cunt, completely ignoring your cries for release, “What’d you say?” 

“Plea—Baby!” 

“Huh?” 

Such a terrible listener. What a shame he wouldn’t have it any other way. Because every fucking time you speak, he gets to shush you with a wet tap. And every time you decide to be a smart ass, he rewards you with no hope of reaching the edge you so fiercely crave.  

And this goes on for minutes. 

Yoongi has time. In fact, he has all the time in the world when it comes to breaking you down. You’re gonna spiral for him, you’re gonna unwind under his tongue. Because this is what you wanted and he’s nothing but incredibly thorough. 

Your thighs are quivering by the time he’s ready to reward you release, and he kisses them lovingly as you prattle off complete and utter nonsense above his sweaty head. Standing, he roves his gaze over his sheets, satisfied to hell how he’s made you a mess among them. 

And Yoongi is far, far from done with you. Sliding his dick along your folds, he hums, “This is what you wanted, huh. You gonna be a good little slut?” 

That obedience you give sets butterflies free in his chest. Because Yoongi knows you hold all the power here, him nothing but a vessel to carry out your every whim. “Then fucking beg.” 

When his cock pats your pretty pussy, your reaction has him fraying at the seams. So fucking beautiful when you twist like that. He can’t believe you gave him all these chances to see you at your most vulnerable because this is when you can’t hide a single thing from him. Your mouth betrays you in the best ways, your soul speaks to him when your brain can’t find the courage to. 

And Yoongi preens when you shower him with nothing but praise and a sailor’s barrage. His lips find yours after way too long, and when you tug at his shirt his heart pulls taut with it. 

“Please,” you finally beg. “I need you.”

“Need you, too.” He does, he does, he does. 

Quickly getting up to grab a condom, Yoongi smirks at the way you keep spouting nothing and everything, as if a dam inside burst with no hope of being stopped. Fully stripping himself, he slips the protection on before finding solace between your twitching legs, kissing you once again because fuck he cannot get enough of you tonight. Ever. No matter what lifetime he meets you in.

When you whisper his name, he takes it in his mouth, and the innate need to have you completely makes a mess of his hands. 

This is what will destroy him every time. This connection with you is what he will remember long after everything else fades away. There will never be another soul that embraces his so fully, and that truth is a belief so deep rooted it’s unshakeable. No matter what branches he cuts off, no matter what decisions he has to make. He will always, always come back to you. 

Because you’re it for him. And he can’t thank his past self enough for walking onto that balcony.

You like it best when he starts slow, especially since it’s been awhile since the last time. When Yoongi knows for a fact you haven’t seen anyone else, either, his heart grows a size, making his breath shudder while he slides further and further inside. 

He’ll wait. As always. But you don’t take long to feel comfortable, your hands lifting up to softly pull at his chains. Yoongi’s shoulders relax as you slide up to hold them for support, and he almost can’t look into those eyes he’s so afraid of.  

Bliss. This is exactly what he’s been fighting for. This is exactly why he’s going to make a much better effort—now, tomorrow, and forever. 

“I’m ready, baby,” you whisper. 

And Yoongi lets himself loose completely. 

Fuck, you feel better than he remembers, wrapping around him just right and pulsing against every ridge. If he could stay inside you every second, he would. There’s only one thing he can think of that would feel better than this, and just imagining that has him vibrating. The warmth enveloping him buckles both arms at your sides, and he crumbles to an elbow to smush his body against yours. 

“Look at me,” he commands, and he gives you a light pat on the cheek before squeezing your jaw. “Open up.”

When you do, spit flings from his mouth into yours, and his eyes blaze and twist at the primal dragon laying claim to you in his chest. Because you’re his, and he’s yours. This is all he ever needed to know. 

“Fuck!”

Fuck, that was too fucking hot. If he doesn’t control himself now he’s spilling inside of you in seconds. “What do you say?”

“Me?” you pant, hissing when he grips your chin once again. “Thank—” 

He’s thrusting inside you too hard you can’t think. But Yoongi doesn’t relent. Because he knows you can fucking take it. He knows how strong and relentless you can be, reckless just for him and pulling those same commitments from his core. 

And you prove him right yet again. “Thank you.”

“Now swallow.” As soon as he shoves inside, your obedience is his unraveling. Watching your eyes roll and your mouth part in release drags him down the shoreline with you, and he can’t fucking save himself because your tugs are too goddamn dominant. Fuck, you’re unbelievable. He will never, ever get enough of you. 

“Such a whore for me,” Yoongi praises, smiling lopsided when you remember exactly what he’s referring to. That first night you hustled the shit outta him and left him with a mind so jumbled he didn’t know what to do. God, that was ages ago. He’s not even sure he’s the same person anymore.

But you are. Just a lot more confident. At your core, you’re still the same wonderful woman, and the light in your eyes has not faded even one shade. “Love when you do that,” you admit, and he laughs when you shake your head. “Don’t know why.” 

“Me neither.” He spears you again with a cheeky lip bite. “But it’s so fucking hot.” 

Your grin can’t be contained, and this is where you wanna be. Right here. Nowhere else in the fucking universe. 

“I’m ready.” When Yoongi regards you with curiosity, he gets blindsided yet again by your forthcomingness. “Fuck the shit out of me.” 

Oh. Tonight is his last, it seems. “Goddamn, this isn’t good for me.” 

“What?” 

“Nothing.” Sitting back on his knees, he gathers your pretty ankles in a bunch. “Hold these pretty legs up for me. There you go.” It’s his turn to not give you a warning. Because you’re slick enough to handle what’s coming and he’s determined to make you do the same. 

Driving hard and fast, Yoongi unleashes his energy, slamming into your pussy again and again and relishing in the way you mewl and moan and whine. Keep doing that. He wants to hear you. It’s fuel for him to keep going and give you exactly what you want and need. If you felt insecure around him before tonight, he vows to erase all of that worry until it’s wiped from existence. You’re his world. You’re his everything. 

“Feel so good—”

More. More, more, more, he needs fucking more. When he leaves your cunt, you mewl before he grunts, “Fucking—Get up.” Raising you up by the arms, Yoongi leads you to the edge of his bed before swiping a firm arm to clear his desk. Knowing what he’s about to do, his cock twitches like mad. 

Fuck, you already look divine facedown on the surface, your legs teetering on those heels and making him grit out a groan. 

He cannot come. Not before living out one of his deepest fantasies. Fucking you on his desk? His workspace where he works on his other love? Yoongi’s already shaking before he even grips your quivering hips, shoving your thong away and letting it rest useless on one side of your perfect ass. Fuck. 

“Yoongi—”

He finds home again in an instant, pushing your bowing spine down when you habitually flinch, “Uh uh. Stay like that.” 

“I wanna—” Your words are cut off with his spank. “Fuck!”

“There you go.” The rock of the desk is so strong that every bang against the wall booms loud, equipment sliding back and forth and teetering just like you had on your high heels. Just the mere sight of you like this makes him spiral. And Yoongi can’t help but whoosh out a raspy laugh. “Goddamn.” 

He grabs your hands, shoving you even flatter against his desk so he can pin your arms against your slick back. Possessive? Yes. Unsatiable? Even more so. 

Your moans fling out as he doesn’t let up, and Yoongi moans at the way you squeeze and milk his cock—relentless, uncompromising, just how he fucking wants it. 

More. He still wants more? Fuck. “Come here.” He gathers your wrists in one palm before reaching around your chest, hauling you up and pinning you against his body by the throat. It’s so sweaty under his touch, glistening and tempting to be sucked until he mars you with lust. 

“Never fucking kicking you out.” His next stroke is intentionally harsh, and those moans will take residence in his mind for years. “Don’t even think about saying that again.” 

Your weight falls on his arms when he shoves into you again, feet scrambling for solid ground and wobbling your legs into jello. 

But Yoongi doesn’t give a shit. “You hear me?” When you let out a breathy confirmation, he still isn’t satisfied. A hand pats your cheek before he asks again, “Say it louder.” 

“Yes!”

“Good.” That’s all you get before he jumps into a frenzy, pistoning as fast and as hard as he can possibly manage. When he brings you back down to his desk, Yoongi takes advantage of the position, thrusting and thrusting and thrusting into your heavenly velvet. 

This is exactly what he needed. What you needed. Of course you both yearned for the same blue flame, ripping each other apart and rebuilding each other again. 

You’re close. Yoongi can feel you. So he menacingly decides to prolong your release yet again—

You shove him so fast he can’t react, thumping onto his bed and cackling like mad when you leap onto his frame. Fuck, your eyes are so blown and vicious they set him on fire, and he’s gripping your sloping hips and shoving you against his length before he can fully taunt, “Let’s go then, pretty bitch.”

“You already fucking know.”

“Show me what I’ve been missing.”

“Don’t fall in love.” 

Right. He’s already groaning when you take your throne, regal and royal and showing him exactly why he already has. But when you swing your pelvis and take him even deeper, Yoongi reminds himself that he can always fuck you like he doesn’t. And that’s both of your favorite ways to sin. “Fuck.”

His head kicks back, eyes squeezing shut in lust. He’s so tight that he might hurt you, so his hands grapple his sheets instead and tense his muscles indefinitely. 

You feel good. Way too fucking good. If you’ve been practicing with those secrets you have in your bedside drawer he can damn well fucking tell. Soon, his hisses devolve into groans, and he snaps his head back up to slap your breasts—one after the other before gripping your hips with force. “Fuck, I missed this pussy,” he confesses with husk, and you whine in response as you lower yourself to kiss him deep. 

“It missed you, too.” You’re extending yourself up his body now, upping his heartbeat until it races to catch up with his feelings. But everything unholy fills him to the brim when you arch your tits to his face. It seems you figured some things out while he was gone. 

A dark chuckle leaves as he suckles on one of your nipples, lolling around and drawing whines right out of your lips. It’s adorable to feel you frozen around his waist, too distracted by his tongue that you can’t multitask both ends. 

It’s okay. He can do that for you. Grabbing the back of your neck, Yoongi thrusts himself up into your heat, marvelling at the way your mouth flops open to say his name. “Uh huh.”  

Before you can talk again, his other hand joins in to choke you from the other side, and his eyes engulf in black when yours roll impossibly far back. 

Fuck. He’s not gonna last much longer. But you’re gonna reach bliss a thousand times before he worries about himself. “You gonna come?”

A frantic nod.

“Then come.” 

As soon as you hear the words, you do exactly that, windpipe released just as you pulse around him so hard he hisses out a curse. Shit, shit, his release is right behind yours. The way you tug at his cock proves too much, and he stutters out words of encouragement when spilling out his own release inside latex. But you’re inundating around him even after he comes, and Yoongi selfishly commands you with a rasp, “Again.” 

To his shock, you obey immediately, crying out and arching so far back Yoongi feels himself close again, too. Has he come more than once in awhile? He doesn’t remember the last time that happened, if at all. But he knows it can happen with you. There’s no doubt he can get there with you, because he loves you so fucking much. 

Fuck. Fuck, did he just say that last confession out loud? No. No, he didn’t. There’s no fucking way. 

Sitting up, he waits as you sling arms around him, leaning back and smirking at the way the new angle makes you moan. Confident you can do it a fourth time, he repeats, “Again.” 

Your head shakes before your arms lock around his neck, and one tilt of his hips pushes you over the edge. And god. Damn. This reaction you have to your own body sends Yoongi to a higher plane. He stares in awe as your eyes roll again, drinking in the sight of you and questioning what the hell he’d done to deserve a front row seat.

You’ve both come so far. But Yoongi is more proud of you for finding your sensuality in perfect stride and pace. This is wholly you, losing yourself and baring your soul to him in full. Despite what you’re doing, you radiate such an angelic aura, and Yoongi has pricks at the corners of his eyes. 

He has his guardian angel back. And he would burn the universe without a second thought if it kept you safe and warm. “So fucking perfect.”

“For you,” you wisp out. “Only you.” 

How you decided to stay with him, Yoongi will never be able to fathom. But you came back effortlessly. You welcomed him back like the promise of a nostalgic summer.  

Lowering you to his sheets, he positions you to where you’re most comfortable. When he asks if you’re okay, you can only nod, and he plants another kiss on your temple before sliding off his protection. It doesn’t take him long to trash, and he makes his way back to the bed to take full advantage of your body heat. 

There’s complete silence now. But for the first time in months, Yoongi’s more than fine with that. Because it’s nothing but comforting, with your occasional nudge against his chest and soft breaths warming his chains. 

Soothing your back with circles, something walks into his brain, and he can’t hold it in any longer as his mouth spreads wide into a grin, “I need to re-up this damn cat’s food.” 

That squeal is so fucking worth the surprise. 

“I knew it!” Yoongi pretends to be annoyed when you figure him all the way out. “Tried to hide it from me all these months? Somebody’s getting soft.”

“First off.”

“Uh huh.”

Someday, one day soon, he’s gonna take you shopping for her. You’re going to run through his entire wallet, but Yoongi doesn’t care because he’s gonna be at his happiest picking toys and things out for you. 

He can even buy you storage for some of your clothes, too. 

Maybe that can be your next surprise. 

“I’m her favorite.” 

Your scoff is immediate, and Yoongi watches as you attempt to tower over him. “Only because you gatekeeped her.”

Gatekeeped? Is that even a word? A soft disagreement precedes a more prominent, “Won’t even matter.” Because she’s definitely going to warm up to you more. He’s gonna take pride in the small amount of time he’s the favorite before being recognized as the lowly food and water boy. 

Something softens in your stare. And he’s wondering what’s floating around in that attractive mind of yours. “You took care of her.”

He did. Because she came back when he was himself again. And if that wasn’t a sign for good things to come, Yoongi will make it one anyway. “She was gonna be your surprise,” he finally murmurs. “For getting the gig.”

Your eyes still before you offer a smile that stops his heart. When you lean down to give him a kiss, the same organ beats in double time when you plant love on his forehead right after. 

Oh. That was… 

“Come here,” Yoongi whispers, wrapping you against his side as you lie back down. Calling it what it is, he’s simply too shy to look into your eyes right now. “How are you gonna get home?” He’s fine taking you. But there’s a lot of risk there if your brother is awake or driving up at the same time. And—

Shit. You still have those shoes on. They can’t be comfortable while lying down, especially after you took him like a champion.

“I’ll call a ride in the morning. He’ll be out cold until noon at the earliest.” 

“K.” 

“Did I keep you from anything?”

A puff flies out his nostrils. Of course you’d still ask that after commandeering the rest of his night. “Kinda late for that, huh.” 

“True. Sorry.”  

“But no, we were finishing up when I called.” 

“Okay… Did I scare you?” When Yoongi can’t confess out loud, he lets his eyes speak for him. Which makes your voice heavy with apology, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” 

“S’ok.” 

“I just… It hurt tonight.” Fuck. “Really hurt.” 

He knows exactly what you mean. It’s been hurting like this ever since he left. Which means he  has to make up all that time. Grappling onto this chance you gave like a lifeline, he’s gonna right all his wrongs and fully commit. No matter how many shadows are in this damn apartment, because he now knows you’ll help chase them away.  

After a light squeeze, Yoongi gently shifts his weight, resting his head exactly where your hand clutches your chest. When you move your fingers, he kisses that same spot, hoping you understand what he means. “How about now.” 

Fingers meek, you clutch his head with a broken response, “Maybe try that one more time.”

He’ll do it as many times as you ask. 

Yoongi can feel the shudder in your chest. And he knows what that usually means. So he decides to run from your expression one more time, trying something else to hopefully comfort you. Sliding to the edge of his bed, he gently lifts one of your ankles onto a leg, back fully facing you as he undoes the meticulous leather straps. “I always do, babe.” 

