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whytheylosttheirminds · 2 months ago

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haunted - r.c.

house arrest!Rafe Cameron x mysterious neighbor!reader one-shot (5.4k words)

content: angst, smut, references to dark pasts, mentions of obsession (mild), oral (f), unprotected p-in-v, 18+ minors do not interact

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

That first night, the summer air was so thick you could drown in it. You could taste the salty sea on your tongue as you took a deep breath, bracing your hands on the high lip of the brick wall. You’d only get one shot at the jump, too much noise would draw the neighbors’ attention. You checked your phone once again, 9:09 pm, late enough to cover you in darkness, but not late enough to ensure the neighborhood was asleep. Stealth was your only option. Squaring your shoulders, you stuffed your phone back in your bag and launched it over the wall, listening for the soft thud in the grass that meant there was truly no backing down now.

Little spurs of pain pinched your ankles when you landed on the other side, but you’d made it, unscathed aside from the torn skin on your palms from the wall’s unforgiving stone. The hard part was over, now you froze with uncertainty, you hadn’t planned to make it this far.

The house stood mighty under the bright light of the moon. This was the first time you saw it in its grand entirety, the view from your window across the street revealing only the white siding and a few shuttered windows. You’d watched for a few days - no cars came or went, the small windows you could see from your own were never opened, no lights turned on and off beyond their panes.

The few neighbors you’d talked to since your mysterious sudden arrival got cagey when the topic came up, a seemingly unspoken rule that this was the one house off limits for their ever turning rumor mill. Though the shifty glances and wrung hands at the mention of it hinted at something sinister lying behind this ancient brick wall, something dangerous. The risk was too alluring, and you were too bored, trapped in your cookie cutter McMansion with your father, a man who never understood you, and a twisted past you were running from even when you were standing still.

Now, on the other side of the alluring border, was the first time in months you didn’t feel trapped. Your heart raced as you looked around the massive yard, no lights in the windows confirming your theory that the house was abandoned. A chill shot through you despite the record high July temperatures, something so haunting about this storied land, and so forbidden. I should not be here, you thought as your feet carried you further into the trespassed property. This was the most alive you’d felt since you arrived on this island a few weeks ago, your sordid past nipping at your heels. For the first time since the incident, your mind wasn’t consumed with it, with the horrible memories, the regrets, the what-ifs. Here inside the gates of Tannyhill you were an outlaw, so far from what you have done and even farther from what you should be doing.

Euphoria swept over you, the most heady high. An almost manic laugh slipped from your lips before you could stop it. You reveled in the electric feeling as you padded through the grass back to the wall. You’d only made it a few steps toward the house, but you knew you’d be back, finally finding something to make your heart race, something to come back to, something to live for.

After that night, the empty house became your obsession. All day, every day you thought about the sprawling property, the grand pillars and white walls that housed a thousand mysteries. While the sun was up, you dreamt of what you might find when you finally found a way inside, and as soon as it set, you were creeping back over that wall, making it a few steps further each time.

Finally, after two weeks of dreaming, trapped inside the house across the street that would never be your home, fighting with the father that would never be your family, you knew it was time. Tonight, you’d go farther than you ever had, touch the walls of that ancient house, the promise of the thrill almost as heady and dizzying as the moment itself.

Climbing over that wall was muscle memory at this point, the calluses on your hands proof you’d formed an addiction you were nowhere near kicking. After the trek through the tall, unkempt grass you’d walked fifteen times now, you made it to the stone walkway you’d yet to touch. Without stopping to think, to second guess, you sprinted over the stones, rounding the corner of the house for the first time, stopping in your tracks at the beauty the backyard held.

The moon reflected off the water, rippling from the slight breeze, calling to you. Perfect. You’d go for a swim in the pool that wasn’t yours, maybe even find a little rock and break a window, sneak into this haunted house, anything to keep feeling the rush that had brought your body back to life the second you stepped foot on this forbidden land.

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

Rafe saw you the very first night. For six months now, he’d spent every waking minute pacing these empty halls, wishing for a hit of something, anything, to make the silence less deafening. The only noises keeping him company on these endless nights were the sound of his own erratic voice and the occasional beep of the monitor strapped tight around left ankle.

They’d gotten him for the drugs, but he knew what they were really trying to uncover, the secrets he kept buried so deep even he forgot about them sometimes. His sentence was two years house arrest, every movement monitored, all substances strictly forbidden.

It only took a few days for the loneliness to become crippling. Over and over, he imagined turning the corner and seeing someone standing in the hall, someone he knew, someone he didn’t, anyone, to talk to, to make him feel like he wasn’t going completely insane.

Then a soft thud in the distance, followed closely by another, the second slightly louder. Any noise out of place immediately perked his ears, far too familiar with the creaks and groans of this old mansion to miss even the quietest of disturbances. Maybe the thuds could have been something innocuous, a branch breaking or wind whipping against the walls. What came after, however, was unmistakable.

The soft, sweet melody of a woman’s laugh floated across the night air and in through an open window. The sound was so welcome and warm as it washed over Rafe, the purity of it washing him clean, illuminating the world around him. Suddenly, in the midst of his darkest hour, a bright light had appeared before him, calling him home.

His days quickly became consumed by thoughts of you. He spent his hours watching the sun journey across the sky, east to west, willing it to set faster and bring you to him. All he knew of you was your moonlit silhouette, coming to him every night like the sweetest dream. Each time the sun set and you appeared, you got closer and closer to him. The hesitancy in your steps was maddening, but he couldn’t go to you, the risk of scaring you off was far too great, your nightly visits the only thing keeping him earthside.

And then, on the fifteenth night, when he thought for sure you’d never come to him, never cross the rest of the distance that kept you apart, you broke into a run, disappearing around the side of the house and out of view. He ran from window to window, looking down from the second floor trying to find you. His panting breaths and pounding heartbeat were the only things he could hear, until, so miraculously he wondered if he imagined it, a splash and that same angelic laugh, so beautiful and melodic that his whole world shook. Risks be damned, there was no holding himself back, feet moving of their own accord as he ran down the spiral staircase, toward you.

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

You stripped your clothes under the cover of darkness, toeing the edge of the water as a test, gasping at the sharp chill. Despite the hot summer day, the water was ice cold, only adding to its alluring mysticism. There would be no easing in, your stomach twisting in anticipation as you stood in only your bra and underwear at the edge, a deep breath, a bend in your knees and - SPLASH.

Your heart nearly stopped as the water engulfed you, your hair whipping around you as you shot back up to the surface. Every cell in your body was buzzing with excitement, and just like that first night you couldn’t hold back the wild laugh that spilled from your lips. You could not believe what you were doing, so reckless and wrong, and yet so right.

Each stroke tearing through the water's surface, you swam with abandon, feet kicking up big splashes and the sound of ragged, desperate breaths filling the night air every time you craned your neck for a gulp of air. The more you swam, the more you forgot. Forgot that you were breaking the law, forgot that you were not supposed to be here, forgot about the events that led you to this island, that tore the life you knew from you in one fell swoop. You didn’t know what you’d do next, how you’d sneak into your house without water dripping everywhere, how you’d ever move on from this incredible feeling, but you didn’t care, you just kept swimming.

Arm swinging through the air, you took what must’ve been your hundredth stroke, twisting your head to the side to grab a breath, eyes just barely catching the dark, towering silhouette of a figure at the edge of the pool.

You shot up so fast the splash of water threatened to fill your lungs and pull you back under. Your shoulders shivered as you stood in the chilly water, blinking fast to clear your vision as your brain tried to catch up to what your eyes were seeing.

You hadn’t imagined it. He stood tall and stoic at the edge of the pool, hands in his pockets, shoulders broad enough to partially block the glow of the moon.

Something in you knew that he was dangerous, goosebumps dancing across your dripping skin, warning you “go, flee, run now.” But you didn’t move, frozen in the water as he looked down at you with the slightest tilt of his head. Darkness covered his features, only the light of the stars reflecting off his sharp jawline and high cheekbones.

He was a total stranger, his presence a threat that should be terrifying you, and yet in the same way that you knew after the first time you’d jumped the wall that you’d keep coming back to this place, you knew that you couldn’t run from him, that you didn’t want to. Drawn to him in a way that stole your breath, you moved forward, the slightest imperceptible step, and yet you knew he could feel it too, the magnetic pull between souls that made escaping him impossible. Maybe it was a dream, or maybe you had drowned and fallen into some dark, twisted underworld, this man your own personal devil. But if he was your damnation, you wanted to fall right to the seventh circle.

For what felt like hours, neither one of you spoke. Only the gentle lap of the water against the tile edge of the pool filled the air between you - the Caught and the Capturer sizing each other up in the darkness.

Then, with no urgency, no threat or accusation against the trespasser standing half naked in his pool, the man turned on his heel and headed toward the house, pausing at the threshold of the grand sliding glass door to mutter over his shoulder, “come in,” and after a moment’s pause and some internal battle, “please.”

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

Rafe turned when he sensed you hesitating outside the sliding door, his anxiety over finally seeing you up close frustrating him as he flicked on the lights in the house. When he turned, seeing you illuminated by light for the first time, everything softened, the sight of you dripping and shivering on the stone patio making his heart ache.

He looked around desperately for something to offer you, no towels or blankets available in the grand dining room he was standing in. He tore the jacket from around his shoulders, handing it to you with shaky hands. It wasn’t enough, but he needed to stop your lips from turning purple, needed, in some terrifying, primal way, to protect you.

“Th-thank you,” you stammered, eyes wide and hand trembling as you took the jacket from him hesitantly.

The realization hit him like a bullet to the chest: you were scared of him. Then a second shot, right to the gut: you were right to be.

The hands that held out this peace offering weren’t clean. Maybe you’d heard the stories about him, maybe you weren’t as enchanted by him as he was by you. He prayed you didn't know who he was, the rumors that came with the mention of his name. But then, why did you keep coming back? He needed to know, the question leaving his lips before he could stop it.

“Why are you here?”

His voice was rough from lack of use, harsher than he wanted it to be, causing you to take a hesitant step back.

“I shouldn’t be.”

You backed away slowly, making panic rise in his chest, a terrible sense that his salvation was slipping through his fingers. He stepped towards you, the movement too fast and frightening, unable to control himself, as always.

“I’m sorry,” he tried to say, but it was too late, you were already gone, flying across the grass from the pool’s edge.

All that remained to prove you were ever even there was the puddle where you’d stood outside the door. By morning, it’d be dry, and he’d be wondering if he hallucinated the whole thing.

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

Waking in a cold sweat, you grabbed at his sweatshirt like you were trying to ensure it was still wrapped around you, for what reason you weren’t sure. It was the third night you’d slept in it, not crossing the wall again since the night you’d met him. Your body shook with chills, a dull ache everywhere as though you were in withdrawal.

You tried to tell yourself it was done, you’d been caught and your little excursions over the wall had to stop. The house wasn’t empty as you’d assumed, and it would be insane to get near him again. He couldn’t possibly be trustworthy, his voice deep and menacing, a wildfire in his eyes that clearly held a history. His hair was long and unkempt like the grass outside his house, unruly and overgrown in a way that did not match the grandeur and luxury of the home he never seemed to leave. Something about it, about him, wasn’t right, and you knew if you got too close to the flame, you’d get burned.

Still, your thoughts always found their way back to him. And in your sleep, he appeared in every dream, those same ocean blue eyes tearing through you like he could see to your soul.

Rising from your sweat soaked sheets, you padded the worn path from your bed to the window, the creaks in the floor familiar as you spent so many hours perched in that spot watching his house. This time, for the first time since you'd started surveying the house weeks ago, the lights in the windows were on. Your heart caught in your throat when you saw a shadowy figure walk past, then again, the man from the pool pacing back and forth.

You wondered if his thoughts were as consumed with you as yours were of him. Then, as if he could hear your thoughts, he looked up, eyes meeting yours across the distance.

You knew which spots on the stairs squeaked, avoiding them as you snuck out, past your father asleep on the couch, across the street towards the house that haunted you, toward him.

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

The splash was loud on purpose, intended to catch his attention. You waited in the water with baited breath until, gloriously, he appeared through the sliding doors, standing in the same spot he had been a few nights ago, looking down at you with the same curious glare.

Slowly, your eyes ever trained on him, you swam to the edge, climbing out of the water so you could stand in front of him, chest to chest. Finally seeing him up close, your heart fluttered at his striking features, jaw locked tight as he stared down at you.

You shouldn’t reach up and touch his face, but you did. You shouldn’t whisper quietly, “what’s your name?” but you did. You shouldn’t follow him as he turned and walked back into the grand dining room, but you did.

Not answering your question, not saying anything, he turned toward you once you were standing inside, eyes darting around the luxurious space, taking in it’s beauty before landing back on him. You didn’t know his name, you didn’t really need to. There was only one thing you needed to know, the thing that had kept you up at night, the thing that both kept you away and pulled you helplessly toward him.

“Are you dangerous?”

His eyes answered you before his words could, a flash of recognition and regret behind his blue irises preceding his nod and broken-throated, “yes.”

“You could hurt me, then?”

“Yes,” less hesitancy this time, an edge of warning in his tone, as he stepped closer to you, his large, intimidating frame invading your space and making your breath catch in your throat.

You didn’t back away, skin igniting, a rush of need and pure lust overtaking your body as he crept closer. The certainty in his voice left no doubt, if he wanted to, he could hurt you right here and now and there’s nothing you could do to protect yourself. And yet his touch was light when it ghosted over your lips, pads of his fingers rough against the soft skin as he traced the shape of your mouth.

“Are you going to?”

Sparks flew between you as his touch became firmer, hand cradling your head. His answer like gasoline to the flickering flame, a fire neither of you would walk away from unburnt flared to life with one word.

“Never.”

Before you could think, you shot up on your toes, fingers digging into his shoulders as your lips crashed into his, an involuntary groan ripped from his chest and transferred into yours through the connection of your open mouths.

He grabbed your waist, his grip bruising, flex of his muscles animalistic as he lifted you off your feet, planting you firmly on the edge of the dining room table.

Still kissing him, your teeth and tongues devouring each other, your hands dropped to his waist, fingers pulling at the leather of his belt. He was quick to stop you, fingers easily wrapping around your wrists, a reminder that physically, you were completely at his mercy, nothing stopping him from overpowering you. And yet, his touch was gentle as he pulled your hands away from him, dragging your arms up and guiding you onto your back, hands pinned above your head.

Leaning over you, his eyes roamed your face and body, spread out on the cold oak table like his last supper. Your bra and underwear still wet from the pool soaked through his shirt as you arched your back, unable to resist the urge to press up into him, to feel his warm, strong body fully against yours.

Rafe’s eyes closed tight, nostrils flailing as he willed himself not to take you the way you were inviting him to. You didn’t understand his hesitation, mistaking it for rejection, cowering underneath him.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” you whispered, almost to yourself.

His eyes flew open, searching yours with panic, terrified by the thought of finally having you so close only to lose you. The thought was too painful, he was in far too deep to let you go now.

“Please, stay. Let me- I, I can take care of you,” his lips attached to your neck, sucking down like he was trying to make you understand how desperate he was. “Let me make you feel good.”

You gasped when his eyes suddenly shot back up to yours. They seemed darker somehow, pupils blown wide, the crease in his forehead a pleading request. Unable to stop yourself, just as frenzied as he seemed to be, you nodded rapidly, all at once agreeing, demanding, and begging.

His lips were back on you immediately, dragging down the skin of your neck to your chest, which was rising and falling with pants as your heart threatened to pound right through it. He paused every so often to nip, painting over every bite mark with a drag of his tongue. When his searching lips reached the valley between your breasts, you pulled the straps of your thin bra down your shoulders, brushing the material down to reveal yourself to him.

“God,” he moaned out, breathing warmly against you as he steeled himself, dragging his tongue over one of your breasts to your hardened nippled, closing his lips around it and sucking once before pulling back to whisper, “so beautiful, my angel.’

His words were confusingly intimate for a man you were meeting for the second time, and yet his apparent adoration of you was intoxicating, your hands flying to his hair, tugging at the roots to express what words couldn’t.

“From the second I saw you climb over my wall, I knew I needed to have you,” he confessed against your goosebump-ridden skin.

Your eyes shot open, lifting your head off the table as much as his controlling stance would allow you.

“You saw me? The first time?”

Rafe nodded, shifting to pull your other nipple in his mouth, pulling a whimper from your lips.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He paused his work on your skin to lift his gaze to yours, a sheepish look in his eye as he confessed, “I didn’t want to scare you away.”

You traced your fingers along his jaw, eyes tender as you promised him, “you couldn’t.”

The assurance in your voice emboldened him, his eyes flaring once more before he shifted himself down, his tongue running a wet line along your stomach as he lowered himself. You writhed helplessly underneath him, lifting your hips once he got to the waistband of your panties to grant him access, which he took happily, dragging the lacy material down to reveal you to him fully.

Glistening for him under the sparkling chandelier’s light, you opened your legs wider, mesmerized by the hunger in his eyes as he took you in.

Rafe placed an exploratory kiss on your inner thigh, his lips featherlight. He couldn’t suppress the upward twitch of his lips when he observed the way you flinched in anticipation, thighs pulling together slightly, already over sensitive from the build up.

“Don’t run from me now,” he growled, another kiss closer to your heat as his hands pulled your legs back apart, thumbs rubbing soothing circles into your flesh to reassure you.

“Don’t make me wait,” you demanded, an edge to your voice he hadn’t heard yet, making you even more alluring to him, a feat he didn’t think possible.

Obediently, his thumbs slid closer to your wetness, opening you fully to him, after months of forced sobriety, he felt drunk on you. No further delay, he licked a gentle, testing stripe between your folds, pausing just before reaching your clit, his cheek resting on the inside of your thigh as he steadied himself, trying to keep from losing himself completely.

“So fucking perfect,” he hummed against you, diving in again once he’d gotten his bearings.

When the tip of his tongue finally swept over your throbbing clit, you cried out, body rising from the tabletop helplessly.

“God, yes, I needed this, I needed you so badly,” you babbled mindlessly, hands flying back to his hair, pulling harder than before and causing him to groan against you, thrilled that he’d found the right spot to make you crazy.

“I know, I know, me too,” he cooed against you, words muffled by his frenzied consumption of you.

Unleashed by the sounds of your moans, the tension in his muscles melted away as Rafe ate you out in the way he really wanted to. Messy, teeth and tongue working in tandem, curled fingers stretching you open and exploring you with reverence. The was no self-control left in your body as you wriggled and writhed on the hard table, nerve endings on fire, mind fogged over with the most addictive pleasure.

The light from the dusty chandelier above you was low, but the white behind your closed eyelids was blinding, like some heavenly glow was burning through you from the inside out. For a moment, you forgot where you were, everything that led you here and the consequences that were sure to come. All you knew was him as he unlocked something within you that you didn’t know existed.

Soon you were close, the coil in your stomach wound so tight you were almost frightened of what would happen when it inevitably snapped. You needed him, closer, deeper, with you, in you.

“Wait wait wait,” you pleaded, pushing on his shoulders to guide his mouth off of you as you sat up on the table.

Brows furrowed, he pulled back but kept his eyes trained to you, his mouth, soaked with you, hung open as he struggled to catch his breath.

“Wh-” he began to question, but your hands shot the hem of his shirt, bunching it up to pull it over his shoulders.

He helped you undress him, arms flexing as he tore the fabric up and over his head. You eyes danced over his bare torso once he was shirtless before you.

“Holy fuck,” you meant to just think it, but you might’ve accidentally said it outloud.

Either way, Rafe was too focused to notice, needing to be back on you, but stopped by your outstretched arms as you reached between your bodies again, fingers aiming for his belt again. He stepped back before you could unbuckle him, his left leg swinging back further than his right, like you’d hurt it somehow.

He avoided your searching gaze, wiping his face with the back of his hand before running his fingers through his hair in frustration, eyeing your legs dangling off the end of the table, your vulnerable position in front of him cracking his defense, your next words the nail in the coffin to his dwindling restraint.

“Please, I…I need you,” you whispered.

“You don’t even know me,” he retorted.

Eyes finally meeting yours, you shared a look more meaningful than any words you could exchange. There was a connection between you so far beyond knowing the details of each other’s lives, and a shared need that couldn’t be ignored any longer.

Rafe’s hands landed on either side of your face, inadvertently squeezing too hard as he crashed his lips back to yours. This time, he let your hands wander down and undo the button of his slacks. Once he was free of the fabric between you, pulling his pants and boxers down just far enough to free himself, he brought his throbbing cock to your entrance.

Pulling back just an inch from your lips, he brushed a strand of hair from your face, flushed with your need for him, and tucked it behind your ear.

“Are you sure, angel?”

You would never be able to explain it, but you were more sure of this than anything in your life.

“Please.”

Sinking deep with one stroke, you cried broken moans into each other’s open mouths as he finally gave you what you needed. One arm behind you for support, one slung tight around his shoulders, you met each of his thrusts with a cry of pleasure.

Forehead pressed to yours, he looked so deeply into your eyes as he fucked you, mouth agape in awe as he watched you take him so perfectly.

Emboldened by your vulnerable state, you decided to push the issue, “please, I need to know your name.”

Either he was too distracted to care or you’d gained his trust, because he didn’t pause for a second before answering, “it's Rafe.”

Your lips turned in slow smile at the sound of his name, quietly echoing his confession with your own name, a sound that made him close his eyes and smile before leaning in and moaning your name into your ear. Over and over he whispered your name like a chant you knew you’d play over and over in your mind until it was cemented there permanently.

He knew you loved the sound by the way you clenched around him helplessly when he said it. His hands clutched your hips hard, leaving bruises behind as he picked up his movements. Your head fell back as your legs began to shake, fingernails leaving marks in his shoulders. He took advantage of your exposed neck to find the same spot he’d attached to earlier, sucking between whispers as he brought you closer and closer to the release you were chasing.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve been doing to me? You’re all I think about, all I can focus on. You’re driving me insane.”

His words brought tears to your eyes. By the sound of it, he’d been as haunted by you as you were by him. You didn’t understand this madness, the almost cosmic connection between you. It was like some dark magic pulling you together, this meeting of your bodies and souls inevitable, despite being total strangers. The power of the connection, the feeling of him filling you so completely, the low growl of his voice, the strength of his shoulders beneath your grasp, it was all too much.

“Rafe, I’m - oh fuck! Rafe!”

You came with a shriek, tears slipping free and falling down your face as you pulsed around him, a euphoric feeling you’d never experienced in your life washing over you, all at once terrifying and perfect. He felt it too, you could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice as he lost himself and spilled inside you, his whole body shuddering against you, forcing you to lay back on the table under the weight of him.

The panic set in immediately. He whispered your name as he peppered exhausted kissed against your chest, and your eyes flew open, the aftershocks of your high wearing off like you’d just woken up from a long slumber.

You didn’t know this man, who was again chanting your name like a prayer, you didn't know why he was stuck in this house alone, you didn’t even know his last name. How could you be so reckless? He told you he was dangerous and you’d begged him to take you. It was the behavior of someone who’d completely lost their mind.

When he stood, you slipped from the table quickly, gathering your clothes and pulling them on haphazardly without words. Rafe just watched you as he pulled his own clothes back on, worry in his eyes at the way you were avoiding him, keeping your body shielding from his as you quickly covered up.

“Are you o-”

“I have to go,” you didn’t even spare him a glance as you fled back across the threshold and ran out into the darkness.

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

This time, he did what he wished he had done the last time, chasing after you as you ran. You were faster than he expected, expertly navigating the overgrown jungle that had become his yard. He reached the wall, stopping himself with a painful clash of his hands against the stone before he ran straight into it. Tall enough to watch you land on the other side and sprint across the road, his eyes went wide when he realized where you were going.

All this time, while he sat inside and dreamt of you, imagining all of the places you could be during the agonizingly long days without you, you were just across the street.

Your house couldn’t have been more than a few yards from his own property line. And yet, as the monitor on his ankle reminded him with a series of warning beeps, you were unreachable. White knuckles clutched the wall as his greatest fear swept over him: that he may never be able to reach you again.

﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒𓆩 𓆪﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒﹒₊˚﹕﹒₊‧ ﹒

a/n: I'm so deeply rusty but this really helped me get the wheels turning, sorry if it's not my best! I missed dark, brooding rafeypoo! thanks for reading!

reminder, writers live off reblogs, don't forget to feed your faves! <3

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ayyy-pee · 5 months ago

Text

Discord 18+ - Bluesky - Part One of WANTED Series - WANTED Masterlist

Pairing: Ex-Outlaw Toji Fushiguro x Outlaw Reader

WC: 8.7k

Summary: Shit luck. That's the unfortunate reputation branded to ex-outlaw Toji Fushiguro. That is, until tonight, when a reunion with an "old friend" turns his luck on its head.

Story Warning: Bar Fight, Gambling, Cheating (at gambling lmao), Violence and Blood and Broken Bones, Implied Rough Sex, Rough Oral Sex (M. Receiving), Implied Ass play, Misogyny, Protective Toji, Marking, Profanity, Smut obviously, Outlaw pt.1 references, No Y/N usage here

Art by: shesdeny on X

A/N: I had Backroads by Tanner Adell on repeat the entire time I wrote this ON REPEAT. I didn't proofread i'm so tired yall

Word on the prairie is there’s been one hell of a train heist.

It’s the talk of the town right now, and Toji’s soaking up every word of it as he sits at the parlor poker table.

One man places a card down on the table, taking a drag of his cigar. “I heard they cleaned the locomode right out. Not even a silver spoon left at the scene.”

‘Thorough,’ Toji thinks.

Another slides his chips into the center, where the dealer takes them. “Yup, heard that, too. An’ I heard it was a broad that did it.”

This piques Toji’s interest. He slides more chips forward, taps the table to check, letting them know he’s not adding any more money to this pot. Not that he has anymore to offer. He’s really hoping the shit luck he’s been having lately turns tonight.

“A broad?” The cigar smoker asks, thick smoke falling from his lips. “Can’t imagine a woman bein’ able to pull that off.”

At this, Toji snorts under his breath. These men don’t know what a determined and smart woman is capable of. But he does.

Another man laughs hard, tapping his fists on the table. “Thought so, too, but they caught a outlaw at the scene, too.” He tries to catch his breath, chuckling when he describes the scene. Apparently, the poor sucker was picked up from the train car with his hair knotted around the seat bar and his dick out for everyone to see. This makes Toji shake his head, amused, because he has a strong feeling he knows exactly who could have pulled something like that off.

A clean sweep? Leaving the other party humiliated just because they can? Toji’s fairly certain about who the culprit is for this one.

“But they say the outlaw escaped on the way to hoosegow,” notes the man. “Ain’t been able to find him. Probably gonna kill the broad when he finds her.”

Toji shakes his head, the slightest smirk sitting on his lips. That tracks. Leaving the scene with enemies left behind in embarrassing situations? Yeah, he knows exactly who pulled this heist off.

The men go on and on about the heist and the rumors circulating around the town. To everyone else, it all seems impractical. How could some woman possibly have the wits and the courage to be able to face off with one notorious outlaw and come out on top both literally and figuratively?

Toji only knows one woman capable of achieving such a feat — you.

You’re the one who got—

“You in or you out, Fushiguro?” The dealer calls impatiently. “Hurry up.”

Toji checks the spread across the table, what’s laid out to determine if he’s going to stay in the game or not. And as his eyes flit across the cards, he kisses his teeth.

He lost, as usual.

”I’m out,” he grunts, standing from his seat. “Gonna take a piss.”

The streets are alive with activity. Brothel girls stand on the porches of their building, batting their lashes and waving their handkerchiefs in an attempt to lure each and every man inside. They call out to Toji, blow him kisses and offer him the “night of his life” while waving their fingers flirtily in his direction. Toji ignores their advances, not in the mood after taking yet another hit to his already dwindling funds.

This streak of bad luck has been following him all his life. Small inconveniences, minor problems that have built up and taken a toll on him over time. It seemed as if being an outlaw was the only thing he was good at, though he wouldn’t call himself one now. He’s not sure why he ever thought hanging up his hat as an outlaw and taking up gambling would change his luck. He’s never won, not once. But he can’t seem to stop himself from putting it all on the line in hopes that he’ll hit big, just one time. So far, no luck.

Toji strolls into the back alley of the parlor, nose wrinkling at the rancid smell of sweat and piss that fills the area. He finds what he thinks might be a cleaner spot than the rest of the alley and pulls his pants to his knees, grabbing hold of himself just before he begins to relieve himself.

The sharp sounds emanating from the piano keys throughout the many saloons can be heard and Toji finds himself tilting his head back and staring up at the night sky, letting a little tune fall from his lips in a whistle. It’s when he’s shaking the remnants of his bathroom break off that he feels the cold press of metal against the back of his head, effectively cutting his whistling short.

Shit.

Just his luck. Of course he’d go out to relieve himself and end up with a damn gun to his skull.

“Ya know what they say ‘bout whistlin’ at night, don’t ya?” A familiar sweet voice sings behind him. “Brings bad luck.”

Toji chuckles, shaking his head - and the extra piss - off. “That’s a cowboy’s belief,” he remarks. He pulls his pants back up, securing them around his waist. “And I ain’t one.”

The stranger hums, the pressure of the gun easing just slightly, but it’s enough for Toji and he takes this moment to spin around swiftly. His large hand catches the weapon in his palm and he yanks forward, pulling its wielder with it. He holds the barrel of the gun against the center of his forehead, a sick grin sitting on his lips.

“Just kill me if you’re gonna do it. But just know…I ain’t got shit for ya to take.” In the dim lighting of the alleyway, Toji can just make out the way this person stares up at him through hooded eyes, teeth digging into their bottom lip as they have this short standoff with him. Then they sigh, unceremoniously lifting their skirt and holstering their weapon between their thighs.

“I see shit ain’t changed since the last time I saw ya, Toji.”

Toji only shrugs, a lopsided grin on his face. “Creature of habit, I guess.”

And there’s that laugh he hasn’t heard in some time. One that he won’t admit he’s missed because it reminds him of a different time in his life. One that he also won’t admit that he’s missed.

Standing before him is the earlier topic of discussion amongst the men inside. You’ve got your hands on your hips, dressed in the pretty little get up you usually wear when you’re up to no good, and Toji knows you’re about to have one hell of a night. And he has a feeling that you’re going to be dragging him into whatever plot you’ve cooked up.

He takes in your appearance, the fancy new gun you tucked away and a very nice hat that probably sells for a hefty price.

Toji motions to your new possessions. “Keepsakes from your last job? Heard it was a damn good ride.”

You lift a hand, running your fingers along the brim of your hat, giggling as you play dumb. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

He knows better than to pry, at least not in the open where just anybody can hear. So instead he tells you, “You look pretty tonight,” and basks in the smile you give him. Soft and genuine, but only for a second before you’ve shifted into the little facade you put on.

“D’ya wanna show me ‘round here?” You ask sweetly, looping your arm through Toji’s and tugging him along.

Toji slips his hands into his pockets. Truth be told, he hasn’t been in this town long, just arrived a couple days ago when he heard there was easy money to make at the parlors. But he hasn’t found that to be true. He was actually planning on heading out soon anyway. “Not much goin’ on in this town ‘round this time of night. Same ol’ gamblin’, drinkin’, fuckin’ and fightin’ that happens in all the others.”

“Hmm,” you nod, peering up at Toji with the false innocence he’s familiar with. “And what about you?” You’ve switched on your proper speech as well, Toji notes, but he doesn’t miss the suggestive tone behind your words when you ask, “Which one are you gettin’ into tonight?”

He wants to tell you that he’ll be in whatever shitshow you start, just how he always is when you two run into each other in whatever middle of nowhere town you end up in. But instead he just smirks as he leans down to your ear where he whispers, “Let's see how the night goes.”

You’re careful to make sure there are no watchful eyes when you both emerge from the alley arm in arm. Toji leads you back towards the parlor, not missing the salacious looks you’re getting from the other men and cowboys while he holds onto you. And you, ever the actress, offer a demure smile and nod to each and every one of them that has them melting beneath your gaze.

And it’s a ridiculous thing, really, how Toji also finds himself melting for you. Although it’s for different reasons. You can offer all the innocent and pretty smiles you want. It may fool the average man, but it’s never fooled Toji. You two are cut from the same cloth, and that’s what brought you two together in the first place all those years ago.

You’re a beautiful woman, of course. A perfect face with a perfect body to match, filling that outfit of yours just the way Toji has always liked. But it’s your mind that draws Toji to you. Your ability to easily cook up a scheme that you rarely fail to pull off. The way you can slip on a manipulative mask like the one you’re wearing now and wrap anyone around your finger. How you can lure people into your traps and get anything you want. Any time he’s in your presence, Toji’s convinced that he’s sick in the head, because he can’t fucking get enough of watching you conspire against whatever poor person you’ve deemed your target.

It brings him back to his outlaw days, when he’d met you mid-scheme and almost threw a wrench in your plans. But somehow, it ended with you two teaming up to pull off one hell of a heist. And the aftermath? Well, let's just say you left Toji more than satisfied with the outcome.

When you two enter the parlor, it seems the gambling table has changed as well as the dealer, Toji notices. You both observe the dealer, placing three cards face down on the table. He shows one card - the 4 of diamonds - to the players around the table before setting it down and wildly shuffling them. When he’s finished and all three cards lie in a line on the table, one of the men selects a card, and they all erupt in a string of curses when it’s wrong.

Beside Toji, you scoff. “This’ll be a easy night, looks like.” You glance up at him, a teasing smirk on your lips. “Please don’t tell me ya lost all your money gamblin’ on goddamn Three-Card Monte,” you murmur just loud enough for Toji to hear. “All ya gotta do is find the damn card.”

“Can’t lose what I ain’t got,” Toji chuckles. “Come on.”

Of course you’d enjoy this game, he thinks. Three-Card Monte, or Find the Lady. It’s a card game in which the marks, or the players, are tricked into thinking they can find the “money card” among three face-down cards. It seems so simple, but if the dealer is anyone worth his salt, it’s easy to fuck the players over. Make them think they have a chance, so they just keep betting until they’ve got nothing left to lose.

But of course, you’re a step ahead. This dealer thinks he’ll be playing you, when it’s really the other way around.

“Ya ready?” You question. “Let's make it quick.”

Sounds like Toji doesn’t have a choice. Looks like he’s pulling off a heist tonight. His ex-outlaw heart sings.

He approaches the table with you on his arm just as two men free up seats for you when they opt out of playing any further. You take a seat beside Toji, carefully adjusting your skirt, removing your hat and setting it in your lap. The dealer eyes you, he eyes your bosom unabashedly, grinning when you tilt your head and fix him with a curious look.

“Good evening, sir,” you speak softly and Toji watches you work your magic. “What are we playing tonight?”

The dealer chuckles, shuffling his cards in his hands. “We are playin’ Three-Card Monte, pretty darlin’.” He leans forward, the thick and nasty stench of his cigar breath making Toji’s nostrils burn. “I’d explain how to play it to ya, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to keep up with the rules. This fine gentleman here, however,” he turns his attention to Toji. “Would you like to buy in, sir?”

Toji’s gaze cuts to you. If the dealer’s statements bother you, it doesn’t show. Your smile doesn’t falter in the least. “You’re so considerate.” Your voice is soft and sweet, but Toji hears the bitterness behind your words. “I’m so fortunate my darlin’ husband here…” you reach over and caress Toji’s arm, nails dragging along his skin in a way you know will leave goosebumps in their wake. “...He took pity on poor lil’ me and taught me to play. Right, dear?”

You beam up at Toji, all soft and loving, and he wants to laugh to cover up the way his heart races – one, because you’ve referred to him as your husband which he’s embarrassed to admit doesn’t sound too bad. Two, because you involving him in your little game tonight excites him in more ways than one. He hasn’t felt the thrill of pulling off a heist in some time, his luck almost never panning out the way he wants. But now that he’s run into you, he’s sure it’s going to take a turn for him.

“Yep,” he affirms. “And I’ll teach ya whatever else your lil’ heart wants, angel.” Toji grins, enjoying the way your brows rise just barely at the pet name, some emotion he can’t place behind your eyes. He can’t dwell too long because he’s eyeing the dealer, whose gaze is glued to your breasts again. Toji roughly clears his throat, grabbing the man’s attention. “She’ll buy in.”

“If ya say so.” Of course the dealer isn’t going to argue. You’re what he thinks is the easiest mark of his night.

The first game goes exactly how Toji imagined you’d have it play out. The dealer tells you he’ll be generous and do a practice round for you so that you can “wrap your pretty head around the rules”, and you agree. You of course don’t find the card, or so the dealer is made to believe. But you enthusiastically agree to an actual game.

The first real game, you bet low, telling the dealer that you’re just too nervous to bet too much money, and you’re not sure if your dear husband would approve.

“Put down as much as ya like, angel,” Toji pushes eagerly, earning him a quick scowl from you, covered by a sweet giggle.

“Do you want me to lose all of our money, dear?” You ask, the real question hardly concealed beneath your words.

It’s not your money to bet, so shut the fuck up.

Your foot connects with Toji’s leg beneath the table, just to drive the message home. Toji grunts, covering the pain with a clearing of his throat.

The dealer places the cards face down on the table, then picks the one on your left up. He shows it to you – the Queen of Hearts.

Fitting, Toji thinks, what with the way the dealer winks at you before he shuffles the cards around quickly then settles them into position. A cocky smile spreads across the dealer's face. He knows where the card is. And knowing you, you probably do, too.

So Toji sits back and lets you play cards while playing dumb in the dealer's face.

You lose this round, and he can tell it’s on purpose this time, pouting cutely and making the dealer blush a deep red as he shakes his head. “Chin up, darlin’. Why don’t ya place another bet. See if your luck changes.”

“I think I will,” you declare, nodding.

You place the same small bet and let the dealer do his job. When the cards are settled, you tap your index finger on your chin, pretending to think really hard about it. Then, in feigned hesitation, you select a card. Toji watches proudly, relishing the way the dealer’s eyes widen when he lifts the card and turns it in your direction.

“Oh! I won!” You grab hold of Toji’s arm, your mouth slightly agape as you motion for him to look.

“Look at you,” he purrs, taking hold of your hand. He lifts it to his lips, turning it slightly to press a kiss to your wrist, right where your pulse lies, grinning when you inhale sharply. “Knew ya could do it, angel.”

Your teeth press into your lip, a shy look on your face now. Only for a moment, then you’re shaking it off as you turn back to the dealer. “I’d like to bet more, please.”

He deals you in again, a slight look of displeasure on his face when you somehow end up winning once more. And then you win again, and again. The dealer’s fingers drum rhythmically against the table in annoyance, eyeing you suspiciously.

Now, Toji gambles, but he doesn’t gamble the way you do. His days as an outlaw involved doing anything that involved brute force. He was good at that. Need someone manhandled? You pay the right price and he’ll take the job. Got a bounty out on someone’s head? Dangle a bag of money in Toji’s face and he’ll do it. But when he left his outlaw days behind, and fell into a habit of placing bets he couldn’t make good on, he quickly figured out that all the sneaky counting cards and sleight of hand shit was beyond him. He did, however, pick up on a few things.

Like now, when he notices two random men have joined either side of you and Toji to play the game. They’re obviously shills, there to try and assist the dealer in trying to cheat you out of your winnings. The shill beside Toji places his bet, the dealer shuffling the cards quickly to confuse him. He loses, pretending to be upset when the dealer moves onto you.

You place your bet - a large sum, larger than any you’ve put in tonight and Toji’s brows rise.

“You sure about that, sweetheart?”

It’s your money, sure, but you must feel pretty confident in your ability to win if you’re willing to put so much on the line.

You nod, lips curling in a smile while you watch the dealer shuffle. “Yes, dear. I think this will be my best round yet. I just know I’ll have fun with this one!”

There’s something about that sentence that puts Toji on edge. Especially when the other man on your side leans over, engaging you in conversation while the dealer shows you the target card – the King of Diamonds. It’s a ploy to distract you, even Toji knows that. They want you to take your gaze off of the cards so that you can’t keep track of where the target is. But you stay focused even as you entertain the man, nodding along to the conversation as you pay attention to the way the cards are moved around.

It feels like forever before the dealer stops and sets the cards down. He waves his hand over them, waiting for you to pick.

You think hard, seriously this time. Toji watches the way the dealer eyes you, sweat beading along his forehead. Likely from nerves, because you’ve been sweeping the floor with him for the last few rounds and he’s sure he doesn’t want to lose more money. If you lost this large bet, you could walk away clean and go on with your night. Toji doubts it’d put a dent in your pocket. With all the heists you’ve pulled off, especially your most recent, he’s pretty sure you’re set for quite a while.

But your eyes meet the dealers, your hand floating back and forth above the cards before coming down to point to a card and the dealer makes a noise that sounds something like a mixture of a scoff and chuckle. There’s certainty in his expression as his fingers flip the card over, shaking his head.

“Sorry, Miss. Looks like you’ll have to –” he swallows his words when he sees the King of Diamonds sitting beneath his fingertips. “H-how?!”

You bat your lashes innocently. “How what, sir?”

The dealer's hand slams down hard on the table, shaking the winning bets and silencing the parlor. The pianist freezes on the keys, the bartenders stop making their drinks, the guests stop speaking, all heads turning to the table where you and Toji sit. The shills now stand, and Toji’s eyes track their movements. One directly behind you, the other to the side of him.

The dealer grits his teeth, face red with rage as he now screams. “You’re cheatin’!”

You gasp, hand coming to your chest to clutch your imaginary pearls. “I beg your pardon, sir!”

“Oh, shut your fuckin’ mouth! I know you’re cheatin’!”

“I-I’m just playin’ the game, sir.” You turn to Toji, mock concern on your face. “Right, dear? Did I do somethin’ wrong?”

And Toji nods, keeping the ruse going. “Of course, angel.” He sees the anger continue to rise for the dealer the more this drags on, his hands flexing into fists repeatedly. Does he plan to try and hit you? He hopes not, for his own sake. “That’s a serious accusation,” Toji tells the dealer. “You’d better have good proof of my wife cheatin’. You know cheatin’ at cards means hangin’ in the town square.”

“Ya want proof? Look!” The dealer flips all three cards laid out on the table, and there lies the evidence with only one Three of Clovers lying there, and two Kings of Diamonds in the spread. “See?! I knew somethin’ wasn’t right with this broad! Ain’t nobody ever won Three-Card Monte this many times when I’m dealin’ the cards! You’re slippin’ cards onto the table!”

So he’s a cheat, too. Toji should’ve called that. There’s hardly a noble and honest person working in these establishments. Even still, it boils his blood for some reason.

It may be the fact that Toji has lost most of his savings in this very building tonight, or it may be the way this slimeball has been eyeing you up and down all night trying to see how many times, how many ways and probably in how many positions he could take advantage of you, or the fact that he’s now speaking to you like tar stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Regardless, he’s getting pissed.

Toji’s gaze catches yours briefly, and you purse your lips together. He can see the wheels turning, trying to think of an excuse as to how this could happen. Everyone in the building is holding their breath, and more staff have gathered around to see what the commotion is. Toji counts about three more men around you that he believes may be with the dealer. Jaw tight, he waits for your next move.

You giggle, shaking your head as you sit your hat back atop your head, and Toji watches your mask slip off in real time. “Can’t believe this shit,” you sigh. “This damn shill,” you gesture to the man standing behind you. “He’s good.” The dealer sees your change, too, finger jutting out to point straight at you.

“I-I know you! You’re that outlaw bitch! The one that’s wanted all over for cheatin’ at cards, murder, breakin’ out of jail, and–”

“Aww, the train robbery ain’t at the top of the list yet?” You interrupt, leaning back in your seat with a pout. “Feel like that’s my best work.” You grab hold of the dealer’s finger - swift and easy, bending it back roughly, the man screaming out in pain and doubling over onto the table. “Ya got me,” you whisper teasingly in his ear. “Gimme my earnin’s and I’ll just be on my merry way. No need to cause a ruckus.”

“You fuckin’ whore, I’ll-” The man winces, crying out when you bend his finger further.

“I’d think real careful ‘bout your next words if you don’t wanna lose a finger.”

“Okay! O-okay!” The dealer concedes. “Just take it ‘nd get the fuck out of here!”

Toji can’t help but watch in awe…and arousal…witnessing you in your natural element again. You’re wild, impulsive, insane. So much so, you’ve got everyone else in this parlor frozen in shock as you pocket your winnings. They can’t seem to wrap their heads around a woman being so outwardly bold to commit a crime out in the open, and proudly, the way you are. It’s admirable; it reminds Toji of when he was at his best as an outlaw, maybe better.

You glance at Toji, tilting your head towards the money and he snaps out of his reverie and begins to move, pocketing what he can, too.

“Keep whatever ya grab,” you offer, and Toji grins. His adrenaline is pumping, heart pounding behind his ribcage as he grabs all he’s able to. This is a feeling he hasn’t experienced in so long. The feeling of winning. He doesn’t ever want to come down from this high.

When your pockets are full, tied tightly and secured, you finally release the dealer who whimpers as he holds his finger to his chest. He looks about ready to rip your head off, but his eyes dart to Toji who looms over him, daring him to say something and the dealer thinks better of it.

Now all that’s left to do is leave this place quickly and quietly. Maybe grab something to eat and find some place to sleep.

You tip your hat, and just as you turn to leave, the dealer reaches over the table and grabs hold of your dress sleeve. He yanks you forward harshly, dragging you across the table.

“I’ll kill ya, bitch!” He raises his fist and you laugh, covering your face with your arms, anticipating the hit.

You wait for him to make contact, but the hit never comes. You only hear the sickening crack of bone meeting bone, and then you’re falling hard onto the floorboards a second later. Women gasp and race out of the establishment along with some men, but the remaining people step back to take in the scene. Peeking through your arms, you see Toji’s large body standing over the unconscious and bleeding dealer.

You scramble to your feet and dart over to Toji. His eyes are hard, jaw clenched as he stares down at the man. “Toji,” you whisper, shocked yourself at what he’s done.

“He should watch his fuckin’ mouth when he speaks to ya,” he grunts, and you can’t help but erupt into laughter. And you laugh hard, until you’re doubled over and holding your stomach.

You lean against Toji’s arm, grinning as you nudge him. “You soft for me or somethin’?”

The question doesn’t even register to Toji, because in that moment, one of the shills finally finds his courage again, rushing towards you and Toji with a beer bottle in hand. “You son of a bitch!” He shouts, charging at Toji, but you’re quick to grab hold of a chair, using all your strength and swinging the piece of furniture at the man. You miss, but it buys Toji enough time to grab a chair of his own and launch it across the parlor, slamming into the back of another man at the bar.

He spins around, face contorted in rage, barking out, “who the fuck threw that?!”

You point to the shill, who points to Toji, who points to himself.

The stranger looks confused, but still furious. And he rushes towards you all, elbowing his way through the crowd as he barrels forward. He shoves several men around, all of whom are too drunk off their asses to realize what’s going on. They only know it’s getting rough here and they need to defend themselves. It only takes one drunk bastard to throw the first punch, and then it’s all out chaos. Arms are being thrown, furniture is flying, the floors are slippery with the mixture of alcohol and blood.

Toji ducks, avoiding a stray punch aimed at him, only to receive a shove in the back. He spins around, catching a man by his collar and easily tossing him aside and knocking the lights out of another man who lunges at him. It’s complete insanity here, so loud and chaotic and in the midst of it all…he finds himself having a good fucking time. This is fun for him. His fist meets the stomach of one man and his heart soars. A knee to the face of another man and his lips spread in a wide grin. His palm comes down to slam someone’s head against the table, rendering them unconscious and Toji chuckles.

Even with the cacophony of punching and screaming and cursing, Toji can hear your wild laughter floating throughout the space.

You’re going toe to toe with grown men, using whatever weapon you can get your hands on and it’s not even about defending yourself anymore. You’re simply enjoying the frenzy. You don’t care if the sheriffs show up, if they put cuffs on you and throw you in the slammer. You’re used to that. You don’t care if your involvement here means a death sentence. Why would you when you’ve been sentenced to death in multiple towns across the prairie and have managed to escape every attempt to put you down?

Toji admires that about you, admires that you don’t give two shits. You’re only interested in doing what you love and if lying and cheating and violence is what you love, then hell, he loves it, too. So Toji lets himself have fun with you.

