#also his hair is dyed because its impossible to look cool in this game

[imnormalaboutpacesetter]

finally some good fucking food

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

ROUND 4 MATCH 5

Alistair propaganda:

“I love his puns and sarcasm. He may be kinda dumb and like the epitome of boring white boy to some people, but i just love the humour he brings to the party.”

"alistair was literally forced to live in the stables growing up because the man who had stewardship of him remarried and she didn't like him; he's a bastard prince and tries to keep it secret but is almost identical to the king and you meet those two within 5 minutes of one another; he finds a rose in the middle of a battlefield and thinks how impossible it was to find something so beautiful in somewhere so terrible and it reminds him of finding you - so he saves it to give it to you; he's 20 and if you tell him to he will take the throne (even though it's always been his greatest fear - he'll do it if you're at his side); he doesnt know he's a half elf and its possible for him to live in the same castle as his mother later; he notices she looks at him strangely but he never finds out why; he's doomed to die young and so are you"

Micah propaganda:

"I LOVE MICAH VOTE MICAH LOOK AT HIM HES SO you hack into his computer he hacks back into yours and the video calls are so funny, when you ask him what his favoritr food is he starts. telling you about being in a zombie apocalypse where he gets to eat your arm also he HE PLAYS THE CLOWN MUSIC AND FALLS OUT OF HIS CHAIR FOR A JOKE I LOVE HIM and he dyed his hair to match his cat. whats his cats name? skrunkly AND if you genuinly say 'yeah im uncomfy' he'll stop the call/game ends and its so SAD BUT HE RESPECTS YOUR BOUNDARIES AUGH and when he tries to be smooth he puts on some music and the player goes 'did you just put that on.' and he stops it and goes 'oh you heard -that?' AND he had a tongue piercing and tongue bifurcation its so cool! AND SHARP TEETH honestly whats not to love? OH OH also if you get the secret ending you just get to marry him i love him so much I FORGOT TO SHARE THAT HE'S VOICE ACTED TOO AND THE VA DOES A REALLY GOOD JOB"

[mystery-skulls-ghost]

cracks knuckles

please welcome the Duskmarch dorm.

Founded on the determination and will of the Grand Marshal, Duskmarch is a... relatively obscure and bleak dorm. Its members are usually ones that keep to themselves and focus on their passion (which is mostly art in all its forms.) The only people they interact with are with each other and a few other people, but they're generally not sociable with the general public. They have some traditions, but the most prevalent ones are the events held every 22nd of each month, March 22nd being the most grandiose. Their purpose is celebrating the memories of its members past and present. And some other stuff, but we'll get to that eventually. Think a mix of Heartslabyul + Ignihyde. The current dorm leader is Emil A. Carcino while the vice dorm leader is Vice Abriss.

Dorm Location:

The general area is a monochromatic ghost town in the mountains that seems to be literally stuck in time, as in all surrounding fauna and wildlife are in suspended motion. The weather is always overcast. The only things that move are incorporeal ashes falling from the sky like snowflakes and a proper day and night cycle. At night, the sky clears up to show the stars above.

The dorm quarters are located in a mansion right in the center of town. The architecture seems to be similar to the one from the Ramshackle dorm. It's reserved for the dorm leader and the vice dorm leader. All other members reside in the other abandoned buildings. How do they get to choose which building? As a great man once said: "It's free real estate." As long as it's theirs, they can do whatever they want with them. For example: Xander's building is entirely covered with colorful spray paint art.

Members:

Emil A. Carcino

Twisted from: The Black Parade

Dorm: Duskmarch, Dorm Head

Year: 2nd

Birthday: October 23rd (Scorpio)

Pronouns: He/Him

Relationship Status: Taken by that edgelord below

Age: 17

Height: 176cm

Dominant Hand: Right

Birthplace: Rose Kingdom

Club: Board Game Club

Favorite Subject: History

Likes: Vice, skeletons, sounds with a good beat to them, celebrations

Dislikes: Killjoys (lol), clowns, babies

Flaws: Too easygoing, he's gonna let one minor thing slide and that escalates into some major problems

Favorite Food: Adobo

Disliked Food: Anything with cinnamon

Special Skill: Perfect pitch

The mysterious, dreamy, charismatic head of Duskmarch, Emil is a very lax kind of guy. He may not look it, but he's very passionate about the arts. Can't you tell by the parties the dorm holds every 22nd of each month? Aside from that, he doesn't seem to be fazed by anything, not even jumpscares or existential dread. Emil's the kind of guy to live in the now rather than dwelling on past regrets. He's wiser than he looks.

Unique Magic:

"Carry On"

Allows Emil to view a singular, specific memory of a target. The catch being:

He can only view them as a dream. He can't see them immediately, he needs to take a little nap.

You know how dreams are. Weird, vague, trippy, and all associated synonyms. They also take the form of musicals!

Emil's gonna have to interpret them by himself.

Relationships:

Vice - Dormmate. Boyfriend. He really is in deep, cutesy love with him. Could this not be just a high school first love thing?

Xander - Dormmate. Much needed lighting in this place! He admires Xander's feistiness. Fun to tease.

Azul - Clubmate. Always enjoys a round of Brabble with Azul. Their scores against each other are a perfect tie.

Idia - Clubmate. Appreciates Idia from afar. Every time Emil tries to get to know him, he's conveniently not there.

Riddle - Next door neighbors. Emil doesn't really know Riddle that much, but his mom does.

Tiny Tidbits:

Emil smells like a hint of vanilla.

His fondest memory is of a parade; so when he found out that Duskmarch held monthly parades, he was overjoyed.

He dyed his hair white to match the previous dorm leaders.

Emil's art is entirely in black and white. He says it's more "aesthetically pleasing" that way.

If he were sorted into a canon dorm, he'd be sorted in Heartslabyul.

Vice Abriss

Twisted from: Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

Dorm: Duskmarch, Vice (haha) Dorm Head

Year: 2nd

Birthday: June 8th (Gemini)

Pronouns: He/Him

Relationship Status: Taken by that boy above

Age: 17

Height: 187cm

Dominant Hand: Left

Birthplace: Isle of Lamentation

Club: Film Studies

Favorite Subject: Poison Making

Likes: Emil, poetry, the color red (a specific shade being "Pitchfork Red")

Dislikes: Anyone getting TOO close to Emil, fish, Xander

Flaws: being a fucking dick

Favorite Food: Cinnamon rolls

Disliked Food: Big Bean Burritos

Special Skill: A very attentive eye for detail

The vice dorm head of Duskmarch. A heart attack in black hair dye. Vice is a very strict man. He's serious about everything he does. Does he even have any emotions besides quiet, seething anger? That all seems to go away when he's with Emil, so that's one thing. Although, please don't interrupt his alone time...

Unique Magic:

"Starless Eyes"

Makes Vice invisible. He can't do it for more than 3 minutes, because it'll take some serious damage on him, both physically and mentally. How, exactly? His clothes may disintegrate, his flesh might also disintegrate, he'll become slightly more unhinged, etc. etc.

Relationships:

Emil - Dorm head. Boyfriend. Truly, madly, deeply in love with Emil. Nothing comes in between Vice and him. Literally nothing. Because he'll destroy whatever gets in the way.

Xander - Dormmate. An annoyance. Vice barely tolerates Xander.

Vil - Clubmate. Surprisingly on good terms. Vice does double work, both behind the scenes and onscreen. Vil's picky perfectionism strives him to do more.

Tiny Tidbits:

Vice's art is very abstract. Abstract as in they look like a madman's scribbles on a wall as his sanity slowly deteriorates. They always have some splotch of red somewhere.

He would definitely kill a man if anything were to happen to Emil.

Has a fear of heights. This is why his worst subjects are everything that involves broom flying.

If he were sorted into a canon dorm, he'd be sorted into Pomefiore.

Xander Ammonitra

Twisted from: Danger Days/Party Poison

Dorm: Duskmarch

Year: 1st

Birthday: November 22nd (Scorpio)

Pronouns: He/Him

Relationship Status: Single

Age: 16

Height: 180cm

Dominant Hand: Right

Birthplace: Davane

Club: Track and Field Club

Favorite Subject: Practical Magic

Likes: Street art, parkour, cartoony shenanigans, monkeys

Dislikes: Authority, drab colors, sterilized entertainment

Flaws: Loud, obnoxious, dirty mouthed [BLEEP]

Favorite Food: Deep-dish meat pizza

Disliked Food: Canned Marshmallows

Special Skill: Really good hearing

An extremely loud kind of guy. How did a boy like Xander even get into the dark, monochromatic aesthetic of Duskmarch? He expresses himself with bold colors, graffiti, confetti, and anything colorful (both literally and verbally.) He doesn't take kindly to strict rules. Despite the rowdy personality, he's kind of a dork. As things should be.