When you’re silent, he slips one heel off before clarifying. “Miss you.”

“I just… Wasn’t sure.” 

He hates the waver in your voice. Hates how he’s the sole cause of it and fighting hard to not hurtle down another hole. “That’s my fault.” 

Throat small, you’re swift to reassure him. “No, no. I need to just suck it up. I’m sorry.” 

After freeing your other foot, he rubs it without prompt, finding comfort in massaging your exhausted soles. If he allows himself to dream, it would be to end each and every night just like this. Driving you to release before soothing your tired bones as you talk about whatever’s on your mind, working toward his dream while you drift off and get lost in yours. 

Can he have that? Will the universe let him have a future despite his past? “Just a little bit longer, doll,” he says, turning to look at the floor. “I’m sorry.” 

“You gave me tonight.” When he swallows, you reassure him with all the support you can give, “A little longer is nothing.” 

Of course. How could you be any less than perfect? A moment passes before he shifts, and this is when he finally spots the ocean of littered pens and papers on his floor. 

Is his smile that obvious? It doesn’t take you long to call his ass out. “You liked whatever happened over there, huh.”

Immediately, Yoongi’s shoulders bob with a laugh before he admits, “Fucking you on my desk? I’ve wanted to do that for months.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Going through all the other scenarios he’s thought of—one that occurs a little far from here—he grins. “There’s a lot of shit I’ve wanted us to do for months.” 

“Oh? Like what?”

He looks over his shoulder, and you scoff in frustration at his answer, “What’s the fun in telling you?”

“Ass!”

—

—

Yoongi does his damned best to keep that smile on your face. After a shower that proves steamier than usual, he offers to make you dinner when your stomach roar makes him double over in laughter. And while he whips up a meal from the last batch of groceries Taehyung brought, Yoongi peeks around the bar to watch you discreetly open his front door. 

Wearing a shirt he used to wipe his own tears weeks ago. He’s been an utter, complete fool. 

“Is she there?” He calls out, to which you turn with a prominent pout on your lips. 

“No.” When you huff and puff to the kitchen, his eyes crease tight. “Whatever, I have plenty of time to become her new fave.” 

Over dinner, your laughs mix with his own as you tell him all your work stories. And Yoongi quickly realizes that this could’ve been the whole night and he’d be just as happy. Just as fulfilled. What does that tell him? Nothing he doesn’t already know. 

It’s when you both settle into bed that things simmer. And as Yoongi lies on your hearth of a chest, you tell him everything that happened with Jungkook. How you met, when your brother went from protectiveness to approval, up until the night he broke your heart. 

Yoongi doesn’t say a word. But he does encourage you to keep talking about your new job. Because it seems like the perfect fit for you, which is the complete opposite from where you were before. 

“Oh, wait,” you suddenly stop during a story about office decorating, “What did you call about?”

“Huh? Tonight?” 

“Yeah.” 

Now that it’s his turn to speak, Yoongi feels shy. You’ve been experiencing so much while he was away, and it’s relieving to know you didn’t lose most of your spark. “We finally have a confirmed date. For that album,” he murmurs. “I was gonna invite you to the release party.”

You tense. “Me?”

A laugh flows out, warming his cheek. “Yes, you. All of y’all.” 

It takes a second for you to ask what he suspects you would, “That won’t be weird?” 

“Nah. You can bring anyone you want, so. I was assuming you’d bring your friends.” 

“Ah, I see.”

Nope. There’s that insecurity again. And he’s already there to push it away, planting kisses along your skin, your neck, and landing home on your lips. “It won’t be the only one,” he promises. “We got time.”

“Duh,” you giggle. “And I’ll be at all of them. Whether you like it or not.” 

Oh. Yeah. He loves you more than words could ever convey. 

But he doesn’t feel like he can tell you just yet. That’s the last hurdle he has to clear, and he finds himself eating shit every time he attempts. But it’s okay. There’s still time. Because you chose him again, you gave him another chance, you’re here. 

Finding his spot on your chest again, Yoongi immediately feels at peace. All the nights he dreaded, and all the nights he doesn’t remember—every single one can’t touch him now. Because in you, he finds a safe haven, the rolling hills of your limbs and the valley of your breasts shining and warm under your smiles. 

He’ll find a way to do this. He’ll find a way to set things straight with your brother and his past. Soon. Maybe. Hopefully. 

Yoongi starts to lull as you glide gentle fingers through his hair, something else that lends him the solace he’d been seeking for months. God, all he needed was you. And you’re the only thing he left… behind…

You’re humming. 

Ever the curious musician, Yoongi perks his ears to figure out what you’re singing. Is it something he can recognize? Is it a song he doesn’t know? No. You aren’t humming anything in particular. Which makes this performance unique and only for him, and your soft lilt tugs on every single string of his heart. 

Forget everything he had said before. This is how he wants to end every night, floating amongst your stars while your voice dips his mind in a stream of gentle song. 

God. You’re composing and don’t even know it. The way you stop before trying something different, the small grunt you make before going again to make a phrase better. It’s not unlike his own creative process, and that connection yanks tears straight from his soul. 

What did he ever do. What did he ever do to be with you.

“Shit, was I too loud?”

Yoongi just shakes his head, holding you closer and hoping you don’t notice the droplets through his tee. “Not at all.” 

So you keep going, humming more familiar tunes and phrases, moving on to a drumline on his head that makes him huff in pure delight. 

But Yoongi commits that moving line you liked to memory, remembering every note and already weaving it into the fabric of his own making. A breakthrough sparks new life into his eyes, and Yoongi squeezes them tight while his lungs silently burn and burn. 

It’s what he had been fucking missing.  

You were the key this whole time. 

And he waits until you fall asleep to let out grateful, heavy sobs into your chest. 

—

—

The day after you left is one of the most stressful ones of his life. From the whirlwind of a morning to the moment of bravery in the studio to handling your brother, Yoongi needs a whole week of no brain activity. 

But that call with you long after night fell just changed his whole perspective on the time he’d been gone. 

You sounded so broken, so fragile, so defeated. It didn’t matter to have that one night of reunion. He fucked up the next day by falling asleep and leaving you worried yet again. 

You asked if he was done with you. And from the way you asked it, you already believed it to be true. 

And Yoongi never, ever wants you to question where he stands again. Not when there’s three words he wants to say to you every fucking day. 

When the phone cuts, Yoongi’s hand falls, his stare shifting straight to the living room. Right towards the corner that stares back. “You’re nothing to me anymore,” he vows, walking to the guitar that almost shies away. “I’m done.” 

Keep saying it. Keep believing it. Keep focusing on the present and grasping that instead. And one day, these words will be truer than true. 

Reaching for the case, Yoongi stops midway, his hand unable to go any farther. 

All he has to do is throw it out. That’s it. Just take it, walk to the nearest dumpster, and discard. Years of toxins will fester somewhere else, and he’ll finally be rid of the dark. 

In the end, he still can’t do it. But that won’t stop him from showing you he’s better now. Showing himself he’s better now. 

Because he is, he is, he is. 

“For us.” 

-

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tbc in fugue, pt. iii

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so... thoughts before part 3? | join the server! | fugue pt. iii

a/n: this was the part that i couldn't write until i knew yoongi was fine. it was always the plan to have him isolated, but to see real life yoongi go through all that last summer.. i couldn't find it in my heart to write his self-isolation and self-deprecation without my soul hurting. it just didn't feel right. but as soon as i saw him okay? 3tan yoongi came back again. and my fingers flew. a/n 2: thank you again, everyone. i hope you all love all the parts of fugue in equal amounts! any support, love, or encouragement means the whole world to me. again, i'm sorry for taking so long to update the main storyline, but i am back. for real. love you guys so much. ++ feedback box: ⇥ of course, any reblogs/comments/messages are appreciated! ⇥ for the ones that are too shy to reblog with a review, comment on this, or send a message, i went ahead and made another anonymous form where you can send in what you think! ⇥ no emails collected, no need to put in a username. it’s literally just a comment dropbox :D feedback can be as short/sweet or as long as you’d like! ⇥ here! ++ more links: ⇥ masterlist  ⇥ three tangerines masterlist

[kisses4reid]

not our scene | ·˚ ༘ spencer reid ,, - part 2

summary - an undercover mission causes realisations that otherwise would be squashed in denial

genre - fem!shy!reader x spencer, forced/wanted proximity, fake relationship -> real relationship, awkward idiots, fluff

warnings - awkwardness, mentions of trafficking and manipulation, realisations of love

w/c - 1.9k

a/n - second part!!! sorry for the cliffhanger that’s my favourite thing to do NOBODY COME AT ME. maybe third part/epilogue?? who knows. love y’all

The instrumental music that poured from the live band on the elevated stage came to a close, you and Spencer hovering on the opposite side of the expansive floors, discreetly keeping an eye on two large kitchen doors. The room erupted in applause, which you joined into, for the band, the man you assumed to be the main musician stood and bent at the hips with a sly smile - he knew he was good. The room quieted down to a small chatter from the abundance of people that filled the room. Women with large hats, velvet gloves, and bright lips cornered tall men in grey suits (or the other way around) and laughed like they’d known each other for many years. Men with peppering beards whispered to each other before letting out howls and pointing towards women who were not their wives. The wives stood silent. 

Spencer cleared his throat, breaking you out of your trance, “He’s been in there for around 10 minutes now. I’m gonna call it in, in case they’ve already got the tracker on him.” You nodded with a tight lipped smile, still recovering from the rollercoaster of emotions that dancing with Spencer had put you through. He glanced at you once more before holding down a button on his cuff and speaking out loud. You nodded along, in case anyone was watching - and also as a kind of self-soothing motion. 

You didn’t drink - well, not often. So when a different waiter came up to you both every 10 minutes asking if you’d like a variety of alcohol, you had to kindly decline each time. And each time you became more irritated. People laughed loudly, people danced in quick blurs, people came up to you both and stared at your dress for a little too long. Thankfully, Spencer took your hand (you’re still in love after all) and nodded with a smile that almost made you forget you were on a mission. 

The two of you escaped onto a balcony with a cold breeze accompanying the faster music that both of you wanted to avoid. Your night was already over, just as it started. One dance. You scolded yourself for wanting more, a longer night, for Webley to continue manipulating people. But you’ve done your job, you’ve completed your mission, and now you have to go home and act like all of it never happened.

“Great job, the officers have been notified and we’ve got a tracker on him now. You two can leave whenever-“

“I think we’ll stay for a bit.” Spencer spoke up, and it shocked you. It must’ve shocked Morgan too as the line went dead quiet. “Right, Y/n?” He gulped and eyed you with pleads. His tie was slightly askew, the wind flapping his jacket lightly, his eyes reflecting the stars that now hung high in the sky. 

“Y-yeah. This party’s actually…” You looked over the over-crowded floor, to your red and sore feet, to the bad alcohol standing on the waiter's trays. But then you looked over to Spencer. His eyes, his hair, his small smile, his red tie. “The party’s actually not that bad.” You say with a smile.

“Okay… don’t stay for too long. We don’t want everyone to be hung over for a flight home tomorrow.”

The balcony was made of white concrete pillars and marble floors, sconces of warm lights and vines of ivy that wrapped around the pillars and balcony like waves of seaweed. It was beautiful, just like the rest of the establishment, it was unfortunate its main use was to take advantage of innocent people. But you weren’t out there to think about that - at least that’s what you assumed. Spencer wouldn’t want to stay to talk about trafficking or crimes surely. 

In that moment, even after watching his small smile of excitement that you agreed to stay with him, all you wanted to do was kick off your shoes and take a goddamn breath. 

You walked over to the parapet of the balcony and was glad to see the top was a flat slab of concrete, just wide enough for you to pull yourself up and sit down. 

You sighed in relief, taking off your heels and letting them fall onto the shiny marble. 

Spencer followed your movements, standing next to you and looking out onto the view. City lights and stars blended in with each other from this angle. 

“Are you okay?” He asked gently. You smile, “That’s the third time you’ve asked me tonight. Do I look troubled?” He stood for a moment before turning his head towards you, his hair sweeping across his eyebrows in the breeze. “You look like you’d rather be anywhere else.” “Was it really that obvious?” “To me, yes… I think that if I didn’t pretend to enjoy tonight people would’ve been suspicious of us.” You frown slightly, “You didn’t enjoy the night?” “I didn’t enjoy the reason, nor the location. I enjoyed the people though.” He sends you a smile that makes your heart flutter and your cheeks redden. You hope he doesn’t see it in the dim lighting. 

Inside, the dance finishes and people clap, and you do too. Spencer glances at your hands and smirks slightly. “You don’t think they’re suspicious now? We danced once, and now we’re out here watching them like weirdos.” 

Spencer turned to lean on the balcony and look into the ballroom, shrugging. “We’re two young people in love,” he turned to look at you, eyes warm and deep, “alone time is what we need.” 

You bit the inside of your lip and stared at Spencer. His suit, his matching (skewed) tie, his hair and his eyes. He did the same to you, before gulping and looking down at the floor. He bent and picked up your shoes, turning them in his hands and observing. “These are too small for you.” You laugh at the obvious fact, “They’re JJ’s. She’s got the tiniest feet I’ve ever seen.” “You’re only one size above her.” “She wears high heels much more often than I do.” “You swap between sneakers and converse. You’ve only bought new shoes two times since I’ve known you. This is the second time I’ve seen you wear heels, and even then they were practically ballet shoes.” He smiled to himself like it was an inside joke. “Oh…” You looked down at your feet and realised he was exactly right, “I’m surprised you’re not wearing your black converse right now.” “Morgan didn’t let me. He said he was pressured to make me look good by all the girls.” He lifted a finger and turned fully towards you, “Did you know that sleeve buttons on suits were created to help doctors who worked in the war keep their sleeves up? Now, they’re a sign of intelligence and wealth. Also, a few weeks ago, you called me a grabologist because of my collection of ties, but did you know that the largest collection of suit ties is owned by a New Zealander woman called Irene Sparks. Now, I think I’d like to oppose that not with my own collection, but with Morgans.”

You smile at the memories of the girls dressing you up, fueling the sisterhood that the childhood version of you missed out on. You thought about Morgan, Hotch and maybe Rossi, and how they were probably dressing him up as well. It was truly a found family, something that you felt you belonged to. They knew your habits, they knew when you were lying, they knew a good portion of your past. And you knew all the same for the rest of them. But Spencer? 

Mentally, without realising, you had been creating essays for him since the day you met him. You made journal entries for everyone else, but for Spencer it was books on books of mental notes and facts and aspects of him and his life that you kept in the back of your mind, ready at any point to bring out and use. Why he wears mismatched socks, why he likes purple, why he can’t handle too many people talking at once, why he feels uncomfortable at hospitals, why he hasn’t contacted his father in years. And he knew no doubt even more about you. He had a talent for knowing your emotions and feelings like no one else could, and it made your heart palpitate every time he did it.

“I mean, you’ve seen my collection of ties but jeez, you’d think a guy who mainly wears t-shirts would keep his collection small. You’d like one of his, it's a green that matches that bedside table you painted once. Like those socks you got me last Christmas. But anyways, he somehow had a perfect red to match your… dress. Which by the way, I noticed a lot of people looking at you - and I don’t blame them. I think you look, um, I think you look incredible.” His rambling quietened down for a moment as he tried to avoid eye-contact with you, before he cleared his throat and continued on with his rambling (which mixed with compliments every second sentence). 

