#Sun the number 1 enemy of your skin

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 1 - I Can't Get Clean

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

Author's Note: This story is a non-canon compliant, taking place after the Falcon and the Winter Solider and diverging entirely from the canon universe. This means two things:

1) Any movies or TV shows released after No Way Home didn't happen in this universe, and that will become more and more relevant as we go on.

2) We're playing a little fast and loose with Marvel lore because there's so much of it, and I'm trying my best but I've also added a few thing for the sake of this story, so if you have questions, please ask!

I hope you enjoy the story! Chapter Title is from ¿ by Bring Me The Horizon feat. Halsey

Word Count: 9.4k

Chapter Summary/Warnings: See the Masterlist for a Summary. Contains usual tags.

Tags: Bucky Barnes/Female Reader, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, smut, angst, fluff

Chapter 2 - Read on A03!

It’s a beautiful day outside, but you can’t really feel it.

It’s just a little to the side of picturesque. Bright, warm sun that’s makes your clothing stick to your skin, but not enough breeze to make breathing easier. There are birds singing but the car horns are louder, and you can smell the rush of spring but no more than the trash of the city.

And that’s beautiful itself, in a way. It means people are alive. The city is alive. There are no more empty blocks or abandoned buildings, and that’s more beautiful than any sunlight or early blooming flowers ever could be.

But it’s still a lot. Too much.

And you’ve never been good at having something beautiful and sitting in it. 

So, you’re not outside.

You’re curled on the subway with earbuds, watching the graffitied walls blur past your car, your knees pressed to your chest, your chin raised to keep people from sitting at your side.

There’s a woman shouting a few seats down. Her nails are well done and colorful, but her hair is ratty, and her eyes are dull. Her cardboard signs reads SUPERHEROES WILL KILL US ALL, and it feels like an oversimplification, but she did draw a some very amusing caricatures of Spiderman and Thor, along with simply the word ALIENS with a big red X over it, so you can appreciate the arctic effort.

She’s the third doomsday preacher you’ve seen this morning. It’s a lower number than usual, but between the nice day and the rumor Captain America’s back in the city, there are other things to do. And you don’t mind the disturbance. It’s a public place, she’s not hurting anyone, and you can keep your music loud in your earbuds, your expression and features unapproachable, and your eyes causally averted, so it’s not really effecting you at all.

If anything, it’s helpful. You’re not recognizable right now—a baseball cap pulled over your brow and big black sunglasses sitting on your nose, mostly making you look quite hungover—and this woman really makes you seem all the more unimportant. Barely worthy more than a spared glance when most people are trying to ignore her, as she’s begun to pace up and down the car.

Shouting about the tyranny of the government and apocalyptic prophecies a second Blip—God, that had been such a stupid thing to call it—you can take. Questions about your real life that lead to photos of you on the subway, or news about you wandering alone in public, will give Sam and Happy more excuses to conspire against you.

You like taking the Subway. You like the overtly human smell and feel of it, like how it proves that everything really is alive around you, and you don’t have to drown in it. It smells because people are pissing and eating and doing other disgusting, human things. It’s crowed, even for a nicer day, because there are people to fill up the cars, people who move around you without a glance, and rush through their time like it’s not burning away every second. 

People you can watch. Glancing at watches with metal or leather straps, checking their phones or reading books or staring ahead with earbuds in just as you seem to be. Passing by with boots or jeans or cardigans or neon green hair, with dirt covered shoes or strange mannerisms or an interesting pin on their bag. All moving.

Alive.

And that’s really why the woman doesn’t bother you. She’s loud, spewing insanity and nonsense, but she’s alive. She’s obviously been through something to make her lose her mind and spend her hours like this, but she’s still alive. Shouting about the lies of this horrible country and the sins of the Avengers, and you’d like to actually listen to her outside of words caught over a silent beat in your headphones—a desire mostly born from morbid curiosity more than anything else—but your head has to stay down. 

You want to keep taking the Subway. You want to keep watching all these infinite people move around you and know you’re still alive, where the heat isn’t beating on your skin and the sky doesn’t look too big above you. It nice and cool down here. Everyone is somehow more absorbed in their own heads, and there are news stations or sharp-eyed tourists that might sell you out. 

So you have to keep your head down. 

You’re not really going anywhere today. It’s the weekend, and you get yelled at when you go to the office when it’s supposed to be closed—something about security and even you needing rest—so you’d gone out just to be out, and get some cat food. 

Once you get home, you’ll be alone until Monday. Sam still won’t text you back about dinner—the asshead was the one who suggested it in the first place—your siblings are off doing dumb things like college, Happy can be kind of a bummer to hang out with, and that’s the end of your contacts list.

There is… One more. But he’s busy, under some spotlight and pretending he’s not cheating on you—you don’t know why he bothers, it’s not like you could leave him anyway—and you’d rather pull out your teeth than speak to him when you didn’t have to.

Besides, you have your cat.

So alone will be fine.

You’re good at being alone. You’re good at watching and observing and being just a little less alive than everyone else, because when you are alive, you’re too alive, and it’s never enough. There’s always more you need to be doing, more you need to be offering people, and your smile isn’t bright enough and that laugh was too loud and your skin feels like it’s trying to slink off your body because even it can’t really stand to be around you. 

When you’re not alone, there’s always the show. The trick you have to play on everyone to keep them around. The spotlight and mask that need to shift to keep yourself intact, the way you have to hold yourself to be taken seriously, and all the words you’ve never been good at swallowing, so that people don’t look at you like you’re insane. 

You’re horrible at the show. You’re an amazing actress when you need to be, but not when you’re yourself. You don’t know how to not be yourself, and it’s too much. Charming right up to the point where people realize that you’re not putting on an act to be more, you’re putting on an act to be less, and suddenly you’re annoying and arrogant and loud. 

So it’s better to be alone. It’s better to save the show for when it matters—when there’s a camera and microphone and crowd, and your smile needs to be winning and sweet, with nothing rough around the edges—and keep yourself a little confined when it doesn’t. 

It’s not a horrible confinement, to lock yourself up in your fancy little apartment until Monday shifts around and people want you again. The you that keeps the Stark Foundation moving, that is the face and voice and brain of the largest charity in the world. Not the you that’s a petulant, smart-mouthed little bitch who thinks she’s important. 

Always the you that’s more of a figure than a person.

Never the you who lives in a self-inflicted prison that costs more money than anyone should have the right to have. Who shuffles through the clean-glass and marble floor lobby in muddied boots, who keeps her sunglass on as she grabs her mail because the sun is still too fucking bright, who easily could fit in here if she wanted to, but nobody’s looking, so she won’t bother.

You’d chosen this apartment. It’s smaller than the other ones on Happy’s you’re allowed to live here list, the floor is high enough up in that if some sort of alien crashes into the building your death will be quick, your only neighbor is a very sweet old man who lets you help with his crossword puzzle, and your bathtub is a big circle in the floor. 

It’s stupid. 

You like it.

You like the shiny, clean feeling of the apartment. You like the pleasant, humming music in the elevator, and how high your ceilings are, and how when you clap your hands the lights go off. You won’t lie and say you don’t. It’s disgusting luxury, and there’s a guilt that always sits in your throat—a heavy stone formed form you not deserving this, no more than anyone else, maybe less than anyone else—but it would be more disgusting to have all this and act like it’s nothing. 

It’s a perk of the life you’d crawled and scratched your way into. 

You get really good healthcare, too. And dental. 

You’d never had dental.

It’s the third best thing in the universe.

The second best is that you really do love your job. You get to help people. You get to take all the fame you gained through sheer luck and selling yourself like candy and lies, then use it for good, and you get to take all of Tony Stark’s money and spend it on helping people. 

The first best thing is the view. The floor-to-ceiling windows that display the sparkling lights of the city. Glowing like fireflies below you, and adored by the Boy. 

Your cat. The little black-furred assface who’s already yelling at you when you push open the door, sprinting to the kitchen counter and giving you a very mean look as you kick off your shoes. 

“I’m coming.” You mutter, pulling the food out of your bag as the Boy gives you a disapproving look. “And you ate this morning, you greedy little fuck-“

He yowls again. If he wasn’t stupid enough to have run into the windows at high speed on three separate occasions, you’d think he understands you. 

The one-sided conversation ends when you set his food near the windows and flip on the TV, just for there to be some sound. Otherwise it’s just the ringing in your ears and wet sounds of the Boy eating, and it would drive you out of your mind.

You half pay attention to the news as you put the other cans away and start making dinner, but it’s mostly the same sort of shit every night. Wakanda’s still fighting with the UN about sharing Vibranium, which seems to be of bigger concern than the multitude of medical advancements they’ve made in the past month alone. Spiderman’s zipping around and a new theory on his identity has been disproved, although everyone is still very hung up on the Night Monkey thing last summer. Homelessness rates all around the world have hit another all-time high, and the Senate is under fire for blocking another stimulus bill. A large mountain suddenly collapsed in the Balkans. Captain America’s back in New York to do Captain America things, and CNN has an exclusive interview with him. 

You glance up at that. The interview seems to be taking place in an empty white room, a blonde woman with too much lipstick is twirling her hair as she speaks to Captain America, who’s in his uniform, shifting awkwardly around in his seat as he smiles at blondie. 

It’s the wings. 

You don’t know why he insists on doing the interviews with the wings. 

“So, Cap,” Blondie leans forward, and you snort. “What brings you back to the city?”

“Do I need to have a reason?” He shrugs, trying to sit back in his chair before very obviously realizing he’s sitting on a stool, and lurching slightly forward. “Y’all have plenty to do here, I got friends to visit, and it’s not like I can’t make myself busy. Just since I got in this morning I was able to visit a great veteran’s center downtown, and eat an amazing sandwich just a block away. It’s a fantastic city, Beth, and even Captain America needs a break.”

Blondie’s smile widens, and you narrow your eyes at the TV.

Sam’s been in since this morning, and he still hasn’t texted you back. You’re going to kick his ass.

“A break?” Blondie asks. “Are you on vacation?”

“Nah, I never take a full break. Best I get is a week off with my family, but even that’s always cut short by somethin’. Only way I’m getting a real vacation is if everyone would chill the hell out for a week.”

“And what would you do with that vacation, if you had it?”

Sam gives a look of mock thought, and you hope he can feel your eye roll through the screen. “I don’t know, what are you up to-“

You click off the TV—you’ve seen Sam try to flirt, it’s a train wreck—and grab out your phone. The interview wasn’t live, so you could call him, but you can be more annoying than that.

Happy picks up on the sixth ring, right at the Boy hops up into your lap. 

“Hey, Happy, how are-“

“What do you want,” Happy says your name in a flat tone, and you make a face at the Boy.

“Am I not allowed to just call you? Are we not friends-“

“We are friends, but you never call me unless you want something. And it’s the weekend, so if this is work related-“

“It’s not.” Your words are quick, and the Boy starts slightly in your lap. “Can you make Sam text me back?”

“No.”

You frown. “You didn’t even think about it-“

“I don’t need to think about it. That’s not my job, and you can use the exact same phone you’re calling me on to call him-“

“What if I say please?”

“I’ll still say no.” Happy snaps, and you can hear his glare. “You know, you’re both adults, with jobs, and not children who need my help whenever you’re annoying each other.”

“Oh, Happy,” you shake your head at the Boy, giving him a look of disappointment that leaks into your tone. “I don’t know who told you that, but they were very obviously lying to you-“

He sighs. “You know, if I knew that you and Wilson were friends when I hired you, I-“

“You didn’t hire me, Tony did. And Sam was dead, so it didn’t really feel worth mentioning.” You lean your head back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. “Can you please call him? I’ve sent him five texts and he hasn’t responded to any of them.”

There’s a brief, static pause on call, and when Happy speaks again his voice is cautious. “Is he home?”

“No.” You mutter, even as you glance around the apartment to make sure. Like he might emerge from a shadow you’d missed before, or drop from the ceiling like a bomb. “He’ll be gone until the end of the month. It’s just me and the Boy.”

“Fine. But you have to promise you’ll leave your apartment.”

You frown. “I left my apartment today-“

“Did you take the Subway for an hour then go back home?”

“I- no-“ You swallow. “Shut up.”

“Yeah, okay. Go outside.”

“I did.”

“Go with Wilson. Eat dinner. Pretend you have a life outside of work.”

You wrinkle your nose at the Boy. “You’re not my dad, Happy-“

“No, but I am your boss-“

“That’s not true either-“

“Just-“ Happy sighs. “Relax. And I’ll get Pepper to double your funds for that GRC lawsuit.”

You frown. “She was going to do that anyway-“

“Do you want me to call Wilson or not?”

“Please call Sam.” There’s a pause, and you grab the opportunity, sitting up on the couch. “While you’re asking Pepper for things, we have the primary fundraiser coming up, and-“

“Relax.” Happy snaps your name. “And no sneaking into the office again, or I’m removing your badge access.”

He hangs up, and you roll your eyes. 

You do relax. You’re lying on the couch and relaxing right now. You’d argue you relax too much, because you could be doing something useful instead of just sitting here. You could be answering emails, or looking at the budget reports to find space for more public-school donations—the Stark Grant could be larger, and you’ll be fucked if they cut the art funds again—or making phone calls to figure out when those Wakandan treatments and vaccines will be hitting the market, and how many you could buy, and where the best point of distribution would be-

Your phone buzzes in your hands. 

Happy Hogan

And if I see a login on your email before Monday, I’m changing your password.

Fuck.

He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand that it’s never enough. That you can watch TV and try to relax, but it just sets you further on edge.

You’re being lazy. You’re lonely, and it’s horrible, and you love it, but you can only be lonely when you’re doing something. Otherwise it’s impossible.

To exist with just yourself—which is more than anyone should need to tolerate, ever—and not be doing something with it.

You watch about two hours of TV before you feel yourself start to settle too deep into the couch, and you have move. 

The sun has long set, so you can’t go for a walk. You left your notebook at the office. Sam still hasn’t texted you back, and you could just try to go to bed, but sleep has never been your friend. 

Sleep is where you’re most alone. Just you in a bed—or with a body that’s colder and less caring than stone on the other side of the mattress—and the dead of night creeping over your brain until it turns against you. Until your head starts to spiral and indulge every terrible thought you’ve ever had, right up until you finally pass out and it all gets worse.

Sleep is the only place where the thing isn’t under control. The thing nobody knows about, by design, because nobody needs to know about it. You can do plenty of good without using the thing.

And it’s not like you could use the thing. It’s not yours to exercise or abuse. You’re more of a vessel than anything else, and the only person who can use the thing is the same one who’s not here.

Who will return, because he has to, but who will be dreaded every moment up until that point, and during it, and after it.

But you need him. That’s part of the thing. The secret. 

Your stupid fucking powers. 

You don’t have a fancy, made-up name for them. You don’t have a fancy, made-up name for yourself. All you know is that when you’re permitted or demanded to, you can do things that certainly aren’t normal. But they’re just there. They aren’t as important or glamorous as they sound. Your powers are the least interesting part of you anyway. They don’t even really do much, and your brain—just your brain, the only part of you that’s all yours and mostly within your control—can do far more.

If you’re you—the you people want—you can offer things yourself. You can be the one who saves people, instead of whatever’s rooting and shifting around in your body. And everyone has powers these days. The universe seems to hand them out to anyone who dares be a semi-good person, or decides to be evil enough that they take them by force.

And you’re not either. You’re the result of a pure accident, a chemical spill or explosion—you’re not sure, you were too young to remember, and your parents never actually told you—and you don’t even have the kind of powers that could help people. You’re not Avenger’s material, and you don’t have a sour enough heart to be a villain.

Villains need to have anger that pushes out, instead of just blooming and eating at their vital organs until they’re choking on it every second, and there’s nothing left to do but watch shadows shift on the wall and wonder if there could be a cure, or euthanization, or if their curse is to just need living. Like this.

With your powers humming in your body, dormant and sedated until they’re called forward by whoever you’re bound to. 

Right now it’s him. The longest shadow, and the warden, and one of the million reasons you don’t think you’re meant to be happy. It feels like you’re made to match him, because every beast needs a cage, and at least this one is beautiful.

And everyone suffers. Everyone gets scarred and mauled, but they keep going. They’re no better than you, but they’re all better than you, and you’re caught in a sort of static where you know you’re a little more than the devil.

You’re an exception. No redemption for the sin you’ve committed of existing. You’re too human. Too much. Nobody would ever want you, but they’ll take what you can offer them, just as long as they can’t really see you. Don’t really have to know you.

And that’s why sleep has never been easy. The bond keeps you tethered down, but it’s weaker when you’re asleep. It rots and festers in your body, eroding at your intestines and organs and the very fabric of the world around you, right up until you wake up and move to the bathroom.

Then—after an hour or so on the cold floor with your head in your hands—you rejoin the world that never bothers to stop spinning, never waits for you to catch up.

And then you focus on what actually matters.

In your youth that was survival, for you and your siblings. Working until you were sore and falling apart at the seams, then pulling yourself back up and slamming back together. Finding small relief in books and TV shows and music, spending a little time at bars you were too young to enter, but were filled with free drinks and food and quick attention that filled up the emptiness of your body a little more.

Then you caught attention too much attention. By pure, shit luck, you became some sort of rusted stone that was grabbed from a river and polished into something for display. And it was cold and lonely and exhausting, but you were good at it.

Almost all the time, you were good at being an accessory—except when you weren’t, and the fallout was shattering and bruising and bone-breaking—and the most important thing became about keeping the attention.

You were shining. You were loved by people you loathed, who didn’t really know you—knowing you and loving you had never worked in your favor before—but your hands were soft. No blisters or callouses or numb sensation in your fingertips from being in the cold too long. If you held the attention, your siblings could go to college. If you kept the show up and sold yourself in careful, surgical pieces that these fucking monsters adored, you’d never have to be hungry again. 

And when the blip happened, the most important thing became this. Remaining useful to the remainder of the world, taking the job Tony Stark offered you because the last Stark Foundation director died in the Blip, you were hiding from the right person in the right room at the right stupid party, and you seemed like a smart girl, good head on your shoulders, little too strong a heart, more than most people, but that will be useful for charity, I think.

You’ve replayed those words a million times in your head, when it got this lonely and you felt this hollow. Tony Stark thought you were a smart girl. You were a smart girl, but there’s never not a little voice that reminds you that maybe, just maybe, you’re an arrogant liar and pretentious bitch who’s worse than she could even imagine.

And you can imagine at lot. 

It’s another side effect of the thing. 

But Tony Stark thought you’d be good at this. And you are. He trusted you to do this—despite the lack of evidence that you were more than just a smile and ditzy, grating giggle—so you have to do it right. And doing it right doesn’t mean glaring at your phone and waiting for Sam to text you back, or watching TV, it means doing your fucking job-

You manage to get through about two emails before the server times out, and your phone buzzes.

Happy Hogan

I warned you.

You get it back on Monday.

Relax.

You scowl at the screen, and glare around your apartment. You can’t rest, but there’s nothing else to do. You’ve fed the Boy, and cleaned his litterbox, and you may be low on groceries and high on laundry, but those are just things for you.

They don’t matter.

Something falls off the counter in the kitchen, and when you look up the Boy is chewing on an envelope. 

You’d forgotten you got the mail.

That’s something you can do. 

It’s not much. It’s better than sleep, and it’s better than nothing. 

The Boy doesn’t give up the envelopes without a fight. He’d sat on them the moment you’d stood from the couch, and whenever you try to move him off, he just walks right back on, so you resort to bribery with more food and call it a day.

Two pizza places want you to know they exist. Three clothing outlets are having a sale, and the old man next door left the crossword for you to finish off. 

That’s another thing you can do. And it eats a whole hour—this week’s theme had been modern music, which meant the puzzle was only 10% complete before the old man had given up—before you move back to the mail.

Coupons. Spam mail. An invitation to a gala you set up, and do not need an invitation to.

One letter. 

You frown at that. You don’t get letters. People don’t send letters. But here’s an envelope with your full name printed in small text. No return address, no stamp, nothing. 

It takes only a second to rip through the top, pull out the thin paper inside, and unfold it.

The world starts to blur, and the ringing in your ears becomes impossibly loud. You can’t really seeing anything, but you can still see too much, and you can’t bring yourself to drop the paper even as it begins to feel like it’s burning your skin, and you’re almost certain that it’s all in your head—most things usually are—but what if it’s not-

It crumbles in your hand, and you can’t really breathe. The air is too thin as your chest starts to heave, and the room is spinning slightly, and there’s- that has to be wrong. There’s no reason for it to be right. You’ve never- You’re not- There’s nothing about you-

You scramble to smooth out the paper, just to check. Just to be sure. You need to be sure-

There it is again.

Big, bold letters scrawled at the top of the page, in a language you can’t read but looks to be Cyrillic.

A large, crude drawing of an octopus and a skull taking up the rest of the page.

And you do the only thing you can think of.

You call Sam.

——————

Bucky wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing.

He’s never sure what he’s doing. Most of his life things have just happened to him, and he’s managed not to die, and then he’s kept going. He’s adapted. He learned what Google was, and how streaming worked, and he could keep up with about seventy percent of the shit people said when they were talking about pop culture.

He didn’t care for it, but he did it. He had to do it. 

He couldn’t go back. This was his life, for better or worse, and he just had to keep adapting. 

It was better than it was. The best thing that worked for Bucky was to remind himself that it was better. People didn’t love him now, but he didn’t really want them to, and complete apathy was better than staring at him a muttering do you think that’s the Winter Soldier under their breaths, like he couldn’t fucking hear them. 

People always seemed to forget he could hear them. That every whisper and gasp and flinch was painfully visible, and completely unwarranted. Bucky hadn’t killed anyone in months, and the last people he’d killed had been terrorists. Jesus, Walker had killed more people than Bucky had, during the whole Flag Smasher situation. Sam had only barely killed less.

But thing were still better. Nobody had tried to lock him up after the Flag Smashers. They’d tried to lock him up during it, but not after, and that was better. 

He’d been able to grow his hair out again without people sneering and gaping at him on the street, and that was better. He had a permanent invitation to visit Sam and his family in Louisiana, and that was better.

He still slept on the floor, but now he used two blankets, and that was better. 

Everything was still pretty shit, but it was better. 

Most days that passed, he did nothing, but that could be enough. It was better than moving backwards.

He played a game with himself, because life was still pretty damn boring. He’d started it years ago in Washington D.C, and improved upon it in Romania, then perfected it in Wakanda.

His name was James Buchanan Barnes. He lived in New York, and was wearing a blue shirt. He liked the ramen he’d gotten from the corner store last night, because it hadn’t tasted like ash and water. He hated the blank, white color of his apartment walls, because it felt sterile and medical. He needed to take a shower, because he smelled like stale coffee. He wanted-

That was the worst one. A thing he knew and a thing he could see was simple. Things he hated and needed were easy. Things he liked were more difficult.

Things he wanted were horrible. He didn’t want anything. He didn’t deserve anything.

Shuri had said that was why the want was so important, when he’d told her about the game. Shuri had said the want would make him feel more like a person, and it would make things better.

So Bucky wanted…

He wanted a drink.

He’d stop at the corner store on his way home.

And that was how he kept moving, and kept things from—at the very least—declining. Bucky played the game, and managed to cross a few more names off his list. He refused to participate in Sam’s dumb quest to catch him up on modern media, but he had been taking an online college course about modern history, and that was pretty interesting. They taught more about international stuff now—Bucky had come to understand that his education in the 30s had been quite limited and based on American Nationalism, which he’d been proud of knowing, but Sam had just laughed at him about—and he’d caught up on pretty much everything from those 80 years under Hydra’s control, so things were better.

He felt pretty damn useless, having a Vibranium arm and just wandering around New York, but nobody was ever that eager to throw him into any action—understandable, Bucky couldn’t really find a good way to protest that choice that didn’t involve making promises that only Sam seemed to trust—so this was all he could do right now.

Cross names off the list. Go to therapy and inform Dr. Raynor that no, he hadn’t hurt himself or anyone else, and yes, he did speak to Sam this week. Try to eat dinner in quieter bars because his apartment felt more like a box or container than it should.

Maybe that was something else to do. Figure out what people did now, when they decorated their apartments, and do that for himself. Another menial, pointless task that kept the days passing, and kept him sane. It would be good proof that he was trying to value himself—which was the stupidest thing in the world, valuing himself would imply Bucky was worth inherently worth any value, and he quite simply wasn’t—and it would mean Sam would stop being an asshole about how much of a depressing old asshole he could be.

Bucky felt he’d earned the right to be depressing. He was over a hundred and being subject to a mariachi band on the subway. Things were better but they’d never be good. Not good like they’d gotten to be with Steve, where he could have a real life, because Steve had always been meant for that stuff, and Steve had never done what Bucky did. 

Not good like Sam, either. Where the public liked him rather than passively tolerated him, and he got interviews on TV that weren’t all about the Winter Solider, and what was that like.

He didn’t like to talk about it. He never liked to talk about it. Not with Sam, or Raynor, or anyone. He hated that he remembered it at all. How it had felt to not feel, how it had looked to move through the world and not really see any of it, how he’d been aware of what he’d been doing the whole time and at first he’d known it was wrong and he’d fought, but then he’d forgotten how to know anything at all, and he’d given in.

Talking about it would mean Raynor would make therapy would go on longer, and Sam would get all fucking dramatic about it, and Bucky would get all the same lectures again, for the millionth time. About how he couldn’t blame himself for being brain-washed—he very much could, and he was actually pretty damn good at it—and how the Winter Soldier was dead. Not something he or anyone else ever needed to worry about again.

Just another reason not to talk about it. Because the trigger words were gone—Shuri had done her job well, and effectively, because the girl didn’t seem to know how not to—but the Soldat was still buried and covered deep, deep down.

Sometimes, when Bucky woke up in cold sweat, with an invisible weight pressed on his chest and a white-hot burning sensation in his blood and around his head, he could feel him. Stirring in the very back of his skull, near the nape of his neck, cold and prickling and angry.

And part of the was too horribly familiar. Because things were better, but Bucky was still so fucking angry.

It was easy to be angry. There was a lot to be angry at.

He was furious at how much of a mess the world was since the Blip, and how people who tried to make it better seemed to only make it worse. Bucky hadn’t seen one suit and tie asshole from DC get on the news and apologize for the how much of a disaster this was, and he’d heard far too many people suggest really stupid ideas—like invading other countries for resources or making some type of merit-based program for displacement relief—to not be angry.

He was pissed about how it didn’t matter how good Sam was at being Captain America, people would always be more critical of him than they’d ever been of Steve. Steve had left. Sam had never left. And he was angry about that too. About how there was still some very bitter and sour thing rooting around in the cavity of Bucky’s chest—reminding him that Steve left—and another part of him that was louder and crushing, grabbing Bucky by his throat and hissing that he had no right to be angry at Steve for leaving. And that just made him angrier, and it all fed into itself, and the coffee cup in his hand was crushed into crumpled, wet paper.

He was angry about how people weren’t angry with him anymore. Bucky didn’t get outrightly furious responses to his existence anymore, but the kind ones were somehow worse, and thinking that made him feel like a dick, and made him angrier. Some lady had gotten all sweet and sympathetic with him about it, cooing about how hard that must have been, and how strong he was, and Bucky had felt like he was going to vomit.

She hadn’t known what he’d really done. What he really was. Even Sam and Steve had never bothered to try and pretend Bucky was some weak, innocent, pathetic little baby angel.

Everyone seemed to be incredibly into loving themselves in modern times. And that was fantastic for them, but Bucky wasn’t really interested himself, so the next person who suggested it was going to get shot.

Finally, he was really fucking pissed about how Sam was, apparently, just letting himself into Bucky’s apartment now. Without permission or—more importantly—warning, and then acting all fucking indignant when Bucky tried to punch him.

“Woah, Buck, it’s just me! It’s Sam!” He dodged under Bucky’s arm, and Bucky’s fist flew right into the wall. Through it.

Goddamnit.

“I know who you are,” He grunted, yanking his arm out of the cracked plaster. “Why the hell are you sitting in my apartment in the dark, Sam.”

“I needed to talk to you,” Sam shrugged. “And you gave me a key-“

“For emergencies. Now I- Fuck- I have to pay for that.” He gestured to the wall, little fractured pieces of it dropping to the floor. “Why didn’t you turn on a light-“

With horrible timing that was going to get him actually punched, Sam flicked on the light. “I didn’t think you just come in swingin’-“

Bucky let out a dry laugh. “And here I thought you knew me-“

“I do know you. I just- Shit-“ Sam sighed, dropping on the one, plastic chair in the apartment, and suddenly it was very obvious that he was actually here for something. “Look, man, I got a lot in my head right now. I’ll pay for the wall, just don’t try to fucking punch me again.”

“No promises.” Bucky crossed his arms, and Sam chuckled. 

“Fair enough.” He said, scanning over Bucky with an unreadable expression. “You just gonna stand there, or-“

“Why are you here, Sam.” Bucky stood a little taller, raising his chin. “And don’t lie. You can’t lie.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Why, because Captain American’s supposed to be all about truth and justice-“

“Because you’re shit at it.”

Sam’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t throw an insult back. 

It was a horrible, blaring warning sign that something was really, really wrong.

“You might wanna sit down, Buck.” Sam muttered, giving him a weary look. “It’s not good news.”

“You know what, I think I figured that one out myself, buddy-“

“I’ve told you not to call me buddy-“

“And I’ve told you not to startle me.” 

Sam glared at him, Bucky glared right back, and the silence stretched on for several long minutes as they moved into their usual standoff. Sam had gotten better at not blinking, but Bucky practiced every waking moment.

And that’s why Sam cracked first.

“You gonna fuckin’ sit?”

“No.”

“Fine, see if I give a shit.” Sam ran a hand over his face, watching Bucky carefully. “I need a favor.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes. “What kind of favor”

“The kind of favor your anti-social ass is gonna hate.”

“Okay,” Bucky shrugged. He didn’t know where Sam’s sudden rush of honesty was coming from, but he appreciated it. “Then, no.”

“Just-“ Sam sighed, shooting him a glare. “I need you to hear it first, okay? I wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.”

“Is it?”

“Yeah.” Sam swallowed. “It is.”

Bucky scanned over him with careful attention. Sam was slightly hunched, and all his words lacked their usual harsh punch, and there was no tug of a shit-eating grin on his face. His hands were folded together, and there was the twitch on his face that Bucky had filed as a warning, possible bad news incoming in his brain. There were no fidgeting fingers, which meant no tell that Sam was lying.

Which meant he was serious.

And Bucky had to believe him, and listen.

“Fine.” He grunted, words pushed through his teeth. “What.”

“You know the Stark Foundation?”

Bucky frowned. “No, but I’d guess that it got something to do with Iron Man trying to do some charity.”

“And you be right on the money.” Sam’s lips twitched, but he still had a firm, heavy expression. It made something in Bucky’s stomach twist. “Stark passed it onto his wife, Pepper, in his will, and she’s been letting this woman,” Sam said a name Bucky had never heard in his life, and he cut Sam off with a glare.

“Why are you giving me backstory. I don’t need backstory.”

“I’m painting the picture, asshole-“

“Well, paint faster.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Fine, you old, impatient motherfucker.” He snapped the name again, holding Bucky’s glare with his own. “She’s the director of the Stark Foundation. The CEO of the biggest non-profit in the world, used to be a kind of socialite before the blip, but she’s not a bitch, it’s actually pretty complicated-“

Bucky scowled. “If you’re about to try and make me go on a date with one of Stark’s monkeys-“

“She’s being targeted by Hydra.” Sam said, and Bucky’s blood went cold. “She got a letter last night, with their stamp.”

“A letter-“

“You know what a letter is, Buck, you were born when telegrams were still a thing-“

“No, I-“ Bucky paused as Sam’s words sunk in. “First off, shut the hell up. Second, we didn’t use telegrams in my war, I wasn’t born in the damn 1800s-“

“You were pretty close to it, though, weren’t you-“

“Third,” he ignored Sam, raising his fingers as he moved through his points, his brow drawing into a tight furrow. “Any letter should have some sort of return address. That will be where we start.”

Sam shook his head. “This one was added to her box manually. Happy Hogan already went through all the footage, came up with nothin’-“

“Look again. Letters don’t just appear, Sam-“

“I know that-“

“Shut up. Fourth,” Bucky ground his teeth, forcing his head further back into the freezing fog of Hydra. Every thing, every one, every rule and practice and method they’d used, things he’d prefer—but could not manage or afford—to forget. “Hydra isn’t big on pointless scare tactics. If it was a letter, there would’ve been a message.”

“There was. In code. And we got people workin’ on breaking it, but until they do,” Sam said the name again. Just the first name. It echoed around in Bucky’s head for a second as he memorized it—they’d need to run background on her, CEO of a Stark company or not, because Hydra didn’t just threaten people—as Sam sighed, and kept talking. “She- I need to know she’s safe. Hydra ain’t somethin’ you want to play around with-”

He scowled. “That’s- You don’t think I’m well fucking-“

“I know you are. And that’s my favor.” Sam gave him a semi-apologetic look, and something tight and bleak and heavy wound around Bucky’s gut. “I need you to keep an eye on her, Buck. Keep her safe.”

Bucky stared at him. He was serious. That was Sam’s true, rare, firm and unwavering no jokes face. The one he used when he was running out of sympathy, or something was critical enough to be taken seriously for once in his goddamn life, or he really cared about it. Bucky wasn’t sure which one of those this was. He didn’t really care.

“You were right.” He grunted. “I hate that. And I’m not doing it.”

“Buck-“

“No, Sam. I’m not going to fucking watch some fancy CEO lady!” His gestures were getting wider, and Sam was just watching him. “I’m not doing it! I’ll be more useful more useful tracking Hydra and you know it, and she can use Stark’s money to buy her some bodyguards-“

“But I’m asking you, Bucky.” Sam said, holding his ground. “You know just well as I do that your pardon conditions mean you need to be directly involved in Hydra takedown effort, and this is a part of that-“

Bucky felt his jaw twitch. “I’d help anyway, pardon or not, but there’s not a chance I’m doing that-“

“And,” Sam pressed on, his voice raising to match Bucky’s. “She’s my friend.”

This night seemed to be mostly sighing and staring, because Sam let out another long breath, and Bucky couldn’t figure out how to kickstart his brain. Sam’s friend. The woman was Sam’s friend, and he was asking Bucky to watch her. As a favor.

He’d said favor, not order. He hadn’t started with the pardon, because Sam knew he’d help with taking down any part of Hydra regardless—he’d revel in it—and that wasn’t the hard sell. Watching this woman was, but Sam was still asking.

He had his serious face on because he actually cared. 

“I didn’t think you had any friends beside me.” Bucky muttered, and Sam huffed a low, flat laugh. 

“You’re a riot.”

“You laughed.”

“It was a pity laugh. I’m not the one who lives in a damn near empty apartment and has three contacts in his phone.”

“I’m sorry I don’t have the president on speed dial, Sam.” Bucky grumbled. “You know, I asked, but then Secret Security aimed guns at my head-“

“Bucky.” Sam said, and Bucky sighed. This didn’t seem like something Sam was going to let up on, which meant it was incredibly serious, which was unbelievably annoying. “I need you to do this. I know better than anyone that I don’t need to use the pardon for you to help me, but I will.”

“That’s rude, you know.” Bucky muttered. “Not a balanced relationship.”

Sam gave him a flat look. “Alright, Mr. Therapy. Save it for after you do the job-“

“I didn’t say I was doing it-“

“Buck, please,” Sam held Bucky’s gaze, and there was that heavy feeling in his gut again. “If you’re not doin’ it for me, do it because this civilian who’s being threatened by a nazi terrorist organization. And it’s our responsibility to keep her safe.”

Bucky scowled. “You know, Sam, civilians don’t just get threats. I don’t know how you met her, but Hydra’s not just going to waste time on some random fucking girl-“ 

“This isn’t- It’s not that Buck.” Sam stood to his full height, and Bucky marked his second fact about this woman. He knew her name, and he knew that Sam did seem to really care about her. “I know her. It would be the same as suggesting you’re in Hydra’s cahoots.”

Bucky felt himself stiffen, and Sam pushed on. 

“She’s a public figure, and Stark and Hydra weren’t exactly best buddies.” he shrugged. “Her dad was military, man. Maybe he made some enemies. I’m gonna make sure it’s looked into, gonna handle this, but while I do, I need to know she’s gonna be safe.”

“So you’re making me babysit-“

“I’m asking my closest friend,” Sam raised his brows. “Who I trust, to make sure my other closest friend doesn’t get murdered. Please.”

If Bucky stared at Sam long enough, maybe the moment would stretch on forever, and he’d never have to say yes. He was going to say yes—this was obviously too important to Sam to say no, and how bad could following some CEO around be anyway—but he didn’t want to. He wanted to figure out how to vanish into a shadow or sink into the floor, because this was going to be so goddamn annoying-

“You owe me.” He grunted, because time wouldn’t cooperate and just stop, and Sam’s face split into a wide grin.

“Thanks, man. Really.” Sam clapped him on the shoulder, and Bucky didn’t miss how his friend’s body was immediately more relaxed. “I’m gettin’ dinner with her Monday night, to catch up.”

Bucky frowned. “And?”

“And it’s gonna be with a very special guest, Sargent James Buchanan Barnes-“

“I am not going to your dinner, Sam.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re gonna meet her, you’re going to be best friends and braid each other’s hair, and I’m gonna rest easy at night knowing that if anyone’s getting murdered, it’s you-“

Bucky tensed. “How would I get murdered-“

Sam said the woman’s name with a shrug. “She’s wily. Can get real angry, like a more wordy Hulk. She’d kick your ass.”

Bucky snorted. “I’m not that worried about a wily girl, Wilson-“

“And that’s your funeral. But,” Sam gave him a firm look. “You’re comin’ to dinner, or I’m dragging you there. Your choice.”

There wasn’t a way out of this one. Bucky had already, very stupidly, jumped down whatever hole Sam had dug them, and now he was stuck. 

“Fine.” He started to back Sam towards the door, as if herding a damn sheep. “Get out of my apartment.”

“Alright, guess you do need your nap, grandpa-“

“Out-“

“I’m going.” Sam rolled his eyes, stepping back into the hall but holding the door open with a hand. “And Buck, seriously. Thank you. This is important, and you’re the only one I can trust with this.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bucky muttered, his skin starting to itch off his body. He didn’t know why he was the only one Sam could trust with this. It was just a girl, even if she was Sam’s friend, and there were plenty of trustworthy, powerful, real heroes to go around. Bucky didn’t need the praise or approval or thanks for doing the right thing. He didn’t deserve it. “See you tomorrow.”

“Hey,” Sam threw him a half-grin. “Try not to punch me when I come to pick you up.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “I thought you were an intruder.”

“And why don’t I believe you-“

“Because I’m lying.” 

“Ah,” Sam’s grin grew. “There he is-“ 

Bucky closed the door in his face.

He barely made it back to the kitchen before his phone rang. 

“Very mature, Buck. I’m gonna tell Raynor you’re avoiding me again.“ 

Bucky scowled. “Stop bothering me, Wilson, or I’ll change my mind-“

“Sure, man.” Sam sounded like he was laughing, and Bucky didn’t really fucking appreciate it. “I left a file on your boring ass counter. Got everything you’ll need to know before dinner tomorrow.”

Bucky frowned, his eyes immediately landing on a large, manila folder in the kitchen. He didn’t know how he’d missed it. Sam must have dropped it there seconds before he left. “What do I need to know.”

“Normal shit. All her stuff on paper, copy of the Hydra letter, blueprint of her apartment-“

“How’d you get a blueprint-“

“Happy sent it over. Said he doesn’t want his favorite crazy lady getting murdered, and to let him know if we need anything else.” Sam paused for a second, then, “There’s no personal stuff about her in there, but if you want-“

“She talk as much as you do?”

Sam chuckled. “I’d say she talks more.”

“Then I’m sure I’ll know everything about her in twenty minutes.” Bucky muttered, spreading the papers out over his counter. “Anything I’m gonna need to bring to dinner?”

“Just your charming, silent, cyborg staring self-“

“Good. Call me if you need think Sarah needs a babysitter too.”

Sam huffed through the speaker, and Bucky smirked. “You know, this is only going to be a chore if you make it one-“

“See you tomorrow, bird-man.” 

Bucky hung up before Sam could get in a last word, and glanced at the time on his phone. 

It was late.

But he hadn’t been planning on sleeping.

Might as well start now.

His name was James Buchanan Barnes. His left arm was Vibranium, and his apartment was clean. He liked that he’d probably be getting good food at dinner, because Sam had taste. He hated that he had to do this. He needed to get over that, because this was just going to be another thing to do. Another boring task. This lady was Sam’s friend, so she’d be annoying, but hopefully the same brand of annoying. Bucky had already adapted to Sam’s brand of annoying.

He wanted-

He’d get back to that one later. After he was done with the papers.

This woman seemed smart enough, if she was running a Stark brand company herself. Nothing obviously shady in her background. Very normal looking hometown and public-school education, a lot of part-time jobs, no big red letter that said Hydra associate. She’d spent all of her adult life in the public eye—but that never limited crime activity—had dead parents, no other family that had taken her and her siblings, an extensive dating history that Bucky didn’t really care to read over right now, and lived alone in Manhattan.

She was pretty. You usually had to be, for those fancy, hands-clean jobs and lives, but it was the kind of pretty that got Bucky to look at the photo over and over, because it was a little inhuman. That was the kind of pretty he’d never seen in his whole, long life. The kind that existed mostly in paintings and the fairytales he’d read his sisters, all the way back before the… everything.

Not just pretty, beautiful.

Strange, attention capturing and soul straining and mind boggling beautiful. Sculptures and warships and poems and violent beautiful.

Beauty that made Bucky almost certain the photo had to be edited or altered, beauty that made him doubt his eyes and almost moved his body.

And beauty like that was something to be weary of. 

Third thing to remember. Don’t look at the beautiful woman with the nice enough name, that Sam cared about, for too long. It was easy to get lost, looking at Her, and Bucky could not afford to get lost.

He had a job to do. 

The letter did, in fact, have a large print of Russian code over it. Well-designed code, that wouldn’t be breakable in one night.

He’d need to get his hands on the woman’s handwriting, to compare. He’d need to test if she knew Russian, too.

Sam hadn’t said how long he’d known her. Or how well. Or how they’d met, and what the exact nature of their relationship was. Bucky was pretty sure that if it was of a more… intimate nature, Sam would probably be guarding her himself, instead of passing it off for Bucky to do.

But Sam did care about her. That was fact two.

And that meant this could be something deeper and darker about her, that Sam didn’t want to admit or see, because Hydra didn’t just threaten people.

There was nothing obviously wrong with her. No blaring red flags or visible marks on her picture that told Bucky anything besides beautiful in a strange and powerful way. But there rarely were those types of clear alarms, if someone was good at their job, so Bucky didn’t trust it.

He kept looking back to her eyes. There was something in them—even through the photo—that he couldn’t figure out. Something deep and infinite and almost glowing in the black and white ink, like it was trapped and rolling around and trying to hide. Wasn’t meant to be seen. And it was just as beautiful as every other part of her, but ten times as dangerous. 

It could be a secret, or lie, or trick. A slip in her mask. A kind of pheromone or alteration, maybe some new sort of Hydra technology, that made people more beautiful than anyone should be.

And that was crazy, but Bucky had seen and been crazier. 

And he was going to figure out what the hell that thing was, because Sam might be trusting him, but Bucky didn’t trust this borderline celestial, mysterious, paper woman at all.

So he was going to figure this out.

Bucky was going to figure Her out.

End Note: I love putting men in situations. Bucky I'm sorry but you're gonna come out of this so loved I swear.

Thank you so so so much for reading!! If you like this story, please reblog, share, or leave a comment! <3

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⮞ Chapter One: The Crash Pairing: Jungkook x Reader Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon, Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 27.7k+ Summary: Stranded on a barren planet lit by three suns, a group of survivors struggle to survive after their transporter crash-lands. Their situation grows dire when pilot Y/N discovers that every 22 years, an eclipse plunges the planet into darkness, unleashing swarms of flesh-eating creatures. Facing both external threats and internal tensions, the group forms a fragile alliance. As mistrust and secrets surface, Y/N's complicated dynamic with convict and murderer Jungkook intensifies, making the fight for survival against the darkness and the creatures even more perilous. Warnings: Strong Language, Side Character Death, Main Character Death, Aliens, Vicious Carnivorous Aliens, Violence, Blood, Jungkook is a huge prick, Cocky too, Talks About Past Characters Dying, Trauma Bonding, Bickering, Arguing, If Kook is a prick then Lee is a dick, Child Death, Graphic Death Scenes, Sexual Tension, Y/N is just trying her best, Jaded Characters, Religious Themes (I mean no harm and do not want to offend anyone), Bad Character Choices, Peter is Iconic (and a dumb ass), Surviving, Alcohol Consumption A/N: First chapter means it's time for the fun to begin. Or in this case, the catastrophe. Thanks for reading!

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The steady hum of the Hunter-Gratzner was like a heartbeat—a constant, low thrum that seeped through Y/N’s boots and kept her anchored in the here and now. It was so familiar she hardly noticed it anymore—until it suddenly stopped. And that silence wasn’t peaceful. It was suffocating, the kind that squeezes the air out of your lungs and makes your skin crawl. Not something you ever want to hear in deep space.

Today, though, the hum was going strong, a comforting reminder that the Hunter-Gratzner was doing exactly what it was built to do. Y/N’s fingers moved across the console with quick, confident precision, like they’d been doing this forever. In a way, they had. After so many hours in the pilot’s seat, it felt less like she was guiding the ship and more like she was part of it—a living extension of its circuits and steel.

A burst of static from the Kordis 12 radio broke her concentration. Flight control’s clipped voice cut through the hiss. “Hunter-Gratzner here,” she answered. “Cleared the last planetary marker.” “Copy that, Hunter-Gratzner,” came the calm reply. “You’re in the primary shipping lanes and cleared for main engine burn. Have a good sleep, H-G. Silas, out.”

A small smile tugged at her lips. Her hand tightened on the lever, then she eased it forward. The reactor’s purr deepened into a low, resonant rumble that pulsed through the ship like some ancient predator settling in for a nap. The ride was smooth—remarkably so, given the sketchy charts of the Tangiers System. No stray debris, no glitches, no pirates lurking in the dark.

Her gaze flicked to the console, scanning the numbers until they leveled off. She did a quick mental calculation of her cut: half a percent. Not much, but enough. Every run, every ton of cargo, chipped away at her debts and nudged her further from the past she was trying to outrun. Out here, in the cold black of space, it was all about survival.

Twenty-eight weeks to New Mecca. That was a long, lonely stretch—but Y/N liked it that way. The emptiness suited her. When the rest of the crew went into stasis, it left her with time to think... or not think. To forget. Forget the faces, the regrets, the ghosts.

She leaned back, fingers wrapping around the warm ceramic of her synth coffee mug. The bitter taste brought her back down to earth—figuratively speaking. Moments like this, with the ship’s hum in her bones and the console lights glowing softly, made the universe feel almost small and manageable. But even then, those nagging questions crept in.

Is this enough? Enough to change her life? To change her?

She pushed the doubts aside, focusing on the faint pinpricks of light scattered across the viewport. This was why she chose this path. Not many women signed up for these long-haul routes—months of isolation, heavy responsibility, and even heavier risks. Most took safer roles: cooking, medical, logistics. But not her. She wanted the pilot’s seat, the chance to earn her crew’s trust while hurtling them through the void.

And she’d done it. Earned it the hard way. Respect wasn’t handed out; you had to wrestle it into submission with grit and skill. She remembered the sneers at the academy, the snide comments. They only fueled her determination. By the time she graduated from Helion Prime’s technical college, she wasn’t just “that dock rat.” She was Y/N Y/L/N, Docking Pilot.

Her uncle had been the first to call her that, pride shining in his eyes even as he teased her. “Docking Pilot,” he’d say, guiding her hands over the controls of his beat-up transport. “You’ll go places, kid. Farther than I ever did.”

Back then, Helion Prime had felt like the whole world—shimmering dunes, scorching heat, and so much promise. She’d started in botany, thinking maybe helping things grow would heal something inside her. But the cockpit’s call was louder. Flight school swept her up, derailing her neat little plan.