Unique Magic:

"Make Some Noise"

Lets Xander turn random objects into (non-lethal) bombs of various effects. It's a lot lamer than it sounds.

Relationships:

Emil - Dorm head. Appreciates Emil's "anything goes" mentality. Xander does get huffy over his moments of teasing.

Vice - Dormmate. Shares the same feeling of antipathy towards Vice. Xander's willing to go through slapstick shenanigans just to fuck with him.

Deuce - Clubmate. Sometimes flings snarky negative quips towards Deuce. Not the very best of friends.

Jack - Clubmate. Legitimately thinks that Jack is cool. Xander doesn't really give his usual temperament towards him.

Jude - No relation. He's seen Jude around right before they were both enrolled into NRC. Xander sees him as an idol, him standing up to the city of bullshit that is Davane.

Tiny Tidbits:

Xander has a potted Mars flytrap among his mess of a room. Did he steal it from the campus? Maybe.

He WILL find a way to vandalize every seemingly impossible to reach places with a cartoon monkey. He gets bored sometimes.

His birthday happens to be on the 22nd of November! That means he's in charge of the parade of that month. Expect an extravagant eyeblinding event.

Xander is an appreciator of anything involving wheels. Mostly rollerskates. His cowboy boots may or may not be heelys.

If he were sorted into a canon dorm, he'd be sorted into Scarabia.

[sunflowershouyou]

♡ Kenma’s crush

genre: fluff

warnings: none

pairing: Kenma Kozume x f!reader

in which Kenma has a crush on you but he doesn’t realise it until Kuroo mentions it and this makes it harder for him to be near you.

word count: 1981

‘Bye Kenma! See you during lunchtime!’ said Kuroo.

'Uhm.. yeah see ya.’ waved Kenma and went to his classroom.

He left his backpack on his desk, sat down on the chair and started playing one of his games as usual. His days were pretty ordinary - school, lunch, practice, homework, sleep and playing games in between those activities. And this morning was nothing different than any other mornings until…

'Good morning everyone!’

Yes, actually the last couple of months weren’t exactly that ordinary for Kenma. Every day was normal to him until he hears your voice. You were so cheerful and full of life this early in the morning that Kenma couldn’t help but wonder how do you do that. How do you manage to look so pretty every day, to sound so nice and happy, to always be polite and helpful and most importantly how do you manage to still be on his mind.

Kenma was looking right at his game when he heard you. His hair was blocking everything around him but he still managed to peek. You looked beautiful as always. You went straight to you desk which was the one in front of his. When you passed by Kenma he quietly said 'Good morning’ almost impossible for anyone to hear it but you heard it.

'Good morning Kenma-san!’ you smiled at him and went to your place. He immediately blushed and was trying really hard to focus on the game.

School day was nearly over. The only thing left was practice. Everything went fine and couch Nekomata was more than proud of the team.

'Hey Kenma, me and Yaku are going to study at the school library. Do you wanna join us?’ asked Kuroo.

'Yeah… why not. But I’m waiting for the new game to come out so I won’t stay for too long’ said Kenma.

Yaku nodded 'Cool! Kai, Yamamoto you wanna join?’

'Ummm no thanks Yaku-san.’

'I can’t either. I have some work to do at home.’ added Kai.

Everyone said goodbye to each other and Yaku, Kuroo and Kenma headed to the library.

'Hey Kenma’

'Yes Kuroo..’

'Since we’re gonna study together… is there a subject in which you need help? You know me and Yaku are 3rd years.’ said Kuroo while smiling.

'Thank you but I think I’m good for now.’

'Tch…being your senpai is really hard sometimes you know Kenma.’

'Well he’s not like certain someone who lacks everything except science…’ jokingly said Yaku.

'EXCUSE ME-’

Kenma opened the door to the library completely ignoring his two noisy friends when he saw you. You were also there. Kenma gulped and couldn’t take his eyes off of you.

'Oh hi Kenma-san!’ you greeted.

He realised he’s been staring at you for a couple of seconds and tried to look the other way while saying 'Hello’ to you.

The three boys sat on the table next to yours. Kenma could sense your parfume. Suddenly he became nervous.

Yaku saw that and asked 'Kenma? Is everything alright? Do you need anything?’

'More like anyONE?’ added Kuroo.

Both Yaku and Kenma were very confused.

While studying Kenma had hard time concentrating because he always peeked at what you were doing. You were just reading but he couldn’t stop watching you. Suddenly you stood up and left the book you were reading on one of the shelves. Before leaving the library you said goodbye to Kenma which again made him blush and embarrassed because once again you caught him staring at you.

After you left he felt kinda sad but had no idea why. Kuroo was smirking the whole time while watching Kenma observing you.

———————

Kenma and Kuroo headed home and the tall boy was dying of curiosity.

'Hey Kenma’

'Hm what is it?’

'Didn’t you say you had to go home early? Why did you stay so late?’

'I don’t know…no reason.’

'Is that so…’

Both of them walked for a while in complete silence when Kuroo decided to break it.

'Who was that girl by the way?’

Kenma was a little embarrassed by that question.

'Um… she’s from my class. Why?’

'Just asking… so what’s her name?’

'Y/N.’

'She seems nice.’

'Yes, she is.’

'Are you friends?’

'Kuroo, why are you asking so many questions?’

'Oh no reason… just curious.’

'Okay.’

Another two minutes of silence had passed and Kuroo couldn’t hold it in anymore.

'When are you going to tell her that you like her?’

Kenma’s face became red. He stopped walking fully taken aback by the question.

'What?! I don’t… I don’t like her!’

'You don’t? Hmm because it seems like you do. ’

'I don’t.’

'You do.’

'I don’t.’

'You do.’

…

'I don’t.’

'You do.’

-the next morning-

Kenma was thinking about you the whole night. Usually he stayed up late because of a game but this time it was different. He couldn’t sleep because of you. Maybe he did like you. Maybe he wasn’t just nervous around you. He was wondering for the last couple of months why was he acting weird around you but he never thought that he liked you. Yes you are beautiful, smart, witty, cute and friendly but he never imagined he would fall for you. This feeling was completely new for him. He’s very observant and analytical, he’s the brain of Nekoma volleyball team after all, but this thing…his feelings for you made him clueless and confused. He tried his best to stay calm but looking at your back, neck and hair the whole day was nearly impossible for him. It was easier to control the feelings before but now that he knew why he’s like that he couldn’t even stay still.

Throughout the whole day he was playing a game desperately trying to not think about you. Everything was going well until you approached him.

'Is that the new game?’

Kenma’s cheeks got that cute shade of pink as soon as you spoke.

'Uhm.. y-yes it is… you know it?’

'Of course! I’ve been waiting for it since forever! Are the graphics really that good? Which character are you playing with? Did you unlock the new magic spells?’

You asked Kenma so many questions that he stopped functioning. He was listening to you but he felt so shy that he couldn’t even answer you. Luckily Kuroo was about to pick Kenma and go to have lunch together when he saw the two of you.

'Yo Kenma let’s go! Hey you’re the girl from yesterday!’

You turned around to see one of your classmate’s teammates.

'Hello! I’m Y/N nice to meet you!’

'I’m Kuroo Tetsurou, 3rd year. Nice to meet you too!’

'I’m coming Kuroo.’ said Kenma and rushed to his friend.

'Y/N’ Kuroo called you.

'Yes?’

'Do you wanna come with us? Maybe you can continue with your conversation. Sorry for interrupting it by the way.’ suggested Kuroo and brushed the back of his head.

'Y-yes! If it’s also okay with you Kenma-san.’ you looked at Kenma which made him even more shy.

'He would love to!’ exclaimed Kuroo.

Kuroo was more than happy to see his best friend finally talking to his crush. He felt that being Kenma’s matchmaker is his duty and tried everything he could to make both of you feel comfortable. Kenma was still shy but thanks to his friend he gained some courage and answered all of your questions. He even let you play to show you the new game features.

—————————-

Two weeks have passed since that day and you felt that Kenma was getting more comfortable around you. He still blushed and was a bit nervous but it really showed that the two of you were getting closer. He even walked you home but Kuroo was always with you. The truth is Kenma wanted Kuroo to be around for emotional support. Little pudding hair struggled with keeping the conversation and at some point actually thought that you enjoyed Kuroo’s company more.

Every day you waited for Kuroo to come so that the three of you could walk home. That day though Kuroo told his friend the last minute that he had to stay at school because one of the teachers wanted to talk with him. He was obviously lying and Kenma sensed that but he couldn’t just leave you so he walked you home. It was the first time for both of you to be just the two of you. It was very awkward in the beginning when you shouted 'One!’ and pointed at a stray cat.