And suddenly, you realised this was all an excuse. You were in denial, so badly, that you thought of him as a subject of your devotion without stepping back and seeing the real picture. 

“Spencer…” You cut him off and he looked up with big eyes, surprised you spoke up. You were the only person that let him ramble, it may have been the only time you stopped him. “Wh- You wanna go home?” He saw your eyes, you looked in pain, in shock, in… “No, Spencer, I… Um.” You pressed your lips together and looked down - were you really going to say this? Were you really going to admit you loved the man in front of you without any evidence that he felt the same way? He was your coworker, your best friend. Everything could be ruined in just a few words. Suddenly, you wanted to take your train of thoughts back, to let him continue on with his rambling - it always calmed you down anyways.

Suddenly, his palm was held out in front of you with a small mint in the middle. You looked up at him and his worried but genuine smile. “Here,” he said softly. You took the mint in your hand and simply stared at it. To be loved, is to be known. “Um, Spencer. I…” His eyes were wanting, curious, they were so goddamn beautiful, “I… I love you.” 

His mouth gaped slightly and his cheeks reddened. Spencer gulped and fiddled with his fingers before chuckling nervously, “I was supposed to say it first.” “What?” “I was supposed to say I love you first.” You hopped down from the concrete railing, dress falling to cover your shins again. “I can take it back if you want.” You responded quickly. “No, no don’t take it back, even if you did I don’t think I could mentally accept that you had taken it back.” You covered your mouth with your hand and looked up at him in shock, “So you-” “I love you, too.” He nodded and took your hands from your mouth, holding them in his, “I have since the third week you’ve worked with the BAU.” 

“Oh, that’s great um…” You looked down at your intertwined hands and furrowed your eyebrows, “What do we do now?” “We could go to the McDonalds that’s a 10 minutes walk away or, I could kiss you.” He stared into your glistening eyes and wanted to pinch himself to see if this was actually happening. “I don’t-”

“You don’t like McDonalds, sorry, my brain is-”

“Just kiss me.” You replied exasperated.

“Okay.” He nodded and placed his hands on your waist.

taglist (open!!) - @jeffswh0re @reap3erslov3 @candyd1es @0108s22m @aurorsworld @theoraekenslover @c-losur3 @littlelearningbrat @khxna @laurakirsten0502

[kabr0ztrousers]

ngl kinda just need oviposition with ftm reader. thats all LMAO

An FtM reader? A little tricky seeing I don't have any lived experience in that field, but this series was about pushing myself in new creative directions, so let's see what happens!

Kabr0z Writes Episode 35: Interdiction

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: oviposition; noncon; brainwashing; weird science; loss of property; alien abduction; kidnap; forced impregnation; inflation; egg inflation

A/N: Another sci-fi story because I did a feral egging scene recently, and while that's pretty hot variety really is the spice of life. I'm also couching this one in the world of Elite, so that's fun.

Still taking the time to remind you all that requests are free and open, I have a bit of a backlog after yesterday to work through but if you ask for something, it'll probably happen!

#####################################

Exit Frameshift in three, two, one...

Bang. You pulled hard on the stick, steering away from the star and zeroing the throttle. The reality of supercruise means you're still moving at about 30 klicks a second, but that's as close to stationary when considering distances measured in light-seconds. You steered to your next jump vector and rose from your flight seat. Not best practice, your engine emissions a beacon across the whole system, but you're well past the pirate belt in uncharted space. The only contacts you'll see out here are either enterprising extreme-range miners or the desperate pirates preying on them, even they're vanishingly rare.

Space is big. Really big. Even a star system is small in comparison. There's a good chance nobody's ever been here before.

The thought comforted you as you rehydrated some food and applied your hormones. You thought back to home: a dump of a refinery station in the middle of Alliance space. You'd watch the spacers in the huge type-9 haulers bring in kilotons of ore at a time. You'd tried flying freight. The money's good, and there's no passengers to annoy you, but the trade routes were samey and the pirates were always hungry for a mark. You did exactly as much as you needed to kit out your Diamondback and set off for Beagle Point. They say reaching the end of everything changes you. You needed to see for yourself.

You never made it there.

Halfway through your tray of food-flavoured protein paste your instrument panel lit up. Something was flying hard up your tailpipe, probably not friendly.

You hit the leather of the flight chair and gunned the throttle, wrestling the interdiction beam threatening to pull you out of supercruise. You were moving too slow, and the other ship had the headstart on you. Lights dimmed and smoke rose from your console as your FSD struggled to dump heat into the rest of the ship. You'd lost main power, battery backups kicked in to maintain air as you craned to see what had caught you.

You couldn't see the ship so much as see where it blotted out stars. A great dark silhouette threatening to crush you in its absence of form.

A great maw opened on the surface of the object, drawing nearer to you. Your docking computer flared to life and started calculating vectors, bringing you in to land even as you struggled to disengage it. The whole ship jolted as you touched down, almost throwing you from your seat.

You grabbed a pulse rifle and flipped your table, it wasn't much cover, but it'd have to do.

Splintering glass. You flew backwards in a rush of wind as the cockpit depressurised, the emergency helmet in your flight suit deploying around your head, just before something hit you, and you lost consciousness.

You awoke connected to monitors, a tube sticking down your throat. Two large reptilian... men? were talking. You assume they were talking, and assume they were men. They were heavily built, upright, bipedal, and wore long white gowns, the purplish light in the room casting them in faint lavender.

They looked at you. One clipped a smooth piece of metal to the side of its face

"Greetings, you have been captured" The alien's voice was strangely familiar.

It was the voice from the Galnet broadcasts

"Where am I? What have you done with my ship? You tried to pull the tube from your mouth, but your hands were restrained to the slab you were lay on.

"Your vessel has been disassembled for study. Your technology and biology has been categorised."

Your heart broke. That ship was your pride and joy, you knew every inch of it, and now it's gone. You slumped back, staring up at the ceiling as the newsreader voice continued.

"We have identified that your biology is acceptable to host our eggs. This is the reason you have been revived. Implantation has a greater success rate when the subject is not anaesthetised"

You jolted up. Eggs? The fuck?

The lizards approached you. You could see now their robes were open at the front revealing their bodies. They were each holding scissors.

They cut you out of your clothes. First opening the reinforced kevlar of your flight suit as though it was tissue paper, then snipping through your binder and boxers revealing your naked, hairy body.

One placed a metal disk on your midriff, where you felt it stick. They pressed a button on a control pad and electricity started pulsing through you. Your hair stood on end as your nipples hardened and your cunt moistened, your bulbous clit standing erect. The lizards looked at one another, and their hands fell upon you. Two fingers were shoved down your throat, making you gag as the other set to work on your pussy. Both ends of you were being worked, forced to produce fluids and lubricate you for what was to come. The throat slime rising in your mouth and the insistent fingertips on your slit. The one at your pussy grabbed your clit between two fingers and started jerking it, rubbing the hood over your tdick.

Your struggling against your bonds turned to writhing in pleasure, bucking your hips against the lizard's hand. Its fingers pushed inside you and started pumping, his other hand still jacking you off. You couldn't resist sucking on the fingers in your mouth as your orgasm washed over you, moaning around the hand in your mouth and squirting thin fluid from your cunt at the alien servicing you. The hands released you. You held your mouth open and presented your cunt to them, eager for more.

You could see cocks emerging from the slots on their crotches, dripping fluid and pulsing.

They fell upon you. In a flash your cunt was filled, your clit grinding against the rough scales on the lizard's belly. The other lizard followed suit, burying himself in your throat. His precum was sour and slimy, easily lubricating him as he pounded into your mouth and throat. The tube seemed to be to breathe through, otherwise you'd definitely pass out on the rod forcing its way down.

You could feel another orgasm pressing against you, making your cunt clench against the cock inside you as the lizard's thrusting rubbed your clit. The device on your belly pulsed harder and you heard both of the reptiles grunt in anticipation. They could clearly feel it too, fucking your holes even harder and filling you with that slimy pre. The pulses made you ache. You kept humping against the cock in your cunt, tongue sticking out to lick at the one in your throat even as it ravaged you. One of them grabbed your tits, rubbing your erect nipples and pushing you over the edge.

Your body twisted as you clenched and squirted all over the one in your pussy. Your eyes defocused and crossed. Both lizards hilted in you at once, the lewd sounds you kept making clearly pushing them over the edge.

The bases of their cocks expanded, locking them in. One pushed against the entrance of your womb, the other halfway down your throat. They started to throb and pulse, twitching as the lizards groaned. You felt thick cum flood you before solid objects started moving down them. One after another, eggs pushed into you, bulging your belly and pressing up against one another.

Your skin stretched until the metal device popped off you. The cloud of desire lifted from you and you tried to scream, wheezing down the tube leading into your airway until one of the aliens grabbed it and pressed it against your ass.

You almost orgasmed again when it started back up, each egg driving a wave of excitement and arousal through your body as they flowed into your womb and your stomach.

You were bulging and round when they pulled out, gravid and pregnant with dozens and dozens of eggs. The one at your pussy slapped your ass when he pulled out, the sudden shock sending another firecracker-orgasm through you, making you whimper and twitch, unable to move for the volume of eggs in you

The lizards left the room, and you felt numbness flow through you again, surrendering yourself to drugged sleep

You never did reach Beagle Point

#################################

I feel like I was able to keep the Elite technobabble to a minimum here, most of the terms are pretty self-explanatory and no worse than Trek can be

Either way, my research has shown that if I remind you at the top and bottom of an episode to send an ask if you have a request, I get traction. So please, if there's something you want me to try out, revisit, reimagine, or you just want to send a dirty picture, my asks and DMs are open and I'm always hungry for ideas!

[infinitatis-ink]

charade

Yandere!Gojo x Reader - Ao3 Link

Summary: Gojo likes to pretend about a lot of things. 

One, that his jokes are funny. Two, that he’s perfectly fine and doesn’t need help. Three, that you fell in love and started dating him out of your own free will.  

The chain around your ankle would beg to differ. 

Content Warnings: Yandere Gojo, implied kidnapping, captivity, Reader briefly having suicidal thoughts/ideation, Reader fantasizing about murder, nonconsensual kissing, referenced rape/noncon.

MDNI. MINORS AND BLANK/AGELESS BLOGS WILL BE BLOCKED

Gojo likes to pretend about a lot of things. 

One, that his jokes are funny. Two, that he’s perfectly fine and doesn’t need help. Three, that you fell in love and started dating him out of your own free will.  

The chain around your ankle would beg to differ. 

“Ah, I’m finally home!” Gojo lets out an exaggerated sigh and flops onto your chest, pushing you back onto the plush bed and knocking the book you’d been reading onto the floor. “The mission was a pain in the ass.”

Several months of living with Gojo have taught you that when he wants something from you, he simply expects it to happen. Otherwise, his tantrums and passive aggressive silent treatments are too much of a headache to deal with. You automatically run a hand through his hair, gently massaging the spots you know he’s weak to as he makes a contented noise.  

“A whole week without your touch was pure torture, you know,” he murmurs, trailing his hands down your hips. 

It’d been torture for you too, just not in the way Gojo wants it to be. The only bright side was that he’d gotten better about leaving you well-supplied before going on long missions, ever since you’d nearly starved to death when his flight had been delayed (a shame he came back in time, you were so close to being free from him). Sure, he’d made sure the fridge was stocked with your favourite foods and let you use his movie collection and the balcony (the chain’s sadly not long enough to let you jump off it), but it means nothing when he’s insistent on keeping you in his bedroom the whole time he’s gone. Gojo had told you once that you'd get access to the rest of the penthouse while he's away on long term missions after you'd earned that privilege.

You doubt he had any intention of keeping that promise.

How cruelly ironic. The only time you get some freedom away from Gojo’s suffocating “love” and you can’t even enjoy it to the fullest. You’d gotten so bored by the last week that you’d started staring at the tiles on the bathroom floor, trying to make shapes out of the greyish marble veins. Had he been gone for any longer, you think, you might’ve even been glad to see him again.   

You suddenly feel his lips brush over the crook of your neck and look down to see Gojo staring up at you expectantly with a pouty expression, his cheeks comically puffed out. In another universe, you might’ve found it cute. But all you can feel now is the urge to wrap your hands around his throat.   

“Well?” He playfully nips the skin under your collarbone, and you hate the jolt of electricity it sends to your core. “Did you miss me?”

You sigh. As tempting as it’d be to break his fingers so he'd learn to keep his hands to himself, you know he’d just find it hot. Goddamn weirdo.

“It was torture for me too,” you finally say. It’s not a complete lie, so it should satisfy him for the time being. Anything to stop his hands from wandering all over your body, as though you’re an instrument he just has to fine tune to his liking. 

Gojo stares at you for longer than you’d like, before he gives you a lazy smile. 

“Is that so?” he asks, toying with the hem of your shirt. “Then I guess you'd know I’ve been wanting to do this the moment I came home.” 

The air's knocked from your lungs as Gojo suddenly slams his lips against yours. You freeze for a split second, still trying to process what just happened, a noise of protest dying in your throat. He takes the chance to deepen the kiss, slipping his tongue between your parted lips to taste all of you. You’ve learned that Gojo’s kisses are greedy, suffocating things, filled with a need to savor you as though you’ll slip out of his arms and vanish at any second. You faintly feel him grind against your thigh with a groan, something hard and blunt poking at you through his pants.

A knot forms in your stomach, right above the heat that’s starting to pool into your core. You know you should count your blessings. Be glad Gojo’s bothered with foreplay this time, instead of coming home and immediately taking you on the nearest flat surface. But no matter how considerate or gentle he might be towards you as he violates you, it makes you want to crawl out of your own skin afterwards. 

Maybe there is some greater being or force in the universe after all, because Gojo mercifully pulls away with a satisfied look on his face. You waste no time scrambling to sit up, trying to get as much distance as you could away from him. No luck; Gojo immediately grabs your wrist and pulls you against him.

“W-what the—why—” you splutter. Heat prickles against your scalp and face as you glare at him. 

“It’s alright if you're still shy about making out, baby,” Gojo coos. He taps your nose and grins, as though you’re just embarrassed and not itching to punch him. “Since we haven’t been together for that long. But you can just let me know, yeah?”

Red hot anger bubbles up in you, and you wonder what Gojo would look like when you crush his throat beneath your heel. 

“Go fuck yourself,” you snarl. 

“That’s your job, sweetheart,” Gojo leans in, until you can feel his teeth against your skin, lips curling up into a smirk. “Hate me all you want; I have enough love for the both of us.”   

[fourorchid]

“Obedient Thing”

— Chapter 1 —

Description: The monotony of your day to day life as a lab assistant is suddenly interrupted upon meeting Viktor, a researcher at the academy, who has a gaze that pulls you apart and knows exactly how to piece you back together. His voice, his actions—they’re dizzying, frustrating—but madly addictive. Curiosity and happenstance seem to render you incapable of avoiding him as you come to terms with the newfound feelings he’s unintentionally (or maybe intentionally) stirred within you.

Chapter Index:

Chapter 1 (here)

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

— Viktor x fem!Reader | ~2.1K —

Disclaimer: I wrote this on a whim as an introduction to a plot I came up with for a Viktor fic and I’d love to continue it if people are interested! I wouldn’t call myself a writer by any means and this is also my first attempt at writing something of this nature—but regardless, I hope you enjoy ~

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

The low-hanging glow of dusk casts soft shadows across the street as you walk towards the academy. You go over what Jayce had asked you to pick up from the lab—his two notebooks and the instrument filled with your latest experiment’s data.