He throws another punch, relishing the disgusting sound of a nose bone being crushed beneath his fist.

He erupts with laughter when he wraps one of his large arms around a man’s neck and he squeezes until Toji feels him fall limp to the floor.

He lifts a leg, smirking when his foot connects dead center in the chest of a man wielding a blade and sends him flying across the room.

Then in the chaos, his back connects with yours and you both swing around, ready to take out the next person. But it’s just you. You, and your jagged whiskey bottle that you’ve busted over someone’s head and hold out defensively in front of you. The poor victim of the impact lays unconscious at your feet.

Toji takes these few seconds to drink you in, the way the shy and innocent mask you had on upon entry to the parlor is long gone, leaving behind the wild outlaw he’s come to know over the years. He takes in the way your chest heaves, breasts barely contained within the confines of your corset. How you’re covered in blood and grime that he’s certain isn’t yours.

The violence and commotion behind you makes for quite the backdrop to this image he’s committing to his memory. He’s never seen a woman so beautiful.

Your lips part just slightly and Toji’s eyes dart down to the movement. You drop the liquor bottle, not caring that it knocks against the unconscious man on the floor’s head and shatters next to him. Your feet move, carrying you over to Toji until he’s just within arms reach. You’re giving him that same look you had in the alley just earlier, chewing your lip and looking like you want to eat him alive.

And he’ll let you.

Because the feeling is definitely mutual, evidence of his desire only growing in his pants. He shouldn’t be surprised that this is where the night is heading, as it’s led to this many times. But something about tonight has Toji particularly excited. So, he reaches a hand forward, hooking his fingers in the front of your corset and yanks you forward. You throw your arms around his neck, and your lips meet in a sloppy kiss, full of tongue and teeth and groans. His hands palm your ass, lifting you easily and you wrap your legs around his waist. Toji presses your core against him, at the same time he feels your holstered gun press into his side and it only makes him harder. He moves your body, dragging your center along his hardening length.

“Where’re ya stayin’?” You gasp into the kiss, and Toji steps to the side just in time for a bottle to whizz past your heads.

“Brothel up the street,” Toji groans when you dip your head low to drag your lips along his neck. You break away to stare down at him, only smirking in response.

Yes, this night is headed exactly where he thought it would.

Your back hits the wall hard, knocking the wind out of you and sending a painting that hangs on the wall to its demise as it falls to the floor and shatters to pieces. You barely have time to catch your breath after Toji has broken away from your nipples, courtesy of him freeing them from your corset halfway up the stairs to his room.

“Fuck, ya always feel so good,” Toji lets out of a garbled moan, his lips finding your neck as you grip his hair.

“Thinkin’ about me a lot, huh? So, ya are soft for me?” You ask, a giggle falling from your lips, only to be cut off when Toji presses his thick length to your core. “Ah– fuck, Toji,” you cry out. You moan when he sucks hard.

He’ll surely leave a mark, and some part of Toji finds that he likes the idea of you strolling around with the brand he’d left on you on display for all to see. He wants men to see you, see you’ve been marked up by someone else and wonder who you go home to at night. Even if it’s not Toji, at least it was him who made it crystal clear that you laid with someone who wasn’t them the night before.

He loves the idea that he gets to have you, because you choose to let him have you. It’s not a part of some scheme you’ve come up with, you don’t have some ulterior motive. You don’t want anything but to get your fill for the night, and you want to get your fill from him. You want him to have you, and the thought has him grinding his clothed erection against you in a desperate attempt to gain some friction between the two of you.

You tug at Toji’s strands, moaning at the way he ruts against you, how his tongue slides smoothly across your pulse. “Shitttt, don’t hold back,” you gasp, and Toji can’t help but chuckle.

“When have I ever, angel?”

The pet name has you looking at Toji the way you had earlier. A flash of something unfamiliar behind your gaze, gone as quickly as it appeared and your hands crash down on Toji’s chest, shoving him back. He sets you down and you shake your head, wasting no time in falling to your knees without him having to say so. He watches you lift your skirt, unholstering your gun and carelessly tossing it aside. Then you undo his pants, pull the fabric down until his clothing sits in a pool at his ankles.

Your hands wrap around his cock, thick and veiny and pump him slowly. Toji grunts, placing his palms against the wall as he enjoys the view of you kissing the underside of his dick.

“Like that, angel,” he sighs when you run your tongue over the fat vein that runs all the way from his balls to his tip. “Fuuuck…”

Your tongue reaches his head, where a bead of precum sits and you lap it up greedily, grinning when Toji’s legs tremble just slightly. “Like this?” You ask, swirling your tongue around him slowly just before you take his entire length to the base.

Toji hisses, hips bucking forward on instinct. He grits his teeth, eyes rolling to the back of his head when you swallow around him. Your throat squeezes him deliciously and he can’t stop the pathetic groans falling from his lips. You bob around him, hollowing your cheeks as you suck and take all of him with every bob of your head.

When Toji’s cock nudges your throat and you gag around him, Toji hisses. “Yes, yes, stay there,” he grits out. You hum around him, eyes alight with mischief and Toji’s back stiffens. The vibration shoots straight through to his cock and Toji leans his forehead against the wall to keep from losing his balance at the sensation. “You’re gonna fuckin’ kill me.”

Toji’s mouth parts slightly, a rough groan leaving his lips. You’re toying with him, the way you toy with everyone. You love this shit, love having whoever you set your sights on going crazy over you. You’ve got those cute lips of yours wrapped perfectly around his cock, working him closer to his release and you’re enjoying every second of bringing him to the edge. It doesn’t help when you hold eye contact with Toji while you take him in your mouth, all the way down until your nose is buried in his soft pubic hair while you lift your skirt and slip your hands into your undergarments.

Your brows knit together, moans muffled by Toji’s dick in your throat while you touch yourself. The image is so arousing, your lips stretched around him while your mouth is full. He can’t help but buck forward – once, twice, and then he’s fucking your mouth all on his own.

“Yessss, play with that pretty pussy for me,” Toji groans. He’s fucking your face at a frantic pace, and you’re taking every stroke he gives. “Ah, fuuuuck –” Toji pants, a hand coming down to hold the back of your head. He pushes your head down, forcing your throat open to take his entire swollen length down your throat, occasionally holding you there for a moment, loving the sound of you choking on his dick and your saliva more than any sound he’s ever heard you make. The mixture of your fluids drips messily down your chin, and still, Toji keeps fucking your face until you’re gagging and squeezing around him.

He pulls out, holding the base of his cock tightly. Because he’s watching you - mouth agape as you gasp for you, chin glistening and lips swollen with her hand in your pants. The sight is so sexy, so arousing, he thinks he could paint your face right this second.

You inhale sharply, swallowing as much air as you can. Your fingers tease at your clit, dipping inside your walls just briefly before your breath hitches and you whimper a pathetic challenge. “Don’t tell me you’re done already.”

And Toji grins, easily shoving himself back into your mouth. He’s even rougher with you if possible, and you seem to love it that way, keening around him as your fingers rub tight circles on your clit. He pulls away from you once, brows pulled together as he tries to catch his breath while he makes you take him down to the hilt over and over again. “Fuckin’ hell, angel. Takin’ my dick so good for me. Your throat feels so fuckin’ good. Don’t move–”

Toji scrambles forward, grunting and pressing his length all the way down your throat, so far, so desperate to feel you squeeze around him again that he’s got your head up against the wall. There’s nowhere for you to go as his hips buck forward.

“Fuckin’ take it, swallow my cock, fuck–”

Your hand finds his thigh, squeezing tight while the other works you closer and closer to your release. It feels way too good, better than any woman, any mouth Toji’s ever been in. His balls are tight, slapping loud and wet against your chin as he slams into your face.

He hears you, hears your moans as the rise in pitch, getting higher and higher with every thrust of his hips, every press of your fingers against yourself.

“Gonna cum, angel?”

You whimper in response, unable to nod or speak, while Toji’s got his dick stuffed into your throat.

“Cum for me, then. Make a mess on your fingers while I fuck your mouth,” he grunts, hips snapping forward.

Your eyes roll back, nostrils flaring as you dip your fingers into your core and feel your walls fluttering around them. Your release washes over you with such intensity, your legs begin to shake, tears begin forming at the corners of your eyes, drool falls in thick strings from your lips. And all the while, Toji is still fucking into your mouth.

The sight is one he wants to burn into his memory. You - the woman who just a few hours ago knocked men on their asses, cheated and won and still somehow escaped without punishment - now getting off on getting him off.

He’ll be sure to remember you on your knees for him, bringing yourself to ecstasy while your mouth is stuffed with his cock, tits bouncing with every thrust and –

Oh, he’s gonna cum.

Toji tells you as much, then moves to pull out, but you press your hands to the backs of his thighs and pull him back into your mouth, staring up at him as if begging for his cum.

And when you look at him like that, how could he ever say no?

He presses forward, mouth falling open with a loud and guttural moan as he finally reaches his peak. Toji’s body tenses, cock stiffening and thighs trembling as he twitches in your mouth. You hollow your cheeks, sucking him deeper if that’s even possible, and Toji’s moans only grow in volume. His cum shoots from his swollen tip, straight into your throat and you gag on the sheer amount of it.

“Fuckin’ swallow,” Toji growls, watching the way you struggle to handle all he’s giving you. “Don’t waste a fuckin’ drop. Swallow it for me, angel.”

And you do as you’re told, gulping down every thick rope of cum that paints your esophagus. When you finally release your hold on Toji, his cock softening between your lips, you gasp for air, coughing and sputtering while you wipe away the remnants of you and Toji’s deed.

“Almost killed me,” you jokingly complain, voice rough from the abuse your throat just took.

Toji chuckles, stepping back and taking your hands to help you stand. “Guess we’re even, then. I mean, ya almost got me killed tonight.”

You giggle and shake your head, pressing your palm to his chest, pushing Toji backwards until his knees hit the end of the bed and he falls back with a loud oof. You lift your skirt, climbing atop Toji and straddling his hips, and Toji would be lying if he said he wasn’t hard all over again.

“Hope ya ain’t got all that gettin’ even feelin’ out just yet, because I can think of plenty of times ya almost got me killed.” You lean forward, a hand on each side of Toji’s head and his hands find your breasts, still free from your corset. He cups both soft mounds, idly running his thumbs over your nipples and drinking in the expression you make when you moan without your mouth being stuffed full.

Toji grins, eyes honed in on the way your breasts feel in his hands. “Like the horse stealin’. That rancher almost blew your top off.”

Your lips spread with a smirk. “Well, if ya hadn’t been so fuckin’ loud when we were in the barn, he would’ve never woke up!”

Toji scoffs, “Well, ya snuck a finger in my ass! I ain’t ever had that happen! How the hell was I supposed to know it’d feel like that?!”

You both burst into a fit of laughter, reminiscing on all the crazy shit you two have gotten into over the years. You make Toji miss his outlaw days, almost make him want to go back to it. But that life’s not for him anymore. Though, it is fun to dabble in it from time to time, only with you.

Your lips find Toji’s, tender and sweet. Until - like all things you do - it’s not. It quickly turns heated, your hands dipping into Toji’s dark tresses while your lips lock in a searing kiss. You both make quick work of ridding each other of any clothing, hands roaming each other’s bodies once you’re bare.

It’s a fight for dominance in this bed. Who can kiss harder, who can leave more marks, who can pull the most moans from the other? The bed rocks with every movement, the headboard banging against the wall as Toji flips you over, pinning you to the bed with his body weight.

You hum, your hand ghosting across Toji’s muscular ass. “This looks familiar.” You take a finger along the seam of his behind and Toji inhales sharply. “Ah…by that ya meant…it felt good. Should I do it again?”

Toji’s head dips down, the tip of his nose touching yours as he breathes, “let's see where the night goes.” He slips inside of you, both of you moaning into each other’s mouths.

You move together, losing yourself in the passion of the night, disregarding the way the bed shakes.

And the way the photos and paintings fall from the walls.

And the way the headboard beats dents into the paint.

And the way the head mistress bangs on the door.

And -

The morning sun blazes high in the sky, shining through the thin curtains of Toji’s room. He stretches his noticeably sore body, yawning as he lets himself slowly wake up.

What a night - and morning. He knows he needs to hightail it out of town soon to keep from being identified as your accomplice at the parlor last night. He can’t sit around dawdling all day.

Toji sits up in his bed, already knowing it’s pointless to glance at the other side and wonder where you went. Of course, true to form, you’d made a smooth and quick exit. You’re probably long gone by now, wreaking havoc in another town. He tries not to take it personally that you likely didn’t even bother to say goodbye.

He slides off the bed, wincing when he feels a sharp sting of pain in his foot. He lifts his leg, pieces of wood falling to the floor where remnants of what appears to be a broken side table lie. His eyes scan the room, and the absolute mess all over. It looks like a damn tornado ripped through here.

Chairs thrown aside, a shattered mirror and pieces of glass all across the floor, broken art all over. He doesn’t remember you two being that rough with each other last night.

His stomach grumbles angrily, not allowing him to dwell on the mess he’s already planning on leaving behind. He searches his room for his discarded clothes, slipping on the items before he finds his bag. He’ll make a quick exit and slip out, hop on his horse and get the hell out of this town.

Toji’s not sure what he was expecting when he went to find his belongings. Maybe that you’d have taken them with you, just because it would have made you laugh to know you had your way with him then took all he owns. He certainly wasn’t expecting to find the fancy cowboy hat you wore last night sitting beside his bag, or to find a pouch of silver in his bag with a note inside. Toji unrolls the piece of paper, green eyes skimming the words.

“for the luck you keep sayin’ you ain’t got. hope that changes”

He shakes his head, a goofy smile on his face as he counts the money left for him. And it’s enough for him to get by for a while, enough for him to enjoy a bit of gambling, too.

Toji will have to thank you the next time he sees you. If you survive that long. But he doesn’t doubt that you will.

He slings his bag over his shoulder, exiting his room. He’s sure to close the door, hiding the horrendous disorder he’s leaving behind. Toji’s feet carry him down the stairs to the main floor of the brothel where it’s already bustling inside, people sitting down to enjoy breakfast. He’d have a seat, too, but he can’t risk sticking around in case someone recognizes him from the parlor. Or sees that damn room. As hungry as he is, he needs to go.

Toji maneuvers around those who stand around the room, idly chatting with each other. He’s about halfway across the room when someone calls out to him - a man’s voice. He could keep walking, ignore the man, but that would only make him look suspicious. It’s important for him to not draw attention. So Toji stops, spinning on his heel and coming face to face with the man calling out to him.

“Pardon me, sir. I’ve asked everybody in here, but no one knows a thing,” he explains as he approaches. He stops in his tracks, gaze locked on the top of Toji’s head. “Nice hat…” The man points towards the new item Toji wears.

“Thanks.”

The man stares for a few more seconds before he inhales sharply and continues. “I got word of a bar fight here last night…started by a woman.” The man reaches into his pocket, pulling out a sheet of paper and unfolding it. He holds the paper out to Toji, who just glares at it.

It’s you. Your face on a WANTED poster, beaming happily in your mugshot with the largest bounty he’s ever seen on your head.

Toji eyes the younger man - long, black hair, violet eyes and strangely stretched ears. He wonders why he’s asking about you. To collect the bounty? No, he doesn’t look the type.

“What about her?” Toji asks.

The man runs his fingers through his hair, sighing. “I’m lookin’ for her. Ran into her once and…” He sighs again, like it pains him to think about his run in with you. And Toji is sure it does. That’s typically how you leave men (and women) in your wake. Spiraling and chasing any trail you may leave behind. “I just need to find her.”

Toji adjusts the weight of his bag on his shoulder. “Ain’t seen her in my life,” he answers simply. He doesn’t wait for a response from the man. He turns, making his way out of the brothel before the stranger has a chance to follow.

The man stands there, unblinking as he watches Toji’s form retreat from the brothel. His violet eyes narrow, the rage he feels bubbling in his chest. He could act now, because he’s fairly certain that what he feels is correct.

Whatever happened last night, it involved you.

Whoever that scar lipped man is, he knows you.

He has his hat, the one you stole from him the last time he’d seen you.

But acting on his hunch would only bring unwanted attention. So he takes a deep breath, exhaling any anger he feels. After all, he’s positive that he’s one step closer to finding you again.

555 notes · View notes

hongism · 2 years ago

Text

BOUNCY. - j. yunho, c. jongho (m)

➼ genre; smut ➼ pairing; yunho x fem!reader x jongho ➼ au; outlaw/mechanics!2ho, dystopian futurism, lore accurate ateez ➼ warnings; explicit smut, some terribly unfunny mechanic jokes i’m really sorry ➼ rating; m/18+ ➼ wc; 4.9k

‘Two for the price of one!’ the sign outside the shop had read, and well, you’ve never been one to pass up on a good deal.

part of the outlaw miniseries.

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➼ smut warnings; piv, unprotected sex, semi-public sex, fingering, manual stimulation, pussy slapping, spanking, hair pulling, choking, sloppy seconds, creampie, pet names: sugar, sweets, dear & baby, dirty talk, breeding kink, name calling: bitch & slut, voyeurism & exhibitionism, dom/sub dynamics, dom yunho, sub reader, slight bimbofication, spit play, size kink, praise kink

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You pull up to Outlaw Customs, the repair shop that’s become something of a second home for your car, two minutes before closing. If it were anywhere else — and anyone else running the place — you would never dream of being such a terrible customer, but since you know both men inside well enough to have a working relationship outside of this little business they run, you aren’t worried about causing any issues. And, well, if you do, Yunho will surely let you know in his own snarky way.

The garage door is still wide open, with Yunho on full display at the mouth of it as he works on the vehicle that’s always parked front and center. As you cross the threshold into the garage, your eyes catch on a sign propped up outside that you hadn’t seen the last time you were here. Two for the price of one on any repairs! A scoff slips out of you as you eye it, and that noise is what pulls Yunho’s focus from his work to you.

“You didn’t tell me you were running a deal,” you whine, drawing a laugh from the man before you.

“We still gotta make money somehow, sugar!” He nods his head towards the other side of the car, where another familiar face sits on the run-down couch you gave to them when they first opened up shop down the street from your apartment complex. It was something of a trade and an icebreaker: you needed a cracked headlight patched up, and they needed some furniture to fill out the garage and make it more homey for any customers who would come and go. Jongho gets up when you come over though, simply to move from the couch to the desk chair right beside it, and you take the spot where he was just sat.

“What’ll it be this time, sweets?” Jongho arches a brow at you in question and leans back in the chair. He exudes the same natural attractive confidence that he always has, and it shines through in the way he’s sitting with his legs splayed out and how one hand rests on his upper thigh while the other closes into a loose fist against the surface of the desk. He’s changed up his hair since you were last here too, now accentuated with white highlights that frame his head nicely. Your staring doesn’t go unnoticed, however, and he clears his throat gently when you fail to respond after several seconds.

“Oh, um, I’m in desperate need of a new tire. Back left. I think I hit a nail on the road or something, she’s been causing me trouble for weeks now.”

“And you didn’t come in sooner?”

You draw your lips into a firm ‘o’. “I started having issues two days after you demanded to do my oil change! Which I could have done myself really, but now — I can’t see what’s causing the issue, and no matter how many times I pump the damn thing, it still has shit air pressure. Besides, if you wanted to see me sooner, you don’t have to wait around for me to have another car issue to do so.”

Jongho shifts to find something on the desk. The tips of his ears are stained red, and that color bleeds down to his neck. “Yunho is the one who demanded to do the oil change though,” he mumbles, pulling out a clipboard with a blank sheet of paper attached to it. “I’ll go take a look and do a quick inspection to see if anything stands out.”

“Keys are on the dash!” you call after him before he slips out and leaves you somewhat alone with Yunho. Said man is laughing to himself as discreetly as he can manage but says nothing in favor of continuing his fiddling at the car. “Were you really the one to demand that oil change?”

“Technically no. But I did say that if he wanted an excuse to pull you over here then he could offer to do it for you.”

“Despite knowing I always do it myself?” you inquire as you push up from the couch. Your hands come to rest on your hips, chin tilting to match the attitude in your stance, and Yunho’s tongue pokes between his lips. His eyes move over your body in a quick series of glances before he knocks the round of his wrench against the headlight in front of him as though it’s a hammer.

“Um—” he fights to clear his throat but once he starts blushing, it’s impossible to miss against his pale skin. You step closer to where he’s crouched and squat down next to him once you deem yourself close enough — that being within touching distance, that is, where your shoulder can brush against his any time he tries to move even a hair.

“What are you working on?”

Again Yunho’s gaze finds you; this time, he lets it trail over your face first before going any lower, and you grant him a little smile for the bit of unnecessary chivalry.

“You’re too pretty to dirty your hands on me, sugar.”

“You say that every time,” you argue. You never get tired of admiring his side profile, but right now it comes with the added bonus that it watching his throat bob as he swallows hard around nothing but saliva and air.

“You don’t wanna make sure Jongho’s not changing your oil without permission again?” The roll of your eyes is far from subtle by any means, and the dramatization of the gesture brings a snort of laughter out of the man next to you.

“There are other inspections you can do, right? Since I’m a regular here and all.”

“Are you really in need of new tires, dear? From where I’m sitting, it seems like we aren’t the only ones who try to find excuses ‘round these parts.”

Leaning away, you put a hand over your chest and scoff. “The audacity of this man! Jongho, did you hear that?” He’s moving back into the garage as you call out to him, slapping the clipboard against the outside of his thigh. You only get a laugh out of him which seems to you like he agrees with Yunho. He lowers the garage door once safely out of the way and moves back to his seat at the desk. “See, he didn’t say he didn’t find anything.”

“He also didn’t say he did find something, sugar.”

“And, did he?” you prompt, eyes narrowing on Jongho’s back. Even though he can’t see you, he gives you the answer you want to hear with a quiet hum of affirmation, and you flick your chin back to Yunho to send him a smug little grin. “Besides, is there any harm in wanting a good deal?”

“That depends.” Yunho’s voice drawls a little, and he presses the heels of his hands against his thighs to help propel him into a standing position. The wrench in his hand gets tossed back to the cart nearby, bringing an echoing clatter to fill the garage with noise as your eyes lock. “Two for the price of one is a big deal after all.”

“And?” You stand slowly in contrast to how eager Yunho was to stand upright, but he watches your every move with rapt attention. In this game, it’s hard to tell which one of you is stalking the other — both playing the part of a predator so well that it’s indistinguishable. In your humble opinion, Yunho’s resolve is cracking much faster than yours.

“And it comes with lots of nice add-ons but they can be a lot to handle.”

“I never pass up on a good deal though,” you murmur through a pout, deigning to look down to the floor and back up to meet Yunho’s gaze through fluttering lashes. “I like handing big loads too.”

“Oh my god.” Jongho’s voice and the following groan cut through the building tension. “Quit making gross innuendos and just fuck! Making me sit here and agonize through that shit, disgusting.” Your face draws into something close to a scowl, one that matches his expression when you turn to look at him. In a move of childish vengeance, you stick your tongue out at him.

“Let us have our fun!”

“Yeah, yeah, have your fun and fuck.”

“Not joining?” Yunho asks, hand running over the curve of your hip already.

“I’ll sit back and watch you get your fill first then have seconds later. You always feel best after he’s thoroughly used you, sweets.” Your expression is somewhere between bewilderment and a smile, eyes following him as he moves back to the couch and throws himself down to the cushions facing you and Yunho. “What? He leaves you good and loose for me.”

“Jongho.” Your tone is breaching the edge of chastisement, but the words you plan to continue with are knocked out of you in a soft oof as Yunho turns you towards the car and suddenly bends you over the hood without warning.

“He’s right, isn’t he? I do open you up quite nicely.” You brace your hands against the hood, pushing up just enough to send a look back at Yunho over your shoulder. He’s already moved back some, however, and redirected his attention to slipping his fingers between the band of your pants and the skin underneath. “May I, sugar?”

“Go on then,” comes your whispered response as you settle more comfortably against the hood.

“You look pretty splayed out against our gem, baby.” Your view of Jongho is entirely skewed like this, but you watch him as he speaks. Though still fully clothed, you get quite the eyeful of his crotch with the way he’s sitting in that same damned position that makes you want to crawl between his legs and suck him dry.