'What?’ Kenma was very confused.

'My dad and I used to count stray cats when I was little… it’s like a little race… I’m sorry I just recalled of that…’ you shyly said.

'Oh one for me as well!’ excitedly announced Kenma.

You thought Kenma would find your idea to break the ice dumb but it actually worked.

The whole way to your home both of you were looking around to find cats and even jokingly argued who found the cat first.

'Kenma-san this kitty looks just like you!’

'How is that Y/N?’

'Look it has your hairstyle!’

The boy looked at the cream coloured little cat with a black spot on its head between the ears.

'I guess it does look a bit like me.’

'Now we know even if you become a cat you’ll still look cute’

This sentence made Kenma’s heart skipba beat. He definitely didn’t expect to hear that.

'Oh we arrived. Thank you for walking me home Kenma-san!’ you smiled and went to open the front door.

'Y/N!’ the boy said loudly which startled you a little.

'Yes?’

'Um…’ Kenma looked extremely nervous. It seemed like he had something important to tell you and yet he could do it. Then he added 'I wanted to say that… um…’ he sighed 'they announced the new dragon game…’

You looked at him a bit confused. He cringed at what he said because that was not the thing he wanted to tell you.

'Oh… really… that’s cool.’

The boy saw you turning away and wanted to stop you. This was probably his only chance to do it so he finally got the courage.

'No! Actually I wanted to tell you something else…’

'Okay… what is it?’ you asked.

Kenma gulped and felt his palms sweating. Then he quietly said 'I l-l-like you…’. It was so quiet that you couldn’t hear him.

'I’m sorry I didn’t catch that.’

'I like you, Y/N’ he said almost shouting.

There were a few seconds of silence, enough for you to feel little butterflies in your stomach.

'I was worried that you may have changed your mind.’ you chuckled.

'Huh?’

'I like you too, Kenma-san!’

You went to him and gave him a little peck on his cheek.

'Then see you on Monday, Kenma-san!’

He stood right in front of you completely speechless.

'Hey Y/N do you want to go somewhere… sometime and maybe… do something? Of course if you’re free… this weekend?’

You found him to be so adorable that you couldn’t help but giggle a little.

'I would love that!’

'Goodbye, Y/N’

'Bye, Kenma-san!’

————————–

The whole time while going home Kenma was smiling and his cheeks were burning. In front of his house was Kuroo.

'Sooo… you finally confessed huh?’

'How do you know?’

'I’ve never seen you happier, Kenma’

'Yeah… I guess I really like her. Thank you, Kuroo.’

'Anytime. I’m glad you did it.’

Kuroo looked behind his friend and saw the tiny kitty that’s been following him.

'Hey, Kenma this cat looks just like you!’

'Oh yeah… and it also brought a friend.’

'Doesn’t this one kinda look like Y/N?’

'Hmm…I guess you’re right. She would also be cute as a cat.’

Kuroo looked at Kenma not knowing what he was talking about but he was smiling. Kuroo knew how happy you’ve made his best friend.

Thank you for reading!

- sunflowershouyou 🌻

[19.09.2020]

[lightsinthedistancee]

City Midnights, Chapter 1: Poe Dameron x Reader

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Word Count: 3k

Summary: “The concrete ripples in your delirium, shifting like the smoke your pilot leaves in his wake when he takes to the skies. He is your once in a lifetime, and you are determined to cherish him as your final hour approaches.”

Reader reflects back on their life with Poe in their final moments.

Warnings: Implication of Sexual Assault (nothing explicit), Violence

Taglist: @paper-in-ashes-fanfiction​ @castiel-barnes​ @starryeyedstories​

Haven’t officially set up a taglist, but those that I did tag, hope you don’t mind?

If you want to be tagged on future works, just drop a reply/comment or do the form below.

Form for taglist: https://forms.gle/poF8HmQQGwcqTBng9

You lie on his chest, fingers tracing circles over smooth skin. It’s just you and him. You and your Commander. He’s sleeping, soft breaths escaping his slightly parted lips, his lashes curly and long. He looks relaxed when he sleeps. More relaxed than you ever see him. He’s a man who feels that he needs to save the entire galaxy, and slumber is the only time where he relieves himself of that burden.

“Poe,” you murmur. “Sweetheart.” Your hand caresses his cheek. A worry weighs heavy on your chest. You want someone to talk to.

You know he won’t mind you waking him. He never does.

His eyelids flutter, a soft groan escaping his lips. The light streaming through the window reflects handsomely on him as he rubs his eyes, a smile playing out across his face at the sight of you beside him, slightly over him.

“Morning, princess,” he says softly, a tired raspiness to his voice. He glances at the clock, raising an eyebrow at the time. “What the hell, sweetheart? It’s early.” He says it as if he intends it to be a complaint, but there’s no malice behind his voice, just a mild concern.

“I know, I’m sorry,” you whisper, momentarily regretting your decision.

“Hey, it’s fine.” He brushes a strand of hair from your face. “What’s wrong?” His hand gently rests on your back, pulling you back down to his chest.

“Just worried about my mission tomorrow.” You know it’s going to be dangerous. You knew that the moment you’d received the assignment. But of course, you’d accepted it, for this was your duty: to work for the greater good and lie down your life for it if necessary.

Poe presses a kiss to your forehead. “You’ve got it planned down to the second. It’ll be clean in and out, like always. You’re Leia’s best agent for a reason, love.” His genuine insistence begins to feed an easiness into you.

“You don’t know that,” you reply, not quite knowing where this anxiety is coming from. Usually, you’re calm, ready to fight your own little war. But this time, there is a bad feeling settled in the pit of your stomach.

“I do,” he insists, wrapping his arms around you. “It’ll go well. I know it will.” He pauses. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Strongest person I know.

You’ve never felt weaker as you lie on the cold stone floor.

It’ll go well.

It hadn’t gone well. You hadn’t seen it coming. The soldier coming in behind you. The impossibly strong blow to your head before the whole world went black.

But regardless, here you are. You shiver, your vision coming and going in spots before you. The ground of your cell is wet, each point of contact piercing your skin with an unbearable chill. You are hungry. And thirsty. And cold. And in so much pain.

The days pass and slowly blend into one. You don’t know how long you’ve been here. As your perception of time fades, so too does your hope. The Resistance is not coming. You are near certain. You’ll die at the hands of these pathetic First Order sympathizers. The days of waiting for your savior to come busting through the doors are long over. You only lay there, waiting for death—even hoping for it. The blows you take from your captors barely faze you anymore.

As your sanity dissolves, and as more time passes, an entire section of your head that you’d locked away years ago begins to come undone. You think of your home that you’d abandoned years ago, as if it’d meant nothing to you as you desperately searched the galaxy for your place in it all.

Visions of the oceans you grew up by flash in your mind, along with sundresses and red lipstick. I love you, whispers your mother. Extensive seas of hibiscus and forests of palms calm your nerves. You relish those visions, cling to them with desperation. If this is how you’ll die, you suppose it’s not the worst way to go.

But even that has its negatives, for each time your delirium collapses in calamity, all you can see and feel are darkness, gray, and cold. No longer warm sands and fiery skies, just the concrete. No more rippling water and flowers gently swaying in the wind, just the silence.

You are terrified. Fear is ripping you apart. The noises of your captors make you tense up. The wound slowly leaking blood onto the ground beneath you worries you. The pain in your entire body makes you await death like an old abuser.

And just like all your other times of fear, you turn to one person in your head. Him. Poe.

For a moment, you feel ridiculous. Like you’re some helpless damsel in a holodrama spending her last moment pathetically yearning away for her love. But in truth, Poe is much more than your love. He is the star to your planet, keeping you in orbit, stopping you from being flung into the endless depths of the cosmos.

He is your confidant, your rock, your partner in crime, your best friend in the entire galaxy and beyond. The concrete ripples in your delirium, shifting like the smoke your pilot leaves in his wake when he takes to the skies. He is your once in a lifetime, and you are determined to cherish him as your final hour approaches.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

You slip and fall in and out of consciousness, seeing skies and concrete and oceans.

Gray.…orange.…gray.…blue.…gray, once more.

You’re in your own head, watching memories on replay, like you’re stuck in some joyous sub-reality that you’re so close, yet so far from reaching.

“Hey, what’s wrong?”

You jolt from where you’re sitting, out on the airfield, on some cargo boxes, legs hanging down. The sun is setting, the air is cooling, life out there is dying for the night. The presence of the curly-haired pilot is nearly bothersome. You want to be alone.

Regardless, he climbs up beside you, loosely slinging an arm over your shoulder. Something about his demeanor always makes you relax.