That’s when she met Jimin Park. His grin could slice through any tension, but it was his quiet steadiness that really grounded her. Like her, he understood loss. They clicked right away—two orphans forging a bond without needing words. He was practically family, so much so that her uncle took to calling him “nephew” without hesitation.

When NOSA balked at hiring a “Helion Five girl,” Jimin used his connections. His voice carried weight on Aguerra, a place where religion was considered outdated and logic reigned. Helion Prime’s faith clashed with that worldview, but Jimin made them see beyond prejudices. He landed her an interview with Director Min, and Yoongi—sharp-eyed and no-nonsense—saw her raw talent for what it was: resourceful, adaptable, unbreakable under pressure.

Joining the Starfire crew felt like coming home. She still missed them all—Jimin’s steady humor, Armin’s wild Earth stories, Hoseok and Val’s constant flirting. They were a real team, which was a rare thing in the vacuum of space. But then came the promotion offer.

Co-pilot. Better pay. Easier hours. The catch? Leaving the Starfire.

It had seemed like the practical move. But practicality doesn’t fill the aching void left by Jimin’s laugh or Armin’s tall tales. It doesn’t replace that sense of belonging you’ve finally found and then walked away from.

Now the reactor’s low rumble hummed in her bones as she stared into the endless night. Choices. They always caught up with her in the dark, when everything was still except the glow of the console and the distant stars. Had she chosen right? Or had she traded too much for the hum of this ship and the lonely stretches of black it carried?

She thought of Koah, how he could turn even the most routine haul into a story worth hearing—always full of humor and heart. He made every shared meal feel like an adventure. They’d built something special, too—trust forged in danger and laughter, in moments where they looked out for each other no matter what.

And now? Now she was stuck with Greg fucking Shields.

Shields wasn’t just a bad fit—he was the kind of guy who turned the atmosphere sour the second he walked in. Even the simplest tasks became ordeals under his watch, every word dripping with smugness and spite. Koah had been the glue that held them all together, but Shields felt more like a dead weight dragging them down.

“Passengers are tucked in,” he announced, swaggering onto the bridge with that grating, self-satisfied tone. “All set for the long night.”

Y/N didn’t look up, her fingers gliding over the console with practiced ease. “Coordinates locked?” she asked, voice clipped and all business.

“Getting to it,” he drawled, dragging out the words just enough to poke at her nerves.

She refused to take the bait, though her patience was already thinning. Shields finally tapped in the last sequence, and the console beeped its confirmation.

“Don’t rush me, Fry,” he sneered, throwing out the nickname like an insult, smirking as if daring her to react. “You want me to fly us into a black hole?”

Her jaw tightened, her hands pausing on the controls. Fry. Once upon a time, that name brought warm memories—Uncle Sean calling her from the docks with pride in his voice. But Shields had a knack for twisting it into something ugly.

Then he muttered, “bitch,” just loud enough for her to hear. It was the last straw.

“You’ve got your coordinates,” she said, her voice low and controlled, like the calm before a storm. “Lock them in and get off my bridge.”

Shields opened his mouth, ready to spew more venom, but a gravelly voice cut him off.

“Greg.”

Captain Marshall’s tone carried an authority that left no room for argument. It was deep, steady, and edged with enough menace to make Shields recoil.

“Take a walk. Now.”

Shields hesitated, clearly tempted to protest. But one look at Marshall’s face made him think better of it. With stiff shoulders, he muttered something under his breath and stomped off, the hatch hissing shut behind him.

Marshall turned to Y/N, the corners of his beard twitching in a half-smile. “You good, Frenchie?” he asked, using the nickname she actually liked.

She exhaled, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. “I’m fine, Cap. Thanks.”

He nodded, studying her for a moment before leaning against the console. “Shields is a pain in the ass,” he said, his voice dropping to a more casual tone. “Don’t let him get under your skin. If he keeps this up, he’ll be shown the airlock soon enough.”

She let out a dry laugh. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Believe it,” Marshall said with a growing grin. “But don’t think you’re off the hook, Frenchie. I need you sharp. And because I’m feeling generous, I’ll spare you the disco tonight.”

She groaned theatrically, rolling her eyes. “Finally! Your music tastes are borderline criminal, Cap.”

“It’s a cultural treasure,” he protested, feigning offense.

Their shared laughter cut through the tension, if only for a moment. It reminded Y/N of easier days—back on the Starfire, before hard decisions and new regrets made everything more complicated.

22 Weeks Later

The ship’s hum had always felt like part of her—it was in her bones. Most of the time, she forgot it was there. You only noticed it when it vanished, and that’s usually when panic kicked in and you started praying. But for Y/N, there wasn’t any warning. She didn’t even get a chance to register the silence before the chaos hit.

Her cryo-locker hissed open and spat her onto the deck as if the ship itself was rejecting her. The air felt like a slap—icy, metallic, and stinking of burnt circuits. Alarms shrieked, overlapping and piercing, and her muscles, still useless from cryo-sleep, gave out beneath her. She landed hard, arms barely stopping her face from hitting the cold metal floor.

The Hunter-Gratzner groaned, a deep, agonized sound like the big beast it was had finally given up. Gravity shouldn’t have been working, but it yanked her sideways anyway. Flickering lights threw erratic shadows across the twisted wreckage of the corridor—jagged metal, ruptured walls, and beyond the cracked viewport, a faint orange glow flickered like a distant fire.

Y/N forced herself up, hands shaking so badly she could barely grip the frost-encrusted console. She was cold, nauseous, and terrified, but a single thought pounded in her head:

Get up. Get up.

She wobbled onto unsteady feet, nearly gagging on the hot, chemical stink clinging to the air. Fighting the urge to panic, she staggered toward the nearest cryo-locker. Inside, the plexiglass was smashed, shards clinging to the frame. Blood streaked the interior in frozen arcs, and the body inside—someone she might’ve known—was crumpled and horribly bent. She tore her eyes away, throat burning with bile.

There had to be survivors. There had to be.

Movement flickered in the next locker. Heart hammering, she rushed over and wiped the frost from the glass. Inside, the Captain was stirring, breathing shallowly but alive. Relief hit her like a jolt of adrenaline.

She slammed her hand against the intercom. “Cap’n, can you hear me? The hull’s compromised—it’s holding, but barely. Thank God you’re alive. Hold on, I’m gonna pop your E-release. Red handle—pull it once I clear it, got it?” Her voice came out fast, shaky. “I’ll try to get the warm-ups running—”

Then she heard it: a sharp, staccato crack. Phat-phat-phat. Thin contrails streaked through the air. A heartbeat later, the Captain’s chest exploded, spraying blood across the cryo-glass. Shards of plexiglass and metal blew outward, embedding in the walls. He jerked once, twice, then slumped, his eyes going dark as sparks shot from the ruined console.

Y/N reeled back, hand over her mouth. She’d been staring right at him—and now he was—

A sudden hiss behind her made her spin around, heart hammering. Another cryo-locker flew open, and a man tumbled out, crashing into her. They both hit the deck in a heap, limbs flailing.

“Why the hell did I just fall on you?” he wheezed, scrambling to get off her. He was clearly still half out of it from cryo-sleep.

“The Captain’s dead,” she blurted, voice rasping. “I was looking right at him when—” She stopped, fighting off the horrific images. “The hull’s shot. Shields are gone. We’re—”

“Wait!” His voice jumped an octave, eyes darting around. “Not Shields! No, no, that can’t—” He stared at her, then pointed to himself in confusion. “I’m Shields, right?”

For a moment, she just stared. Then a short, bitter laugh escaped her. “Cryo-sleep,” she muttered. “Fries your brain. Every damn time.”

Shields nodded, looking shell-shocked. “Sure does.” Then his eyes slid over her shoulder, and he went pale.

Y/N didn’t have to turn around to know something was there. The air felt different—colder, heavier, and alive with a presence that made her skin crawl. Fear twisted in her gut, relentless.

“Get dressed,” she snapped, snatching a warm-up suit from a storage compartment and thrusting it at him. Her voice shook, but her hands were already flying over the console, checking readings.

“Fifteen-fifty millibars,” she muttered. “Dropping twenty a minute. Dammit, we’re bleeding air. Something nailed us, and it wasn’t gentle.”

Shields clutched the suit like it was the only thing keeping him alive, his hands trembling. “Tell me we’re still in the shipping lane,” he begged. “Tell me it’s just stars out there—endless stars.”

Static crackled on the display as Y/N keyed in commands, her heart pounding. When the screen finally cleared, her stomach twisted. Not stars. Not the vast, empty black she’d hoped for. Instead, a planet loomed—huge, angry, its atmosphere swirling with bruised shades of purple and gray, like a living storm ready to devour them.

“Jesus Christ,” she breathed, the words dropping from her lips like lead.

Then the ship lurched, starting its fall. It began with a savage, grinding howl as the Hunter-Gratzner tried and failed to fight gravity. Metal tore, supports snapped, and the deck tilted under her feet. She lurched forward, scraping her hands on the jagged edge of a console. Smoke stung her eyes, the acrid stench of burning wires filling her lungs.

Through the viewport, the planet’s churning atmosphere rushed up to meet them, a hungry predator closing in. Too close. Too fast. She forced herself to move despite the slanting corridors and the crushing pull of gravity.

Her headset crackled: Shields’ panicked voice cut through the screech of alarms. “They taught you this in training, right? Frenchie? Please tell me you remember the drills!”

She couldn’t answer. She could hardly think. Her surroundings blurred—frost-coated walls, blood smears, cables sparking overhead as she staggered through. By the time she reached the flight deck, she half-collapsed into the pilot’s seat, vision spinning.

Sweat slicked her fingers as she fumbled with the harness. She muttered curses under her breath until, finally, the clasps locked. Slamming her fist against the console, she prayed the failing systems would cooperate one last time. Damaged panels flickered, crash shutters groaning open to reveal the storm outside.

It was like staring into a swirling cauldron—red and gray clouds boiling in pure rage. They weren’t just falling; they were plunging, yanked down by forces well beyond her control. Her hands moved on instinct, flipping switches and twisting knobs in a frantic attempt to steer them out of this dive.

“Crisis program…” Shields’ voice came again, high-pitched and unsteady. “We’ve still got oxygen—fifteen hundred millibars. Surface pressure… oh, God.” He paused, his words faltering. “Maybe the ship’s in a good mood? For once?”

She pictured him cowering at his station, knuckles white, fear bleeding through every syllable. It spiked her own terror.

“Shields,” she croaked, her throat raw. “Focus.”

The stick suddenly jerked in her hands, fighting her attempts to level out. A faint hiss sounded, followed by a dull, bone-rattling thunk that echoed through the cabin like doom itself.

“Frenchie?” Shields’ voice cracked. “What the hell are you doing?”

The jettison doors were sliding shut. Her hand moved almost of its own accord, toggling latches with icy precision. Her thumb hovered over the switch that would shift the ship’s center of gravity—along with its passengers. She trembled, staring at the storm outside. She could practically feel Shields’ stare burning into her.

“Too much weight,” she said, voice taut as a wire about to snap. “I can’t keep the nose up. If I don’t—”

“You mean the passengers,” Shields interrupted, his breath hitching. “Forty people, Frenchie.”

Her jaw locked. “So we both go down? Out of some noble gesture?”

The silence that followed was worse than any alarm. It pressed in on her, suffocating, while outside, the storm raged. Her thumb quivered on the switch, a cold piece of metal that felt like an executioner’s blade.

She could practically feel the planet’s pull, like a weight on her chest. She imagined the look on Shields’ face—disbelief, maybe betrayal. She couldn’t bring herself to look back.

The ship’s hum, once so comforting, was gone—replaced by the wail of stressed metal and piercing sirens.

“Don’t,” Shields whispered, his tone stripped bare. It wasn’t a command or a plea. It was the broken voice of someone who already knew how this could end.

Her head dropped, a ragged sob or curse catching in her throat—she couldn’t tell which. The planet was swallowing them whole, the shaking and roaring all around an echo of the turmoil inside her. Forty lives weighed on her, crushing her soul.

With a sudden cry, she pounded her fist on the console, rattling loose screws and broken panels. The switch remained untouched.

The cryo-lockers hissed open in unison, a sound too serpentine, too alive. Frost curled over the plexiglass, twisting into vaporous tendrils that slithered toward the dim lights overhead. The ship shuddered. The deck groaned beneath the weight of its own failing systems.

Lee stirred inside his locker, fingers sluggish as they wiped at the frost. His thoughts felt submerged, murky, as if he were rising from a deep-sea dive. The overhead fluorescents flickered erratically, throwing jagged shadows across the metal walls. Something was wrong.

Across the aisle, Jungkook moved—slow, deliberate. The black goggles strapped over his eyes made him unreadable, but the sharp glint of metal between his teeth turned his grin into something feral. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The tension in his frame said everything.

Lee’s gaze snapped to the digital display blinking outside his locker. LOCK-OUT PROTOCOL IN EFFECT. ABSOLUTELY NO EARLY RELEASE. His stomach clenched.

Farther up the cabin, Y/N’s hands gripped the controls so tightly her knuckles blanched. The fractured monitors cast sickly light over her face, her breath coming fast and sharp. Behind her, Shields paced in tight, frantic circles, like a caged animal sensing a coming storm.

“Frenchie,” he barked, voice ragged with barely leashed panic. “NOSA—”

Y/N spun, eyes flashing. “NOSA isn’t here.” Her words cut like a scalpel, slicing clean through the rising chaos.

Shields froze, his lips pressing into a hard line. “The captain’s dead,” he said. No ceremony, no buffer. Just the truth. “That makes you in charge.”

Her laugh was bitter, jagged. “In charge?” Her fist slammed against the console, the impact like a gunshot. “You think a few hundred hours in a simulator prepped me for this?”

Shields unbuckled his harness, rising slow. Deliberate. “Don’t touch that switch,” he warned. His voice was even. Dangerous.

Y/N’s thumb hovered over it, sweat slicking her skin. The ship lurched. A shriek of metal tore through the cabin. Sparks rained down like dying stars. Her pulse hammered. And then—she slammed the switch.

“I’m not dying for them,” she muttered.

The Hunter-Gratzner bucked hard, carving a fiery scar across the sky as it plummeted. The hull shrieked. The jettison system hissed—then fell silent.

Nothing happened. The cryo-lockers remained sealed. Y/N’s breath caught. The switch was flipped, the call made. But the ship had refused her. Forty lives still frozen in limbo.

Shields cursed, hands a frantic blur over the interface. “Seventy seconds! You’ve got seventy seconds to level this beast out, Frenchie!”

She didn’t answer. Her focus tunneled in, every move muscle memory now. Switches flipped. Levers yanked. The ship groaned in protest, but she forced it to obey, wrenching it into some semblance of control.

Through the fractured windshield, the planet’s surface loomed—a maze of jagged rock, waiting to devour them whole. A metallic screech—louder than anything before—split the air as an airbrake tore loose, slamming into the windshield. The impact spiderwebbed the glass, splintering light into chaotic shards. The ship spasmed.

“What the hell was that?!” Shields’ voice was barely a breath through the comm.

Y/N didn’t answer. Her eyes flicked to the ground-mapping display—fractured, glitching, but still her only hope.

Sixty meters.

The cockpit rattled. The frame howled. Her hands were cramping, locked in a death grip on the controls.

Thirty.

The cryo-lockers exhaled in unison, a chorus of ghosts awakening. Lee blinked against the mist, lungs burning.

Ten.

The ship screamed. And then—impact.

The world didn’t just break. It detonated. The windscreen imploded, glass bursting inward like a thousand tiny daggers. The shockwave slammed Y/N back against her seat, her harness biting into her ribs. The cockpit filled with dust and debris, a choking maelstrom that turned every breath into a struggle.

In the passenger bay, Lee’s cryo-locker ejected with a violent hiss, spitting him onto the wreckage-strewn floor. His lungs seized as he gasped for air, mind reeling. Sparks flickered, casting eerie, broken light over the twisted remains of the ship.

His gaze caught on a massive crack splitting the hull—a wound too deep, too final.

Then—the groan. Deep, reverberating. A death knell. And the tearing.

A whole section of the ship peeled away, sliding free like dead skin. Rows of cryo-lockers went with it, vanishing into the swirling dust outside. Forty lockers. Forty people. Gone.

Shields’ voice crackled in Lee’s ear, raw, shaking. “We’re still breathing,” he rasped. “Oxygen’s holding at fifteen hundred millibars. Surface pressure… survivable.”

The word sounded like a joke. Lee pushed himself upright, legs shaking, ears ringing. The air was thick with the stench of scorched metal, blood, death. Around him, cries of pain cut through the chaos—some sharp and frantic, others weak, fading.

Jungkook’s cryo-locker was open. Empty. A slow, insidious chill climbed up Lee’s spine. His fingers darted to his hip, searching for his holster—gone. The unease slithered deeper, turning his gut into a leaden knot. He raised his flashlight, the beam cutting jagged arcs through the dust-choked air.

Then—a sound. Metal on metal. Rhythmic. Deliberate. Chains. The hairs on Lee’s neck stood on end. His breath shallowed. Slowly, unwillingly, he turned toward the noise. Two feet lowered into view from the shadows above—bare, bound in chains that whispered with each measured step.

His descent was too smooth, too unnatural. The black goggles strapped over his eyes caught the flickering light, cold and alien. The bit clamped between his teeth forced his mouth into something almost feral—not quite human.

Lee barely had time to react. The chain lashed toward him, a whip of coiled steel snapping tight around his throat. He staggered, hands clawing at the cold metal cutting off his air. Jungkook moved with silent precision, tightening the chain with a slow, measured pull. The darkness swayed. Lee’s vision blurred at the edges.

No. Not like this.

His fingers fumbled for the baton at his side. A flick—snap—and it extended, steel glinting in the fractured light.

Swing.

The first strike glanced off Jungkook’s ribs. No reaction. The second hit harder, enough to make the chain slacken just a fraction—enough to breathe. Lee’s instincts took over. He drove the baton up, hard, straight into Jungkook’s throat.

The force sent them both crashing to the floor. The impact rattled the remnants of the ship around them, a chorus of groaning metal and falling debris. Lee pinned Jungkook down, pressing his forearm hard against his throat. His breath was ragged, raw.

“One chance,” he growled, voice rough with fury. “You blew it.”

The dust began to settle. The ship around them was barely holding together—a skeletal ruin of scorched steel and shattered glass. Then, Lee’s flashlight caught a flicker of movement—a woman. He recognized her from when they boarded. The co-pilot. Her name was lost on him. Blood streaked her face, hair matted to her forehead, breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. But she was breathing.

“Over here,” she rasped. Steady. Unbreakable.

Lee stumbled toward her, boots crunching over shattered wreckage. He crouched, hands moving instinctively, shoving aside the debris pinning her down. The ship groaned with each piece he wrenched free, as if it resented his efforts.

And then—her legs were free. He hauled her up, her weight solid against him, but she barely found her footing before the reality of their situation slammed into her. Not just broken. Annihilated.

Her knees buckled. She sank, hands clawing at the scattered wreckage as if she could piece it all back together. Her lips parted. “Shields.” A whisper.

Then, frantic movement. She shoved aside jagged fragments of steel, shattered screens, the torn remains of the captain’s chair—anything, everything standing between her and what she already knew she’d find.

And then—she did. Strapped to his chair. A metal rod—long, jagged—pierced straight through his chest, impaling him like some grotesque marionette. Blood seeped in slow, dark rivers, pooling beneath him.

His eyes flew open. Wide. Wild. Panic-stricken. “OUT!” His scream ripped through the air. “GET IT OUT OF ME!”

Y/N jerked back, breath hitching. Around her, the others stumbled into the nav-bay, voices colliding in chaotic bursts.

“Pull it out!”

“No, leave it! You’ll kill him!”

“We don’t have a choice—just do it!”

The noise. The suffocating stench of blood and scorched wiring. It all pressed in, a heavy, cloying thing clawing at her senses. Her eyes flicked to the wall—where the med-locker should have been. Gone. Nothing left. Her pulse spiked. No anestaphine. No painkillers. Nothing. But she knew that already. She knew.

Her mind snapped into triage mode, training she hadn’t used since she’d first boarded the Starfire. The H-G had small med kits—scattered across compartments, emergency supplies meant for minor injuries, burns, fractures. Enough for patchwork. Not for this.

A quick scan of the room told her where they were—one in the overhead hatch, another tucked beneath the paneling by the nav station. She didn’t move. Didn’t go for them. Because she knew. Shields was going to die.

It didn’t matter if she used the last of their coagulants, their sterile dressings, their dwindling supply of stim injectors. The rod had pierced deep—a lung, maybe his aorta. If they pulled it, he’d bleed out in seconds. If they left it, he’d drown in his own blood.

There was no saving him. Silence crashed over them. Shields’ breathing was slowing, each rasping gasp a grim countdown. Y/N straightened. Her voice dropped—low, steady. Cold.

“Everyone. Back.”

The others froze, hesitated—then stepped away, shuffling like ghosts. Only Lee lingered. His gaze flicked to Jungkook’s bound form in the corner. Even shackled, Jungkook radiated menace, his stillness more unnerving than motion ever could be.

Y/N barely registered him. Her focus was on Shields. His body trembled beneath her hands, breath thin, ragged. She pressed her palm just above the wound, steadying him. He was shaking. Not from pain. From fear.

His eyes locked onto hers, searching—desperate. “I can’t die like this.”

The words were barely a whisper. Her throat tightened. “You won’t,” she lied. Because that’s what you did for the dying. You gave them something to hold onto. Even if it wasn’t real. She tightened her grip on his hand, let her voice drop to something softer. “This is going to hurt,” she murmured.

The suns hit like a clenched fist, brutal and unrelenting. Twin orbs, one molten red, the other a vicious yellow, scorched the sky and stretched jagged, overlapping shadows across the cracked, barren earth. The heat wasn’t just heat—it was something alive, something with teeth, pressing in, coiling tight around their throats, stealing breath with every shallow inhale. The air was dry, acrid, thick with dust that swirled at their boots, carried by a wind that keened through the desolation like a dying thing whispering its last confession.

The survivors stood in uneasy clusters, their movements wary, shapes distorted against the shimmering horizon. No one strode forward with confidence. Every step was measured, hesitant—like the planet itself might open its mouth and swallow them whole if they made the wrong move.

Daku and Bindi stood apart from the rest, a fortress of two. Daku was stillness carved from stone, his sharp gaze sweeping the alien expanse with the quiet calculation of a man who had survived worse. Bindi, by contrast, was all coiled energy, lean muscle stretched taut over bone, every movement precise. Not panicked. Just prepared.

Peter lingered at the edge of the group, dabbing at his sunburned face with a monogrammed handkerchief that belonged in a boardroom, not here. He let out a brittle, humorless laugh. “Welcome to paradise.” His voice was thin, dry as the air, and it barely made it past his chapped lips. No one laughed. There was no room for humor here.

In the distance, the wreckage of their ship lay sprawled against the cracked earth like the carcass of some great, wounded beast. Twisted metal jutted at odd angles, blackened from the crash, half-buried in the dust like the bones of something the sky had spit out and abandoned. It was silent now, but it didn’t feel still. It felt like it was waiting.

Inside, Y/N moved through the ruins, hands working mechanically, searching through the wreckage for anything salvageable. The silence pressed against her like a second atmosphere—thick, oppressive, wrong. The ship had once been their salvation. Now it was nothing more than a graveyard.

Near the wreckage, the Chrislams had gathered in a tight circle, white robes stark against the dust-streaked ground. Their heads were bowed, their lips moving in silent prayers—or grief. It was hard to tell which. Namjoon stood at their center, broad shoulders squared, his presence anchoring them even as doubt flickered across the younger pilgrims’ faces. Their hands fidgeted at the wooden crosses and crescent pendants hanging from their necks, symbols of faith that suddenly felt like relics of a world too far away to matter anymore.

A boy, no older than fifteen, broke the silence, his voice raw with desperation. “Which way is New Mecca?” His hands were pressed together, pleading. “We need to know where to pray.”

The words hung in the air, weightless, useless. There was no north here. No compass points. No stars to guide them. Just endless wasteland stretching toward an indifferent horizon. Jagged hills clawed at the sky like broken teeth, dark silhouettes against the searing light.

Namjoon lifted his face, squinting against the blinding suns, searching for something—an answer, a direction, a sign. But the sky gave him nothing.

Lee fumbled with a battered compass, flicked it open, watched the needle spin uselessly before snapping it shut with a frustrated hiss. “Even this thing’s lost.” He shoved it back into his pocket.

The ship groaned behind them, a deep, wounded sound, like something exhaling its last breath.

Inside, Y/N sat on the scorched floor, her back pressed against cold metal. Shields’ body was cradled in her lap, his head resting against her chest. The rod that had impaled him was still there—a grotesque, final punctuation mark. His blood was thick and dark against her hands, its metallic tang heavy in the air.

She had tried. God, she had tried. She had shouted orders, whispered reassurances, prayed to gods she never believed in. But none of it had been enough.

The others had moved on, their voices distant through the ruined hull. But Y/N stayed.

Because this wasn’t just a wreckage. It was a grave. And she was the only mourner.

The twin suns poured their merciless light through the jagged tear in the hull, turning dust into molten gold. It shimmered, beautiful in the way cruel things often were—dazzling, deceptive. The light exposed everything. Every failure, every flaw. There was nowhere to hide.

Y/N shifted, her muscles trembling, stiff with exhaustion as she eased Shields’ body to the floor. Her fingers lingered at his shoulder, unwilling to sever that last, fragile tether to the man he had been. The warmth was already leeching from his skin.

Then, slowly, she rose.

Outside was worse.

The heat struck like a hammer, thick, oppressive, pushing against her lungs with every breath. Dust swirled in restless eddies at her feet, the wind sharp as glass, carving at her skin, splitting her lips. A few yards away, the Chrislams knelt in the dirt, heads bowed, lips moving in murmured prayers. Their voices were barely a ripple against the keening wind, but it was the only human sound left in this place. For a moment, she let it fill the cracks inside her, a balm against the unraveling edges of her sanity.

Lee stood apart, one hand raised to shield his eyes against the glare. His jaw was tight, his shoulders locked, a silent fortress against whatever storm raged inside him. When Y/N stepped down from the wreckage, his gaze flicked to her, brief but cutting. He didn’t speak. Neither did she. Some things didn’t need to be said.

The land stretched before them, vast, indifferent. Jagged hills rose like broken ribs, their peaks tearing into the sky. Shadows pooled in the valleys, deep and impenetrable, as though the planet itself was swallowing the light. There was no refuge. No soft place to land. Only the brutal reality of survival.

Y/N swallowed against the rawness in her throat. “We’re on our own now.”

The words weren’t a revelation. They were a sentence.

No rescue was coming. No help would break through this alien sky.

She squared her shoulders beneath the weight of it, forcing one foot in front of the other, because the only way out was forward. Even when everything inside her begged to turn back.

The suns glared down, merciless and unblinking, turning the wreckage into a molten skeleton of what it had once been. Heat shimmered off the twisted metal, a feverish mirage making the debris seem like it was still shifting, still alive. But it wasn’t. It was dead—just like the people who hadn’t made it out.

Y/N climbed the jagged remains of the hull, her boots slipping against scorched metal, her fingers gripping the torn edges of a fractured panel. Her muscles ached, her breath came too short, too shallow. The air was too thin. Too dry. It scraped against her throat like sandpaper, and every inhale felt like a battle she was losing.

Below, the Chrislams knelt in the dust, their white robes dirtied and torn but still stark against the wasteland. Their soft prayers were barely audible over the dry, keening wind—a thread of humanity in a place that had none. Y/N let it wash over her for just a moment, a faint tether to something beyond survival.

Further up the wreckage, the others waited—Lee, Peter, Daku, Bindi, Leo. Their faces were carved with exhaustion, their silence heavier than the heat pressing down on them. Smoke curled from the wreckage behind them, black tendrils rising into the hazy sky. The crash had scarred the earth itself, leaving a deep trench of twisted metal and scorched rock, a wound with no hope of healing.

Y/N reached the top of the wreckage and let her gaze sweep the horizon. The planet stretched out before them in a wasteland of jagged rock and dust, the ground cracked and splintered like old bone. Sharp-edged hills rose in the distance, their peaks like broken teeth against the sky. There was no movement. No color. No life.

Only death, waiting for its turn.

“No one else made it,” she said, her voice low, steady. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an observation. It was a fact, as solid as the wreckage beneath her feet.

Silence stretched between them until Lee finally spoke, his voice dry and edged with bitterness. “They said there’d be a scouting party here.” He gestured toward the empty valley below, his words laced with grim sarcasm. “Guess they forgot the welcome committee.”

Peter coughed, dabbing at his sunburned face with that ridiculous monogrammed handkerchief. “Lovely spot,” he muttered. “Really. I mean, who doesn’t love the sensation of their lungs turning to parchment? Very exotic. Five stars.”

Y/N barely acknowledged him. Her focus was on the facts. The data. “The air’s too thin,” she said, voice clipped, clinical. “Not enough oxygen. Our bodies aren’t used to it. We’ll adjust, but it won’t be comfortable.”

Leo wiped sweat from his forehead, his face pale despite the heat. “Feels like breathing through a straw,” he muttered.

Peter waved his handkerchief dramatically. “Asthmatic here. Literal hell. Can I file a complaint, or is that not an option?”

“Enough,” Daku said, his voice cutting through the noise. His stance was firm, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze locked onto Y/N. “What happened?”

Y/N exhaled, rolling her shoulders against the weight of the question. “Debris. A rogue comet. A navigational error. I don’t know.” The admission felt like acid on her tongue. “What matters is that we’re here.”

“And alive,” Bindi added. Her tone was even, but there was something behind it—reluctant gratitude. “You got us down. That’s more than most pilots could have done.”

The words stung. Not because they were meant to, but because they weren’t true. Y/N knew that. They thought she’d saved them. But she knew better.

It wasn’t skill that had brought them down in one piece. It was luck. And luck never lasted.

She led them into what remained of the equipment bay, stepping over shattered panels, ducking beneath dangling wires. The air was thick with the scent of burned circuits and something else—something metallic and bitter. Blood.

Failure.

She knelt by a pile of debris and yanked free a suit, its fabric stiff with scorch marks. It would have to do. Holding it up, she said, “Liquid oxygen canisters. We rip them out. Short bursts, make them last. We don’t know how long we’ll need them.”

The group moved into action, their exhaustion momentarily forgotten in the face of survival. Leo lingered near her, watching her with an unsettling calm.

“Is someone coming for us?” he asked, voice steady in a way that made her stomach turn. “Or are we just gonna die here?”

The question hit like a stone dropped into deep water, sending ripples through the group. Y/N didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers tightened on the suit, knuckles whitening.

The others had paused, their movements stilled by the weight of the words.

Leo tilted his head. “I can handle it,” he said, softer now. “If we’re not making it out, you can just say so.”

Bindi stepped in, resting a firm hand on his shoulder. “We’re not giving up,” she said, her voice calm but absolute. “Not today.”

Leo hesitated, his bravado slipping just enough to reveal the scared kid underneath. Then he nodded.

The cabin reeked of sweat, scorched metal, and desperation. Shadows stretched long in the dim light, pooling in the corners, turning everything into a graveyard of broken machinery and shattered hope.

Y/N’s gaze drifted to the far side of the bulkhead, where Jungkook sat shackled and still, his presence more a quiet threat than anything else. The dark goggles covering his eyes reflected the dim light, a black void revealing nothing—no fear, no anger, no desperation. Just absence.

He didn’t fidget. Didn’t test his restraints. Didn’t move at all. That was what made him dangerous.

Yet, despite the cold knot of unease tightening in her stomach, Y/N couldn’t help but notice—he was beautiful.

Not in the clean-cut, manufactured way of men who knew they were being watched. No, there was something raw about him, something untamed. He was tall, all lean muscle wrapped in pale skin, the sinew of a predator coiled beneath the surface. His inky black hair was too long, falling into his face in uneven layers, the kind of overgrowth that should’ve looked unkempt but only made him more striking.

And then there were the tattoos.

They climbed up his arms in a chaotic symphony of ink, patterns and symbols weaving together into something intricate, something deliberate. Black ink against pale skin. A story written in the language of the damned.

Y/N’s throat went dry. Did they stop at his arms? Or did they go further, trailing over his ribs, down his back, curling against his hips? The thought hit like a static charge, sharp and unbidden. She swallowed, dragging her gaze away before she could entertain it any further.

“What about him?” she asked, her voice low, unsure despite herself.

Lee snorted, smirking. “Big Evil? Leave him locked up.”

Y/N forced herself to focus. “We don’t have forever,” she snapped, frustration bubbling up before she could reel it in. She exhaled sharply, running a hand over her face. “He broke out of a max-slam facility. Do you really think a pair of cuffs is enough?”

Lee shrugged, careless. “Only dangerous around humans,” he muttered, his voice thick with implication.

Before Y/N could fire back, movement caught her eye—a thin, silver thread trickling down the hull, glinting against the harsh twin suns.

Her stomach clenched.

Water.

Everything else vanished.

Her body moved before her mind could catch up, scrambling over the wreckage, boots slipping against warped metal. The sting of sharp edges against her palms didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was reaching the cistern before it was too late.

She wrenched open the hatch, metal scorching beneath her fingers. Sunlight flooded in, illuminating the nightmare inside.

A thin, glistening stream dribbled from a deep fracture in the steel, seeping into the cracked earth below. The ground drank greedily, dark stains blooming where the precious liquid had been only moments before.

Y/N’s breath hitched. A curse slipped past her lips, low and raw. This wasn’t just a leak. This was death.

Footsteps crunched behind her, the others approaching in hesitant silence. No one spoke. They didn’t need to. The truth lay bare before them, glinting in the relentless light.

Y/N leaned heavily against the hatch, her fingers pressing against the scalding metal as if to steady herself. Her gaze stayed locked on the dirt, watching helplessly as the last of the water disappeared, vanishing like hope itself.

The planet wasn’t just going to kill them. It was going to make them watch while it did.

A muscle ticked in her jaw. Her nails bit into her palms until pain cut through the spiraling thoughts. No. There wasn’t time for this—not for despair, not for grief. The planet would take everything if they let it, and she refused to give it that satisfaction.

She turned away from the empty cistern, shoulders squared against the weight pressing down on her. The others were watching, sweat streaking their dirt-smeared faces, fear barely concealed behind exhaustion. They were waiting for her to tell them what to do.

“We keep moving,” she said, her voice steady despite the scream clawing at her insides. “We’ll find more. There’s always something out there.”

The words tasted like lies. But lies could keep people alive. And right now, survival was the only thing that mattered.

The cargo hold reeked of scorched wiring and failure—the kind of failure that clung to your skin, settled in your lungs, and made itself at home. The air was thick with it, stifling, oppressive. Y/N wiped a grimy hand across her forehead and pressed on, stepping over shattered panels and the twisted wreckage of what had once been their future.

Somewhere in this mess, there were MRAs. Mobile Resource Augmenters. Compact, efficient, life-saving. They were designed to extract moisture from the air, convert it into drinkable water, and they sure as hell weren’t cheap. NOSA wouldn’t have sent them on a long-haul mission without at least a few onboard.

She knew they were here, but no one else seemed to care.

Y/N was used to working with the best—astronauts trained to push beyond the limits of human endurance. On Aguerra Prime, her name meant something. She was a government official, a veteran of deep-space missions, one of the top-ranked astronauts in NOSA’s fleet. She had survived hostile environments before.

This, though? This was worse. Because she was surrounded by people who should have been fighting to survive—but weren’t.

Peter moved through the wreckage with a magician’s flourish, fingers dancing over the lock of a sealed crate like he was about to unveil something miraculous. The lid groaned open, dust puffing into the stale air, and inside lay…

Furniture. Tiffany chairs. Polished bronze lecterns. An entire crate filled with useless, gaudy antiques.

Lee let out a sharp whistle, nudging the crate with his boot. “King Tut’s tomb,” he muttered. “Just what we needed.”

Peter’s face lit up, eyes gleaming as he ran a reverent hand over an antique desk. “This,” he murmured, “is Wooten. A very rare piece, mind you.”

Y/N stared at him, patience fraying like old wiring. “A desk?” she asked, her voice sharper than the heat outside. “Not food. Not water. A desk?”

Peter waved her off, as if she were the one being unreasonable. “Not just a desk,” he corrected, prying open a hidden compartment.

Nestled inside, gleaming like a sick joke, sat a row of liquor bottles. Sherry. Scotch. Vintage port.

Y/N felt something snap. “We’re dying of thirst, and you brought booze?”

Peter stiffened, his hand hovering protectively over the bottles. “Two-hundred-year-old single-malt scotch,” he said, tone dripping with wounded pride. “To call it ‘booze’ is like calling foie gras ‘duck guts.’”

Lee barked a laugh, already reaching for a bottle. The seal cracked with a soft pop, and the sharp scent of aged alcohol filled the air, thick and cloying. He raised it mockingly. “Here’s to survival—or whatever the hell he just said.”

Y/N clenched her jaw so tightly it ached.

She had spent the last hour shifting wreckage, trying to move beams twice her weight, searching for anything that could actually keep them alive.

And these idiots were getting drunk.

Her gaze flicked to the scattered debris. There were still places she hadn’t checked, still a chance the MRAs were buried under the twisted metal, waiting for someone to dig them out.

But as she looked around, at Peter cradling his precious scotch, at Lee tipping his bottle back like this was some kind of vacation, at the rest of them barely pretending to care—she felt the fight drain out of her.

No one was going to help her, and she was done trying to save people who didn’t want to be saved.

She exhaled sharply, the decision settling like a stone in her stomach. Without a word, she turned on her heel, stepping away from the wreckage, away from the lost cause unfolding in front of her.

She had been trained to adapt, to survive no matter what. But NOSA had never prepared her for this. The footsteps came before the words.

Namjoon and his followers stepped into the wreckage, their white robes streaked with dust but still somehow immaculate, like they existed just outside the filth and chaos consuming the rest of them. The Chrislams moved with that same unsettling calm, like they hadn’t yet realized the depth of their predicament.

Y/N barely spared them a glance. She was past caring.

But Lee—still riding the high of finding nothing useful—wasn’t about to let them pass without commentary.

He slammed his bottle onto a metal crate with a hollow clink, his frustration breaking through the haze of heat and exhaustion. “For what?” he demanded, voice sharp. “There’s no water. No food. Just rocks, dust, and death as far as the eye can see.”

Namjoon met his glare without flinching. “All deserts have water,” he said softly. “Somewhere.”

Lee let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Great. You talk to God, then? He got directions?”

Namjoon didn’t blink.

“God will lead us there.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and immovable, like the wreckage around them. Y/N bit down on the retort bubbling up in her throat, but the pragmatist in her screamed louder than any prayer. Water didn’t come from faith. It came from work, from tearing apart this wreck until her hands bled.

“While God’s drawing up a map,” she muttered, turning back to the containers, “we’ll keep looking.”

Namjoon inclined his head respectfully and led his followers away, their murmured prayers fading into the distance. For a moment, Y/N envied their calm. Then Peter’s humming broke the quiet, his fingers trailing lovingly over the polished wood of the desk as if cataloging a museum piece. Her jaw tightened, but she swallowed the urge to snap. Wasting energy on him wasn’t worth it.

Lee pried open another container with a sharp kick, sending a plume of dust into the air. Inside was a heap of torn fabric and broken machinery, tangled and useless. He swore under his breath and shoved it aside, his frustration vibrating in every movement. “This is a goddamn joke,” he muttered. “We’re supposed to survive with this?”

“Keep looking,” Y/N snapped. Her voice cracked like a whip, harsh and desperate. The panic simmering just beneath her surface slipped through. “We don’t find water soon, no one’s making it out of here.”

The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the scrape of metal and the mournful whistle of wind through the wreckage. Outside, the suns continued their relentless assault, the wind carrying dust and the heavy weight of despair. Y/N pressed her hand against the ship’s hull, the heat seeping into her palm. Every moment without progress felt like another step closer to death.

She moved toward the equipment bay, her focus narrowing. Somewhere in the wreckage were the pieces of the ship’s water generator. If she could just find them—just piece it together—they wouldn’t have to rely on the barren, unforgiving land outside. But her concentration splintered, fraying with every glance at the others.

Peter’s oblivious grin. Lee’s sharp frustration. Namjoon’s calm certainty. All of it clung to her like the heat, pressing in, pulling her mind away from the task at hand.

Her fingers brushed against a bent panel, her breath hitching as she caught sight of something familiar—part of the generator’s casing. Relief surged, but it was fleeting. The casing was twisted, its edges sharp and useless without the core components. Her chest tightened as she knelt, wrenching it free, her hands shaking as she turned it over in search of something—anything—that could still work.

Behind her, Leo’s small voice cut through the haze. “So,” he said, too calm for a kid his age. “What happens if we don’t find it? The water?”

The question hit her like a blow, her grip tightening on the casing. Around her, the others stilled, their movements halting under the weight of Leo’s words.

“You don’t have to pretend for me,” he added, his tone flat, unflinching. “I can take it.”

Y/N closed her eyes, her breath shaky. When she finally spoke, her voice was brittle, scraping against the silence. “We’ll find it.”

It wasn’t an answer. It was a promise. And God help her, she didn’t know if she could keep it.

The ship groaned like a dying animal, its ruptured hull straining against the inevitable. Twisted metal rasped against itself, the sound a constant needle under the skin, an itch that couldn’t be scratched. Dust hung thick in the air, turned to gold by the merciless twin suns that stabbed through the fractured ceiling. Every breath tasted of scorched circuitry and hydraulic fluid, the scent of ruin and slow decay.

Jungkook sat in the shadows, chained to the bulkhead, utterly still. Not the stillness of resignation—but of patience. Of calculation. His wrists, raw from steel cuffs, rested against his thighs, fingers loose, body deceptively relaxed. The dark goggles strapped over his eyes reflected slivers of fractured light, a predator’s gaze hidden behind black glass. The mouth-bit locked over his teeth was meant to make him less dangerous.

It only made him look like a caged beast waiting for the lock to fail.

The ship shifted again, the wreckage settling into itself. He ignored it. The ship was already dead. That wasn’t his problem.

But Y/N’s absence was. Not that he cared. Not really.

But she was the only one in this mess who wasn’t an idiot. The only one who thought ahead. Moved with purpose. Her voice carried weight, her commands cutting through chaos like a blade. That kind of control was rare. Most people shattered when things got bad. She didn’t.

Still, he’d expected more when he first got a good look at her. Too lean. Too sharp. Built for function, not decoration. No softness, nothing extra. Not the kind of woman who caught his eye.

But then she’d spoken. And the way the room shifted around her—the way even the air seemed to move when she did—had made him reconsider.

Not beautiful, but something. And that something was more interesting than pretty.

Jungkook rolled his shoulders, cataloging the weight of his restraints, the tension in his muscles already fading. The nickname he’d overheard while half-conscious surfaced in his mind.

Frenchie. Too small. Too soft. Didn’t suit her at all.

The cutting torch lay just out of reach, its dull gleam a whisper in the wreckage. His head tilted slightly, lips curling behind the bit—not a smile, something colder. The ship was quiet now, save for the occasional creak, but Jungkook had already mapped every fracture, every weakness, every way out. The crack in the hull above him was subtle, barely there.

To anyone else. To Jungkook, it was an invitation. A flaw. A way through.

He shifted, testing the give of his chains. Metal rasped against metal, a whisper swallowed by the ship’s dying groans. He didn’t flinch. He just moved slower, smoother—a shadow moving through shadows.

Then, without hesitation, a sickening pop shattered the silence.

His left shoulder dislocated, tendons twisting, bones shifting in a grotesque ballet of control. Pain flickered at the edge of his consciousness, a distant thing, irrelevant. His breath remained steady.

Another pop. The right shoulder went next.

He exhaled slowly, muscles flexing, and with a sharp, brutal motion, his arms twisted through the narrow gap between his head and the bulkhead. His hands, now free, hung limp at his sides. For a moment, nothing moved. Then, with a precise, measured force, he rolled his shoulders back into place. The snap of bone meeting socket reverberated through the cabin, a sound that made most men sick.

Jungkook barely noticed.

The cuffs slipped from his wrists, hitting the floor with a final, hollow clatter.

He rose in one smooth motion, unfolding to his full height, presence suddenly too much for the cramped space. The air felt different. Thicker. 

He stepped forward, moving toward the torch, his bare feet silent against the floor. The chains lay abandoned behind him, the weight of them meaningless now. The torch was warm against his fingers as he picked it up, rolling it once in his palm, adjusting to its feel.

Then he turned.

The goggles hid his eyes, but the smirk behind the bit was unmistakable.

The cutting torch hummed to life in his grip, a low, vibrating growl that filled the silence.

He was free.

The world beyond the wreckage was a graveyard—heat and silence stretched endlessly in every direction, oppressive, unyielding. Twin suns hung in the sky like merciless sentinels, their light leeching color from the landscape until only stark, blinding desolation remained. The ground was a cracked, scorched wound, dust spiraling in restless eddies, threading through jagged rock formations and yawning craters. In the distance, hills wavered like mirages, ghostly illusions rippling in the heat, always there, never reachable.

Lee stood at the edge of the ruin, half in shadow, half in the unrelenting blaze of the suns. The tang of sweat and burnt metal clung thick in the air, catching at the back of his throat. His pistol rested loosely in his grip, a lifeline more than a weapon. A thing to hold onto. A reminder that he wasn’t defenseless, even if the planet seemed indifferent to the concept of survival.

The silence pressed in, heavy. Wrong.

Silence should’ve been relief. Silence should’ve meant safety. But this wasn’t that kind of quiet. This was the kind that watched. The kind that waited.

His gaze swept the horizon, scanning the brittle, broken ground for something—anything—out of place. But the emptiness was deceptive, shifting, playing tricks on his eyes. The wreckage groaned behind him, metal expanding under the punishing heat. The ship was dying, settling into its grave. He ignored it. There were more immediate concerns.

Then—movement.

Not much. Just a glint, half-buried in the dust. A sliver of something reflecting the twin suns. Lee exhaled slowly, crouched, and reached for it, brushing aside the grit with careful, practiced efficiency.

The object came into view. A curved piece of metal. Scuffed. Worn. Unmistakable. His stomach dropped. The mouth-bit. Jungkook’s.

Lee straightened too fast, the bit still clutched in his hand, his fingers tightening around it like it might bite him. His other hand curled reflexively around the pistol’s grip, knuckles bloodless. The planet, empty and endless just moments ago, now felt like a set of teeth closing in.

Jungkook was loose. The realization landed like a hammer blow, cold despite the heat.

Lee had seen what the man could do—shackled. What he could be, even when restrained by steel and sedation. Now, the shackles were gone. The bit that had kept him contained was nothing more than a useless scrap of metal in Lee’s hand.

And Jungkook was out there. Somewhere. Lee scanned the landscape again, but the terrain mocked him. Too much space. Too many places to disappear. Too many places to hunt from.

The wreckage of the ship loomed behind him. The others were still inside—Bindi, Namjoon, Peter. Oblivious. They had no idea what had just been set loose into their already precarious existence.

Lee’s jaw clenched. Like we needed another way to die.

He turned the bit over in his palm, its edges smooth from use, from time, from teeth. He should’ve known. They all should’ve known. But it had been easier to ignore the truth than to face it.

Now, that denial had come at a cost.

The wind kicked up, whispering through the wreckage, sending dust scuttling across the cracked earth. The sound of it sent a chill down his spine, because it wasn’t the wind he was afraid of.

Lee shoved the bit into his pocket, a grim token of what lurked beyond the ship’s broken hull. Jungkook wasn’t just a problem. He wasn’t just dangerous. He was intentional. A force of nature with purpose. Whatever he wanted, whatever he was planning, it wasn’t going to end well for anyone.

He turned back toward the ship, every muscle wired tight, every step measured. The pistol was steady in his grip now, but the weight of it felt inadequate.

This wasn’t over. Not even close. The silence had changed. It wasn’t just emptiness anymore. It was a warning. Jungkook wasn’t watching from a distance.