“Right where she belongs.” Yunho’s fingers are hot against your sex, cupping you through your underwear now that your pants are down to your ankles. He snaps the flat of his hand to the same spot, and the action draws a shiver out of you along with a breathy whine. “Are you up for subbing tonight, y/n?”

“Yes sir.”

“So good and I barely had to lift a finger,” Yunho coos down at you. Once again his fingers trail over the line of your lips and push fabric against your cunt, not enough to give you any sort of true stimulation but it makes your clit throb with want. “Still remember our safeword?”

“Bluebird.”

“There’s my good girl.” Yunho slaps his palm against your mound harder to accentuate his words. You let out a moan that catches you off-guard, but Yunho doesn’t allow you time to adjust to the new sensations. “Count for me, sugar.”

“How many do you think she deserves tonight?” From your perspective, you can see Jongho’s hand move in slow circles against the front of his pants.

“Hm, fifteen to start? She was mouthing off quite a lot with me earlier.” A chilling rush of adrenaline pushes through your body, a whine hanging at your lips and threatening to interrupt their conversation, but you bite it back by sinking your teeth into your lower lip. Jongho catches your slight blunder before you have the chance to hide it.

“Oh? I think she wants to say something, Yun.”

“What is it, sugar? You can count that high still, right? After all my cock isn’t in you yet. Your little head should be perfectly intact still.” Yunho slides a hand down your back and finds a resting place at your tailbone. He takes the fabric of your shirt into his palm before bunching it into his fist and yanking your body along the hood of the car. “Not a dumb cockslut yet, baby, come on and answer the question.”

“I-I can, yeah, I can count that high, sir.”

“Good girl. You sound nice and desperate already. Maybe you shouldn’t wait so long to come see us anymore, hm?”

“I won’t,” you whisper. Yunho’s hand comes down on your ass, slapping against the bare skin exposed by your panties, and the sting comes immediately. “I’ll come sooner next time.” Yunho clicks his tongue though. Your gaze is locked onto Jongho, however, and focused on following his movements as he pulls his pants down his thighs and lets his thick cock spring out fully erect and leaking at the tip already. Yunho tightens his grip on you. The pressure on your body increases tenfold, making it hard to breathe under the weight atop you. You feel hot breath cascading over your ear as Yunho inserts himself into your personal space.

“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten how to fuckin’ count, sugar,” he hisses into the shell of your ear. His tone is so wildly different than the one he uses in casual conversation — biting and scathing to the point of muddling your thoughts with desire. Nothing quite compares to sex with an angry Yunho, though you rarely can rile him up to that point and even now you don’t have him like that, just the barebones of annoyance that tease something more.

“N-No! One, one, I’m sorry sir.”

“If he’s so distracting, I can send you over to him with no prep, dear.”

“No, it’s okay, I’m — I’m focused, I promise. Please continue?” His response comes in the form of two more slaps over the same spot as the first one, sharp and pointed to make the skin beneath him heat up further. “Three…”

“Now that I’ve got your attention, make sure I keep it, sweetheart.”

There’s no real need for that reminder in your mind because once he starts building a steady rhythm and delivering the spanks to your ass with mere seconds between each one, you have no choice but to focus on him. Jongho is still before you, a sight unfolding gloriously as he strokes at his length with lazy little jerks and no intention of bringing himself much pleasure beyond that. Even Yunho goes quiet in his ministrations behind you, leaving the air to be filled with the sounds of his hand on your skin and whatever broken number you choke out after each one. You want to twist and writhe under him, to alleviate some of the burn that’s so present on your backside, but each time you try to so much as shift an inch, Yunho delivers an extra slap to your cunt. Well-placed and effective too — so close to your clit that it makes your knees buckle and you fall back into the position Yunho wants you in to carry out his task. The first ounce of reprieve comes at eleven, right when you’ve settled to push through the pleasurable punishment to the end.

“You know, sugar, you’re taking this so well that I’m wondering if we should increase the number. You aren’t nearly red enough yet, and we picked an odd number. I can’t show equal love to both sides like that.”

“Twenty?” Jongho chimes in, smile twisting as you shake your head. “Thirty?”

“Twenty is fine, I—” you inhale sharply at the sensation of Yunho running his hand along your skin. His touch is cold now, a welcome balm to the heat that emanates from the spot he’s just been hitting so ruthlessly. Your voice is so shaky that you have to swallow to contain the tremble before continuing. “It’s b-been a bit since we did this, I’m not u-used to it.”

Yunho remains quiet as he rubs his thumb over your warm skin in soothing circles for several more seconds. “One more, baby. Then you’ll be done for tonight.” He’s merciful but not entirely gracious because the last sharp slap he delivers to you feels ten times worse than all the others before, and you roll your head to push it into the hood as you cry out at the impact. He catches you as your knees buckle under you, preventing you from sliding straight down to the floor, and as you’re scrambling to regain your footing, he hooks two fingers under your underwear band. When he yanks at the elastic, it snaps against your body hard enough to make you hiss, and it burns a bit when they slide over your sensitive skin.

“Didn’t she do well, Yun?”

You crack an eye open to look over at the man on the couch and make direct eye contact with Jongho to find his gaze far softer than it was minutes ago.

“Of course she did. I expect nothing less from our pretty lady, dear. And—” Yunho pushes two fingers between your folds and dips right into your hole, bypassing all the arousal that’s begun to leak out of you “—she’s sopping wet to boot. Perfect.” The praise makes your body sing, and Yunho rewards your easy obedience by easing his fingers in and out of you with little resistance thanks to that wetness he mentioned. “You still on the pill?”

“Y-Yeah, as always. Haven’t missed a day.”

“Then I can cum in you?”

“Yes… yes sir.”

Yunho groans, and he moves his hand up from the small of your back to feel at the back of your head. He takes a handful of hair into his hold and grips tight enough to pull your head up from the car hood, but it’s not too terrible that you feel any sort of dramatic pain from the act.

“Gonna breed you fuckin’ full of cum then,” he growls, leaning into your space and knocking his forehead against your temple. “Maybe so well that that damn pill won’t work? If I fuck it into you hard enough then your body won’t have a choice but to take my seed.” A loud moan tumbles from your lips at his words. The hand you have propping your weight up wobbles, and just before your elbow locks, Yunho releases you and grabs for your hips with both hands. You’re close to complaining about the sudden departure of his fingers when he nudges the tip of his cock against your folds, sliding along the wetness in a crude form of lubrication.

“Fuck me, won’t you?” you plead quietly. You hope that if nothing else, the look on your face will convince him to get on with things, but it must be a combination of everything — the heady arousal in the air, your tone and words, even the sight of Jongho jacking off to the two of you only a few feet away. Yunho sinks deep into your cunt then; he buries the full length of his cock deep inside you, stretching you open further until it feels like you can feel him in your stomach. Your body trembles and drops forward as you press your free hand to your abdomen like it’ll help you feel him better. “God, you’re so fucking big, Yun.”

“All the better to breed you with,” he says before planting a hand between your shoulder blades and urging you all the way down once more. Jongho is squeezing the base of his cock with his other hand now, likely to keep himself from cumming too early, and Yunho is notorious for two things: his short refractory period and how long he can go without orgasm no matter what kind of stimulation he’s under.

The initial drag of his cock inside you feels like heaven, and when he thrusts back against your thighs, he does so with such force that your insides churn.

“Is she tight?”

“Insanely,” Yunho responds through gritted teeth. You try to lift your head to look back at his face, eager to see how broken his expression is right now, but he stops you in your tracks. Again, fingers threaded through your hair and locking in close to your scalp to give him the best grip that won’t hurt you too terribly much. He yanks you hard with the next thrust, and it brings your head up at an angle that stretches you hard enough to make your muscles burn with the effort of accommodating to it. “Barely been two weeks and you’re this tight again, sugar, your pussy is fuckin’ insane.”

You would laugh at the absurdity of his comment if you could, but in your current state, the only noise that can escape you are choppy moans. They’re the kind that sounds like they could come straight from an amateur porno, and despite the garage being closed, it doesn’t offer that much privacy. Anyone who walks by will suddenly become privy to what sounds like a home movie being filmed behind the metal door.

“Didn’t expect her to be this tight, fuck, I might cum early.”

You can’t warn Yunho of the same for yourself: between his thrusts, the full weight of his balls slap against your pussy from the sheer force behind how hard he’s fucking you, and the steady rhythm is just enough to stimulate your clit even without head-on contact. He knows your body well, however, and how to play you like a fucking fiddle, so when your walls start pulsing around the thickness of his cock, he shifts the angle and drives his tip so deep into you that you see stars behind your eyelids.

“Fuck, sweets,” Jongho exhales under his breath. Your vision is blurry when you open your eyes, but it snaps back to black a moment later when the orgasm hits you all of a sudden.

“Fuck, fuck, f-fuck!”

“That’s it, sugar,” Yunho coos from behind you, and his hand relaxes to run down to the back of your neck. He presses the pads of his fingers into the flesh there, poking and prodding at the muscles that have suddenly gone tense in the tsunami of sensations sweeping over you, but his thrusts don’t let up even as your walls squeeze hard around his length. Yunho fucks you hard and fast through the brunt of your orgasm. When your body finally relaxes and the waves die down to let you swim in the aftermath of it, he’s still driving his dick along your walls and knocking against your more sensitive spots. “Should I breed you now, dear? Fuck you nice and full of cum then send you to sit on Jongho’s cock?”

Your mouth hangs open enough to let saliva out of it and onto the car, yet it smears across your face when you lose the will to steady yourself against Yunho’s pace.

“Pl-please, sir.”

Yunho lays himself over you and spreads his hands to sit on either side of your head. His hips still against your backside. The fuzz in your brain nearly drowns out the feeling of cum pumping into you, without a doubt filling you to the brim. He’s still in the throes of recovery when you nudge Yunho off and out of you. You would stay longer with him inside, to feel that warmth and fullness for some time longer, but your body moves on its own agenda with a pulsing desire lingering in your gut. Despite the weakness in your muscles, you walk over to the couch where Jongho waits patiently and quietly. His gaze is heavy on you when you drop your hands to his shoulders.

“Baby…”

“Don’t stop her now, babe,” Yunho interjects. You don’t spare him a glance over your shoulder or anything like it — the movements of your body are methodical and calculated, a firm straddle over his hips and spread legs before you reach down to put your hand next to his against the length of his cock. Together, you guide him into your used cunt, pushing him in alongside the cum threatening to drip out of your body. A sigh of relief leaves your lips once he’s securely inside you.

“Feel good?” you whisper close to his face. Jongho’s cheeks are flushed, his pupils blown own so wide that you can barely see the color of his irises, and his lips glisten with spit. You can’t help yourself, you decide. He has the same thought in his mind because he’s the one to kiss you rather than the other way around, lips finding each other in a fit of passion that makes your chest burn.

“I want more,” he mutters into your mouth.

“Greedy.” You lift yourself up from his lap some, enough to let his cock nearly pull all the way out of you, then sink back down with a spine-curling pleasure that makes you throw your head back and moan to the ceiling. Yunho’s form enters your line of sight, and his hand finds the base of your throat. He stands behind you, chin tilted to his chest so that he can stare directly down at you. He’s handsome beyond belief even at this awfully skewed and awkward angle.

“Open,” he commands while tapping along the column of your throat. Your lips part completely to allow him access to whatever it is he wants from you.

Jongho’s firm and strong hands squeeze at your waist at the same moment. He takes the control from your hands, and you hand it over without complaint to let him work your cunt along his length as he sees fit and to chase his pleasure in full. Yunho hooks his thumb on the back of your teeth. It effectively holds you open and steady for the moment he decides to spit down into your mouth. The warmth on your tongue makes you wince, but then Yunho is withdrawing his thumb and pushing up against your chin.

“Close and swallow,” he says in what’s likely to be his last act of dominance for the night. Your eyes remain firmly set on his face as you do so — slow yet deliberate so that he can see your obedience in its full glory. Your reward is the sweetest gift. He lays a kiss to your forehead and taps your cheek gently. “Good girl.”

You right yourself enough to look down at Jongho, sending your focus to the lover beneath you. He lets you take his face between your hands without saying a word, but the second you lean in for a kiss, he bites out his thoughts.

“You take dick like a bitch in heat, sweets.”

“Y-You’re the one—” your voice sounds about as wrecked as you feel “—fucking me dumb.” Jongho slides his hands along the lines of your body until he reaches your ass, where the skin is still sensitive and burning from Yunho’s earlier punishment. He palms the flesh harshly enough to make you cry out. “Want you inside too.”

“One wasn’t enough? How much cum do you need?”

“She’s a proper cumslut, really Jongho. You know this.” It’s unfair that Yunho sounds totally recovered and unbothered by the rough sex you just shared; meanwhile, you’re thoroughly wrecked and still going through the motions, working towards another impending orgasm on Jongho’s cock.

“Close?” he asks with a lilting tease hanging off his tone. You push yourself against him as best you can, close enough to knock your forehead into his.

“I bet you’ll cum first, big boy. Your needy dick is begging to breed me.”

Jongho’s nostrils flare at the accusation, but it’s an accurate one with the way his haphazard thrusts are becoming more and more staggered. Nothing inspires Jongho quite like a small competition though, even if it encourages him to play dirty and reach around to your front. He plunges a hand down alongside where his cock meets your body. Your bubbling complaints about his dirty tactics fall short at the mouth of your next orgasm, and he all but steals the air from your lungs with a few little twists of his fingers on your clit. He cums with you immediately after — but after nonetheless, as you’re certain he’ll note later on. Your body sags atop his even as he drives his length into you a few more times for good measure and to milk himself for all he’s worth, adding another load to what Yunho’s already left in you.

Said man makes another appearance too, with bottles of water in hand as he lowers himself to the couch cushions right beside you and Jongho. You take one of the presented bottles with a quiet murmur of thanks, easing up from your slumped position to take several greedy sips in an effort to soothe your poor throat.

“By the way,” Jongho tilts his head in Yunho’s direction. A moment passes that’s full of silent anticipation, and it’s only when Yunho’s brows start to furrow that Jongho finishes his thought. “Her tires are fine.”

The incredulous look you get from Yunho makes the ruse well worth it, and the small flare of anger that crosses his eyes briefly only serves to make you want to tease him further.

────────────

please like & reblog this work and consider leaving a reply or sharing your thoughts in a reblog or ask!

this work belongs to caly / hongism (2023). do not copy, repost, or plagiarize in any way.

#ateez smut #ateez x reader #yunho smut #yunho x reader #jongho smut #jongho x reader #ateez fic #ateez ff #ateez fanfic #ateez imagine #ateez imagines #ateez oneshot #yunho oneshot #jongho oneshot #caly.writes #fic: outlaw series

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mamasturn · 9 months ago

Text

how many drinks? benny cross

pairing: benny cross x black fem oc (sennett aliah) summary: she's new in town and the infamous biker benny cross invites her for drinks. warning: suggestive themes. light language. tags: @faephoria @thetaoofzoe @turn-thy-paige @contrarybeliefs @qveendiorsworld @blukit04 @neewrites

She was in a new era of life. Single, childless, and without any burden on her shoulders. On her way through a town with whom she knew not a soul. It was quite bold of her, she had to admit. To trudge into a small town in the heart of Illinois with a smaller Black population than the spectacles on the bottom of her shoe, from a city in Georgia where everywhere she turned, someone looked like her.

She was far from nervous or afraid. The most they could do was call her out her name, but who was she to get bent out of shape over misplaced anger and lack of intelligence? No one.

So, she packed her car with her belongings, drove to Illinois, sweet talked her way into a small house for less than it was worth, and began to make herself at home. Home. As best as she could, she figured.

She kept in contact with her mother and cousin, who both cursed her for going to Illinois, but praised her courage and determination. She’d done what they never would have dreamed of.

After a long day of packing and sweating like a dog, she took a cold shower, shoved her legs into a pair of old Levi’s jeans, threw a distressed cropped shirt on, slipped on her boots, and hopped into her 1952 convertible.

Her dark hair blew in the wind as she cruised down the street, no care for the speed limit sign. She glanced at the speedometer. 67 in a 25 wasn’t bad, right? Her fingertips drummed along the body of the car as she hummed along to the song playing through the static radio.

If you’re looking for trouble…you’ve come to the right place.

She’d heard of a bar in town from a group of men at the gas station. Owned and oftentimes filled by outlaw bikers from Chicago. Dangerous guys, the men insisted. To stay clear of at all times. While she wasn’t easily scared, she wouldn’t do what her heart desired to do. She’d be on her best behavior; just get a drink or two, flirt with a man with a scruffy beard, and go back home to look for jobs in the paper. A solid plan, she thought.

It seemed like the world grew silent when the door of her convertible slammed shut. All eyes were on her. By their facial expressions, she knew what they were thinking. Who the hell is she? An unfamiliar woman with an unfamiliar face. It didn’t phase her. She simply gave a raspy, “Hello,” and tried to brush past the lunkheads at the door who refused to make it easy for her to enter.

“What’re you doing?” One of them asked roughly. Her eyes dropped and her lips straightened. The tough-guy act wasn’t threatening; it didn’t put the fear of God in her heart. Hell, she could have laughed at how their chests blew up like a balloon and their arms crossed over them.

“I want a drink. Heard this was the place to be,” she said simply with a shrug. She stood on her toes for a moment to eye the scenery behind them. Men and women in the corners, bikers’ wives gossipping over cigarettes and cold beer, the sound of balls colliding against each other on the pool table. “So, can I come in?”

The lunkheads glanced at once another. They were prepared to say no. She could see it by the way their tongues lifted against the roof of their mouths and their lips rounded. She rolled her eyes in frustration. What the hell did a girl have to do to get a drink around here?

“You know what, forget it.” She threw her hands up in surrender and prepared to walk away. She spent hours driving and even more time unpacking, the last thing she wanted to deal with was a lunkhead rejecting her from the bar, especially when she had money she was willing to spend on a drink.

Then suddenly, she heard a voice say. “She’s with me. Let her in.” Her head bounced like a spring. The owner of the voice stood behind the lunkheads. He nodded toward the entrance and she knew better than to think too long, so she smiled slyly at the men outside and brushed past them. “Thank you, boys.”

This was the place to be, she noted. The smell of smoke and strong liquor burned her nose and she loved it. Her eyes closed as she inhaled deeply. Finally. She was brought out of her fantasy world when he asked, “Do you want a drink?” His voice was hardly above a whisper, but his blue eyes on hers forced her attention to be directed to him. She nodded.

He led her to the bar which was crowded but they were swift to move out the way for Benny, she heard them call him, and some pretty thing from around the way. At that, she became the star of the evening. The men glanced at her like they wanted to eat her or kill her, and the women tilted their heads in interest as to who she was. She chose not to respond. Nothing would keep her from getting the buzz she so rightfully deserved.

“Pick your poison,” he said, pointing toward the wall of neatly organized liquor behind Johnny, who took on serving for the time being.

“Whiskey neat,” she told Johnny, whose eyebrows raised. The corner of her lips turned upward. “Need something strong.”

Johnny chuckled, “You got it, darlin’.”

The man, Benny, wasn’t a man of many words, she noticed. He only spoke when he needed to. She presumed he was a man of action. He had to be if rather than asking her a million and one questions at the door, he simply told the guards to let her in. Rather than asking her what she wanted, he told her to pick for herself. A man of action, she noted.

He was incredibly handsome, too. She had never seen herself finding herself attracted to a man again after her split from her husband a year prior. But Benny, he was a sight for sore eyes. Dirty blonde hair styled messily, daunting blue eyes, and a scruffy beard. Lord, she was a goner for beards.

She appreciated the dirt on his boots, rips in his jeans, and crinkled in his cut. A seasoned biker. She’d never been with a biker before. Was it worth what the women in here giggled and blushed over when their men walked in the room and gave them a wink? She wondered how bad she’d be for wanting to find out.

“You’ve got a wandering eye,” he said after some time. He didn’t look at her as he said it. His eyes were trained on the liquid he swirled in his short glass. She should’ve been embarrassed for getting caught but she was far from it. “You stare at strangers often?”

She smiled slyly. “Just the ones who get me a drink. Which, I appreciate, by the way. Haven’t been able to find a decent joint all day.” She thanked Johnny who’d handed her a drink and knocked it back in one go. That caught Benny’s attention. How she didn’t flinch when it went down her throat. How her full lips pursed just slightly, how a drop of whiskey escaped her lips and slid off her cheek down her neck until it settled at the valley of her breasts. He sighed deeply.

“Look who’s starting now, Benny,” she teased. For the first time that night, Benny met her eyes. God, he was so beautiful. She’d grab him and lick the drop of whiskey right off his lips. He beat her to the punch. She was jealous of his lip; having the ability to be caressed by his tongue.

“Never caught your name,” Benny said, not directly addressing her comment. He nodded at Johnny, who had filled both their glasses. “I’d assume it compliments that unique personality of yours.”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder, a smile spreading across her blood-red lips. “Sennett.”

Benny nodded, intrigued. Sennett. She was something spicy. She moved without a care in the world. She was bold and free. He knew from the moment she strutted to the door after hopping out of her convertible that she was a force to be reckoned with. He wanted to reckon with it.

“Sennett.” Her name tasted tangy on his tongue. Like a piece of sour candy that he knew would cause a tinge of discomfort before it got delicious. With his hands folded on the table, he asked, “How many drinks do you think you’re having tonight, Sennett?"

She shivered. “How ever many you’re willing to treat me to.”

His eyebrow raised in interest, “Good.”

She knew how to handle her liquor, but it didn’t mean that it didn’t affect her in more ways than one. Liquid courage was a beautiful thing. It had her pressed against a wall in a dimly lit closet filled with dust and cobwebs but she didn’t mind it at all.

Benny was mysterious. So mysterious and so under the radar that she didn’t expect his boldness and assertiveness to boil over the way it did. He had his hand wrapped around her throat as he claimed ownership over her lips with a dominance and intentionality that knocked the wind out of her chest.

Her red nails combed through his dirty blonde hair and tugged at the roots. Her body was on fire, lit up like a flame. She could feel the sweat gather at her forehead and droplets slid down the valley of her breasts. The throbbing between her thighs pounded like a drum. She was desparate to soothe the ache and used his thigh to rid the tension building within her.

Benny chuckled against her lips, snaking his hand between their bodies. His calloused fingers caressed her stomach, his thumb and forefinger tugging at her belly ring. She winced. Then, they dropped to the crevice between her thighs. Her jeans were thick but she could feel the warmth of his fingertips grazing her clit and she jolted. “Benny…”

His lips fell to her neck and she moaned loudly. He nipped and sucked until her chest and collarbone were bruised. Against her skin he whispered, “Not here…not now.” She released a guttural groan of frustration. Sennett could appreciate a man with logic, but goodness, all she wanted to do was have him take her right then and there.

“Why not?”

Benny broke away from her. His arm stayed wrapped around her waist with his hand stroking her backside. His right thumb swiped along the sides of her mouth to wipe away the remnants of their oral tango. “Cause contrary to popular belief, I’m a man of class.” His words were stoic but she heard the playfulness in them. “And uh, a closet isn’t comfy for anybody.”

Sennett’s hand didn’t fall from his hair and his didn’t fall from her waist. She hummed and nodded once. “Well, we’ll see how many drinks it takes you to take me in a closet next time, yeah?”

His eyebrow raised. A force to be reckoned with for sure.

#black authors #austin butler x reader #austin butler x black!reader #austin butler #writers and authors #black!reader #support black writers #benny cross #the bikeriders #benny the bikeriders #benny cross x reader #benny cross x black reader #benny x you #benny x reader #benny cross x black!reader

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ellesthots · 10 months ago

Text

Fateful Beginnings

II. “research”

read on AO3 🦇

parts: previous / next

plot: you make a very… rash decision about who you will interview, and when.

pairing: battinson!bruce wayne x fem!reader

cw: 18+, head injury, substance use, threat of violence

words: 2.2k

You were helped into the police car by two men, one in a typical police uniform and one that looked more like a detective. The uniformed one had shined a flashlight at the back of your head and told you to take a cold shower when you got back. "The head always bleeds more serious than it is," he chomped away on gum and shooed you into the vehicle. They said they'd escort you back no problem, peppering you with some questions along the way. You didn't really have much of an answer for them. You'd never been to the club before, you hadn't seen the gunshots, didn't remember what a single face looked like in the club besides the vigilante's. Which set off a lightbulb for you. Holy shit, Batman. I could do my paper on him. I need an interview.