“Just not having the best day,” you respond, staring at the concrete below.

“Would it be too intrusive to ask why?” His voice is tentative, unsure. “Or is this the part where I shut up and be quiet and just be there for you.”

You laugh softly, processing his words. There for you. You wonder if he feels like he has to be. There’s no doubt that there’s something between the two of you going on. That’s been going on.

“Maybe I’ll tell you later.”

Months of flirtations between you two. Compliments thrown back and forth, countless winks and touches, unsure if the attraction was true and not just some cheap distraction from the war. Not just an attempt to ease pain by feeling desired by someone.

“Do you ever get tired of it?” you ask, your voice a little too shaky to not strike concern in him. “The war.”

He frowns, his fingers walking into your hand. You’re a fighter. He knows that. And this type of talk was not one to come from you.

“What happened?” His voice is always soft, always comforting. But somehow it comes out even softer.

You scoff. “Why do you even care?” It’s meant to come out lighthearted, but somehow it ends up sounding more malicious than you’d intended.

“Because I care about you, sweetheart,” he whispers, the last remnants of the sun beginning to disappear.

“Yeah?” You pull your hand away, twisting your fingers with your own instead. “You bother all your friends like this?” You rebuff his obvious admittance in a humorous tone, recoiling from the real, deep emotions beginning to permeate the air. You don’t feel like dealing with real emotions now. So in response, you grow defensive.

“Not when I care about them as more than a friend.”

You freeze. Your immediate first thought is whether or not he’s messing with you. But not because he’s the Resistance golden boy or because he’s an outstanding pilot or because he’s impossibly handsome. You’re on par with him in your own game, and you don’t think of him like that.

But you would’ve had that reaction to anyone who’d told you they cared about you. You haven’t been in a good place as of late.

Poe is staring at you. Just staring. Waiting for you to say something. You say nothing. Your thoughts are racing, telling yourself to get something out. But nothing comes. And when you finally get the courage to look at him, there is only hurt. It’s written across his face, already engraved in his posture.

He looks betrayed. As if thinking that you’d been the one messing with him during all those months of flirtations. He doesn’t snap at you. Doesn’t lose his temper. But that makes it all the more worse.

“Forget…forget I said it.” He sighs, giving you one last look before hopping down.

You watch as he goes, your shoulders slumped, already beginning to beat yourself up. But something comes over you.

“Dameron, wait!” you call out, going after him. He turns as you get to him, and you grab the collar of his jacket, pulling him towards you till your foreheads are touching.

You stare at him with apologetic, yet adoring, eyes as your hands find their way into his curls. He’s the one that closes the gap, his lips melding with yours, hands on each other, tender and soft.

He’s also the one that pulls away first, a radiant smile on his face, one you’ve never seen before. The usual is one that’s practiced, flirtatious, charismatic. This one is relaxed, genuinely happy.

A breeze blows past, making you shiver.

“Cold?” he asks, and you nod, a smile tugging at your own lips. He wraps an arm around your shoulder. “Come on.” He begins to lead you back inside. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

That’d marked the beginning of a romantic relationship that still prevailed many years down the line. You smile thinking about it, absentmindedly listening to the tap of the leaky concrete ceiling. A small meal of something that looks terrible is shoved through your cell door before it closes again.

The two of you had shared memories, secrets, pleasure, and pain. Love and anger and jealousy. Everything both of you had was passed to the other, whether it be out of giving or the need to share a burden. You’d lived through victories together. Trials and tribulations. Incidents that had come too close to death for comfort. Those that had been knocking at death’s doorstep…

“Where. Is. He?” You’re hands are in your hair, facing down the General, taking a tone with her that could earn you a demotion. But you don’t care. You’re terrified. Poe was supposed to return a week ago. It’s been three.

Leia looks at you, not angered. There’s something akin to sadness in her eyes, and she looks at you with that motherly gaze of hers, feeling your distress traveling through the air to her.

“You should be focusing on your missions, Major,” she simply says. She walks up to you, resting a hand on your shoulder as you feel a heat at the back of your eyes begging to come free. “Listen to me.” She says your name, making sure that you’re providing her with your full, undivided attention. “You are our best agent, best spy, best sniper. I need you level-headed, and worrying is not going to do that.”

“With all due respect, General,” you reply, straightening your posture. “I don’t believe I can get any more worried than I am now. At least if I know, I’ll have something to help me make peace.”

She sighs, walking around her desk, sitting in the chair, leaning back and momentarily shutting her eyes. “We have reason to believe he may have been captured by First Order sympathizers in the Outer Rim.”

You show no reaction at her revelation, but inside, you are curling up, sobbing. You know that Poe is strong, that he’s clever, and courageous, and brave, but past evidence does not lie. Those who are captured by the First Order or those who sympathize with them never return…

You jump as the alarm in the med bay near the General’s office sounds, and it does nothing to aid your mood. That alarm means hope slipping through the cracks. Searching for life but ultimately finding death. It means that emergency aid is immediately needed on whoever has returned.

But as you hear medics rushing by, you swear that you hear a familiar last name. And before Leia can stop you, you’re running. Chatter seems louder as you push past people. The air seems more alive. Perhaps indicative of an important someone making a miraculous return.

And then you see him. The hopeful high you’d felt crashed to the ground, now impossibly low. He looks dead. But he is not. And perhaps that’s worse. He’s layered in bruises and cuts. A chunk of his hair appears to be missing. One of his eyes is closed, the other is swollen shut.

The next day is all a blur, filed with tears and apprehension and a sense of loss. You’re in a haze, all consumed in a numbness. You’re not allowed to see him at first, and when you finally are, the two of you get your first quiet moment together alone.

You sit at his bedside, your fingers laced with his, listening to his breathing. When he stirs, he lets out a small groan. “Poe,” you whisper.

He mutters something unintelligible, but he gives your hand a squeeze. “Hey, sweetheart,” he murmurs, finally cracking open his eyes. The first thing he sees are your tears, and even in his debilitated state, he looks concerned. “Are you alright?”

You stare at him. “You’re asking me that?”

“Well, I’d say you seem to be in a worse state than me at this point.”

You let out a choked laugh, smiling and crying harder at the same time. You lean over, resting your head on his chest, relieved to feel him again. “I was so scared,” you whisper.

“It’s okay,” he simply says.

You feel his hand on your skin, his thumb brushing tears away. “You looked dead,” you whimper. “You looked so close.”

He closed his eyes a moment, his own breath shaking, “I’m here now, baby. I’m safe…with you.”

You jolt as the door to your cell slams open. No words are said as a boot makes contact with your stomach, right on the spot that had previously been leaking blood. You cry out as you feel it open again, the warm liquid dripping down your side.

At the beginning of your stay here, they’d asked you questions, none of which you answered. Eventually, they’d stopped, and now, all they did was make you suffer. It didn’t seem that they had any definitive goal in mind, only to cause you pain.

A set of hands roam your body, and you don’t move. Don’t even flinch as a derogatory and suggestive remark leaves your captor’s mouth. You feel his hands at your pants, sliding them down, and you dread what will come. It’s already happened before…multiple times, but it does not get easier with each reoccurrence. You utilize the only defense mechanism you have left. You retreat into your head once more.

The city lights are beautiful. Gold and white and neon and blue. You’ve always loved cities; you still do. They’re alive in every way. A culmination of a million cultures from every corner of the galaxy. Millions of beings, none of which know or care who you are.

You’re happily shrouded in your anonymity, content to be no one.

You stand on the balcony of your hotel room, looking out across the buildings, focusing on little scenes: a couple buying ice cream, a drunk throwing up into a bush in the far distance.

Your love sleeps behind you, soft breaths floating through the air, just barely reaching your ear. Or at least, you believe he is asleep. You don’t hear his footsteps on the floor, but he is there. He comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist and pressing a soft, gentle kiss to your neck.

“Hey,” you whisper, leaning into him, feeling him around you. “Can’t sleep?”

He shook his head.

“Me neither,” you respond. The clock reads midnight, but the air still crackles with life. “Go for a walk?”

He nods, the both of you getting dressed. On the street, there is soft music drifting through the air, a jazz from a sidewalk cafe still open to night workers and night owls. His arm is wrapped around your shoulder, yours around his waist, as you two slowly walk down the street.

His body is warm against the chilly air, and you nestle against him as you stroll. You and him stop by the river, watching the water ripple below, painted a million different colors by the light. More buildings shine in the distance, forming a jagged skyline, so intricate that you want to drag your fingers along it and feel the texture.

You notice Poe’s gaze on you.

“What?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

He pauses a moment. “Nothing, you’re just… beautiful,” he simply responds.