The cargo hold was a machine of chaos—loud, desperate, and running on the thin fuel of fear. People moved like scavengers, tearing through storage lockers, prying open crates with bloodied hands, dragging whatever they could find into the nav-bay. Metal clattered, plastic scraped, breathless grunts and muttered curses filled the stale air. Dust spiraled in the fractured sunlight slanting through the ship’s wounds, turning the space into a golden, suffocating haze.

Y/N stood on the outskirts, arms crossed, watching. It wasn’t much of a stockpile, but it was all they had.

The room—once a hub of order and precision—now looked like a battlefield before the war even began. Broken panels, exposed wiring, the remains of shattered instruments littered the floor. In the middle of it all, their growing pile of salvaged weapons stood like an altar to survival.

Lee stepped up first. No hesitation, no wasted motion. He crouched beside the pile and inspected his finds: a pistol, a shotgun, a baton. Well-used, well-loved. The shotgun bore the scars of a hard life—scratched barrel, faded stock—but the way Lee handled it left no doubt. The weapon was an extension of him. He loaded it with quiet efficiency, each metallic clink settling into the uneasy silence.

Behind him, Daku and Bindi added their contributions. A battered pickaxe, a handful of digging tools, and an old hunting boomerang—its edges worn, its surface scarred. Daku flicked his wrist, testing its balance. He nodded once, satisfied. Bindi, hovering close, scanned the room with sharp eyes, daring anyone to question their worth.

Then Namjoon stepped forward.

A ceremonial blade. Ancient. Ornate. The kind meant for rituals, not combat. The hilt gleamed under the dim light, its intricate carvings whispering of old traditions. But the edge—thin, honed—was made to cut. He set it down carefully, with a reverence that stood in stark contrast to the chaos around him.

And then there was Peter.

He stumbled into the room, arms overfilled with weapons that didn’t belong on a battlefield. His face was red, breath heavy, but he carried his haul like it meant something. He nearly tripped over a loose wire before dumping his findings onto the pile.

Silence followed.

Polished war-picks. A blow-dart hunting stick. A collection of relics that belonged in a museum, not a fight for survival.

Lee stared. “The hell are these?”

Peter straightened, his expression hovering somewhere between pride and offense. “Maratha crow-bill war-picks,” he declared, lifting one like a trophy. “Northern India. Extremely rare.”

Daku snorted. He picked up the hunting stick, turning it over in his hands, unimpressed. “And this?”

“Blow-dart hunting stick,” Peter shot back defensively. “Papua New Guinea. One of a kind.”

Daku let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh, tossing the stick back onto the pile. “Looks like they went extinct for a reason.”

Peter’s face darkened. His fingers curled around the remaining items like they might be snatched away. “Why are we even bothering with this?” he snapped. “If Jungkook’s gone, he’s gone. Why should we care?”

The air changed. The tension turned solid.

Lee was the first to break the silence. He stepped forward, slow, deliberate, his voice razor-edged. “First,” he said, his tone like the cocking of a gun, “because he can only survive out there for so long. Sooner or later, he’s coming back—for supplies. For water. For us.”

He let that settle, let them feel the weight of it.

“Second,” he continued, lowering his voice even further, “because killing is the only thing he’s ever been good at. And he likes it.”

No one spoke. No one moved.

Y/N felt the weight of those words settle into her chest, heavy as a loaded weapon. Jungkook wasn’t just a problem. He wasn’t a rogue element in their calculations.

He was a predator. And they were his prey. As if on cue, the group reached for their weapons.

Lee holstered the shotgun, his grip firm. Daku tested the boomerang again, tracing its edges with quiet precision. Even Peter, reluctant as he was, finally set one of his prized war-picks on the pile, his fingers lingering before he let go.

Y/N reached for the ceremonial blade.

It wasn’t made for this, but it would do. The weight of it felt strange in her hand, but solid. Steady. A promise.

The wind howled through the ruined hull, carrying the dry, metallic scent of the wasteland beyond. The horizon remained still, jagged peaks unmoving, but inside the ship, something had shifted.

The air felt electric. Like the moment before a storm. Y/N glanced at the others, their faces cast in flickering shadows. They were ready—or as ready as they could be.

Jungkook wasn’t gone. He was out there. Watching. Waiting. And now, so were they.

The ship jutted from the earth like a rusted blade, its jagged metal edges catching the dying light of twin suns. One burned a deep red, sinking low on the horizon, while the other clung stubbornly to the sky, casting long, broken shadows across the wasteland. Wind whispered through the wreckage, carrying the dry scent of scorched metal and sand, a faint, restless sound in the vast stillness.

Lee perched high on the hull, rifle balanced against his shoulder. His silhouette was razor-sharp against the sky’s bleeding colors. He moved only when necessary, scanning the horizon with a hunter’s patience, the kind of stillness that meant survival.

Then—movement.

A flicker. A distortion at the edge of his vision. His grip tightened. His breath held. What the hell was that?

The words barely escaped his lips, lost to the wind before anyone below could hear them.

On the ground, the others worked against time, piecing together survival from the ship’s remains. Daku and Bindi crouched over a makeshift workbench—little more than a pile of salvaged crates and twisted panels. They moved with careful efficiency, assembling breather units from scavenged tubing and half-broken filters. Each strap tightened, each valve checked, because failure wasn’t an option.

“Try it now,” Daku muttered, handing one to Leo.

The boy lifted it to his face, inhaling tentatively. A soft hiss, the measured release of oxygen. Relief flickered across his face, there and gone in an instant.

A few yards away, the Chrislams worked in silence, layering cloth over their heads, tying knots with practiced hands. Their transformation was seamless—fluid—turning them into nomads, figures that belonged to this land in a way the rest of them never would. Namjoon moved among them, his presence steady, guiding younger pilgrims as they secured their wrappings.

Y/N stood apart.

Her focus was on Shields. Or rather, what was left of him. His body was wrapped in salvaged cloth, the material rough, inadequate. But it was all she had. She tied the final knot, her fingers lingering for a moment, grounding herself in the task. When she straightened, her shadow stretched long and thin in the fading light.

“Namjoon.” Her voice was steady, though exhaustion clung to its edges. “We need to move before nightfall. While it’s still cool.”

Daku wiped a streak of sweat from his brow, glancing up. “What, you’re heading off too?”

Y/N nodded, jaw tight. “Lee’s leaving you a gun. Just one favor—bury my crew. They didn’t deserve to die here.”

Bindi met her gaze, expression soft but resolute. “We’ll take care of them.”

Then the sound came. Faint at first. A whisper. A reverence.

"Namjoon… Namjoon…"

The wind carried it toward them, weightless yet insistent. The group stilled. One by one, they turned toward the voice, rounding the wreckage to see where it came from.

And then, they saw it.

A blue star.

It flared against the horizon—impossibly bright, too large, too deliberate. It rose slowly, cutting through the burnt reds and oranges of the sunset like a blade. The light spread, stretching long shadows across the cracked land, shifting as if the planet itself had taken a breath.

Bindi exhaled sharply. “My bloody oath.”

“Three suns?” Leo whispered, his voice thin with disbelief.

Daku shook his head, his expression dark. “So much for nightfall.”

“And so much for cocktail hour,” Peter muttered, but the joke died the second it hit the air.

Namjoon stepped forward, bathed in the blue glow. The light painted his face in something almost holy. His voice was calm, steady, carrying the weight of quiet conviction.

“We take this as a sign. A path. A direction from God.”

Before anyone could respond, Lee moved.

He slid down the wreckage, boots kicking up dust as he landed. He straightened, brushing himself off, his rifle still slung across his shoulder. His face was unreadable, his eyes sharp.

“A very good sign,” he said, nodding toward the blue star. “That’s Jungkook’s direction.”

Y/N’s gaze flickered to him, unreadable. “Thought you said you found his restraints over there,” she said, jerking her chin toward the opposite horizon, where the red sun was slipping beneath the cracked earth.

Lee didn’t flinch. “I did.” His voice was even, final. “Which means he’s moving toward sunrise.”

The words settled like a stone in the pit of Y/N’s stomach. Jungkook wasn’t wandering. He wasn’t lost. He had a direction. A purpose. And it was moving closer.

She looked back at the star, its eerie light shifting the landscape into something foreign, something watching. A slow exhale left her lips, her mind sharpening.

“Then we move,” she said, her voice unyielding. “Before he decides to double back.”

No one argued. No one hesitated. Because the truth was simple. They weren’t just running from Jungkook anymore. They were following him.

The horizon shimmered, a mirage of heat and shifting color, an alien dream unraveling in the distance. The landscape stretched out before them like an open wound, raw and unrelenting, bruised in shades of violet and ochre under the double glare of the twin suns. To stare too long was to feel the world slip sideways, the very fabric of reality twisting under the weight of its own unnatural stillness.

They moved in a thin, fragile procession, their figures small against the vastness, nothing more than a line of ghosts fading into the endless heat.

The Chrislams led the way, their voices rising and falling in quiet, hypnotic rhythm. Their steps were deliberate, measured, faith woven into every movement. Incense pots swung gently from their hands, sending tendrils of spiced smoke curling into the air—an offering, a prayer, a plea for something greater than themselves. The scent tangled uneasily with the metallic tang of dust, the dry crackle of a world long since abandoned to silence.

Lee followed at a short distance, shotgun resting easy in his arms, though his grip spoke of exhaustion more than readiness. Sweat streaked through the dust on his face, his makeshift visor—a jagged scrap of plexiglass tied down with wire—biting into his skin. He ignored it. The pain was secondary. His eyes never stopped moving, scanning the horizon with the wary focus of a man who understood that stillness could kill just as surely as motion.

Beside him, Y/N shifted the weight of Peter’s ridiculous war-pick across her back. The ornate handle dug into her shoulder with every step, a mockery of their situation. A relic in a place that demanded survival, not sentiment. She had given up rolling her eyes after the first hour—exhaustion had a way of dulling even irritation.

Peter trailed behind, his face pink from the sun, his every step labored. And yet, he cradled his remaining artifact like a sacred object, a lifeline to something that only made sense to him.

The sky loomed, too vast, too fluid, its colors seeping into one another like ink bleeding through paper. The heat distorted the air, turning the horizon into something unreal, something that moved even when it shouldn’t. It was the kind of quiet that didn’t mean peace.

It meant something was waiting.

Y/N fumbled with the cloth she had tried—and failed—to wrap around her head. Her fingers, slick with sweat, kept losing their grip, the fabric slipping no matter how many times she adjusted it. The suns beat down, relentless, burning through her scalp, through her bones.

Namjoon noticed.

He didn’t speak. Just stepped closer, his movements calm, measured. Before she could protest, his hands brushed against hers, taking the cloth with quiet certainty. He wrapped it with the efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times, securing each fold, each knot, with practiced ease.

Y/N stiffened. She wasn’t used to small kindnesses.

“It’s too quiet,” she muttered, her voice too loud in the stillness. “You get used to the hum of the ship, the engines… then suddenly, it’s just… nothing.”

Namjoon tied the last knot, adjusting the fabric slightly. “Do you know who Muhammad was?” he asked, his voice low, conversational—like they were discussing something as ordinary as the weather.

She blinked at him. “Some prophet guy?”

His lips twitched. “Some prophet guy.” He stepped back, eyes scanning his work before meeting hers again. “He was a city man, but he had to go to the desert—to the silence—to hear the words of God.”

Y/N squinted against the glare. “So, you were on a pilgrimage? To New Mecca?”

He nodded. “Chrislam teaches that once in every lifetime, there should be a great hajj—a journey. To know God better, yes. But also to know yourself.”

A dry laugh slipped from her lips, brittle as the ground beneath their boots. “Sounds terrifying.”

Namjoon just watched her, waiting.

She exhaled. “I grew up on Helion Five,” she admitted, tugging the cloth slightly, testing its weight. “Not as nice as Prime.”

Something flickered in Namjoon’s expression—recognition, maybe respect. “Least religious of all the Helion planets,” he said. “And the poorest.”

Y/N nodded. “I studied botany on Prime. Spent eight years at the technical institute.”

Namjoon’s face shifted, surprised but pleased. “Then you’ve been to New Mecca.”

“I have.” Her voice softened slightly. “Studied under Dr. Abbas.”

He let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head in wonder. “Dr. Abbas was a mentor to my uncle. I met him once, when I was young. Brilliant man.”

Y/N nodded. The memories flickered behind her eyes—the towering spires of New Mecca, the hydro-gardens sprawling across the academy, faith and science woven together in delicate balance. It had been an oasis of learning, a place of possibility.

A place that should have led her somewhere better than this.

But then Helion Five ran out of money, and so did she. Her funding dried up, and she ended up back in the dirt, scraping by, until a flight school opportunity on Aguerra Prime sent her halfway across the galaxy.

She didn’t say that part.

At least NOSA paid well. At least the benefits were better than anything in the Helion System.

Namjoon studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, quietly, he said, “You’re full of surprises.”

Before Y/N could respond, Lee stopped. His entire body locked, every muscle wound tight. His breath sharpened. Then—his voice, low, razor-sharp. “Hold up.”

The words carved through the air, snapping every nerve in Y/N’s body to attention.

Lee lifted his rifle, scanning the horizon. His stance had changed—tight, predatory, every line of his body braced for whatever came next.

A ripple of unease passed through the group.

Y/N stepped forward, pulse quickening. “What is it?”

Lee didn’t answer immediately. He just handed her the scope, his expression grim.

She pressed it to her eye, adjusting to the warped, heat-rippled view. At first, she saw only what she expected—the same endless wasteland, stretching as far as the horizon. The cracked ground, desiccated and lifeless. The swirling dust, shifting restlessly in the dry, scorching wind. The emptiness, vast and absolute.

Then—something.

A cluster of thin, vertical shapes disrupted the monotony of the landscape.

She frowned. Her first instinct labeled them as trees, but the thought was dismissed as quickly as it formed. That was impossible.

She adjusted the focus, scanning for details, but the air above the superheated ground distorted everything. Waves of refracted light bent and twisted the landscape, making the objects shift in and out of coherence. She knew how easily the mind could be deceived under conditions like this—optical illusions born from extreme temperature gradients.

Still, she studied them.

They stood upright, dark against the glare of the horizon, irregular in height and spacing. They weren’t moving. Not even a fraction. No branches trembling in the wind. No leaves fluttering. Just still, rigid silhouettes.

Her jaw tightened.

If they were plant life, they shouldn’t be here. The conditions were too extreme. The heat alone would desiccate any surface vegetation in hours—if not outright kill it. Water, if it existed at all, would be buried deep underground, far from the sun’s reach. Any life here would have adapted to that reality. It would stay hidden, evolving in subterranean networks, safe from radiation and exposure.

But these things stood exposed, unyielding beneath a sky that could boil blood.

She exhaled slowly. If they weren’t trees, then what? Rock formations? But they were too slender, too irregular, lacking the weathered smoothness she’d expect from geological structures shaped by the elements.

Her mind cycled through possibilities.

Dead stalks of something that once lived? Artificial structures? Or just a mirage—some trick of light warping the landscape into false patterns?

She lowered the scope, blinking hard, then looked again with her naked eye. The shapes were still there, but less distinct, as if they faded into the background when not magnified.

That unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

Her fingers tightened around the scope.

"Those aren't trees," she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else.

Y/N lowered the scope, pressing her lips into a thin line. The shapes still lingered on the edge of the horizon, indistinct and unreal, but her mind refused to place them in any known category. That alone made her uneasy.

“They aren’t trees,” she repeated, calmer this time. More certain.

Lee scoffed. “And you know that how?”

She turned to him, pulse steady despite the irritation curling in her chest. “Because trees don’t grow in places like this. Not on a planet this hot, this dry. Any plant life would be subterranean—assuming there’s life at all. Whatever those are, they’re not—”

“We’ll check it out.”

Y/N stiffened. “That’s not what I—”

Lee was already moving, waving for the others to prepare. “Not gonna stand here debating with a pilot who thinks she’s a scientist,” he muttered, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.

Her fingers curled into a fist at her side. “I have a PhD in botany, actually,” she said flatly. “Which is why I’m telling you—”

“And I have a gun,” Lee cut in, not even looking at her. “So we’re gonna make sure.”

Y/N inhaled sharply through her nose. Of course. Of course, he was like this. She’d had his type figured out in the first ten minutes—loud, condescending, the kind of man who couldn’t stomach the idea of someone else knowing more than he did.

“You could just listen to her,” Namjoon interjected, stepping up beside her. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was an edge to his tone, subtle but firm. “She’s probably right. We don’t know what’s out there, and heading straight toward something unknown isn’t exactly smart.”

Lee exhaled sharply, turning back just enough to give Namjoon an unimpressed look. “Yeah? And what’s your plan, genius? Stand around and argue?”

“I think his plan,” Y/N said coolly, “is to use common sense.”

Lee barked a laugh. “Right. Common sense is what gets people killed. We don’t assume, we confirm.” His gaze flicked back to her, sharp with challenge. “Unless you’re scared?”

Y/N’s expression didn’t change, but inside, something clenched. Not in fear—just exhaustion. She’d dealt with men like this her entire career. She knew exactly how this argument would play out. She could cite a hundred scientific reasons why approaching those things was unnecessary at best, dangerous at worst, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.

Lee wanted to stomp over there just to prove he could.

Fine. Let him.

“Whatever,” she muttered, shoving the scope back into his hands. “Let’s go, then.”

She didn’t miss Namjoon’s concerned glance, but she ignored it. If following Lee into a potential death trap was what it took to get him to shut up, so be it.

At least when this inevitably turned out to be a waste of time, she’d get to say I told you so.

The wrecked ship knifed through the barren skyline, its twisted metal ribs jutting like bones against the backdrop of twin burning suns. The land stretched endlessly in every direction—cracked, lifeless, shimmering under the weight of an unrelenting heat. The ship’s remains had become a monument to survival, a jagged scar on an already brutal world.

Perched atop the wreck, Peter reclined as if he were sunbathing at a luxury resort instead of stranded on a hellscape. His misting umbrella—a ridiculous contraption of indulgence and pure audacity—hissed softly, releasing a cooling vapor laced with alcohol. The mist shimmered in the dry air, enveloping him in a cocoon of decadence, as if the wasteland were merely an inconvenience rather than a death sentence.

Below, Daku appeared, dragging a makeshift sled across the scorched earth. The thing groaned under the weight of scavenged supplies—tarps, cables, tools lashed together with salvaged wiring. Sweat slicked his skin, dust clinging to every exposed inch, the heat pressing down on him like a living thing. He barely spared Peter a glance before barking out a sharp, humorless laugh.

“Comfy up there?”

Peter angled his umbrella, peering down with a lazy grin. “Incredible, really,” he said, voice dripping with mock sincerity. He lifted his polished flask in a casual toast. “Turns out food and water are highly overrated when you have the finer things in life.”

Daku’s scowl deepened, his fingers tightening around the sled’s rope. “Just keep your bloody-fuckin’ eyes peeled,” he muttered, his accent sharpening with irritation. “Don’t need that ratbag sneakin’ up and takin’ a bite out of my bloody-fuckin’ arse.”

He turned and trudged toward the distant hills, the sled dragging behind him with a slow, agonized scrape. Peter smirked, swirling the amber liquid in his flask before pouring a precise splash into a delicate glass—somehow unbroken despite the crash. He lifted it to his lips, savoring the moment like he wasn’t marooned on a planet actively trying to kill him.

Then—the blade. Cold steel against his throat.

Peter’s breath hitched. His body went still, every instinct screaming don’t move. The pressure was light but undeniable, the knife’s edge sharp enough that even the slightest shift could draw blood. The air around him changed, tightened.

Then a voice, soft, almost amused. “He’d probably get you right here.” The blade tilted, just enough to let Peter feel the danger. “Right under the bone,” Leo murmured. “Quick. Clean. You’d never hear him coming.”

Peter’s fingers twitched toward the war-pick resting across his lap, but he didn’t move. He barely breathed. Because Leo wasn’t bluffing.

Peter’s eyes flicked sideways, catching the boy’s gaze. Those too-bright green eyes—steady, unblinking, holding something that didn’t belong in a face so young. The knife didn’t waver in his hand. His grip was sure, practiced, casual in a way that turned Peter’s stomach.

Peter swallowed carefully, feeling the blade shift with the motion. “Aren’t you a little young to be playing assassin?” he asked, voice light, strained. “What’s the story, then? Did you run away from your parents, or did they run away from you?”

A flicker of something dark passed over Leo’s expression—anger? Amusement? It was gone before Peter could name it. The blade stayed where it was.

Then, after a heartbeat too long, Leo stepped back. The knife withdrew with a flick of his wrist, a smooth, deliberate motion. The tension didn’t break—it just stretched, coiled between them, an unspoken thing that settled heavy in the heat. Leo turned and walked away.

Peter let out a slow, measured breath. His hand brushed over the war-pick in his lap—too late, too useless now—but the weight of it felt like reassurance. His fingers trembled slightly as he adjusted the umbrella, tilting it just enough to cast his face back into shade. He exhaled, steadied himself.

Then, forcing his voice back into something closer to normal, he called after him.

“What exactly are you trying to prove, kid?”

Leo didn’t stop. Didn’t turn. The knife in his hand caught the light as he walked, glinting with every step. A warning. A promise.

Peter watched him disappear into the waves of heat, unease settling like a stone in his chest. He lifted the flask, poured another sip of sherry, and swallowed it down. It tasted bitter now.

The edge of the wreckage was quieter than anywhere else, a pocket of solitude carved into the heat and ruin. Leo sat cross-legged in the dust, her back to the others, their voices distant, muffled by the wind that swept across the barren expanse. The shadow of the hull stretched thin, barely offering relief from the twin suns, but she didn’t care.

She just needed to be alone.

The knife rested across her knee, a sliver of light catching on the steel, glinting as if it had something to say. Her hands hovered above it, fingers twitching, uncertain.

Her curls clung to her forehead, damp with sweat, itching at the back of her neck. They’d been a nuisance all day, an unwanted reminder of something she wasn’t anymore. Something she couldn’t be.

The first time she cut her hair, she’d done it with a shard of broken glass in a back alley on Taurus I, shivering, starving, her hands sticky with someone else’s blood. She’d shed her name that night too, left it behind like the curls that littered the filthy street.

Audrey had died there. Leo had crawled out of the wreckage. Now, here she was again.

Her fingers curled around the knife, steadying it despite the faint tremor in her hands. The first cut was clumsy, the blade snagging against a tangle before slicing through. A curl tumbled down, landing against the dust, dark against the pale ground. She exhaled sharply. Then she cut again.

Each slice was an act of erasure. A deliberate, necessary violence.

The curls fell in thick, heavy strands, coiling like dead things at her feet. She didn’t stop, even when sweat stung her eyes, even when her breath came short and fast. She worked until there was nothing left but uneven stubble, rough against her fingertips.

A breeze ghosted across her scalp, cool and startling, and for a moment, she felt untethered. Unmoored.

She stared down at the pile of curls, scattered like broken promises. Pieces of a girl who no longer existed. Pieces of soft hands and warm voices, of braids woven by someone long dead, of a life stolen before she ever had a chance to claim it.

Her throat tightened, but she swallowed hard, shoving the feeling down. Then, with one sharp motion, she ground her boot into the curls, sweeping them away with a harsh kick. The wind took them, lifting them into the air, scattering them across the wasteland.

She watched until they disappeared.

The knife was dull now, the edge dulled by the thick, stubborn strands it had cut through. She ran her thumb along the blade, then slipped it back into its sheath.

Leo stood slowly, brushing dust from her knees, rolling her shoulders back. She could already feel the questions rising in her mind. Did she cut enough? Would it pass? Would they see through her?

No. They wouldn’t. They saw what they expected to see—a wiry, sharp-edged boy, too young to be dangerous, too hard to be soft.

And that’s all they needed to know. She wasn’t going to tell them. Not Daku. Not Peter. Not even Namjoon. It wasn’t about trust. It was about survival.

She knew what happened to girls out here. She’d seen it. Felt it. She knew how softness got twisted, exploited, broken apart piece by piece. Leo wasn’t going to let that happen to her. Not again. Out here, softness wasn’t just a weakness. It was a death sentence.

Her green eyes flicked toward the horizon. The jagged hills stood like teeth in the distance, waiting for them. They would bring more pain. More danger. That was inevitable.

But Leo would meet them head-on. She had no other choice. Squaring her shoulders, she turned back toward the ship. The others would see her return. But they wouldn’t see her. Not really.

To them, she was just another boy. Just another survivor. Another body moving through this relentless, unforgiving world. And that was exactly how she needed it to be. Audrey was gone, scattered like dust on the wind. Leo was all that was left. And there was no space for softness now.

The rise gave way to something wrong.

Y/N had never expected to find trees—hadn’t even humored the idea. This planet was too hot, too dry, too merciless. Nothing should be growing here, least of all something as delicate as surface-dwelling vegetation. If life existed, it would be underground, hidden away from the blistering heat, surviving on whatever moisture remained trapped beneath the surface.

But what lay ahead wasn’t life at all.

It was bones.

They weren’t scattered remains or the weathered fossils of something long forgotten. No, these were enormous, structured, standing like a grotesque forest of the dead. Ribs the size of starships arched toward the sky, their jagged edges worn by time, bleached to a sickly green by lichen clinging stubbornly to their surfaces. They loomed over the wasteland, casting long, skeletal shadows that twisted and bent under the relentless double suns.

The ground beneath them was no better. Littered with shattered fragments, hollowed-out vertebrae, and the occasional half-buried skull, it was as if something had torn through this place—something big, something merciless.

The young pilgrims, Namjoon’s people, had begun to murmur prayers, their voices hushed and wavering.

“Allahu Akbar… Allahu Akbar…”

Their reverence was tinged with unease, their steps hesitant now, their awe tempered by something much colder.

Y/N lingered at the edge of the rise, adjusting the strap of her pack with a quiet exhale. She had no desire to move forward. Whatever happened here, however long ago it had been, it wasn’t natural. This wasn’t a graveyard. A graveyard implied burial, rest, peace. This?

This was a battlefield.

Lee, of course, had no such caution. He stepped up beside her, his shotgun slung low but ready, his face streaked with sweat and dust. His expression was unreadable, but his gaze was sharp, assessing. Always acting like he was in charge. Always acting like he knew best.

"This doesn’t feel right," he muttered.

Y/N barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "No kidding," she murmured, voice dry.

They reached the others just as Namjoon translated a question from one of the younger pilgrims.

“He asks what could have killed so many great things.”

No one answered.

Y/N didn’t think they wanted to know.

They moved deeper, their earlier eagerness replaced by a silent, collective caution. She reached out, running her fingers over one of the towering ribs. The grooves carved into the surface were too precise, too intentional. Not the work of time, nor of nature.

“Killing field,” she murmured, stomach twisting. “Not a graveyard.”

Lee crouched near a pile of smaller bones, picking up a fragment. He turned it over in his hands, brushing away the dust. The surface was smooth, polished by age, but the ends—the ends had been broken.

“Whatever it was,” he said grimly, “it was a long time ago.”

A little ways off, Kai drifted toward one of the massive skulls, its hollow sockets wide and empty, a monument to something long dead. The structure was vast enough to shelter them all, its surface ridged with comb-like formations. Curious, Kai pressed his palm against one of the ridges. The wind shifted, catching within the grooves.

Namjoon, unlike the others, wasn’t entirely lost in the spectacle. His gaze flicked back to Y/N, watching the way her expression remained tight, the way her fingers twitched with irritation.

“You don’t like this,” he observed quietly.

Y/N huffed out a breath. “I don’t like being here at all. This is pointless.” She cast a glance at Lee, who was still inspecting the bones like he was the first person in the universe to ever see a skeleton. “And I don’t like being dragged around by someone who acts like he’s in charge just because he’s loud and armed.”

Namjoon smiled faintly. “That’s just Lee. Cop acting like a cop.”

Y/N snorted. “Yeah, well, I didn’t sign up to be bossed around by some overzealous authority figure with a superiority complex.”

Namjoon chuckled. “Yeah, he’s a dick.” Then, after a beat, “But mostly harmless.”

She side-eyed him. “Mostly.”

He shrugged, the ghost of amusement lingering.

A pause settled between them, quieter, more thoughtful. Y/N glanced at him, debating, then sighed. “Call me Frenchie.”

Namjoon blinked. “What?”

“It’s my call sign,” she explained, shifting her weight. “Got it when I was working on the docks with my uncle, and it stuck around. All my friends and family call me. You might as well, since I actually like you.”

Namjoon’s expression softened, something warm flickering behind his eyes. “Frenchie,” he repeated, testing the name with obvious care. A slow smile curved his lips. “I like it.”

Y/N nodded, satisfied.

Then Namjoon hesitated. “My mom used to call me Joon.” His voice was quieter now, thoughtful. “I haven’t heard it in a long time.”

Y/N looked at him, tilting her head slightly.

“She passed away a few years ago,” he admitted.

Y/N’s chest ached, just a little. She understood that feeling too well. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

Namjoon nodded once, accepting, before offering her a small, sad smile. “It’s okay.”

Y/N hesitated, then said, “My parents died when I was little. My aunt and uncle raised me.”

Namjoon’s gaze met hers, understanding passing between them in the space of a heartbeat.

For a moment, they stood there, two people from different worlds, bound by quiet losses and shared irritation for the man currently barking orders at Kai like he had any authority.

Namjoon sighed. “We should probably go stop Lee from doing something stupid.”

Y/N smirked. “Or we could let him and watch what happens.”

Namjoon laughed, shaking his head. “Tempting.”

But they both knew they’d step in. Because Lee might be a pain in the ass, but he was still on their side.

A little ways off, Kai drifted toward one of the massive skulls, its hollow sockets wide and empty, a monument to something long dead. The structure was vast enough to shelter them all, its surface ridged with comb-like formations. Curious, Kai pressed his palm against one of the ridges. The wind shifted, catching within the grooves.

A low, hollow hum resonated through the bones. The sound rippled outward, vibrating through the air, sinking into their chests like a pulse of memory. It was deep, mournful—a ghost’s sigh.

Kai’s face lit up, wonder momentarily eclipsing fear. “I’ve never heard anything like this,” he said, turning toward the others, his voice tinged with awe.

His smile froze. Something moved in the skull’s shadow. A face—pale and grinning—emerged from the dark. Kai stumbled back with a strangled yelp, his hands flying up instinctively. It wasn’t a monster. It was Soobin.

He stepped from the depths of the skull, laughter bright and sharp. “Got you good,” he said, grinning.

The tension cracked—momentarily.

Lee was already moving, instincts pulling him into the cavernous space of the skull. The shadows stretched long inside, pooling in uneven recesses. Bones littered the ground, but not the smooth, time-worn ones outside.

These were fresh. Chipped. Splintered. His shotgun swept low, the muzzle nudging against a shattered fragment. The air inside the skull carried an edge, something faintly electric—like the charge before a storm.

Lee exhaled through his nose, slow. "Nothing," he muttered, but his gut said otherwise.

Outside, the group gathered near the towering ribs, unease thickening as the wind hummed through the combed ridges of the skulls, filling the air with a sound too unnatural to be ignored. The massive remains stood like silent guardians over a forgotten tragedy.

High above, Jungkook watched. He was a shadow within the bone, his body pressed into the dense curves of the cavernous skull. The faint light filtering through the ridges illuminated only fragments of him—a glint of movement, a slow, steady breath. He didn’t stir. Didn’t make a sound.

His gaze flicked over the group below. He had been tracking them for hours. From where he crouched, Y/N was the closest. She leaned against the skull’s base, fingers twisting off the spent oxygen canister at her belt. The hiss of escaping air broke the silence.

Jungkook’s grip tightened around the bone-shiv in his hand. Its jagged edge gleamed faintly, a relic carved from the remains of this place. His muscles coiled. His breath was measured. He waited. The hunt hadn’t begun yet. But soon.

Y/N shifted her weight, pressing her back against the massive skull. The warmth of the bone seeped through her clothes, and for a moment, she let herself close her eyes. Just a second—just long enough to exhale, to let the exhaustion settle beneath her ribs before she pushed forward again.

Above her, in the hollowed-out depths of the skull, Jungkook did not blink. He moved with the silence of something bred for patience, for hunting. The bone-shiv in his hand hovered steady, his fingers curling around the carved handle as he leaned forward, the comb-like ridges of the skull framing his motion.

Her hair, damp with sweat, swayed just within reach. A flick of his wrist. A whisper of steel. The blade caught a single lock, slicing it away with surgical precision. Dark strands drifted into his palm, weightless, a piece of her claimed without her ever knowing. He studied them for a moment—expression unreadable—before tucking them into the folds of his makeshift belt. A keepsake. A marker.

Below him, Y/N shifted, oblivious to how close she had come to the edge of her life. She pushed off from the skull, stretching out her sore muscles before turning. “We’d better keep moving,” she said, her voice even, but tired.

Lee’s arrival had been perfectly timed—though she had no idea how perfectly. He stood a few feet away, flask in hand, smirking beneath the sunburned grime on his face. “Care for a sip?”

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t alcohol supposed to dehydrate you faster?”

Lee shrugged, tipping the flask toward her. “Probably. But it makes you care a whole lot less.”

She hesitated, then took the flask anyway. The liquid burned a path down her throat, hot and punishing, but she swallowed it without complaint. She handed it back, her gaze drifting toward the horizon. The boneyard stretched behind them, vast and silent, too silent.

“We don’t want to be out here when it gets dark,” she said briskly.

Lee nodded, tucking the flask back into his jacket as they fell into step. The group ahead was just visible now, their silhouettes shrinking against the dying light.

The crunch of bone fragments beneath their boots was the only sound between them. They climbed the rise overlooking the wasteland, and then—Lee froze. He moved fast, stepping onto a rock, rifle raised, the scope pressed tight against his eye. Every muscle in his body went rigid.

Y/N felt the shift instantly. Her fingers brushed the hilt of her knife. “What is it?”

Lee didn’t answer at first. He adjusted the scope, lips pressing into a tight line.

“I thought maybe he’d double back,” he muttered, voice barely audible. “Could be trailing us.”

Y/N’s stomach coiled tight. “And?”

Lee exhaled, lowering the scope. “Nothing.” He shook his head. “Left the flask as bait. No bites.” He climbed down, his boots hitting the earth with a crunch. “Guess he’s smarter than that.”

But Lee was wrong. So, so wrong. Back in the shadows of the skull, the truth was different. The flask, once brimming with scotch, now sat empty. Its contents had been poured out—replaced with a handful of coarse, reddish sand. Carefully. Deliberately.

Jungkook crouched deep in the graveyard of bones, his body a seamless part of the ruin, woven into the wreckage of something ancient. The strands of Y/N’s hair were still tucked securely into his belt, their faint scent rising with the heat.

His chest rose and fell in slow, controlled movements, his fingers adjusting the bone shards strapped across his body like armor. He was a ghost. A specter inside the carcass of a long-dead god. Watching. Waiting. And as the group moved farther away, he smiled.

The spired hills rose like shattered teeth against the sky, jagged and sharp, their edges blurred by the feverish shimmer of heat. The ground cracked beneath the weight of the twin suns, a vast, unrelenting plain stretching between the wreckage and the emptiness beyond.

Beneath the meager shade of a tarp strung between two rusted poles, Daku worked in silence.

Each swing of the pickaxe landed with a dull, defiant thud, the ground resisting him at every turn. This planet didn’t want to give up its dead.

A few yards away, the bodies lay wrapped in scavenged cloth. The makeshift shrouds clung awkwardly, shifting slightly in the breeze, as if reluctant to settle. A corner of one cloth lifted—just enough to reveal the curve of a hand, frozen in stillness—before the wind set it back down, as if even the air knew better than to disturb the dead.

Daku didn’t look at them. He didn’t have to. Their presence pressed against his skin, heavy as the heat, heavy as guilt. He drove the pickaxe into the ground again, his muscles burning, his breath ragged. The wreckage of the ship loomed behind him, twisted metal stark against the sky. It felt farther away than it was, separated by more than just distance.

Movement at the edge of his vision made him pause. Bindi stood in the shadow of the ship, watching. She lifted a hand in a slow, deliberate wave. Daku raised his own in return. A small gesture. Too heavy for what it was. But enough. Then he turned back to the earth.

The ground cracked beneath his next swing, reluctant but yielding. The rhythm of digging gave him something to focus on—something other than the weight pressing at the edges of his mind.

“Daku.”

Bindi’s voice carried across the dead landscape, firm but quiet.

He didn’t stop. “You need something?”

She stepped closer, hands on her hips, her presence solid, steady. “You good out here?”

Daku leaned against the shovel, wiping sweat from his brow. His voice came out rough. Flat. “Depends. How good does digging graves in an oven sound to you?”

Bindi snorted. “You could take a break, you know.”

“They deserve better than that,” Daku muttered. No room for argument.

Bindi didn’t try.

She stood there for a moment, gaze lingering, unreadable. Then she turned and disappeared back into the wreckage, leaving him alone with the dust, the heat, and the dead.

Daku worked until his muscles ached, until his hands blistered, until the trench was deep enough to matter.

Then, finally, he turned to the first body. The cloth fluttered slightly as he crouched beside it. Too light. That was the first thing he noticed. The weight was all wrong, the shape beneath the fabric too empty. His breath caught in his throat, but he didn’t let it settle. Didn’t let himself think.

He lifted the body carefully, arms straining as he carried it to the grave. Lowered it into the earth like it meant something.

A breath. A pause. The world around him held still, as if watching. He swallowed hard, then reached for the shovel.

The first shovelful of dirt hit with a dull thud. Then another. Then another. The sound of finality. The sound of something being buried that would never be dug up again.

When it was done, he stepped back, brushing dust from his palms. It wasn’t much. But it was enough. The sound of footsteps behind him. He didn’t need to turn to know it was Bindi.

“You need help?” she asked.

Daku shook his head. “I’ve got it.”

She didn’t argue. She just stood there with him, both of them framed against the endless, indifferent horizon. The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was everything they couldn’t say. Everything they’d lost. Everything they still had left to lose. Daku exhaled, his gaze fixed on the hills in the distance. The sun was sinking, but the heat never left.

“They’ll rest easier now,” Bindi murmured.

Daku tightened his grip on the shovel. “Let’s hope we can say the same for us.”

The canyon yawned ahead, its ribbed spires stretching toward the twin suns like the remains of some ancient beast, clawing at the sky in its final death throes. Heat shimmered off the cracked earth, turning the horizon into something warped and restless. The silence was thick, not the absence of sound, but the kind that pressed in on all sides, heavy with the unshakable feeling that something was watching.

Y/N adjusted the strap of her pack, fingers brushing absently over the worn hilt of her knife as she scanned the terrain. Every step felt heavier, dragged down not just by exhaustion, but by the weight of the stillness.

Ahead, Yeonjun suddenly crouched, his voice low but urgent.

"Captain… Captain!"

Y/N was at his side in seconds, her brow furrowing as she followed his gaze. Half-buried in the dirt was something small and round, coated in dust and split slightly down the middle. At first, it looked like some alien fruit—leathery, weathered, its exposed core stringy and fibrous.

The Chrislams gathered close, murmuring in soft Saramic, their voices tinged with something fragile—hope.

"Could it be food?" one of them asked. "Something edible?"

Y/N brushed the dirt away, fingers tracing the rough, familiar stitching. The realization sank in like a stone dropping into deep water. She lifted it slowly, turning it over in her palm.

Her voice was flat when she spoke. "It’s a baseball."

The murmurs stopped. The small circle of bodies tensed, shoulders tightening, breath catching. The dirt-smudged ball sat in her palm like an artifact from another world. In a way, it was.

Namjoon stepped closer, the usual calm in his eyes sharpening into something watchful. He scanned the canyon’s winding path, his voice measured but weighted.

“We are not alone here, yes?”

Y/N didn’t answer, but her grip on the ball tightened.

Behind her, Lee shifted, his rifle held easy but ready, the sharp cut of his jaw betraying his unease. His fingers brushed the scope, his movements slow and deliberate.

“Never thought we were,” he muttered, the resignation in his tone carrying something else beneath it. Something like readiness.

The canyon widened, opening into a plateau that led toward the spired hills. And there—standing against the base of the jagged rock formations—was a settlement. Or what was left of one.

Rust-streaked shipping containers, stacked into makeshift buildings, leaned into each other like forgotten bones. Tattered sunshades, barely clinging to their rusted poles, flapped weakly in the heated wind, their edges frayed and curling.

The group stopped.

Namjoon moved first, stepping forward with a reverence that didn’t match the decay before them.

"Assalamu alaikum!" Yeonjun called, his voice carrying across the empty space, bouncing off the metal walls.

Nothing. No answer.

Lee peeled off toward a rusted-out moisture-recovery unit, crouching near the battered jugs scattered at its base. He picked one up, shook it. Nothing. Just a hollow rattle of grit inside brittle plastic.

“They ran out,” he said grimly, setting the jug down with finality.

Namjoon’s gaze lingered on the machine, his voice quiet. “Water,” he murmured. “Once, there was water here.”

The pilgrims sank to their knees, hands raised, their voices rising in unison. Allahu Akbar. The sound filled the empty settlement, a prayer swallowed by the bones of a place long past saving.

Y/N watched from the outskirts, the weight of the baseball still heavy in her grip. The prayers filled the space, but they didn’t fill her. Her gaze drifted to the shipping containers. Too still. Too empty. She moved toward one, her steps careful, deliberate. The doors hung crooked, their rusted hinges straining against time. She pushed one open.

Inside, the remains of lives left behind: A tipped-over chair. A rusted lantern. A faint, smeared handprint on the wall.

Y/N dragged her fingers along the broken edge of a table. Her voice was quiet, more to herself than anyone else.

“What happened here?” Lee’s voice, closer than she expected.

“Doesn’t look like they had much of a choice,” he said, gesturing to the scattered jugs, the rusted-out machinery. “This place dried up.”

Namjoon’s voice broke through the weight of the silence. "We search. See what remains."

The group spread out, their movements slow, careful. The air was thick, heavy with something unspoken. Y/N turned the baseball over in her hands, a cold certainty settling deep in her chest.

The air inside the structure was stale—not just old, but abandoned. A vacuum where life had once existed and then receded, leaving only the sediment of its passing. The particulate composition of the dust—fine, unbothered—told Y/N that no one had been in here for years.

She stepped forward, careful with her weight distribution, feeling the floor shift just slightly under her boots. Disuse. Wood degradation. Subsurface rot. The building wouldn’t collapse under her, but it was tired.

She cataloged details as she moved—mental notes stacking like research entries in her mind. The table in the center of the room: wooden, refectory-style, approximately two meters in length. Surface dull with oxidized grime. Deep scratches. Cup rings. The wood had absorbed more than just liquid over time—it had absorbed history.

The walls bore framed images—early settlers, hands dirt-streaked and competent, smiling children, a boy gripping a baseball bat. Domesticity in an unrelenting world. A psychological anchor. And yet, they were gone. The structures stood, the ghosts remained, but the people who built them—who bent this world to their will—had vanished.

Where?

Y/N moved deeper inside, her fingertips trailing along the tabletop’s edge. Oil deposits in the grain. Sweat, grease—human residue. She withdrew her hand quickly, as if touching the past too much might make it real again.

She reached for the wall, searching by muscle memory for a switch. “Lights,” she muttered, though she already knew—futility.

Her hand skimmed rough plaster—no switches, no panels. Not even the residual tackiness of adhesive where something had been ripped away. No artificial power grid at all.

Her mind started turning. She moved toward a window, the fabric blackout blinds stiff under her fingers. Why blackouts? She yanked them back, expecting the room to flood with sunlight—

A face stared back. Y/N jerked backward, pulse spiking. Her breath hitched before recognition caught up. Lee. Standing just beyond the glass, his features cut sharp by the exterior glare. He grinned, bemused, almost lazy.

"Try not to get lost in there," he said through the window, voice muffled.

She exhaled sharply, tension bleeding from her muscles. A short, nervous laugh escaped her as she nodded. "Not planning to," she called back.

Lee gave a small wave and stepped away, disappearing into the light. She was alone again. But the silence inside the building had shifted. A creak from behind her.

Y/N pivoted, knife half-drawn, instincts running ahead of her thoughts. Something in the corner caught the light. An orrery.

It sat on a low table, its frame dulled with oxidation but intact. She took a slow, deliberate step forward. The gears inside clicked, stuttered, then began to turn.

The device came to life. Tiny planets, caught in orbits dictated by age-old mechanics, began to move. Uneven. Jerky. The largest celestial body, positioned where a primary sun should be, pulsed faintly—bathed in a perpetual glow.

Y/N stilled. No darkness. Her fingers brushed the frame. "No darkness," she murmured. "No lights, because… no darkness." Her scientific mind caught the pattern before her gut did. Something prickled at the base of her skull. A realization forming too slow to stop the chill crawling up her spine. She turned sharply, stepped back into the sunlight.

The porch creaked beneath her boots, the glare of the twin suns almost too much after the dim interior. She squinted, eyes scanning the barren land for movement.

Then—a flicker. Far out, something glinted. Not naturally. A deliberate reflection. Her breath caught. She moved fast, pushing past a line of laundry still clinging to rusted wire, the faded fabric brushing her arms as she pushed forward.

The glint again. She broke into a jog.The ground crunched beneath her boots, fractured stone and sand shifting as she reached the source— A skiff. Partially buried in the desert’s hungry mouth.

Y/N’s pulse pounded. The fabric wings, tattered and skeletal, flapped weakly in the wind. The hull, sleek despite its damage, bore faded markings—symbols etched by a language older than the ruins around it.

A vessel. A departure. Or an arrival. Her fingers traced the surface—metal, pitted and worn, but solid. Heat radiated from it, even in the already blistering environment. Residual energy storage? Possible thermovoltaic components? Her heart stuttered.

"Allahu Akbar," she whispered, voice trembling between awe and calculation.

She didn’t believe in miracles. But she believed in science. And the science told her one thing: Someone else had been here.

The others caught up within minutes, their footsteps crunching against the fractured ground, but Y/N barely registered them. Her mind was already dissecting, calculating, breaking down the skiff in front of her.

Namjoon reached her first, his approach slow, deliberate—a reverence she couldn’t afford. He placed a hand on the hull, fingers splayed over the scarred metal, his eyes slipping shut for a brief moment. A prayer. A plea. The Chrislams behind him murmured their own, their voices threading through the air like a quiet current of faith. Y/N wasn’t praying. She was analyzing.

Her fingers traced the hull, mapping out the pitting from sand erosion, the carbon scoring along the intake vents, the microfractures spiderwebbing across the surface. Heat residue. That meant energy retention. That meant—

"Think it’ll fly?" Lee’s voice broke through her thoughts. He stood just behind her, rifle slung loose, his gaze sweeping over the vessel with a mix of hope and skepticism.

She exhaled sharply, tilting her head, already formulating possibilities, probabilities, limitations. "I don’t know," she admitted, but the words thrilled her. Not in uncertainty, but in possibility.

Her hands moved instinctively, pushing against the skiff’s frame, testing its stability, density, material integrity. The hull composition felt wrong—light but strong, too smooth to be traditional alloys. Not purely terrestrial. Some kind of composite—low-weight, high-tensile resilience.

The intake vents told her more—angled for atmospheric entry, but the heat scoring was shallow. This thing hadn’t been through a rough descent. It hadn’t crashed. It had landed. Her pulse ticked up, the rush of discovery washing over her, every neuron firing at once.

"This isn’t just wreckage," she muttered under her breath. "It was left here."

Lee frowned. "What are you saying?"

She stepped back, surveying the machine as a whole, not just its parts. "Scorch patterns are too controlled for a crash. The way the sand's drifted against it—it's been here a while, but not long enough for total burial. And the material—" she pressed her palm flat against the hull "—it’s still holding latent heat. That means an energy core. That means—"

Lee caught on before she even finished. His breath left him in a short, sharp laugh. "—it might have power," he finished.

Y/N nodded, her mind already racing ahead. If there was power, there was a chance. The skiff wasn’t just a symbol of escape. It was a machine—a problem to solve, a system to understand, a puzzle begging for hands smart enough to unlock it.