"Uh I do know the guy that saved me," you prattled. The uniform in the passenger sneered at you.

"Uh huh, was it a big asshole in a mask?" The driver didn't share his humor towards the Batman.

"Yeah," you agreed. You didn't quite know how to phrase this next part, so you just put it bluntly. "I was wondering if you knew how to get in contact with him?"

"He sends up a bat signal, hotshot." The uniform was getting worked up, and you could tell you couldn't press the issue much longer. "What you need an outlaw for anyway?" The sarcasm turned to suspicion and you realized that the crimefighters of the town seemed out of harmony. Why didn't they like Batman?

"I've just never seen him before, I'm new here." You hoped they didn't prod you on how new; it might prove embarrassing to admit you'd been here over a year and hardly went out enough to know more than hearsay about Gotham's second claim to fame... behind the reclusive Bruce Wayne.

The rest of the short drive was quiet as the officers talked quietly amongst each other. You turned to look out the window at the pouring rain, mulling over the events of the evening. Shit. Your ears began to ring with anxiety. You went to grab for your phone but couldn't find it. Damn. You needed to contact Mar. What if she didn't make it? What if she's injured? What if she's still lying there, waiting for someone to save her?

You hastily thanked them for their time as the car pulled up to your street. You ran in the lobby and had to explain to the doorman that you'd lost your wallet, keys, and phone at the club that had been shot at this evening. This was common for them, and they knew you, giving you a spare key. You didn't have time to be worried about your belongings, you needed to know if she was safe.

You kicked yourself for not coming to your senses sooner as you opened your apartment door. You flung it open and shut behind you, racing through your kitchen as quickly as your busted scalp would allow without screaming throbs. Rummaging through the sheets you found your school iPad, opening the notifs to find 25 missed calls from her number, the last one only five minutes prior. You gasped a sob of relief and quickly pressed call. It was immediately answered.

"Y/n!!" Mar squealed from the other end, barely containing herself. You were so glad to hear her voice.

You talked for the next ten minutes before you told her you had to get off and take a shower. "My head got like, split open. The officers said it was superficial, but the Batman guy—"

Mar gasped on the other end, rattling off run-on sentences of questions. She was shocked that you'd had an encounter, and wanted to know every excruciating detail. "I've heard his voice is super intense, is it?"

"Mar, I'm sorry, my head is burning. I'll text you after the shower, okay?" Reluctantly she wished you good vibes in the shower and to make sure to message her before you went to sleep so she knew you didn't slip.

"Again, I'm sorry for forcing you to come with me tonight."

The shower burned your scalp even when it was cold. You felt the sting of every individual water droplet, and tried your best to trust the policeman who said it was okay. After an excruciating shower that felt good everywhere but your scalp, you went to grab your iPad and tried to take photos of the back of your head in your mirror. It was barely effective, only so much so that you could tell it wasn't bleeding anymore. You gently wrapped your hair and head in a towel and laid back against the pillow, going onto Verizon's site and requesting a replacement phone after sending a quick "I'm fine!" text to Mar. You thanked your precious self for getting insurance on your phone so you could get it replaced for free. After selecting 2-day shipping on a new phone, you took an edible and tried to relax.

And relax you did. The small dose that normally chilled you out affected you differently tonight, making your body light with giggles and warmth. Maybe you were so exhausted it was hitting harder. After all, the rush of adrenaline and cortisol that had hit your system tonight were off the charts. You had a brush with death. You tapped along on your iPad aimlessly, until going into your notes app and typing up a few mock questions for the Batman. It would be really cool to get an interview with him. You’d heard some talk that he worked with the Lieutenant at Gotham PD… but it seemed like he liked to keep it under wraps, as the rest of the squad didn't much appreciate the Bat. How will I get to see him? You didn't have much more time to think before you passed out, falling into a deep, restful slumber.

You woke up in the late afternoon with drool all over your cheek. Without thinking you tried pulling the towel off your head and then winced at the pain. You'd almost forgotten about the day before.

After getting some food in, you resolved to learning more about this masked madman running around in the night. Did he only come out at night? Where was he spotted most often? You only got a direct answer to one question: yes, he only came out at night. After hours of meticulous google searches and forum scrolling, you learned only a few things:

1. He only came out when it was dark

2. He responded to a bat signal, which was loosely placed in the sky above where criminal activity was present

There were a few stalkers in the forums who dedicated many nights a month to chasing crime in Gotham, hoping to catch a candid shot of Batman at work. A few had succeeded, since there was so much crime here. But it was very hit or miss, and largely depended on chance. If you wanted to find him you would have to spend nights prowling around Gotham, which didn't seem like a great way for a woman in her twenties to stay safe. Then it struck you: a ride-along.

You walked down to the lobby to use their public phone to dial Gotham PD. An annoyed receptionist answered, his voice gruff. "Gotham police department, how can I help you?"

"Hi uh, my name is Y/n and I'm doing a journalism project at GU. Do you do ride-alongs?" You tried to keep your voice clear and strong, like you could handle it. The men in this town seemed to greatly underestimate women, and you didn't want them to deny you based on stereotypes.

"Sorry ma'am, you'll have to ask the chief." He stayed on the line, loudly snacking on something that sounded dry and crisp.

You cleared your throat. "Can I be transferred to him?"

You swore to god you could hear him rolling his eyes on the other line. He did a loud chew and swallow before responding in the affirmative. "Stay on the line."

You waited, helplessly counting beeps as another tenant stood behind you waiting for their turn at the phone. The lobby was so quiet you could hear the clock strike each second, mocking you for losing your cell, each one more frustrating than the next. Just as you were about to call it quits and go make up some random topic, a man answered the phone. "Chief Gordon speaking."

"Oh hi," you stammered, twirling the phone line between your fingers. "I'm a student at GU and wondered if I could ride along sometime, I'm doing a journalism project —"

A loud sigh interrupted things. "Let me guess, you want to see him."

The apples of your cheeks turned bright red and prickling warmth traveled up your spine. "I—"

"Listen kid, you gotta stay out of trouble. A school project isn't worth this, I promise." His accent was thick and just further proved to you how much you stuck out in this city. Gordon hung up on you and you tried not to hang around, hastily handing the phone to the woman behind you as you made a beeline for the elevator. He can't just do this. You grew more frustrated with every syllable. The paper was still sitting fully unwritten with only a week and a half left until the end of the term. You needed answers. If they weren't gonna help you, you'd go out yourself.

You went to your iPad and searched for the Gotham police scanner. You remembered a few people from the forums had mentioned using it to help track him, but you had to be online the moment they said the address otherwise you'd never catch it. This is how the few people who caught sight of him had managed to do it — keeping constant nightly tabs on the city, drowning out their lives with the sound of Gotham PD, only going to sleep once the sun began to rise. You sat there for about an hour, restless, thumbing through socials to try to find any leads. There seemed to be a lot going on in town tonight, people posting videos of themselves in the club with every single one full. It was a Saturday night, of course. The people in the city didn't have anything to do on Sundays, it was informally known as 'hangover day'. You could tell who the Dropheads were, their pupils wrecked, slumped over getting an energy drink at the corner store the next morning. It seemed like a normal Saturday until the most peculiar code came up on the scanner.

"Chief, 10-79, 10-80. 10-87 Fischer and Stark." The line started buzzing with inactivity, and you scrambled to write it down. Fischer... Stark... you pulled it up on your map and saw it was a fifteen minute walk north of your apartment. But before heading there, you needed to know what the code meant. Google searches came up with 'bomb threat' and 'explosion', prompting you to swallow your nerves and get ready.

You grabbed your taser, rain boots, and a rain jacket. You rummaged around your junk drawer to find your old Apple watch to have in case of emergency, and you needed 911. It also had a voice recorder in case tonight went how it should. Thankfully it still held a charge, however meager, and you clasped it around your wrist.

The rain was nearly a monsoon tonight, with wind whacking you side to side. Once again, what was common in Gotham was new to you.

You knew how unsafe this was, but you really didn't care. You knew you should care, but you were too stubborn for your own good. A part of you wondered if you got into enough trouble, the Batman might swoop in as he did the night before. The air was chilly, even cutting through the supposedly 'windproof' jacket you bought last year to help you acclimate to the harsh weather. There was no way he wouldn't show up to a bomb threat, right? Especially if there had been an explosion? How important is this paper? It is really worth risking my life all to get to interview a random dude? But this wasn't just some random dude... this was the Batman. While many members of the public had seen him, no one had talked to him. You picked up the pace and started jogging, ignoring the dull throb of the back of your scalp. If you were able to score this interview... it would look so good on a resume. But besides the material things, a part of you was excessively excited at the prospect of getting to see a side of someone no one had seen before. To be let in like that... priceless.

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frenchkisstheabyss · 2 years ago

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♡ｐｉｎｋｒｏｖｅｒ♡

♡ Pairing: biker!boyfriend!seonghwa x chubby!fem!reader

♡ Summary: When your boyfriend accuses you of cheating, you go to his shop to tear him apart but a revelation brings you closer than you were before.

♡ Genre: angst/smut/fluffiness

♡ Word Count: 1.2k-ish

♡ Warnings: strong language, mentions of violence/criminal activity, hwa & y/n are unhinged (but v sweet to each other), daddy hwa, pet names (pretty girl/good girl), unprotected sex, creampie, oral (f receiving)

♡ A/N: I'm just down bad for Hwa with that goddamn grill in, ya'll. Outlaw Hwa is hitting different rn.

“Just go down there and talk to him!” your best friend shouts from the window of your 4th-floor apartment, “Don’t overreact!” Don’t overreact? My boyfriend’s accusing me of cheating and you don’t want me to overreact? You hop onto your hot pink motorcycle, the one Seonghwa gave you for your birthday, and smile up at your roommate. “Calm down! I’m not gonna hurt---him!” She says something else but your bike’s already roaring down the street, headed straight for Hwa’s shop.

It’s a good thing that the streets are empty tonight. Your mind’s so clouded that nothing good could come of you dipping in and out of cars, dodging drunk partygoers. Hwa would kill you if he knew you were riding like you had a death wish. Then we’re even. You already want to kill him for implying that you’d ever cheat on him with anyone. Let alone Yeosang.

Before you met Hwa you were on your own in this city. As capable as you are of handling yourself, there are bigger badder things out there than you. Not only did Hwa protect you from them, he introduced you to the girl who’d become your best friend, and accepted you into his little family like there’d always been an empty spot there waiting for you.

The love you have for each other is precious to you. It’s the one thing in life you’ve never questioned, making it hurt that much more to find out that he does. When he called you tonight saying that Yunho saw your bike outside of Yeosang’s apartment a few times you didn’t think much of it. Hwa’s been getting into some pretty dangerous things lately and he wouldn’t listen to you when you tried talking him out of it.

You thought, out of everyone, maybe you’d be able to get Yeosang to talk some sense into him. Would it be sorta awkward to tell Hwa that? Probably. What you didn’t expect was to be defending yourself against this after all you’ve been through together.

You pull up to the shop and the garage door’s open as usual. Music’s blasting while Yunho and Jongho work on their bikes, knocking back soju like it’s water. “Ah, shit” Yunho mumbles, eyes widening at the sight of you charging towards him. Stepping into the fluorescent lighting of the shop, you grab the baseball bat Jongho keeps by the door and bust a headlight on Yunho’s bike.

Yunho rushes to the aid of his baby, “My bike! What the hell?” “Did you tell Hwa I slept with Yeosang?” you ask, arms ready to take another swing. Jongho, unphased but not stupid, moves his bike out of the way to avoid being caught in the crossfire. “Hi, y/n” he says innocently, flashing you that gummy smile. You can’t help but smile back, “Hey honey, how’s it going?”

“I didn’t say you slept with him!” Yunho shouts, “I said I saw you two together…” “You said you saw us ‘together’, Yunho? Together?” Your next swing lays waste to a workstation full of tools. “Where is he?” Jongho points to the office, Yunho much too busy weeping over his baby to be of any use. Tossing the bat to the ground, you gently pat Yunho on the shoulder, “My condolences.”

You push your way into the office and, surely enough, there’s your boyfriend. Hwa sits at his desk, toiling away at his comfort engine, a piece he’s taken apart and put together a million times. Something about it helps his nerves and you’ve never questioned it.

There’s a half-empty bottle of soju on his desk and his eyes are puffy. Almost as if he’s been crying. His eyes flick up at you for a split second when you close the door only for him to continue what he’s doing as if you’re little more than a gust of wind.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk.”

“And fuck up my shop?”

“Yeah and fuck up your shop because you’re an idiot!” you yell, snatching the tools from his hands, “How could you ever think that…” Hwa shoots up from his seat, angrier than you’ve ever seen him, at you at least. “Then what were you doing with him? Hmm?” “I was…” “You were what?” “I was asking for his help to stop you..” you admit. The anger on Hwa’s face turns to confusion, “Stop me?” “From doing this…this…suicide mission!”

Tears well up in your eyes at the thought of anything happening to him. You try your best to choke them down but they’ve already begun to fall. “You trust Yeosang so I thought if I could get him to change his mind it’d change yours too.” You lower your head to dry your tears on your sleeves but Hwa’s already rounding his desk, pulling you against his chest. “I’d never do that to you” you sob, breaking away from him.

You dig the keys to your bike out of your pocket, slipping them into his hand. Hwa stares at the keys, his heart skipping a beat as he soaks everything in. “Y/n, I didn’t…” “Don’t, okay? Just…I’m sorry about your shop. I’ll pay for it” you apologize, turning to leave. Hwa blocks the door, wrapping his hand around the knob before you can grab it. “I don’t care about the shop!” he snaps, “Now sit down!”

His shoulders drop, his body language softening, “Please. Sit down.” Noticing your hesitance, he goes back over to his chair, patting his lap. “Please.” Since the day you met, he’s been using that sweet voice and those puppy dog eyes to disarm you. If he thinks it’s gonna work this time he’s…correct. “I’m sat” you huff, plopping down on his lap.

He wraps his arms around your waist, squeezing your soft body. “I’m sorry” he sighs, resting his head against your shoulder, “I don’t think you’d do that to me. You know if I did he’d be dead by now.” A quick reach into the recesses of your brain reveals flashes of what happened to the last man who tried to touch you. Rest his soul. “Then why’d you say it?” Hwa bites at his lip, looking as if he’s ready to cry.

“Hey” you whisper, stroking his cheek, “Talk to me.” Staring into his eyes it becomes clear that what you saw before wasn’t anger at all. It’s fear. “I’ve been on edge all day. I haven’t eaten or slept. I used to be so sure about this mission but now…” Hwa hugs you even tighter, “I have something to lose and that scares me. I have to do this though. They need me.”

He’s right. You can’t even argue with him about it. Trying to stop him has been a lost cause from the start but you had to do something…anything…in case there was the slimmest chance that you’d be able to keep him safe. You kiss him on his temple, petting his head, “You’ll never lose me, Hwa. Promise me you’ll come back and I promise I’ll be here waiting for you.”

Running your hand down his face, you feel his lips curve into a smile. Hwa looks up at you, the cutest thing you’ve ever seen, “I promise.” Instinctively you kiss him and, as his hands dance along the curves of your body. What was meant to be a peck on the lips quickly becomes something deeper. Turning to face him, you straddle his lap, arching against his chest.

Hwa groans, fingers kneading your plush ass. “Are you starting trouble?” You giggle, grinding down against him, “I am.” “Good” he grins, “I like trouble.” He slips away from your kiss a moment to remove the silver-plated mouthpiece adorning his bottom row of teeth. “Oh baby” you whine, lips brushing against his neck, “You know I like it when you eat it with the grill in.”

When you talk like this it makes him go feral, just like you knew it would. Lifting you onto the desk, he shoves everything behind you to the ground. Metal clicks and clanks into the darkest corners of the room as you tear at each other’s clothes, your mouths drawn back to each other with every movement. You’re two magnets bound only to each other.

Hwa pushes you back on the desk, your arms dangling over the edge as your back hits the warm wood. “Ah! Don’t let me fall!” He tosses your legs over his shoulders, pressing your knees to your chest. “Never, my love,” he says through mouthfuls of your thick thighs. Hwa grabs you by the hips to keep you still but you’re still squirming and giggling.

In your defense, his tongue moves so lightly over the surface of your skin that he makes the touch of a feather seem like sandpaper. Hooking two fingers between the cotton of your panties and your clit, he moves his hand up and down, knuckles teasing you each time they graze you the slightest bit.

“You want it?” he asks, fingertips dipping into your moistening entrance for a fleeting moment. You say something unintelligible. An answer jumbled by the loveliest moans. Taking his fingers away, he wraps his lips around your mound, taking all of you into his mouth. The heat that he breathes against you, his tongue running over the outline of your pussy, has you grabbing at the back of his head.

He tilts his head back, licking his lips, “Be a good girl and use your words. Tell daddy what you want.” “I…mmm…fuck” you stutter. You’re doing your best to focus but he presses his tongue against your slit and your mind goes blank. “Eat my pussy, daddy. Pretty please” you pout and he’s ripping your panties off before you can finish your sentence.

Hwa’s tongue dives into your core, feverishly traversing the ridges of your warmth to stroke your sweet spot. Fingers tangled in his hair, you swear you’ve gained x-ray vision with all of the stars he has you seeing. Every curl of his tongue in your center, every slurp of your folds, radiates through your body. Pleasure knocks through your system like dominos. One nerve ending sparking another. Each sensation more intense than the last.

Hwa twists his fingers into you, massaging your walls while his tongue pulses against your clit. The tighter you pull his hair, the faster he moves, driving you higher and higher until you’re ready to implode. “Mmm, that’s it. Cum for me, pretty girl” he hums, his mouth not leaving you for a second. He reaches his free hand up to grip your breast, tearing it free from your bra to thumb your stiffened bud.

“Hwa! Oh my god! Aah…yes, daddy. Yes…y…” A fire sparks inside of you, consuming your entire body. Your eyes roll to the back of your head and you clutch your hands over your mouth to muffle your screams. Hwa delights in how wet you are, creaming all over his fingers, drenching his wrist. Taking your hands away from your mouth, he kisses you, swallowing every noise you make.

“Gonna cum one more time for me? Hmm?” he asks and you feel the head of his swollen cock rubbing against your still core. Hwa thrusts into you, coming down to kiss and lick between your cleavage. You lose your grip on his hair, hands sliding down his back. “Fuck, you’re so sexy baby. Feel so fucking good around this dick.”

There’s no moment of tranquility. No chance to catch your breath. No calm before the next storm begins to roll in. Hwa’s so deep inside of you, so determined to make you take every thick throbbing inch of him. “Hwa…I…I can’t feel my legs” you gasp, clawing at his back. Hwa hisses at how wonderfully it stings, “Good.”

Heart racing, sweat coating both of your bodies, the pressure comes to a head again. “Shit…mmph…don’t stop. Fuck me, daddy!” you cry out, going limp. Hwa cradles you in his arms, his movements becoming sloppy. A uniquely strong twitch of his cock introduces a new warmth to your core as he fills you with so much cum that there’s a fullness in your belly.

He collapses onto your chest, the two of you desperately gasping for air. “Y/n, I…have…something…for…you” he says, his breathing still labored. Hwa reaches down and pulls one of the desk drawers out, digging around for something for a second. You arch your back to stretch your tightened muscles, “Is it a chiropractor?” “Not quite.”

Hwa dangles a familiar looking set of keys in your face. You pluck them from his fingers, inspecting them. Keys? His keys. “To the shop? Hwa, why are you giving me these?” He props himself up on shaky arms, “Someone has to take care of business while I’m gone, right?” “Take care of it? I can’t…I’m not you.” “No you aren’t. You’re better.”

A cacophony of twisted metal, crumbled concrete, and arguing blares out in the garage. Jongho and Yunho rush into the office, immediately turning their backs to keep from seeing more than they already have. The two of you jump to your feet, scrambling to throw your clothes back on. “Seonghwa, we have an uh…problem” Yunho coughs, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Jongho peeks out the corner of his eye, grinning, “It might get a little physical so you might wanna…uh.” Yunho slaps him on the back of the head, “Shut up.” In the distance, you can hear the screeching of tires. “Go! I’m right behind you!” Hwa shouts, clearing them out of the office.

“Are we ripping heads off?” you ask, hopping back into your combat boots. He shrugs, tossing on his jacket, “Maaaaybe.” “Yay!” you cheer, kissing him and running to catch up with the boys. Hwa rests his hand on his heart, utterly smitten with you, “Fuck, I love you! I’m gonna marry you one day, woman!”

#seonghwa x y/n #seonghwa x reader #ateez au #seonghwa x you #ateez smut #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez x y/n #ateez x chubby reader #chubby reader #plus size reader

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ohdorothea · 4 months ago

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It’s the final!!!!!! One of these songs will be crowned the queerest song from Midnights!!!

This tournament is being run by and for queer fans so please keep that in mind! Homophobes will be blocked on sight <3 More polls here and more info here! Lyrics for the songs and FAQ under the cut!!!!

Maroon lyrics When the morning came, we

Were cleaning incense off your

Vinyl shelf 'cause we lost track of time again

Laughing with my feet in your lap

Like you were my closest friend

"How'd we end up on the floor anyway?"

You say

"Your roommate's cheap-ass screw top rosé

That's how"

I see you every day now

And I chose you

The one I was dancing with in New York

No shoes

Looked up at the sky and it was

The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me

And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was

The mark they saw on my collarbone

The rust that grew between telephones

The lips I used to call home

So scarlet, it was maroon

When the silence came, we

Were shaking blind and hazy

How the hell did we lose sight of us again?

Sobbing with your head in your hands

Ain't that the way shit always ends

You were standing hollow-eyed in the hallway

Carnations you had thought were roses

That's us

I feel you, no matter what

The rubies that I gave up

And I lost you

The one I was dancing with in New York

No shoes

Looked up at the sky and it was maroon

The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me

And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet, it was

The mark they saw on my collarbone

The rust that grew between telephones

The lips I used to call home

So scarlet, it was maroon

And I wake with your memory over me

That's a real fuckin' legacy, legacy

(It was maroon)

And I wake with your memory over me

That's a real fuckin' legacy to leave

The burgundy on my t-shirt when you splashed your wine into me

And how the blood rushed into my cheeks, so scarlet

It was maroon

The mark they saw on my collarbone

The rust that grew between telephones

The lips I used to call home

So scarlet, it was maroon

It was maroon

🫶🫶🫶

Hits Different lyrics

I washed my hands of us at the club

You made a mess of me

I pictured you with other girls in love

Then threw up on the street

Like waiting for a bus that never shows

You just start walkin' on

They say that if it's right, you know

Each bar plays our song

Nothing has ever felt so wrong

Oh, my, love is a lie

Shit my friends say to get me by

It hits different

It hits different this time

Catastrophic blues

Movin' on was always easy for me to do

It hits different

It hits different 'cause it's you

('Cause it's you)

I used to switch out these Kens, I'd just ghost

Rip the band-aid off and skip town like an asshole outlaw

Freedom felt like summer then on the coast

Now the sun burns my heart and the sand hurts my feelings

And I never don't cry (And I never don't cry) at the bar

Yeah, my sadness is contagious (My sadness is contagious)

I slur your name 'til someone puts me in a car

I stopped receiving invitations

Oh, my, love is a lie

Shit my friends say to get me by

It hits different

It hits different this time

Catastrophic blues

Movin' on was always easy for me to do

It hits different

It hits different 'cause it's you

('Cause it's you)

I find the artifacts, cried over a hat

Cursed the space that I needed

I trace the evidence, make it make some sense

Why the wound is still bleedin'

You were the one that I loved

Don't need another metaphor, it's simple enough

A wrinkle in time like the crease by your eyes

This is why they shouldn't kill off the main guy

Dreams of your hair and your stare and sense of belief

In the good in the world, you once believed in me

And I felt you and I held you for a while

Bet I could still melt your world

Argumentative, antithetical dream girl

I heard your key turn in the door down the hallway

Is that your key in the door?

Is it okay? Is it you?

Or have they come to take me away?