You laugh. “All these lights, and you’re looking at me?”

He only smiles and shrugs. The subtle compliment makes you warm inside, security washing over you. As a gust of wind blows past, he moves behind, wrapping his arms around you on either side to keep you warm.

You adore this place.

Just you and your love—in the midst of one beautiful city midnight.

You snap back to reality, the memory making you smile. Pain vanishes for a small amount of time as you think.

No, this would not be the worst way to go.

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

“City Midnights” Chapter One originally posted on AO3 on 12/7/20.

Read the second chapter here.

[mythicamagic]

Eve’s Inferno - Rukiyui oneshot

Dante's Inferno AU. Eve has searched almost every circle of Hell, leaving just one left. In order to find Adam, she must face the one responsible for their banishment from Eden. But the Devil is used to whispering sweet nothings, and Ruki has succeeded in getting under her skin once before. Rukiyui oneshot.

AN: Made for the Diabolik Lovers Zine @diabolikloverszine​ and published with permission since the sales have closed. I had this idea a long time ago, due to Ruki often being associated with Lucifer in the games. Hope you enjoy!

Rated T

3,000 words (also posted on Ao3)

Eve's Inferno

Disembarking from the small boat, a young woman kept her hand in the ferryman's as he assisted her down. He smiled gently with ashen lips and doleful eyes, nodding to a set of double doors awaiting her.

Thanking him, she offered coins for the ride but was met with a quiet decline. He soon pushed off the dead earth, slinking back up the dark, murky waters of the cavern's river.

The grey doors had vast, intricate carvings of desperate people rising out of it, frozen mid-air, arms outstretched and clawing as though trying to escape. She wondered if they were real human souls, trapped as such a mundane part of the underworld. Taking a breath, she set her shoulders and reached out. The doors opened easily under her hesitant touch.

The woman didn't know what to expect behind them. Perhaps fire and brimstone, the dead or dying, tortured continuously and screams ringing out. But the vast, open space looked empty. There were no cries of pain, blissfully silent. A large cave awaited her, walls dark and jagged with obsidian rock. At her feet lay a cool, frozen lake, solid enough for her to stand on as it took up the entirety of the floor, spreading wide. Curling, misty air didn't chill her bones or make breath visible, instead feeling a little heady.

She steeled herself, walking forwards. In all the domain only a single thing truly held her gaze, that of a lone white tree standing on a small island. The shock of white and green was impossible to ignore.

With careful steps, she crossed the lonely, silent space. Walking onto the island, fresh grass crunched beneath her feet- soon coming to a stop. Breath catching, wide eyes took in the sight of a man with familiar dark hair reclined against the tree. He held a book, pale fingers gripping its spine.

She could not place how she felt, standing there, watching him calmly read. Soft, blue-grey eyes looked as disarming as she remembered when they flicked up to her. But they could sharpen. That tempting mouth could praise and charm one moment and then damn her the next.

"Good to see you, Yui."

"Hello Ruki," she murmured, folding her hands before her skirts. Swallowing, she babbled; "I didn't pay the ferryman, I hope that's alright."

"Azusa can be overly generous, it hardly matters," he dismissed, shifting long legs. "What can I do for you?"

Yui's fingers twisted into her sleeve. The casualness of his question belied Ruki's penchant for manipulation. If she weren't careful, she'd make a mistake, just like their last meeting all those years ago in Eden.

So, raising her head, she set thin shoulders. "I'm here for Adam," her tone was firm and final.

No surprise flickered in his expression, attention returning to his book as though bored.

"I-if you can't give him to me, then I'd like to know where he is. I've been looking for him in the other eight circles for-"

"Centuries, I know."

Annoyance flared, "if you knew, why didn't you meet with me? The other princes weren't very..." she trailed off, curbing her tongue for the sake of diplomacy, "helpful."

A deceptively pleasant chuckle rang out. "Do you expect the ruler of a domain to heed every whim from their subjects? Especially subjects of hell?" Cruel lips curved as he shifted, setting the book down before standing. "Besides, most people when searching for someone will give a description."

Yui held her ground when he approached, heart thundering- drumming wildly in her ears. "You know what he looks like."

"But you don't."

The dark-haired young man, despite his handsome features, did not possess a presence that stood out or screamed malice. When compared with the other princes, his appearance wasn't as eye-catching, attitude not as loud or attention-grabbing. In a crowd, your gaze would likely pass over him. Despite this, when he stepped closer, Yui felt a pressure in the air. A type of sticky humidity that heralded storms. Those eyes, so calm and cold, implored her to confess her sins and sink to her knees. He'd treat her like a pet. A well-fed, maybe even cared for pet, but a pet nonetheless.

"P-please don't toy with me," she murmured. "You probably removed my memories of his face and voice, but I remember Eden. You won't keep us apart."

Ruki reached for her, brushing a shock of cold knuckles against her cheek. Yui congratulated herself for not flinching despite the rush of feeling that attacked her. Compared to the second circle of Lust, with prince Laito's thoughtless, grabby hands, this was nothing. And yet... such a small touch demanded her attention, skin pricking.

"Of course you'd assume I did that. Doesn't it occur to you that he put you here and dictated your punishment?" Hot breath fanned over her mouth, and something tightened in Yui's lower stomach. Lulled by the stroke of his fingers gliding from chin to ear, Yui rocked back on her heels to try to clear her head.

That touch changed- locking into blonde hair and grasping tight to prevent escape. Yui stilled with a gasp, gritting her teeth.

"You're afraid," he purred.

"N-no," she thought for a moment and admitted; "not of what you can do to me. Just of my memories fading."

She'd seen what that did to souls. Lost, wandering figures mourning their own condition. They couldn't even remember their own names.

That touch turned gentle and soothing again, but she didn't trust it not to turn into violence at a second's notice. "Why do you care so much about finding him?"

"B-because I love him?" Wasn't that a question with an obvious answer? She'd literally been created from a rib to be Adam's other half.

"You can't love someone you don't remember. Someone you don't know. You'd trust a stranger like that?" Devastatingly beautiful eyes shifted over her pale expression, his pupils slightly slit. Ruki leaned closer, lips ghosting over the delicate shell of her ear. This time she was unable to suppress a shiver. "You should give yourself over to your Master's hands instead... I wouldn't treat my Livestock poorly."

Something hot churned in her stomach. "You're not my Master and I'm not cattle."

A low chuckle resounded in her ear, firm fingers gliding down her spine. "I seem to remember us having a conversation similar to this a long time ago. Do you recall?"

Yui squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push back the memory. It flooded through the gaps between her fingers like water. She could suddenly smell thick, choking scents of roses, feel lush grass and flowers brushing at bare legs. Lashes reluctantly opened, and her breath hitched.

The lake and lone tree were nowhere in sight. Ruki had vanished. Instead, she found herself wandering through the achingly familiar gardens of Eden. Birds sang to each other in twisting trees, lions and other predators lazed around, heedless of her or other prey. Yui felt her skin prick from a faint chill in the air, glancing down to find herself naked.

It was all exactly as she remembered. She'd become Eve again, lost in those painful memories that had haunted her for centuries. Only... she still couldn't remember Adam.

---

Rounding a large flower bed, Eve lay eyes on a single tree, separated from all other greenery. It bore fruit, red apples catching the sun in such a way that salvia filled her mouth at the mere thought of tasting them.

"You can have one if you like."

Eve's gaze slid down the apple tree's truck to find a man leaning against it. No, not a man.

An angel.

She frowned, making no move to cover herself as she approached.

"But I was told not to."

The dark-haired angel smiled, and she felt no reason to be afraid. "Why do you obey blindly?"

"I don't know."

Some frustration marred his handsome face. He gestured to a small pond not too far away, "go look into the water."

The woman did so because she'd been told to, and it didn't cross her mind to resist. Kneeling at the water's edge, blonde hair slid forward and Eve's breath hitched at the sight of her own reflection. Her eyes struggled to take in the image, a stunned hand raising to touch her reddening cheek.

'That's me...'

Complicated thoughts blazed to life in her mind where none had been before. Wonder, perception, a briefly vain absorption in her own existence having palpable proof before her eyes. What a gentle and pretty face. She loved it simply because it was her own, something that only she owned. Eve was at once changed. No longer an extension of Adam, she felt like a person.

The angel knelt not too far away. "I'll ask again; why do you obey blindly?"

"Well because..." she trailed off, swallowing. "I suppose I was created after Adam so I should behave in order to show my gratitude?"

"You act like a Livestock that's been reared and bred in a shelter. That doesn't sound like honest loyalty to me."

"No, I- maybe it isn't, " her arms moved to hug herself, wondering why she felt a little cold. Maybe it was the strange, isolated feeling his question awakened in her. "What is... honest loyalty?"