For the first time in too long, she felt the familiar pull—not just survival, not just endurance, but science.

"If we can get inside, if the controls are intact, if we can access the core—" she turned to Namjoon, who was still watching her, still measuring her words against his faith.

"We might not be stuck here after all."

The group fell silent. Even the wind seemed to hesitate, as if waiting for the verdict. Y/N’s hands curled into fists at her sides, her nails digging into her palms, not in doubt but in determination. For the first time in days, she wasn’t just reacting to survival. She was chasing it.

She looked up, toward the endless stretch of sky. For once, it didn’t feel like a ceiling. It felt like a destination.

Perched atop the ruined ship, Peter reclined in the only way Peter could—utterly unbothered, delicately indulgent, as if this wasteland was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to his standard of living. A toast point rested between two fingers, smeared with glistening caviar, because apparently, nothing—not even being marooned on a hostile planet—could persuade him to lower his standards.

The heat wavered in thick, rippling waves, and yet Peter sat immaculate, his linen trousers untouched by dust, grime, or the creeping dread curling at the edges of reality.

He lifted the toast toward his lips, prepared for the luxury of a bite, when— Scrabbling.

Soft. Imperceptible to anyone who wasn’t listening. A faint, almost instinctual sound. Dirt shifting. Small rocks tumbling. The suggestion of movement.

Peter froze. The toast hovered, suspended between indulgence and survival, as he tilted his head toward the edge of the ship. His sharp gaze narrowed. His hand lowered the toast with slow, deliberate precision onto a neatly folded napkin. He adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, brushed nonexistent dust from his trousers, and peered over the side.

Nothing. Just the dirt ramp, the heat waves, the small rocks still rolling a little too lazily, as if something—or someone—had climbed up. A muscle ticked in Peter’s jaw.

"This," he muttered under his breath, voice edged with his usual dry sarcasm, "now qualifies as the worst fun I’ve ever had. Stop it."

The wasteland offered no reply. The silence was thick, viscous, wrapping around him, pressing against his skin. The heat crackled off the ship’s hull, and suddenly, the toast and caviar felt obscenely misplaced.

Peter grabbed his war-pick—the ornate, polished relic, absurd in his hands, its weight foreign despite its promise of violence. He descended cautiously, every footstep deliberate, scanning the fractured shadows of the hull.

Still—nothing. His pulse was too fast. He did not like this.

“Leo?” Peter’s voice was low, edged with tension. "Oh, Leo… if this is one of your charming pranks—"

A voice rang out.

“What?”

Peter nearly dropped the war-pick. Leo’s voice was too casual, too far away. That meant—whatever had been up there with him, hadn’t been Leo. Cold certainty locked around Peter’s spine.

His tension sharpened into movement, feet carrying him faster now, deeper into the ship’s fractured belly, where he found Leo and Bindi, elbow-deep in a stubborn storage container, dirt streaking their faces. Both looked up, annoyed.

"Tell me that was you," Peter snapped, his grip tightening on the war-pick.

Leo’s brows furrowed. “Okay, sure, it was me. What’d I do now?”

"You’re assailing my fragile sense of security, that’s what,” Peter shot back. His voice cracked—just slightly—betraying his nerves.

Bindi straightened, her sharp gaze zeroing in. “He’s been right here, mate," she said, unimpressed. "What are you going on about?"

Peter opened his mouth, but— A shadow moved. A flicker across the fractured beams of sunlight slicing through the hull. The three of them froze. The air thickened, pressing in on all sides.

“Daku?” Bindi called, voice tight.

No response.

Leo darted to a narrow crack in the hull, pressing his face to the dusty glass. His breath fogged the surface as his gaze locked onto something.

Daku. Outside, hunched over the graves. Moving slow. Deliberate. Leo’s voice dropped to a whisper. His lips barely moved when he spoke the name they had all been avoiding.

"Jungkook."

Peter went rigid. The war-pick slipped in his sweaty grip. Bindi didn’t hesitate—she ripped the weapon from his hands in one clean motion, her body already moving, her muscles tensed like a spring waiting to snap. Leo followed, boomerang gripped like a lifeline.

The shadows deepened. The air grew heavier. And then—he appeared. Bindi swung first. Her aim was perfect—too perfect. The war-pick sliced through the air— and missed.

“No—!" Leo’s voice cracked. Panic ripped through him.

The man staggered back, arms raised defensively. Not Jungkook. Sunburned skin, blistered raw. A gaunt frame, weak, trembling. He clutched the lever of an emergency cryo-locker, his breath ragged, desperate.

"I thought—" he rasped, voice hoarse. Relief bloomed across his face. His eyes darted over them, hopeful, human, just a survivor—

The gunshot tore through the moment. Louder than the wind, louder than the sky. The bullet hit center mass. Blood sprayed across Bindi’s arm. The man’s body jerked, crumpled. His eyes went wide, confusion etched into his sunburned features before the light in them went out. A single breath. Then silence.

The group turned. Daku stood yards away, pistol still raised. His hands trembled. His chest rose and fell too fast.

"I thought it was him," Daku stammered. His voice cracked, unraveling. "The murdering ratbag. I thought—"

Leo’s face was ashen. His throat bobbed as he whispered, "He was just somebody else."

Daku’s gaze dropped. His hands fell limp at his sides. The pistol slipped from his fingers, clattering against the dirt. His knees buckled. His voice—wrecked, broken, crumbling.

“I thought it was him.”

And in the shadows behind the graves Jungkook watched. Still. Calculating. Amused. The goggles over his eyes caught the light, glinting. For a breath, he lingered, his gaze flicking to the breather strapped to Daku’s chest. Assessing. Weighing. Measuring. Then—like smoke he was gone. Leaving behind nothing. Just the echo of his presence and the weight of a mistake they could never take back.

The skiff crouched on the cracked earth like a carcass picked clean by time. Its fabric wings, once sleek and functional, hung in limp surrender, their edges frayed by wind and heat. The sand had already started reclaiming it, creeping up the landing gear, seeping into every exposed seam. Whatever this ship had been, whatever mission had left it here, was long over.

But it still had answers.

Y/N dropped from the cockpit, her boots crunching against the gritty surface below. She straightened, brushing sand off her hands, her mind already unraveling the mystery beneath the wreckage.

“No juice,” she called over her shoulder. Dead cells, fried circuits, a nest of corroded wiring—this thing hadn’t powered on in years.

Lee stood a few yards away, rifle slung over one shoulder in that lazy-but-ready way of his. He was watching her work, but also watching everything else.

“Controls are fried,” she continued, fingers running over the sun-bleached hull, searching. “Wiring’s a mess, but maybe we could adapt—”

“Shut up.”

Lee’s voice was sharp, cutting through her sentence like a blade. His hand came up, commanding silence. Y/N froze. Not because he had spoken—Lee was an ass, and abrupt orders weren’t new—but because of how he had said it.

His entire posture had shifted. The lazy stance was gone. His body was tight, coiled, head tilted slightly—like a wolf catching the scent of something just out of sight. Predator mode. Y/N’s stomach knotted.

“What?” she asked, voice low.

Lee didn’t answer immediately. His eyes swept the horizon, scanning the jagged rock formations, the dunes shifting lazily under the heat. The air around them felt wrong. Too still. Too heavy. Like the world itself had paused, waiting for something to happen. Y/N’s fingers drifted toward her knife, her pulse accelerating.

“Like my pistola,” Lee muttered.

Y/N frowned. He was hearing gunfire?

No—not gunfire. Something else. Before she could ask, the silence fractured. A sound—soft, metallic, deliberate. Like a latch being tested. Like steel on steel. Like someone was inside the skiff. Y/N’s grip tightened. She glanced at Lee. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. He heard it too.

“From the ship?” she whispered.

“Maybe.” His voice was clipped, low. “Or it could be him.”

Jungkook. The name didn’t need to be spoken aloud—his presence was a constant shadow, thick and inescapable. Even when he wasn’t there, he was. A shiver traced down Y/N’s spine, but she swallowed it. Fear wouldn’t help. Answers would. Her focus snapped back to the skiff.

If she could find a serial number, a registry plate, even a manufacturer’s mark, she could start piecing this together. Where had it come from? Who left it here? And more importantly—what planet were they even on? She ran her hands over the hull, searching.

The paint was stripped, the weathering extreme, but beneath the peeling surface, she spotted a faint etching—small, almost invisible, tucked just beneath the intake vent.

Her pulse spiked. Identification markings. Y/N dropped to her knees, yanking out her multi-tool. The tip of the blade scraped carefully over the surface, clearing away grit and oxidation. There. Her brain moved fast.

“PT-221…” she whispered, deciphering the numbers as they appeared. A familiar format.

“This is a personnel transport skiff.”

Lee glanced toward her, but his focus was still half-outward, scanning the horizon. “That mean anything?”

Y/N exhaled hard, her mind racing.

“PT-series ships were manufactured in the Helion System. Specifically” —she brushed away more dirt—“On Prime. However, this one looks weird. An older model from Aguerra Prime or Earth. I'd sixty years, but there's a lot of copycat rebuilds out there. Depending on where we are, it's unlikely that anyone would leave a ship for sixty years with no plan of retrieving it.”

That meant something huge. If this skiff had been manufactured in the Helion System or any of the others that she mentioned, then it had originated from human-inhabited space. That meant they were somewhere mapped. Somewhere reachable. Which meant—they weren’t lost. Not completely.

“This is good, Lee,” she said, voice breathless with revelation. “If I can get into the onboard system—if the black box is still intact—we might be able to pull location logs. Nav data. Even a distress signal history.”

Lee wasn’t looking at her. His grip had shifted on his rifle, tighter. His jaw clenched. Y/N’s excitement fractured.

“Lee,” She barely whispered it.

He didn’t blink. His face was off. For a second, Y/N thought it was just the heat. The pale sheen on his forehead, the way his fingers flexed against the grip of his rifle—subtle signs of dehydration, maybe, or just the endless tension grinding them all down to bone. But then she really looked.

His breathing was wrong. Not labored, exactly, but uneven, like his body was reacting to something before his brain could catch up. His pupils looked a little blown, his skin too clammy for the dry heat pressing down on them. He was sweating, but not the normal kind. A slow, cold kind. Like someone had just ripped a secret out of his chest.

"Lee." Y/N’s voice dropped an octave, sharp with something she wasn’t sure she wanted to name. "What’s wrong?"

No answer. His jaw flexed. His fingers twitched, just once, against the trigger guard. Y/N’s stomach twisted. She barely had time to register it—to react, to decide if she should be worried or just pissed off—before Lee suddenly exhaled hard, shook himself like a man breaking out of a fog.

Then, just like that, his entire expression changed. The tension? Gone. The weird, distant look? Gone. He rolled his shoulders, blinked twice like shaking off a bad dream, then turned toward her with forced nonchalance.

“Sorry—what?” His voice was too normal, too casual, like he hadn’t just short-circuited mid-thought. “Say that again?”

Y/N stared at him. His breath was steadier now. His hand had relaxed on the rifle, no longer clenching like he was waiting for something to spring out of the dark.

But his skin still looked a little too pale under the sunburn. His lips pressed together too tightly. Like he knew she had clocked it. Like he was daring her to push the issue. Y/N narrowed her eyes but didn’t push. Not yet.

Instead, she rolled her eyes and turned back to the skiff. "Nothing important, Lee. Just, you know, information that might actually save our lives."

She dropped to her knees again, blade scraping against the etchings on the hull, scanning for anything else. Serial numbers, flight logs—hell, even a maintenance sticker would help. Something to tell her where the hell this thing had come from. Because if she could figure that out, then maybe she could figure out where the hell they were.

The grave site shimmered under the twin suns, the heat so thick it seemed to press against Daku’s chest with every breath. The ground cracked beneath his boots as he dragged the dead man’s body across the dirt, the sled groaning under the weight.

The sound was grating, a harsh scrape against the silence, but the world swallowed it whole. Daku was alone.

The shipwreck loomed behind him, just out of sight, the sun-tarp sagging under the oppressive weight of dead air. The shade did nothing. It just made the place feel more hollow.

He braced himself, hands on his knees, and tried to ignore the way his lungs felt like sandpaper. Sweat burned down his back, soaking into the fabric of his shirt, but he didn’t stop.

The grave wasn’t deep. Couldn’t be. The ground was fighting him, resisting every strike of the shovel like it didn’t want to give up its dead.

Then he saw it. Something in the dirt. Daku froze. Half-buried at the bottom of the shallow grave, nestled beneath the loose soil, was an opening. Not just a crack in the earth. Not a burrow. Something else. Too smooth. Too deliberate.

He knelt, breath hitching, his fingers brushing over the edges of the hole. The walls were lined with something fibrous, a texture that wasn’t quite plant, wasn’t quite animal. Dried husks, webbed together in intricate layers. Organic, but wrong.

His stomach twisted. He reached for the handlight clipped to his belt, flicking it on. The beam cut through the dark, illuminating the tunnel’s slope.

The walls reflected faintly. Not like rock, not like dirt—something else. Something that almost looked wet. Then the smell hit him. Acrid. Chemical. Like something had been burned too clean, stripped too sterile.

Daku tilted the light. The tunnel curved downward, disappearing into a place the light couldn’t reach. And then—it moved. Not the tunnel. Something inside it. A ripple. Small at first. Then again. Daku’s heart slammed against his ribs. At first, it looked like shadow, just the way the light played against the uneven walls.

But then he realized it wasn’t the light moving It was something in the dark. Something that was watching him. Then it lunged.

The edges of the burrow split apart with a wet, tearing sound. Like flesh peeling open. A tendril shot out, fast—too fast. It wrapped around Daku’s wrist, cold, slick, unnervingly strong. Panic detonated through him.

He yanked back instinctively, but the thing was stronger. Its grip tightened, pulling him toward the tunnel. Daku screamed. His free hand fumbled for his pistol, but his fingers couldn’t get a grip. The thing’s skin—if you could call it that—was slick, shifting, like oil trying to hold a shape.

Finally, his hand closed around the gun. He fired. The shot shattered the silence. The muzzle flash lit up the hole for a split second, and in that moment, Daku saw it.

Not just a tendril. Not just something reaching. A mass. It was writhing, growing, expanding from the darkness. Daku fired again, his pulse a drumbeat in his skull. The tendril spasmed, rippling like disturbed water. The grip loosened.

Back at the ship, Peter flinched so hard the toast point in his hand toppled, caviar-first, onto the dusty hull. He stared at it. Then at the horizon. Then back at the toast. Then back at the horizon. His mind scrambled for an answer that didn’t exist.

Leo’s head snapped up, boomerang held tight, his knuckles bloodless against the grip.

“That was a gunshot,” he whispered. Like they needed the reminder.

Bindi didn’t hesitate. She dropped into a crouch, war-pick in hand, her eyes locked onto the grave site. Something had happened. Something bad.

Peter scrambled down the side of the ship, his usual swagger gone.

“Tell me that wasn’t just me,” he said, voice pitched too high. “You heard it, right? I’m not going mad?”

Bindi didn’t even look at him. Her focus was all horizon, all muscle, her expression unreadable.

“Course I bloody heard it.” Her voice was clipped, sharp. “The question is, what are we gonna do about it?”

Leo swallowed hard. “That was Daku, wasn’t it?” His voice cracked. “It has to be him.”

Bindi’s head snapped toward him. “Don’t assume.” Her voice was hard, commanding, no room for argument. She rose from her crouch, grip shifting on the war-pick. “Could be anything,” she said. “Or anyone.” A beat. “We stay sharp.”

Leo’s green eyes flickered with something raw. His grip tightened.

“If it wasn’t him…” His voice was barely audible now. “…Then what?”

Peter opened his mouth, ready to quip, ready to deflect—but the look in Bindi’s eyes stopped him cold. She wasn’t joking. This was real.

He shifted uncomfortably, licking his lips, eyes darting toward the ship. “I’m just saying… maybe we think before running headlong into—” He gestured vaguely. “Whatever that was.”

Bindi cut him off.

“Stay here.” Leo flinched, but Bindi didn’t soften. “If anything moves that isn’t me or Daku,” she said, “you scream like the world’s ending.”

Peter opened his mouth again, but she was already moving, slipping toward the gravesite, war-pick held ready. Leo and Peter watched her go. The heat rippled around her, warping the horizon into something unreal.

Leo exhaled sharply, crouching beside Peter, boomerang in a death grip. “…Do you think it’s him?”

Peter didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. His gaze was locked on the grave site. Because something was wrong. He could feel it. Finally, he swallowed, dragging a hand down his face.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. He glanced toward the horizon, his brow furrowing. “But whatever it is…” His voice dropped. “…It’s close. Too close.”

The second gunshot shattered the graveyard’s silence, the sharp crack tearing through the thick, suffocating heat. The bullet found its mark.

A tendril snapped apart in midair, black ichor spraying outward in a violent arc, sizzling where it struck the dry earth. The air reeked instantly—something acidic, chemical, a stench that clung to the back of Daku’s throat, making his eyes water.

But the thing didn’t stop. The next tendril lashed out, wrapping around his calf before he could react. Then it pulled.

Daku hit the ground hard, his back slamming against the dirt with a dull thud. His breath ripped from his lungs, the wind knocked out of him as he slid toward the gaping burrow.

The thing wasn’t just strong. It was fast. He aimed blind—fired blind, his pistol flashing bright in the gloom. The muzzle flare lit up the nightmare for half a second.

A tangle of limbs. Writhing. Folding in on itself. Not solid. Not liquid. Something in between. The bullets tore through it, but it didn’t bleed right. It shuddered—jerked, rippled like disturbed water—but the tendrils kept coming.

One sliced across his chest, razor-thin but unforgiving, carving deep into his skin. Daku gritted his teeth against the pain, his vision blurring at the edges. His free hand scrambled for purchase, fingers clawing at the dirt, but the earth beneath him was giving way.

The grave was getting deeper. Or maybe he was just getting pulled in. His boots dug into the edge, small rocks tumbling down into the void below. Daku kept shooting, kept fighting, even as his grip weakened.

Another shot. Then—something different. One bullet hit deep. Not just flesh. Something inside it. The thing jerked back for a split second, a violent convulsion rolling through its mass.

Daku felt a spark of hope. But hope never lasted long on this planet. The creature lurched forward with renewed fury, its remaining tendrils snapping around his arms, his waist, his throat.

Everything constricted at once. His lungs spasmed. His vision narrowed. The last scream he tried to release died before it even left his throat.

His gun slipped from his fingers, tumbling into the abyss. Daku was going under. The ground crumbled beneath him. His boots skidded, slipped- Then he was gone. Yanked down. Swallowed whole.

The grave collapsed inward. The dirt settled. The sled sat untouched, its cargo neatly stacked, as if nothing had happened at all.

Overhead, the twin suns burned on. Their heat didn’t care. Their light reached everywhere. Except down there.

Deep in the burrow’s black throat, something shifted. The sound was wet, sickly, like flesh being pulled apart and put back together again. The darkness pressed down, thick and suffocating, as something dragged itself deeper. The creature retreated, its tendrils folding inward, pulling Daku’s motionless body into the abyss.

Deeper. Deeper. The light from the surface faded to nothing. The planet consumed him whole. And the silence that followed was final.

The ground burned through Bindi’s boots, the heat relentless, but she didn’t feel it. She sprinted across the packed, unforgiving earth, her breath tearing from her throat in ragged gasps. The twin suns bore down, their light merciless, the air thick and smothering, clinging to her skin like a second, unwelcome layer.

The makeshift sun-tarp came into view, its edges flapping against the crooked poles, the sound barely a whisper over the thunder in her chest.

She felt it before she saw it. Something was wrong. Bindi skidded to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust. The world tilted slightly, her stomach dropping as she yanked the fabric aside—

And froze. Jungkook was standing there. Still. Silent. Waiting.

He was on the far side of the grave, body eerily relaxed, one hand hanging loosely at his side. In it, a bone-shiv. The blade gleamed faintly, catching the light in a way that shouldn’t have felt threatening—but did.

He didn’t flinch at her arrival. Didn’t step back. Didn’t speak. Just stood there, the slight tilt of his head the only indication that he even acknowledged her presence.

His goggles hid his eyes, but Bindi felt them—felt the weight of his stare like a blade against her ribs. Her gaze dropped and her lungs locked. The grave was empty.

The sled overturned, its contents scattered across the dirt like the remnants of a struggle. Blood smeared the earth, thick, dark, soaking into the fractured ground.

And at the bottom of the pit, something worse. A hole. No—a burrow.

Its edges weren’t normal, weren’t clean or mechanical or natural. The fibrous lining trembled, quivering like raw nerve endings, as if the planet itself had breathed a wound open.

Bindi’s body went cold, even as sweat stung her eyes.

She saw it then- Daku’s boot. Just the boot. Lying a few inches from the grave’s edge. Torn. Scuffed. One lace half-untied, like he’d been dragged right out of it.

Her scream tore through the air. "Daku!" Her voice broke, raw, desperate. "DAKU!" The grave swallowed the sound.

Jungkook still hadn’t moved. The silence around him was louder than her cries, pressing down like a living thing.

Bindi’s hand tightened around the war-pick, both hands now clutching it as though it could anchor her, keep her from falling into the same void. Her chest heaved, her throat aching from the scream, but her rage cut through the fear like a blade through flesh.

Her voice shook, but her fury didn’t. "What did you do?"

Jungkook tilted his head, lips barely twitching. A smirk. Or maybe not. Maybe just a reflex, something almost human, but Bindi knew better. He didn’t answer. Didn’t even acknowledge the accusation.

Her gaze snapped back to the grave—the blood, the torn earth, the quivering maw of the burrow. Something else had been here. Something alive. Something that wasn’t Jungkook.

Her breath hitched, the pieces snapping together in her mind with the speed of pure, visceral instinct. "What is down there?"

It wasn’t a question for him—it was a question for herself. Jungkook finally spoke, his voice low, measured, almost curious.

"Not me."

The words crawled under her skin. Her legs weakened. The hole at the bottom of the grave pulsed faintly. Bindi felt it. Like it was waiting.

Jungkook flicked his head toward the burrow—a gesture so small, so deliberate, it made her stomach lurch. He wasn’t explaining himself. He was telling her to look. Telling her to understand.

Her fingers tightened around the war-pick’s handle. And then—she broke. Her scream ripped from her throat, raw and violent.

"Liar!"

The word shook the air. Jungkook didn’t flinch. Didn’t argue. Didn’t deny it. He just turned. His body moved fluidly, like an animal slipping back into the shadows, a creature untouched by morality, by fear, by regret. And he walked away.

Bindi stood there, breathing hard, hands shaking, staring at the grave like it might come alive beneath her feet. It already had. And whatever had taken Daku was still there.

Waiting. Watching. Hungry. Her chest heaved, her grip white-knuckled on the war-pick. The silence returned, heavier now, an oppressive weight of knowing. And she thought, for the first time, that maybe the real question wasn’t what happened to Daku. Maybe the real question was— How much time did they have left before it came back for them too?

Jungkook ran.

His body moved like liquid through rock, weaving through the towering spires that clawed at the sky like the fossilized ribs of some ancient, long-dead colossus. The terrain twisted violently, sharp-edged canyons and jagged drops designed to kill the unskilled, but Jungkook flowed through them without hesitation. Every step was measured, every movement deliberate, his muscles adjusting instinctively to the unpredictable ground beneath him.

The planet breathed heat and silence, thick and watchful, as if the land itself was waiting for the inevitable collision between predator and prey.

The boots behind him never stopped. Lee was close. His footsteps were methodical, unhurried despite the speed, a hunter keeping his quarry exactly where he wanted it. Then—

CRACK.

A gunshot split the air, shattering the fragile quiet. Jungkook felt it before he registered the pain—a sharp, white-hot kiss slicing across his shoulder. The impact sent him off balance, his body crashing into the ground in a violent sprawl.

Dust exploded around him, thick and blinding. He tumbled, skidding hard, his skin tearing against the brutal terrain. His lungs seized, inhaling grit as his momentum carried him forward—too fast, too out of control—until his body came to a bone-rattling stop.

Jungkook braced, muscles tensed to spring back up, keep moving, keep running— He never got the chance.

A boot slammed onto the back of his neck. Hard. Hard enough to rattle his teeth. The force drove him down, his face pressing into the burning dirt, the rough grit scraping against his cheek. His fingers twitched, instinct clawing at his spine, screaming at him to fight, fight, fight, but the weight was unrelenting.

Lee. Jungkook didn’t need to look. Didn’t need to see the satisfied smirk he knew was on the bastard’s face. Didn’t need to hear his smug, infuriating drawl to know exactly what was coming next.

“Same crap, different planet, huh?”

Jungkook’s breath came shallow and steady, his muscles coiled like a trap waiting to spring. The heat of the twin suns pressed against his exposed skin, but it wasn’t what burned.

Lee leaned in, his boot grinding just a little harder against Jungkook’s spine. “You’re fast. I’ll give you that.” A casual chuckle, like they were discussing the weather and not locked in a decades-long, vicious game of hunt-or-be-hunted. “But you should’ve figured it out by now—” He bent closer, his breath warm against the back of Jungkook’s neck. “You can’t outrun me.”

Jungkook’s jaw clenched, his breath still even, controlled. Lee wasn’t invincible. No one was.

Lee shifted slightly, his shotgun gleaming in the sunlight, still pointed directly at Jungkook’s skull. “I’ll admit,” he continued, his voice dropping to something almost amused, “for a second there, you almost had me. Thought you might actually make it.” A pause. A beat of silence, stretching taut. “But here we are.” Lee sighed dramatically, pressing just a little more weight into his hold. “Same story, different setting.”

Jungkook’s fingers twitched against the dirt. His mind moved faster than his body, calculating every shift in weight, every possible angle to escape. Lee was underestimating him. Not enough to be careless—not yet—but enough to assume this was over.

Jungkook tested the pressure against his neck, shifting just slightly. Lee noticed. The boot pressed down. Hard.

“Don’t,” Lee warned, voice dropping into a growl.

Jungkook exhaled slowly, forcing his body to still, to wait, to let Lee think he’d won. His lips twitched. A fraction of a smile. Lee’s grip on the gun tightened, the movement subtle—a hunter sensing the shift in the air, the moment before a predator strikes.

He leaned down, close enough that Jungkook could feel the smirk in his voice. “Go on,” he whispered. His breath was warm. His tone was taunting. “Try something. I dare you.”

Jungkook’s body went still. Too still. The silence stretched unnatural and tight, buzzing with something unspoken, unreadable. Lee frowned slightly. Jungkook smiled.

By the time Y/N and the Chrislams stumbled back into the settlement, the twin suns hung low and merciless, stretching shadows across the cracked earth like skeletal fingers reaching for something they could never quite grasp.

And then she saw him. Jungkook. Sprawled in the dirt. His wrists shackled, his body wrecked.

One lens of his goggles was shattered, exposing the swollen ruin of his right eye, a bruise blooming deep and dark beneath the glass. Blood caked his face, dried in jagged streaks along his jaw, pooling at the corner of his split lip. His chest rose and fell in slow, controlled breaths—the kind that meant he was keeping himself from making a sound, from showing weakness.

The dirt beneath him was stained with sweat and blood, mixing into the dust like he was being absorbed into the planet itself. And standing over him, fists still trembling, was Lee.

His knuckles were raw, his breathing sharp, his entire body locked tight like a spring stretched too far, too long. He wasn’t gloating. He wasn’t even speaking. Just watching. Waiting. Y/N felt the violence in the air before she heard it.

Lee’s voice came low and razor-sharp. "I don’t play that." His fists clenched again, his jaw tightening like he was holding himself together through sheer force of will. "I don’t play that, so just try again." His breath was heavy, sharp, every word weighted with rage barely kept in check. “C’mon, Jungkook. Tell me a better lie.”

Y/N moved without thinking. She grabbed Lee’s arm, yanking him back hard. "Ease up!" she snapped, her voice slicing through the oppressive silence. The moment her hand connected, she felt how hot he was—burning with anger, with exertion. His pulse hammered beneath his skin, barely contained.

Lee didn’t turn to her. Didn’t move. And then—Bindi screamed. It was raw, guttural, the kind of sound that didn’t just come from the throat—it came from the bones, from the marrow, from something breaking inside.

She lunged.

Her fist hit Jungkook’s jaw so hard his head snapped sideways, blood spattering from his already-battered lip. His body didn’t even flinch, like he had already been beaten past the point of feeling it. Y/N reacted instantly, throwing herself between them, shoving Bindi back with both hands.

“Bindi! Stop!” she shouted, struggling to hold her back.

Bindi fought against her grip, her whole body shaking, tears streaking clean paths through the dirt on her face.

"You bloody sick animal!" she screamed, her voice splintering. "What’dja do with my Daku?"

Jungkook didn’t answer. Didn’t even lift his head. His expression was eerily blank, his face tilted just enough that one shattered lens reflected the fading light like a dying star. Y/N’s heart slammed against her ribs.

She turned to Lee, eyes blazing. “Where’s Daku?” she demanded. “What the hell happened out here?”

Lee finally looked at her. His expression was unreadable—too tight, too locked down. His fists unclenched slowly, like it was taking all his effort not to hit something else. With a sharp nod, he gestured toward Jungkook.

“Ask him.”

Y/N dropped to a crouch beside Jungkook, her voice shifting—softer, but no less urgent.

“Jungkook,” she said, staring at the wreck of his face, at the mess of blood and sweat and silence. “What happened to Daku?”

For a moment, he didn’t move. His chest rose and fell, slow and even, like he was holding on to the only thing he could still control. Then, finally—he lifted his head. His cracked lips parted. But all that came out was a rasping sound. Low. Broken. Like the faint whisper of someone who had screamed themselves hoarse.

His eyes flicked to the horizon. To the jagged spires looming in the distance. Then back to her. His lips moved again. A single word, barely audible.

"Gone."

The world tilted. Bindi let out a choked sob, her legs buckling as she sank to the dirt. Lee’s jaw locked, his knuckles going white as his fingers tightened on the stock of his rifle. Y/N’s stomach plummeted. The weight of Jungkook’s answer pressed down on all of them, thick as smoke, suffocating.

She swallowed hard. Forced the words out. "Gone where? What do you mean gone?"

But Jungkook didn’t answer. His head tipped forward, his chin resting against his chest, his entire body folding in on itself like the fight had finally bled out. Like there was nothing left. Like he had already decided—whatever happened next wasn’t up to him anymore.

Y/N and Lee stood at the edge of the grave, their shadows stretching long over the ruined earth. The silence between them was thick, suffocating, the kind that only came after something had gone horribly, irreversibly wrong.

The scene was a crime scene without a body, a massacre without a corpse. Blood streaked the dirt in wild, erratic patterns, like the desperate brushstrokes of a painter losing control. The grave itself was a wreck, its edges collapsed inward, as if the ground had been alive when it happened, twisting, convulsing, devouring.

Nearby, Daku’s sled lay overturned, its contents scattered across the dirt—a mess of supplies, tangled cables, a crushed water jug. A single boot, scuffed and worn, sat half-buried in the dust, the laces flapping lazily in the wind. But Daku was gone.

Not a body. Not a single trace of him. Just this. This wreckage of struggle and silence. At the bottom of the grave, the hole yawned open, its edges lined with something fibrous and strange, something that looked almost… organic. It pulsed faintly in the breeze, like the twitch of a dying thing.

Y/N swallowed hard. It didn’t look natural. Nothing about this looked natural.

Beside her, Lee crouched, his sharp eyes scanning the ground like he was reading a language only he understood. In his hands, the bone-shiv gleamed, its smooth, curved edge catching the last slivers of dying sunlight. He turned it slowly, letting the light skim its surface, watching how it reflected in sharp, fleeting flashes.

Y/N’s stomach twisted. “He used that?” she asked, her voice low but tight. She didn’t know what answer she wanted.

Lee didn’t look up. Just kept turning the shiv over, like it was some kind of sacred artifact. “Sir Shiv-a-Lot,” he muttered, dry and detached. “He likes to cut.”

The words settled like poison in her gut.

“So why isn’t it bloody?” she pressed, her voice sharper now, her eyes flicking between the blade and Lee’s unreadable face. “If Jungkook did this—if he killed Daku—then where’s the blood?”

Finally, Lee looked at her. A faint smirk tugged at his mouth, but there was no humor in it—just something cold and bitter, something dark sitting behind his eyes.

“Maybe he licked it clean.”

The joke hit like a slap. Unwanted. Cruel. Y/N recoiled slightly, shaking her head as if trying to dislodge the thought. She turned away from the grave, her arms crossing tightly over her chest, her breath uneven. The wind picked up, whipping dust around them, as if the planet itself was shifting, restless.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, her voice nearly swallowed by the wind. “None of this does.”

Lee stood, brushing the dirt from his hands, slipping the shiv into his belt. He glanced down at the grave one last time, his expression unreadable, his eyes dark.

“It’s not supposed to make sense,” he said, his tone flat, emotionless. He turned to her, his silhouette washed out against the light. “It’s just supposed to scare the hell out of you.”

The cabin felt too small. Too damn small. The walls creaked, thick with heat and the weight of unspoken things. The air reeked of sweat, blood, and the faint, metallic tang of rusted iron—or maybe that was just him.

Jungkook was slumped against the wall, his shackled hands resting lazily in his lap. His dark hair was damp with sweat, half-hiding the wreck of his face. One lens of his goggles was shattered, exposing a swollen eye already blooming in shades of deep purple and red. Blood stained the cut of his jaw, a slow, sluggish trickle from his split lip. He looked like hell.

But he looked at her. And that was what made Y/N hesitate for half a breath too long. She stormed in, boots hitting the floor hard enough to rattle the metal beneath them. She was pissed. But more than that—she wanted answers.

“Where is he?” she demanded, her voice cutting through the thick, suffocating air.

Jungkook didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. His chest rose and fell in slow, measured breaths, but his stillness was a lie. The tension was there, coiled beneath the surface like a blade waiting to strike.

“I’m serious,” she pressed, stepping closer, her fists clenching. “You told them you heard something right before it happened. What was it?” Her jaw tightened. “Talk, or I’ll let Lee finish what he started.”

Something dark flickered across Jungkook’s face—a twitch of amusement, a shadow of something cruel. And then, in a voice roughened by exhaustion and something else, something deeper, he rasped,

“You mean the whispers?”

Y/N frowned. “What whispers?”

Jungkook’s busted lip curled into something feral. Dangerous. Amused.

“The ones that tell you where to cut,” he murmured. His voice was so casual it made her skin crawl. “Left of the spine. Fourth lumbar down. That’s the sweet spot.” He smiled, slow and lazy, like a man reciting a bedtime story. “Gusher. Every time.”

Her stomach twisted, but she didn’t look away. Didn’t let him see that he’d rattled her. Because that’s what he wanted.

“Stop it,” she snapped. “Just stop.”

Jungkook didn’t. He leaned his head back against the wall, eyes half-lidded like this was all one big joke. “Metallic taste, you know.” His voice was silk stretched thin over barbed wire. “Human blood. Coppery. But add a little peppermint schnapps…” He dragged his tongue over his split lip, smirking when her expression didn’t change. “Almost palatable.”

Y/N clenched her teeth. She could feel the heat radiating off him, could smell the sweat and iron on his skin. He was playing with her. She wasn’t in the mood.

“Why don’t we skip the theatrics and try the truth?” she said coldly.

For a moment, Jungkook just watched her. His smirk softened—not gone, but different now. Something quieter. Something that almost looked like… regret.

“You’re all so scared of me,” he said softly. “Most days, I’d call that a compliment.” His voice was low, nearly lost to the hum of the ship. “But today…” His jaw ticked, his fingers flexing against the cuffs around his wrists. “Today, I’m not the monster you need to be worried about.”

Something in her chest pulled tight.

She took a step closer. “Take off the goggles.”

Jungkook went still. “No.”

Y/N didn’t wait for permission. She reached out and yanked them from his face, snapping the broken strap with a sharp crack. The goggles hit the floor.

Jungkook flinched, like she’d stripped away something vital. Then his eyes opened. Y/N froze.

His pupils were wide, swallowing the dim light. But it was the color that stopped her breath. A ring of shifting hues, flickering between deep emerald and burning amethyst, like oil-slicked glass catching fire. It was mesmerizing. Unnatural. Beautiful.

Her voice came out lower than she expected. “You did this to yourself?”

Jungkook let out a bitter laugh. “Slam doctor.” He tilted his head. “That’s what we called him.”

Y/N nodded. “I’ve heard about it. Never seen it.”

“Lucky you.”

His lips curled, but the smirk didn’t reach those strange, hypnotic eyes. “You’re locked in max-slam. Barely any light. Your eyes feel like they’re burning out of your skull.” He flicked a glance toward the slats of light bleeding through the metal walls. “Some back-alley butcher says, ‘Hey, I can fix that.’” His voice dropped, mocking. “And then you end up here. Three suns frying you alive. Makes you wish for the dark.”

Y/N folded her arms. “You think this is funny?”

Jungkook’s smirk sharpened. “You gotta laugh, sweetheart. Otherwise, you cry. And crying makes you thirsty.” He tapped his temple with one shackled finger. “Pro tip for desert living.”

Y/N let out a slow breath. “You killed before. You don’t deny that. But this one? Daku? You expect me to believe you didn’t?”

Jungkook went still. For a fraction of a second, something cracked in his expression. Then, it was gone—buried beneath that infuriating smirk.

“No, ma’am,” he said smoothly. “Not this time.”

Y/N narrowed her eyes. “Then where is he?”

Jungkook leaned forward, just enough for the heat between them to become noticeable. The chains at his wrists rattled softly, but his focus was all on her. “Look deeper,” he murmured.

The way he said it—low, deliberate, dripping with something she didn’t like—sent a cold, involuntary shiver down her spine.

“What does that mean?” she demanded.

Jungkook didn’t answer immediately. He tilted his head, studying her like he was measuring how much she could take before she broke. And then, in a voice barely above a whisper—a voice that sent her stomach twisting with something she didn’t want to name—he said, “Wrong questions.”

She swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”

Jungkook sat back, his expression unreadable. Deadly.

“Daku ain’t the only one who’s not where he’s supposed to be,” he said softly. “Or haven’t you noticed?”

A chill slid down her spine. His words settled in her chest like a loaded gun.

Y/N’s breath hitched. “What are you saying?”

Jungkook tilted his head, his bruised lips curling slightly. “You’ll see.” His voice was calm, certain, almost amused. And then—softer, darker, almost like a promise: “And when you do? You’ll wish you hadn’t.”

© chimcess, 2025. Do not copy or repost without permission.

Taglist: @fancypeacepersona @ssbb-22 @mar-lo-pap @sathom013 @kimyishin

[bloodkrieg21]

My DND Homebrew weapons

*Club of Monster Strength

1d4 bludgeoning - Light

When used to kill a creature, if its strength score is higher than yours or this weapon's current number of charges, use its strength score for damage. The strength score is kept as a series of charges equal to the stat. You may spend one charge to increase your attack roll by one, you may use as many of these on a roll. The strength score used by the weapon is determined by the number of charges unless your strength is higher.

*Dagger of Flaying

1d4 piercing - Finesse, light, thrown (range 20/60)

When used to skin a creature, you may wear that skin and use a charge to polymorph into that exact creature (without CR or Type restrictions). If done with humanoid skin, you gain their stats, but not any proficiencies they would have outside of racial traits. 

*Greatclub of Day and Night

1d8 bludgeoning - Two-handed

There are a series of channels carved into this club, all the channels connect to a central hollow, which is a half an inch radius sphere placed near the top, fully inside the club. When you cast darkness or daylight on this weapon, the point of origin is that sphere and it does not radiate past the channels. If darkness was cast, add an additional 1d6 cold damage, if it was daylight, add 1d6 fire damage and the damage counts as coming from the sun. if both spells are cast on this weapon at once, they cancel out, but the surge of magic gives the next attack 2d6 force damage, and a +1 to hit.

*Astral Handaxe

1d6 slashing - Light, thrown (range 20/60)

When thrown in a straight line, this weapon can pass through organic matter, dealing 1d6 force damage for any creatures it passes through before fitting the final one. When you make a ranged attack with this weapon, you can choose a creature who is in full cover behind another creature, they instead have half cover, and every creature between you and the creature you are attacking must make a dexterity save, equal to 10+your strength mod, or take 1d6 force damage and be knocked prone. If a creature is standing in the path in the Astral, your weapon hits them and stops there, dealing 1d6 slashing damage.  

*Javelin of the Blood Striding

1d6 piercing - Thrown (range 30/120)

If you draw your own blood with this weapon, you may teleport to it when thrown. You may only teleport up to 5 ft for every 5 points of damage done to yourself with it. This counter resets after a long rest 

*Light hammer of percussive maintenance.  

1d4 bludgeoning - Light, thrown (range 20/60)

Once per short rest, if you fail a tinkers tools check, or arcana check, to repair or interact with a magic item or enchantment. You may instead hit it with this hammer and choose to pass it.  

*Long Mace

1d6 bludgeoning + 1d4 Lightning - Versatile (1d8 + 1d4)

At the end of your turn, you may spend your bonus action, and reaction to guard. If you do, you become resistant to damage you would take, and you half any distance you would be moved. 

*Quarterstaff of ‘Astral Projection’

1d6 bludgeoning - Versatile (1d8)

When jammed forcefully into the center of mass of a creature you can expend 3 ki points and force that creature to make a wisdom save against your wisdom based spell save DC. If they fail they are ejected from their body for 1d4 turns and cannot interact with the physical world. If they succeed they become immune to this effect for 1 day. If you do not have any ki, you can instead burn 15 life to use this ability. 

*Sickle of Frenzy

1d4 slashing - Light

If this weapon hits on every attack made with it on your turn, you may make another attack as a free action at the end of your turn, you may continue to do so until you miss or there are no more enemies within reach of you. Any blood spilled by this weapon instantly enhances the growth speed of plants it falls onto. 

*Anti-Cavalry Spear

1d6 piercing - Thrown (range 20/60), versatile (1d8)

When a creature makes a charge attack against you, while this spear is held in both hands, you may, as a free action, make an opportunity attack. 

*Crossbow of Celebration, light

1d8 piercing - Ammunition (range 80/320), loading, two-handed

When fired straight up, explode after reaching maximum height. The explosion is colorful and acts as the spell heroism to any who sees it. 

*Dart of the long travel

1d4 piercing - Finesse, thrown (range 20)

When you throw this weapon, it travels straight for 20ft if it does not hit anything, it will stay in the air, every turn after you throw it, it will move down 1 ft and move forward another 20. If it hits a target before hitting the ground that creature must make a Dexterity save with a DC of (your attack mod for this weapon + 8). If they pass the dart continues to go forward. As a bonus action you can move the dart over by 5ft but facing the same direction. The dart moves at the beginning of your turn. For every 60 ft traveled, increasing its damage by 1d4.

*Shortwob

1d6 piercing - Ammunition (range 80/320), two-handed

The bow is made from a more rigid spider silk that keeps its shape due to an internal gravitational enchantment that causes the innermost thread to attract the rest of the silk inwards. There are a few more enchantments that allow it to function like a normal bow. The bowstring is made from a very thin and flexible wood. 

*Sling of siege warfare

1d4 bludgeoning - Ammunition (range 30/120)

When placed firmly in the ground so that it wouldn't fall over, the sling grows into a 10ft by 10ft sling siege weapon. It fires boulders at (range 150/600) and deals 10d4 damage to the target and 5d4 in a 5ft radius of the target. The ammunition does not grow with it.

*Logging (Battle)axe

1d8 slashing - Versatile (1d10)

When you attack non mobile biological matter (Example: wood), you deal double damage to it on a hit.

*Flail of Icy Touch

1d8 Necrotic

When you hit with this weapon, it acts like the chill touch spell on a hit. 

*Stigma Glaive

1d10 slashing - Heavy, reach, two-handed

When you attune to this item, a tattoo appears on the palm of your dominant hand, it is considered a curse. As an object interaction, you may stow and retrieve this glaive from the tattoo. The tattoo is usually a rune set in a more complex shape, where the rune disappears when the item is taken out and reappears when it is placed back. You may not un-attune from this item. 

*Executioner's Greataxe

1d12 slashing - Heavy, two-handed

As a bonus action, you can declare an attack is a decapitating shot before you roll. don't add any modifiers to your attack roll, and the attack cannot benefit from advantage. If you hit, treat the attack like a crit, and deal max damage. While attuned, you're proficient at tying knots.

*Crowned Greatsword

2d6 slashing - Heavy, two-handed

If you are a reigning king, queen, monarch, or ruler of any kind, you can add your charisma to all damage in place of strength.

*Halberd of inconvenient reach

1d10 slashing - Heavy, reach, two-handed

The blade portion of this weapon floats 30 ft away from its shaft. It has a reach of 30ft, but cannot hit any creature closer than 30 ft. All attacks are made with disadvantage unless the target didn't move last turn, in which case you roll flat. You may use the shaft as a quarterstaff, but the blade still gets flung around 30 ft away. 

*Throwing Lance

1d12 piercing - Reach, special, thrown (range 40/80)

This lance may be thrown like a spear. When making ranged attacks with this weapon, on a hit you deal an extra 1d6 of force damage and they must make a DC (strength stat) strength save. On a failure they are knocked prone and take an additional 1d6 damage piercing damage. 

*Spiritual Longsword

1d8 slashing - Versatile (1d10)

You may as a bonus action place the sword down on its pummel and say the activation phrase. When you do, it will begin to move and act as if it was a spiritual weapon you summoned. It uses your strength as spell casting and if you use your action to command it to attack it can deal 1d10 instead of the usual 1d8 damage. 

*Maul of finance 

2d6 bludgeoning - Heavy, two-handed

When equipped your currency is worth double its price. You may use the money to buy anything you normally would, but after the first purchase from a merchant or business, your money returns to normal value for that merchant or business forever. (the money is still worth double the price once the merchant gets it, that effect does not end till destroyed or it loses its magical properties another way. Also it's not a charm or mental effect) 

*Morningstar’s House Keys 

1d8 piercing

You can cast a gate with the destination being the lowest level of hell, this spell cannot be blocked by anyone.

*Pike of the sure hit

1d10 piercing - Heavy, reach, two-handed

Instead of rolling 1d20 for attacks, roll 2d10. If you get advantage, roll 3d10 and take the two higher. Disadvantages works the same but in reverse take the two lower. 2d10 does not count as a d20 for the purposes of abilities.

*Rapier of inversion

1d8 piercing - Finesse

When you use this to make an attack, instead of rolling, you must roll damage, and if it would deal more damage than their AC, they take 1d20 damage + your attack modifier. Your damage dice can not be affected by any ability that would modify an attack roll, and your attack roll for damage can not be affected by any ability that can affect your damage. They both can be affected by abilities that would normally affect them.  

(example, your sneak attack would be added to the 1d8 to hit, but you would not get advantage on that roll. However you would have advantage on the 1d20+attack mod damage)

*Scimitar of the dancing blades

1d6 slashing - Finesse, light

When placed tip down on the ground, and the magic word is said the sword's magic ability activates. When the blade drops down, 3 illusory copies fall down with it. One illusory copy will fall in the opposite direction to the real one, and the other two will drop perpendicular to the real one creating a cross. As an action you may command the four blades to rise up and start to orbit you. When you first do this and as an action every subsequent round you may make an attack against any creature within 10ft of you. You make that roll with advantage, and on a hit deal 1d6 slashing damage. An enemy may spend its action examining one of the swords. If they beat a DC 15 investigation check, roll a 1d4. On a 1-3 one of the illusions breaks, on a 4 the real sword is found and all the illusions break. When all the illusions break, the sword claters to the ground, inanimate, and must be picked up and repositioned to reactivate this effect. Roll a 1d6 when there are 3 swords and a 5-6 is the real sword, and when there are only two swords the effects end on a successful investigation.

*Inspiring Commander’s Shortsword

1d6 piercing - Finesse, light

Once per short rest, when drawn from its sheath, all creatures within 30 ft of the sword experience a small boon, roll a 1d4 and consult from the table below

- 1 ‘The commander’s sword can strike down any foe’ gains advantage on saves against the fear effects.  