To take me away

Oh, my, love is a lie

Shit my friends say to get me by

It hits different (It hits different)

It hits different this time

Catastrophic blues

Movin' on was always easy for me to do

It hits different (It hits different)

It hits different 'cause it's you

Oh, my, love is a lie

Shit my friends say to get me by

'Cause it's you

Catastrophic blues

Movin' on was always easy for me to do

It hits different (Yeah)

It hits different 'cause it's you

🫶🫶🫶

The question is which song is queerer to you! Queerer can mean whatever you want it to mean; you might consider a song queer because you think it was written that way, or because of Swiftian lore. It might be queer to you because of how you relate it to your own life. Maybe you think from a purely literary standpoint the lyrics have queer themes; maybe you're just thinking about vibes!!!

#tsqst

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oddinary4bts · 2 years ago

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Love is a Laserquest | choi san

☆summary: years after your break-up, Choi San comes to you for help. In an attempt to save his life, you escape to your uncle's cabin in the woods far from civilization. Will nostalgia and longing make you fall again, or is Choi San just spinning more lies to you?

☆pairing: gangster!Choi San x female!reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI)

☆genre: gangster au, exes au, angst, smut, a smidge of the one bed trope

☆warnings: guns/gun violence (mentioned), knifes/stabbing (mentioned), a bounty over San's head, death of a minor character (named Jungkook my bad), blood, injuries, stitches, probably some wrong medical terminology bc optometrists don't stitch up people lmao, a panic attack, cursing, pet names, explicit content: oral sex (female receiving) -> face riding, let me know if I forgot any!

☆word count: 16.5k

☆a/n: Here's my submission for Outlaw: The Project hosted by @ssaboala. It is coincidentally my first time posting about another group than bts, so I hope this won't disappoint! I really enjoyed writing it (even though it's really sad oop). Also my first time making a moodboard so hopefully it works haha

☆a/n pt2: thank you to @moonleeai for being my ever-so faithful beta reader, love you lots <3

☆☆☆☆☆

And do you still think love is a Laserquest? Or do you take it all more seriously? I’ve tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I’ve had But you’re always busy being make-believe

Love is a Laserquest – Arctic Monkeys

☆☆☆☆☆

The diner is silent, unoccupied. It always is on late weekday evenings, when most patrons have gone to bed, the city falling under a carpet of hushed silence only night can bring forth. It makes the diner feel like it’s straight out of a 70s movie, and it makes for the perfect study sessions too.

Night isn’t always soundless in your part of town. Hence why you’ve been trying to escape, pursuing an education that has been leaving you penniless, but with a bright future ahead. If you make it out of med school at a certain point, that is.

Tonight, you fear the peace that night usually entails has been ruined for you – there were gunshots earlier, close enough for you to see the police cars racing past as the law officers made it to probably yet another gang fight.

There’s been a gang war on your side of town. The diner has always been safe, a refuge for both sides of the war, where they aren’t allowed to fight. To carry in weapons and hatred. No, the moment they cross the threshold of the diner, the gangsters become one family, sharing struggles that only poverty can cause.

You wipe a table clean before walking back towards the counter. Your open laptop waits for you, and you quickly read the study guide you’ve made for yourself, the cardiovascular system and its pathologies forming a maze in your mind that you’ve yet to decode. Luckily enough, you still have a week before the bloc ends and you have to take the exam.

Plenty of time to cram everything about the heart in your thick little skull, you’d say.

Your lips move in time with what you’re reading, attention solely focused on the bright screen when a thump is heard right outside the door. It startles you, and you turn around to see the empty street out of the glass door.

It takes you about ten seconds to notice the dark form sitting on the ground. They’re leaning against the door, head lolling to the side. You assume it must be someone that’s ended unhoused, something that happens far too often where you live.

You’ve always been kind. When you were younger, you were told your kindness would be your demise. Yet you’ve never been able to be anything but kind, even though sometimes it might put you at risk. So you can’t resist but walk to the front door, trying to push it open.

It’s useless – the weight of the person is keeping it tightly shut, though they do straighten a little, as if coming to their senses. They turn, and the moment their profile comes into view you’re brought back eight years in the past. To a time when the world was still a beautiful place, void of violence and cruelty. To a smile so sweet it made flowers blossom on your heart, and to eyes so sharp you knew they had read your soul.

Choi San is sitting outside the door, and the caked blood on his cheek tells you enough – he’s injured. He pushes away from the door before slowly getting up. He clutches his side as he does it, yet when he turns back towards you and faces your horrified eyes, he still offers you a smirk.

You push the door open, thinking about the years between then and now. You had dated him for a few months that had felt like forever, until you had realized in what kind of business he was getting involved with. You had tried to convince him to flee before it was too late, and he kept promising that he would.

Only he never did, hiding lies with beautiful words that made your teenage self swoon, until your parents had realized and forced you to break up. It had been a nasty break-up, filled with hatred and words you didn’t mean yet had needed to say for him to leave.

You remember breaking his heart like it was yesterday.

“Choi San,” you greet him, and when he lets go of his side, you notice blood on his hand.

Something runs cold inside of you, even though he still sports a smirk on his lips.

He says your name, bowing his head. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Months, in fact. Because he does come to the diner sometimes. He usually ignores you, and so do you, so it feels strange to have him speak to you. To hear his voice as his words are addressed to you.

“What…” you trail off, glancing down at the ripped fabric of his black tank top.

He’s got a mean cut on his ribs, and it’s only then that you truly realize that he’s badly injured. Because there’s more – one of his biceps has been sliced open too, though blood is barely oozing out of it in small rivulets. The blood on his cheek is from where you assume he’s been punched with rings, and there’s already an underlying bruise under his eye.

“Got beaten up,” he states the obvious, and you immediately open the door wider to let him in.

He limps in, heading towards the nearest booth, where he plops down and lets out a pained grunt. You make sure no one is outside before shutting the door and locking it, flipping the hanging sign on it so it says closed in case a patron decides to show up.

You take a few steps towards San, hands shaking slightly at your side. Because that’s a grown man, bleeding out on the leather seat of the booth, and his eyes are shut though he looks in pain. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do. You haven’t yet started your residency, haven’t really gone from theory to practice… Yet you’re studying to be a doctor, are you not?

“Why are you here?” you ask, though you’re pretty sure you know the answer.

“Didn’t know where else to go,” he says, wincing as one of his eyes opens. He tilts his head to look towards you. “Word around the block says…” he pauses, takes a deep breath before continuing, “that you’re studying to be a doctor”.

So you are right. He’s here because he needs your help, and you’re not quite sure how you feel about it.

“Why…” You look for words, and it takes you a moment to realize that it doesn’t matter.

For all the history between you and him, Choi San doesn’t deserve to bleed out to death on a cheap leather seat in a forgotten diner on the dangerous side of town.

He has the decency to chuckle at the start of your question, which only makes him wince in pain once again.

“Don’t move,” you tell him, and it’s a little stupid because clearly, he’s in no state to move.

He doesn’t question it, and you run to the kitchen to thoroughly wash your hands and grab the first aid kit. At night, no cooks stay around, and you usually only reheat food if needed, which doesn’t really happen. You haven’t had any client coming in at night in weeks… until San, that is. So no one is there to see what is going on, which you reckon is a relief. Because you have no idea what’s going on.

You return to the booth where San is waiting, patiently. He’s clearly wiped his hand on his face because there’s fresh blood on his forehead, and you almost balk at the sight of it.

“What have you done?” you mutter, more to yourself than to him.

It seems he’s still in sync with you because he still hears. “Got involved with the wrong crowd.”

You put the first aid kit down on the table, ignoring his eyes when they flutter open, and he rests his gaze on you.

“I don’t know if I can help you,” you say as you unzip the kit and throw it open. You spare his side a quick glance. “This looks like you’re going to need stitches.”

He makes an effort of looking down at himself, though it mostly fails as he doesn’t raise his head from the seat. “Right.”

You grab everything you think you might need – alcohol swabs to clean his skin, fresh linen to bandage his side and arm, and stuff for his cheek too. He carefully observes you, with that piercing gaze of his that used to make you go crazy inside when you were young and impressionable.

You vaguely motion at him, and he cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Are you able to sit up?” you ask. “I can’t reach you if you’re lying back like this.”

His pink tongue darts to wet his lips, and he nods curtly. “Let me…” he trails off, resting a bloody hand on the table while he grabs at the back of the booth to push himself up. It has new blood appearing on his side, and you quickly move towards him, putting some linen against it.

As if it’s going to do anything. He clearly needs stitches, and you’ve got nothing with you to stitch him up.

“Fuck,” he curses lowly as he’s finally sitting. You just keep the linen on his side, eyes a little wide.

Your gazes connect inevitably, and time slows. You think about how he used to smile, how his eyes used to hold a softness you haven’t had the chance to see again since he’s walked out of your life.

Or rather, since you kicked him out of your life.

“I don’t think I can help,” you whisper, and his eyes flicker to your lips.

“I can’t go to the hospital,” he admits, shame turning his features into a mask of regret. “They… If they find me, I’m dead.”

Dread fills every ounce of your being. “San, what have you been doing?”

He looks away from your insistent gaze, scoffing slightly. “You don’t want to know.”

He isn’t wrong; you genuinely don’t want to know. Because he means nothing good, even with all the memories you share with him.

“Is it going to put me in danger?” you ask, as he still obstinately avoids your gaze.

He seems to freeze in front of you, as if you’ve pressed pause to your favourite show. To avoid the awkwardness, you busy yourself with grabbing one of his hands so he can hold the linen in place before you start washing the cut on his arm. It’s not deep, but you’re pretty sure it’ll still leave a mean scar, especially considering he can’t go to the hospital.

The thought has a drop of cold sweat roll along your spine. People want him dead. People want Choi San, the man you know as a young, scared teenager just trying to find a way to make his life better, dead. You remember the innocence in his smile – has he smiled at all in the years apart?

“I should go,” he says flatly. He moves to stand, but you hold him down, two hands firmly placed on his shoulders. It makes him wince, and you quickly release your grip.

“Don’t,” you tell him. “Let me at least patch you up.”

His eyes shut again as his head hangs low. “I am so sorry.”

You don’t even know who he is apologizing to, or why he is. All you know is that it causes your heart to clench in your chest, stealing the breath from your lungs.

When you were younger, you believed San was your star-crossed lover. You believed your high school sweethearts romance would grow until you’d be old and grey and at the end of a very long road. You had dreamed of a future with him, the way only teenagers can dream – with no sense of reality. Because your reality had never been to end up by his side.

His choices had been proof enough of it.

You still remember the day you first kissed. Under an August meteor shower, with just the night sky as your witness. It had been hesitant, slow and soft, just like everything with San. And you had believed the lie, trusted it with every beat of your little heart, until your parents had found out the truth about him.

Until they had broken your heart, even before you had broken his.

If the stars had known then, what was going to happen to you and Choi San, would they still have shone through the night?

He lets out a pained sound as you gently dab at the cut on his bicep. You clean the skin around the wound in and of itself, and he watches you carefully, piercing gaze not missing how your face clouds with memories.

“How have you been doing?” he asks so softly you think his words are a gentle summer breeze on your features.

You can almost still smell the summer night air of that field where you had stargazed, where you’d always meet so long ago.

“I’ve been okay,” you answer, truthfully. Because even though you haven’t seen him, you have lived your life apart from him. Have evolved without him by your side. “Better than you, visibly.”

He didn’t expect the joke. It makes him snort, and then a soft smile grows on his lips, softening the edges of his hard features. “You haven’t changed.”

You have, and yet you haven’t. Like him, you think there’s a part of you that is still sixteen, and will forever be. A part of you that remained stuck in the moment when you watched him walk away in the rain, as if even the sky had to cry for his broken heart.

“Wish I could say the same about you,” you murmur, nostalgia a melancholic song in your words.

He chooses to remain silent, because the proof of how much he’s changed is sitting right in front of you, wounded and bleeding and hurt. The hurt is behind his eyes, in the shadows of the past that have also been obscuring your vision.

“Yeah,” he lets out, barely audible.

And then silence reigns between you, because as much as you once loved him, eight years have made you strangers. You don’t know anything about his life except the dirty, obvious darkness that surrounds him, and he doesn’t know anything except that you are studying to be a doctor…

Which leads you to wonder how does he know in the first place?

You ask him, as you’re wrapping the linen around his bicep to make a makeshift bandage. You’re proud of the result, though your fingers can’t resist but linger on the taut skin over his muscle, surprised at how soft it still is.

“I’ve heard you mention it,” he admits, as you take a step away to look at the material on the table, as if it’ll suddenly make stitches appear for you to put them in his skin. “One of the times I was here.”

“You never said hi,” you reproach him, unable to hide the ghost of a bite in your tone.

“Neither did you,” he points out, and he isn’t wrong.

All you can do is purse your lips as you finally decide to clean his skin. But for that, you have to rid him of his tank top, to make sure there’s no fabric in the wound. You look at him, cheeks somehow burning even though all you’re doing is taking care of a patient.

Though he’s not a patient, and you’re not in a hospital. You’re just a server at a dusty, old diner and he’s just your teenage lover, wounded by his dangerous actions.

“Should I grab scissors to remove your shirt?” you ask, though you’re speaking to yourself more than to him.

He still finds it in him to tease. “You want me out of my shirt?” he enquires, smirk gracing his lips again. “Say no more.”

He tries moving, but you hold up a hand to stop him. “Don’t,” you warn. “You’ll make it bleed more.”

He purses his lips, because nodding. “Right.” He glances at the first aid kit, before his eyes trail to your face again. “You got scissors in that?”

There are. You grab them, before turning towards him. It feels strange: you’ve never undressed him before. You had always wanted to wait, back then, before you slept together. You believed you were too young, and San had always respected it.

“Let me know if I hurt you,” you tell him as you take a step closer to him.

He slightly leans back, furrowing his eyebrows. “What do you plan to do with those that might hurt?”

You roll your eyes, playfully, before taking the two other steps leading to right in front of his legs. You notice that they are slightly parted, allowing you to come closer, and you take a steadying breath before reaching between you, pulling at the fabric of his tank top.

“Stay still and you shouldn’t get hurt,” you whisper, ignoring the heaviness of his piercing gaze on you.

It burns right through you, and you have to tame the beats of your heart at the feeling of the warm skin of his shoulder against the back of your fingers as you bring your other hand forward, until you’ve started cutting his shirt.

It’s stuck to his side where blood has dried, and he winces but remains still and silent as you keep going, pulling on it a little harder to be able to cut. The moment stretches into infinity, because you can’t help but take your time. It reminds you of how you’d used to run your fingers on his back, under his shirt, when you napped in the field in the summertime. In an idyllic world where gangs and violence and war were mere inventions of the media, and not a reality that surrounded you.

You’d loved the field. The wildflowers, the open air, the way it was just you and him and a few lazy bumblebees as clouds lazily crossed the sky above. You were so young then, so innocent. Hands unstained from blood, from his blood.

Because as you cut, the hand touching his shirt stains with blood. You pale at the sight of it, but you keep going, pushing through until you’re done, gently pulling the fabric from his body until he’s sitting there, shirtless, with a long wound on his ribs.

You can’t help but notice his toned chest and the defined abs on his stomach. Though blood mars his skin, turning it into a piece of violence, Choi San is still beautiful. Beautiful in a dark, dangerous way that has you glance outside, making sure no one is looking.

But the streets are empty, void of life at this time of the night. At least, they mostly always are.

“You will need stitches,” you state again as if you both don’t know already.

“I can’t…”

An idea forms in your brain. It’s a stupid idea, and you don’t even know why it crosses your mind.

Your uncle has a hunting cabin far in the woods. He’s a nurse himself, and he’s always kept everything over there in case someone got injured and he had to stitch them up. You haven’t gone in forever, but you still remember the tall trees, the deep forest scent that reminds you of autumn and leaves and grey days spent reading by the fireplace.

You never went hunting, but you did accompany your father when he went, needing an escape from the city once in a while. An escape from a life that was slowly becoming too real.

Your uncle is currently halfway across the country, so you know you’d be alone at the cabin. You glance at your laptop over your shoulder – you have three days off in front of you before your next class on Monday. Indeed, the Friday class is pre-recorded and to watch online in your free time, and you figure you can always watch it some other time.

So you turn towards Choi San, almost surprised that he’s real and he’s still sitting in front of you, honey skin cut open on his ribs.

“I might know a place where you can go,” you admit, with a small voice, surprising both you and him. Because you doubt he expects you to want to help, after tonight.

“What?” he asks.

“My uncle’s cabin,” you remind him, because you’ve told him about it all those years ago. “He should have all that I need to stitch you up.”

San looks down at himself. “You’ve just cut my shirt open.”

It sounds a little dumbfounded, and you can’t help the nervous laugh that falls from your mouth. Because even though it doesn’t look too deep, the wound still is terrifying in and of itself.

“I’ll bandage it,” you whisper. “Before we go.”

He seems like he ponders for a time. You watch the debate across his features, his eyes falling to a spot on your chin. He looks sad, troubled and defeated. “I can’t… I can’t do this to you.”

You ignore his words, carefully washing his side. You avoid the cut and try to be as gentle as you can, but his muscles still flex as he clenches his fists from the pain.

He’s strong. That much hasn’t changed. Because he doesn’t make any sound as you finish washing him and then patch him up with those same careful hands. And when you move to his face, cleaning the blood, his eyes flutter shut, and he sighs softly.

He looks so much like he looked then that your heart aches, and you find yourself blinking away tears for this man who’s had it so rough he believed joining a gang would save him.

“I should have come to you before,” he murmurs. “You’re much gentler than Hongjoong.”

You don’t know the guy he mentioned, and you don’t feel like asking. Don’t feel like acknowledging his words, so you just finish with his cheek before stepping away from the peaceful aura that was treacherously pulling you in.

Like all those years ago, you reckon.

“Let me make a call,” you say, turning away from him as you move to the counter. You feel the weight of his eyes between your shoulder blades as you get your phone from next to your laptop. You call your boss, and as someone that’s never called in sick before, you feel anxiety flush through you.

Because you’re not sick. And how could you tell him that you need to take care of your ex-boyfriend of eight years ago?

Seokhyun picks up on the first ring, voice groggy with sleep when he mutters, “Hello?”

“Boss,” you greet him. You scrape your throat and spare a look towards San who’s watching you curiously. “An emergency came up, and I have to leave the diner.” You swallow the lump in your throat that’s formed from lying, and then you add, “There haven’t been any customers all night, so I was wondering… would you be comfortable with me closing for the rest of the night?”

Your boss says your name, a little reproachfully. But then he sighs, because he knows just as well as you what a good employee you’ve always been. “Are you going to be able to come in tomorrow night?” he asks.

You pull at dry skin on your bottom lip, assessing San’s state. You could always come back to the city for work…

“You know what, I know you’ve got that big exam coming up,” your boss says, sighing into the phone. “Why don’t you take the next week off so you can take care of your emergency and focus on your studies?”

If Seokhyun wasn’t a fifty-three year old married and father of three children man, you think you’d ask him to marry you right now.

“That would be really helpful,” you tell him, gratitude dripping from your voice. “Are you sure that won’t be a problem for the diner?”

“The diner won’t lose profit if it closes for three nights in the week,” he points out. “I’ll see if I can get you replaced for the evening shift on Sunday.”

You thank him again as he grumbles that it’s nothing. He wishes you good luck, and when the line goes silent, you finally meet San’s gaze again.

“All sorted out,” you tell him, offering him a nod. “Let me just close the diner, and then we can go.”

He nods, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He observes you as you do so, quickly closing the diner like you’ve done about a hundred times before, though this time you’re far more excited to go. You grab a plastic bag to put away the bloody swabs, and though he groans in pain, San gets up to help you clean the blood that stained the cheap leather of the booth.

Soon enough, you’re ready to go, and you walk outside with the plastic bag in one hand and your backpack on your shoulders as San chuckles, looking down at himself.

“Do you have a shirt for me?” he asks as he follows you out.

You lock the door behind you before glancing at him. He’s quite the sight, naked from the waist up and bandaged like he is, and you can’t help the small chuckle you let out as you glance towards your car, that’s luckily parked right in front.

Though it’s a deadbeat car, you trust it enough to know it’ll make the trip to your uncle’s cabin, even in the middle of the night.

“My ex left some sweaters on the back seat,” you admit as you unlock your car doors and open the trunk to put your backpack and the plastic bag in there. There’s no chance in hell you’ll leave a plastic bag full of bloody swabs near your work.

You see San nod from the periphery of your vision, and then he’s opening the door to the backseat. “Your ex, huh?” he mutters as he grabs a sweater you used to love wearing and that you haven’t convinced yourself to give back to Hyunmin.

He carefully puts it on, and you’re pretty sure just the motion is going to make blood seep through the bandage. Somehow, you don’t care that it might stain Hyunmin’s sweater.

Hyunmin was a cheater, and even though you never really loved him, it took you months before you found the strength to break up with him. Needless to say, he doesn’t deserve his clothes back.

“Yeah,” you flatly say as you move towards the driver’s seat. You sit, and San follows you, naturally, as if you’ve done it a thousand times before.

As you turn the keys in the engine, San asks, “Have you dated a lot?”

You bristle at the question, shooting him an embarrassed look. “Have you?”

“No,” he replies, features fully serious.

You purse your lips, focusing on the road as you start driving. You need to put gas in the car if you want to get to your uncle’s cabin, so you make your way towards the closest one. It takes you a moment before you register how San has stiffened next to you.

“Can we…” he trails off, and he sinks in the seat, trying to hide. “I can’t be seen here.”

You immediately press on the accelerator, and your car speeds down the street as you pass in front of the gas station. You glance at San only when you’re stopped at a red light. He’s pulled the hood of the sweater over his features, and he’s doing his best to hide.

“Where can we stop?” you ask.

“Next town over,” he answers. “I just can’t be seen in Bangtan territory.”

Right. You have no knowledge of how the gangs have divided your city, but you’re not surprised Bangtan has this part of town. It’s the industrial area, and you assume there’s a lot of money to be made around here.

“Sounds good,” you gently say, and then you’re driving again, the light turning green, allowing you to speed away into the night.

You drive silently all the way to the next town, watching your city disappear to be replaced by trees until buildings reappear. San is looking outside the window, and you can’t help but wonder how he’s been doing, truly. How he managed to get injured like he is right now, and mostly, if his dreams of running away still occupy his thoughts.

He had begged you, the evening you had broken up with him. Told you he’d make enough money to be able to move with you across the country and build yourself a nice little life over there. You had wanted to believe him for so long, until your parents had opened your eyes on just how he was trying to make money.

“Do you need anything?” you ask as you finally reach the gas station, pulling into the driveway. You park next to a pump, turning to face him only to find him already watching you.

“I don’t have money to pay for food,” he admits. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I lost my wallet in the… altercation.”

You gently put a hand on his forearm. “Hey, my treat. We have to eat.”

He inhales deeply, letting out the breath slowly, before he nods. “Alright. I owe you.”

You reckon he’ll owe you for a lot more than just food at a gas station, but you choose not to say it. Not when you feel like someone’s watching over your shoulder, watching you drive away in the night with the person they are looking for.

You know it’s paranoia. No one followed you out of the city and into this town. It just feels too strange to have him here, with you. In your car, on the way to your uncle’s cabin, as if eight years have gone out the window. As if you can still be young and innocent.

It’s stupid, because you can’t. Time has changed him; time has changed you. And in just a few years you’ll be a doctor, and you’ll finally get out of this hellhole of a city, of its dangerous streets.

Of its equally dangerous man, that you know could probably pull you back in with one of his many well-crafted lies, one of the dreams he weaved expertly, whispering it into your ear.

You take a deep breath before getting out of the car. You go into the station, grab snacks for the next few days and then head to the counter. The guy behind nods as you approach, and you pay for the food and for gas before wishing him a good night and returning outside. San is still squatting in the car, clearly trying to hide, and you put the food on the backseat before putting gas in.

You watch his profile as you put gas in the car. Back when you were dating, his features weren’t as sharp, as glass-cutting as they now are. He used to sport a rounder face, but today you wonder if you’d get a papercut on his jaw. You wouldn’t even be surprised.

When you’re done with gas, you sit back next to him, and you quickly bring the engine back to life before pulling out in the street. As soon as you exit the city, darkness falls on the two of you, tall trees standing on the two sides of the road again. San doesn’t speak much, and it doesn’t take you long to realize he’s dozing off next to you.