“I’m sorry, I ran out of time and the numbers need to be recorded in the books before testing on Monday—would you mind grabbing them and doing it over the weekend?”

You recall Jayce’s voice asking sweetly over the phone—a voice you quickly realized is very hard to say “no” to. You told Jayce you were exhausted and would get it tomorrow but he insisted you retrieve them now. “Please, just to be safe,” he pleaded. Although you were unsure how Jayce managed to overlook this—and how his oversight landed on you to resolve—ultimately, you obliged.

So now you find yourself at your place of work, walking up the two flights of stairs that lead to the lab on what was supposed to be a relaxing Friday evening after a long week.

This was the life of an assistant—rather tedious, being at someone else’s beck and call, and more often than not you’re treated as an afterthought. But it was stable and predictable, so you deem the trade off fair.

Your heels click as you walk up to the familiar door. You plunge your key into the handle before realizing the latch was already unlocked. With a soft turn of the knob, you enter the lab. The sun has now nearly set providing little light from the window. Your eyes quickly move to a different source of light coming from the work bench deeper into the room. A lithe figure sat working, turning promptly at your entrance. His features were sharp, his gaze inspecting but not necessarily with judgement as he moves to face you.

“Hello—I’m sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was still here. I just need to grab something,” you explain politely.

“Of course,” He replies. His voice is deep with a subtle accent, his tone formal.

You move to Jayce’s desk and begin sifting through the piles of notes and research. After multiple minutes, you realize you cannot seem to find the notebooks he mentioned. Even with Jayce’s usual messiness, locating something was never this difficult. You let out a soft huff in confusion. The other man turns to look at you recognizing the sounds of frustration all too well.

“What is it that you are looking for?”

As he speaks, you are unsure whether he wants to be helpful or if he’s trying to figure you out—maybe both.

“Oh, um—Dr. Talis asked me to pick up a few notebooks—but I, uh, can’t seem to find them,” your tone is perplexed as you return to shuffling through his desk.

The man stands up from his spot, leaning on the cane in his hand. He takes a second to process before speaking again.

“One red and one blue?” He takes a guess referencing the exact notebooks you are looking for. “Yes, those are the ones—have you seen them?” you ask as you continue your futile search.

His footsteps on the floor are echoed by his cane as he walks a few paces closer.

“Jayce had them in his hand when he left earlier,” he replies, his tone matter-a-fact but also questioning.

You turn to look at the man, entirely lost. Something about Jayce’s request starts to feel…off.

“Really? That can’t be right,” you say, confusion settling on your face as you return your focus to the mess of papers and books on the desk. The man let out a deep exhale as he brought his hand up, pinching the bridge of his nose—seemingly having come to a realization.

“But it is,” He affirms with a soft sigh, dropping his arm back to his side.

“Maybe he forgot then,” you try to understand but something’s not adding up.

“I’m afraid he did not,” The man takes a few steps closer now standing behind you as he continues to clarify in a way that only leaves you with more questions. “He knows he didn’t leave them here.”

You turn, leaning your back against the rumpled desk to observe the man as he speaks in breadcrumbs. You feel like you’re missing the piece of the puzzle that completes the picture—and the man standing in front of you seems to have it.

“Are you saying he just sent me here to haze me?” You joke but your delivery remains reserved.

“No, no, Jayce is not cruel—just meddlesome,” the man cocks his head to the side, his expression curious as he scans your features.

“He wanted you to find something else—” the man connects the dots for you, his tone deep and a bit gravelly as he speaks, “—to find me.” He finishes, unamused with the prospect. Viktor recounts the subtle grin on Jayce’s face earlier as he had told him he would be working late through the evening, the man’s reaction suddenly making more sense now.

You are utterly lost. “Why?” You respond, unsure of what Jayce’s motive would be for sending you to the lab under false pretenses just to see this man that you don’t even know. “What would he be trying to accomplish in doing so?” you add skeptically.

“He is trying to play matchmaker, is what he’s doing.” The man answers simply. You don’t know how to respond. You chuckle nervously at the thought.

“I’m sorry—and why would he do that?” You pause before adding, “Did you know about this?” Your tone is a bit more standoffish and accusatory than you intended due to your revelation at being manipulated. At this point you just want an explanation, niceties be damned.

“No, I assure you, I had nothing to do with this—” the man gestures with his free hand between you and the notebook-less desk. “But he has mentioned you to me before on a few occasions—seems to think we would be ‘good together,’ so to speak.” The man in front of you is unfazed and straightforward as he explains, “And thinks he’s helping when he’s most certainly not.” He taps his cane against the floor softly as he readjusts his tall frame against it. His eyes slowly travel over you, taking in your appearance and your demeanor as he finishes speaking.

“I’m sorry—I’m not sure what to say,” you admit with a dry, halfhearted laugh at the absurdity of the situation. The man’s gaze makes you feel as though you’ve been placed under a microscope—exposed and waiting.

“It’s quite alright, really. You didn’t know, it’s Jayce who should apologize for such a ludicrous plan.” He breaks from surveying you, returning to look at your face as he responds casually.

There’s a beat of tense silence as you still are registering what this man in front of you has revealed. The conversation at hand is beyond small talk and you realize you still don’t know his name.

“I don’t even know your name,” you admit, still a bit miffed but your tone is weaker than before. An almost imperceptible smile makes its way across the man’s face as he seems to find your reaction intriguing.

“It’s Viktor,” his voice is deep and smooth as he answers. His eyes almost seem to glow in the dimly-lit lab; intimidating yet inviting at the same time. They narrow as he appraises you.

“How old are you, Miss y/n?” Viktor muses, his eyes never leaving yours as he awaits your response.

You know you aren’t obligated to stay and entertain this conversation—you could just excuse yourself politely now having cleared up the misunderstanding; but something about the man in front of you compels you to stay. You find it frustrating and a bit concerning but curiosity—as it often does—gets the best of you.

“24,” you reveal, a bit unsure where this new line of questioning is headed. A faint look of surprise flits over Viktor’s features as he hears your answer. “Why, how old are you?” You return the question.

“35.” he states simply.

“Oh, um—that’s a decent age difference,” you point out now more unnerved. “Why would Jayce try to set you and I up together if he knew that?”

Viktor seems to know the answer but isn’t sure how you will take it. He takes a few steps closer to you again, stopping just a couple feet from where you stand, his gaze fixed on you.

"It's because I prefer a certain...type." Viktor offers a vague explanation that leaves you on the edge.

“What? Younger?” You ask, slightly horrified by the notion. A small chuckle rumbles through Viktor’s chest as he clarifies. “No, not exactly,” he chooses his words more carefully as he continues, “It’s more about the kind of….personality I tend to go for.”

The room begins to feel warmer, you do your best to ignore the feeling. “Which is?” you try to get him to be more specific.

He looked you over slowly before deciding whether or not to tell you.

"Submissive."

He spoke the word carefully but with intent, clearly not wanting to make you uncomfortable but also testing the waters.

You swallow as the word reaches you—not exactly what you were expecting.

“Oh really?” you scoff softly, “Is that the impression I give off?” your tone becomes defiant. The corners of Viktor’s mouth turn up ever so slightly in an understated display of amusement.

Suddenly, he leans forward making up for the height difference between you two as he gently places his free hand under your chin, tilting your face up slightly so he could make eye contact as he speaks.

"Well, don't be so sure. I have a pretty good eye for these things." His voice is a coaxing and low rumble as he speaks.

You find yourself unsure of how to respond, clearly more affected by Viktor’s action than you expected as you feel heat crawl up your neck. His touch sends a shockwave through your body of…anxiety? excitement? frustration? desire? You can’t quite tell—all you know is that whatever it is has you unable to think straight. You avert your gaze for a moment of reprieve. Viktor gently pulls your chin up as he speaks firmly.

“Look at me.”

Despite your better judgement, you find yourself having a hard time disobeying. Before really registering it, you return your gaze to Viktor’s. You feel the same sensation as you did earlier; exposed and expectant as he studies you.

He smirked, noticing the change in your expression when you returned to look at to him. He held your chin for a few moments, his eyes locked on yours as he spoke again.

"There you go. That's better."

The low warmth of his voice as it vibrates from his chest with subtle praise causes your heart rate to jump. His gaze flicks down to your lips and back up to your eyes again, as if memorizing each feature individually.

Suddenly, you feel Viktor remove his hand from your chin. He takes a step back to allow you to regain your bearings. He observes you closely, taking note of your body language and flushed appearance. You feel your breathing has become a bit shallower now too. A hint of satisfaction washes over his features at what he’s managed to make of you from such a simple gesture.

"It's as I thought." He affirms, crossing his hands over the top of his cane. He let his eyes run over you again, studying the way your chest visibly rose and fell as you breathed.

All at once, the stretching walls and tall ceiling of the lab somehow manage to feel suffocatingly small. Your cheeks burn and you wish nothing more than to be able to come up with something clever to quip back, but the synapses in your brain have been short-circuited and rewired.

You let out a wavering breath as you finally find your ability to speak.

“Well, it’s getting late—I should be going.” Your voice is flat and sterile as you try to compensate for how affected you still feel. Viktor, seemingly having returned to his earlier demeanor as if none of that just happened, speaks nonchalantly but the look in his eyes betrays something more intense.

“Of course, of course,” he nods cordially, “I apologize for Jayce’s…antics.”

You nod, accepting Viktor’s apology on Jayce’s behalf—ugh, Jayce—you feel your jaw tighten as you make a mental note to confront him about this nonsense later. You turn your attention back to the man in front of you.

“Goodnight, Viktor,” you say, your voice taut as you move to leave the lab. You feel his eyes trace your movements as you walk out the door.

“Goodnight, y/n.” Viktor replies, his voice low as your name rolls off his tongue in an almost purr.

You swiftly close the door to the lab behind you. At the click of the latch, you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

As you walk back home, you are left with the sound of your tense breathing and a headache’s worth of thoughts swirling in your head. You can’t help but replay the interaction over and over again as you try to make sense of the feelings it had stirred within you.

A switch had been flipped—one that you didn’t quite understand, let alone know existed in yourself.

All you do know is who flipped it.

The man in the lab with a calculating gaze and a velvet-wrapped voice. The man who can see things others don’t, who has a penchant for pushing the envelope—whose name was Viktor.

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[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

No Air 1

No tag lists. Do not send asks or DMs about updates. Review my pinned post for guidelines, masterlist, etc.

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as noncon/dubcon, age gap, parental neglect and abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You're forced to return home after a nervous breakdown.

Characters: Lloyd Hansen

Note: I have so much for the ex con pervs so here is this too.

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!) Please do not just put ‘more’. I will block you.

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

The numbness is like a clog in your veins. It's as if you just stopped working. Your mind, your body, just stopped after it all combusted in tears and defeat. Shaking on the floor, sobbing, maybe you screamed. You can hardly remember how it went.

You remember laughing. Not you. People laughing at you. You don't think you've ever truly laughed at anything. There's never been a reason to be happy. Whether you did good, there's always better. It's never enough until it became too much.

All that comes through the fog is Jacques' angry shouting, his mean words, his endless reproach. Not good enough. Not good enough. The same words your mother spoke a thousand times over. It was one note. One misstep. It was just enough to light the house of matches.

Your head lolls against the seat and you blink through the window. It's all ashes now. What you worked your whole life towards is nothing. Your cello, smashed; your wits, too. You don't know if you're relieved that it's finally over.

No. After all that after your meltdown in the opera house, after a blurry flight behind a wall of endless tears, after this meandering car ride down streets you never wanted to see again, you still have to face her. Your mother's spite is far worse than anything the snake-tongued conductor could come up with.

You have nothing left to cry. You rock with the car's motion as it steers up the long drive to your mother's house. The elaborate Tudor style always struck you as horribly out of place. She never settles for anything less than the best.

Her porsche is in the crescent drive and another car. Is it new? A convertible Bently.

The drive stops just behind it and you thank him. He was kind enough to turn off the instrumental when you asked. You never want to hear or touch another string again. He opens your door, then takes your bag out of the trunk. Another thanks and he's off. For a moment, you hesitate. Nearly running after him to say you forgot something. No, the cello is in pieces, swept into some Italian dumpster.

You stare after the car, reticent to face the house, to meet your mother's wrath. The air is dulcet and cool as the afternoon softens to evening. You can hear the buzz of insects and the soft scuff of critters in the hedges. It's too peaceful.

Your ears are fuzzy and your vision narrow. You extend the handle of your bag and linger a little longer, taking in the groomed flowers and the classical statues of nymphs hopping around the greenery.

"Evening, sunshine," a voice startles you so you knock over your suitcase. You spin to face the man as he comes up the long drive, jogging in only a pair of black shorts. You gulp and shake your head in confusion. This is your mother's house... "You must be the prodigy."

You rock on your heels and blink. He offers his hands as he slows and nears. His hairy chest sparkles with his sweat. He's older, grey at his shaved temples, the longer strands of his hair combed back over the top of his head, a small elastic keeping them out of his face. His eyes are bold and blue, his nose reminds you of a Roman bust, and his lip is trimmed with a thick mustache. You look at his hand. You don't know what else to do but shake it. You give your name and earn a snicker.

"Oh, I know," he drawls and squeezes your hand, "Lloyd. Hansen," he turns your hand and raises it. He kisses it, the fuzz above his lip tickling you. "You don't look like her."

Your lips part in confusion, "you know my mom?"

You try to slip free of his grasp and he clings to you. He lets go only as you yank again. You bend to grab your bag but he's quicker. He brings it up with the handle and wheels it toward him.

"Was out for my run. Gotta keep fit," he declares. He is. Very fit. You find that sitting behind your cello hasn't lessened your already thick thighs.

"Um, where is my mom?" You ask.

He cackles again, "she's probably knee-deep in the merlot," he winks and gestures at the house. "Wanna go find her?"

"Erm, okay, but..." you turn and he's quick to step up next to you, the wheels of your luggage rolling loudly on the stonework. "Uh," your lip quivers, "who are you?"

"I told ya, sunshine," he drapes his arm across your shoulders and you wince. He curls his hand around and latches on, urging you onward, "Lloyd. Unless you wanna call me daddy."

You let out a strangled noise. "Huh?"

"Kidding. Me and your mom... we've been spending time together. Think she likes me," he keeps your feet moving as he drags your bag. "I mean, how can you resist a hunk like me?"

Your eyes search the steps as you approach him. You squirm but he doesn't let go. You're never this close to people. It can get a bit crowded when the orchestra has all their instruments set but nothing like this. You don't talk to people, you don't touch them. You just do what you're told.

He walks you up the steps and his hand slowly drifts from your shoulder. You notice it getting lower and lower, crawling down your back. As you get to the top, you scurry away before it can get any lower. You reach for the curled door handle and twist desperately. You pull it open and stand back.

"Woah, little lady, supposed to be the man opening doors," he smirks. "But I don't mind being pampered."

He steps through and you wait a moment before you trail him. You don't like him. Something about the way he talks, the way he saunters, the way he just touches you. You flutter your fingers together and bite the tip of your tongue.

"Katherine," he leaves your suitcase at the base of the banister and calls out. "Hope you got enough wine to share."

He stops and peeks back at you. He beckons you to follow. You stay behind him as he heads for the kitchen. You hear the clink of crystal.

"Lloyd," your mother trills as he enters, "there you are. Ooh, and you're sweaty. Should we add to that?"

She doesn't notice you as she struts over to him, swaying her hips emphatically. She frames his face and presses her lips to his, her tongue forcing past them as he grunts in surprise. He laughs and gentle nudges her away as she brushes up and down his torso. She's wearing a sillk robe and it doesn't look like much else.