- 2 ‘That blade is our ray of hope’ can now cast light at will

- 3 ‘We would die for the cause’ as a reaction, they can take a hit for another creature within 5 ft of them.

- 4 ‘to battle we charge’ gain an additional 10ft movement and ignore difficult terrain. 

These effects last until the end of the next encounter, or 1 hour, whichever is sooner. If the wielder casts bless while wielding the blade, all targets of bless get all four effects for the duration. 

*Trident of the Quick Reaction

1d8 Piercing - Thrown (range 20/60), versatile (1d8)

Once per day, you can, as a free action on your turn, hold your entire turn until an enemy hits you. If an enemy attacks you before your next turn, your initiative is moved to be before that enemy's turn and you can take all your actions before the enemy rolls damage. If you move out of the enemies reach, you do not trigger opportunity attacks from that enemy and do not take the damage from the attack. If no enemies attack before your next turn, you lose that turn. 

*War pick of Shatter

1d8 piercing

When the tip is plunged into a solid rock face, cast shatter centered on the point, it only affects non living materials. 

*Warhammer of War

1d8 bludgeoning - Versatile (1d10)

When being used in an officially declared war, fighting for one of the warring sides, this weapon gives you plus 5 to persuasion checks related to the war.

*Whip of Neigh…Neigh

1d4 slashing - Finesse, reach

While equipped, your head is turned into that of a horse by the alter self spell. You may choose what horse that is.

*Curse Blowgun

1 piercing - Ammunition (range 25/100), loading

As a 1 minute ritual you may place a minor curse on the dart loaded in the blowgun. The curse uses the bestow curse rules for what constitutes a curse, but will affect the target upon a hit. The curse lasts for 1 hour, plus an hour for every point of damage more than 1 that you dealt with that attack.

*Ice Cap Crossbow, hand

1d6 piercing - Ammunition (range 30/120), light, loading

When fired at more than 1 miles above sea level, the crossbow freezes all water within 10 ft of it. This does not affect you, but does affect blood outside your body. 

*Crossbow of Orbiting, heavy

1d10 piercing - Ammunition (range 100/400), heavy, loading, two-handed

This weapon can be dropped and it will instantly begin to orbit around you. You may use your action to pick it up, fire it, then drop it again. If loaded while orbiting, you may spend a bonus action to fire it in a random direction. You do not need to physically touch it to do that. 

*Heavy Longbow

2d8 piercing - Ammunition (range 200/800), heavy, loading, two-handed’

You need a strength of 18 to use this bow. When firing at creatures within 10ft of you, you have disadvantage on attacks. If you roll a critical hit, deal an extra 1d4 force damage added after doubling. 

*Net of the Whirlpool

Special, thrown (range 5/15)

When thrown over a willing creature, that creature has the effect of Banishment cast on them. If the creature chooses to, they may end the effects at any time. The destination of Banishment is instead of a harmless demiplane or the creature's plane of origin, the elemental plane of water. The effect will last indefinitely unless the net is removed from over where the creature was, or if the creature chooses to end the effects. The target is not incapacitated, and will not be stuck in the elemental plane of water no matter their plane of origin.  

*Arrows of Legion (20)

When fired one of these arrows from a bow, you may choose a creature within 30 ft of you. that bow and your quiver of arrows teleports to that creature. Thay may spend a reaction to make one ranged attack with that bow. If they use one of these arrows to shoot, they may do the same.

*Blowgun needles of momentum (50)

When used in a blowgun, these needles deal 1 extra force damage for every 5 ft shot over 25.

*Crossbow bolts of dazzling lights(20)

When held up to the light, the glass head of the bolt shines with a rainbow gleam. Any creature that sees the light reflected by the tip becomes charmed for 1 minute. (they are charmed by the bolt not the attacker)

*Arcane Sling Banishment bullets (20)

When shot at a non-living object, that object is banished for 2d10 rounds. If the bullet would hit a creature after passing through where the object was, deal an extra 1d4 arcane damage (arcane damage is resisted only if the creature has resistance to magic damage. Also when dealt arcane damage, you must make a concentration check with the DC = 5+half of arcane damage or 12 which ever one is lower

[withahappyrefrain]

Reminder for people because of the crazy sun and I’m sure there are people from TikTok or something on here too

Beef tallow/ olive oil doesn’t count as sunscreen…you aren’t beef jerky

SPF 30 and spf 50 aren’t just “one percent difference” it’s fractions spf 30: lets in 1/30th of uv, SPF 50 let’s in 1/50th…bigger bottom number the better

Chemical sunscreen isn’t evil and won’t cause cancer, the sun will.. “what about benzene?” They got rid of it years ago “but it stings?” Mineral sunscreen

Here’s a mini breakdown: chemical: no white cast/minimal cast, good for deeper skin tones, more likely to sting but not always, look for “oily skin friendly” if it breaks you out

Mineral: leave a white cast but is also just as good. Better for babies (apparently?? Idk why though) and people with sensitive skin.

Pregnant people: ask your OB (hi Leigh (I can’t spell)

WEAR YOUR FUCKING SUNSCREEN AND DONT LISTEN TO INTERNET MORONS..that is all 😘❤️

!!!!!!!!!!

Sunscreen is your friend!!!! Not your enemy!!

[zeezelweazel]

Lottie Matthews| On the field|

______________________________________

This is the first time I do a fic for s single character please bear with me

Also is it too obvious that I'm obsessed with Lottie?

Also I'm sorry in advance if this is confusing to people who don't know much about football I don't know how else to explain the positions since I've always been a football gal. But I am a European so like I have no clue how nationals work

Summary: You and your team have made it to nationals and you promised yourself that nothing will distract you from winning. Little did you know the enemy team's CB is going to steal your heart like she steals the ball from your feet.

______________________________________

You are nervous about this game, I mean of course, you are at motherfucking nationals. You are not going to let anything get in your way. You are ready to give it your all and as your team's top striker everyone depends on you to seal the deal.

It's already been 30 minutes since the game started and even though the score is set at zero for both teams you're quite confident you can win this. Wiskayok High School, the team you were going against, was good alright but you were better. It is quite obvious that their striker was getting frustrated by your defenders blocking her each and every time she tries anything and their desperation becomes more obvious as their midfielders try to push more and more, without producing any results.

Their defense on the other hand is having trouble controlling the ball and keeping you at bay to the point where one of their midfielders, number 6, has to stay behind for extra help.

All was going well until the second half started and the Yellowjackets started of with a switchover. You tried to suppress a grin when you saw their coach bring in a fresh player in their backline just in hopes of stopping you. Suppressing your grin though became a lot harder when you took a look at the girl running across the field, heading straight to you to claim the central-back position.

Her hair is dark and curly tied in two pigtails with small yellow bows. Her eyes are a soft chocolate colour that perfectly matches her soft face. She's tall, like really tall, and her sun kissed skin seems to shine in the sunlight. When your eyes go back up to her face, after you took a good look at her from head to toe, you notice her staring right back at you.

Fuck, she caught me staring.

You are about to look away in embarrassment when you notice a faint blush in her cheeks. Well maybe you weren't the only one staring.

The sound of loud cheering brings you back to the game. You look at the score board and sure enough the score was now 0-1. You let out a sigh honestly disappointed by how you're losing when everything was going fine three seconds ago. As you're moving to get in position for the kickoff you can't help but look back at the stunning CB and to your surprise she's not just looking at you, she's full on smirking.

Oh game on Yellowjackets.

During the next 15 minutes you relentlessly attacked working perfectly with your midfielders to put pressure on the enemy defense. There were so many good opportunities for you to score but all of them were cut short thanks to their number 5.

It's like you and this gorgeous girl silently created a 1v1 and after one point it honestly felt like it was only you and her on the field.

The match is nearing it's end with the clock ticking at 80 minutes and that's when you see the goal coming in the form of a crossover pass that lands right in front of you and after dribbling your way out of their defense, it's only you and their goalkeeper and you swear you see the the crowd already cheering as you lift your leg ready to shoot...

And then suddenly the world is upside down and you hit your head really hard on the turf and you're honestly so ready to get up and start yelling at the idiot that did this.

When you open your eyes you're met with wide and apologetic brown ones and you don't register anything else going on for what feels like years until you try to get up but you're unable to.

You both look down at the same time just to see her strong thick thighs frame your hips and her hands clutching the front of your jersey. Now it's your turn to smirk as she blushes and stumbles to get up on her feet. She extends her arm to help you up but you don't waste the opportunity and tug her down so she's face to face with you.

"Let me buy you a milkshake after we win." You whisper in her ear before walking in your position to execute the foul she just granted you, leaving her dumbfounded.

After you hear the whistle all it takes is a good kick and three seconds before the crowd goes wild and you're surrounded by your teammates. You can't deny how your eyes skipped over all the disappointed faces of your opponents before locking in with soft brown ones. This time you don't try to suppress your grin when you see a soft smile on her face.

The last few minutes of the game were torturous as both teams tried incredibly hard to out do one another. But, no matter the effort of your dear number 5, the enemy defense was just not strong enough to stop you from scoring again just a few minutes before the end of the game and getting the win for your team.

After the final whistle, you go around the field shacking hands with your opponents and feeling sorry for them after seeing their hurt and disappointed expressions.

"Hey, good game miss Messi."

You turn around, startled by the unfamiliar voice only to find your favourite defender staring back at you with a soft loopy smile.

"You too um...?"

She looked at you confused for e few seconds before she registered the silent question.

"Lottie. How about you?"

"It's Y/N"

You two simply smile at eachother for e few seconds before the moment gets ruined by exaggerated sounds of kissing. When look to the side you spot their goalkeeper, who is still making those sounds while wiggling her eyebrows, alongside their midfielders, numbers 7 and 8, who are trying and failing to fight back their laugh.

"Oh my god." Lottie mumbled quietly beside you as she put her head on her hands in defeat and embarrassment. You only giggle and grab her hand, leading her towards the locker rooms.

"Come on, we still have that date to go to."

____________________________________________________

[ga-yuu]

[Raising Our Child With Love ~ A Future That Will Happen] Story Event - Shigehira

----Chapter 1-----

This is a story about a future that may happen one day----

Clear eyes glare at the battlefield at dawn.

Shigehira: "The enemy archers are even better than I'd heard."

On the occasion of a battle, Shigehira and his men finally crossed blades with the other side....

Pushed by enemy archers, the troops led by Shigehira were slowly being reduced in number.

Subordinate: "Ah, this way!"

In an attempt to make a breakthrough, one of his subordinates tries to charge blindly.

Shigehira: "No!"

Shigehira notices and almost cuts down an enemy soldier who is closing in on his men, but....

Shigehira: "Tch."

A flying arrow snatched Shigehira's arm, and fresh blood soaked the skin peeking through the cut cloth.

Subordinate: "Shigehira-sama..!"

Shigehira: "Don't worry. It's no big deal."

Shigehira turns to his pale subordinate without disturbing his breathing.

Shigehira: "More importantly, don't be in a hurry to break the formation. We'll hold here."

The core voice resonated with dignity in the hearts of his noisy subordinates.

Subordinate: "Yes!"

The man regains his composure and returns to his post with a straight back.

While his back was turned away, Shigehira's thoughts continued to move at a dizzying pace.

Shigehira: "However at this rate, if we don't do something about it, it's only going to chip away at us. What can we do now...?"

Shigehira's mind was suddenly filled with Yoshino who is waiting for him to return home.

He sees an image of her with a swollen belly.

Shigehira: "Yoshino-san..."

Shigehira: "I wanted to be there when you give birth to our child, but sorry, I wouldn't be able to make it in time."

A gloomy shadow falls over Shigehira's face and his expression is not discernible.

But the next moment, Shigehira's eyes were full of determination as he raised his face.

Shigehira: "But I'll definitely come back alive to you guys..."

A small but powerful murmur was released at that moment.

Shigehira: "What the..."

Morning mist drifted into the battlefield from nowhere.

Enemy soldier 1: "What the hell is this fog!?"

Enemy soldier 2: "Shit! I can't see anything...!"

The enemy arrows that had been pouring down stopped, as the thick fog obscures their view.

Shigehira: "....The wind has changed direction."

Shigehira: "Don't let this chance go to waste. Attack!"

With Shigehira's order, the troops stream into the confused enemy lines.

...............

Thanks to the morning mist, the battle ended with Shigehira's victory.

Shigehira "Thanks to that mist, now I can go back home two days earlier than planned."

Shigehira: ".....I want to see your face soon."

When Shigehira, resting in his tent at the encampment, thought of his beloved waiting for him in Kamakura.

He heard footsteps outside his camp and suddenly one of his subordinates entered.

Subordinate: "Shigehira-sama! We just received the news!"

Shigehira: "Wait. What is it?"

Subordinate: "Yes. Your wife gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Both the baby and your wife are safe."

Shigehira: "Really...thank god.."

Shigehira looked delighted, and his subordinate opens his mouth unable to hide his excitement.

Subordinate: "I heard that the sun was shining brightly in the morning she was born. And that morning was..."

Shigehira's eyes widened at the next word.

Shigehira: "No way----"

Subordinate: "Yes! She was born around the same time we were saved by the morning mist."

Shigehira: "....How strange."

A few strange coincidences naturally draw words out of Shigehira.

Shigehira: "Maybe we were protected by my daughter."

The moment he said this, the name for his daughter who he had not yet seen came to his mind.

A few years later-----

Shigehira: "........"

(Shigehira-kun?)

One usual morning.

When I was getting ready, I noticed Shigehira-kun staring at me.

Yoshino: "What happened?"

Shigehira: "...Actually."

Shigehira-kun smiles softly----

Shigehira: "I was....I was just remembering when Sagirihime (Sagiri-hime/Princess Sagiri meaning morning mist) was born."

Yoshino: 'Yeah, it's nostalgic, isn't it?"

I naturally smile, as I remember that day.

Yoshino: "That day....Shigehira-kun was away from Kamakura on a business, right?"

Yoshino: "I remember Shigehira-kun, who came back two days later and was so happy when he saw me and Sagiri, that he couldn't speak."

Shigehira: "W-What was I suppose to do? It was my first experience."

Shigehira: "Also----"

Shigehira-kun approached me and brushed the hair from my face.

(Ah...)

My heart ached sweetly as he touched me. There was a hint of love and heat.

Shigehira: "It was partly because...you looked so beautiful that day."

(I was beautiful...?)

The sincere eyes that are directed at me and I couldn't look away from them.

Shigehira-kun's approached slowly.

Shigehira: "That's why...I can't take my eyes off you. Even now."

Yoshino: "Ah..."

I feel his lips on mine.

When I feel the familiar warmth, my body suddenly relaxes.

(Mm..mm...)

When I leaned against the gentle arms that were holding me, the taste of our kisses get sweeter and sweeter....

We became entranced from either side by the melting heat and tasted each other until we could no longer tell the boundaries.

Shigehira: "....Ha.."

Yoshino: "Ah..."

Our lips parted and we could feel our hot breath in close range.

Shigehira: "If you moan like that, I won't be able to stop."

The gaze that caught me, shined.

Yoshino: "S-Shigehira..."

Shigehira: "Shh..."

(...Mmm..ahh..)

Shigehira-kun's finger traced my neck.

Shigehira-kun's body heat transmitted from his slightly nasty caresses also lit up the heat deep inside me.

Shigehira: "Can I touch you one more time----?"

(How can I say no?)

Even so, Shigehira-kun's kindness in trying to respect my will is frustrating and inexplicably endearing.

Yoshino: "Mm...I want you too."

Shigehira: "Don't provoke me like that...Don't complain about it later..."

We smiled happily, as we moved forward to kiss again.

----But at that time.

(....Oh)

We heard faint footsteps outside our room.

Shigehira: "Is that..."

----Chapter 2-----

We looked at each other and quickly separated.

The sliding door opened instantly----

Sagiri: "Papa, Mama! Good Morning!"

(That was scary!)

Yoshino: "G-Good morning."

Our lovely daughter, Sagiri, came to say hello with an innocent smile.

Shigehira: "Sagiri. Don't run in the hallway like that!"

Shigehira: "Don't open the door so vigorously before knocking...you're five now, aren't you? Don't be immodest."

Shigehira-kun who is scolding his daughter looked like a real father.

But only I can see how red his ears are.

(That was actually dangerous...)

Sagiri pouted in a childish manner, completely unaware of our cold sweat.

Sagiri: "That's because you both were taking so long....It's not fair, how papa keeps mama all to himself."

Shigehira: "Ahem...well..umm...about that...umm...."

Shigehira-kun is at a loss for words.

I casually stepped between them, and gently stroked Sagiri's small head.

Yoshino: "Thank you for coming, Sagiri. Also sorry to make you wait so long."

Sagiri: "Mm...it wasn't that long. And I'm not angry."

She curtly replied, but cannot seem to hide her shining eyes when I stroked her head.

(Just like Shigehira-kun)

I looked at my child with a smile and----

Shigehira: "Yoshino-san is too sweet towards Sagiri."

I hear a long sigh.

(I don't think Shigehira-kun can speak for others either)

After recovering from his bad mood, Sagiri quickly turns to Shigehira-kun.

Sagiri: "But more importantly, papa, please come quickly!"

Shigehira: "You still haven't given up on that yet?"

Contrary to Sagiri's smiling face, Shigehira-kun frowns.

Shigehira: "I've already told you. You don't need swordsmanship. Instead, you need to learn the biwa and etiquette."

Sagiri: "...."

Sagiri looked at Shigehira-kun earnestly. Her facial features resemble her father's.

Not only her appearance, but she also inherited musical talent from Shigehira-kun.

(Shigehira-kun seems to want Sagiri to develop her musical talent...)

Even the always attentive Sagiri, stubbornly shakes her head.

Sagiri: "But Sagiri is the child of a samurai. If anything should happen, I will have to protect mama!"

The way she stands tall and says that looks so dignified, despite his young age.

Shigehira: "She's stubborn, just like you."

Yoshino: "Me? I thought Shigehira-kun is the stubborn one."

Sagiri: "Mama, papa! Sagiri is serious!!"

I managed to quiet my pretty girl, who was still begging to learn swordsmanship...

Since both Shigehira-kun and I had a day off, we took Sagiri out to town.

..............

Shigehira: "This must be the kimono store that Morinaga-san recommended."

We visited a kimono store, that had so many colorful kimonos displayed.

Shigehira: "Let's buy some for Sagiri."

(Yeah...!)

Yoshino: "You're right! She has grown taller lately. So this is a good opportunity."

Shigehira: "Really? Then shall we choose?"

Yoshino: "Mm....Sagiri, if you see something you like, make sure to tell me, okay?"

Sagiri: "Okay!"

Shigehira: "Don't get too excited and fall over."

Sagiri: "Yes, papa!"

Shigehira-kun quietly looks at the kimonos displayed while Sagiri looks around the store.

Shigehira: "...."

At first glance, his profile looks the same...he has serious eyes...."

(But Shigehira-kun, you are really excited aren't you?)

I quickly tried to not smile, but I couldn't hide from SHigehira-kun's eyes.

Shigehira: "What?"

I sneakily approached Shigehira-kun, who looked confused and softly whispered.

Yoshino: "I'm dying to see my cute daughter wear these beautiful kimono...isn't that what you're thinking, papa?"

Shigehira: "Ehh..."

Shigehira-kun looked troubled and muttered in a low voice.

Shigehira: "...Did you read my mind?"

Yoshino: "Just a little."

Shigehira: "Seriously....Even after we're married, I'm still no match for you."

(Ah...)

My heart skipped a beat at his handsome smile that was directed at me.

Shigehira: "....Hey, doesn't this look like it would suit Sagiri?"

Unaware of my embarrassment, Shigehira-kun called out to Sagiri with a lovely kimono in his hands.

Shigehira: "Sagiri, what do you think? Do you like this color?"

Sagiri: "Hmmm...but don't you think it will get dirty when I run around."

Shigehira: "Eh..."

Sagiri: "I like that kimono, papa."

When we looked in the direction Sagiri pointed, we saw men's hakama tailored in an austere colored fabric.

Shigehira: "Huhh!?"

Shigehira-kun cannot hide his shock at his daughter's choice of kimono, which is more mature than what he chose.

(I feel like I just saw Shigehira-kun's dream of dressing up his daughter shatter into pieces...)

Shigehira: "W-What are you going to do with that?"

Sagiri: "Swor-----"

Shigehira: "---I already said no."

Sagiri: "But papa...!"

Shigehira: "I'm not going to change my decision even if you look at me like that."

Sagiri and Shigehira-kun, who both had the same eye color glared at each other.

Yoshino: "Both of you calm down. We're in a shop."

Sagiri and SHigehira: '"Ah...."

Both of them shut their mouth at the same time.

Then the first to speak was Shigehira-kun, who cleared his throat.

Shigehira: "Let's...eat something."

Shigehira: "I'll go buy some dumplings. Both of you, can you wait outside?"

...............

While waiting for Shigehira-kun, I crouch down and meet Sagiri's gaze.

Yoshino: "I'm sure papa would be happy if you wear that kimono, you know."

Sagiri: "Eh?"

Tilting her head curiously, Sagiri opens her mouth.

Sagiri: "But isn't papa happier when he sees me and mama happy?"

(That's....true)

This time I was taken aback, by her straight words.

(Sagiri knows...that SHigehira-kun loves us)

Knowing or not that I was surprised, Sagiri puffed out her chest confidently.

Sagiri: "Because papa really loves you, mama."

Yoshino: "Sagiri...!"

I felt so proud that I couldn't help but hug my daughter.

(Kids grow so fast, both physically and mentally)

At this moment, I'm so impressed by Sagiri's growth.

(Eh)

Suddenly I noticed a man watching us.

Man: "W-What do you want?"

The man does not answer but stares at us with bloodshot eyes.

(I must protect Sagiri)

I tried to hide Sagiri behind my back, but she quickly picked up a long wooden stick from the ground that was nearby.

Sagiri: "Stay away from mama!"

Before I could stop, Sagiri jumped in between me and the man pointing the wooden stick at the man.

Yoshino: "Sagiri!"

(No!)

When I was about to pull back Sagiri...

Shigehira: "Excuse me, sir?"

Shigehira-kun appeared and placed his sword to the man's neck from behind.

Shigehira: "What do you want from my family?"

-----Premium END-----

Shigehira: "Excuse me, sir?"

Shigehira-kun appeared and placed his sword to the man's neck from behind.

Shigehira: "What do you want from my family?"

Man: "...."

When the man with the glazed eyes leans back, something glows in his bosom.

(Is that....a small sword?)

Pulling Sagiri closer, I called out to Shigehira-kun.

Yoshino: "Shigehira-kun, this man..."

Man: "Shit!"

As soon as I raised my voice, the desperate man tried to pull out his blade, but...

Shigehira: "No!"

With chilling words, the hilt of Shigehira-kun's sword strikes the man's temple.

Man: "Argh..."

The man collapses to the ground and faints.

Yoshino: "Ah..."

My body began to tremble, when saw the small sword that fell beside him.

(If that man had pulled out that sword....then Shigehira-kun would have no choice but to kill the man in front of Sagiri)

I also know that Shigehira-kun was acting cautious so as to not show bloodshed to Sagiri.

(Thank god, he came in time!)

Holding Sagiri tightly in my arms, I fell to my knees.

Shigehira: "Are you two injured? Yoshino-san, Sagiri!"

Yoshino: "Mm..."

I nodded to reassure Shigehira-kun, but my arm that was still holding Sagiri was shaking.

Sagiri: "Mama...?"

When I looked down, Sagiri was looking up at me anxiously.

(I don't want my daughter to see all of this)

Yoshino: "Sorry, I'm fine. Sagiri."

Suppressing my trembling arms, I smiled.

Shigehira: "Nn..."

(Ah!!)

Shigehira-kun hugged me and Sagiri tightly.

Shigehira: "I'm glad that you both are safe."

Sagiri: "Ah...!"

Hearing the relief in his voice, it seems that Sagiri finally became aware of his fear.

Sagiri: "Nn..Mm..Papa...!"

Sagiri's warm tears fall into my hands----

(She's crying, she's alive)

Feeling my husband's warmth and my daughter's tears, my fear was all gone.

..............

Later I was informed that the man is a fugitive criminal.

He must have known that I and Sagiri are related to Shigehira-kun, an executive in the Shogunate.

It looks like he wanted to take us as hostages that day.

(To be targetted by such person..)

Shigehira-kun gently rubs my trembling back.

Shigehira: "You were scared weren't you? Sorry, I shouldn't have left you guys alone."

Yoshino: "That's fine, Shigehira-kun protected us...you are so cool!"

Shigehira: "...You seem to be feeling well enough to have a light-hearted chat, then."

After stroking my head, Shigehira-kun turns his head to look at the garden.

Shigehira: "After such a frightening experience, I thought it would mentally affect Sagiri..."

(ohh...)

Shigehira-kun's words are thoughtful and I look in the same direction.

We see----

Sagiri: "Haaa...Yaaaa!!!"

Shigehira: "I thought she would grow up to be a quiet girl...."

Yoshino: "Looks like she wants to be like Shigehira-kun and is getting more and more passionate about swordsmanship."

With a narrow wooden stick, Sagiri was diligently practiced.

Shigehira: "My daughter is growing up in a direction I never expected..."

Shigehira-kun who has been getting a lot of respect recently looks both happy and annoyed and it's complicated.

(Just like a real father, Shigehira-kun finally gave in)

Yoshino: "Day by day, she is starting to look more like Shigehira-kun."

Yoshino: "Lately, she's very popular among the girls close to her age. They say she's so kind and badass."

Shigehira: "That's what I mean, she's growing in a strange direction...!"

I giggled seeing Shigehira-kun facepalm.

But perhaps after seeing me, Shigehira-kun also smiled lightly.

Shigehira: "Our daughter is becoming more and more of a tomboy."

Yoshino: "But both of us made her promise that she won't do anything dangerous.'"

Shigehira: "....Yeah. She's not the kind of girl who breaks her promises."

Do not overestimate your own strength, run away if you feel you're in danger, or seek help from a trusted adult.

After that incident, Sagiri seems to have taken that to heart.

(Now she's learning swordsmanship for self-defense and above all...)

Shigehira: "She said she wants to protect her mama and papa, right?"

While looking at Sagiri, Shigehira-kun narrowed his eyes as if he is looking at something dazzling.

Shigehira: "....Come to think of it, that's exactly what Sagiri said from the very beginning."

Yoshino: "Yeah."

(The kindness in trying to protect the people you love, the straightforwardness in your efforts....)

Shigehira: "She inherited that from you."

Yoshino: "Me? No, it's from Shigehira-kun."

Apparently, we were thinking the same thing.

Shigehira: "No. It's definitely from Yoshino-san."

Yoshino: "No no, it's from Shigehira-kun."

Sagiri who just finished her training, came running towards us.

Sagiri: "Mama and Papa, were you watching me?"

Yoshino: "Yes. You did well."

I gently hold Sagiri who jumped into my arms.

(Both Shigehira-kun and Sagiri is here with me...)

My precious family, I had built with my beloved.

........

After sending Sagiri to her next class which is etiquette training...

Shigehira-kun and I returned to our room.

Yoshino: "It's so quiet without Sagiri, isn't it?"

The sudden quietness makes me feel a little lonely, and I gently snuggled up to Shigehira-kun, who is sitting next to me.

Shigehira: "...Am I not enough for you?"

(Eh)

I looked up in surprise and saw the light blue eyes staring back at me.

Shigehira: "Yes, Yoshino?"

Shigehira-kun's face slowly moved closer as he said this, a little embarrassed.

Yoshino: "Mm.."

A mere touch turns into a deep kiss and our tongues intertwine with each other.

After our lips parted and we were breathing sweetly and wildly...

Shigehira: "You're so beautiful."

Shigehira-kun who was stroking my cheek, whispered as if to reveal his heart.

(When you say that with a serious face... it makes me shy. I can't calm down)

Yoshino: ".....Y-You've said that before."

Yoshino: "When I gave birth to Sagiri..."

I tried my best to hide my excitement but can't do anything about my red cheeks.

Shigehira: "Yes."

Yoshino: "W-Wait... Mmm.."

My lips were sealed again.

Shigehira: "Every time I look at you, I feel it....you're really beautiful."

Shigehira: "Even after you became a mother, this feeling hasn't changed. Thank you for loving us so much and giving birth to our daughter."

(He's thanking me....for something like that...)

Hearing those unexpected words made my heart feel warm and fuzzy.

Yoshino: "I should be the one thanking you...."

Yoshino: "Thank you for making me a mother....and gifting me a happy family."

Shigehira: "Yoshino-san...."

Shigehira-kun who was smiling just now, is now looking at me with full of heat.

Shigehira: "I love you."

Yoshino: "...Me too."

A gentle arm embraces me.

Shigehira: "I know it's still noon....but can I touch you. Right now?"

(Ah)

His sweet whisper makes my heart and body tingle sweetly...

(I want to be loved by Shigehira-kun right now)

As I nodded, I feel his hot fingertips touch my cheek.

It symoblised the sweet time that was about to start...

[lifewouldbebetteronmars]

Seven Dog Breeds That I, An Experienced Dog Lover and Owner, Hate With A Burning Passion

Reminder that this is only my opinion and not to be taken seriously. Most of these are owner related problems, not dog problems because I believe there is no such thing as a bad dog, just a bad owner

Tagging @tessherongraystairs @petalsofaflower-shutupthomas

1. Pomeranians

Number one is the Pomeranian. I really fucking hate these dogs because they are super aggressive for such a tiny dog if you don’t train and socialize them right. They’re the human form of demons from hell and I stand by that opinion. For the love of God, please just socialize your tiny dogs!!!

2. German Shepherds

If you didn’t know, my worst enemy is a German Shepherd named Bella, who bit me while I was hugging my grandfather. She broke through my very expensive leggings and caused puncture wounds to my leg. That’s an extremely personal reason to dislike the breed as a whole but I stand by it.

Btw I grew up around German Shepherds and they are a dog breed that needs heavy training, time, and effort. Which is something a lot of people don’t realize, despite the fact that they are the K-9 dog of choice

3. Labrador Retrievers & Golden Retrievers

Yes, I am aware that these are two different breeds, but my reasoning is the same with both of them. Most people assume because of the retriever breed having such a naturally sweet disposition that they don’t need a lot of training, so they slack on it. Just like any other dog, retrievers need good training and socialization to be good pets.

Speaking from experience, most labs and goldens I’ve met have been severely under trained and are extremely destructive and/or aggressive towards people and dogs. I don’t blame the dogs, I blame the owners. This one is strictly because I feel that people need to stop getting dogs because they seem “easy” and then not putting the work in

4. Bloodhounds

This is another strictly personal one. One of my aunts owns a bloodhound and I can’t stand that dog. She is the loudest thing I have ever met and I live with a chihuahua. You can literally hear her as soon as you pull into my aunt’s neighborhood.

FYI, bloodhounds don’t bark, they bay. They literally have their own word to describe how loud they are. Look up a video of a bloodhound baying, you’ll regret it

5. Doodle Dogs (Any dog that has a name ending in doodle)

I feel like this one will offend a lot of people but I hate doodle dogs. And I have one word to say: hypoallergenic.

Every doodle owner I have met loves to mention that their dog is hypoallergenic, like every single time without fail. It wouldn’t annoy me as much if it was true, but it isn’t. There’s no such thing as hypoallergenic animal. They produce less dander, yes, but you can still be allergic to them

Same thing applies to hairless cats, they have oils in their skin that people can be allergic to

6. Beagle Mixes

And before anyone says “But Riley, don’t you have a beagle mix?”, yes, I do have one, and she’s the reason they’re on this list. Beagles already aren’t that great of a dog breed (in my opinion) and I don’t know why people see the need to mix them with every other breed under the sun, especially since beagles are known for their numerous health problems

I honestly don’t get it. Like who decided to mix a French Bulldog (another dog with health issues) and a Beagle together? Idk but that’s what happened to get my dog

7. Yorkie Mixes (Yorkie = Yorkshire Terrier)

I should preface this one with how much I love yorkies in general. I’ve always wanted one and I would probably get one when I’m older. They do have the same issues as the Pomeranians but this isn’t about that.

People tend to love to mix yorkies with other smalls dogs. Chihuahuas, poodles, dachshunds, Maltese, etc. Let me tell you, mixing two stubborn and feisty dog breeds together doesn’t work out well at all

Like seriously, a chihuahua and a yorkie together? All you get is a tiny little hell-raiser who loves to dig everything. Dirt, the carpet, your couch, everything they can and they will.

Seriously, stop messing around with yorkies

I have a specific hatred for Maltipoos but that is a story for another time

[stromuprisahat]

Alina and the Darkling’s interactions, pt. 7

Chapter 20- First time they have private conversation after the Fete. I also added a paragraph where they don’t really speak, but it says a lot about the Darkling and his relationship to Alina.

Poor Ivan! xD Babysitting The Problem™.

The Darkling is putting distance between Alina and himself. We could say she gets the second best bodyguard possible, since she’s still the only Sun Summoner, but it’s still the SECOND best. Compare it to aftermath of the drüskelle attack:

“The girl?” Ivan asked.

“Rides with me,” said the Darkling.

Alina (and the author) has a tendency to act as if the Darkling didn’t have any feelings, but I’d say he feels betrayed, perhaps even hurt she ran away so easily. He can’t completely ignore her, he needs to keep her in his life- want it or not-, but at least he doesn’t have to look at her all the way to the Fold.

Alina: *acts like a bratty five y/o*

The Darkling: *Saints, give me the strength*

Intelligent general making appearance once again. You don’t allow your enemies to find out your key asset is missing. Internal and external enemies both. Not to mention how quickly would Alina’s chances of survival drop to zero.

Here we are...

Not only Fjerdans. I’m pretty sure Shu have their spies in Ravka too. Who wouldn’t want to vivisect a Sun Summoner? The show figured out Kerch would have a use for her too. Hell, ravkan opposition could use Alina. And who’s to say they would be nicer than the Darkling? West Ravka didn’t seem to be very friendly either. We know on Wandering Isle Grisha blood is cure-all. What could you cook out of Saint’s blood?

The Darkling might have been the one to blame, but not necessarily the only one to pay. We’ll eventually learn Tsar is far from fond of Grisha, how far fetched is to assume their General wouldn’t be the only one punished for his “failure”? Request more reinforcements in bloodier parts of the frontline. Withdraw people from the Fold- the crossings could be done with smaller units- and send them to borders...

Alina talks as if he misplaced her... as if she had nothing to do with it.

I’m pretty sure if there were other Sun Summoners abroad, the Darkling would be more than happy to import them. Perhaps they would be less trouble. This way Alina’s basically saying “Look, how important I am.”, as if that meant only fame. As if she were some celebrity, not needful soldier. As if she were sent to study in Little Palace to make pretty light shows, not learn to help win wars. Midnight picnics, indeed...

Alina: You’re just trying to save your own skin!

The Darkling: * Calmly explaining what will her life look like, not even judging. Not understanding she doesn’t see it yet. *

As a person with my own number of disorders, seeing someone not able to comprehend how can’t others understand what they consider basics... So relatable...

Alina isn’t willing to have sensible conversation, so the Darkling resorts to simple threats. When she won’t act like an adult, he’ll treat her like a misbehaving child.

pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3, pt. 4,  pt. 5,  pt. 6, pt. 8, pt. 9, pt. 10, pt. 11, pt. 12

[winters-tales]

Ten Random Lines

Rules: Pick any ten of your fics/writing projects, scroll to the midpoint, pick a line (or three) and share it. Then tag people (ten if you want to follow the theme).

Thanks for the tag @ceph-the-writing-spook!

No pressure tag time! @korblez, @fishyandclintbarton, @sparatus, @miniature-space-hamster, @sherriewrites, @inlilac, @thetrashbagswastelan, @equusgirl-writes, @vhenadahls and @i-will-be-your-krantt - you're up! (If you want. No pressure 💜

Leave a comment if you'd like me to include you in any tag games I get hit with going forward, or if you'd like me to remove you from the tag list!

And now for the Main Event!

The Nameless (book 1 of the Oathsworn Trilogy)

“And the company,” she added, as the licked the last dregs of the gruel out of the bowl, “I’d probably have gone spare by now without our little chats.” He smiled at that, and it felt like he was genuinely pleased by her clumsy compliment.

2. The Forgotten (book 2 of the Oathsworn Trilogy)

If the outer trees had looked like people, these ones further in looked like they were getting ready to be people. The vague shape was there, but they were smaller, less detailed. Less human, more tree. In the centre of every single trunk that she could see, was a thick iron spike.

3. Lost (short story)

The glow of the lantern split the fog like an oar splits still waters, and I was so relieved to not be alone out there I didn’t move, just stared at that light as if I was a moth. Following the light was a gentle voice, singing softly to himself as he went, but I couldn’t make out the words.

4. Remnant (short story)

The eyes were still black pools that didn’t seem to reflect any light, and the skin looked like the bark of a silver birch, pale and cracked. The size of it was beyond my comprehension; something this big should have been noticed by now. I couldn’t see the rest of the body but if the proportions followed through, at full height it would almost be as tall as the trees around me, surely? Prehistoric in size. A forgotten god.

5. From the Deeps (short story)

The rain is stinging your skin as searing flash and booming rumble join together and you need to wake everyone. But you can't. Because she's here.

6. The End (short story)

“You’ve made more of a mess than I can clean this time.” Mam’s anger was a hopeless one behind him, and his shame burned hot in his throat. Granny’s long thin fingers were plucking at his shirt and he mutely lifted his arms, feeling the tears in the fabric slide over his head.

7. Old Gods Vs Aliens (short story) (yes the link is to dA even though I originally wrote it here; finding the original post is one hell of a faff)

Humanoid creatures with eyes of fire supposedly began granting wishes over in Syria, as long as your wish was for them to kill your enemies. There were sightings in Ireland of pure white horses, horses that once ridden wouldn’t let you off, that dragged people into bogs and rivers. Tales came out of Brazil of monstrously large snakes, sometimes with the faces of women, dragging aliens into the gloom of the rivers and rainforests.

8. Red Sky at Night (short post-apoc story)

Clouds of ash billowed so high there were concerns there would be another ice age. Grandpa argued that with the ozone so depleted, we’d never have to worry about an ice age again, the sun would see to that. I watched lightning flicker and dance in the pillars of smoke, and tried to remember the last time I’d seen a real, honest-to-gods storm.

9. Sinkhole (short D&D story)

There was blood everywhere. The walls were coated, the floor was slick, and there were even spatters on the beams across the hayloft. She was surprised to see there were no corpses – this much blood should have left a sizable number of bodies – but there wasn’t a shape in sight, not even any offal.

10. Gunman's Alley (short Cyberpunk-style story)

There was a clatter, and the woman’s head snapped up, her twitching pupils as she sought the cause of the disturbance the only sign that she was augmented. The tension shifted; people glanced at one another uneasily, making mental notes of where they’d dive for if shit went down, who they could count on, who’d use them as a meat shield.

[writer-panda]

Ruin and Rebirth - Chapter 1

Ruin and Rebirth

Chapter 2

Inspired by @jumpingjoy82 on Tumblr. Thank you for the amazing prologue.

I don’t own the characters, only the plot. Miraculous and Justice League belong to their respective creators

--------

"It's okay Marinette. Everything is going to be fine. You’re too young to understand, but it was for the greater good."

To young.

TO YOUNG!

It was all the Justice League's fault. If they kept their incompetent asses out of Paris, none of this would have happened.

Apparently, they just spontaneously decided to go through the Watchtower’s recycling bin, and what they found astonished them. Years upon years worth of pleas for help from Paris.

They decide to finally investigate, and it just so happens that it was during an Akuma Attack, and they threw everything the Parisian heroes were telling them out of the window, wanting to do things their own way.

Superman was one of the ones there.

And they learned just how far the Miracle Cure could go.

He decided to use his super strength and threw a car at the akumatized victim, who moved out of the way at the last minute, so the car sailed right through the Tom & Sabine Bakery, promptly, catching on fire, giving no time for the people inside to get out. No one got out alive.

Ladybug froze for a moment, before fighting with more determination than before, knowing that the Miracle Cure would bring them back.

She was wrong, which brings us back to this point.

"I don't give a damn about you so-called 'greater good' and now you’re telling me, that I'm too young to understand, but am I too young to experience it? Too young to actually see everything and everyone I love torn from me because of these heroes?! Why the hell are they here now? Where were they when this first started? What changed? And now, because of them, my entire family is dead!"

After that everything was hazy, but she knew, she hated superheroes.

They never knew when to stop, and just like Chat Noir, they expected to be praised for whatever happens, no matter if there were casualties or not.

The world would be better off without them.

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

The sun has long since set over Paris. The fires were still burning in some parts of town. For the first time since Ladybug first appeared, the citizens of Paris felt true fear. It was ironic. They didn’t fear the akuma. They feared the heroes that came to their rescue. For the first time in four years, the casualties were piling up. And the akuma was responsible for none.

True, many of them initially asked for it. With each fight, Ladybug and Chat Noir were taking longer. It’s been obvious for some time that they were slowly being worn out. Some media started to criticize the duo, question their skills, age, their right to act in Paris. They weren’t part of the UN Justice League Charter. Their only real authority came from the trust of the citizens themselves. And that trust was lost. The civilian pleas to the Justice League increased in number and frequency. Under public pressure, the mayor had no choice but to issue an official plea for help.

But then, then… the heroes came. 

In retrospection, almost everyone would agree that it was a mistake. Justice League was not used to fighting magical threats. They weren’t practiced in dealing with possessed villains. They didn’t understand. And they treated Ladybug and Chat Noir worse than sidekicks. 

That flying chicken even dared to wrap Chat Noir in a metal bar so he wouldn’t get in the way. 

Ladybug… tried her best. She allowed herself to trust the new heroes. She stopped saving every civilian from the rubble. She focused on the akuma. If heroes didn’t bother with the lives, it must’ve meant they trusted her cure, right?

WRONG

They were like a tank, riding through the city with a singular goal in mind. 

It didn’t help that they deemed the akuma a “world-level threat”. Yeah, right. Stormy Weather was powerful, but the damage could’ve been repaired. 

Or so she thought.

The volcanos, the tsunami, the tornadoes, the earthquakes? Those were fixed. The rubble caused by them was put back in place and those who suffered under them were better than new. 

But not the damage caused by the heroes. 

Not the bakery.

There was no magic in what happened. There was nothing to reverse. Those were human actions. For the first time perhaps, the people could see how much of the damage caused by the fight was the fault of heroes. How many deaths they caused. That is if they admitted, before themselves at least, that it was their fault. 

And yet, the so-called ‘heroes’ dared to lecture her about responsibility. About the sacrifice of few for the lives of many. About the innocence of young. 

She ran away. She managed to dodge them and vanish. Meld with the crowd when there were no cameras in sight and she was sure they couldn’t track her. 

Now, Ladybug stood alone on the top of the Eiffel tower, with her yo-yo communicator in her hand. She sent the message fifteen minutes ago. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but at this point, she no longer cared. There was nothing more for her. 

“He thought this was a trap.” A voice spoke from behind her. Ladybug twisted immediately, taking a guarded stance. She was still avoiding the Justice League after all. Before her stood… someone. She suspected it was an Akuma. The woman had pale skin and wore a black dress, black gloves, and a black veil over her face. 

“It isn’t. I’m alone. The city suffered enough as it is today. I suffered enough.” Ladybug’s voice cracked slightly.

“I see…” The akuma pursed her lips. For a moment, a purple butterfly appeared over her face before the woman nodded. “Fine. Give me your miraculous and I will take you to him.” 

“That isn’t going to work and you know it. You would just leave me stuck here. I’m willing to offer a token of goodwill though.” With that, Ladybug pulled a necklace and dangled it before the akuma. 

“Is that…?” 

“The miraculous of the fox? Yes. No tricks. I want to negotiate. In-person.” She made sure to emphasize the last part. 

The outline of the butterfly appeared in front of the Akuma’s face for a moment before she silently nodded. “I can lead you to him, but not before you reveal your face.”

“Fine.” Ladybug didn’t hesitate. She was past that point long ago. There was no hesitation, no doubt… no regret. Not for her actions anyway. No more.

In the flash of light, instead of Ladybug, Marinette stood before the akuma. 

“You’re…” the woman’s voice was stuck in her throat.

“I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng.” 

Tikki, floating nearby gasped in fear. The Kwami didn’t get a chance to explain before Marinette resumed her transformation. 

“Fine. Let’s go.”

The two leaped from the tower and started to zoom over the city. At first, they remained silent. Neither wanted to speak. It was tense anyway. It was, of course, Marinette who broke the silence first. 

“Your… your look. Have you lost someone today?”

The woman didn’t answer immediately. She appeared to be mulling over the question at first. Or wondering if she should answer.

“A… colleague; coworker. He was… a friend of mine you could say. We’ve been working side-by-side for at least a decade.”

“I see…” Marinette pursed her lips into a thin line. “I’m sorry.” She spoke up after a moment. “I imagine you blame me now?”

“No.” The akuma snapped. “You’re just a child. I put the blame where it belongs. With heroes. And with people who chose to invite them.” 

“Not hawkmoth?” Escaped ladybug’s mouth before she realized it. 

“He… he never wanted this either. He isn’t a villain you believe him to be.” The akuma hesitated for a moment, but Marinette could sense it was her own opinion. She filed it in her brain under interesting. 

-----------

When they arrived at Agreste manor, Marinette was surprised.

When they entered the study, she was baffled.

When they went down the secret elevator, she was angry. 

When she stood before Hawkmoth, she was furious. And it wasn’t because he was her mortal enemy. 

“So that’s why you neglect your only son?!” She screamed at him as soon as he turned to see her. His mouth moved, probably to give some excuse. “I don’t care if you want to rule the world or be a god or whatever. No matter what little sick excuse your brain found to justify your actions. You are not allowed to just ignore Adrien like that! He needs a father. He is a teenager and he needs you!” 

“Madmoiselle Dupain-Cheng.” His voice was cold, but in a different way than she ever heard Gabriel Agreste or Hawkmoth speak. 

“Gabriel Agreste. And I assume you akumatized your Assistant, Nathalie?” She pointed to the woman next to her. 

“Astute observation, Ladybug. You risked a lot coming here to speak with me. I could take your miraculous now, or any other time. You gave me your most precious protection: your secret identity. So… what was that important?”

“I want to know. What is so important to you that you’re willing to go any length to get it?”

“That’s it?” Hawkmoth raised an eyebrow. “That’s all? You’re ready to risk everything over that little piece of knowledge?”

“Yes.” Once more, there was no hesitation. There was no doubt. Her heart had no place for doubts anymore. Her heart was still stuck under three levels worth of rubble. 

“And what, pray tell, would you do if I told you?” He asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. 

“That depends.” She could see he was now intrigued, so she started to explain. “On whether I like the goal or not. And on whether you understand fully the implications. If you pass, you will get my miraculous and I will deliver you Chat Noir’s miraculous too. If you fail, you still get my miraculous. But you will never get the ring. I made sure that if something happens tonight, he will retire. He will leave Paris and toss the ring into the ocean in a concrete box. You would be left to torture the city all you wish until the League found you, but the ring’s power would forever remain out of your reach. You would be left with nothing but a criminal record. And your son would sooner than later be left without both parents. Of course, you could abandon your crusade, but then I would’ve won. I’m not a naive girl without a plan. Not anymore.” She spat the last part angrily, but her gaze was not focused on Hawkmoth, but far in the distance. 

“I… see. Clever. You’re right. This will probably end tonight.” He looked her over top to bottom. It was the first time he stood so close face to face with Ladybug. His nemesis. 

Gabriel wasn’t sure if he was impressed with her, or infuriated. Scratch that, he was sure he was both. She outsmarted him. She was willing to make an ultimate sacrifice for the sake of ending the fight. In that very moment, in her determined expression, he saw a reflection of another headstrong woman he knew. It was as if Emilie’s spirit stood before him. 

“So? How will it be?” she asked impatiently.

“Follow me.” He simply motioned for her and started walking. 

Soon, the group entered a large chamber, lit by several lights. In the center of a platform in the far end stood a glass coffin. Even from the distance, Marinette easily saw there was a woman inside. She was quick to pass Hawkmoth and get there, even as he was trying to grab her.