“Hey, everything okay?” you ask, suddenly worried that he might have lost too much blood. Which, you reckon, you should have thought about earlier.

He sighs, glancing towards you. “Just tired.”

“Don’t…” you trail off. “Don’t fall asleep.”

He chuckles. “You’re afraid I’m going to die on you?”

“Choi San,” you warn. “Don’t you dare say stuff like that.”

He smiles, but you reckon he’s a little pale. Or at least you think he is, in the silver light of the moon up above. “I think I’m fine. Just…” He offers you a weak smile, though you’ve returned your attention on the winding road. “Just exhausted. I haven’t slept in three days.”

Worry clutches your heart, and you nibble at some dry skin on your bottom lip. “What’s been going on?”

He slightly shrugs. “I can’t tell you. I don’t want to put you in danger…”

“Am I not already in danger by just helping you?”

The silence is telling enough. And it remains for a while until San finally speaks.

“I was in a gunfight a week ago. Accidentally shot the youngest member of the other gang. He didn’t make it, and the gang has put a bounty on my head. Ateez took my gun and told me to run; I laughed in their face and said I wasn’t a coward. Then I got attacked by two guys with knives earlier, and I made it to the diner because I had nowhere else to go.”

Now the silence is deafening, heavy, and you think you’ve altogether stopped breathing. You’re struck with an image of San in the summer sun, smiling wide as he put a flower behind your ear, claiming you were the most beautiful girl he had ever met. The contrast with who he is now – a product of night, shrouded in darkness with no hint of that smile on his lips – is stark. And you wonder when’s the last time he has seen the sun, when’s the last time his life wasn’t violence like this.

When you say nothing, he scoffs, resting his head against the window as if it’d allow him to escape. Because clearly he wants to escape – he’s just told you that he’s killed someone after all.

And you don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to react to someone confessing murder. All you can do is stare at the street ahead, hoping you won’t end up in a gunfight with San. Because where would that lead you, other than in the dramatics of death?

You don’t speak for the rest of the ride. You don’t think he sleeps either, and dawn is clinging to the far horizon when you get to your uncle’s cabin, in a secluded forest that seems straight out of a fairytale. Instead of bringing you awe like it usually does, the sight of it makes you think of all the murder mysteries you had been obsessed with when you were younger, before you realized how horrible the real world truly is.

Neither of you move, as you turn off the engine of the car, and you fall into even more of a tensed silence, though this time you can hear the chirping of the early birds. It’s peaceful, so peaceful you can barely even grasp how tangible the presence of San is next to you. The presence of his actions too, looming between the two of you like a sword of Damocles.

You move first. Putting a hand on the knob, hoping to escape the heaviness into the dawn. San speaks before you can though, and your heart stops in your chest.

“I never meant for him to get hurt,” he murmurs, and you think he’s speaking to himself more than to you. “Everything went too fast, my gun was in my hand and I just… in situations like these, you don’t have time to think.” He leans his head against the headrest, eyes closing. “All I can picture since it’s happened is him falling and blood. Like a fucking blossoming rose, all around him.” He rests his closed fist on his forehead, rubbing it hard. “I haven’t been able to sleep; I’ve been sick every time I’ve tried to eat…”

“San,” you interrupt as you break and break for him. Because this is the San you know. This is the young boy that just wanted to escape and live in a better world. You can almost taste his remorse, taste his regret and shame. It’s poisonous, treacherous, a slippery slope that can’t lead anywhere good. “Let’s get you in. I want to get that cut on your ribs checked.”

He falls silent, and for a moment you feel guilty. Because what if he had more to say? You don’t even think you would have been able to listen. You need the escape, and you know he’ll permit it. Because the man next to you is a broken man, a fracture of what he could have been.

You step out of the car, blinking away tears – from the anxiety, from the exhaustion, and perhaps even from the pain you feel for him. He follows you, wincing as he swings his legs out of the car. He stumbles a little as he stands, but soon enough, he grows steady on his feet, and his attention moves to you. You climb the stairs of the cabin, lifting the rug to find the small trap that leads to the spare key. The padlock is rusted, but it stands strong as you put in the code, and a click is heard when you pull on it.

A few seconds later, you’ve unlocked the front door, pushing it open to reveal the cabin as you remember it. Not a single item is out of place, though dust covers everything, a clear indication that no one has been here in years. You let San in, before going back to the car to get the food you bought, bringing it in and putting it in the fridge. Three full gas canisters hide under the counter, and you sigh in relief – you’ll be able to get the generator on for some electricity.

You motion to the kitchen table. “Have a seat,” you tell San, who somehow looks like a lost puppy. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

He nods, remaining silent, eyes downcast. You only move when he’s seated, heading to the bathroom area of the cabin, where you startle a spider that almost makes you scream out loud. You keep it in, heart beating out of your chest as you get the kit before moving back into the main area.

San is leaning against the chair, eyes closed. He senses you approaching, and one of his eyes cracks open to watch you carefully, a little like he did earlier, at the diner. It looks so similar to how he used to look at you, when you joined him at the field, that you stop in your tracks, heart squeezing once again.

You don’t like the way Choi San is making you feel, that’s for sure.

“Take off the sweater,” you tell him, putting the kit down on the table. You put some clean linen next to it, to put what you need over it, before washing your hands with the disinfectant you find in the kit. You put latex gloves on after, and then you fish wire and a surgical needle from the first aid kit that you carefully put down on the linen once you’ve torn the packages open.

As you were doing all of that, San took off the shirt, struggling a little as it meant he had to lift his right arm, which pulled at the skin of his ribs, where the cut clearly has started bleeding again. Though, if you’re honest to yourself, you’re pretty sure he’s been bleeding this whole time, even though it probably was just some fine rivulets.

Indeed, the cut isn’t all that deep, you remind yourself. Mostly because you don’t want to even think about the consequences of the blood loss. As long as he stays awake, you figure he’s fine – he would have lost consciousness a while ago if he was losing a lot of blood.

You remove the bandage you had carefully put in place earlier, wincing at the sight of the blood that’s seeped through it. San keeps his eyes close, lets you clean his skin again in peace, and you feel sick to your stomach as you realize you don’t have any anesthetics for the pain that stitching him up will cause. Indeed, the pocket in which your uncle usually leaves the lidocaine is empty, and you remember that he’s had to use it for your dad when he accidentally cut himself with a machete last summer.

“Huh,” you let out. You chuckle nervously. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

His eyes narrow, and he clenches his jaw. “Don’t worry about it.”

You worry at your bottom lip, holding his gaze as you gauge if he’s serious. When his gaze doesn’t falter, you offer him a curt nod, before getting the wire and needle ready under his watchful eyes.

You hand him some linen. “To bite on,” you explain as he just cocks an eyebrow quizzically. That makes his gaze widen a little as if he’s just now realizing how serious you were about it hurting, but he takes it nonetheless.

You think about the theory of how to stitch someone up. It was in your previous block – you watched hours of videos of it in an attempt to desensitize yourself to it. You don’t think it compares to the real thing, but at least you’re somehow confident of what you’re doing when you start.

San startles, groaning in pain, and you offer him a glare. “Don’t move, or it’ll be worse.”

A drop of sweat rolls down his temple, but he still nods. Even as you keep on stitching him, he remains as still as he physically can, though you don’t think he even notices how he’s trembling. Or maybe that’s you – you don’t even know.

Somehow, you make it through the whole thing. You think San might have passed out at some point, but he’s wide awake when you finish the knot to keep the stitches in place, looking up to meet his face.

He’s panting and tears of pain wet his waterline. He blinks them away as he takes the linen out of his mouth, dropping it on the table.

“Fuck,” he curses.

“Let me…” you trail off, mind set on getting something to at least help him cool off, because he’s clearly been heating up.

You grab a washcloth and a small bucket, and head outside to walk down to the lake. You fill the bucket halfway, and take a few seconds to observe the calm surrounding you, hoping that it can ease the nerves rolling inside your heart like dark clouds do on the horizon whenever a storm is coming. You feel it in your bones – you have a murderer in your uncle’s cabin.

You have to keep that in mind. To not let Choi San in like you did when you were a young impressionable teenager.

You sigh, closing your eyes to breathe in the fresh morning air. The sun is peaking over the horizon now, and you bask in its hesitant rays for all of twenty seconds before you convince yourself to go back in. You’ve got a patient to take care of, after all.

San hasn’t moved an inch while you were outside. The only indication that he hasn’t died on you is the groan he lets out as you put the wet washcloth on his forehead. You tap his cheek gently, as if to say, ‘suck it up, I’m just trying to take care of you’.

Which is exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it?

You watch him carefully for a few seconds before tapping his shoulder this time around.

“There’s a bed,” you remind him. “You’d be better passing out in a bed.”

He groans again, cracking an eye open. “I’ve just been repeatedly poked with a needle,” he drawls. “Give me a second.”

It makes you laugh. Because of the nerves, maybe. You’re not quite sure. All you know is that you’re laughing, and San opens his second eye to look at you as if you’re crazy. And you laugh for longer than you should – you’re exhausted after all, especially considering you haven’t slept since yesterday morning. So far, adrenaline has been keeping you going, but you can tell you’re about to crash.

“Sorry,” you apologize once you calm down. “This has just been…”

“A lot,” San finishes for you. “I know.”

You nod once before glancing at the doorway to the bedroom. It has no door, as your uncle and your dad usually come here alone and they don’t mind sharing a bed. It makes you realize that you’ll have to share it with San, which you reckon you should have thought about before. Because there’s no way in hell you’ll share a bed with him, especially after he’s told you why he’s being hunted.

There’s always the option of going into town later today so you can get a sleeping bag and floor mat to sleep on. But you’re far too tired right now to even consider driving, so you motion to the bed once again.

“Stick to your side; I’ll stick to mine.”

He smirks though he’s extremely pale. A lot paler than he was before, and you swallow a sudden lump in your throat. Because what if he dies? What are you supposed to do with him if he dies?

“You’ll have to help me to get to the bed ‘cause I don’t think I can move,” he says once his smirk dies. He curses under his breath. “I’m so pathetic.”

You put your hand on his shoulder again, reassuringly, eyes holding his. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re hurt. Everyone is pathetic when they’re hurt.”

He gulps before nodding once. It takes everything in you not to offer him more comfort because you feel like the slope would tilt forwards far too much if you did. Instead, you help him to get up, wincing as he puts most of his weight on you, clutching his side with one hand. You’re infinitely aware of how his skin is sticky with sweat, but you ignore it as you slowly walk to the bedroom.

You can only hope the stitches will hold because you don’t think he’d be able to withstand another round of them.

You finally reach the bedroom and help San sit on the side of the bed. He sighs, eyes shut tightly, and he doesn’t move for a time. When he does, it’s to stiffly lie down on his side.

“You might want to sleep on your back,” you inform him. “I don’t want you rolling around and messing up the stitches.”

He glares at you, though he looks like he’s already half out of it. You hold his gaze until he gives in, turning on his back with a deep sigh. You arrange pillows around him to make sure he’s not moving, and by the time you’re done, his breathing has already evened out.

For a moment, you just watch him sleep. You see him in the field where young love blossomed like a trillion wildflowers. You can almost breathe his pollen again, can almost feel the softness of his skin under your fingertips.

But he’s not what he used to be. Back then, you felt like you had discovered something new. Love, infatuation, affection, and desire, all in the form of the man sleeping next to you. You’d used to kiss, dance and sing to a song only your souls knew, and now you don’t think you recognize him anymore.

As much as he is him, he’s also but just the ghost of what he was. He’s trouble, danger in the shape of innocence, and you recall his words from earlier. You recall the despair, the regret and sorrow that haunted him after he told you. You can’t let him get to your head.

You reckon sleep might help. Though you’re afraid he’s going to waste away in his sleep, so you set up an alarm every hour, before climbing on the other side of the bed. You don’t pull on the covers, mostly because the cabin is warm, and you can imagine it’s just going to get hotter as the sun goes up and the summer heat slowly sizzles into the countryside.

It’s a good thing you put an alarm on. Because when it rings an hour later, you don’t even remember falling asleep. You’re pretty sure the second your head touched the mattress, you were out to the land of dreams. You groan, mostly because you’ve got a slight headache, but you power through it to make sure San is still breathing.

When you see his chest moving up and down steadily, you let yourself fall back asleep.

This goes on for the whole morning, and you only force yourself to stay up when your phone shows that it’s passed noon. As you had suspected earlier, the cabin has gotten extremely warm, so you force yourself out of bed to open all the windows, and then you use the washcloth from earlier to gently wash San’s face of the sweat.

He doesn’t even flinch in his sleep, but he’s still breathing and for now, that’s all that matters.

You head back to the main room, grabbing a pack of chips from where you had left the food earlier, and then you move outside to sit by the lake. Mostly because you need to put distance between you and San, but also just because the childhood memories of this place have you in their hold, and they’ve decided to make you miss the times when you’d swim around with your cousins before both of them had moved out of town.

One day, it’s going to be you too. You already know where you’d go – on the other side of the country, as far away from here as possible. You just want to forget all about the place you grew up in, and you know that, in a few years, you will have forgotten.

Though you’re pretty sure a certain piercing gaze will haunt you forever, especially after the events of today.

When another hour passes, you head back inside, putting the empty bag of chips in the trash before you check up on San. He’s still asleep, but this time he doesn’t look as pale as he did earlier. You assume it’s going to take him a while before he wakes, so you head to the nearest town to grab more food. Mostly to busy yourself, but also just because you know San will need a place to hide for a lot longer than just the weekend. Might as well make sure you have enough for him to survive a couple of days. In town, you also stop to eat at a small café on a small terrasse in the shade of a few trees, and then you grab the food you think you might need at the grocery store.

It’s the middle of the afternoon when you get back, realizing that you forgot to buy a floor mat. As you spy San, who hasn’t moved an inch since he’s fallen asleep, you figure that sleeping next to him tonight should be fine.

As long as his presence in your vicinity doesn’t drag you down memory lane again.

You bought some meat in town, so you head to the little shack outside where the generator is hiding. There’s a gas canister right next to it – also full – and you busy yourself for the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get it started. When it finally rumbles to life, you head back inside to put the meat in the fridge, which has finally come to life.

When you hear a groan, you quickly jog to San’s side, fully expecting to find him awake. Surprisingly, he’s still asleep, and you stay next to him for a full minute, thinking he might groan again, though he remains entirely silent.

If it wasn’t for his chest moving up and down steadily, you’d believe him to be dead. But now that a few hours have passed, you’re pretty positive he’ll make it, though he’s probably going to sleep through the day and possibly through the next one too.

Which leaves you in the most peaceful atmosphere you’ve been in for a while, with the opportunity to study as you listen to the rush of wind in the leaves of the tall trees surrounding the cabin. You sit outside, this time near the fireplace, and you study until your stomach grumbles, indicating that it is time for you to cook.

You cook the meat you’ve bought on the grill outside, feeling thankful that your dad once showed you how to use it. You go back in to grab a bottle of water before you eat, and you’re bent in the fridge when you hear San moan again, and this time it sounds like he’s saying something.

You gently close the fridge, making your way to the bedroom. San hasn’t moved, but his features are creased in a frown, and sweat is rolling down his temples. You wet the washcloth, gently wipe his face, and you’re about to leave when he moans again.

It takes you far too long to realize he’s apologizing. What for, you can’t really tell. Though you remember his troubled eyes this morning, you remember his story, and your heart breaks in your chest.

He’s haunted. You think the ghost of the dead guy will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. And suddenly you’re struck thinking maybe, maybe if you hadn’t broken his heart all those years ago, you could have saved him from the gang.

Maybe you could have opened his eyes.

You still remember the break-up like it was yesterday. You remember the rain, him leaving without once looking back, but mostly you remember the words you had uttered. Ghosts of their own, that feel more real now that he’s come back into your life.

*****

“You’re going to get hurt!” you yelled. “You’ll get hurt, San. What are you thinking?”

He scoffed, shaking his head, and little droplets of water shot all around him. “I’ll be careful. We need the money if we ever want to make it out of this shit town.”

You blinked away tears, folding your arms on your chest as you tried to keep your heart from breaking. Though you reckoned it had broken when your parents had told you what they knew about San. When your father had mentioned Ateez, and you’d truly realized what it meant that he was part of a gang. San, your sweet, soft, and bubbly San, in a gang that had murdered someone just a few weeks ago.

“But that’s not a way to make money!” you screamed, hoping he’d understand. Hoping he’d hear the truth in your words, hoping he’d change his mind before it was too late. “Why don’t you get a part-time job, like me? Then we can go to college and get jobs in a nice city on the other side of the country!”

“It won’t work,” he drawled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I want to be out soon, not in a few years. I barely even have a roof over my head, Y/n…”

“Come live with me,” you choked out around the lump in your throat.

You both knew fully well that your parents would never let him come near you again.

“I can’t.”

You cried, hiding your face in your hands. You cried thinking of the field where you usually met, thinking about its beauty now fading into ugliness. You thought about the wildflowers, withered and dead as autumn had come. You thought about how you were convinced you knew what love was.

“What’s the point?” you asked then. “What’s the point of putting your life in danger? Life isn’t some sort of a game, Choi San. Worse, what if you have to hurt someone? Do you think you’ll be able to pull the trigger?”

He clenched his jaw, hard. “Do me a favour and stop asking questions.”

You closed your eyes, feeling sick to your stomach. Because it couldn’t be. Not San. Not your smiley San, who’d always weave dandelions crowns with you, as you’d pretend you were a queen and a king of that field you had found. An empty field, an abandoned farmland that was just yours and his to explore. That had been home to your first kiss, and all of those that had followed.

Now you wondered why he had always wanted to meet there in the first place. Was he trying to hide?

"If you love me, you’ll get out while you still can,” you said as your tears suddenly ended.

There was a weird sense of clarity in you, suddenly. You remembered the day you had fallen in love, the moment you had first kissed. You remembered the stars in the sky above, the meteors falling for the two of you. You remembered the music on the radio you had brought. Some Arctic Monkeys song about heartbreak, about moving on and failing to do so. As a joke, when it had ended, you had asked San, “Do you think love is a laserquest?”

His answer had been cryptic, mysterious, things that had made you believe he was the one. “Maybe. Maybe it is, and I’ve shot you in the back while you weren’t looking. Maybe I’m that annoying player that won’t leave you alone.”

“I’ll never find you annoying,” you had replied.

But today, watching the rain rolling down his face like tears, you realized that maybe, maybe you should have seen the warning behind his words. Because this betrayal, it came like he had shot you in the back – you didn’t think you’d be able to recover from it.

The past dwindled away as San spoke again, reminding you of the question you had just asked him. “It’s not a question of love, Y/n. I do love you. But it’s a question of survival.”

You laughed, coldly, and then you said, “You know what? You’re full of shit.”

“Alright then. Do me a favour and tell me to go away.”

“Go away.”

A long silence had lingered between you, voided of that summer warmth that had you falling in love. Like a piece was missing from the contract of you loving him, and him loving you. And you realized, maybe you had never really loved each other anyway.

He nodded once when you didn’t say anything else, before turning away. And you watched him walk away. You watched him thinking he was going to turn around and tell you this was just some twisted joke, the prank of the century. Only, he never turned around, and he disappeared behind the bend in the road, never to be seen again, cracking your heart open and splitting it in half.

*****

The sun sets, like an ending to a dream. You’ve always liked the end – you think if you could choose, you’d want to witness the end of the world. The nostalgia, the beauty of endings… it’s something you understand now that you didn’t understand when you were younger. Because you and San ending, it had led to you focusing on high school. It had allowed you to get in the good college in town, with a scholarship that covered most of your expenses before you made it to med school.

There’s beauty in knowing losing San has allowed you to live out your dreams.

There’s less beauty in knowing that San has been sleeping for almost thirty-four hours now. Last time you checked, he was still breathing, but you’re starting to be afraid that he just won’t wake up. It’s irrational, you know – after the blood loss it makes sense that he’d sleep for a long time.

But it leaves you with far too much time on your hands to think and revisit the past. You’ve been doing it all day – thinking about the fight with your parents that had led to your break-up with San, thinking about that damn rainy evening he had walked away without once looking back. Thinking of the field, of sunshine and star falls and the sweetness of a first kiss. Thinking that, then, you thought you knew what it was like to be in love.

You haven’t dated anyone serious since San. Hyunmin was a distraction for a while, but you never were into it. Not like you were into San. There’s a guy in your class though, that you’ve been chatting with for a couple of weeks. He’s sweet, innocent, and the perspective of a future seems less scary with him around. He’s mentioned he wants to move across the country once too, and since then you’ve started talking more, the similarity of your wishes drawing you closer.

All day today you’ve been feeling like you’re slowly drifting away though. Slowly getting entrapped in a web you’re not sure you’ll be able to walk away from.

You decide to swim, seeking the fresh clarity only cold water can bring to you. You don’t have a swimsuit with you, but since San is half-dead in bed you figure it doesn’t matter. So you strip naked, feet making squelching sounds in the mud by the lake side as you step in the water.

The sharp cold has you holding your breath, but you don’t slow down. You’ve never slowed down in life – when you make a decision, you bring it to completion. And you’ve decided to swim, so swim you will.

The warm summer evening breeze catches in your hair as you take another step forward, the water now lapping at your thighs. You dread the moment it’ll hit your core, knowing that that’s the worst part, but you breathe in deeply, moving forward. Because there’s no moving backwards now.

When the water hits, your eyes flutter shut, and you hold in the wince that threatens to escape the mask of calm your features hold. Soon enough, you get deep enough to swim, and the movements bring welcomed warmth to your limbs as you flop on your back, tits out of the water.

Your uncle’s cabin is the only cabin in a fifteen miles radius. You know you won’t be interrupted, and so you let the water cool you down. Calm you down, hold you in its fresh embrace. It undoes knots in your back that have formed from worrying about San, but also from worrying about college.

From worrying that you will never be enough. You think it’s a normal anxiety to have, something most people must feel as they go through the trials of college, not knowing what to expect on the other side. A nice career, perhaps, though the perspective of failure is there too, looming over the horizon.

You sigh, and your eyes flutter open as your legs move mindlessly under you, making sure to keep you afloat. You look up at the azury ceiling over your head, so far away as it slowly turns gold. Out of touch, out of grasp. You watch the fluffy white clouds that are lazily crossing the sky, turning fiery in the sunset, as if they have all the time in the universe. And you wish you were them, up above. With nothing to worry about.

Without a Choi San on the brink of death lying about twenty meters away from you. You sigh, and you turn in the water, with the purpose of swimming again. Though your gaze catches movement by the cabin, and your head snaps towards it to see none other than the supposedly Choi San, standing on the deck with a hand clutching his side.

You shriek, looking down at yourself. Most of you is hidden, but you don’t know how long he’s been there. Don’t know if he’s seen you naked as you looked up at the sky.

He doesn’t move, only watches you where you’re swimming.

“Can you please look away?” you say from the water, and he has the nerves to lean against the railing, eyes still boring into where you’re swimming. You think his gaze might be so hot the water will boil, and it startles you into action.

You start walking out of the water, pointing towards the door. “You shouldn’t be up, Choi San.”

“I feel fine,” he says as you take another step forward, and the water barely hides your tits anymore.

That makes him turn around, as he offers you a little bit of privacy. You’re quick to get out of the water and wrap yourself in the towel you brought outside, and then you collect your clothes to head back to the cabin. San dutifully keeps his gaze away until you’re climbing the three steps leading to the deck, and it’s then that his eyes trail to you again.

“Thank you for the water,” he says, offering you a tentative smile.

You left water by his bedside earlier today hoping it will coax him to wake up. You’re strangely surprised that it worked.

“You should go sit inside,” you scold him, only half-heartedly. Because seeing him up and about reassures you, somehow.

He cocks an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “The weather is beautiful, I’d rather sit outside.”

You roll your eyes, but you do let him walk down the stairs to sit by the fireplace while you go inside to take a quick shower and get dressed. You decide to make some food for him, though you know he shouldn’t eat too much right now, after not having eaten for a while. He has to start slowly, and you don’t even know if he’s hungry anyway.