"Kat," he drawls, "sweetie pie is here."

"Sweetie--" she looks past him and flinches as she notices you. She sighs. "Oh, there she is."

Her face darkens as the lines deepen harshly. You shrink down and keep your chin low. "Mother."

"Mother," she mimics. "I-- I can't deal with you right now. I'm not ready."

She sniffs and spins, scooping up her glass of whine, "Lloyd, please, get me away from her."

You're not surprised. You've gone and ruined everything she worked for. That's how she sees it. It's nothing you did. No, she made you get up all those early mornings, she got you to classes, she got you to every concert.

Lloyd glances back at you and you signal weakly with your palm out. You turn and traipse away. It's better that you go hide. Even on the good days, that was the safest.

You grab your bag and roll it out after you. You'll just keep to yourself until she's ready to tell you to your face how much she hates you. You lift the bag onto the lower step but before you can get it higher, Lloyd calls out to you.

"Hey, sweetie, I can't let you hurt yourself," he strides over and scoops the bag up by the short handle sewn onto the side, "show me where I'm going and I'll be your very own prince charming."

You retract your arm and stare at him. He's strange. The way he says things is so odd. You usually struggle to understand what other people mean but he's a true enigma.

"My room is... up here," you murmur and climb the stairs. He waits and trails after you. You can't help but feel as if he's watching you.

You veer down the hall and to your bedroom. You open the door but find it full of boxes. You stop short and he keeps from running into you with a hand on your hip. Reflexively, you push him off.

"You sure this is the one, sweetness? I've gotten lost in here a few times myself," he snickers.

"N-no, this is... it." You frown. You're not really upset. You still don't feel much more than dazed. You have some of the pills left the doctor gave you.

"Aw, you know what? I shoulda said something. Since your mom's in one of her moods. This place is under a redesign. Everything's a bit all over. I'm all over," he rubs your arm. "We were trying to figure out where to put the in-home gym."

"A gym?" You utter.

"Sure, I mean, not that you need it." He runs his fingers down the back of your arm. "Don't wanna mess with a good thing."

You reel away from him. What does that mean?

"I'll... I'll find a guest room."

"Sure, baby, let's do that."

You grimace and latch onto the plastic handle of the suitcase, "I can do it myself."

"Now, sweetie pie, I heard all about what happened to you. Your ma was way too messed up to take the call. Yeah, I mean, those things are no joke," he keeps hold of the bag. "The doctor said rest and relaxation. Avoid stressors. So let me take a load off... typically I'd be letting one off."

You shake your head. Huh? He's talking in riddles.

"Come on, let's get you all settled," he grabs your arm and yanks you out of the room. You stagger as he pays little heed to your struggle. He marches you down to the room right next to your mom's. You wouldn't have chosen that one.

"This one should still be in tact," he affirms and pushes open the door. "See? Nice big bed... for just you? You'll be all cozy." He puts the bag just inside and sweeps his arms around. "It'll be nice to stay in one place, won't it, sunshine? And we can all figure out how to be one happy family."

"Family?"

"Well, you know, can't remember the last time I spent the night at my own place. I've been... hanging out with your mother." He grins. You're overly aware of his still shirtless state. "No kids of my own, ya know? Not really the type but I can figure it all out."

You nod and sidle past him.

"Thank you." You cross your arms as you shuffle away.

"Anything you want, ask Daddy Lloyd. He'll bring it to you on a gold platter," he declares.

"I'm fine. I don't need anything," you assure him.

"You look tense," he steps closer and surprises you as he clamps down on the muscles along your shoulders. He kneads with his thumbs and you squeak. You throw your hands up and try to shove his away.

"Relax, baby, it's a massage. Ugh, I can tell you need it," he purrs, "you're all tense."

"Please, I'm okay--"

"No, you are not, sunshine," he tuts. "Just stay still, alright?"

"Please--"

"Keep begging, I love the sound of it," he laughs. He continues to work the flesh with his fingers.

You squirm and squeal as his hands creep closer to your neck. He chuckles as his fingertips dance up your neck then he closes his fingers around your throat. You gasp as he keeps them firm but doesn't squeeze. He pushes his pelvis against your back and you clasp onto his wrists. He hushes you.

"Mommy won't even look at you," he nuzzles your crown. "Think she'd come running."

You whine and try to pull away. He keeps hold of you. You can feel now. You can feel so much.

"Ha," he lets you go and you stagger forward. "I'm just tryna make you laugh, baby cakes. Try it," he taunts. "Might help with all that tension."

You face him and your mouth falls open. Your heart is racing, your breath shallow, you blink at him dumbly. He bites his lip.

"Oh, I like when you look at me like that," he rubs his hand down his chest and hooks his thumb under the elastic of his shorts. "Got a nice mental picture for later."

He spins and struts out. Your lip trembles as you watch him go. He swings the door shut behind him and you jump.

You didn't think things could get worse than they already were.

[dayluxe]

Days of Glory - The Beatles

¡ request are open !

pairing: The Beatles x fem!reader (platonic)

summary: you and the band reminisce about the past when they first arrive in the United States.

warnings: a bit long, use of affectionate nicknames between the band members towards the reader, a bit of McLennon's innuendo, use of the translator, a lot of nonsense.

w/c: 3.173

The boys and you had just landed in America for the first time. The emotion was running high.

It was well known that the band was loved by many and hated by few, but still you all felt nervous.

At first no one believed in you, well, in you rather.

Seeing a woman being part of a band with four boys was not the norm. People were shocked to see a girl play an instrument, and to behave so inappropriately according to them. Let's say that the boys didn't care about this.

you were friends with George, since childhood. You had lived side by side all your life, you were like nail and dirt. And when he began to be interested in the world of music, you were already in. You've been interested in other instruments before, leaning more toward wind instruments. But when his fascination with guitars arose, you accompanied him.

They were a good duo, everyone said so. They both wrote really good lyrics, and you sang them most of the time. His guitar went perfectly with your voice, and they spent hours and hours writing nonsense and doing choruses with his guitar.

When he met the boys it was amazing. George's creativity expanded, and he was excited to be part of a band, but another part of him didn't want to leave you. So she recommended you to them, she said that she had a friend with a spectacular voice and that she could do everything. For you it was a very generous gesture on his part, and you soon hired yourself by meeting the guys. It was a very chaotic process, as they were very jerky at times, but you got used to them quickly, and they got used to you too.

Soon everything was history. you went from parties to bars continuously. taking advantage of every opportunity to make themselves known and grow as a band.

His songwriting sessions were the rarest thing you'll ever witness. there were times when it was based on an exchange of words between John and Paul, and then you followed instructions. But there were times when the music simply flowed between everyone, like a river of notes and lyrics. Those days gave you the reason to continue doing that, to continue with them. to continue making music.

His story was long, and soon life gave him success.

Your role in the group was multitudinous. from doing backing vocals, or writing lyrics, to being the second drummer.

Your instrument store had been expanded. You didn't just touch the wind. You could go from woodwinds to string instruments with ease, giving you an extensive list of roles within the band.

And so we got here. You and your boys in the United States.

The flight was exciting. You had about 20 camera cartridges with you to take pictures. You wanted a memory of everything, absolutely everything. George was on your left, you had given him the window space for his luck. You couldn't sleep, in fact none of them could. Their laughter did not stop at any time, and questions such as 'do you think you will find a good bird there?' were the main topic for the teasing.

"I see you nervous, beautiful. Is it because of my presence?" you heard George say from your side "haha, how funny Geo. and no, I just think about the number of beauties that will be waiting for me when I arrive" you said in an arrogant tone "what a big ego, y/n, but in case you don't know, I'm their favorite, not you" John told you as he passed through the hallway. "Excuse me, we all know that I am the favorite, and that is very clear," you shouted back.

George next to you watched with amusement the little argument between the two of you. Those fights happened frequently, since their big egos clashed too much which sometimes also triggered fights when recording, but that's another topic.

"Stop both of you, it's obvious that the favorite is me" Ringo's voice was heard in the middle of everything. You and John stared at each other, waiting for who would say the first word "finally someone says something meaningful, thank you ringo" you said, as you rolled your eyes and leaned back in your seat. "Here among us, you are my favorite" George whispered to you next to you. you turned around, with a big smile on your face "you're my favorite too, Georgie" you said as you pinched her cheek.

that was a habit you had built over time. You remember the first time you did that, George looked at you with a big frown on his face. As if you had told me the worst insult in the world. The next few times you did it just to tease him and see his face, and over time he just got used to it.

"We're going to land guys, please take a seat and fasten your seatbelts" you heard people say all over the plane. Your nerves increased, just thinking about the number of people who would be in that place. expectant upon their arrival. You felt your nerves turn to nausea, and your hands began to sweat.

Your friend noticed your change in behavior, and asked if you were okay "I'm fine, just a little nervous. The usual," you told him. It was true, because of all the people in the band, for some reason you were the most nervous when you gave a concert. "If you know they will love you, right? Literally, those girls are obsessed with you, in a good way, obviously," he told you, and then grabbed your hand among more of his "so don't be afraid, just go out there and be you," he told you while kissing your hand.

The welcome was amazing. what do you say, it was spectacular. The girls (and some boys) were screaming and crying for the band, for all of you.

Your camera kept letting out little 'clicks' 'clicks' 'clicks'. Your cheeks hurt from smiling so much, but your mind couldn't do more than that and say hello. Your heart swelled just seeing the number of people that were there. Multiple groups with giant posters with their names and faces cut out. girls crying and shouting their names, ecstatic by their presence.

When they went down the stairs you felt yourself floating among people. Like your heart wants to go with the fans and hug them all, but you knew that would probably go very wrong. you greeted and gave friendly smiles to everyone, some girls cried when you turned to look at them.

When we arrived at the hotel it was all laughter and silly conventions with the boys. You and Ringo sprawled on the nearest couch. Paul went for something to eat, while John talked nonstop. George was looking at them all from an individual couch with amusement. He was smoking, as always.

"Did you see them, they're crazy about us, crazy!!" shouted John in the air, "Are you ready to hunt some pretty birds here Richie?" you said, as you elbowed him. "no, I already have one, and it's right next to me" he said while winking "who is it? Don't tell me you're going out with the pillow on the couch?" said John, before Ringo could answer you jumped defensively: "It's about time you said it, my dear Ringo. Just so everyone knows, Ringo and I are dating." You said in a dramatic tone, pretending to be caught up in something. "What?! I thought ours was real, baby. How do you go out with him?" Paul shouted at you as he left the kitchen "No, that's false, we all know who you're dating here, dear Paulie" you said looking at him with complicity. Everyone laughed and looked at each other. "Don't reveal his secret, my dear," Ringo told you as he rolled a lock of your hair around his finger.

The boys smoked and ate some. You decided to eat a couple of cookies with a soft drink you found in the fridge. they would eat after doing all the interviews they had for that day.

they were all on the balcony. The fresh air carried away the smoke of cigarettes, and was enveloped with the smell of the city. "Guys, have you ever imagined getting here? Like it wasn't just yesterday that we were in the cave playing for the first time, and now we have a bunch of crazy fans, we're America and in a super fancy hotel". You told them as you looked out over the city. Thousands of cars and people were passing through the streets. The air moved your hair and collided with your face, it felt warm and fresh, different from the air in liverpool.

they turned to look at you, thinking about what to say "well, i don't think any of us could have imagined getting to this place. but we are here, we managed to form a band that is loved and admired by many. no one imagined that, but we are all grateful to be here, together" said Paul looking at them all.

They all smiled happily, each of them deep in thought about the situation. "these are our glory days, don't you think?" said John, as a mischievous smile spread across his face "let's not dwell on that now, let's enjoy the present, and all those pretty girls crying for us" he spoke again as he let out a small giggle.

Before anyone could say anything, one of the staff came into the room and said it was time for an interview. Everyone got dressed up to look presentable, while you went to touch up your make-up.

The tour to the site was not long. It felt cheerful and lively as always, everyone was obviously excited.

When they arrived, multiple cameras blinded them with their flashes. they stood where they were told to stand in the usual order. A myriad of microphones were in front of you, all trying to get some of your attention. There were probably more than 20 journalists in that place.

Questions came and went, all naturally thanks to the friendly energy of the band. it was the turn of a journalist, her voice reached your ears and it was probably the most beautiful voice you had ever heard before. she shouted your name and then asked "what do you think about the many rumours that you are dating George or one of the boys, is it true and how do you take it?"

you laughed. because to the surprise of many, you didn't date any of them, let alone would you date any of them. that would be disgusting "well, that's a dirty rumour that's been around forever. i don't date my little Georgie, or any of them-" "too bad" Ringo interrupted your answer, everyone burst out laughing and you gave Ringo a playful punch in the side. "stop it, stop it. but no, i don't go out with any of them, it's funny to me that they think so, but they are all very unbearable as friends, imagine as a couple. but if you want you can be my next bird, i don't know, think about it my dear". you said and then winked at the journalist.

it was obvious that many people didn't believe you. but to be true, you as friends were very close, and many people during your career had created rumours that you had a relationship with each other, or even that you had a polyamorous relationship, a rumour that left you very shocked.

at one point during the interview a journalist asked what their inspiration was when writing and creating music, a basic question that more than one person asked. each of the guys gave their answer, from moments that happened, or just minimal objects. when it was your turn (after thinking your answer through) you spoke "i would say they all inspire me. i just look at each one of them, and my mind flies between lyrics and clever melodies. it inspires me to know that i'm here, with them, that we achieve what we achieve together. there are times when we record that i just look at them and think 'wow, they're all so magnificent' and it's a very intimate feeling, you know. like a connection that makes me create for them, for the band, for the people who listen to us, for us to keep growing together as a band and as individuals. i don't know, i think so".

your response left more than one person in the room moved. it had been a response of your own, you had always been known as 'the sentimental beatle', a nickname you didn't like so much sometimes. you were a romantic of sorts, and you didn't deny it. your lyrics embodied your passion and love for things, and people loved that.

"What a romantic answer that was, darling" you heard John say from the other side. You could see the smile on his face without even glancing at him "Well my dear John, that's the effect of being away from you" you said as you looked at him and smiled.

for the rest of the interview the boys looked at you with joy and warmth. your answer had touched their hearts, even John's. loving looks and smiles turned your way every time you were asked questions. the boys wouldn't say it, they are too proud for that, but they were really grateful to you.

They had no energy for anything else, just eating and wanting to snuggle into the soft sheets of their bed. "I'm hungry, I feel like the worm in my stomach is eating itself" you shouted as they entered their bedroom "I want to sleep with you" George said as they sat next to each other on the sofa "Me too Geo, me too" you said with your eyes closed as you snuggled under his shoulder.

"do you want to know a secret, Geo?" you asked him while you were still in the same position "tell me dear" he said. his hand played with your hair, all the boys loved to do that "i love you, you and the boys, you don't know how much" you said to him while you changed position to look him in the eyes. on his face a smile was drawn, a real smile that showed his cute fangs. "I love your fangs, and Paulie's eyelashes, just like I love Rich's rings, and John's glasses. I really love you, all of you," you told him.

Your smile was shy, but pleasant. one that a grandmother gives you after a cozy hug.

"Why do you suddenly get so loving?, it seems that you are saying goodbye, are you going to die? tell me no, please, I couldn't stand this band without you" he told you as his hands found his "don't be silly Geo, I just wanted to make you feel loved. You never say things like that to each other, I thought it was time to show you my love, didn't you?" you replied, letting out a small chuckle. You felt shy for a moment, embarrassed by your love. "You know a lot of secrets about me, and you know that one of those secrets is that I love you. I know, you know it, everyone knows it, and in case it's not clear to you, I'll tell you again. I love you, my dear, I love you," he replied.