When the akuma and Gabriel arrived, they watched as Marinette was carefully pacing around the coffin and muttering under her breath. 

“She overused the damaged miraculous.” It wasn’t a question, but Hawkmoth answered anyway.

“Yes. Only the wish can bring her back.”

“You’re one of the biggest idiots in this whole city!” The girl screamed. “She is not dead, you moron. There are literally five different ways listed in the book which, may I remind you, you possess!” She continued to yell at him. “Hell! You could akumatize someone and give him healing power. You know… use the butterfly miraculous like it was meant to be used!” She scolded. “But nooo! You’ve got to be an idiot and immediately go for the most dangerous, imprecise, reckless, chaotic, risky solution there was! I’m sure she would’ve been ashamed.” 

Gabriel was at a loss for words. Was it really that easy? It couldn’t have been. He checked several times. He would’ve known. The akuma left Nathalie, who collapsed onto the ground. Some tear stains were now visible on her face. “I… I was just… I did what she told me. Only the wish can bring back the dead.” He stammered. 

“She. Is. Not. Dead.” Marinette made sure to punctuate each word. “She is in a coma. She is alive you moron. Tikki! Spots off!” The flash of light signaled the end of her transformation. “Be silent, little one.” She said in a caring voice. She couldn’t bring herself to take her anger on Kwami, but she couldn’t doubt now. “Akumatize me. Give me the power to heal her.”

The corruption left the akuma that was floating in the air, only for Hawkmoth to get his hands around the white butterfly and pour a new dose of power into it. It flew the short distance between them and sunk into Marinette’s purse. She smirked as the corrupted energy passed through her, turning her into an akuma. That is until she could see how she looked. 

“I’m not sure how you can call yourself a designer and yet dress me in this!” she complained. Her skin was now deep red, the color of blood, and her clothes turned into a white nurse uniform. Still, she walked to the coffin and easily opened the top. From her purse (now medic’s bag) she pulled a needle and injected the content into Emilie.

When the beautiful woman started to move, letting out an exhausted groan, Marinette sighed in relief. 

“Wha… what’s going on… the last thing I… Gabriel!” She bolted upright and immediately moaned in pain. Her hand instinctively flew to her back. “Gabriel Agreste! Did you keep me in this coffin for a whole week!?” She yelled at her husband. “And who’re those two?” She pointed at Marinette, who was smiling next to her, and Nathalie, still exhausted on the floor. “You were supposed to only reveal this to Adrien if anything happened to me. There was no talk about your assistant and… um, who’re you?” The woman turned to the akuma, who sighed and tore a strap of her bag. The butterfly left the item and Marinette reverted back to her normal form. 

“I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I’m… was… used to be Ladybug.” 

“But you’re just a kid. And why was Ladybug active… Gabriel!” She roared and her husband took a step back. 

Marinette was… surprised. She didn’t expect Emilie to be like that. From what Adrien told her, she was supposed to be the kindest, nicest person in the world. Then again, he might’ve been looking at it through tinted glasses.

“Yup.” The bluenette couldn’t stop herself from commenting. “He decided that the best way to wake you up was to get the miraculi of Ladybug and Black Cat.”

“You nincompoop. That plan was only for when I was dead.” She glared heatedly at her husband and Marinette couldn’t help but be a bit smug. “And you couldn’t get the items from a kid? How many other heroes are there?” 

“Only Chat Noir. He’s my age. And I sometimes call in some help from others.” Marinette supplied quickly. She was having entirely too much fun from watching Emilie tear Hawkmoth a new one. 

“Two kids! You couldn’t defeat two kids! I leave for just one second and you start getting your rear kicked by kids!”

“He also neglected Adrien for the last two years.” Marinette decided to have as much fun as she could while it lasted.

“Gabriel Agreste. You’re officially grounded until I sort this mess. Now take your secretary and leave. I will sort the mess with you later,” she ordered. Her husband could only nod and leave as quickly as possible. 

Marinette was now holding her sides laughing. ”That was amazing. Merci Madame Agreste. I didn’t think I would get to laugh tonight… But this was too good.” 

“Oh sunshine, don’t worry. I will get him in line for you. Whoever decided to let kids fight for them was clearly sick or senile.” 

“Master Fu was… he made some mistakes. I… maybe if I wasn’t so young…”

“It’s not your fault. Whatever you blame yourself for. You shouldn’t have been responsible for Paris. Or whatever else my husband did. I think some time on the couch will do him great.” The woman got up and walked over to pull Marinette into a hug. She then led the girl back to the (now half-open) coffin and seated them both on the edge. “Why don’t you tell me what ails you? I’m sure I can help.” 

For a moment, Marinette looked the woman in the eyes. Then, she started talking. She told her everything.

About a class full of idiots who believed every lie and actively fought against her.

About Lila, who manipulated everyone and did everything to turn her life into a personal version of hell. 

About the teachers, who preferred to let her be walked on then do their jobs.

About her partner, the dorky cat who couldn’t take life seriously and at times was immature. She came to like his antics, but he infuriated her as much as he kept her sane. 

About the so-called heroes, who came into the city and ruined her life.

About the destroyed bakery. The four bodies inside.

“It was her birthday. Today my nonna had her sixtieth birthday. We were celebrating when the Akuma happened. Except the Justice League came. Funny thing. The cure can return anyone killed by magic. It can’t return those killed by aliens tossing cars around.” 

“Do you have any other family?” Emilie asked, worried about the girl. She walked through so much pain in her short life. 

“My uncle… but he lives in Shanghai now. Papa was the only child and Maman moved here from Asia… I’m not sure what will happen next.” The girl revealed. 

“Next? Next, you will come live with us. No strings attached. I have no need for your earrings or other miraculous and I can keep my husband in check. I owe you that much.”

“I… you don’t owe me anything, Madame.” The girl quickly protested. “You’re not responsible for what happened. I don’t blame your family. Those were the American heroes who killed my parents. They were the ones that destroyed half the city. They are the ones to blame,” Marinette informed the woman in a solemn tone. 

“And that’s why I want you to stay with me. With us. I can protect you. Teach you. You can have your vengeance on those who wronged you. I can make you a queen. They will regret the day they wronged you.”

“I… I accept.” Marinette bowed her head.

[soramel]

In Love and War (ksj)

tags: idol!au, fake dating trope, enemies-to-lovers status: Ongoing (1/3)

It was that kind of Friday night (more like Saturday morning). You drank two shots too many, stayed on the dancefloor one minute too long, before the floor started spinning on your feet, or maybe you were.

Or maybe it's the number on your suite's door

Or your keycard's the one's floating

Or maybe the key slot's pulling a prank on you, avoiding your aim as you slam the damn card in.

You stumbled, the knob swinging down like magic.

"I'm never gonna drink again," you grumbled. A recurring resolution that floats in your mind which would be gone and forgotten as soon as you dive in your bed for the night.

Part 1

Having projects in LA is much more fun. You get to party and run around without scrutinizing eyes. Although you do miss the coldness of Seoul, the sun and the smell of weed in random corners of Hollywood is like an adventure in your backyard.

Your manager might kill you tomorrow, but you're quite sure that the alcohol will wear off by the time you board the plane back home. Or maybe not. That would make sleep easier to come though.

After the fashion week in New York, 4 weeks were spent in the west coast for several shoots and shows. You'll fly back home and do projects again for a month before going to Dubai, then Paris, for runway shows.

You never found modelling glamourous. When you were starting, you spent a whole day waiting in line just for you to walk for less than 5 seconds. Most times you get to wait out in the cold or in a humid heat, just for you to get snubbed and scrutinized for being too meaty, too thin, too tall, not small enough, not a blank canvas, too sharp, too soft.

You learned to not take those snide comments and backhanded compliments too seriously. Over time.

You got to be confident in your bare skin and embrace each curve and freckle and stretchmark. If you only knew how confidence could boost your presence, you could've worked on it when you were just starting.

Cold air grazed against your exposed skin. In contrast to LA's hot weather, their air-condition is freezingly too much. You squirmed and took refuge in the warmth of your duvet and pillow. It's odd and warmer than you're used to but you're not complaining. The blanket have somehow wounded around your body, cocooning you in a warm embrace.

"Happy birthday!!!"

Shouts and cheers jolted you awake, but it shortly ended up in screams of horror and surprise as you relayed frantic glances to different pairs of eyes.

"Turn the live off!"

"Jin hyung! We agreed on behaving!"

"How many saw that?"

"Who the heck are you?!"

"I don't know! Why are you in my room?!" you defensively replied. "Who are you, people?!" you freaked out.

"They're my members! And that's our camera director!"

"Oh my god my head's aching," you groaned and bent forward, cradling your pounding head in your arms.

It was then when you recognized the familiar faces you just saw. Everyone knows them.

You sighed when you realized you were still in your tank top and underwear.

"Who sent you here?" Jin asked, perplexed, his arms were folded against his chest in a defensive stance. You took offense at his action, making you scoff.

"This is my room. I know I'm getting quite an attention in the runway scene but you... you..."

you couldn't continue the accusation you were formulating because heck, why would he, a global star, would sneak his way into your suite, unless,

"You're a pervert stalker!"

He gasped and his brows furrowed. You could almost see smoke puffing out of his ears as his face flushed with red fury.

"You're in my suite! You're the pervert stalker!" he shouted back.

A stout man then stormed in the room, his eyes alarmed. "What's happening here? Who are you? Seize her!" he shouted orders after tall men in black filed in.

"What would you do to me? Back off! I'll sue you!"

The man replied, "You should've known better before pulling this kind of stunt to my artist. You'll go to jail."

You shook your head and frustration seeped through you at how you felt misunderstood and ganged up on. You further backed away from one of them reaching out to you. "Call my manager! I'm not some freak psycho who's after any of you. I'm famous too, you know!"

You're not the kind of person who uses her fame, but it was a cornering situation you desperately need to get out of.

"If you touch me, I'll sue you for harassment."

"You entered his suite without permission."

"This is my room!" you insisted. But now you weren't so sure as you were hammered drunk last night.

---

You were now seated on the couch as you fidget nervously. It was then cleared out that you got the wrong suite and that the door was held open early in the morning for their surprise to Jin. That explains the headache and groggy state you're in, barely getting any sleep.

Their manager pretty much yelled at the ridiculous stunt and fired the staff in charge right there and then.

"Y/n!" your head whipped up at the sight of your manager rushing in through the door. You looked up at her and couldn't hold back the tears you've been holding.

"Ms. Seo!" you uttered and ran up to her, hugging her as you seek refuge in her arms.

"What happened?"

"My father happened. If he'd just let me stay in his hotel and didn't belittle my job too much, I could've avoided this. And Alex! He bought so much drinks for me!"

"Who's Alex?" she asked back, confused.

"The friend I made last night."

"Y/n!" she reprimanded.

"He was nice! And then... and then..."

"Your talent got into my suite. She was too drunk to notice," Jin cut you off.

You whirled towards him and said, "You could've woken me up. Or something,"

"You're not the only one who's been busy and tired. Luckier you, you got to party."

His manager then stepped in, knowing how bad tempered he can be. "I figured you saw the video already. It was live so despite us taking it down, his fans still got a snip of it."

Both of your managers got into a conversation disregarding the two of you as if you were children. They were like parents calmly talking about the situation, understanding each other's statements. While you threw Jin a heated stare, he only shook his head out of utter disappointment.

The whole situation is not pleasant to you either, but Jin's expression is out of this world. His ice-cold glare sent shivers down your spine, making you do nothing but avert from his killer gaze.

You buried your face in your hands out of regret. You somehow knew your partying habit would get you into trouble sooner or later, but you've been very careful. It's just that you thought that once you're out of the party scene, you're deemed safe.

"- we will be talking to our lawyer about this, so I couldn't make any promises."

"Either way, you should cooperate with our investigation if you're not hiding anything."

"We're not. We'll agree to it as long as this is settled legally and you have a warrant."

"She trespassed!"

"It was an accident. An honest mistake on her part. She was..." Ms. Seo sighed in shame, before saying, "intoxicated. Isn't that obvious? She didn't mean any harm. Mr. Kim isn't hurt. Anyone isn't."

"Do you know what this has caused my artist's reputation?"

"So does mine. She wouldn't have slipped in if the door was locked."

"So you're really going there?"

"I told you we'll cooperate but with legal safeguards to protect us."

A ring have cut through the intense bullets flying to and fro across the room.

It was your phone.

Dad calling...

Shoot.

You flinched. You couldn't even dare to press the red button and just kept staring on the screen.

"Y/n," you glanced up at Ms. Seo with teary eyes, asking for her to take it on your behalf. She shook her head and urged you to take it.

With a sigh, you picked up the call and closed your eyes as you brace yourself.

"Dad?"

"Is it true?" his voice sounded menacing.

You held in your breath and stalled, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know I don't take bullshits. I've let you on your own and this is how you repay me? I don't care who you sleep with but at least have some decency to not get caught and bring shame to the family!"

"It's not like that. It was an accident. I didn't," you let out an exhausted breath. "My manager and I will fix this. Don't worry."

"The damage has been done. People have traced who you are. Do you know you're being painted as a rebel heiress? Your pictures with models and few personalities, partying, are all over the internet and the news. Now, the public are even scrutinizing us, your parents."

"Is your manager in the room?" he asked after a beat.

"Yes."

"Put me on speaker."

"But dad, this isn't the right time. We have other people in the room," you replied, meeting the eyes of everyone who seemed to be listening to the call. A staff barged in and talked to Jin's manager, showing him something on the tablet.

"Other people involved in this matter you mean?"

"Yes."

"Better. Put me on speaker. Now."

"Sir," Ms. Seo greeted once you've put it on the coffee table.

"I'll compensate for everything my daughter has caused. Money is not an issue here. Cancel all her contracts from this point on and my legal team will help you with the penalties. Y/n will fly back here to Seoul."

"Dad!"

"I already told you to not join the circus, Y/n. I won't let anyone slander this family. This is your last straw. You burned it. Now, go back here,"

The line ended, leaving you all speechless. -- It has been a month since you were flown back to Seoul. The wound was still all painful and bitter for losing the momentum you've had in the fashion world. In a snap, your father has proved how he could end your career anytime he wants.

On top of compensation, a threat to pull out of the current deals they had currently with the band were laid out on the table unless their management will not release any single statement for the matter.

The surprising part is that, everything in your life was laid out there. Out for the world to read. You became more famous, in three-folds, than you've been ever before. Soon, some stories were spun up how you and Jin met. Someone have caught a picture of the both of you in a museum, coincidentally. They even got a wind of how the scandal affected your career and that your influential family have paid millions to protect you.

Soon after, your father released a statement on your behalf. That you have done nothing wrong and you've been nothing but being independent on your own. The recent events have pushed him to step in and save you from scrutinizing eyes.

When he was asked on his thoughts about your nonexistent relationship with the idol, he stated, "My daughter's recovering from the whole fiasco. I have nothing to say about the rumors."

Then again, because of a vague statement, the whole situation was being painted as a Shakespeare piece. A star-crossed lovers. Your father being painted as a good-natured villain, while you, a rebel turned into a princess who was swept off her feet by a prince.

It was a well-cooked slow burn love story now for the media and for the fans of both sides. An orchestrated piece where hints and bits were dropped off for anyone to connect the dots.

And now you're here, in a meeting room with Jin who's calmer than before. A pitying gaze on his eyes which annoyed the hell out of you.

You couldn't help but scoff.

Tables have turned in more ways than one.

"The PR stunt was slow but effective. Making it organic and believable for everyone." Jin's manager spoke up.

You on the other hand, has been on the blind side of things.

"I thought everyone was paid off. Why are we having this meeting?" you turned to Ms. Seo.

She looked at you and said, "Your father and I have settled everything. We're now on the second phase of the plan. They also agreed to this."

"What's happening?" you asked in utter confusion.

"We're writing a romance movie. So you could get back to your modelling and Jin would be painted in a better light. The damage has been done the moment you were broadcasted on live. We just tipped the opinion of the public to the pastured side," she explained.

--

"This is ridiculous!" you declared after the walkthrough. "You agreed to this?!" you snapped at Jin, who was just silent all throughout the meeting.

--

You flew to Paris a day after that under some hideous disguise so no one could recognize. After settling in, you got ready for the first take. A natural look. You took a morning stroll through the winding streets, heading to a bakery before walking back to your place. You walked slow towards the rented apartment, your face bare and gracefully pale to sell off the movie script everyone wrote.

Beep. Shutter.

And the first scene was set.

--

"Pictures would be published a day later so you'd be safe. By the time they got a wind of the situation, you guys are both back here in Seoul. Taking the second sequence," the PR adviser discussed as he peeled off the storyboard.

--

Seokjin's looking at you at an arm's length distance before grabbing your hand. His hands are cold and pale from the city's harsh breeze.

"I can't believe we're doing this," you whispered, your scarf now covering almost half your face. Your outfit was straight out of a hallmark movie while he's wearing a ridiculous oversized pink sweater and khaki shorts. "And your outfit, seriously?"

He pursed his lips and pulled you towards him, gently. He then whispered to your ear, "Don't make me laugh. I was supposed to be in disguise when meeting you."

"You're attracting attention to yourself by being hideous," you retorted as you felt his hug tighten, his head burying on your shoulder.

Beep. Shutter.

"That's the point," he hoarsely replied.

You sighed. "I'm sorry. I know this is tiring. We could just..."

Seokjin shook his head. "It's okay. I'm sorry for putting your career in jeopardy."

"It's my fault. Don't be sorry. I got you in so much trouble."

"It's no one's fault," he settled.

You let out a sigh against his chest.

Then he spoke, "You should push me away. I chased after you, but you're done, remember?"

"This is ridiculous."

"You've said that for a hundredth time. Now do your part, Juliet," he replied in a teasing tone.

You gulped and couldn't help but chuckle, in response, Jin tucked your head in. "Don't laugh, you're making me laugh. We'll blow this up. Really, you're such a bad actress," he said through gritted teeth while fighting a smile off his face.

With that you pushed him away with a glare.

"I'm a freaking model. I can act," you reprimanded him, raising an eyebrow in a challenge.

He tilted his head to the side, "Not like that, be heart broken."

He reached again for your hand but this time you spat it away.

"Fine," you turned around and ran towards the building, hiding your face as if you're sobbing, but in reality, the whole scenario's sending you to madness.

With all the relentless shutters you've heard since the scene, you only hoped a couple of them would look convincing.

--

"Your boyfriend's here," Ms. Seo announced while you were getting your makeup ready for a shoot. Deals started pouring in right after the release of your heartbreaking pictures. As a strategy, the most unassuming gig was picked. A coffee commercial.

You turned to your manager with wide eyes as the staff pretended to hear nothing. Your makeup artist paused a bit before pretending on powdering your face as a touch up.

"We broke up. What are you talking about?" you carefully treaded, earning silenced gasps from your stylist to the floor manager and even the photographer who were suddenly in your perimeter.

Ms. Seo shrugged and left the studio. You saw Seokjin walking in in his crisp white shirt and slacks, his hair slicked back and looking handsome as ever.

"Everyone out! Be back and we'll start in 15!" someone announced, sending you in utter confusion.

You watched him as he made his way towards you. Neither of you spoke as you waited for the last person to leave the room.

Once the studio doors clicked shut, you uttered, "We're not scheduled to shoot in two days,"

Seokjin shrugged, his hands tucked behind him.

"The team thought we need a follow up. We couldn't just make up all of a sudden with all the pushing and swatting done in Paris."

You chuckled, "You told me to push you away."

"I did."

You sighed in exasperation and decided to move on. Walking up to him you crossed your arms against your chest. "So what do I need to do?"

He brought flowers and handed it to you, saying, "There're cameras across the window, you just have to accept these and be photographed."

You rolled your eyes and stepped to him, handing out your hand to accept the flowers.

He raised a brow and said, "Closer,"

You took a step closer and gently grabbed the bouquet from him. A lingering hold to let the moment be captured.

Then you turned away, back to a spot covered by the wall. He stood there by the window, staring at you.

"How's everything so far?"

You nodded back and replied, "Good. Let me know if I need to do anything for you. I owe you for cooperating to this ridiculous plan."

Jin let out a bitter chuckle, "It's for my image too. This is a lot of work, but it's the best way to get out of this situation."

"If it's of any comfort to you, my branding soared, for being a real adult. Whatever that means," he added.

You nodded in understanding, "So we'll just squeeze the lemonade out of this."

He laughed at the comparison you used, but nodded in agreement. "Yes. I'll consider this as an acting gig. You should too. For your portfolio."

You chuckled back and nodded, "Okay, thank you, Jin."

--

You briskly walked to Jin's car at the end of your appointment for that day. You're now on the second sequence, a scene where Jin is driving you home, stopping for a quick dinner along the way.

You huffed as you pulled his car door shut.

"Hi," you greeted, untangling your thick red scarf from your neck.

"Ready?" he asked as you buckle in. You looked around and remarked, "Wow, this car isn't really tinted huh."

He laughed. "It's for my safety. In case you'd do anything bad to me."

"As if," you retorted and chuckled back.

You were both advised to be careful as the traction of your story has been picked up by different news agencies. Along with your hired photographers, real paparazzis are now out there to get you both.

"Assume as if you're really sneaking away. Just get on the spots we told you so our team can have clear shots," Ms. Seo reminded on the phone, minutes before the stage.

Few minutes later of battling through the city, he parked the car on the riverside. As he pulled the handbrake, you asked, "I thought we're having dinner."

"Yeah, but too many people. I prepared ahead here," he replied before taking off and opening the trunk.

You followed with curiosity and laughed when you found camping pots and utensils and a few packs of ramen. Then he revealed a plate of jokbal tightly packed.

Your mouth watered at the sight and turned to him in glee. "Oh my god," you told him with a grin.

He stared at you for a while and didn't say anything. So you proceeded, "This is amazing, Jin! I like it," you informed him before digging for the water bottles and the portable kettle. Beyond you are the trees, the hood facing the empty parking lot.

"Where do we go?" you asked after securing the bottles and kettle.

Jin stuttered, blinking, before saying, "Just here," he replied in a rasp.

"Oh, okay," you agreed right away seating on the trunk and opening the bottle of water then pouring it in the kettle.

You looked around and through the dimly lit forest park. You turned to him as you wait for the water to boil, "I haven't seen any photographers though, you sure we didn't lose them?" you asked as you watch him take a seat beside you.

"They're around somewhere. I'm sure. They have to hide well so it won't be too obvious," he replied, his voice sounding stressed. With a concerned look, you asked, "Is everything alright?"

He bit his lip and nodded, "Yeah, just tired."

You stood up and went in front of him. With your arms wide open, you told him, "You can recharge. I give hugs for free."

Jin chuckled and shook his head as his gaze wandered on your face. There was something in his eyes you didn't used to see and you attributed that to his exhaustion. He must've a busier schedule and this is an additional work for him.

He wrapped a hand around your waist, then pulled you closer to him, resting his chin on your shoulder. You automatically hugged him back, giving the back of his head a gentle caress.

You settled between his thighs as you sighed out a hum. "This is nice," you muttered.

"It is."

Shutter.

--

"From thereon, we'll let the issue die down. We will circulate a story on your breakup after a month." the PR head finished, turning to everyone.

"Questions?"

--

The stunt was a success and despite you having both supporters and haters, the scandal winded down into a much positive note. Offers came back according to Ms. Seo. Which is why you're in Dubai for an editorial shoot.

You thought everything was over when your father have paid off everyone. You didn't even know he'd go through pins and needles to clear your name. May it be for the sake of your family's reputation or you as his daughter, you didn't go further to distinguish. On a family dinner, when you informed him you'll be flying out of the country for your projects, he didn't comment much about it. Well aside from a threat of you going to parties.

Slumping down the couch, you reached for your phone. You posted a photo of the sunset in the desert to update your followers before heading for bed as you have an early flight to Paris tomorrow.

--

You woke up to a notification.

From: Kim Seokjin

Don't I look handsome?

You chuckled at the message and the selfie he sent. He has cucumbers covering his eyes and his hair was up in pigtails. You took note of how unfair his plump lips looked even without filter.

Typing in, Very., you replied.

Not long after, he messaged back,

When are you coming back?

In two weeks

I'll treat you to a meal.

We'd broken up by then, though?

Ouch.

You laughed at his reply as you get ready for the flight. You and Jin have formed a friendship over the situation. It wasn't that difficult. He's dorky and kind though you thought he was really a snob at first. Which was fair considering how you've almost ruined everything for him.

--

No official statement on the confirmation of your relationship was published, however news articles have released news on your breakup due to your busy schedules. You took off from social media for three days as everyone bombarded you with questions, cheer ups, and hate messages.

It was a cold morning, so you opted to stay in your apartment instead of heading out. Besides, cameras would still be hot on your tail since it's been less than a month since the breakup news.

"And now, exhale as you crunch up, tucking your navel in," the soothing voice of the instructor and your ragged breath were the prominent sound in the four-walled space.

"You know it's coming, now, hold it," she added further after a bit.

You grunted and pushed yourself despite the burn on your upper mid. With a laser focus on the wall, you huffed down as the doorbell rang.

With labored breath you wiped your forehead, turned on your stomach and lifted up in a cobra position to give the sore muscle a nice stretch.

The doorbell rang once again.

You hurried towards the door, expecting Ms. Seo, only to be surprised when faced with Jin's equally surprised face.

He tried his best not to look down, though your red-flushed face and sweaty look made his mind haywired. You were equally comprehending as to what he's doing at your door in broad daylight until you remembered proposing to eat in your apartment instead for safety reasons.

You slapped your forehead, making him also flinch out of a trance you barely noticed. "Shit, I completely forgot. Come in," you rambled as you opened the door wide open for him.

He didn't move an inch, his ears red, as he put a hand on the back of his neck. "I could visit another day, you must've been busy. It's alrigh-"

"No, no! I was just finishing my workout. I'm done now," you countered as you take a step forward only then to realize how you inappropriately dressed you are.

"Please come in, I'll just change my clothes,"

Jin swallowed down his nerve and you feel like you've put him in an uncomfortable situation. Pursing your lips, you said, "Look, I'm genuinely inviting you in and admitting that it's utterly stupid of me to forget. Why don't you use my kitchen for those takeouts while I change? I'll be back in a jiffy."

In a resolve, he decidedly nodded and walked himself in. You turned your back on him to lead the way to the kitchen.

"The dishes are in this cupboard, cups are on this side," you opened cabinets one by one to show him. You turned to another counter and pulled a drawer open around your hip, "Utensils are here,"

"Y/n," he sternly called for your attention.

Whipping your head to his direction in inquiry, your round curious eyes almost lashed something in his gut. "I'll help myself. Go get changed,"

"Oh, yeah right. Okay!"

You scurried to your bedroom to put over a loose shirt, its size meant to be big to even hang past your hips. You squeezed into black tight shorts right after.

Walking back to the kitchen, you saw him silently unpacking the food he brought. It was just the unclicking of tupperwares, soft tuds of the containers as he laid it all down the counter with much practiced ease.

"Hey," you greeted as you darted out right beside him.

He gasped in surprise but before you could tease him about being jumpy, he let out a light chuckle.

"I just brought a few," he diverted, going back to his unpacking. You could see the egg rolls generously sprinkled by spring onions and carrots, the kimchi slices were stacked neatly, the picked yellow radish where cut in nice squares, and your mouth watered at the sight of spicy-red octopus legs.

You swore you almost caught yourself drooling.

Jin's eyes widened a fraction as he held your gaze, your eyes were twinkling with wonder and amusement.

He nodded and teasingly voiced out, "Ah, food is your weakness I see,"

You feigned a sad face and said, "People who feed me are my weakness,"

Red painted his neck and ears at your unknowing attempt at flirting.

"Oh, come on," he called out. "I brought soda to pair these with," he diverted, once again. You scowled and replied, "Boo, I have soju and beer here."

Not waiting for his reply, you headed to the fridge and fished out two of each drink from your stash. You set the drinks on the island and navigated to the cupboards for glasses.

"Do you drink?" you asked, but still preparing for two without his answer.

"I- yeah,"

The beer bottles clinked and popped as you expertly opened one using the other. Pulling the drawer out, you fished for a spoon and used that to the other bottle.

You seethed as you watched and mixed somaek on two glasses at the same time. Pouring out the soju first, your gaze were laser focused on the glasses' imaginary lines. The soju bottles clinked on the marble as you placed them aside.

You then poured the beer next, both bottles filled the glasses up with a fizz.

You grinned as you finished both drinks, topping of your mixing with strong taps of spoon on each, mixing the drink with a fascinating swirl.

Handing the somaek to Jin, you raised your glass to him and drank as you cheered, bringing the plate of octopus legs with you to the living room.

Sitting down on the floor by the couch, you waited for Jin to settle down as he transferred the dishes to the coffee table.

Once he was sat down across from you, you started your interview, "How was it back there in your company?"

His forehead scrunched, before saying, "What do you mean?"

"The breakup. I mean, our breakup. I haven't opened my phone because notifactions kept on coming. I thought of changing my number after to keep it from exploding."

Jin let out a silent 'Ah' before replying, "The staff knows the real story, so only the agency is the most peaceful place out there."

You nodded in understanding. Lucky him. The most safe place for you is the 20 meter perimeter around your building. "How did you get here by the way? The basement?"

He nodded as he started munching on the food.

"Hang on, do you want rice?" you offered, but didn't wait anyway for his reply as you stood up to get bowls.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Touch it for Real, Part 2

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Eventual Smut

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / virgin!baek / enemies to lovers

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4

What you didn't know — what you couldn’t have known was that it wasn’t real. The flush you felt in your skin was real. The sticky sweat that spread over your bed sheets when you tossed and turned was real. The heat of it; the perceptible and tactile fire that spread through your veins felt so physical and solid, you had no way of knowing that this wasn’t real.

Slim fingers.

Fleshy thighs.

Hip bones beneath well worn denim.

Buttons popping with the barest of effort.

And the lips. Oh God, the softness of those lips as they traveled over your very hot skin. You could feel it all.

You never saw his face; you hadn’t needed to. You could smell him everywhere. You knew who this was. You’d know him with your eyes blinded; you’d know him anywhere.

At first you turned away. At first you resisted, but as the fire spread through you, you found yourself turning into him, searching for him, seeking out that connection to fuel the heat.

Why was this happening? Why did you rejoice in it? The longing and the desire had simply become too much for you to deny and now you were the one pulling him into you. You were the one who wrapped your legs around that slim waist and constricted and those sounds from his chest they were...they were…

Those sounds from his mouth, they were—

Screaming.

Laughing.

‘AH HA HA HA AH — YES!’ Rough staccato laughter; so, so loud — so damn loud, it ripped and it tore at your mind and it yanked you up so roughly; up so fast you felt your entire body shaking if not completely falling apart with the speed at which you were pulled.

You opened your eyes into pitch blackness. Your vision took only a second to adjust and you could make out the sliver of dim light from the street lamp outside that peeked through the very top of your curtains.

On your nightstand, pale yellow squared numbers taunted you with 03:42 AM and covering your entire body where you laid on your once so welcoming bed was your bunched up and sweaty comforter. It was heavy. It was everywhere. You felt suffocated by it. Why was it so hard to breathe?

Your comforter. You purchased it because it was pretty. It fit in perfectly with your room decor and it was pale in color enough that the brightly colored stuffed animals you set atop stood out and complimented the subtle pattern. It made you feel at home.

It used to make you feel at home. Now it was making you feel a very different sort of way. Hot and sweaty and flushed all over and now, very mad about all of it.

You could still feel that shaking deep inside your chest and you laid your palm over your forehead to feel for a fever. You swear you could feel the tremble happening inside, though it was fading now, you were sure you still felt that shaking inside of your body.

It was beginning to settle.

You felt another rumble, paired with a loud booming sound that vibrated and shook your wall. The glass of your window quaked and the pale yellow numbers on your nightstand danced in your vision.

‘HAHAHA! I got you asshole!’

03:44 AM

Speakers. Surround sound. Heavy bass. An impressive system at any other time of the day when the sun was out. But right now? When you had been peacefully asleep; when you had been dreaming? Earth shattering booms. Deafening shouts of victory from the idiot with every new explosion that rattled your bones.

You sat up and the comforter stuck to your sweaty skin. It wasn’t even hot in this room, yet this thing clung to you like it was coated in glue. Nearly four in the fucking morning.

You had to work tomorrow. It was the one day a month when you were required to report to the office in person for the staff meeting. And here you were being ripped awake by such a disturbing commotion and goddammit this blanket was hot.

This … thing.

This thing that brought with it images of him and images of, oh god, images of his fingertips and his lips and his, oh god, oh no. No, please not that. Anything but that. Of all the things that were absolutely off limits. Of all the situations that could never happen. Horror. An overwhelming horror; it tasted of shame.

No, no, no, no.

How could this have happened? How could those images be burning into the backs of your eyes? The more your overtired mind tried to make sense of it, the less sense this made. You looked down at the blanket, searching for answers.

Had something about this blanket been ruined?

Was it’s once comforting and innocent essence somehow completely changed on a molecular level and was it now….tainted forever? Because of him? Because of what he brought into your room and depravedly rubbed all over it?

You pushed it away with both hands reaching you pushed and pushed until it sunk down off the foot of your bed and the cool air blew over your hot bare legs. Even the cool air did little to calm the irritation you felt all over your body. It did nothing to cool you off. Your legs were made of pure fire.

He did this. You were sure of it. He brought this evil on you. And now with his room shaking howling laughter you were wide awake and angry at almost 4 am when you had work in the morning; you had to be worth a damn in the morning.

You were up on angry legs with rage pushing you forward and you reached down for the blanket that you didn't even want in your room anymore for all it represented. You hauled it with both hands and took two steps forward toward your closed bedroom door when your forward progress took a quick and southward dive and you fell, tripped up by the wretched blanket when you stepped on a corner instead of on your soft rug.

You could feel the burn on your kneecaps where you collided with the hard floor. You could feel a sting on your left knee that hit the hardest but burned into the carpet and you grunted through the pain to quickly lift yourself back up and gather every other bit of hanging blanket securely inside your arms.

The trek through the living room at such an ungodly hour when every living breathing cell in your body would have rather been asleep felt absolutely crazed. You reached his door, turned the knob just enough for the latch to disengage and with your entire being hurled that motherfucker open and sent it flying.

Oh and it flew. It hit the wall and bounced back hard, bouncing back quickly against your arms that held on securely to the blanket. The noise was shocking. It was a vindicating battle cry.

The commotion startled him. His hands were on the keyboard and a pair of headphones atop of his head and for WHAT, you could hear every single thing happening on his screen in mind deafening stereo surround sound filling up the whole room. You could hear it clearly from your own room and from inside this room it sounded like you were living inside of the subwoofers themselves.

Your rage was somehow louder and it made him spin toward the motion and sound of you at his doorway with a shriek of surprise. His eyes were saucers and his mouth flew open; an unchewed bite of some pink sausage fell out and bounced off his knee onto the floor below his sock covered feet and he was only screaming for a second before he was cursing.

“Shit. Jesus. Fuck. Ohh my God, Fucking Hell, oh my heart. Oh it hurts. Oh Christ I’m dying.”  He was clutching at his chest. His headphones, the useless things slipped off his head and toppled down his shoulder following the sausage chunk and you could see them fall all the way down to the floor. The cord, which had not been plugged in quickly followed and pooled into a puddle at his feet.

“Do you have any idea ... what time it is?” Your voice sounded foreign to your ears. Had you always sounded so burly? You felt like an angry mountain lion ready to go in for the kill.

His eyes were closed up tight and he inhaled a deep breath before cracking them open to look at you through the heavy panicked breaths.

“Ohhh,” he moaned as his breathing calmed and the shock faded with each slow breath he took. “Ohhhhh,” he repeated softer, to himself.

“Ohhh…” this time he was looking at you and his eyebrows furrowed together as he did it. “Oh—whoa, whoa, whoa, you look….super fucking crazy right now. What is happening?”

His hands were up in confusion; in defense, and you were moving forward taking the stupid blanket and roughly shoving it toward him you hurled it right at his face and watched it hit as hard as a soft cottony blanket could manage to hit — it was more of a gentle nudge really, and then it fell down, taking his stupid glasses off his face and burrying them somewhere within the fluff where the blanket fell.

He was too confused to catch it. He had absolutely no idea what he had done to defile and destroy the sacred sanctity of your sleep.

He had no idea.

“What are you doing with this? Why are you doing this? Why are you giving me your blanket? Where are your pants? Is your leg bleeding? Tell me what is happening!”

“You!” You hurled a finger up and pointed it in his face. His eyes widened, crossed to look at the finger that clearly accused him of something just off the end of his nose and then looked back into your face in utter confusion.

“You—“ you inhaled to survive and your mouth hung open as the words, the accusations you had for him, the truth of what he had done to you, what he really hadn’t done, but what you were certain you felt happening in your sleep, in that dream, those words they stopped entirely as you looked at his face. His very real face, the very real pink cheeks and confused eyes of your roommate Byun Baekhyun who had absolutely no idea that you had just been disturbed during and then disturbed by a vivid and confusing sex dream about him.

Oh god.

You couldn’t say that.

You would rather be dead right here than say those words with your own mouth.

This had never happened before. He was a real person, you had never experienced a dream like that involving a real person. Not someone you knew like you knew Baekhyun. Not someone you lived with and had to keep on living with. The more you replayed the words that refused to come out of your mouth inside your head the more your sanity slowly returned to your mind.

“Your headphones are not plugged in.” You shook your finger in his face. Using every bit of anger you had built up on the walk across the living room, every bit of uncomfortable sweaty stinging ick you felt all over your whole body about the whole thing and you shot those death lasers out of your eyeballs and you focused them right on his face, right there in the center of his stupid forehead. That’s where you put it. That’s where you glared and that’s where you wished every little bit of comeuppance that he had coming to him would land. Right there on that head.

“Wha?” He said and his stupid pink lips frowned downward into a pout. Against your will, you watched them as they moved and then quickly focused your pointing anger back up onto the center of his forehead. It took a lot.

He was looking down at his feet and reached through the big fluffy blanket that covered him from the waist down to the floor to find the headphones that had landed somewhere within it all.

He pulled them up and kept pulling, following the cord until he reached the end and he held the male end of his headphones with his fingertips as he looked down at them with a scoff and a small laugh.

“Oh shit,” he chuckled to himself, “huh...would you look at that?” As if absolutely nothing at all mattered in the world and this was just a humorous little hiccup in his day. At 4 am on a work day.

The audacity of the man. The absolute shameless audacity.

“Would you look at that?!?” The volume of your own voice surprised you. You screamed it. Right at the top of your lungs and he jumped in his seat, closed his eyes up tight and clutched at his chest again with a pained wince on that face. Immediately after you’d done it you felt a pang inside. Was your anger really caused by being awoken? What were you really so damn mad about here?

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered to himself when his eyes opened again.

Then he directed them at you with his eyebrows furrowed and that glare right on your face.

“Jesus. Christ. Woman.” he half spoke again with his eyes on you and his face pointing directly at yours with each new word he spoke. You felt unjustly rebuked. The seriousness on his voice closed up your gaping mouth and you pulled your head back. Part of you wanted to grab his hair and pull it, demanding reparations and apologies and justice for his many 4 AM crimes against you.

“I mean...Jesus. Christ.” His head nodded to emphasize just how ridiculous he was now finding your current outburst and you felt the heaviness deep inside your arms as you sagged on your feet and wanted to give up your fight against gravity. Part of you knew you were justified in your outrage. How could you be losing this fight so easily to him? Maybe...maybe you were just tired.

“I’m just...so tired, Baek.” Your complaint came out as a sad little whine and your head fell back as you closed up your eyes. Suddenly feeling like you could drop right here at his feet and sleep curled up in your wretched comforter.

He must have gotten up. You could feel his arms on your shoulders and you were steered somewhere within his room. Your legs didn’t feel like moving but there were some calming circles being rubbed on your back that felt too nice to resist.

“I’ll turn it off, Bug. You can sleep, I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“I was sleeping so nicely.” You mumbled and you were in a bed that didn’t smell like you. “I was dreaming.” All at once the memory and that smell brought back a strange yet familiar feeling.

“Was it a good dream?” His voice sounded far away.

“Mhmm,” you hummed and you let yourself drift. You let yourself curl into the mattress that you were laid over and gave in to an unimaginable comfort that pulled you under too easily.

If he had any more questions you did not know, but something called your sleepy mind back for one more word. Something asked perhaps. You couldn’t be sure what it was, only your single word response slipped from your lips.

“You,” you told the questions, before disappearing entirely.

Your alarm clock was ringing. It was a sufferingly familiar sound that could rip you awake from the deepest sleeps. Today it sounded far away, but that tune was so ingrained into your mind that you immediately opened your eyes and stuck a hand out to look for your phone to stop it.

Only your hand reached and found nothing. You moved further and bumped against something hard like a table that should not have been there.

“Mmm,” a soft moan sounded out from somewhere below and when you finally opened your eyes and searched your ceiling, the layout was definitely different.

This was not your room.

This was not your bed.

“Don't you work today?” You followed the sound of his voice and found it coming from somewhere curled up on the floor beside the bed underneath your comforter. The one you’d abandoned last night. The memories flooded in an instant.

“Yeah. I’m getting up. You can have your bed back, Peanut.”

Peeling back his blankets for a quick escape you saw your own bare shins; knees; thighs; all the way up to your underwear. You’d fallen asleep with only a t-shirt on last night. But there was a new addition. You saw a flesh colored bandage stuck to your knee with a brown-red stain in the center of the gauze pad. You paused to look down at it, a thousand conflicting inclinations running through you in a single breath and not a spare minute to dwell on any of them because your alarm was still ringing and Baekhyun had turned over and peeked his face out from under your blanket.

You could not explain the urgency to leave. You freely loitered near him and around him constantly without even a second thought.

Although you had never done it in such a state of undress. This could have explained the rush. How much would he see of you? How many flaws could he make out with his sleepy eyes. How long had it taken him to apply the bandage last night? Did he use his bare fingertips to softly dab ointment on your wound or did he merely slap on a bandaid with a rough palm. He wouldn't have lightly blown on it to dry the medicine would he?

Something was wrong with you.

These were not important questions for you to be asking. You needed to get out of his room before he saw any more. Perhaps the dream had done much more damage than you had feared.

You could have stepped down off the bed beside where he laid. It would have only required an extra step to get over him. Instead you climbed down to the foot of his bed and without a look back you were out of his room under the compulsion of the ringing alarm and you surrendered willingly.

Back inside your room you could breathe freely and deeply. You could indulge in your routine of getting ready for the day and you took your time to get your hair and your makeup looking nice. It was cold out so you opened for the thick winter leggings to get you through the commute without freezing to death and you were out of your door just in time to stop for a morning coffee.

The day dragged. You were probably just out of practice, having worked from home for so long that having to make an active attempt to look busy enough to justify your paycheck with so many witnesses in the office had you feeling burnt out by lunch time.

You went for a walk to avoid awkward small talk with your co-workers even though it meant you didn't have enough time to actually eat any real food before your break was over. Still it was preferable to the alternative. Namely the meddling old women who, every time they saw you had some new neighbor’s friend’s son, or some doctor’s nephew they just had to set you up with.

So what if you were single. So what if you were too young and too pretty to be alone. There wasn’t some invisible timer counting down to your swift and imminent demise just because you didn't have a boyfriend. You were pretty sure that timer was running for everyone despite the relationship status on their facebook profile. And you did not mention your facebook profile to Baekhyun because he would probably flip out, hack into your computer and delete the whole thing. The dramatic man. How else were you supposed to see what a mess your high school friend’s lives were shaping up to be.

When it was finally time to go home for the day you were more exhausted than you thought was normal for someone still walking around on her own two legs. You were the angry sort of hungry that made you annoyed with every single sound you heard on the subway and not even your headphones in your ears playing your favorite songs eased your anxiety.

You glared at the woman across the aisle with the unruly kids who refused to wear their masks right. You glared at the old man with his nose sticking out of the top of his and you tightened your own mask to your face and took a step back and away from the group of youths that eyed you up and down as they moved through the doors.

You’d never before been so happy to open the door to your apartment and be greeted by the pleasant hum of a refrigerator that you knew had to have at least one tasty thing you could snack on to take the edge off of your mood.

Inside was bright. It was cleaned recently — You’re welcome — It was sparkling and gleaming and well organized and it was full of a multitude of raw ingredients that could be chopped and sliced and diced and cooked up to make a wonderfully healthy and fulfilling meal for whoever had the energy and ambition to embark on such a feat.

You peered inside at the bottles of water in the door. The sticks of butter and the bottles of sauce mocked you. You were pretty sure raw eggs cracked into your open mouth would give you some sort of infection that would require you to leave the house again this month so you opened the drawer where you were sure you saw a cheese stick hiding inside last night.

There it was.

It was white and bouncy. It was salty and individually wrapped and it was calling your name in sweet a cheesy joyous chorus of promised deliciousness.  

It was yours.

It’s most amazing feature wasn’t the chewiness or the cold chill it had from sitting for weeks in a refrigerator. No, the best thing, and you mean the absolute very best thing about this single plastic wrapped cheese stick was that it existed.

Exactly when you needed it most.

Feet shuffled behind you. Baekhyun would be waking up from whatever napping schedule he’d accidentally tricked his body clock into adopting and he would be stumbling into the kitchen for a drink of water.

You unwrapped the cheese stick and stuck the end between your lips. Instantly rewarded by the soft way it gave when you bit down. You took the tiniest bite and you chewed carefully and thoughtfully. Perhaps your eyes rolled back and closed and perhaps you might have even experienced something akin to out of body experience of pure pleasure as you chewed, swallowed, and opened your mouth again for another bite. A real one this time.

What you hadn’t anticipated, was the cruelty of the universe that had allowed you to live this many years on Earth only to end up here in this exact moment with this man whose home you also lived in. You hadn’t expected the crushing reality of watching that man sleepily stumble into you with his eyes half closed and open his big mouth as wide as it would go and sink that mouth down directly onto the entire exposed part of your cheese stick, of which maybe 85% had been exposed, and chomp down ruthlessly with nearly the entire thing vanishing away before your eyes.

You watched him chewing noisily with his mouth open and bits of white cheese bumbled around inside before he let out a noisy laugh complete with a snort that sent bits of cheese flying across your once clean kitchen.

“Haha,” he said as he swallowed, “your face.”

He was laughing at you.

He ate your cheese; well, most of your cheese. He was laughing now, harder. The longer you stood staring at him in absolute shock at what he had just done the harder he laughed and you could feel the countdown happening inside of your chest. A number for each heart beat that seemed to be speeding up toward his death.

He had no idea. He never ever did.

This man was so close to death and he was giggling now and reaching for the big bottle of orange juice that sat inside the fridge.

He lifted it up to his lips and drank from the bottle, not even bothering with a glass. He drained half of its contents and when he pulled the bottle down, some things, tiny and white - mini specks of your cheese floated around inside the orange liquid.

You saw bright white nothingness.

You would like to go on the record now, and plead insanity.

In your mind's eye, everything was just all white.

Like the afterlife in movies. Except far less peaceful but equally unexplainable.

Violence may not be the answer. But you really had very little memory of this.

You had flashes of it. His deafening screams and your hand reaching into a bag of cheese puffs for handfuls that you shoved into his gaping mouth. You don’t even know where you got them from. They just appeared suddenly and they crushed so easily into soft powder as you pressed them between his teeth. The powder coated the surface of his skin around his mouth. It flew in the air too as he screamed. You were covered in it. Your hands were stained bright orange. The color of your wicked crimes.

The whiteness returned. Then more flashes of your crimes. Your mind touched on images of the sticky drops of orange juice that fell one by one from his hair that laid completely flat, lacquered to the top of his head. Then, his cries of pain with your knees dug into his chest and both of your bright orange hands squeezed tightly around his neck. The coughing when you pressed down harder in the middle of his neck and the eventual sensation of him fighting back. The urge to live must be strong in him. Why did he resist this so much? Just die already. Why fight the inevitable? If not done by you, surely some other person would do it.

When you came to, you were inside of your bedroom packing a bag full of clothes and stuffed animals. You felt that this was probably your get-away bag, and that meant he was probably dead.