His eyes sharpened, tone becoming firm. "It's when you can be certain the one you've put faith in can care for you. In turn, you support them, like they're a worthy Master."

Eve picked at soft green grass, mulling this over. "Sounds as though you have experience with it."

"Mn, though lately, I've been feeling dissatisfied."

She got the sense that he wouldn't be saying anything more. "I feel... different. Like I'm not the same Eve as a moment ago."

Her companion shifted to stand, some white feathers from exquisite wings falling to land on the water's surface. She watched them float and twirl slowly with fascination.

"If you're someone else, you could always give yourself a new name," he casually suggested.

"Give... myself?" Eve chewed on her bottom lip, thinking. A name came out of nowhere. No one suggested it, so at once, she felt slightly giddy and pleased with her hushed murmur of: "...Yui."

Blue-grey eyes shifted. A pale hand rested on his chest as he bowed slightly. "Yui. Well met."

"Well met," she blushed, glancing at the funny material wrapped around his body curiously. "What's your name?"

"I was given the name Lucifer."

Yui tilted her head, sending lush falls of blonde over one shoulder. "Oh, did you change yours too?"

"Yes. I chose the name Ruki instead."

Her hands curled in her hair, testing out the new name on her tongue. "Ru...ki."

Ruki stiffened slightly, attention weighed upon her like a heavy, palpable thing with substance and form. She felt her cheeks flush, remembering the reflection of herself in the water. For the first time, she wondered what he might be thinking. What an angel's own perception of her was like.

"Mn... there's no need to get caught up with trivial things," he cleared his throat, walking towards the tree again.

"I wanted to ask about those things draping over your body," Yui chirped, following.

"My clothes? More trivial talk," he sighed, not particularly annoyed, however. Ruki stopped by the truck and rested a hand upon it, "you can have clothes too if you desire."

"I can?" So many new things were being offered to her today! She felt as though discovery was perhaps the single most wonderful thing to experience. She hungered for more- like the reflection and her new name. "Yes. I'd like that!"

He made a gesture, twisting his wrist in the air- and at once those strange, wondrous threads were wrapped around her, covering her shoulders but clinging around her chest and then falling down to her feet like a waterfall. Yui touched the material, finding it soft. She giggled, looking at him. "Thank you," she said breathlessly.

Ruki nodded, face unreadable. He then gestured to the fruit hanging above them. "You can still take one of these if you wanted."

At this, she hesitated, stopping by his side. "I... I'm not sure..."

"Did we not establish that you don't have to give your loyalty to someone who hasn't earned it?" His pleasant voice remained patient. A cool hand, chilled to the touch, met the base of her spine. The woman stilled, feeling that palm drag up her back, before curling in her hair. He seemed at once too close and yet not near enough.

"Maybe if I... take a bite, I can explain that I was just discovering new things? I'll know what it's like and won't be tempted anymore," she murmured.

Strong fingers tightened, stroking the back of her neck. "What an interesting word to use. Yes, I suppose you won't be tempted. You'll have had experience, and no one should punish you for that."

She agreed and reached up of her own volition, grasping a red fruit and yanking to break it free. She then sank blunt teeth into the apple, making a noise as juices overflowed in her mouth. Ruki's slit gaze dilated.

"It tastes wonderful!" She smiled, offering him some. The angel refused, taking a few steps back.

"I'm happy for you, but I should really be going now."

"Oh," Yui wilted, not even noticing the darkening, angry clouds above. "A-alright, I'll see you later! I should go share this with Adam."

"Yes..."

---

Blinking, Yui shook herself. Like an after-image, Ruki and the gardens changed. They melted away, revealing the lonesome lake once more. Ruki stood without his wings, having lost them in the fall. She could remember hearing about his uprising, his sins. They were far worse and more numerous than her own, and yet there they stood, together in the last layer of Hell. Two traitors.

"You didn't need to show me that," Yui murmured. "I do still remember. Please, please just tell me where Adam is."

Ruki looked almost deceptively kind for a moment, features softening. "They forgave Adam. He has been accepted into Heaven and left you behind, Eve."

Her knees threatened to buckle, lungs constricting. No, no, she needed to calm down. Of course he'd lie. "The truth, please," she gritted out.

Strong hands caught her slim waist as she moved back, starting violently at his touch and proximity. "I am not lying, Livestock."

"How can you expect me to believe you?" tears pricked her eyes.

"I understand-" he hissed, gathering Yui's thin, shivering body closer and curling around her. "I'm the snake that tempted Eve. You don't trust me and see me as nothing but an unworthy Master- but there's a place for you, here Eve." The smoke of a smile lingered on his lips, unseen by her, but she could hear it, feel it in his voice. "Here, by my side. We're a lot alike, cast out for our sins. All we did was utilise our free will. I'm not like him..." Ruki quietly purrs. "I won't shut you out no matter how much you sin."

Tears leaked down her cheeks as Yui raised her head, finding his lips much closer than anticipated. "Just give me your loyalty."

Trembling, the sensation of his mouth pressing against hers stole her breath. Shame rose to mingle with the glow he elicited within her chest, feeling herself considering, wondering if perhaps- just maybe... he genuinely cared for her.

'What is...honest loyalty?'

Yui's fingers curled in his clothes.

'It's when you can be certain the one you've put faith in can care for you. In turn, you support them, like they're...a worthy Master.'

Two hands shot out, shoving against his chest. 

Ruki grunted, eyes flashing. "Yui-"

"No! I-if it is true, then I-I'm happy for him!" Yui yelled. "Adam deserves to be free, but I won't ever give you my loyalty. I won't be your Livestock," she turned, hurrying away.

"Yui!" Ruki snarled, something hard leaking into his voice.

She stepped off the island, landing upon the lake a second before his hand met a barrier. Yui blinked, noting that he couldn't seem to set foot off the island, unable to leave the tree where he'd helped her commit the first sin of man. It seemed someone up in Heaven had a sense of humour.

Her blonde hair bounced as she jogged away, having no idea where to go. Anywhere was better than with him.

"You can't leave," came his quiet voice. "We'll keep going over this. We'll keep doing it, as many times as it takes for you to say yes."

Yui ignored him, reaching out to touch the large grey doors- only to hear a quiet snap of fingers behind her.

---

Sitting up, she stifled a yawn.

"We're here, miss."

Disembarking from the small boat, the woman kept her hand in the ferryman's as he assisted her down. She tried to give him coins, but he declined, continuing on his way. Approaching some large, imposing grey doors, she noted they had vast, intricate carvings of people rising out of them. Taking a breath, she pushed them open, stepping into the quiet space.

Awaiting her, marooned on a single island within the lake, the Devil watched as Eve approached.

[winetae]

wall to wall (m.) 01

↳ in a pornographic movie, refers to a series of sex scenes with no plot.

⇁ female reader x hoseok 

⇁ smut, porn star!au

⇁ sex work, insecurity, jealousy, slut shaming/objectification (not the sexy kind), role played scenario that includes: d/s dynamics - dom!hoseok, porn star level dirty talk, stuff that should never happen in a kitchen bc hygiene, daddy kink, impreg kink, rough sex, spanking, a lot of finger sucking, this fic is a poor attempt at social commentary

⇁ 22.5k

. . .

Temporary popularity is the biggest threat to your career right now. Without a solid core fan base you’re doomed to be forgotten. If not now, then in a month or two, and if not then, surely by the end of the year. That’s how quickly the adult film industry cycles through their actors, especially when you’re a woman. Your agent comes forward with a proposition to help put you back on the map.

↳ or, my contribution to the lights, camera, action collab : )

part 01 | part 02 | part 03

author’s note | inspired by the piece ‘slut-shaming: pornstars are humans too’ & the life after porn documentaries on netflix. thank u to jordan, eva, amy, venus, addie and lu for being a part of this collab !! *inserts a million heart emojis and a big fat NUT emoticon*

re:warnings, the slut shaming is done by others and can also be considered as internalized oppression. it’s something the reader struggles with and eventually works to overcome. this first part isn’t as smutty as the second but regardless i hope u can bear with me lol. ty, as always, for giving my writing a chance. i hope u enjoy it or at least take something from it !

wall2wall can be read as a sequel to my fic money shot. same disclaimer applies: this story does claim to accurately portray the world of adult entertainment

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SCENE 01 - YOU’VE GOT MALE. TAKE 01. ROLL A.

.

Today is just one of those days you wish you had slept straight through. Maybe if you had, you wouldn’t be dying from the sheer dullness of having nothing to do.

You huff out a sigh, bored out of your goddamn mind.