They both laughed, as if they were two kindergarten children who had just gotten into a mischief. Their love was real, a soulmate love, but not a love from beyond. You understood each other as no one else did, but not in that way.

"Wait, stay here, don't move," you told your friend. You left without giving him any explanation, straight to your room in search of your camera. You wanted to capture this moment "I'm back. Now, look at the camera for me, please," you said as you placed the camera at your eye level. George didn't have time to say a word when he heard the camera click "you didn't let me know!" he yelled at you, you laughed "you looked good, I swear, plus the best photos are spontaneous, believe me" you said calmly. "I just heard a click, maybe he was taking pictures without me?!?" they heard John shout from the kitchen. Those guys really had no bottom. Soon they were all huddled in the armchair, laughing and fighting with each other.

You took multiple photos. from candid photos of them talking and laughing, to them being in funny poses. "Let's go out on the balcony, I have an idea" you told everyone. Everyone followed you, the air was a little colder thanks to the scarce sun. Their streets were still as busy as when they arrived.

they all settled behind the city. The blue sky was visible in the background, next to their buildings and apartments. You turned your camera around, trying to move it as far away as possible, and you took the picture.

At the time you didn't know it, but that photo came out perfect.

Ringo smiled as he showed off his rings. Paul smiled as always, with that beautiful pose of his. John was looking at the camera through his beautiful glasses, smiling like no other photo. George posed with his cigarette dangling on his fingers, smiling like when they were 10 years old, the smoke adorning his face in an angelic way. And you were in the middle, with the brightest smile in the world, your eyes shining as you looked at the camera.

When they returned from the United States you kept that photo with your life after seeing it.

You took it to all the other concerts you had together, always kept in your pocket as if it were a lucky charm. And every time you felt discouraged you saw it, closed your eyes and remembered the moment.

And every time you turned to the photo you laughed, remembering as if it were yesterday when you shouted "let's go for those little glories days" as they left the room for their first concert. You remembered how they laughed, everything they enjoyed that stay. You remember the euphoria of going out to play and feel how the screams of people made you vibrate. You could feel their excitement despite being about 20 meters away from them, and you loved that.

There was nothing more rewarding than leaving the concert sweaty and with the adrenaline rush. Still feeling the strings of the guitar in your fingers.

That photo wasn't just a piece of paper. It was your reason, your motivation. That was the reason why you were here, how you got here. That was your reminder of why you did what you did, and why you kept doing it.

a/n: something a little different, I wanted to feed my hyperfixation that I've had lately for the Beatles.

[nasa]

Tiny BurstCube's Tremendous Travelogue

Meet BurstCube! This shoebox-sized satellite is designed to study the most powerful explosions in the cosmos, called gamma-ray bursts. It detects gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light.

BurstCube may be small, but it had a huge journey to get to space.

First, BurstCube was designed and built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Here you can see Julie Cox, an early career engineer, working on BurstCube’s gamma-ray detecting instrument in the Small Satellite Lab at Goddard.

BurstCube is a type of spacecraft called a CubeSat. These tiny missions give early career engineers and scientists the chance to learn about mission development — as well as do cool science!

Then, after assembling the spacecraft, the BurstCube team took it on the road to conduct a bunch of tests to determine how it will operate in space. Here you can see another early career engineer, Kate Gasaway, working on BurstCube at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

She and other members of the team used a special facility there to map BurstCube’s magnetic field. This will help them know where the instrument is pointing when it’s in space.

The next stop was back at Goddard, where the team put BurstCube in a vacuum chamber. You can see engineers Franklin Robinson, Elliot Schwartz, and Colton Cohill lowering the lid here. They changed the temperature inside so it was very hot and then very cold. This mimics the conditions BurstCube will experience in space as it orbits in and out of sunlight.

Then, up on a Goddard rooftop, the team — including early career engineer Justin Clavette — tested BurstCube’s GPS. This so-called open-sky test helps ensure the team can locate the satellite once it’s in orbit.

The next big step in BurstCube’s journey was a flight to Houston! The team packed it up in a special case and took it to the airport. Of course, BurstCube got the window seat!

Once in Texas, the BurstCube team joined their partners at Nanoracks (part of Voyager Space) to get their tiny spacecraft ready for launch. They loaded the satellite into a rectangular frame called a deployer, along with another small satellite called SNoOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation). The deployer is used to push spacecraft into orbit from the International Space Station.

From Houston, BurstCube traveled to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, where it launched on SpaceX’s 30th commercial resupply servicing mission on March 21, 2024. BurstCube traveled to the station along with some other small satellites, science experiments, as well as a supply of fresh fruit and coffee for the astronauts.

A few days later, the mission docked at the space station, and the astronauts aboard began unloading all the supplies, including BurstCube!

And finally, on April 18, 2024, BurstCube was released into orbit. The team will spend a month getting the satellite ready to search the skies for gamma-ray bursts. Then finally, after a long journey, this tiny satellite can embark on its big mission!

BurstCube wouldn’t be the spacecraft it is today without the input of many early career engineers and scientists. Are you interested in learning more about how you can participate in a mission like this one? There are opportunities for students in middle and high school as well as college!

Keep up on BurstCube’s journey with NASA Universe on X and Facebook. And make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[scoutofmymind]

With Me — { Luigi x Reader }

Content: SFW, angst, pining, unrequited love, guilt, mentions of death, five years in the future in this one, a lowkey cliffhanger ending again, I’m an asshole

Wc: 7,681

Notes: five years later and at times continents apart, you’ve finally come to realize that some currents are impossible to resist — no matter how far you’ve travelled to escape them.

When was the last time you did something simply for the joy of it?

This is a sequel to Without Me

Five years carve themselves differently into different things.

Into the barn's weathered planks, they've etched deeper grooves, splitting paint and warping wood.

Into the fields beyond, they've cycled twenty harvests that blur together like a kaleidoscope.

Into your hands, they've written their own history — small calluses from surgical instruments instead of hay bales, faint chemical burns from disinfectants replacing the mud stains of your youth.

You time your visits home with the care of someone defusing a bomb.

Three days when the Mangiones are in Milan.

A weekend while Luigi attends a business conference in Chicago.

Christmas morning but never Christmas Eve, Easter dinner but never the egg hunt that follows.

Your mother stopped asking why around year three, just confirms your arrival with "They'll be gone by then" or "He's in New York until Tuesday," a subtle acknowledgment of the careful romp you've arranged around his absence.

The farmhouse you once called home’s kitchen smells the same — cinnamon and coffee grounds, the lingering ghost of last night's dinner, all undercut by the sweet decay of fruit ripening too fast in the bowl by the window. Still, your mother isn’t used to the two pairs of hands not around anymore to raid the kitchen after a day in the sun.

She moves around you, pulling down plates that haven't changed since childhood, her hands marked by new spots but following the same patterns they always have.

Time is both frozen and racing here.

You think back to all the times the elders told you to appreciate your youth whilst you have it — you’re not dead, nor have you gotten old, but life feels a little heavier than it ever did.

"Your old room's all made up," she slides eggs onto a plate, the yolks perfect half-moons of sunrise yellow. "Though I swear those sheets are going to disintegrate soon. You should take some of your things this visit, we're not a storage unit." There's no bite to her words, just the same gentle nudging she's been attempting for years — trying to make you confront the boxes of memories you've left to gather dust in her attic.

You nod, knowing you'll leave without opening a single one.

It’s true that wounds scab over if you're careful enough, developing a protection that holds as long as you don't pick at the edges.

And you’ve become an expert at not picking.

Five years ago, you left with a suitcase of practical things — clothes, books, the silver pendant your grandmother left you — and abandoned the artifacts that might have hurt too much to carry; the shoebox of river stones collected each summer, photographs chronicling two lives so intertwined they seemed impossible to separate, evidence of a friendship that had grown into something you couldn't name without destroying it.

Your life now spans three continents, filled with colleagues who know nothing of sunrise swims or teenage promises whispered under star-scattered skies. You've crafted yourself into someone defined by action rather than attachment — the veterinarian who stays just long enough to heal before moving on, whose apartment holds furniture selected for function rather than memory.

You tell yourself it's freedom.

Most days, you almost believe it.

But the guilt comes in waves — during transatlantic flights when there's nothing to do but think, or in the moments before sleep. You replay that last night by the water, his hands cradling your face, the desperation in his voice as he offered you everything while you offered only a goodbye.

Sometimes you draft text messages you never send, explanations that sound hollow even in your own mind.

I needed to find myself.

I was scared of disappearing into us.

I didn't know how to love you without losing me.

What you never say, even to yourself, is that you miss him with an ache that hasn't dulled with distance or time — a phantom limb pain for something vital you chose to amputate.

"Did you hear about Marco?" your father asks, settling at the table with a grunt, his knees creaking like the porch steps. "Cancer's spread. Doctors gave him six months, but Sofia says he's fading faster."

You nod, focusing intently on buttering toast that doesn't need such concentration. You've heard, of course — gleaned from conversations with your mother that never directly mention Luigi, though his absence in these updates sits like a ghost at the table.

You wonder who's running the company now, if the pressure has etched new lines around his eyes, if he still laughs with his whole body the way he did before you left.

"That poor boy been handling everything," your mother adds, as if reading your thoughts. "The business, the medical decisions. Sofia's not coping well." She pauses, watching you with eyes that see too much. "Lu asks about you, you know. When he calls to check if your father needs help with the south field."

The knife stills against bread gone suddenly tasteless in your mouth. "He shouldn't," you manage, the words scraping your throat raw.

"And yet he does," your father’s weathered hand covers yours briefly before returning to his coffee mug. "Some things don't change just because we wish they would."

Today's miscalculation feels like fate's sick joke.

Your father's birthday celebration was supposed to be safe — Sofia had mentioned to your mother her plans of taking Marco to specialists in Boston, a last-ditch consultation for treatments that weren't working. You'd verified twice, casual questions that weren't casual at all: "Will it just be us?" "And a less subtle “The Mangiones around?" Your mother's responses had been reassuring — at least that’s how you’d felt in the moment.

“Just family this time," and "Sofia's with Marco at that hospital."

What she failed to mention was that Luigi had flown back alone.

You realize this as headlights sweep across the kitchen window, illuminating family photographs, a contrast to where you've been carefully cropped out of your mother's social media posts — another protection measure in your elaborate system of avoidance.

The car engine cuts, and the silence that follows feels longer than the five years you've spent running.

Your mother gives you a look that hovers between apology and guilt. "He brings us wine every year now,” she looks toward the hallway leading to the door. "Some Italian red your father loves. I didn't have the heart to tell him not to come."

Your hands grip the edge of the countertop, knuckles white against butcher block worn smooth by generations of anxious grips just like yours. There's nowhere to run now — no flight to catch, no work emergency to fabricate.

Just the sound of footsteps on the porch steps, the familiar rhythm of someone who knows exactly which boards creak and how to distribute his weight to minimize the sound.

And then the knock comes — three gentle taps, the same signal from childhood that meant come out and play, I've found something amazing — and your separate life collapses like a house of cards.

For a breath-stealing moment, your body forgets how to move. Muscles locked in the ancient instinct of prey caught in open terrain, and your mother glances between you and the door again, a silent question in her raised eyebrows.

When you remain frozen, she sighs and moves toward the entrance, her footsteps deliberate as if giving you time to flee. But where would you go? The bathroom window is too small, the back door leads to a yard with no cover, and dignity — what little remains — prevents you from hiding under the kitchen table like a child.

The door opens, and your mother's voice carries that special warmth she's always reserved for Luigi — the tone that once made you wonder if she secretly wished he was her child instead. "There he is! Right on time as always."

Right on time?

Suddenly, you realize you’ve been set up.

And so has Luigi.

Their shadows stretch across the entryway floor, elongated by the porch light behind them. You can see the wine bottle passing between their silhouettes, hear the soft murmur of his response though the words themselves are lost beneath the thunder of your pulse in your ears.

"She's in the kitchen," your mother tells him, louder now, unmistakably meant for you to hear — a final warning before the inevitable.

And then he's there, standing in the doorway between worlds — yours and his — a presence so familiar yet altered that your mind struggles to reconcile memory with reality.

He's filled out, his shoulders carrying a tension they never did before, hair longer than you've ever seen it, but cut in a way that seems so New York City. The playfulness that once animated his features has been replaced by something more contained, more deliberate.

He wears the responsibility like one of his tailored Brunello Cucinelli dinner suits, both perfectly fitted and slightly constraining.

And for a moment, neither of you speaks.

What could possibly follow five years of silence?

What greeting spans a canyon of that width?

"Hey, stranger," his voice is deeper than you remember, the casual words belied by the way he keeps his distance, like approaching a wild animal that might bolt at just the sound of his voice. The phrase — your phrase, the one you always used when he returned from summer trips to Italy — feels like a key unlocking a door you've kept bolted shut, afraid of what lives behind it.

"Luigi,” you manage, your own voice sounding foreign in your ears. Not quite steady, not quite yours.

His eyes move over you, cataloging changes with the precision of someone checking a beloved book for damage after lending it out too long, and you feel suddenly conscious of everything — the faint scar along your forearm from a leopard cub with more fear than sense, the way you hold yourself now, a little straighter, a little more guarded than the girl he knew.

"You look-“ he starts, then stops, recalibrates. "It's been a while."

The understatement of it breaks something in the air between you, and you find yourself exhaling a laugh that's not quite humor but not quite pain, either. "Five years, three months, two weeks." The precision of your count betrays your nonchalance, and you see the recognition flash across his face — you've been keeping track.

He looks down at the phone in his hand, staring at the date for a moment before finding your gaze again.

"And four days," he adds quietly, confirming what you both already know; neither of you have forgotten a single moment of the separation you've enforced.

Your father saves you from whatever might come next, bustling in from the living room with forced cheer that doesn't match the knowing look he exchanges with your mother. "There's the wine man!” Your father’s smile is infectious, but even so, you can tell Luigi’s is forced. “Sofia still in Boston?"

Luigi's attention shifts, that professional mask sliding back into place. A boy forced to be a man far too soon. "Yes, she's — the doctors there are trying something new." He doesn't elaborate, but the slight downturn at the corners of his mouth says everything you need to know. "She said to wish you happy birthday, though. She's sorry she couldn't be here."

"How is he?" Your father asks, the question gentle but direct, a farmer's practicality cutting through polite fiction.

"Not good." Luigi's answer is equally unvarnished. "Maybe weeks now, not months like we thought originally."

Your chest tightens, unexpected sympathy washing through you. Marco, with his booming laugh and endless supply of stories of his childhood in post war Palermo, who taught you both to drive in his vintage Alfa Romeo despite Sofia's horror, who called you piccola leonessa — little lioness — for standing up to him when no one else would.

You hadn't allowed yourself to imagine him diminished, hadn't wanted to picture Luigi facing that loss alone.

"I should check on dinner," your mother announces to no one in particular, a transparent excuse to leave that your father immediately supports.

"I'll help," he adds, though he's never voluntarily assisted with meal preparation in forty years of marriage; it was never for lack of trying.

Cooking just had never been his strong suit.