Drowned in two ounces of backwash filled orange juice and lungs stuffed with brightly colored cheese flavored* puffs (*contains no real cheese.)

You had a list happening inside of your head. Things you had to do before you left this place forever and never returned. A strange calm had washed over you; probably brought on by shock.

First, you had to pack this bag. You had stuffed it full of overcoats. Your winter coat with the pink polka dots. The fluffy yellow puffer jacket you got as a gift from your best friend. Your rain jacket in case it got wet in hell. Second, you would go into his room and clear his search history. It was something you had always promised you would do for him and he had promised to do the same for you. After that, you would call the police from a pay phone on the corner of the block to anonymously report the crime.

Your bag was full. Too full to fit the brightly colored pink bunny even though it was a tiny thing. You pushed and shoved, squeezing it in between the layers of coats until you were sure the seam of your bag was about to pop if you tried to zip it closed.

You still had your toiletries to pack. This would never do. How could you pack a get-away bag without your favorite shampoo.

A flood of memories came to you. Your favorite shampoo and handing the bottle with your eyes covered to Baekhyun as he showered. All at once, that steady and all consuming calm wavered and you felt the first hot tears building. Stinging and burning as they crested and spilled over your lashes onto your cheeks.

Your lips were stuck in a deep frown and you did your best to inhale through a stuffed up nose.

“My poor Peanut,” you said into the hollow empty space of your lonely bedroom. You’d have to venture into his bathroom to get your shampoo. Possibly walking past his lifeless corpse which you were pretty sure you left somewhere in between the kitchen and the living room.

A maniac. You were a heartless monster. The remorse you now felt, which could very well help you in court, coated you from head to toe and you cried openly when you pulled your bedroom door open and took your first step out of your room.

Shampoo and search history. These things were your destination.

But a sound coming from somewhere deep in the kitchen threw off your steps and you felt the hairs on the back of your neck rise with the unexpectedness of it.

More than just a sound, you could smell something too. Was that sizzling? Had you accidentally turned the stove on and now your whole apartment was on fire? Was this how you could get rid of the body?

No. You had to get a grip now. That was going too far. You could understand homicide but desecration of a corpse? Ick. That kinda shit was for sickos.

You focused your energy on your destination and took three big steps to cross the living room and placed a hand on the door knob of his room.

The knob clicked noisily when you turned it too quickly and you heard a shuffle coming from the kitchen. A shuffle and then a scrape and you turned at the sound.

“Hey Bug, food’s ready. Come eat. I made your favorite.”

You froze on your feet with your eyes wide open, nose too stuffy to breathe so your mouth hung wide open as well. With tears streaming down your face, made fresh again by the sight of him standing in the kitchen with a white towel draped around his neck, clean wet hair, and a frying pan and spatula in his hand, you gasped.

You had never been quite so relieved to see the sight of your stupid roommate. Overcome, you dropped the bag you carried at your feet and rushed to where he stood with arms raised and the dish he had just finished cooking elevated and you reached for his body with your arms outstretched. When you felt his warmth you wrapped your arms around his waist and pulled him in for a tight hug.

“Uhh,” he said softly, flinching upon contact and freezing up but first lifting the hot pan high enough to remove any danger of burning you with it. “Why are you crying?”

You squeezed tighter and buried your face in his chest. You’d get his shirt wet with tears and with snot but you didn't care. He was okay. Your overwhelming guilt for your behavior towards him was so thick you had a hard time not sobbing harder when you felt the awkward steps he took to set the hot pan down and free his hands and then that first warmth of the palm of his hand that landed on your back.

When the other hand joined and slipped around your shoulder a quiet cry got caught up inside the back of your throat and you heard a warning sound somewhere. Because the warning did not exist in this realm of reality he did not hear it and another step into you brought his arms tighter around your shoulders and when you felt those hands move gently over your back the warning sound blared up hot and terrifying.

You and him did not do this. This was not something you had ever done with Baekhyun. Sure, light touches sometimes. Plenty, even. Hell, you playfully smacked him for something new and annoying every single day. You weren’t exactly scared of him, but you had never hugged him before and you sure as fuck didn't ever hold him.

“Bug?” His voice was calling you. You had an inkling that it might have been the second or third time and you pulled back from him. His hands released you the second he felt your retreat and you looked at the spot where you’d mashed your whole face into his shirt wincing at all the face shaped wet spots you saw there.

He didn't seem bothered by it and you inhaled a deep trembling breath with a meaningless nod of your head at him. Whatever had happened didn’t matter. Everything was fine. Everything was over and it was okay. He was okay too.

He offered a small smile and turned to get two bowls to fill with the food he had made.

It was fried rice. Simple, no frills fried rice with a fried egg on top and just enough spice to make it interesting but not enough to activate any more water works. It was his favorite and you were pretty sure he didn't actually know how to make any other dishes. But hadn’t he just said he made your favorite?

“Baek, This isn’t my favorite. This is your favorite.”

He placed a bowl in front of where you sat and he lifted a quizzical eyebrow with a small tick of his head.

“No, it’s not my favorite. It’s your favorite. You make it all the time. And that’s why I made it now. Because it's your favorite.”

As he spoke, he pointed back and forth between you and the bowl of rice with his spoon. As if he was teaching a class on something you obviously didn’t know the first thing about.

“But I only make it all the time because it's your favorite, Peanut.”

You picked up your spoon and mixed the egg into the rice and began eating quickly out of necessity. You were about to pass out from hunger at this point.

He was watching you eat with that confused look on his face and he hadn’t touched his rice yet.

“Well whose favorite is it then?”

You shrugged and swallowed another bite. You were half finished with your bowl already and Baekhyun looked down and scooped up the egg from the top of his own rice with his spoon, leaning forward to plop it down on top of your remaining rice.

“Please tell me you at least like eggs on top.”

“Doesn’t everybody?” You remarked flippantly and you mixed again, feeling so much more human now that you had some real food in your stomach.

He was leaning back in his chair, fingertips over his face as he lightly massaged at the space between his eyebrows and you giggled to yourself with a mouth full of rice.

“I thought I killed you, Baekhyun.”

You heard him snort out a laugh and he quickly covered his mouth with both of his hands before he spat out all over the table. You yourself had to cover your mouth to keep your rice in and you laughed in a painful stifled way to keep from choking on the food in your mouth.

“You made me eat so many fucking cheese puffs I’m not even hungry right now.” He wheezed through his words and you saw him wiping at his eyes while you forced yourself to swallow before rice flew out of your nose.

He was holding his stomach as he laughed and the tight pained wince on his face only made you laugh harder.

You had eaten all you could and Baekhyun abandoned his food before he even started due to a certain cheese puff armed psychopath.

You’d stood to clear away the plates when you heard the hum of his phone vibrating on the table. You’d made your way into the kitchen when his voice piped up from where he was seated at the table staring down at whatever he had just received on his phone.

“Hey, uhh...h-how should I respond to this girl?”

“Girl? Baekhyun are you chatting with someone?” You perked up, instantly way more interested in what was happening on his phone than washing these dishes and you quickly rounded the corner back into the dining room to find out more.

“Oh wait, nevermind, I think...I don’t think she’s serious.” His voice weakened when his phone vibrated again and you’d reached a spot where you could clearly see the messages he had just received.

From Vixxxen18 again. You rolled your eyes hard enough for them to ache just seeing that familiar screen name.

“Ugh, this bitch again,” you said in a disgusted voice and you saw the flinch in his shoulders. He darkened a shade and you quickly grabbed the phone to steady it so you could clearly see what she wanted this time.

‘Hey honey, DTF tonight?’

You read the message out loud and he held his hands over his face and squirmed in his seat.

“Peanut do you know what DTF means?”

“Yes. I know what it means.” He interrupted you before you could get the whole sentence out. His ears were pink. You heard the clench of his jaw muffle his words as he spoke.

Her next message you didn’t read out-loud.

‘Spot me 50 for gas and I’ll come over’

“Gas doesn’t cost fifty dollars,” you scowled under your breath and your fingers were typing before you had a chance to second think.

‘Shouldn’t we get to know each other a little bit first?’

Her response came quickly and made your blood boil.

‘What makes you think I want to know you’

“Oh I’m going to kick her ass,” you said right before the phone was plucked out of your hands so fast you still moved your thumbs as you typed in the air, ready to give this bitch a piece of your mind.

“Settle down, Cheese Puffs, she's actually not that bad most of the time,” he said and he was closing out the messaging program quickly before you could say anything else to literally the worst human being you’d ever had a two second conversation with.

Your breathing was heavy and you must have had a look in your eyes that made him uncomfortable because he was reaching down to grab your hand and he tugged lightly toward the living room sofa. He was swiping with his other hand on his phone again.

“Here, I have some matches on the dating profile you made me. Why don't we have a look through them and find someone who’s ass you don't want to kick.”

He plopped down with a huff and you quickly sat down beside him, leaning well against his arm so you could see his screen clearly.

“God, you’re so mean today. What’s gotten into you? Ever since you woke up from that dream last night you’ve been ready to kill anyone who moves.”

You’d taken over the scrolling and found yourself lost in the freedom of judging the girls on his phone screen as he mused about what a grump you were.

Boring. Bland. Brainless. Vapid. Ugh.

As you flipped through them you not so quietly voiced how much you hated every one of them. Sure, for someone they could have been perfect but for him, they were not.  His complaints about you went silent and as he watched the scrolling.

At last you found someone who seemed to fit some sort of idealized image you had of the perfect girl for him and you stopped scrolling instantly with a quiet gasp. He wasn’t saying anything about her though and you looked up excitedly at his face expecting him to be reading the profile she had carefully written, or looking through the pictures you oh so slowly scrolled past but instead of looking down at the phone his eyes were just watching you.

It was an odd and calm observation of only your face. And when you grabbed ahold of his eyes with your searching ones you raised your eyebrows and tilted your head down, pointing with the angle of your face at his phone screen so he could see her, so he could see Mia who lived only 5 miles away from him and had seen all of the animes that he liked and played the same kinds of computer games he played and was honest to god, cute as a damn button. Perfect! You wanted to squeal.

“Peanut,” you whispered and his eyes widened and his eyebrows danced on his face as he finally, finally looked down in his lap where the phone sat.

But the screen was now black. It had timed out. You clicked on a button on the side and it prompted him to log in again and what was wrong with him? Why wasn’t he unlocking it already? You grabbed his hand and his eyes glanced down where you touched his fingertips, carefully tracing with his index finger over the pattern he used to unlock his phone and it came back to life — the smiling, lovely image of Mia who lived only 5 miles away and was just absolutely perfect.

“Bug,” He said softly as he looked down at his phone screen and your smile was naturally wide as he watched each image fly across his screen. The anticipation of his reaction was killing you. He had to be as excited about this as you were. He at least seemed to be paying attention to the pictures this time.

But he wasn't squealing or even smiling about her. The silence on his side got you talking again. A quick nervous sort of talking to fill up the quiet. “She’s cute. And she's nice, I can feel it. And she's perfect for you. Let’s message her.”

You lifted a finger to your chin and thrust your eyes into the air to think. You thought back to some of the opening lines you’d been fed by the men you dated and you opened the window to send a message to Mia from Baekhyun.

“Bug,” he said again, even quieter than he had called before and it stood out to you that he had been trying for a while to get your attention now and you were so distracted with how much fun this was that you hadn’t really acknowledged him.  You were being presumptuous. Just because you liked her didn’t necessarily mean he did. It even occurred to you that maybe you were being downright rude.

So you looked at him. Lifted your eyebrows up and rested the phone back down on his knee cap so he would say what he wanted to say already. You braced for the rejection of the cutest girl in his list of matches.

But instead of speaking he just looked at you and you slowly began to hear the actual ticking of the clock on the wall across the room from where you both sat. After much too long his eyes fell to look down the phone in your hand and you heard the smallest, softest scoff from his chest and he closed his eyes once with a long sigh.

And then he was nodding his head with his eyes closed up tight. “Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, send her a message. If you say she’s perfect, then she’s perfect.”

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4

Tag list: @j-pping  @blahblahblah-boo  @his-mochi-cheeks  @amyeonzing@littleflowercrown13  @baekinmylife  @insta1010  @nana-banana  @f4ncyvelvet@bbhbeth  @beg0neth0t420 

[battybatzgirl]

Hey Mr. Sandman, You Missed a Spot

AO3

Summary: 

It's not that Hunter doesn't ever sleep, Eda's come to realize. It was that he falls asleep sporadically, most of the time in really weird places.

Or: 5 times Eda catches Hunter taking a nap

Part 1 of the Finders Keepers Series

---

Here’s the thing about Eda: she loves naps. Eda likes to be cozy, so usually, that equated to curling up under a blanket, lazing around, and falling asleep. The Owl Beast shared that sentiment, the creature that lived within her constantly wanting to nest. Those animalistic instincts were weird, but when you lived in a house with a demon who also liked to bury himself under a pile of stuffed animals, you kind of got used to it.

Here’s the thing about Hunter: he doesn’t sleep.

The kid has been living with them for only about two weeks, officially replacing Eda as Public Enemy Numero Uno in the eyes of the Emperor. When he’d showed up on Hooty’s doorstep, all bloody and barely conscious, Eda thought it was some kind of cosmic trick. The Powers That Be had to be pulling her leg because this was the second time the leader of the Emperor’s Coven had shown up to the Owl House with nowhere else to go.

Luz had been ecstatic to welcome him in, apparently excited to finally fulfill her dreams of becoming a middle child in their weird little found family. King was less thrilled, but eventually warmed up to the idea of Hunter staying with them as long as he taught King his secrets on how to command an army.

Hunter himself even seemed unnerved at the thought of living with them. He tried to leave a few times when he was still wounded, but his little bird palisman (Rascal, she’s heard him say) effectively herded him back into the house by continuously dive-bombing him and nipping at his ears. And after Belos put out a wanted poster for the kid, making him the Isles’ number one most wanted traitor, leaving wasn’t really an option. Not if he wanted to stay alive.

So eventually, Hunter begrudgingly accepted that yeah, he lived in the Owl House now.

And alright, Eda isn’t heartless. The kid was lost, wounded, and an enemy of the Emperor. She can work with that.

Getting to know him has been a challenge, though. Hunter has a lot of weird quirks. He holds himself so seriously that Eda has a hard time remembering that he’s a teenager and not a fully grown middle-aged man. He hardly ever smiles. He’s jumpy, practically jolting out of his skin every time you walk into the same room. He’s clearly Going Through Some Shit, as Eda so eloquently calls it, remembering how Lily went through the same thing when she slowly broke free of Belos’s freaky subjugation.

But still. The kid doesn’t sleep.

Eda first notices it around day four of his residence. She’s up early to go to the market, stepping into the living room and nearly transforming into her Harpy Form out of pure shock when she sees a figure messing with her bookshelf in the back of the room. Wide maroon eyes lock on hers from across the room and she feels the feathers that sprung to her skin recede.

“Titan, kid,” she breaths, “You nearly killed me. What are you doing up? It’s Saturday, you should be sleeping in.”

“Um…I did sleep in,” Hunter responds, as if it’s obvious.

Eda feels a frown tug at her lips, “The sun isn’t even up yet.”

The kid just shrugs a little lamely, and Eda feels a twinge of concern in her chest. (And ugh, feeling concerned for a guy who dangled you over the Boiling Sea is certainly weird.) If this was sleeping in for him, he couldn’t have rested more than five hours.

She steps closer, taking a second look at what he’s doing. Half the books are spread out on the floor, the other half stacked neatly back on the shelves in some kind of order.

He notices her looking, “I, uh, took the liberty of reorganizing your bookshelf. Or organizing it, since it didn’t really seem to have a system.” The kid ducks his head, the tips of his ears flushing pink. “I- I can put it back the way it was if you want, or organize them in a different way.”

That’s another thing about Hunter: he always has to be doing something. Being useful. Without direction, he crumples. It was always, What do you want me to do now, Miss Clawthorne this and I completed this task, Miss Clawthorne, what’s next that. His brain operated on a transactional level—I do this thing for you, you do this thing for me. And since Eda was housing him, he felt like he had to constantly be doing things for her. Constantly proving himself worthy to be here, repaying her. Hunter couldn’t seem to wrap his head around that she didn’t want him to do anything except stay comfortable.

Eda has thought up a hundred different little tasks for him to do in just his first four days. She’s running out of odd jobs to give him, and if she has to keep telling him what to do she’s going to start pulling out her hair.

“You’re fine, kid,” she says. “Keep doin’ what you’re doin’ if it makes ya happy. But you shouldn’t be up this early. You should at least take a nap later.”

Hunter tilts his head. “But that wouldn’t be accomplishing anything.”

“You don’t hafta be working all the time,” Eda stresses. “It’s okay to sit around and just exist once and a while. Actually, I think that should be your priority. Take a nap, relax, go cloud watching, take a walk—any or all of the above.”

“That sounds like doing nothing.��

“That’s because it is doing nothing.”

His face hardens, taking on that soldier-like seriousness that encompasses his entire demeanor. “Being lazy can’t be a priority.”

“Don’t think of it like that, then,” Eda almost snaps, wishing for a nice hot mug of apple blood. It was too damn early to deal with the repercussions of Belos’s all-work-no-play mindset. “Think of it as acting your age. Did you ever get to take naps as a kid in the Emperor’s Coven? Is relaxing just a foreign concept to you?”

He doesn’t answer, staring at her with those bagged eyes and guarded expression, and Eda throws up her hands in defeat.

She leaves then, her patience running too thin to continue arguing with him. She doubts he’ll actually go back to sleep. He probably goes back to doing whatever he was doing with that bookshelf. Eda makes a mental note to tell King to knock all the books off, just so Hunter can reorganize it later. Just for something for him to keep him occupied.

1.

Eda doesn’t even notice the first time it happens. It was one of Luz’s friends, Gus, who pointed it out.

The kids were gathered at her home after school, spread out on the floor of the living room along with various pillows and blankets. Luz found some card game she knew buried somewhere in the piles of human trash Eda has laying around, and the girl has been spending the better part of an hour trying to explain how it works.

“So the Wild Card doesn’t make you turn into a wild animal?” Willow questions, holding up a black card with looks like a colorful pie chart on it.

“Nope!” Luz says cheerfully. “It just becomes any color you want it to be to go with the rest of your hand.”

“But the card doesn’t actually change color?” Amity asks.

“No, it only represents the color,” Luz clarifies, and Eda has to admit, her girl has a ton of patience. She’s been quietly watching from her place on the couch, half-listening to their conversation, half-reading the Isles’ latest edition of You Gossipy Witch, a tabloid where a writer is speculating about her true form. Apparently, some people think she was raised by feral, wild owls on some far away barrier island, and has come to reside in Bonesborough just because she ran out of mutant rats to eat.

Weird.

But entertaining!

Gus holds up one of his cards, “So are blank cards bad, or—"

King jumps over his shoulder, landing on the deck of cards in the middle of their little circle and making them fly everywhere. “I have taken dominion over ALL YOUR CARDS. All of you must grovel for a taste of my wealth!”

“Actually, the point of the game is to get rid of all your cards,” Luz reminds him gently. “That way, when you get down to one card, you shout Uno! And you win! If no one else makes you draw anymore, that is.”

King deflates a little, apparently put off by the idea of less is more. “Oh.” Luz smiles and pats him on the head, and he brightens up. “Okay, let’s play, because I wanna make all of you draw as many cards as possible! You'll drown in your cards! Choke on them, even!”

As they start gathering up the cards that King threw everywhere, Gus lets out a little gasp. “You guys—is Hunter asleep?”

That immediately draws Eda’s attention away from the magazine. Her eyes flicker to the blond witch, laying on his stomach just on the edge of their group. He was still having a hard time socializing, especially with Amity, but Luz was determined to include him in all friendship activities. She said wanted to teach him how to be a kid, and hell, if anyone could knock some seriousness out of that boy it would be Luz.

Hunter is indeed asleep—his face is mushed into the forearms pillowed under his head, and his red palisman has weaseled its way to nestle in between the crook of his elbow. His breath comes out in soft little sighs, and Eda feels something in her melt.

“Awwww, he looks so peaceful,” Luz croons, mushing her palms against her cheeks. Amity’s already scooched past her, snapping photos on her scroll. Eda can’t blame her. She knows a good blackmail opportunity when she sees one.

Eda’s off the couch and catches King mid-pounce. “Whoa there, none of that buddy.”

“But Edaaaa,” the demon whines, his little arms and legs flailing in mid-air. “I have to conquer him when he least expects it!”

“Ehhh, let the kid sleep. Save your conquests for when he’s awake and can put up a fight.” Eda sets him down in his place in the circle, and the kids all glance at each other before turning back to the cards.

She notices that they’re more mindful to keep their tones softer, probably to not disturb the sleeping boy. And when Hunter wakes himself up about half an hour later, they don’t mention it, seamlessly integrating him back into their game.

2.

The second time it happens, Raine is walking Eda home. It’s early in the evening, and the pair just got done with a fabulous date—a picnic with apple blood and sweet (and stolen) baked goods? Titan, take Eda now, she’s found her perfect match.

She’s still riding that high, not noticing Raine stopping until they tug on their clasped hands. “Hey, who’s that? Is he okay?”

Eda follows where they’re pointing their finger. It’s Hunter, slumped against the base of an oak tree, fast asleep. His chin is tipped forward and a book open on his chest, and even more strangely, there’s a small pile of leaves on his lap.

“Oh, that’s just my—” Eda stops herself, the word catching in her throat. Hunter was a child in her care, yes, but he wasn’t quite her kid. Not like Luz or King. The blond witch was still too jumpy, baring his teeth and snarling at anything that tried to get close to him.

He calls her Miss Clawthorne, for Titan’s sake.

“—Hunter,” Eda finishes lamely.

Raine raises an eyebrow. “Your Hunter?”

“He’s uhhh, one of Luz’s friends who just so happens to be living with us. Not a big thing.”

Raine shoots her a deadpan look but strides forward anyway, kneeling next to the sleeping blond. They keep their voice to a low murmur, “Should we wake him? That can’t be comfortable for his neck. He’ll probably be sore later.”

“Eh, let him rest. This is more sleep than he usually gets.” Eda steps closer, kneeling down on his other side. It’s the side that has his scar, the slightly raised red tissue standing out even more so than usual now that he wasn’t constantly moving. She’s almost asked him how he got it, but he’s clearly sensitive about the subject. She’s seen the similar marks on his arms, and something tells her there are a whole lot more scars that he’s hiding.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who gave them to him.

Still, it’s hard to ignore just how young he looks. When he’s stripped of all of his snappy comebacks, quick defenses, and that guarded demeanor Belos forced onto him, he’s reduced to exactly what he should be:

A kid.

“Oh!” Raine startles in surprise. Eda looks up to see the cardinal palisman fluttering down from above them, carrying a few leaves in its beak. It hops down onto Hunter’s lap and deposits the leaves in the little growing pile on his leg.

A smile worms its way onto Eda’s face. She runs a finger across the little bird’s head, “Trying to keep him warm, huh?” The bird lets out a trilling note of confirmation. She lets the bird be, turning back to Raine, “I think Rascal’s got this covered. If he hasn’t come in before nightfall I’ll come out and get ‘em.”

The bard casts one last glance down at the sleeping boy before they stand. “Y’know, he kind of reminds me of someone.”

“Oh yeah?” Eda weaves her arm through Raine’s as the pair reassumes their walk.

“Yeah,” Raine hums. “He kind of has the same build as someone I met when I was held hostage in the Emperor’s palace. The Golden Guard. Did you hear that he ran away from the palace? There've been rumors that the Emperor himself is tearing apart the Right Arm looking for him.”

“Uh, about that...”

Raine stops, turning to look at her square in the face. Eda gives them a sheepish, toothy grin.

“Oh my god,” Raine says. “You adopted the Golden Guard?”

“Hey now, adopted is a very strong word—”

The bard cuts her off with a delighted laugh. “How am I not surprised?” Eda feels heat rise to her face, but can’t help but return Raine’s infectious smile. “Only you, Eda. Only you.”

3.

The third time it happens, Eda’s passing through the upstairs hallway, intent on curling up into her nest for an afternoon nap of her own. She hears a shuffling noise as she passes by the glorified storage closet that they gave Hunter as a room, and can’t resist a peek inside.

What she finds is definitely…not what she was expecting. Hunter is laying flat on his back on the floor, his feet elevated on the little cot they’d given him. Yeesh, that couldn’t be comfortable. Soft snores woosh past his open lips, his face turned toward a crystal ball that’s playing some cartoon he must have been watching before he fell asleep.

His body is nearly covered in stuffed animals.

“King,” Eda hisses. The horned perpetrator is in the middle of dumping his entire army onto the blond witch’s chest, pinning down his arms with plushies. “What did I tell you about burying people alive?”

The demon pauses from where he’s been slowly arranging his army over Hunter’s sleeping form. “He’s got plenty of room to breathe! I didn’t cover his face,” King protests. “Can’t subjugate someone who’s dead.”

“No subjugating—” your brother, she almost says, “—Hunter.”

King squints at her, but then grumbles and starts slowly taking the stuffed animals off the boy’s body. Crisis averted, Eda slips back out into the hall, mind swirling. That was the second time she’d almost referred to Hunter as hers in passing. The feeling is too raw to speak out loud yet, but there’s a growing warmth in her as she watches Hunter acclimate to his surroundings in the Owl House. With every day that goes by, he’s more comfortable around her, around Luz and King and Hooty, and he’s starting to come out of his shell. He’s growing softer, less quick to snarl, becoming more Hunter and less Golden Guard.

Unconsciously, Eda’s started viewing him as part of their little family. Two weeks ago, that thought would have made her uncomfortable. Now, she welcomes it with open arms.

Ugh, she’s getting so soft.

4.

The fourth time it happens is when Eda’s flying home from visiting Lilith. She’s only been gone for the day, and is hoping that leaving Luz in charge hasn’t led to any freak fires, the resurrection of the dead, or other various natural disasters. Unfortunately, even her most responsible kid is pretty reckless, so Eda’s expectations are set pretty low.

It’s probably sometime around 2 a.m. when she makes it home sweet home. She swoops in close, intent on landing on the front door but stilling mid-air when she sees something on the roof of the tower. Even from up here, it’s not hard to distinguish the form of a looming body.

Eda’s heart leaps into her throat and she takes Owlbert down into a dive. Her body is tense when she lands, her staff already aimed toward the person lurking by the edge of the roof. “Alright listen bucko, you better step back or—wait.” She sees what looks like a lump of feathers sitting on top of the person’s head, and Eda squints in the darkness. She quickly pulls out a light glyph, sending the tiny ball of sun forward.

“Hunter?!” Eda’s tense posture relaxes. The kid doesn’t answer, and it takes her a beat to figure out why. He’s dead asleep, slumped precariously over the telescope they use for stargazing. Eda has no idea how he’s even standing at all. Kid probably had a ton of practice of falling asleep on his feet during long, boring meetings with the Emperor.

“Wakey, wakey.” She places her hand on his shoulder, gently, but he wakes up with a full-body jerk, startling the palisman on top of his head. The cardinal chirps once in irritation, fluttering to rest on Eda’s shoulder instead.

Hunter’s eyes are wild for a moment until he seems to register where he is and who he’s with. He relaxes then, letting out a yawn so huge it would put any lion to shame. “…Eda?”

“The one and only,” Eda says, ignoring how her heart squeezes at the kid finally calling her by her name. “Wanna tell me why you’re up here in the middle of the night?”

“Waitin’ for you,” he mumbles, voice rough with sleep. His eyelids drop and he sways dangerously on his feet. “Wanted to… t’make sure y’got home safe.”

The warmth in her chest expands and eclipses her entire body in that fuzzy feeling she gets whenever one of her kids does something particularly adorable. Thank Titan it’s dark and Hunter is too out of it to notice the smile that spreads across her face. If he was fully awake, Eda gets the feeling that A) he probably never would have admitted that he was worried about her, and B) would have snapped at her for smiling at him like that. “Well, I’m home now, so let’s get you to bed before you topple over.”

Eda wraps her arm around his waist and nudges him along, practically carrying him back downstairs, their palismen following close behind. She doesn’t mind. Someone had to make sure he didn’t fall off the roof.

“Night, kid,” she says, tucking him under the blankets on his cot. Hunter doesn’t respond, already having slipped back into unconsciousness. And if she brushes his bangs tenderly out of his face, no one ever has to be the wiser.

5.

The fifth time it happens, Eda’s gotten used to it. It's not that Hunter doesn’t sleep, she’s come to realize. He just falls asleep in weird places. Why, she has no idea, but honestly, the kid looked so tired all the time, she wasn’t going to question it. They had bigger things to worry about.

The Day of Unity is just around the corner, and Belos has become more irritating than ever.

Eda hadn’t even thought that was possible for him, but apparently, it was. The scouts around Bonesborough have tripled, their captains leading more and more raids, butting into shops to check everyone’s papers, and invading random districts.

Oddly, Belos’s priorities seem to have shifted. He’s still sending out grunts to round up any wild witches, but the guards have been playing a weird sort of hide-and-seek, going beyond just patrolling the marketplaces to actually tearing into people’s homes. From what she’s heard, the guards never take anything, just searching the place top-to-bottom before leaving empty-handed and moving on to the next house.

Belos was looking for something.

And unfortunately, Eda’s got a pretty good idea of what he’s after.

Said thing just so happens to be slumped across from her at the kitchen table, dead to the world. It’s late into the night, and most of the kids have already gone to sleep. Too on edge to lie down, Eda’s been keeping herself busy by concocting more potions while the late-night news plays on her crystal ball in the background.

Hunter, striving to be helpful, volunteered to stay up and help.

It wasn’t long before the kid slowly started to nod off, face supported by his palm as his eyelids started to droop. He’d been in the middle of mixing two ingredients—highly flammable ingredients, mind you—and Eda plucked the vials out of his lax grip just in time. Honestly, it was a miracle the kid never killed himself in the Emperor’s Coven with how randomly he falls asleep.

He probably never got the chance to sleep at all, a voice reminds her. She remembers how dead-exhausted Lily was during her first few days at the Owl House. It was probably safe to assume that the Emperor had a habit of running the head of his Coven into the ground.

Hunter has been picking up on Belos’s tightening grip, too. He’s been getting quieter, more reserved. He’s come to the same conclusion that Eda has: the Emperor was tearing apart the whole of the Isles to get him back.

Why, though, is anyone’s guess. Hunter has long since explained that his uncle always said that the Titan had big plans for him, and it probably has something to do with the Day of Unity, but beyond that, the Emperor had always kept him in the dark. Luz has a crazy theory involving clones and blood magic, but that sounds like it’s a plot point straight out of one of her Azura books. King thinks Belos wants his artificial staff back, and Hooty predicts the Emperor is just sad because all his Coven leaders are leaving him to join Hooty’s superior best friends club.

Whatever the reason, Eda’s made it pretty clear that she’s not gonna bend to Belos’s intimidation tactics and turn him over. That smarmy gold jerk could set the whole Isles on fire and Eda still wouldn’t hand him over. Hunter’s part of the Bad Girl’s Coven now, and Belos can just suck it. And she’s not afraid to say that to his stupid face, either.

So when the cauldron at the end of the table that holds the scrying potion suddenly begins bubbling on its own, Eda may very well get her chance.

She’s up on her feet in an instant, dashing to the other end of the table just as the steam rising off the potion begins to warp into a familiar figure.

“Edalyn,” Belos greets, his voice sharp like a dagger. “I do hope I’m not interrupting your evening, but I needed a word with you.”

Ugh, scrying potions weren’t supposed to work both ways! Belos was too damn powerful. He could probably peer into their lives as much as they could peer into his.

“Sorry, but now’s a bad time,” Eda shoots back. “Why don’t you hang up and call back literally never?”

“It’s come to my attention that you have something of mine,” the masked man continues smoothly as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’d ever so appreciate it if you gave it back.”

Eda’s lip curls back, feeling the itch of feathers poking out of her joints. She wants to shift into her harpy form and leap through the potion to claw out his eyes. “Sorry, Belos,” she says, dripping smug bravado, “We wild witches operate solely under the laws of finders keepers. Your kid? Mine now.”

Eda expects that the Emperor would very much like to vaporize her. “Make your threats wisely, Owl Lady. You have no idea what you’re up against. Everything will be easier for you and your little friends if you just hand the boy back over to me.”

“Fat chance.” Eda throws back her shoulders and shoots him a sharp grin. “Sounds to me like you’re threatening one of my kids, and we weirdos stick together. Going after one of us is basically asking for all of us to bring you down. Remember how well that went last time? How my human cracked your mask and publicly humiliated you during your big let’s-turn-Eda-to-stone ceremony?”

The Emperor looks as though he has some choice words to say, but Eda doesn’t care. Hunter is her kid now. She glowers at him through that mist, voice lowering in with deadly promise. “You’ll have to drag him back to your Coven over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged,” sneers Belos.

“Try me, antler boy.” Then Eda whacks the cauldron and sends it tipping over the edge of the table. The connection is immediately severed as the potion goes splattering over the hardwood, and the resounding CLANG of the bowl makes Hunter shoot violently out of sleep.

“Huh?! Whassit—Eda? What happened? Are you alright?”

“Fine, kid,” she says, swallowing down the rage that’s still bubbling hot in her throat. “’S alright, just got a little clumsy and knocked over a cauldron. Sorry for waking you.”

“Sorry for falling asleep,” Hunter responds. He grabs a towel and hurries to clean up the oozing purple goo.

Eda waves him off, “Eh, I don’t mind. You kids need your rest. Growing bodies and all that.”

Hunter still hesitates, looking at her for a beat too long as if double-checking to make sure she wasn’t really upset. Eda holds back a sigh, a twinge of pity flickering through her that he’d even have to look at her like that in the first place. All the damage from Belos couldn’t be wrapped up in a month, she supposed.

She snatches up the cauldron, still dripping with the ruined potion. Peachy. She’ll have to call Lilith to get her scrying potion recipe. Though maybe not having this in the house was a good idea. Eda doesn’t want to risk His Royal Highness dropping in on any more unexpected house calls.

“Eda?”

She looks up at Hunter. The kid chewing on his bottom lip, wringing the half-soiled towel between scarred hands.

“I just…I wanted to say thank you,” Hunter says shyly. “I know having me here hasn’t exactly been easy—not only because of the fugitive thing, but because I’m…” He flounders for a moment, and Eda can only pretend to know what’s going through his mind right now. “…me,” he finishes finally. “You’ve been so kind and patient with me, it’s so much more than I deserve, and no matter what happens next—”

“Hey, no.” Eda cuts him off with a swift and gentle beratement. She sets the cauldron on the table and crowds closer to him, curling one hand around his cheek. The kid automatically leans into the touch, and Eda can’t help but wonder how Belos could have ever hurt a child who was as sweet as this one.

“You may be one bratty little shit, but you’re my bratty little shit. And Mama says you deserve all the smothering that comes with being a child of the Owl Lady.”

Then, to prove her point, she swoops down and quickly places feather-light kisses on the tip of his nose, forehead, and his scar, until Hunter squawks and shoves her away. He’s practically glowing, flushed all the way to the tips of his ears.

“Gross,” he snaps, rubbing furiously at his face. “I’m never helping you with your potions ever again.”

“I’ll accept your terms. Now get upstairs, it’s way past your bedtime.”

“I don’t have a bedtime, I’m not a baby.” Hunter sticks out his tongue but obeys, slipping out of the kitchen and disappearing into the rest of the house. Eda shakes her head as she watches him go.

Kids. What could ya do with ‘em?

[blush-and-books]

blushandbooks ao3 masterlist

full list of my completed fanfiction works:

** = Personal Favorite

JULIE AND THE PHANTOMS - julie x luke:

been dreaming that you feel it too**

CHECK OUT THIS BEAUTIFUL GIFSET FROM @chasethesun18 AND THIS AMAZING AESTHETIC FROM @kybee1497

》》 Canonverse 5+1: Five times that Luke and Julie touch each other in public, and the one time in private

Start at Chapter 1 here

what doesn’t kill me makes me want you more**

》》 Angels and Demons multichap AU NOW COMPLETE

Start at Chapter 1 here 

i couldn't write a love song that captures you if i tried

》》 A nightmare-filled night for Julie leads to her and Luke forming a habit; one-shot

Read It Here

cinnamon*

》》 Thanksgiving at the Molina household, featuring some new helping hands. (Oneshot)

Read It Here

another broken-hearted good morning to the good side of your ghost**

》》 Sad. Just sad. The boys cross over, Juke feels, Julie trying to move on.

Read It Here

i can't dare to dream about you anymore**

》》 songfic based off of gold rush by t.s.; 5+1

Read It Here

i’m going out of my mind

》》 julie and the phantoms does carpool karaoke

Read It Here

fate will always take the reins (and it wants you and me)

》》 Juke Christmas Fluff for JATP Secret Santa 2020

Read It Here

wisdom teeth

》》 julie gets her wisdom teeth out, and insists that luke take care of her

Read It Here

something good

》》julie and luke get to bond over a movie they both know and love: The Sound Of Music.

Read It Here

i always fall for confidence (your compliments look good on me)**

》》 luke works at the public library, and when julie stumbles in one day, it’s the catalyst for their crushes on one another to grow.

Read It Here

i know it’s just a number, but you’re the eighth wonder**

》》 Luke breaks into the school, and instead of getting suspended, he is forced to participate in the Los Feliz High School production of The Music Man. Luckily, he has Julie Molina by his side through it all.

Read It Here

i am always yours

》》One-shot in which Luke listens to Panic! At The Disco at Julie’s request.

Read It Here

i’m sorry, but i fell in love tonight

》》Julie reflects on how falling for Luke was inevitable, despite how hard she tried to avoid it. 

Read It Here

i know your heart like the back of my hand

》》 Modern AU where Julie and Luke help Alex go ring shopping - but it opens their eyes to more.

Read It Here

take me back to the light

》》Celestial AU in which Julie is the Goddess of the Sun, Luke is the God of the Moon, and they fall into a doomed romance. 

Read It Here

but we’re the greatest - they’ll hang us in the louvre

》》drabbles from requests I received to celebrate 1.5k followers on Tumblr

Read Them Here

your paint can stain my skin anytime you want**

》》Julie is an art school student, and she needs a muse for her final project. Thank God for the random stranger she meets on the beach.

Read It Here

covered in the colors (pulled apart at the scenes)

》》Julie and Luke, royalty from enemy kingdoms, find themselves sent to the same secret bunker for protection during a war between their kingdoms. And what better way to pass the time than to hatch a peace treaty, and fall in love?

Read It Here

call me babe for the weekend**

》》AU where Julie and Luke are from Seattle, WA; Julie became famous while Luke stayed in the city, but one visit for Christmas could change their fractured relationship.

Read it here

please don’t leave don’t leave me in the shape you left me**

》》AU where Julie meets Luke after losing her mom, but she doesn’t know their time together is limited. Sweet, but doesn’t have a happy ending - be warned. Character study on Julie’s grief.

Read it here

(Fake) Lover of Mine**

》》3-part collaboration with @lydias--stiles and @bluefirewrites - Julie and Luke are both successful musical artists, but after they are both snubbed for Grammy noms, their management decides that they need to start dating in order to keep their names in the press. While it’s all for show at first, they start to behave the same way behind closed doors as they do in front of the cameras, and they find themselves catching feelings that they never planned for.

Read it here

requests {closed} and drabbles {tumblr exclusive}

she lives in daydreams with me (3+1 based off of she by harry styles)

always you-shaped thoughts inside my head (written in the We Found Wonderland universe by pink-flame)

julie brings luke back to life one makeout session at a time*

luke patterson doesn’t write love songs

“I told you to take care of yourself”*

kissing someone’s cuts/bruises*

forehead kisses/big warm hugs/peppering kisses all over someone’s face*

“Kiss me”

tugging on the edge of someone’s shirt

giggly cuddles

play-biting

“You took all the pillows, so I’m using you as one”

“Is that my shirt?” x “Can I stay here tonight?”

long hugs

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

STRANGER THINGS - joyce x hopper: 

they took our love, and they filled it up**

》》9K of intense pining; Hanahaki disease AU

Read it here 

i know his name (i think about him every day)**

》》 4K words; Season 4 Joyce Byers character study into how she’s mourning Jim and adjusting to her new life in Lenora

Read it here 

my love is yours (if you’re willing to take it)

》》Post S4-Vol.1 - what follows after Jim’s rescue, and an intimate moment shared between him and Joyce; 3K words

Read it here

[opal-nite]

delicate; b.barnes

chapter seventeen - “wouldn’t dream of it”

delicate masterlist

word count: 4.7k

synopsis: reader has a strange dream that ends up bringing on a cascade of various events and feelings.

pairings: bucky barnes x fem!reader

A/N: feel free to drop any opinions/thoughts/predictions below (or in my asks if u wanna be anonymous!!)

She would have woken up from a night's sleep saturated with regret... if she had slept a wink. She spent the night tossing and turning, and at about five in the morning, the pursuit of rest was abandoned.

Forcefully and exasperatedly, she sat straight up, glaring at the clock and letting the blanket pool around her waist. Y/N had her weekly meeting with Shuri at nine o'clock... that meant four hours to kill. More like four more hours of trudging through thoughts, memories, questions, and fears surrounding the previous day. Four more hours of ruminating over Bucky Barnes. This seemed to become a reoccurring activity her life.

She stared at the wall, thinking about how before, there was at least the excuse of being drunk: maybe not completely knowing what she was doing, maybe not remembering something correctly. But they were sober this time... she was sober. And what struck her was that, when it happened, when he kissed her, there was no moment of initial startle. There was no surprise jerk back or woah-what-are-you-doing response. Their bodies just fell into form. She just fell into form. Like it was an instinct. Like they were both used to it, and had done it a number of times before.

She wasn't sure what shocked her more: the fact that he kissed her or the fact that she kissed him back. Was he being bold? Or did she lead him on? Had she been leading him on? He wouldn't have done it on his own account, right? She had a degree of difficulty in believing she was wanted. Truly.

She could've sworn that she wasn't this emotionally invested. She could've sworn that if she couldn't control what she was feeling, she could at least control what she was doing. She rubbed her eyes, wondering where she went so wrong. It probably happened at some point during the isolated time she had been spending with Bucky in a secret corner of the world, not minding the least bit that she had been away from home and work for months whilst working on a project hardly anyone else was even aware of.

Even with all this in mind, she didn't seem to care. She didn't really mind that she hadn't been home in ages, it didn't really bother her that she might be in trouble when she gets back for helping enemy of the state Sharon Carter, runaway fugitive Steve Rogers, or war criminal James Buchanan Barnes. Because every time she thought about the consequences, it just didn't seem to matter more than what was keeping her in Wakanda... Besides, she guessed Bucky would probably be pardoned and after everything settled down, who would pay any attention to her? It's not like she mattered in the grand scheme.

As soon as that very thought arose, she could hear Bucky's voice scolding her in the back of her head. Why was he always there?

Frustrated, she groaned into the air in front of her. Her feelings were so confusing, she wasn't even sure what exactly it was she felt towards Bucky. On one hand, she felt fiercely protective over him: she'd go down fighting before she'd let anyone lay a hand on him, prepared to stay in his corner forever, ready on defense.

But at the same time, she felt this ineffable sense of warmth for him. Like one look at the way his eyes crinkle when he smiled, and she'd turn soft as water. Like being in his vicinity smoothed out the rough around her edges.

And if all this wasn't enough, now she had been touched by him, she had felt his lips and the gentleness in his skin. This brought a cascade of new feelings, ones she knew she had to hide. It... was definitely a problem. She knew, don't get her wrong, she knew it was a problem. As much as she understood this irrefutable fact, the numbness in her lips just wouldn't go away. He had remained with her even hours later. She couldn't get rid of his heartbeat; it was still in her hand. She could still feel him.

Basically, she knew this most recent development was an issue. She knew it was bad, wrong, worrisome, and whatever else. And knowing this, recognizing the very hot water she was in, the only thing she could focus on was trying to ignore the recurrent desire to be near him, to find him and be close to him.

"Fuck."

She plopped back down on her back and elected to cast a burning glare at the ceiling until she had to get ready for her meeting.

—

"I think it might be too hot for this," she complained with a smile on her face.

"It was your idea," he said, a few steps ahead of her, "and we're almost there, so buck up."

She laughed. He smiled at the sound.

"What?" he asked.

"You said buck up. Like Buck... Bucky. Like you."

He just looked at her, amused. Sun kissed and happy.

"It's fitting," she shrugged, grinning.

"Guess so. Hurry up, slow poke. You're gonna fall behind."

"I'm already behind," she huffed . "Your super soldier legs are too fast for me."

"Well," he stopped short and she finally caught up, standing right beside him, "we're here. So worry not."

He looked over at her to find her already looking at him. Funny how their eyes always found each other like that.

"What?" he asked again, not able to help how the corners of his mouth turned up just slightly.

"Nothin.’ Everything," she shrugged. "You."

Perhaps she just liked looking at him. Him and his long hair and light eyes. Was that such a crime? His skin looked caramelized under the sun. She wanted to reach out and touch him.

"You're a real peach, y'know that?" he smirked.

She looked away, pretending to find the grass around them spectacularly interesting while hiding a dopey smile at his compliment.

"Hey, doll face. I'm a lot more fun than the grass, I swear," he teased. "Lemme see my favorite face."

"Hold on." She got an idea.

She reached down beside her and plucked a flower from the soil.

"A little hibiscus," she smiled, tucking the small flower behind his ear. God, he was just so pretty.

She stood back, satisfied with her decor. She sighed, content. How couldn't she be? She was looking at two of the most beautiful things. Flowers and Bucky.

As soon as it was securely in place, Bucky bent down to pick the hibiscus that sat right next to the one Y/N chose. Mirroring her actions, he placed it behind her ear.

"A little hibiscus," he repeated fondly, "for a real peach!"

She didn't dare try to hide the next dopey grin while taking in the sight before her, of Bucky beaming in the sunlight with a flower in his hair. Looking at this, she understood why mankind began to paint. Why there needed to be someway to capture something as precious as this, some method of preserving something so idyllic and beautiful and pure and perfect.

Perfect like the cool, fresh water of the lake. Their lake. Their place. The flowing, breathing water she felt around her waist. They floated around, her and Bucky, as light as air in that lake.

The two were weightless, adoration suspended in animation. The water preserved the feeling of feather light kisses and chests pressed together and hands beginning to roam. If only she could be closer to him. Her fingers in his hair and his palms on either side of her face wasn't enough. She needed more. More, more, more of him.

Skin is so soft and the sun is so warm and soon enough, the water was up to her shoulders as his arms ran up her back. Arms plural, she noticed. He held her with both, protectively enclosing the longing feeling between them.

"Oh, fucking hell!" Y/N sprang up, throwing the blanket off of her.

She must've fallen asleep... and began to dream... She could imagine if her brain was a person, it'd be laughing at her for that.

Why? Why? What was the reason for this? There was no point! How frustrating! How embarrassing that her mind betrayed her with dreams of him.

"God damn it," she swore under her breath.

She wanted to angrily shake her fist in the air like vengeful cartoon character, as she got out of bed and headed towards her wardrobe.

It was 8 a.m. One hour until her meeting with Shuri. She would spend the time changing her outfit until it was distracting enough to draw her attention away from thoughts of that damn lake... and his damn hands...

—

"My friend!" Shuri greeted in her usual upbeat manner. "How are you? How are things?"

There was absolutely no way to answer this honestly.

"I'm doin' well. Same old, same old. How 'bout you?"

"Good as always," she smiled. "Thank you."

Y/N took a seat at one of the tables in Shuri's lab. "So how is T'Challa doing with Nakia?"

"Oh, who knows these days! He is so awkward, I have no idea!"

They both laughed. Y/N was glad she and Shuri were able to talk like this. They weren't just robotic colleagues who only communicated when they needed to. They were partners, and they worked well together.

The meeting commenced like it did every other week. Updates on Bucky's progress, new ideas or adjustments to treatment or planning, going over scans or data, you name it. But this time, she had something else in mind. Something that a dream reminded her of. She had mentioned maybe getting her hands on a prosthetic for Bucky. She wasn’t familiar with the prosthetics industry in Wakanda, but they could probably make something work.