Head cradled in the crook of your left palm, you use your available hand to refresh your instagram feed. Much to your disappointment, nothing new shows up. The same video of a dog chasing its own tail plays on but you pay it no heed, the novelty having worn off after the first few times.

The next half hour passes by in a similar fashion, each result proving to be as unavailing as the last. You’d think that after a while you’d give up and find a new distraction to pass the time but whether out of habit or boredom-induced insanity, you persist with your fruitless attempts.

Today really fucking blows, you think glumly, the curve of your mouth thinning into a grimace. As the adorable corgie keeps the infernal cycle going, yapping and running around incessantly, you’re struck with a terrifying thought. Maybe this is how you will die - condemned to live your life stuck in the worst sort of monotony imaginable.

What you had expected to be a “quick and easy” shoot has turned into a tedious ordeal that you don’t see ending anytime soon. And whilst on-set complications and prolongations are frequent enough that they’re almost expected, today really takes the cake. Even during your rookie days, you can’t recall running into delays of this scale.

To top it off, the weather app announces a record-breaking heat - which in itself is bad enough. As luck would have it, it gets worse. The place rented out for today’s filming lacks proper air conditioning, equipped instead with electric fans that look like they’ve been around since the 1980s.

A quick glance into the vanity mirror confirms that you look as frazzled as you feel. Because of the humidity level that weighs down the air, your hair is in a right state. You fight a grimace off your face. The straggly hair coupled with the oily sheen on your face...it’s far from your best look, to say the least.

And to think thousands of people will get to see it up close in 1080p resolution... It’s a terrifying concept.

You’re already dreading the upcoming sex scenes that you’ve yet to film. It’s always a messy affair - fluids of all kind end up literally everywhere - but the sweltering heat undoubtedly makes it ten times worse. A shudder works its way down your spine.

Frankly speaking, the mere thought of having hot and wild sex in these less than ideal working conditions kills your libido. Under the glaring studio lights, surrounded by sweaty crewmen and pressed up an equally feverish body - it’s basically the porn equivalent of a fuckin’ barbecue party.

Yeah, no thanks. You’d rather be at home, with the air conditioner at full blast, nestled in the comfy cushions of your sofa as you marathon a series of your choice on netflix. Only the promised sum of money keeps you from bolting and calling it quits altogether.

“So when are you gonna drop the new boy toy?” a voice buzzes in your ear not unlike a pesky fly.

Tempting as it is to ignore it, you peel your eyes away from your reflection just in time to catch Seokjin shoot you the most unimpressed look in his repertoire, one perfectly groomed eyebrow arched in judgment.

In the background, an old ceiling fan whirs on but does nothing to cool you off. If anything, its constant rattling only exacerbates your growing headache.

“What are you talking about?" You flick a piece of imaginary lint off your dressing robe, your tone neutral.

Seokjin’s brown eyes see right through your feigned air of indifference. Months of working by your side have made him an expert at reading your body language, be it naked or clothed. A wolfish grin adorns his face as he swoops in for the kill.

“Oh come on. You know exactly who I’m talking about. Jongmin. He’s short - comes up to right about here.” Seokjin holds a hand up to his chest to illustrate his point, deliberately shaving off a few inches off your boyfriend’s height in order to antagonize you.

You bite the inside of your cheek, careful not to spit out the retort that’s perched on the tip of your tongue. It takes a great deal of effort to unclench the muscles in your jaw but you manage to school your features into an expression of polite confusion.

Seokjin frowns, dissatisfied with your lack of response. You don’t need to be a mind reader to know that he’s currently thinking of new ways to provoke you.

When the silence stretches on and he’s yet to riposte, you allow yourself  to relax again, believing that he’s given up on being an asshole.

To your chagrin, you’re sorely mistaken. The last of your self-restraint is finally put to the test as his next words do nothing to quell your irritation.

“Jongmin.” He repeats slowly, like you need it spelled out for you. “He follows you around everywhere like a lap dog. It’d be cute if it wasn’t so, you know, pathetic.”

“His name is Jimin,” you correct for the nth time.

Instantly, you reprimand yourself for playing into his games and granting him the attention he so craves. Fulfilling his twisted desire is the last thing you hope to achieve. Staying silent would be the sensible thing to do but your brain completely bypasses the memo. The moment your mouth opens it’s impossible to quash the urge to justify yourself.

Maybe it’s your pride coming into play. Maybe it’s Seokjin’s uncanny ability to get under anyone’s skin at will. Whatever the case may be, you stammer out, on the defensive, “And he’s not my 'boy toy'. We - it’s not - we’re dating.” But the word feels like a weight on your tongue. You swallow.

The statement earns you a scoff of incredulity. “Dating? Him?”

You finally set your phone down and aim a glare his way, abandoning all pretense at being indifferent because—Jesus. Is the idea of you dating that unfathomable? He’s never been this worked up over any of your other relationships. Granted, none of them have ever lasted this long but is it really any of his business who you choose to see in your free time?

“I don’t get what your problem is. What’s so wrong with me dating?”

“Have you seen who you’re dating?”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?!”

While this isn’t the first time your agent lets a judgmental comment slip from between his pearly white teeth, it’s usually not laced with spite. Seokjin is never outright hostile, preferring sweet words of manipulation and thinly-veiled insults to shows of aggression. The attempt to get a rise out of you does not go by unnoticed. His anger, this time, feels personal.

You wrack your brain, quickly sifting through your recent memories to try and figure out why he’s chosen to be such an ass today. You’re certain that you’ve filled out all the necessary paperwork required to proceed with today’s filming, and yes, after thinking it over, you know that you went to the obligatory medical checkup last week. So there really is no reason for him to bitch at you unless—

The proverbial light bulb flickers on and it all suddenly makes sense.

You’re willing to bet a hefty sum of money that the high-paying gig you turned down two weekends ago is to blame for his abnormal crotchety behavior.

Yes, that would explain it.

Due to Seokjin's well-known propensity to hold a grudge for longer than average, the odds that he’s still hung up over the lost deal are pretty high. And as much as his disappointment and frustration are understandable from a business standpoint, you don’t appreciate being used as a verbal punching bag for him to expel all those pent-up feelings.

Seokjin hums, a knowing smirk pulling the sides of his mouth upwards. Fleetingly, and not for the first time, you find it a shame that his cockiness tarnishes his otherwise handsome face. “I give it another couple of days until you get bored. How long has this gone on for? A month? How are you not yanking out your hair from the sheer boredom of dating...that."

A muscle in your jaw ticks.

“He’s not Voldemort, you coward. Would it honestly kill you to say his name?” Seokjin’s expression begs to differ. You cut him off before he can add fuel to the fire. “And I won’t get bored. Jimin’s - he’s a perfectly nice guy. We’ve been seeing each other just fine—not that it’s any of your concern.”

“Yes, he’s nice,” Seokjin concedes easily, brushing off any attempts at putting an end to the conversation. He grins, wide and smug, like he knows you can’t refute what he’ll say next. “Perfectly nice and boring. The kind of guy you’d bring back home if your parents were straight-laced folks that wanted to marry you off to a choir boy. Seriously, how the fuck did a guy like him end up in the porn industry? He belongs in a church or, I dunno, maybe some neighborhood book club - not behind a camera filming you getting flogged by a daddy dom.”

You sniff. “Just because he tucks his shirts in doesn’t—”

“It’s not just the shirts, honey.” He leans over to pat your hand in a gesture of consolation. Used to his antics, his attempt is easily blocked by a swat of your hand.

You muster the dirtiest look you’re capable of, the kind of look that sends men to early graves, but he simply smiles in response, completely unfazed.

Any person with the minimum amount of tact would know to politely change the subject. It’s unfortunate that your agent does not belong to that pool of individuals, choosing instead to be selectively blind to overt social cues.

He continues on, unperturbed, like he has a point to prove. “Believe it or not, I know you. Sometimes, for whatever reason, perhaps a lapse in judgement but who the fuck knows, you like to venture out of your comfort zone and experiment. Like with the chickenshit gingerbread spice concoctions they come out with at Starbucks to celebrate turkey season and Christmas or the cream cheese makis they make for the white crowd who want to eat sushi but don’t like anything other than white rice and seaweed. And, trust me, while I’m all for diversity and broadening your personal experiences, don’t you think there’s a reason why you always go back to your preferred choice of an iced latte with two sugars?”

“Did you just compare Jimin to a gingerbread latte?”

Okay, so admittedly you’ve made some questionable food and beverage choices in the past, but the comparison is a fucking reach. 

“You’re absolutely right." Seokjin gives a firm nod of his head, his expression serious. "Now that you mention it, he’s definitely a vanilla soy. Bland and boring. Targeted towards the middle-aged soccer moms that think veganism is a trend, not a lifestyle. Wants to be a people-pleaser but misses the mark.”