Their retreat leaves a vacuum of sound, filled only by the ticking of the ancient grandfather clock in the hallway, counting seconds that stretch like taffy. Luigi shifts his weight, hands sliding into his pockets in a gesture so achingly familiar it makes your throat close. "I can go," he offers, misreading your silence as discomfort. "I didn't know you'd be here. Your Ma just said-“

"No," you interrupt, surprising yourself with the speed of your response. "No, it's your tradition too. The wine." You gesture vaguely toward the bottle now sitting on the counter, trying to ignore how domestic this feels, how easily you could slip back into old patterns if you allowed yourself. "How's the company?"

His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Demanding. Expanding. The same." He leans against the doorframe, maintaining the careful distance between you. "I heard you were in Kenya. Then Malaysia. They keep me updated, though I think your Ma edits the dangerous parts."

Of course she does. Of course he asks.

While you've been deliberately avoiding any information about him, he's been collecting fragments of your life like precious artifacts.

"Just finished a rehabilitation project for elephants affected by poaching," you say, falling back on the professional details that feel safer than personal truths like I’m lonely there and I work so much I’ve had no time to make human friends, only the mammal kind. “Starting a new position next month with a conservation group in Borneo."

"Always moving," he observes, something unreadable flickering across his face. "You found what you were looking for?"

The question hangs between you, loaded with meaning that stretches far beyond your career trajectory.

Have you found yourself, separate from him?

Have you discovered who you are without the counterbalance he always provided?

Has the freedom been worth the cost?

"I found... parts," you admit, the closest to honesty you can manage with him standing there, looking both like a stranger and exactly like the boy who knew every single secret you ever had. "What about you? Did you-“ You can't quite bring yourself to ask if he's happy, if he's built a life that satisfies him, if there's someone else who knows him the way you once did.

"I found parts too," he echoes, understanding your unfinished question as he always did. "Some fit better than others."

The clock in the hall chimes seven, and Luigi straightens, seeming to remember himself. "I should let you have your family dinner. I just came to drop off the wine.”

And just like that, he's gone, moving toward his car with the fluid grace that always made him seem like he belonged to some other world — one with fewer sharp edges and hard landings than yours.

Your mother waits in the kitchen doorway once she hears the front door close, "He never stopped checking on us, you know," she says as you pass her, avoiding eye contact. "After every storm, during your father's surgery last year. Even helped reroof the chicken coop in January — thirty-degree weather and he's up there hammering like he was born to do it."

The guilt twists sharper in your chest. "Mom, please-“

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad, honey." Her hand catches yours, squeezing gently. "Just thought you should know what kind of man he's become while you were finding yourself.” There’s another silence, her voice quieter when she finally says, “He needs you more than ever.”

Sleep eludes you that night, your childhood bedroom both comfort and cage.

Through the window, you can just make out the distant lights of the Mangione estate — fewer than there used to be, concentrated now in what you know is the west wing where Marco's medical equipment has transformed a sunroom into a temporary hospital suite.

You wonder if Luigi is awake, too.

Morning arrives in layers of gold and rose, dawn mist clinging to the fields like reluctant ghosts.

You dress quietly, slipping from the house while your parents still sleep, drawn by some magnetic pull toward the water that featured in so many of your dreams during those nights in Kenya, in Malaysia, in sterile, lonesome apartments across the world.

The path feels both foreign and achingly familiar beneath your feet — wider in some places, narrower in others, the subtle changes of five years' growth and erosion. Dew-heavy grass soaks your sneakers as you follow the trail through wildflowers nodding drowsily in the early breeze.

The reservoir appears suddenly as you crest the final rise — a mirror of silver-blue stretched beneath the awakening sky, foggy mist rising from its surface in delicate tendrils.

The sight stops you mid-stride, a physical ache blooming beneath your ribs.

How many mornings did you watch this same phenomenon with Luigi beside you, his voice quiet in the dawn as he explained the science behind it, your shoulder pressed against his as the rising sun painted you both in gold?

You make your way down to the shore, to the flat rock that has served as your sitting place since childhood.

It's still there, unchanged except for new patches of lichen decorating its edges like natural embroidery.

You settle on its cool surface, drawing your knees to your chest, allowing yourself to really be present in this place that shaped so much of who you are as the water laps gently against the stone shore, its rhythm unchanging despite seasons and years.

Dragonflies skim the surface near the reeds, their iridescent wings catching light in blue-green flashes.

A heron stands motionless in the shallows, its reflection perfect in the still water — patient, watchful, belonging in a way you once did.

You lose track of time, lulled by the gentle sounds of morning gradually asserting itself over night's quiet, and as the sun climbs higher, warming the rock beneath you, and you close your eyes, face tilted toward its heat.

For the first time in longer than you can remember, the constant hum of anxiety that's become your companion fades to background noise; here, you are neither the accomplished veterinarian with international credentials, nor the farm girl desperate to escape her roots.

You are simply yourself, existing in a moment that asks nothing of you but presence.

But the deliberate scuff of shoe against stone breaks the spell.

You don't need to turn to know who stands there; your body recognizes his presence before your mind can catch up, an awareness embedded too deeply to be erased by time or distance.

You open your eyes but don't turn, watching his reflection appear in the water beside yours — distorted slightly by the gentle ripples, but unmistakably Luigi. He stands a few feet away, hands in the pockets of jeans that look expensive but well-worn, his posture hesitant in a way that the boy you knew never was.

"I didn't expect to see you here," the slight uptick at the end makes it almost a question.

Now you do turn, shielding your eyes against the strengthening sunlight that silhouettes him against the sky with your hand. "Liar," you reply, the word lacking any heat. "You hoped I'd be here just as much as I hoped you wouldn't be."

The honesty startles a laugh from him — just a breath of sound, but genuine. "Still calling me on my bullshit." He shifts his weight, uncertainty written in the tight line of his shoulders. "Mind if I join you?"

Simple words that carry the weight of all the space you've deliberately placed between you for five years.

You could say yes, maintain the careful distance that's become your habit.

Or you could make room on the rock that's always been big enough for two.

"Since when do you ask permission?" You shift slightly to the left, the invitation clear even as you wrap the words in the familiar barbs of your old banter.

Luigi hesitates for a moment longer before crossing the remaining distance, settling beside you with a careful space between your bodies that never used to exist. His presence brings with it the same scent from last night — expensive cologne layered over familiar soap — and something else you can't quite name.

Hospital antiseptic, maybe, or just the peculiar scent of prolonged worry.

"You're up early," you observe, keeping your gaze on the water. Speaking is easier when you're not looking at him directly, when you can pretend this is just another morning from before you left.

"Haven't really been sleeping much," he admits, picking up a small stone and turning it over in his fingers — a nervous habit you'd forgotten until this moment. "Papa gets confused at night, thinks he's back in Palermo, starts speaking only Italian." There's a weariness in his voice that makes him sound much older than his twenty-five years. "The nurses call when they can't calm him down."

The simple honesty of it catches you off guard — no pretense, no careful social masks, just the raw truth of what he's facing. "I'm sorry about Marco," you say, and mean it. "He was always so kind to me."

Luigi's smile is crooked, tinged with sadness. "He asks about you, you know. On his good days. Wants to know if the leonessa is still roaring at the world."

The nickname — born after you'd stood up to him during a heated debate about local agriculture when you were sixteen — brings an unexpected lump to your throat. "And what do you tell him?"

"That you're saving exotic animals across the world. Living the adventure we used to talk about." His voice drops slightly. "He's proud of you."

The words shouldn't hurt — they're generous, kind, even — but they land like bullet holes against your chest. How can he be proud when you left without looking back, when you've spent five years deliberately avoiding every connection to this place?

"I'm not sure I deserve that," you admit, the pitiful confession slipping out before you can catch it.

Luigi is quiet for a long moment, his gaze following the path of a kingfisher as it dives into the water and emerges with a small fish clutched in its beak. "Maybe not," he says finally, the honesty both startling and refreshing after last night's careful dance of politeness. "But pride isn't always about deserving. Sometimes it's just about loving someone enough to celebrate their happiness, even when it comes at your expense."

The words hang between you, too honest to ignore, but too painful to acknowledge directly.

You stare at the water, watching ripples spread from the kingfisher's dive, circles expanding outward just like the consequences of choices made five years ago.

"I wasn't trying to hurt you," you say finally, the words inadequate but necessary. "I just needed-“

"Space. Freedom. A life that wasn't defined by this place." Luigi finishes for you, no bitterness in his tone, just tired acceptance. "I know. I always knew that about you. You always told me as much." He turns the stone over in his hand one more time before skipping it across the water's surface — one, two, three, four bounces before it disappears beneath the surface. "What I never understood was why it had to be all or nothing. Why there wasn't room for both of us."

You watch another stone skip across the water, five bounces this time.

"I was afraid," you admit finally, the words barely audible above the gentle lapping of water against shore. "Afraid that if I let you come with me, I'd never know if I could stand on my own. Afraid that one day you'd resent giving up everything here for me. Afraid that-“ You stop, the final fear too raw to voice.

Afraid that you'd realize I wasn't enough, that you'd leave anyway, and I wouldn't survive it.

Luigi's shoulder brushes against yours as he shifts, "Fear is a shitty compass," he says quietly. "Keeps you running from things."

"Says the man who never left home.”

"I didn't stay because I was afraid to leave." His voice takes on an edge you've never heard before. "I stayed because someone had to. Because Mama fell apart when the diagnosis came, because the business employs forty-three families who depend on it, and because Papa asked me to." He runs a hand through his hair, a gesture so familiar it makes your chest ache. "Not all of us have the luxury of just walking away."

The words land like a slap, all the more painful for their truth. You have walked away — not just from him but from every responsibility, every connection that might have anchored you when your dreams proved more complicated than expected.

"That's not fair to you, Lu.”

"No, it's not." His smile is sad but not unkind. "Life rarely is."

Another silence stretches between you, not uncomfortable but heavy with all the words still unspoken, and the sun climbs higher, burning away the last wisps of morning mist from the water's surface.

A little family of ducks paddle along the far shore, ducklings following their mother in perfect formation.

"He's dying," Luigi says suddenly, the words stark in the morning quiet. "Maybe weeks. Probably days. The cancer's in his brain now, that's why he gets confused." His voice remains steady, but you can see the tremor in his hands, the tight line of his jaw. "I wasn't ready to be the man of the family yet. Not like this."

Without thinking, you reach for his hand — the first time you've initiated contact in five years. His skin is warmer than you remember, his fingers thinner, but they close around yours with the same instinctive certainty they always did, like two pieces designed to fit together.

"No one ever is.”

Luigi looks down at your joined hands, "Why did you come back now? After all this time?"

The question is deceptively simple but layered with meaning. The easy answer — your father's birthday, a planned visit — feels like a deflection too cowardly to offer. The truth is more complicated, harder to shape into words when you've spent so long avoiding examining it too closely.

"I think maybe I needed to see if this place still fit," you say finally, your eyes on the water rather than his face. "If I still fit here.” Your thumb grazes his knuckle, “I come usually for only a couple days, this time I just-“ you shrug, “Had a feeling I’d need to stay longer, I guess.”

"And do you?" His voice is carefully neutral, but his thumb traces small circles against your skin — an unconscious gesture of comfort or connection that he might not even realize he's doing, returning the same gesture as you. “Fit?”

You look around at the reservoir, at the fields beyond, at the distant silhouette of the barn where you both learned to climb, to kiss (maybe once or twice), to dream. Then at the man beside you, familiar and strange all at once, carrying burdens you can only begin to imagine.

"I don't know yet," you answer honestly. "But it feels possible. In a way it didn't before."

Luigi nods, accepting this partial truth without pushing for more as his gaze drifts back to the water, to the gentle ripples that distort your reflections into wavering approximations of yourselves. "Our spot is still here," he smiles. "Some things don't change, even when the people do."

It’s not quite reconciliation, not quite forgiveness, but perhaps the beginning of understanding.

You sit in shared silence as the morning deepens around you, two people finding their way back to familiar ground, uncertain what will grow there but willing, at least, to see.

The reservoir glitters in the strengthening light — impossibly clear, every stone and fallen branch visible beneath the surface just as you remember. In summer heat, this crystalline clarity was always your sanctuary, the secret paradise only the two of you knew about, hidden from tourists and transients.

Luigi releases your hand and stands suddenly, his movement decisive in a way that catches you off guard.

For a moment, you think he's leaving, that this reconnection has reached its limit; Instead, he stares out at the water, something shifting in his expression — the weight of responsibility and grief giving way to something lighter, finally more familiar.

"You know what your problem always was?" he asks, turning to look down at you, a spark igniting in eyes that had seemed so tired just moments before.

"I'm sure you're about to tell me," you reply, wary of this sudden change but unable to resist the pull of old patterns.

"You think too much." He kicks off his shoes with practiced ease, then reaches for the buttons of his shirt. "Always did."

Your pulse quickens as his fingers work downward, exposing the lean planes of a chest both familiar and new — slightly broader than you remember, more defined, "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like?" His smile gleams — the first genuine one you've seen since your return, a glimpse of the boy who once convinced you to skip school to drive to the coast in his father's borrowed convertible. He drops his shirt onto the rock beside you, hands moving to his belt buckle, "I'm going swimming."

"Luigi, it's barely seventy degrees — the water's freezing," you protest, even as something long dormant stirs inside you, a recognition of this ritual played out hundreds of times through childhood and adolescence and beyond.

He laughs, stepping out of his jeans to reveal black boxer briefs that cling to powerful thighs. "Since when did that ever stop us?" His eyes hold a challenge as he backs toward the water's edge. "Or have you really forgotten how to play this time?"

The words — so similar to ones from long ago, from the last summer before everything changed — hit their mark. You've built a life of careful control, of prompted responses, of calculated risks assessed through the lens of professional detachment.

When was the last time you did something simply for the joy of it?

Before you can answer, he turns and dives — a clean arc that barely disturbs the surface before his body disappears beneath it. The water welcomes him like an old friend, his form visible through the blue as he glides beneath the surface with the same effortless grace he's always had.

He resurfaces with a triumphant gasp, dark curls slicked back, water streaming down his face. "Holy shit, it's colder than I remembered!" His laugh echoes across the reservoir, bouncing back from the rocks on the far shore. "Always worth it."

He floats onto his back, face turned toward the sky, the morning sun gilding the water droplets on his skin. "Come in," he calls, not looking at you, somehow knowing the direct challenge would make you retreat. "Unless Kenya made you soft."

The taunt is gentle, playful in a way that tugs at memories you've kept carefully boxed away. How many summer mornings did you spend like this? Racing to the reservoir at dawn, competing to see who could stay underwater longest, floating on your backs while discussing constellations and college applications and all the places you'd someday go?

"Malaysia," you correct, standing despite yourself. "Most recently, anyway."

"Malaysia, Kenya, Timbuktu — doesn't really matter." He flips over, treading water as he watches you, droplets clinging to his eyelashes. "Water's the same everywhere. Either you're brave enough to jump in, or you're not."

The double meaning isn't lost on you.

This isn't just about swimming — never was, with the two of you. Water was always your shared language, this place your confessional, your playground, your private world away from expectation and obligation.

"I didn't bring a suit," you stall, though your fingers have already reached for the hem of your sweater.

Luigi's smile widens, a touch of the old mischief lighting his eyes. "When has that ever stopped you? Besides-“ his gaze sweeps over you, “it's seriously nothing I haven't seen before."

Heat floods your cheeks, but you find yourself pulling the sweater over your head anyway, some long-dormant part of you responding to this familiar challenge. The practical cotton bra you're wearing is a far cry from the colorful bikinis of your teens, but Luigi's appreciative glance makes you feel seventeen again, fearless and seen in a way no one else has ever managed.