You settle for preparing a cup of chicken noodle soup for him, so at least it isn’t too heavy on his stomach. You bring it to him outside, as he’s just calmly observing the lake.

“Thank you,” he says, voice small as he grabs the cup and the spoon.

You sit next to him, trying not to watch him eat too much. His hair is sticking to his forehead in some places, and you have the distinct thought that he’ll probably need to shower. At least there’s plenty of rain water in the bucket for the water pump.

“What have you been doing while I was out?” he asks.

You spare him a quick glance before losing your gaze in the rocks of the fireplace. “I’ve studied. Checked up on you. Not much honestly.”

He chuckles. “I’d argue that caring for someone is a lot.”

You glance at him, cheeks burning at the sight of his teasing smile. “Not really.”

He chuckles again, but doesn’t say anything more before eating another spoonful of soup. He’s almost done with the cup when he actually does speak, asking, “How long was I out?”

“A day and a half,” you answer. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t slept longer.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “I’m made of tough stuff.”

You snicker, but you don’t say anything, just focusing on where you’re kicking at the dirt. When he’s done with the cup, he puts it down on the ground next to him, before sitting back in the chair. He stretches out his legs in front of him, sighing deeply.

“I still feel out of it,” he admits, and you meet his gaze.

“You can sleep more,” you tell him. “I’d just like to check on the…”

You don’t even have to finish your sentence. He immediately turns so his side is to you, and you have to admit you’ve done a perfectly good job with the stitches.

“So?” he asks.

“All good.” You pat his shoulder. “You can sit comfortably again.”

He’s smiling when he does so, and his gaze wanders to the lake once again. “I’m sorry I…” he trails off, and he chuckles softly. “I’m sorry I interrupted your little swim earlier.”

You have the decency to flush furiously red, and you shrug your shoulders. “No worries, I wasn’t expecting you to be up so soon.”

You fall in a comfortable silence, surprisingly so. Rare stars dot the darkening sky up above, and all that can be heard for a moment is the flap of a bird’s wing as it moves from branches to branches in the trees by the water. The breeze picks up as you watch the little bird, and the leaves dance, loudly so. You’d think it’d be deafening in the silence between you and him, but it’s strangely reassuring.

As if, after all, you found your way back to the field. Only this time it’s completely different, as if decades have passed between you. At least, that’s how it feels like.

You notice San has dozed off in the chair next to you when you were about to speak to him again. To ask him how he’s truly been, in the years between then and now. Hoping to avoid mentioning what led to him coming to you, yesterday, a whole eternity ago.

You watch him, heart aching in your chest. Aching to reach out and brush his hair away from his forehead, aching to heal the cut on his cheek with a gentle swipe of your fingers. If only medicine was so simple…

It seems the peace of the early evening wasn’t going to stay around, because you notice dark clouds rolling in the distance, streaks of lightning cutting through them. Slowly inching closer, menacingly so, and you gently wake San up with your hand on his wrist.

He startles awake, hand shooting to his waist, finding nothing there. It startles you, and you both stare at each other for a moment until you realize what he was looking for.

His gun.

“San…” you let out and he runs his hand through his hair, eyes falling shut as he breathes in and out raggedly.

“Sorry.”

“San, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t open his eyes, refuses to let you see the vulnerability you glimpsed behind his piercing gaze. Refuses to acknowledge that he’s terrified, deadly so.

“Let’s go in,” you tell him, softly. Because you’re afraid you’ll spook him, when he’s clearly been living in fear long enough. “There’s a storm coming.”

He nods, carefully getting up without sparing you a glance. He heads inside, hand clutching his side again, while you pick up the chicken noodle soup cup before following him.

You’ve refilled the generator before swimming, so you know it’s been charging the batteries for a while now. You don’t fear ending up in the dark with San, and there’s also always the option of using the lamps and candles your uncle always leave here in case of an emergency.

The storm doesn’t roll in until a little later. You’ve forced San to put a shirt on – mostly so your eyes would stop betraying you, dropping to his toned body whenever he talked to you. You’re currently sitting on the couch, and as the rain starts, hammering against the window behind you, you pull your legs to your chest, wrapping your arms comfortably around them.

“How hard do the storms hit here?” he asks, eyes trailed to the world outside.

You follow his gaze, right as wind picks up to make the water hit the window even harder, creating a cacophony that forces you to speak louder for him to hear. “Pretty hard.”

He nods, and he glances once at you. “Fun.”

You smile, because you’ve always liked storms. Have always found them electrifying, energizing.

“Do you remember when we used to go to the field when it rained?” San asks, taking you by surprise.

Making your heart clench so hard in your chest you have to take a wobbly breath in. If he notices he doesn’t say.

“We were always in that field,” you remind him. “No matter the weather.”

It’s his turn to smile fondly. “It got so pretty with all the wildflowers. But you were afraid of the bees.”

“Bees are scary!” You laugh, and he echoes it with a soft chuckle. “You’re the one that almost pissed yourself when we saw the rat.”

That makes him laugh, and he winces in pain clutching his side. “Gosh, is it supposed to keep on hurting like this?”

It douses your enthusiasm and your smile falls. “Well, it was a solid cut.”

His eyes get lost in the void as he takes on a wistful expression. “I’m surprised I didn’t die.”

You gulp, watching his profile carefully. “It wasn’t deep enough for that…” you trail off, even though you spent most of yesterday and today being convinced he’d die. “At least they didn’t… stab you.”

“They would have if… Wooyoung didn’t shoot.”

You remain silent, not knowing what to reply to that. San interprets that as discomfort, and he quickly adds, “He didn’t shoot them. Just… in the air. It attracted the police.”

You remember the cars zooming past the diner a lifetime ago, and you nod your head. “I heard.”

He seems surprised, and his gaze finally finds yours again. “You did?”

“Yeah.” You chuckle, a little awkwardly. “I hear a lot of shootings, in the diner.”

His eyes widen, mouth falling open cutely. “You do?”

You don’t know what he expected. The diner is right between Ateez and Bangtan territory, and as much as it is a safe space, it is also near enough to dangerous grounds, and you’ve heard plenty of shooting in your time working there.

“Always,” you admit. “It can get scary sometimes… but you also get used to it.”

He looks sad. Infinitely so, like a lost puppy. That’s when the first thunder hits, so sharp and sudden you startle. Not quite as much as San, who ducks, wincing in pain as he clutches his side.

“Shit,” he curses. “Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” you ask, in time with another thunderclap, though this time it’s more of a rumble.

You watch his chest as he breathes in and out quickly. “Just… fuck.”

Now, concern grows in you, and you gently put a hand on his shoulder. “San…”

He meets your gaze, and there’s so much white in his it makes you think of a terrified prey. And then it clicks: he thought it was a gunshot.

“Hey,” you quickly say, moving closer to him. You’re on the side of the stitches, so you still keep a safe distance between the two of you, but you grab his hand nonetheless. “You’re okay.”

“Fuck,” is all he’s able to say.

“I promise, no one’s going to find you here.”

He remains silent this time around, eyes still boring into yours. You take that as a cue to continue, because you don’t want him to panic. You want his thoughts here, with you, and not miles away in a city he should have escaped from years ago. You wish he had, knowing the atrocities that he would have avoided.

Would he have escaped with you, had you stayed just a little longer?

“I killed someone,” he says, and you balk at the silver lining his gaze. “I fucking killed him.”

You don’t know how to help. All you can think to do is cup his cheek, right as he starts breathing even faster. “Breathe with me, San.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes fall to your mouth. You make a good show of inhaling slowly, before exhaling even slower. It takes him a moment but he eventually follows your lead.

It breaks when there’s another sharp thunderclap, and he flinches, eyes shutting instinctively.

“Hey hey hey,” you say again, even more gentle, softer than before. You move even closer, and when a tear slips out of his closed eyes, you pull him into a hug, careful not to brush his side.

His head falls on your shoulder, and one of his arms wrap around your waist. A thunderclap later, he starts sobbing, fist balling the fabric of your shirt in his tight hold, and you let him do it. You let him hold onto you, hoping it’ll keep him here with you. Hoping it’ll keep him afloat during the storm that’s raging both outside and in his mind.

“It’s going to be okay,” you breathe, and you feel like you’re lying to him.

Because how can he ever be safe from the ghosts inside of his skull? The ghosts wandering the halls of him, tainting his soul with their presence?

“He’s never going to smile again,” San chokes out. “Everyone loved him. Even in Ateez… Jungkook was the best of us. The only one who had a shot at getting out of it.”

You don’t know how good he could have been, if he was a member of Bangtan. In your mind, you’d always seen Bangtan as the bad guys, mostly because they weren’t with San. Even when you had been struggling to evade that life, you’d still rooted for him.

It’s strange how you just realize that now, as you’re holding him while he breaks.

“You didn’t mean to kill him,” you remind San, still speaking with the calmest voice you can muster up. “You didn’t want to, San. You’re not a murderer.”

“I’m still a killer,” he says. He sounds angry, and you reckon he might be angry at himself. Might be consumed with his actions, dragged to hell before his time as his mind gets stuck replaying the events.

“Maybe,” you answer. “But,” you quickly add when he stiffens in your arms. “But you can spend the rest of your life making up for it. Repenting.”

He doesn’t respond right away, as he breaks some more, sobs rocking through him. You’ve never seen him like this, not even when you were younger and in love. It makes your gaze wet, yet you hold on strong for him. You keep your head held high, and you allow him to break in the safe haven that your arms represent.

Because to him, you’ve never been tainted. You’ve always been the ideal he was trying to pursue, albeit the wrong way.

“I don’t know how to repent,” he admits when he calms down. He turns his head, and his nose brushes along the skin of your neck, slightly tickling you. You ignore the feeling, especially as he adds, “Ateez… it’s all I’ve ever known.”

You run a hand on his back, soothingly. “It isn’t.”

Because there was you, too. There was the summer field and the twinkling stars and Artic Monkeys on the radio. There was the two of you, petal-soft kisses exchanged in the dead of night and in the brightness of day. There were rainy days, and then there was rain. There was him walking away, and you hate yourself then.

You wish you had stopped him that day, had kept him from going on to become what he’s become now. A person he clearly hates, someone that has a bounty on his head. Someone that doesn’t even believe they’re allowed redemption and you reckon you don’t even know if he is.

You only know that seeing him break is bending your will, the way the wind outside is bending the trees. All you can hope is that, like the tall trees, you won’t break.

*****

The storm calmed down sometime around midnight. San ended up falling asleep on the couch, as you’d reassuringly ran your hand through his hair, trying to keep him with you. Though you think he’s been slipping through your fingers, into his demons.

You’ll find a way to bring him back. You have to. Turns out it comes faster than you think, as the electricity runs out and you busy yourself with lighting some candles throughout the main room. When you’re done, you put a blanket over him, and you almost let out a startled scream as his eyes shot open.

“Hello,” you say, resting a hand on your heart to tame the wild beats.

You’re about to move away, but he grabs your hand, forcing you to sit next to him. You don’t really resist, though you think you probably should. You’re weak – weaker still when he murmurs your name.

“San,” you whisper in return, and you’re aware your voice carries too much longing. Longing for a past when life’s atrocities hadn’t changed either of you yet.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and a tear rolls on his cheek.

You dry it, fingers lingering there. “It’s okay.”

“Angel…”

The nickname brings you back to laser quests and favours and warmth creeping up your stomach for the first time in your life.

“I’m no angel,” you breathe.

“You saved me.”

You hold his gaze. There’s something hiding behind his pupils. The need, to forget. You don’t think you have the ability to run his mind through amnesia, but still you brush his cheek again.

“You deserved saving.”

His eyes glaze once more, though this time no tears fall. “It’s hard to believe it.”

“Do you still believe love is a laser quest?” you ask him, out of the blue.

As if you’re a line straight of that Arctic Monkeys song you listened to the first time you kissed.

“Maybe,” he says, a parallel to that first time you had asked the question. “Maybe it is.”

You can’t resist. You lean down, and you press the gentlest kiss on his lips. His are dry, but the way he sighs with you against him is soft, for your heart and for your mind, and you kiss him again. He lets you lead, follows the dance of your lips, lets you run your hand through his sweaty hair.

Even if you shouldn’t. Even if you know everything you’re doing right now is a mistake, you still find yourself deepening the kiss, opening your lips to slip your tongue out, teasing his mouth. One of his hands finds your thigh, and he squeezes ever so slightly as his tongue finds yours, and you let out a breathy sound.

When you pull away, eyes fluttering open, you find San’s gaze. You think about the boy he was then, the girl you were then. You think about who you were, together. And when he says, “Please make me forget”, you lean again, capturing his mouth in a languid kiss.

For a reason unknown, the summer sky and falling stars pale in comparison to this kiss. Maybe because it holds longing, nostalgia. Hope that life would have turned out differently. For a moment, you picture what it would have been like, without Ateez. With you and him in the field, in your family house, in a car driving by the beach, windows down as the sun sets and you sing along to the radio, wind blowing in your hair.

You see a whole life there, with you and him marrying in the field, under the sun that had been the host of your first love. You imagine growing up by his side, attending college with him in the big city. You imagine how he would have become the owner of his own construction company, like his dad before him. You picture kids laughing, running around the house he would have built for you. You see Christmas light, late nights antics by the firelight.

You see it all, and you know you’ll never have any of it. But if you can have tonight, then you’ll grab it before it slips through your fingers. Before he walks away in the rain again, only to be a memory you cherish in the deepest corners of your heart.

“How?” you ask him when you pull away.

Mostly, you’re asking how to make him forget. But you’re also asking how it is that the feelings are still there, even stronger now, as if they’ve grown up with you, yet haven’t changed like you have. Like they are a constant of an ever-changing universe.

“Kiss me again,” he asks, begs, and you give in. You kiss him wildly, always making sure not to touch his side and the stitches.

You know sex would be a stupid idea, especially with the fresh stitches. But also because he’s barely had time to recover. But he doesn’t really give you a choice, pulling you on top of him until you’re straddling him.

You sit back on him for a second, eyes trailing to the spot where you know the stitches are. “This isn’t a good idea,” you whisper through the ragged breaths caused by the ministrations of his mouth on yours and of yours on his.

“I’m fine,” he says, and you know you shouldn’t believe him. But when he pulls you down again, large hand holding the nape of your neck firmly so you don’t escape, you want to believe him.

Want to believe the beauty of his lies, like you had when you were younger.

From where you’re perched, you can feel the start of his erection pressing against you, and you moan softly in the kiss, rolling your hips. His mouth falls open, and you capture his tongue, sucking on it once before you pull away, leaving hot kisses on his jaw.

“Sit on my face,” he says, and he sounds out of his mind. Crazed, a little like you too feel at the moment.

“What?”

“Can’t get hurt if you sit on my face, angel,” he explains, and then hisses when you suck a hickey on his neck.

You let him pull your shirt off, unclasping your bra yourself as you sit back on his lap. He cups your breasts, rolling your erect nipples between his thumbs and indexes. You moan again, grinding your hips into his, and he hisses once more.

“You want to taste me?” you ask, head throwing back as he pinches your nipples hard.

“I’d fuck you, but you’re the doctor. Can’t risk fucking up my stitches, huh?” he replies, voice low and husky.

Your core heats up, pussy clenching around nothing. This is a side of him you’ve never seen, though you spy desperation beneath it. Like he thinks he doesn’t have forever, when it comes to you.

He’s right. Because tomorrow, you’ll have to go back into town, into the hellscape you call home. What will be left of the two of you then?

So when he tugs at your pants, you give in and get up, taking off your pants and panties in one swift motion. You step out of them, blood heating up by the way he’s looking at you through half-lidded eyes, gaze burning on you.

You have half a thought that you could probably ride him instead of his face, but when you see his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips, making them glisten in the candlelight, you need to know what it’ll feel like against you.

So you straddle his face as he guides you down, large hands pushing on your thighs until your pussy is a hairsbreadth away from his lips. He blows on it, and your eyes shut with sensitivity. You clutch the cushion of the couch, hoping it’ll help steady you, but the moment his tongue flicks at your clit, you realize nothing will be able to steady you. Yet you still hold onto it, especially as he dives his tongue between your folds, lapping up your juice. He moans in contentment, before moving to your clit again. And his tongue is wicked down there, like it knows exactly what you like.

You grab a handful of his hair, grinding into his face. You’re pretty sure he’s chuckling down there, and then he unleashes himself. Sucking hard, alternating circling motions to teasing you with his teeth. You’d expect the latter to hurt, but the way he does it just makes you see stars, and your pussy clenches around nothing again.

San is deadly good with his mouth. Both with crafting lies and pulling moans out of you, and your thighs tighten against his face as he sucks particularly hard, before dipping his tongue inside of you. His nose brushes your clit, and then he forces you to properly sit on him.

The way his tongue moves inside of you, lapping up your juices while opening you up, has you on the brink of an orgasm in no time. Especially as he makes you grind again, holding you tight into place. When one of his hands moves from around your thigh to reach your clit, you cry out, head throwing back.

He’s quick to rub at your sensitive clit, and you grab one of your breasts, massaging it mindlessly before you pinch your nipple, hard, right in time with a skilled swipe of his tongue. Your orgasm meets you there, shaking through you as it explodes in a blinding flash of light. You moan, loudly, something that resembles his name, and he keeps you going, guides you through your high until you cringe with oversensitivity.

Only then does he let you climb off from his face. You stand on wobbly legs, before deciding to sit next to him, and you catch sight of the smirk on his lips. It makes you blush, right as you realize what you’ve just done.

When you realize what kind of sinful activity he’s dragged you in, this time around.

“Gosh,” is all you manage to say.

He chuckles, clearly proud with himself. “That felt good?”

You worry at your bottom lip, eyes going down to the tent in his pants. You want to pleasure him too, to take him in your mouth and make him feel good, but he stops you with a hand wrapped around your wrist.

“Don’t.”

You still and you meet his gaze with slightly-widened eyes. “Why not?”

His features turn somber, haunted, and the heat of the moment passes so quickly you think it might have been a figment of your imagination.

Were you really riding his face just a moment ago?

“Please just lay next to me,” he says, barely even a whisper.

You don’t know a lot of men that would choose cuddling over getting a blowjob, but if that is what he wants, then you’ll give it to him. You lay next to him, glad that the injured side is closer to the couch. That way, you can cuddle up to him, resting your head on his shoulder while he wraps an arm around you.

“Angel,” he murmurs after a time. “You’re a fucking angel. I think you’re my salvation.”

You highly doubt you hold this kind of power, but you don’t want to tell him. Have never been good at weaving beautiful lies for him to believe.

“We should stay here,” he continues. “Forever.”

And you wish you could. Wish reality didn’t exist, didn’t call for you to go back to your regular life like you’ve never been here with him. But you know tomorrow exists, and you’ll have to leave.

“We should have stayed in the field,” you choose to answer. “Under the shooting stars.”

“I wished for a lifetime with you, then,” he admits. “I wished I’d never have to let you go.”

You’d wished for a similar thing, but life is far too cruel to allow a world of first loves.

“Why did you…” you trail off. The question has haunted your sleepless nights for a long time after the break-up. Even years later, you’d still think about it sometimes, wondering if nostalgia would choke you up. “Why did you decide to join the gang?”

He tenses next to you. But you start tracing a mindless circle on his chest, through the shirt, and it distracts him enough for him to reply. “I thought I didn’t have a choice.”

“Did you?”

His voice holds the weight of the world when he says, “I did. And I made the wrong one.”

You want to cry, but you’re older now. You’re not the teenager who thought she was going to die from losing him anymore. You know what living without Choi San is like, and as much as it hurts, you know that it’s doable.

“You made the one you believed was right,” you say carefully. “But I do wish you had made a different one.”

He holds you a little tighter, as if that will make it so tomorrow never comes. “Me too.”

There’s an eternity of flickering candlelight on the ceiling, of the circles you trace on his chest and of your breathings forming a melody. Outside, the wind has died down, and the world is silent except from an occasional cricket braving the world after the storm.

“Where will you go, once you graduate?” he asks, taking you by surprise.

Because he knows. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed.

“As far away from here as I can.”

“I hope you find peace, wherever you go,” he whispers. “I hope you forget all about how we grew up in a hellhole.”

Do you feel bad for saying it? Maybe. But you can’t help saying it anyway. “I will, San.”

And like that rainy day years ago, you think you can see him walk away.

*****

Seven years later

The winter sun is strangely bright, up above. You’d think it will warm you up, but the cold is relentless, violent, and it sneaks into your coat as you walk out of the hospital. You’ve just finished a thirty-hour shift, and you can’t wait to be home.

To take a shower and forget that you’ve lost a patient today.

But you’ve saved another. A young man, with a stab wound in his ribs that should have killed him. But you saved him, stabilized his condition to the point you don’t have to worry about him anymore. Which is the only reason why you’re allowing yourself to leave now.

You’re never able to leave until you know your patients are okay. It’s been that way since your first patient, in a cabin in the woods you’ve done your best to forget.

You’d let San stay, after that weekend. He had given you the number of one of his friends, so you could get some clothes for him, and you’d gone back the next weekend. Bringing him the clothes, making love to him under the moonlight as if that would change the ending.

The following week, you had gone back to find the cabin empty. He’d left a note behind.

I hope I can find you again, wherever you go.

You kept the note. It’s in your bedside table, back at home, in the nice apartment you’ve been able to rent for yourself with all the money you’ve been making now. Enough to pay back student loans from med school, enough to reassure you that never again will you struggle.

You’ve never seen San again after. He hasn’t found you, and you haven’t searched for him. Have only looked up his name a couple of times, in the months following his disappearing, scared you’d find out that he was found dead in a ditch. But his name never came up, and you wondered if he had managed to escape, if he had managed to find a place where Bangtan couldn’t reach him.

You found peace, on your side of the country. Life is kinder here, though it still holds the same atrocities. You wonder if it’s the novelty of the city, or maybe if you’ve just grown old enough to be able to withstand the bad that the world throws your way. It’s hard to tell – you haven’t kept contact with anyone from back home, except Jae-on.

Jae-on, who’s moved with you when you’ve decided to come here, like he said he would. Jae-on, who asked you to marry him in late October, and you said yes. The ring sits heavy on your finger, and you mindlessly play with it.

In another world, you would already be married to Choi San. Sometimes, you catch glimpses of that world – a piercing gaze in the morning, a smile and a kiss to your temple. Talks about angels, children screaming in happiness. In another world, you’d be pregnant again, waiting patiently to add another piece of you and him to this world.

It’s fun to think about, sometimes, but you’ve been good at forgetting. Like you told him you would – most times, you’ve forgotten all about Choi San.

But today, you had a patient that reminded you of him. So you allow yourself to feel, you allow yourself to think about that note tucked in the bottom drawer of your bedside table, hidden under the thick socks you never use.

You allow yourself to think about the cabin in the woods, about the field where you would have gotten married had you been in that picturesque world you like to imagine. You think about laser quests and first kiss and rainy days and meteors. You think about summer, about wildflowers and him.

You’re so lost in thought you miss your stop home, and you begrudgingly get out at the next one. You’re tired, and your hands are shaking as you pull your phone out of your tote bag, wanting to text Jae-on that you’re going to be home late because you missed your stop. You walk to the other side of the tracks, sighing when you see a five-minutes wait for the next subway.

At least the sun is high in the sky, even though it is dreadfully cold. You shiver, putting your phone back in your tote bag so you can hide your hands in your sleeves again, hoping it’ll preserve them from the cold.

In your exhaustion, you forgot your gloves back at the hospital, you realize. It’s strange that you only realize now, and you reckon you really need to sleep, because your brain isn’t even working right anymore.

You sigh, glancing at the display showing the time. Still four minutes to wait. You think at this rhythm you might freeze in your spot before the next subway comes. You try to hide your face in the lapel of your coat, but a movement on the other platform attracts your gaze.

A man is helping an older woman climb down the stairs. She’s speaking loudly, which might be what attracted your gaze in the first place. You follow them as they walk down the stairs, and then when the man turns towards you, you meet his piercing gaze.

He smiles, and you realize that maybe, all those years ago, he was not spinning lies to you after all.

☆☆☆☆☆

Gosh yeahhh rereading it had me ralize that it is a lot sadder than I remembered it to be. At least we got an open ending ... :') What did we think? Should I write about other groups more often? Let me know what you think! All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2023. Do not copy, repost or translate

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