Was that too much? Did she care too much? Was she showing too much regard for him? Was this too much to ask of her?

"Hey, remember a couple weeks ago when I talked about prosthetics?"

"Of course," Shuri smiled. She genuinely enjoyed her partner - her partner who was intelligent, confident, and articulate but still sometimes sounded shy. "You wanna see what I've been working on?"

"You... you ordered one? I didn't-"

"Oh, no. Not ordered. Just you wait," she said, pulling out a drawer to dig amongst papers. "I've been workin' my magic."

Shuri pulled out a manilla folder that had W.W. - Proj. 1 printed on it.

She dropped the folder in front of the psychologist who sat across from her, gesturing for her to look through it. Y/N opened it to see several pages of prosthetics research, information on cybernetics and various designs for a bionic arm.

"Oh... wow." Y/N marveled.

"What do you think?"

"It's incredible," Y/N shook her head. "I didn't- ... I thought you meant you bought one or something. I didn't know you designed one"

"I didn't just design it. I made it."

"You- what?"

"Yep. First model ready for use. Do you want to see it?"

"I'd love to."

Shuri walked her over to a large, rectangular case in the side of the lab.

"Holy shit," she let slip.

The arm was astounding: a glossy black with ridges etched in a shiny gold. It glimmered, sitting in its casing.

Shuri laughed. Thank you."

"Sorry. Excuse my French. This is... remarkable. Can I give it to him?"

"I suppose so. It hasn't got much use just sitting in my lab."

Excitement grew in her chest. Bucky would be able to have an arm he was in control of, one that wasn't forcefully attached to him and used as a weapon. In a way, he would be gaining a sense of autonomy. God, she wanted to see him right away and tell him the news. She was happy to make Bucky happy.

"Oh," Shuri perked her head up. "And there was something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"Yeah, what's up?"

"You're aware of the trigger words, correct?"

"Of course."

"I'm close to fully deconstructing the mind control, but there's no way to know for sure unless we test it out..."

Oh. The excitement dissipated and her stomach dropped. She didn't mean...

"You don't mean..."

"The effect and response of the words needs to be tested on him."

Oh God. There was no way this would be easy.

"And you need to be the one to do it."

Fuck.

"Me?" she tried to hide her shock, her worry, her now overwhelming urge to protect him. "How come?"

"It seems like he trusts you most out of everyone here. I consulted with the Doras about safety and we think that if something were to go wrong, it'd be safest to happen with you. Of course they'll be nearby, but you'd be the one mostly likely to be able to control him in that state."

Her mouth went dry. Control him? She could never. She would never. She knew, in depth, the anguish he carried in his bones as a result of being trapped as a weapon wielded by other people. The thought of her controlling him made her skin crawl.

She knew how much he feared the Winter Soldier and how he would hate losing touch with himself again. He's been free from this kind of violation for a while now; she had very much rather not take that freedom away.

At the same time, she understood how this test was necessary for a full recovery and rehabilitation. And who knows if the words will even work? Maybe she'll say them and nothing will even happen.

He would have to get over this obstacle in order to make it to the other side clean. She could only imagine how scary this would be for him. But she'd be damned if she wasn't going to be right there with him.

"Okay," she said dryly. "When... when are we gonna do this?"

"Not yet but soon. I'll keep you updated."

The rest of the meeting carried on as usual, but Y/N might as well have not even been there. Her mind was off. Off somewhere trying to think of how to tell Bucky the news. The very last thing in the world she wanted to do was hurt him. She'd take his place if she could.

—

As soon as she was free from the calm, professional facade she had going with Shuri, she found herself speed walking back to where Bucky was. She needed to get to him. Now.

When his hut was in sight, she was nervous. She was nervous before, she supposed. She just wanted everything to be okay.

"Buck," she called, a few steps away from the entryway. "I need to talk to you!"

When she stepped inside she froze in place, staring blankly at the two super soldiers in front of her instead of the one she expected. Two as in Bucky and Steve.

"Y/N," Bucky stood up. He sounded surprised.

"Oh-uh," she stuttered. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I can come back later."

"That's okay," Steve's voice was gentle. "I'll leave you... to it."

Steve threw Bucky a look she couldn't quite decipher before he left. Bucky just looked panicked.

And soon enough they were alone. They stood directly in front of each other, but with a noticeably awkward amount of space between them. The tiny part of her brain that was still mulling over the dream wanted him closer.

"Hey," he said softly.

"Hey..."

"You wanted to talk?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "It's uh... there's kind of a lot."

"Look, about yesterday, I-"

Oh. She completely forgot about that. Well, not completely. There was no way she could forget that. But, at the moment there were more pressing matters on her mind.

"It's not about yesterday."

"It's...not?"

"No. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?"

"Uh... bad news?"

She took a steady breath in. She wasn't sure exactly how to tell him, she just knew he needed to know. He deserved nothing but the truth.

"So, I was just with Shuri and we discussed the next step in your treatment..."

He said nothing, waiting for the aforementioned "bad news." She continued.

"Apparently, we have to test the trigger words on you..."

His expression dropped and she watched all the color drain from his face.

"I know. I'm sorry. I don't wanna do it, but we have to do it to see if it's really outta your head."

"Yeah, that's the problem," he finally spoke. "What if it's not? Then I hurt someone - or multiple people. There's gotta be some other way to test it."

"You're not going to hurt anyone. Or multiple people."

"How can you say that?"

"It's just gonna be the two of us."

"What?!"

"Shuri thought the safest way of doing this was for me to conduct the test. That way, if things ever got out of hand, which is very unlikely to happen, I'd be the best bet at... handling... that situation. Since you know me the best."

"No way. There's no way. I thought you meant they were gonna strap me down and have some lab tech read them. This is way too unsafe-"

"Strap you down? Bucky, no-"

He still saw himself as an animal that needed to be contained. Muzzled.

"What if I hurt you?" his voice shook just a little.

The fear in his eyes was potent. It made her angry. Angry at Hydra and whoever the fuck else had a hand in this sin against the kind and gentle man who stood before her. The man who was genuinely scared of himself. How dare they make him feel so unsafe within his own mind, within his own body. All she wanted to do was make it better, and suddenly, she could no longer stand for the distance between them. She stepped forward and grasped his hand between both of hers.

"I trust you, Buck," she smiled a small but earnest smile, letting him know that she truly was here for him. "Entirely. I promise. Okay?"

He nodded, still reluctant and entirely scared.

"Do you trust me?" she asked.

"I do. I trust you, I do," he cast his glance downwards, almost in shame. "It's myself I don't trust."

Her chest twisted with an emotion difficult to place. Mostly, it was the desire to take every ounce of pain away. She wished she could just snap her fingers and make it fade into nothing.

"That's okay," she said.

He looked back up at her, confused.

"You don't have to trust yourself. That's hard enough as it is and Hydra didn't make it any easier. You just trust me, alright? I'm the one reading the words, so, even though I'd hate it, if you were to be... activated... you'd be listening to me not trying to fight me," she squeezed his hand. "And I will not let anything happen to you."

"I'm not worried about me..."

She knew. She was not stupid; she knew that Bucky was separate from the Winter Soldier and that theoretically, the Winter Soldier - and only the Winter Soldier - had the potential to hurt her. She wasn't blind to the dangers, but she also wasn't blind to the fact that there was no exact science to brainwashing. Whos to say nothing could ever seep through the programming? She knew what happened with Bucky when he was forced to fight Steve for the first time. How it changed him.

Even though the Winter Soldier was in there, there was more of Bucky. She knew that for sure. And she needed to make sure he knew one thing: even if the Winter Soldier was trying to claw his way back and entire world was against him, she saw Bucky and trusted Bucky and believed in Bucky. She was a constant. And she wouldn’t give up on him.

"What, you're worried about me?" she joked, lightheartedly. She took the hand she was holding and pressed it against her cheek. "This wouldn't hurt me, James Buchanan."

He sighed, feeling the warmth from her face. He did not deserve this kindness and he definitely did not trust himself despite her trust in him. Of course Bucky would never hurt her. But Bucky wasn't the Winter Soldier. And he didn't have the heart to tell her what the Winter Soldier could or would do. He didn't have the stomach to even think about what would happen if the Winter Soldier actually did something.

But there was something about the way she believed in him, the way her conviction was so strong. It made him almost start to doubt these feelings. He could never be sure of everything being okay, but at least he could be sure of her.

"Okay," he whispered.

"Okay?"

"I'll do it."

"Alright," she smiled.

She removed his hand from her face, but still held onto it.

"And even if you did try to fight me, I think I could go a couple rounds in the ring with the Winter Soldier. I'm big and tough."

They both laughed knowing she had very minimal fight training.

"You'd definitely kick my ass," Bucky chuckled.

She just smiled. And then her eyes grew wide.

"Oh! You wanna know the good news?"

"F'course."

Bucky watched her briefly disappear through the entryway before returning with a big, rectangular case. He raised an eyebrow.

"That's good news? What is it, a bomb?"

"I don't do bombs... arson only."

The look on his face made her wonder if he actually questioned whether or not she was serious. She fought laughter as she opened the case. It was silent for a moment. Y/N looked at him, waiting for a reaction.

"Is that... for me?"

"All yours, Buck. A favor I asked of Shuri."

She told him about the arm. Told him about Shuri's design, and the features and functionality. She didn't mention what made her think to ask Shuri, but that surely wasn't important.

"It's really cool, and like super sleek and badass. But more importantly, it will make you feel more... I don't wanna say regular 'cause nothing about you is regular," a shy smile slipped. "But more... how you're used to having your body feel and function."

"That's..." he shook his head before looking up and making dauntingly deliberate eye contact. "Thank you. For thinkin' of me. I mean it. I hope it wasn't too much trouble for her to make it."

"Nothin's too much trouble, Bucky. You're worth it."

"You're a real peach, y’know that?"

Suddenly she looked abashed. Did he say something wrong?

"Sorry- I didn't-"

"No, it's okay. I just got a weird sense of déjà vu. Don't worry about it."

He looked at her like he didn't quite believe her, but she tried not to think too hard about it.

"So..." Bucky gestured towards the arm. "...what do we do with this?"

"You wanna try it on?"

His brows shot up. "Oh! I mean- sure- I guess so, yeah."

She tried to pick it up and nearly threw her back out. "Jesus!"

"Woah there, tiger," he withheld a laugh, putting a hand under the vibranium arm to hold most of its weight.

"Okay, sit down," she ordered, both of them fumbling to hold onto the arm. "Shuri told me how to get the arm on. There's some... magnetic thing. I don't even know - it was some complex engineering lingo. Not my field."

After a couple minutes, clumsy hands attempting awkward assembly, and several curse words later... the arm was attached. They both stood as Bucky stuck out the bionic arm, admiring it and Y/N leaned back, admiring him. Wow.

Bucky smiled, holding both his forearms out - palms facing up - to see how they moved. "This is incredible."

He turned to her. "You're incredible. Thank you."

"No problem at all," she stepped forward. "How does it feel?"

Her hands found their way below his, cupping the underneath of them with a feather light touch. "How do you feel?"

"More... balanced," he laughed. "Coordinated?"

"Steady?"

"Absolutely."

"Stronger?"

"Definitely."

She looked up at him. "Confident? More comfortable in your own skin? That's what's most important."

He gripped her hands. "For sure. Thanks to you."

"Glad I could help. Just wanna make you feel more like yourself, you know?"

"I feel the most like myself when I'm with you," he nearly whispered.

He smiled, and then did something... unexpected. He let go of one of her hands and with the other, he twirled her around as if they were dancing. She went along with the movement, body falling in sync it even though she was confused.

"You make me wanna dance again."

With his voice so endearing, and his heart so spirited, the world around them fell quiet. She stepped forward and rested her hand on his shoulder. Then she placed one of his hands on her waist, and held the other out to the side, fingers intertwined with hers. And oh, the feeling of his hands on her; it was nearly overwhelming.

"Then dance."

And they swayed. They swayed to nothing, to the sweet sound of finding comfort in another person. She let her eyes flutter shut, allowed her guard to come down for just a moment. Just this moment. With him.

Bucky broke the silence with a shy question. "So yesterday... what does that mean for-"

"Let's just keep it between us."

"What do you mean?"

"It was a moment - like this one. I think I think too much, and I may have overreacted before. It doesn't have to be some cumbersome ordeal. It's just us."

"We're good then?"

"We're good."

"Good. 'Cause I like this."

She inhaled and smiled at the feeling of him inside her lungs. They continued swaying as they continued talking.

"You were in my dream you know?"

"Was I?"

"You were."

"Could I fly?"

"No," she laughed. "You were - well we, actually, were walking to that lake."

"To swim?"

Not exactly...

"I don't know. It's kinda foggy and didn't make much sense since it was a dream but we were definitely there."

"Did I say anything existentially insightful?" he joked.

"I don't remember much of what we said, but I remember how it felt."

"How... how did it feel?"

There she went again. She could feel herself slipping, but found it hard to care. She closed her eyes, thinking back to hibiscuses and Bucky's arms.

"The water and sun on my skin felt kind of like this," her hands ran up his sides dangerously slow and settled behind his neck, finger tips tangling into the ends of his hair.

His breath faltered. "Is that so?"

Unconsciously, his other hand found her waist and somehow the little space between them grew even smaller.

"Mhm," she hummed. "and the sight of a flower in your hair felt kind of like this."

Her hands moved to cup his face, the soft skin of her palm settling on his jawline.

"It was so pretty," she sighed.

"Yeah... pretty," he agreed. But he wasn't talking about the dream or the flower.

"And... your arms and your hands... felt kind of like this."

Gently, she pulled his face down to hers, though he needed no guidance or encouragement. When their lips met, that feelings of incompletion and longing, which had been prickling the back of her mind since the previous day, finally went away. They dissolved into fingers pressing into her hips, soft stubble tickling her cheek, and the delightfully encompassing presence of him.

She wasn't sure how long it was until they separated and words were spoken again. All she really recognized what that she was out of breath.

"And to think I was going to apologize for yesterday," Bucky smirked.

"I had to return the favor."

"And I gotta make up for lost time"

"Well, please don't let me stop you."

And he didn't. They continued right where they left off, except this time, it felt much too similar to something she had felt before. Hands began to roam just like they did in her dream.

The only thing was, her dream was cut short. She had no idea how it ended. But his hands were everywhere and it was all her senses could register. He was everywhere: her lips, her neck, her collar bones. She was burning.

The air ran out of her chest, and her voice was barely a breathy sigh. "Don't stop."

She could feel his smile on her skin. "Wouldn't dream of it."

-

The next morning, she awoke entwined in his arms - both of them.

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[anerdinallherglory]

Approaching Sun (31)

Author’s Note: Surprise readers! I wanted to celebrate the start of Spring Break (a very much needed break) by posting an update sooner than I expected. Also, it’s double the length, too. It’s practically two chapters in one!

Thank you always to my loyal readers. If I do not get back to you, please know that I see every review, every comment, and every mention. I am grateful for all of you!

Also, I have had a few readers tell me of songs they associate with A.S. and I just think that is so cool, because I too, connect music to books and fanfics that I read. I’d like to make a list of all my readers’ songs that they think fit A.S. and share them on my next update as the “soundtrack” for this story. Please let me know yours in the comments or through message.

Pairing: SasuSaku

Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30

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Chapter 31: Not Enough

Sakura spun the sword, adjusting it on her left forearm as she pivoted on her heel to bring it around her in another protective arc. The blackness that hovered before her again instantly shielded her enemies from view which could be considered both advantageous and disadvantageous for her.

For the first, Mako and Hisa immediately rushed forward, using the ninjutsu as a cloak. They crisscrossed her, one taking a swipe at her from the front right and the other coming from the left. When Hisa’s blade came from the right, Sakura’s first instinct was to dodge and strike her foe in the side with her fists as she passed. But with her chakra currently restricted, Sakura ducked, pushed up on the handle of her assault weapon with her forearm, and brought her own blade naturally to Hisa’s right flank as she redirected the attack. Sakura hissed in disappointment because the cut was interrupted when she retreated and the result was shallow, not slicing deep enough to incapacitate her. When Hisa took a step back, clutching her flank, Mako suddenly appeared like a breaching shark from the deep only inches before Sakura’s face. He kicked her, quite hard, and Sakura fell into the sand, her weapon tossed aside from the blow. She scrambled for it as Mako grabbed hold of her ankle. She kicked free of his hold, but he was upon he, knees straddling her, and Sakura had no choice but to turn and face him.

He cuffed her hands above her head, saying quietly, “Don’t make this difficult! You will lose your life if you continue to resist. They’ll kill you. Stop struggling!”

Sakura cursed herself for drinking that damn tea, because if she had chakra, she would headbutt his face so far back into his skull that the impact would instantly kill him. Hisa’s face suddenly appeared above Mako’s rights shoulder.

“Killing her is the only option. We don’t have time to hold her hostage,” she chastised Mako with venom in her voice. “We have to get back to base quickly with the news of her death.”

“We could use her. She’s too important to kill immediately.” Came Mako’s response as he sat down hard against her bucking legs.  

“We don’t have time for this! The drug effects won’t last on her all the way back to Tanigakure!”

Perfect, Sakura thought. The confirmation she had been looking for. They were in fact the same party of ninja who had attacked her and Sasuke on their journey to Suna. Sakura still wasn’t entirely sure just how many belonged to their group.

“Reach in my pocket for the second dose. We will knock her back out if we have to!” came Mako’s reply, but it was too late. Sakura had been calling, calling, calling her chakra to her wrists this entire time and used that small amount of sudden strength to overpower Mako’s hold, swinging her arms quickly back down to her sides which caused Mako’s own arms to follow. His head hit the ground to the left of her neck and Sakura immediately rolled him, bestriding him the same way he had just held her.

Hisa didn’t hesitate a second as her weapon came swiping horizontally across Sakura’s back. Sakura predicted this and used Mako’s struggling momentum to once again roll him back on top of her. The blade bit into the flesh of his back and he screamed. In the same moment, Sakura used the last of her strength to wedge her knees between herself and Mako’s chest, shoving him out and back toward a surprised Hisa. They both fell tangled back into the shadowy mist, hitting sand somewhere out of sight.

Within seconds, Sakura scrambled toward the lost weapon and the sword she had dropped was within Sakura’s reach. But when she fisted the pommel, a foot stepped down on the blade. The black mist cleared to reveal the eyeless depths of the shadow demon above her.

“Enough of this,” he hissed. Shadows leaked from his eyes, down his face, and crawled down his chest, legs, and over the length of the weapon, icing Sakura’s fingers when they touched the handle. Sakura immediately recoiled in pain as her fingers turned a sickening black. She screamed, backing away from his advancing figure, hand tucked protectively in the crook between her arm and side.

Rage more than fear boiled beneath Sakura’s skin. What sick ninjutsu was this? It reminded her of a combination between Zabuza’s Hidden Mist technique and Shikamaru’s Shadow Control. But the damage was entirely unexpectedt, as if the shadows inside his body were made of a poisonous substance that bleached out the life of whatever it touched. This phantom before her controlled darkness directly, thickening what already existed in the air around them, and then leaking black chakra directly from his body which destroyed whatever came in contact with it. Like the shadows of death itself, Sakura was certain it had stollen all life from her immovable hand.

Sakura cursed and bolted to the left, seeking out the jagged rocks that she had created earlier. She had to test a theory. Sakura slowed as she clutched her hand, listening, keeping an eye on her feet at all times in fear of creeping black, knowing the phantom would pursue.

When his steps came closer, Sakura turned and faced him. A chakra-manipulated path cleared the darkness between them, allowing the two ninja to see each other in the surrounding haze. This confirmed one thing for Sakura: no one, including the ninja user himself, could see through the darkness he created. That was good to know.

Just one more thing then. She waited and the shade sneered as he approached. When he came withing a few feet away, shadows reached for her like grasping fingers. Just as she had seen Temari do all those years ago during the Chunin exams, Sakura backed away until the shadows stopped and retreated back into the skull of the demon who had projected them. She drew a line in the sand, confirming the distance of ten feet between them.

Ha. She thought to herself. Just like Shikamaru’s justsu then. Similarly, it had a limited reach, although it was much shorter than Shikamaru’s range and didn’t seem to be able to use the shadows in the air around it to lengthen or widen. It explained the purpose of the shadows in the air though; the phantom ninja needed to be in close range where individuals couldn’t see the approaching black tentacles of death.

Sakura scoffed. Apparently, this ninja couldn’t measure up to Shikamaru’s intelligence either, considering the fact that she had just figured out how his ninjutsu worked.

There was only one problem, though. Sakura was a close-combat shinobi as well, and her number one battle technique was her chakra enhanced strength. She needed a plan that would allow her to take a different approach.

She ran and her attacker pursued her, thickening the air before her but leaving the trail behind her completely clear.

Suddenly, Mako’s words from earlier came back to her, which gave Sakura an idea. It was the only thing Sakura could think of. She doubled back to where Mako and Hisa had been disposed. She followed the blood in the sand to the precipice of a jagged chunk of earth. When she came upon Mako, Sakura noted that Hisa was already gone, having abandoned him immediately. Hisa was probably blindly searching for Sakura among the shadow-cloaked mountains of ground and sand.

Sakura didn’t have much time. She placed her hand over Mako’s mouth so he wouldn’t scream and give away their location; not that it would do much good. If the phantom had room for a brain somewhere next to that pit of darkness in his skull, he would follow the blood as she had, or trace her tracks in the sand.

Mako, laying on his bloody back in the sand, shot his eyes open when Sakura’s hand pressed down hard on his mouth with her black hand. It was barely more than a useless appendage at this point, but with the help of her good hand, Sakura shoved her fingers in his mouth to silence him. He tried biting them, tearing into her blackened flesh. But Sakura couldn’t feel them at all, the deadening so complete that Sakura was afraid she would never regain use of it again.

With her free hand, Sakura searched Mako’s person. Her hand fisted triumphantly in his back pocket around something long and cylindrical. She pulled it free, praying frantically that it was what she theorized it to be. Bless you for being thorough and for telling me you had it, she thought to Mako as she surveyed the capped yellow injection tube. Whether it was Ashuwa or a second dose of whatever he had put in her tea, Sakura didn’t know. But whatever it was, Mako had revealed its purpose to Hisa which was to incapacitate her again once the current drug in her system stopped working.

Mako squirmed beneath her and Sakura contemplated killing him right then and there. But she just didn’t have time. Lucky bastard. She sprinted from him, the phantom stepping over the boulder in the same moment she darted from the concealed spot.

Did he see what she grabbed? Sakura wasn’t confident but couldn’t stop to try to interpret the eye-less facial expression the ninja wore. Remaining hopeful, she kept running.

Spotting a smaller set of tracks in the sand leaving the location, Sakura followed them, tracing them all the way to their source. When Sakura came upon Hisa, she almost collided with her directly, the blackened air only revealing her in the last second. Hisa didn’t even have a chance to react before Sakura uncapped the needle and dispensed a third of the dose into her neck, enough for her weight. The woman dropped to the ground and Sakura thanked Mako again for designing the perfect drug. Sakura didn’t estimate that she would remain unconscious for long, though, not having the full dose.

Sakura moved quickly. There was only a matter of minutes before the phantom caught up to her once again. Sakura quickly removed the cloak from Hisa’s shoulders and wrapped Hisa’s face covering around her own. She picked up Hisa’s small rapier from the ground.

She turned and walked toward the approaching footsteps, using the black at her back to her advantage this time, thankful for once that it would conceal Hisa’s body completely.

When she came into his view, the ninja balked, taken aback at her familiar presence. “Hisa?” came the hissing whisper. Sakura kept her head down long enough. Long enough to come parallel with him and turn the blade to relieve him of his head.  

He ducked as Sakura knew he would. Dropping the shortsword, she came back toward his face with the hidden syringe in the same hand. Like with Hisa, she caught him in the neck with the needle neck, and his black sockets widened as she fully pressed in the plunger.

Deathly black shot out of his eye sockets, gripping her remaining hand with blackness as it traveled up her arm. She cried out in both pain and fury as the medicine injected into the demon’s skin. He screamed and she pulled away as he dropped to his knees.

His consciousness remained momentarily, and Sakura turned, arms limp and useless from damage like Orochimaru’s had been. Turning, Sakura found the sword she had dropped. Bending down, she gripped it between her teeth, the taste of metal and sand coating her tongue. It tasted so, so sweet in that second.

Like another mist demon she remembered, Zabuza Momochi, Sakura wielded the blade between her teeth and pivoted to face this monster who was solely responsible for torturing Isao, spreading hatred and pain, and most of all, underestimating her.

Sakura would never be weak enough that anyone without substance, anyone who couldn’t consider themselves subpar to a legendary Sanin, could dispose of her easily. She didn’t need abilities. She didn’t even need chakra to make it out triumphant in these futile attempts on her life.

“You will regret your choices,” the phantom hissed disorientated. “The next generation won’t be able to handle what is coming.”

Sakura began to advance toward him, ready to mimic Zabuza’s killing blows with a fang-wielded blade. When she reached him, she glared down at him, bloodlust in her veins.

“War is a good thing. Anger is a tool to be used. Vengeance is necessary to strengthen.”

Sakura gripped onto her own blood-bent mind, talking to herself as she looked at this man…beast…whatever he was. And as she had done with Satou, Sakura now too, thought of Sasuke. A person so wrapped in darkness that the darkness presented itself in his very nature.

“You, like everyone else, deserve mercy,” Sakura announced after she dropped the sword from her mouth. Sakura had once blamed herself for being too weak to kill Sasuke, but in this moment, Sakura had an enlightening clarification. When someone so vile deserves death and you can find it in yourself to drop your too-ready hand of justice and offer them a second chance—that is real strength. It’s what Naruto would have done. It’s what Sakura chose to do now.

The man slumped forward, eyes level with the blade that stuck up from the sand. “You will see one day that I am right,” he hissed in finality.

“You have us confused with one another,” she announced to the fading darkness that began to disintegrate into light, the final sign signaling his unconsciousness. Sakura could just make out the sunrise in the east and it was beautiful, pale, and rosy. Sakura pretended it was her victory banner. She also believed it was a sign of hope.  

………………………………….

The second chakra pill worked another miracle. Sasuke felt replenished as he practically flew across the sand path in Isao’s memory. He had only run this fast a few times in his life and most recently, it was because of this same scenario. Kido, too, had kidnapped Sakura, and when Sasuke had found out, he had run.

Sasuke cursed himself now for his stupidity. His pride. His mission. He had left in anger and confusion after their kiss, left her alone in Suna despite his promise to never let this sort of thing happen again. Each step he took into the sand was echoed in his mind with an apology. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He lost count of how many times he said it.

Chakra coursed through his limbs and Sasuke mentally prepared himself for war. Bones enveloped his body, ribs caging around him as he activated an incomplete Susanoo. Purple chakra radiated from him, a threatening beacon to the kidnappers he knew would be nearby.

Sasuke instantly recognized the projections of broken ground that penetrated up from the sand like a golden crown. Unlike in Isao’s shadowy memories, the morning light illuminated each pillar, revealing the sheer length and size of every new peak that Sakura had brought forth with her inhuman strength.  Sasuke didn’t even think of concealing his presence; he didn’t need to. He charged into the center of the fray, looking about him everywhere.

He looked behind a few of the crags, eyes finally landing on an individual. Bloody, but not unconscious, Mako lay with his face projected to the sky. His eyes shot open when Sasuke placed a heavy foot on his chest. He wanted to light him up with his Amaterasu and let the flames devour him alive until the ninja was nothing more than the sand beneath him.

Mako groaned and Sasuke unsheathed his katana, stabbing into this ninja’s shoulder. Although he didn’t need to pin him to the ground, it felt good to watch Mako clutch at the blade near his collar bone. The medic ninja was still alive despite his blood loss, but Sasuke relished in the thought that he wouldn’t be for long. Gaara might be mad at him for this later, but Sasuke didn’t care.

“Where is she?” The Uchiha hissed as he sent electricity down the length of his blade into Mako’s chest muscles. He began to spasm.

“Stop!” Mako screamed in pain.

“It will stop when you answer!” he yelled back, losing control of his own emotions. He twisted the metal for emphasis.

“Sasuke, stop!” came a familiar voice and Sasuke’s dropped the blade in shock as Sakura threw her shoulder into him.

“I don’t have enough chakra to spare to heal any more wounds,” she reprimanded him as if she were talking to a patient.

Sasuke blinked in chastisement at the pink-haired woman standing whole before him. He instantly pulled her into his Susanoo, crushing her to his side as he extended the ribcage of the Susanoo to include her. He looked around warily as if he couldn’t quite believe there was no current threat to Sakura’s person. He finally spoke, both relief and annoyance edging his words. “You’re okay?! Where are the others?!”

“I’m fine!” she announced, face suddenly red in embarrassment at their close proximity. Sasuke didn’t notice it at first as he held her back at arm’s length to check her current state. His stomach dropped when he saw her dangling arms, blackened, charred, and bruised. One of them currently had a small halo of green around it and its color paled in comparison to the other.

“Who did this to you?” he rumbled lowly, flashing a red and purple glare back down at Mako, who whimpered pathetically from his wounds. Sakura pulled from his hand and moved in front of the Uchiha, cutting off his direction of blame.

“Not him,” she excused, and her defense thoroughly pissed Sasuke off. Whatever Mako’s role was in this, Sasuke was certain that he was to blame for all of it.

Sasuke did his best to swallow his murdering thirst, eyes landing back on her like a lifeline to his sanity. “Tell me what happened,” he ordered. It was the only words that he could force past his teeth.

“I will explain everything to you, but I need your help first.” She made to step away from him, but Sasuke prevented it. Careful not to aggravate her injuries by touching her arm, Sasuke grabbed her shirt on reflex instead, pulling her back into the safety of the Susanoo.

“It’s okay. We are safe.” she breathed, smiling at him for the first time since he had left her, which brought Sasuke back some soothing clarity of mind. “They are all incapacitated.”

Sasuke’s eyebrow shot up into his bangs. “All of them?”

“It’s insulting that you are surprised,” she nudged him with her shoulder, turning her shoulders to face Mako. She bent to medically assess his new stab wound.

“I wasn’t expecting,” he admitted, but then fell into silence at her targeted look. “I mean, I thought that you were drugged!”

“I am,” she announced, narrowing her eyes further. “But I don’t know how you know that.”

Sasuke cursed at his slip. He couldn’t tell her just yet about how he practically forced Isao to spill all the information earlier. Instead, he said half-truthfully, “I ran into the kid.”

“Isao?” Sakura’s face lit up. “He’s okay? He made it back?” She slumped into the sand at Mako’s side. She practically deflated as her concern for the boy evaporated. “Bless that child.”

Sasuke had to agree. If it weren’t for him, Sasuke wouldn’t have been able to find his teammate this quickly. Even though Sakura hadn’t really needed his help after all. How strange that felt for Sasuke, to not be needed in the ways that he had once been. It was an unexpected jolt to his mindset toward Sakura. She had proved her strength repeatedly to him and he continued to see her as someone to protect.

Before he could even offer an apology, Sakura motioned toward Mako’s body. “My arms are a little preoccupied at the moment. Do you mind flipping him?”

Sasuke’s thoughts instantly darkened at the mention of both her arms and Mako. “What for?”

“I need to look at his back. See how deep the wound is.”

“He doesn’t deserve your help,” he replied instantly, wishing for the ninja to suffer in the same ways he had made his friend.

“I remember a time when you didn’t either,” Sakura replied with a smiling voice, “but I helped you back then, too. Now flip him.”

Sasuke scoffed at her statement, stooped, and flipped the ninja on his stomach. Mako let out a pained groan and Sakura “tsked” at his blatant carelessness. He kneeled beside her, ready to be her hands despite how much he hated the thought of her trying to help him.

“It’s not as deep as I thought. Hold his flesh together,” she ordered and Sasuke did so as she summoned a small stream of chakra to the gray fingertips of her semi-healed hand. The small amount did not last long, but it was enough. Just enough to stop the bleeding.

“Why are you helping me?” Mako asked faintly into the sand, and Sasuke immediately responded for her.

“You don’t need to know, so just shut your mouth so I don’t have to hear your voice.”

Sakura nudged him for his harsh words. “You sure have a lot to say today.” And Sasuke blinked at her again in surprise. She was right; he was talking a lot…for him. He responded with another scoff.

Sakura answered Mako’s question despite Sasuke’s threat. “You believe in war. I believe in peace. We are stronger united than when we are divided. This is how I create peace.”

Sasuke wasn’t following entirely, but he knew that Sakura was referencing words that had been exchanged between them, and Sasuke recognized them as the poison from a mindset consumed in darkness.

Standing again, Sakura said, “The hard part is going to be getting them all back to Sunagakure.”

“What do you mean?” Sasuke asked.

“They’re drugged. Not all of them are dead. They’ll wake soon,” she clarified for him.

Sasuke didn’t even think before saying, “I can remedy that.”

She ignored him, continuing, “We might have to make a couple trips. How many can you carry?”

Sasuke didn’t even respond to that ridiculous notion. Instead, he activated his Rinnegan once more, feeding it with the chakra from the chakra pill. A spiral appeared before them, revealing the central red-dune dimension. Sakura didn’t even have time to protest before Sasuke was throwing Mako’s limp body inside the hole.

“What are you doing?” Sakura asked, confused and stunned by his actions.

“They can remain in this dimension until we make it back to Suna. They can’t flee inside. They have nowhere to go.”

Sakura nodded in understanding. “Good idea!” she praised him, obviously relieved she wasn’t going to have to try to carry anyone with her arms practically useless.

“I’ll take you to the others.”

A female kunoichi Sakura called Hisa was the second to be transported to Kaguya’s center dimension. Then a different sort of being Sasuke considered warily. He didn’t look to be human. Sakura explained that he had been the most dangerous of them all. Sakura believed him to be the ringleader, though she wasn’t sure how many group members he truly led. It was still a confusing web of connections.

Sakura left out the fact that this ninja must be the one to have damaged her arms, but no good would come from Sasuke demanding that she confirm that for him. The Uchiha made a mental note of it as he tossed the unconscious ninja inside, already contemplating on ways to make him talk.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“One more,” she replied, and she led Sasuke toward a small adobe house that he hadn’t noticed before. It was alone in the desert, one wall completely destroyed, revealing the building’s stark clay interior.

Just before they reached the ruins, Sakura stopped when they approached the body of a large man. Sasuke was surprised to find this man not just unconscious; he was dead.

“He hurt Isao,” she defended automatically, ashamed that death had been necessary.

But Sasuke didn’t need an explanation from her. If she wouldn’t have, Saskue was pretty sure that he would have killed him. “Let the sand have him,” he declared, but Sakura shook her head.

“He belongs with them. They must be able to bury and grieve to find peace. We don’t want to give them cause for any further resentment.”

Sasuke wanted to say “you can’t be serious,” but he didn’t feel like arguing, because no matter what Sasuke could come up with to say next, Sakura would still be right in the end. She had a bigger vision in mind that Sasuke couldn’t quite connect sometimes. He just knew that he would always trust her to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t sensible, or in most cases, not what Sasuke would have done.

“Fine,” he declared, opening the portal once more. His breathing became labored as he pushed the effects of the chakra pill. Like with the others, Sasuke dragged the man’s body into the portal.

Sasuke also stepped through, leaving the gateway open between realms. He directed his attention to Mako, ice already coating his next words.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t wander too far from this spot. The dimension is endless and not of our world. You will only lose yourself and die in this place.”

Mako swallowed deeply in fear as he watched Sasuke’s form from his stomach.

“On second thought,” Sasuke sneered under his breath. “Feel free.” The portal closed behind the Uchiha as he exited. He would deal with all of them later, he thought. He needed to get Sakura back to Sunagakure first.  

………………………………

Sakura couldn’t help but whimper when her left arm wasn’t responding as quickly to her healing chakra. Her right hand—the very same one she had shoved into Mako’s mouth to keep him from screaming—had almost fully recovered as the medicine suppressing her chakra began to wear off and her healing abilities returned to her. Her left hand, however, was at first very numb, which Sakura knew was a very bad sign. But the longer she worked at healing, the more the pain began to intensify. It was almost unbearable, but Sakura was ultimately relieved at the burning sensation that indicated life. Sakura considered the differences between the two hands and all she could conclude was that distance must have had something to do with it since her right hand had a grabbed the blackened sword at his feet and her left had been near his face when she plunged the needle in his neck.

Sasuke supported her as they walked back to the Sand Village, though he suddenly seemed to her like he was the one that needed supporting. He stumbled in the sand and Sakura removed her good arm from his shoulders.

“I’m good. But are you okay?” she asked, noticing his strenuous breathing for the first time.

“Yes,” he fibbed, and Sakura knew it was a lie the minute he clutched his head to support it.

Redirecting her chakra back to her healed hand, Sakura immediately sought out Sasuke’s brow with her fingertips. He moaned with relief as green chakra lighted over it, but he instantly pushed her hand away. “Heal yourself.”

“What happened?” she responded, ignoring his demand. She found his forehead again. “There’s nothing I can do if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

“I took two chakra pills. I’ll be fine though. I just need rest.” He removed her hand again.

Sakura inhaled sharply at the confession. “Why did you do that?”

“I had already depleted my chakra reserves when I found out you weren’t in the village. I panicked.”

“Overdosing on chakra pills is one thing,” she scolded, “but using them recklessly to overexert your Rinnegan is another. No matter how much chakra you have, you have limits with the Rinnegan.”

“It was my only choice,” he defended sharply, obviously masking his embarrassment with annoyance.

Sakura placed her glowing palm over his eyes, now certain of the source of his discomfort. Sasuke made to move her hand away once more, but she fussed like a mother when he tried. “Let me have my way, or we’ll be here longer.”

Sasuke released a small laugh that sounded like another scoff. Only Team 7 could tell the difference between Sasuke’s derisiveness and his sense of humor.  Sakura couldn’t believe he had the energy to laugh. But then something changed in the air around them and Sasuke grew very serious as he inhaled—the type of inhale someone made before having something important to say.

Sasuke finally managed to grab her fingers and he tugged them away after Sakura was satisfied with his treatment. But he didn’t let go. Instead, he held them for a moment that suggested tenderness. It was different from how their hands had brushed so many times before, like how they rested them against each other as they watched Suna’s desert sunset. This time, it was more like how Sasuke had held her hand between them in the medicine preparation room.

Finally working up the courage, Sasuke looked down at her feet and said, “I’m sorry.”

Sakura stared at the firm hold his fingers had on hers in wonder. And the truly amazing part was that he stillwasn’t letting go. “For what?” she whispered, not knowing what else to say for fear of him moving away.

“For leaving you behind in Suna. For leaving in anger. For not being there and letting this happen.”

Sakura didn’t let him continue. “Sasuke,” she began, catching his guilty eyes with her own. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore. I hope I have proved that to you, today. Please don’t burden yourself with worry for me. I can carry my own burdens and some. You already have the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

Sasuke searched her eyes with his. Sakura knew this was a rare occasion. Not many people would see the Uchiha open, unguarded, with care etched in every feature of his expression.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said suddenly, still holding her fingers tightly, and Sakura felt the whole world suddenly still around them. Even the desert wind seemed to stop. Was this the Sasuke she had always known was inside, no matter how roughly he displayed himself to the world?

“I’m sorry for what happened,” Sakura interrupted, afraid for another impending denial of her feelings. She knew what was coming and she didn’t want this small moment to end. “I won’t do that again.”

He paused and Sakura wondered if he was unsettled by the open acknowledgement of her stollen kiss.

He sighed and Sakura’s stomach dropped. She felt him hesitate, saw it in his face. But he resolved himself, declaring, “I came to a conclusion while I was away, and I have to say this while I have the nerve.”

Sakura nodded, ready for disappointment. She was more afraid of what he would say next than she had ever felt going toe-to-toe with her enemies just moments ago.

“Can it be enough for us to care for one another?” he asked, desperation cloaked with mock annoyance on his breath. “Can it just be enough for us to be friends as long as we are in each other’s lives sometimes? Can it be enough for us to be united in the same goal?”

Sakura’s heart sank and unhappiness hit her like the wave she was expecting. Tears threatened to brim her eyelids, but Sakura swallowed them down. Would he ever not be this thickheaded and stubborn? Would he ever let them be what they could be? Whether or not Sakura was simply high on victory or if she was genuinely losing her meekness in Sasuke’s presence, Sakura wasn’t sure.

She removed her hand from his. “Is it enough for you?” she finally asked, taking a step away from him. But he caught her fingers again, pulling her back gently to face him.

“Is that a no?” he asked emotionlessly, but Sakura saw the struggle in his eyes.

“When the answer becomes ‘yes’ for you, I will accept it as mine as well.” She pulled away, firmly this time. He couldn’t respond. Sakura knew why: he wanted to put this on her; he was always putting it back on her, afraid “because of her,” hesitant “because of her.” These were his excuses, but Sakura wouldn’t give him an out this time. It was his turn to choose.

They both knew that it was far too late for Sasuke to pretend he didn’t love her in the same way that Sakura loved him. But Sakura had learned that people love in many ways and not all people wanted to express that love romantically. Kissing Sasuke had been a mistake. She hated to call it that, but it was the truth of it. She didn’t want to steal from him what he wasn’t ready to give—what he wasn’t at peace with. It was his turn; he now knew where she stood.

………………………………..

When they finally made it back to the Hidden Sand Village, Kankuro was there to intercept them just as Sasuke had expected he would. The puppet-wielding ninja was beside himself with worry at seeing Sakura’s injuries, insisting that Sakura promptly return to the hospital. Sakura had insisted she tend to her own wounds back in their lodgings so she could rest. She immediately requested to see Isao, but Kankuro insisted she get some rest first.

It wasn’t until Sasuke insisted that he have an audience with him and Gaara, that he left Sakura to her own desires. As they parted, Sasuke tried to say something or grab her eyes with his, but she didn’t look at him. Not even once. And Sasuke ran his hand exhaustedly through his hair. He couldn’t think about them right now. A conference with the Kazekage would be the perfect distraction.

Gaara, miraculously, had returned before he and Sakura had, and Sasuke wondered just how fast news could travel. Sasuke privately joked with himself that the desert shared its secrets with the Kazekage. The wind and sand must speak to him if he found out things so quickly. It was a hypothesis that could explain a lot at least.

Sasuke shook his head as he followed Kankuro into the Kazekage’s office. He must be getting delirious from the effects of the chakra pills.

“Sasuke,” came Gaara’s raspy acknowledgement when the Uchiha stepped into the room. Gaara was surprisingly alone, which relieved Sasuke. He thought he would have to face Gaara with the “support” of his council. It would be easier to speak of recent events if only Gaara and Kankuro were present.

Sasuke nodded respectfully despite his feelings of resentment toward the two men at the moment for having let Sakura be kidnapped under their watch. As a ninja that was a part of this unpredictable shinobi world, Sasuke knew his anger was unjustified, but he wanted to be mad at anyone and everyone right now. 99% of his own anger was directed at himself, because Sasuke knew that he was more responsible for what happened than the Kazekage and his brother were. The Kazekage had been trying to be proactive and prevent something like this from happening. It just didn’t turn out that way.

The Kazekage seemed to share Sasuke concern for discreetness, because he cloaked the room in sand as he had done the first day of Sasuke arrival. It filled every crevice, thickening to soundproof the room.

Sasuke opened the portal into Kaguya’s central dimension without further delay. He walked into the vortex, not surprised the group remained exactly where he had left them. The only difference was that they were conscious, a fact that slightly irked the Uchiha.

One by one, he grabbed each ninja, tossing them forward into the Kazekage’s domain. Hisa clutched at her dead counterpart, holding onto the deceased brute. Sasuke found grim satisfaction in Mako’s subdued, yielding persona. Being present before the Kazekage was far more terrifying than being stuck in a desolate dimension.

But the individual that held both Sasuke and the Kazekage’s attention was the wraith-like individual that bled darkness from a small spot on his neck. It was his only injury.

Gaara carefully considered him, crossing his arms and surveying him emotionlessly as he did most enemies that he regarded.

Darkness suddenly began to ooze from the man’s eye sockets and Sasuke’s temper suddenly flared. He looked to Gaara, and the ninja nodded his permission.

“Only demons don’t seem to know when they’re in the presence of other demons. Shall I show you hell?”

Sasuke’s eye suddenly began to bleed as he formed the tiger seal for fire release. “Amaterasu!”

The black flames clung to the phantom, incinerating what Sasuke realized was dark masses of sinewing, vaporized flesh. The phantom hissed. Then screamed, then began to plead for mercy. Hisa began to cry and Mako turned his face away from their leader.

Gaara came up beside Sasuke to speak to the wraith as he writhed. Sasuke released the Amaterasu and the flames receded.

The Kazekage crouched, an arm on his knee. “From one demon to another, I urge you to leave your shadows behind in hell and step out into the light. Only demons desire war. And war breeds more demons.”

Sasuke clutched his eye in silent suffering, and Gaara dismissed him. “I’ll handle the rest. I’ll let you know what we find out.”

Sasuke nodded, not waiting for any further excuses to depart. He had delivered them into the Kazekage’s care. But what those ninja didn’t know was that Sakura’s mercy held Sasuke more confined than it did the Kazekage, a demon just as he had said, whose territory had been breached.

……………………

Sakura was finishing binding her tender left hand in medical bandaging, using up the last of her burn solvent that she had created at Suna’s hospital, when Sasuke walked in.

He opened the door, caught her eyes with his, and tried to hide the bloody track down his face from her with his hand. She was on her feet instantly, pulling him to the bed that he had staked his claim on.

She felt his forehead and it was hot, too hot. He had done it this time. She sighed, summoning the small reserve of chakra behind the diamond mark on her forehead.

She expected Sasuke to scold her for using what little she had left on him, but he didn’t seem to notice in his extreme exhaustion. “Thank you,” he whispered, and Sakura retreated to fetch water for him.

He gulped it greedily and Sakura helped him shrug out of his outer layer of clothing. Sand fell from his hair and clothes in the same way hers had earlier. “I’m better now,” he whispered, the first words spoken between them since their disagreement in the desert.

Sakura nodded, making to move away, but he grabbed her hand for the third time that day.

“Don’t be angry,” he begged, his exhaustion making him suddenly careless to conceal his true intentions with fake displeasure and irritation.

“Why do you think I am angry?” she asked emotionlessly.

“I just want what’s best for you. I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered in defeat. This side of Sasuke startled Sakura. He was becoming more undefended, open with emotions in a way she had never seen him before. Was it because he didn’t have anything to hide anymore? Was he past his denials and his pretending?

“I know,” she squeezed his hand back. “But your concerns are groundless.”

“Tell me how,” he pleaded.

She sat beside him on his bed, and he tilted his ear to her, never removing his hand from hers. She took a breath and told him the truth. Told him everything he needed to know. “I do not love you sacrificially, Sasuke. I do not choose you knowing that my life or happiness could be forfeit by doing so. I choose you because I can keep up with you. Because something like your absence wouldn’t be enough to determine my permanent happiness. I will choose to go on, content with only the thought that I know you are out there somewhere loving me if that is all that I have in the moment.”

She took a breath and continued before he could respond. “I am strong enough to handle whatever comes my way as a result of loving you. And I have absolutely no doubts in my feelings, my happiness, and what I am willing to compromise to be with the person I love most.”

Sakura reached tenderly to turn his face to hers and their eyes met. She touched his forehead in the same way he had done to her many times before. “That person is you,” she reassured him, offering him a sincere smile as she removed her hand from his forehead.

Then Sasuke leaned forward. Very close to her, and Sakura bit her lip to keep from reaching for his with her own. “Is all of that true?” he requested again, suddenly breathless. And Sakura knew later that it was just to be sure before what came next.

“Yes,” she breathed. And she didn’t have to reach for him, because he was suddenly reaching for her. His hand found her chin and Sakura waited for his choice. She waited for him to move. And he did.

“Then my answer is no; it’s not enough for me either.” When his lips carefully parted her own, Sakura knew without a doubt that he had decided to find some way possible for them, a path where he could choose her, too.