You step out of your shorts, hesitating for just a moment before diving in — a clean, practiced dive that contradicts the years since you last swam here. The cold is a shock, stealing your breath as you plunge beneath the surface, but your body remembers this, muscles responding automatically to the embrace of water that tastes like childhood and possibility and home.

You surface with a gasp, pushing wet hair from your face to find Luigi closer than expected, his smile softer now. "See? Some things you don't forget."

Water droplets cling to his eyelashes, to the slight stubble along his jaw that wasn't there five years ago. This close, you can see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the tension he carries in his shoulders even now. But his smile — that's the same, the crooked lift at the left corner that always made your heart stutter in your chest.

"Some things," you agree, treading water, conscious of the narrowing space between you.

Luigi dips lower, only his eyes and nose above the surface like a crocodile watching its prey, and he suddenly disappears, a swirl of bubbles the only evidence of his descent. You have just enough time to take a breath before hands grasp your ankles, pulling you under in a move he's been perfecting since you were twelve.

You kick free easily — you've always been the stronger swimmer — and chase him through the clear water, both of you visible to each other in the underwater clarity that makes the reservoir so magical.

For a few precious moments, you're not adults weighted by choices and consequences, not strangers rebuilt from the fragments of who you once were to each other. You're just two bodies moving through blue, chasing and evading in a dance as old as your friendship.

When you both surface, you're laughing — really laughing, the kind that comes from somewhere deep and unguarded.

"There she is," Luigi says softly, treading water just an arm's length away. "I was beginning to think she was gone for good."

"Who?" you ask, though something in you already knows.

"The girl I’ve always known. Didn’t forget how to play.” His voice drops lower, intimate despite the open air around you. "The one who wasn't afraid to jump."

The words should feel like an accusation, but instead they land like recognition — like being seen for the first time in years by the only person who ever really could. You float in silence for a moment, letting the water hold you, conscious of how your bodies have drawn closer without either of you seeming to move.

"I didn't forget," you admit finally. "I just packed it away. Like everything else I left behind."

Luigi's hand finds yours beneath the surface, fingers intertwining with the same perfect fit they always had. "Not everything fits in boxes," he says, his eyes never leaving yours as water laps gently around your shoulders. "Some things just wait."

The distance between you shrinks further, your bodies drifting together as naturally as the current pulling toward the reservoir's center. His free hand rises to brush wet strands of hair from your face, the touch so familiar that your eyes close briefly against the surge of feeling it evokes.

"I've missed you," he whispers, the words barely audible above the gentle splash of water against shore. "Not just having you here, but seeing you. The real you.”

When you open your eyes, he's close enough that you can see the flecks of amber in his brown irises, count each individual eyelash jeweled with water droplets. His body radiates heat despite the cool water, a beacon calling you home after years adrift.

"I've missed me too," you confess, the truth of it surprising even you. "I've missed us."

His smile then is everything — recognition and forgiveness and possibility all tangled together in the crooked lift of his lips. His hand slides to cup your cheek, water cool against your skin where it drips from his fingers.

There's no hesitation when your bodies finally meet, drawn together by currents stronger than time or distance or walls. His arms encircle your waist, your legs tangling together as you both tread water, keeping each other afloat as you always did.

His forehead rests against yours, breath mingling in the small space between your mouths.

"Well,” his nose nudges yours, “welcome home.”

You’re not sure if he means your spot, the farm, or the circle of his arms.

Perhaps they're all the same thing — all the pieces of belonging you've been searching for across continents and careers. Here in the blue that witnessed your first secrets, your first promises, the puzzle of who you are slots back together — not erasing the person you've become in the years away, but completing her, filling the spaces you could never quite reach no matter how far you traveled.

When his lips finally meet yours, it feels inevitable — like gravity, like sunrise, like coming home to a place you never should have left.

The kiss tastes of water and morning sunshine and five years of longing distilled into a single point of contact. His body against yours is both familiar and new — the same shoulders your hands have memorized, but leaner now; the same chest, but bearing new scars and stories your fingers itch to learn.

You float together in the clear blue that's always been your sanctuary, your bodies finding their remembered rhythm, closer than you've been to anyone in the five years since you left. The water cradles you both, witness to this reunion as it's been witness to all the moments that shaped your shared history — every laugh, every race, every whispered dream, every touch that built the foundation of something you tried to leave behind but never truly could.

In the water, with Luigi's arms around you and the sun warming your upturned faces, you finally understand what you've been running from all these years — not him, not this place.

But the terrifying perfection of belonging somewhere so completely that losing it would unmake you.

The fear that loving like this — totally, without reservation — meant there would be nothing left if it ended.

"Stop thinking so much," Luigi murmurs against your lips, reading you as easily as he always has. "Just be here. With me.”

For once, you listen.

Tomorrow will bring complications — his dying father, your job in Borneo, five years of separate lives that can't simply be erased. But here, now, in the water that's always been your truest home, you surrender to the current pulling you back to where you've always belonged.

[gliphyartfan]

Curiosity has struck

What would the chain do with part Rito reader?

Like, they got pretty wings

Ooooh, pretty visions in the brain~

I guess since they are part Rito…they are kinda but not similar to the Rito from Windwaker?

(I uh…went on a tangent with this one 😅 a bit long)

No full beak, but maybe a slight curve to the upper lip, hinting at a beak like shape.

Their teeth are sharper than normal, not predator-sharp, but enough to break tougher food easily. (Definitely have a taste for poultry~)

Sharper cheekbones and a slightly more angular face, giving them a sleek look.

Their eyes would probably be large and incredibly sharp, built for spotting details from a distance.

Instead of round pupils, they might have slit like pupils that contract in bright light, allowing them to see far distances more easily.

Buuut unlike Hylians, their night vision is worse. Rito are built for soaring in broad daylight, meaning dim lighting would make it much harder for them to see.

Oooh, Instead of full body feathers like a Rito, they’d have patches of feathers along their arms, shoulders, and possibly down their spine.

Feathers on their forearms would be the most noticeable , maybe extending down the sides of their hands. They could also form a small crest along their hairline or behind their ears, like a subtle crown!

ands and feet are definitely still human like, but nails are tougher closer to talons in durability.

If they have full wings, (like on the back) they’d need hollow bones (to some extent) to stay light enough to fly. This would mean they aren’t as durable in combat. (Long range fighter anyone?)

Feather maintenance would be constant. Molting seasons woud drive them crazy, and they’d need to preen often to keep everything in order. (So Reader maaay be a tiny bit vain.)

They’d be lighter than a Hylian, making them harder to knock over but also easier to carry.

Since they don’t have all the lovely feathers like a full

Blooded Rito, well their feathers aren’t great at keeping in heat, so they HATE the snow and will freeze without proper gear. (Cold day cuddles anyone?)

Rito love music, so they’d probably have a natural rhythm or be drawn to instruments, they also might instinctively perch on high places instead of sitting normally.

Preening feels good. If someone messes with their feathers the right way, they might get sleepy. (Hint hint)

Honestly, with the chain, once they all get close enough with Reader expect constant preening help. They’ll sneak in touches, fixing feathers, gently running their fingers through them as if that’s their right now. (Keep a bunch of their feathers too.)

(Time is weary but amused, Warriors is exasperated, and Legend is just waiting for Reader to take off so he can see how much chaos it’ll cause.)

I’m in the belief that Twilight has AMAZING body heat so on cold days (when Wild isn’t close enough to lend them his cold proof accessories.) he’ll just lift Reader in his arms and enjoy how Reader just buries their face into the crook of his neck.

Sky would be practically vibrating at the idea of flying with Reader. (His loftwing gets a new bestie!)

Wind is jealous but it’s all in good fun. He straight up WILL beg Reader to take him flying whenever possible.

Four (Vio) is certainly fascinated, immediately trying to figure out how their wings work. Do they have a different bone structure? How strong are they? How many feathers do they lose in molting season?

Like Wind, Hyrule would 100% ask if they could carry him while flying. (Honestly if Reader doesn’t get stronger and have more stamina takes to this impromptu flights, I’ll eat my sketchbook)

Now when they get a bit…uh…clingy…

Well they get..worried..ya know?

Reader can actually fly away. They can actually escape them.

They…do NOT want that to happen.

Twilight and Sky are the worst about this, Twi has an internalized fear of Reader bidding him bye and him never seeing her again (I wonder where he got THAT fear 😒)

Sky understands flight better than anyone, so he always knows when Reader is about to take flight. Every time there is an argument between them and he spots Reader tensing before they shot up into the air…it’s not as nerve wrecking as when Reader lets themselves fall off cliffs and let themselves drop for a while before they open their wings. (Sky may not have feelings for Sun anymore by that point but the emotional trauma he felt when she fell and was whisked away still lingers)

Warriors is the most paranoid. He acts casual about it, but deep down? He’s convinced that they’re going to get shot out of the sky. (Reader doesn’t know he thinks that. Otherwise they’d rather offended.)

I think it’s a fear that he can’t protect them up there, so if they got hit…he’d have to see with horror as Reader falls from the sky)

Wild has accepted that one day, he is going to look up and Reader will be gone.

He keeps snacks on him so they have to come back down eventually. (Even if he knows that it’s just a flimsy way to convince himself that he can keep them from leaving. But every time they do come down just for his snacks, it eases his heart.)

Wind is so, so, so jealous.

He desperately wants to know what it feels like. To feel the air in a way only someone with wings can.

Yeah he has his Hyoi pears to control a seagull but it’s not the same as his own body feeling the air up high. For all his control of the Windwaker.

Time and Warriors have to shut down his constant requests for Reader to take him on flights.

Hyrule just thinks Reader is magic incarnate.

If they ever glide down from the sky all graceful like, he might actually pass out.

(He’s having thoughts my guys)

Yet on one hand, he understands the thrill of flying. (Even if he can’t fly like Reader can in his fairy form)

On the other, they are going to die if they keep flying around that blasted Hinox, my god Reader come back here-

Grounding Reader is kinda pastime for the yan chain.

Not that they are very successful.

Time is the most effective. He just gives them a look (same look that gets even Twi) and they sit back down. (With a grumble)

…and Hyrule, be doesn’t even need to move. He’s longed learned to weaponize his boyish charm on Reader and they’ll feel guilty before they make it ten feet.

I doubt the chain enjoy how Reader has an advantage over them. They’re fast, mobile, hard to track. Sky can’t keep up without his Loftwing.

Which means?

They are watching them.

All the time.

Reader is never flying alone.

[mymegrokosmos]

hiii! can i pls request one where reader surprises mingyu on tour? i love your works so much, thank you for all the effort that you put in!! <3

i love this big giant puppy he's such a sweetheart. i hope this came out okay anon sorry for the billion year wait. it's a little short but maybe i'll write a follow up at some point when my brain is working again.

It’s early, or late depending on what timezone you consider, when you drag yourself to the airport. You text Scoups as you check in, updating him on the eta. It’s taken you a lot of coordinating and evading. Their managers and at least three other members are in on this. The hardest part hasn’t even been keeping it from your boyfriend, it’s been not slipping up where Hoshi can hear. You love Soonyoung dearly but the man cannot keep a secret.

You’re practically vibrating by the time you step onto the plane. It’s been months of so many little details you had to get just right and so many last minute changes. You nearly said to hell with it and just ruined the surprise too many times but you know it’s going to be worth it when you see the surprise on his face.

The flight isn’t long, not by the long haul standards you’ve gotten used to since you started dating a member of seventeen, but it feels like it takes forever and then suddenly time speeds up and everything is going at double time. You text Cheol again to let him know you’ve landed, sending your message to Shua and Hannie too just in case. You’ve got a little group chat now from all of the coordinating this has taken. The three eldest members, Jihoon and Minghao have been instrumental in getting this all into place.

As the car pulls up to the outer gate where you wait in the pickup zone you smile at their manager. He didn’t have to come himself but he assures you it’s fine, the boys are all at rehearsal and in good hands he’s not rushed. The conversation feels easy as you head towards the hotel first to drop your things and it settles your nerves a bit, this small piece of normalcy.

That’s when the plans change. They were supposed to have a short rehearsal today and then come back to the hotel before the show for a quick break of a few hours. Time to grab some food, showers and a nap. Practice runs long and they’re not going to have time to make it back so there goes surprising your boyfriend in his hotel room. You were ready for something to go wrong though and so you came prepared.

It’s okay, you’ll pivot. And you do.

It still doesn’t feel real when you get your pass and follow along with the staff backstage. You can’t believe the day is finally here. It feels like you must still be at home in your bed, asleep and dreaming this whole thing. Until you catch the barest glimpse of him. Of all of them. They’re just running off to get in place for the lift that will propel them up on stage.

Hao catches your eye over your boyfriends’s shoulder and he can’t wave for giving you away but his smile tells you this is real. It’s almost time. You’re here. You grin back and then they’re gone.

He doesn’t spot you until the end of their set. He’s just, finally, stepped behind the set after what you think was aju nice number fifteen when you lock eyes and his smile turns into an oh. HIs fangs pop out as the surprise melts into a grin even bigger than he gave the fans screaming the encore and his name and then he’s running. As soon as the stage closes after the last member, Soonyoung getting dragged along tonight, he’s bounding towards you.

It doesn’t take long with those long legs of his he eats up space like it’s nothing. You barely have time to squeak before you’re lifted into his arms, spun around and set back on your feet with his forehead now pressed to yours.

“Gyu!” You’re laughing even as you swat at one bicep. “You’re all sweaty babe.”

He whines but doesn’t let you go, pouting at you as he pulls you even closer instead. “I can’t believe you’re here. What are you doing here? How did you plan this?”

You smile, hands coming up to cup his face and brush the floppy brown hair back out of his face. He leans into your touch and you vaguely register the other members being herded past you by a monotone Minghao who is having none of their nosyness.

“I had a lot of help.”

You don’t get a chance to say anything else. He’s already sweeping you further backstage, lips pressed to yours to swallow your sounds of surprise.

“I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too Mingyu.”

“Yah!”

You grin against his lips, smiling up at him as he carries you towards their green room. Your legs tighten around his waist as his hand on your back flexes slightly. You lean up to nuzzle your nose against his.

“I’m only teasing baby. I love you, you know that.”

He nods, eyes closing as he just holds you for a minute and you rest your hand against his chest to feel the way his heart beat jumps under your palm. He swallows and when he opens his eyes again they’re somehow even softer than before.

“Next time I’m taking you on tour with me. I don’t care what we have to do to make it happen. If I have to bribe your boss. I’m making it happen.”

You just shake your head and press a kiss to his jaw. “We’ll figure something out.”

He nods and before he can say anything else the door down the hall flies open and Soonyoung’s head pokes out around the frame.

“Are you two coming to dinner or are we leaving y/n to get you home from here?”

Mingyu sighs, forehead dropping to rest against your chest. “I’m going to kill him.”

You run your fingers through his hair. As well as you can with the styling products and sweat slicking it together at least.

“No you’re not.”

“No I’m not.”

You glance at your mutual friend over his shoulder. “We’ll meet you at the hotel. I expect hugs and all your best tour stories tomorrow. I’ll bring the soju.”

Soonyoung salutes and then you’re alone again. “Room service and cuddles?”

Mingyu nods. “Mm, sounds perfect. WIll you rub my shoulders for me too? The right one’s been acting up again.”

“Yah, Kim Mingyu stop overworking yourself. Hot bath and a massage just for you when we get back. Now put me down so we can get a car before the others decide to kidnap us for dinner anyway.”

And just like that his hand is in yours, tugging you along as he yells for their manager while you laugh and try your best to keep up.