“I didn’t know it was Share Your Unwanted Opinion Time,” you grind out from behind a strained smile. “If I had, I would have said something about your receding hairline earlier.”

It’s a low blow but the way Seokjin’s plump lips curl in displeasure makes the dig worth it. One of his hands automatically shoot up to flatten the bangs that are usually slicked back with copious amounts of gel.

Offended, he spits, “It’s not receding! There’s a difference between premature balding and a bleach job gone wrong.”

"I'm not sure people care to differentiate. Looks like a receding hairline to me." You shrug while picking at your nails. “You’re nearing that age, too, so.”

“You just try looking this good at 30. Fucking try.” 

He waits for a reply but your interest has already waned. You scroll through your phone, bored once more.

Seokjin makes a disgruntled noise in the back of his throat at the clear dismissal. You swear you hear him grumble under his breath - something along the lines of never going blonde again - but can’t find it in you to care, not when he’s finally ceased his nagging.

"Filming in twenty!" someone shouts from outside the door.

"They’re running behind schedule," Seokjin notes after glancing down at his gold wristwatch. "How can they take more than an hour to fix the lighting? Tch. Bunch of fuckin’ amateurs."

He aims a glare in your direction as if their incompetence is somehow your fault. 

You have half a mind to glower back but miraculously withhold your sentiments. Admittedly, he isn’t wrong - the team you’re working with today keeps committing blunders even rookies wouldn’t dare perpetrate - but you’d rather get your driving license revoked forever than to acknowledge that Seokjin’s right and inflate his already unnaturally huge ego.

Something heavy plops into your lap. When you look down, the glossy surface of a magazine reflects the harsh lights suspended over the vanity table back at you.

“I didn’t want to resort to this but you leave me no choice,” he says in response to your look of confusion.

“What’s this?”

You hold up the magazine expecting the worst. It’s heavy in your hands, the pages thicker than the gossip rags you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room. 

“’s the newest issue. Came out this morning. I’d actually like it back once you’re done because I haven’t finished reading it and God knows how hard it was to get my—hey, you can stop flicking aimlessly, I saved you the trouble and bookmarked the page,” Seokjin explains a bit impatiently.

When you shoot him a glance, his attention is trained on your face, not the magazine. He barely blinks. Like a snake honing in on its prey. And that kind of intense focus - that can’t be good. After all, you’ve known Seokjin long enough to suspect that whatever trick he has up his sleeve will give him the advantage he needs to deliver the killing blow.

Gingerly, you flip through the pages like you’re afraid the magazine might self-destruct in your hands. Which would be a waste, in your opinion, since Exquis is a damn good magazine - perhaps less intellectual than Playboy, but definitely classier than Hustler. Its reputation speaks for itself. Known for hiring the best photographers and carefully combing through their models, it’s selective, only picking the cream of the cr—

Everything around you stills.

Your eyes narrow at the spread because there, on the page Seokjin’s taken great care to bookmark, a model poses provocatively on a lounge chaise near a crystal clear pool. It’s similar to a shoot you’ve done in the past but you can tell right away that the quality of this is above and beyond anything you’ve ever done. The lighting is better, heck even the barely-there-swimsuit looks like it costs ten times more than whatever you had been told to throw on at the time.

The vexation you feel only worsens once it finally registers who the model is. Her youthful and pretty face carries a permanent haughtiness that not even makeup or acting can entirely mask.

The pages crease in your hold as you flick through the rest of the spread dedicated to the up and coming talents. With every new page that has her plastered on its glossy surface you feel your stomach sink. 

2...3...4...

“Five pages,” you curse under your breath. For a magazine this renowned, it’s...a lot. Commendable, even. Your nose crinkles. “Well, fuck. me. sideways.”

Seokjin gloats, reveling in your outrage. “Hmph. I told you, didn’t I? Passing up the opportunity to work with Kim Namjoon would come and bite you in the ass.”

“Aha! So you have been a little bitch because I refused to shoot with Namjoon.” You whirl around in your chair and use the magazine to jab him in the chest. He easily steps aside, avoiding your attempt at wrinkling his trademark Armani button-down shirt.

“It was the chance of a lifetime and you knew it.” He turns his nose up and sniffs.

“That’s what you said about filming with Min Yoongi last month.” You roll your eyes. “I can’t take you seriously if you’re gonna say the same thing every time a new guy shows up.”

“Shooting with Agust D did help you gain some mainstream popularity. You’ve gotten love calls for catalog printings and your name is now automatically on the invite sheet for every C-list event in town. Namjoon would have given you another needed boost.” Seokjin folds his arms, lecturing mode switched on. You struggle with the instinctive urge to tune him out. “Sure, he’s got a niche audience, but he’s famous in his field and it would have helped expand your fa—“

“Not to kink shame or anything because we don’t do that, but Namjoon is a freak. And don’t deny it, I’ve seen his videos.”

“He’s specialized in particular—“

“You were the one telling me not to film all sorts of shit right off the bat,” you cut in, refusing to back down from your stance. There’s no way you’ll let him sweet-talk you out of this one, not after the multiple videos of Namjoon you’d binged one weekend. “Stick to one story.”

“Well, we’re not exactly ‘right off the bat’ anymore, are we? We’ve passed that stage. Right now is a crucial time in your career so you’ve got to make it count. Filming rehashed videos of the same pizza delivery guy scenario gets boring and fast. As pretty as you are, you’re not offering anything new to the table, are you?”

Fuck him. He’s right and you know it. Temporary popularity is the biggest threat to your career right now. Without a solid core fan base you’re doomed to be forgotten. If not now, then in a month or two, and if not then, surely by the end of the year. That’s how quickly the adult film industry cycles through their actors, especially when you’re a woman.

Still. “I refuse to work with a guy whose porn alias is Cock Monster.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

“Well I said no,” you insist stubbornly.

“Well if you had said yes, maybe it would be your ass cheeks getting their own two page spread in Exquis instead,” jabs Seokjin, hitting you where it hurts. 

Ugh. The reminder that Joy’s bested you yet again riles you up even more. That, coupled with the likelihood of your career ending imminently, makes you stop and think.

Your agent goes on to say, “Don’t you want the AVN for best newcomer? Where did that competitive edge go? At the rate this is going, Joy’s going to steal it from right under your nose.”

“Like fucking hell,” you hiss. The magazine bends under the strength of your grip. “That one’s mine.”

You absolutely refuse to lose out to her. Every fiber of your being rejects the idea of letting her one-up you again.

“Not if you don’t start branching out. The last time you did anything substantial or interesting was about a month ago. It’s already old news. People are going to forget you shot that sequence altogether if you don’t do anything that puts you back on the map.”

A pause. “…I really don’t want to film with someone who willingly named himself Cock Mons—”

“Fine.” Seokjin heaves a resigned sigh. “You don’t have to fuck the monster willy. Willy monster? Hm. Wouldn’t it make more sense to name himself Monster Cock and not Cock Monster? Wonder why he does th—”

You suppress a snort. “Please spare me while you can. It’s amazing, that talent for making everything sound a lot worse than it already it is.”

“Why, thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“You trying to insult someone who’s willing to find you someone else to work with? I can always ask Monster Meatstick if he’s up for—”

“No! No, that’s - not necessary.” You force out a smile that wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking its genuine. “Why would I ever insult you? You’re the best agent one could ask for.”

“That’s what I thought.” He takes your compliment, forced or not. When he smiles, smugness rolls off of him in waves. “One day you’ll realize you’re taking my talent for granted. I’ll find you another onscreen partner even though you don’t know what you’re missing out.”

“Thank you.”

“But!” He interjects and this time you don’t bother swallowing down your groan, already dreading the stipulations he has in store for you. “You have to promise to hold up your end of the bargain and try your best.”

Indignation colors your face. Your mouth falls open, retort at the ready. “When do I ever slack off on the job?! I’ve never given a half-assed blowjob in my life - and trust me, the temptation was there. Do you have any idea how hard it is to stay focused when the guy can’t cum on command? I once had to get my jaw realigned.”

“I’m not saying you’re slacking off,” he backtracks, switching tactics. His expression is soon replaced by the business-like smile you’re used to seeing on the regular. Tone buttery and appeasing, he tries to convince you through flattery instead. “You work hard and do a good job… I wouldn’t have signed you on otherwise. The problem isn’t with the quality of your work but with - all the rest.”

“The rest?” you parrot back dumbly, trying and failing to comprehend.

Seokjin scowl returns, unable to keep his genuine emotions under wraps.

“D’you honestly think you’re at a point in your career where you can pick and choose your jobs like this? Ever since you started dating that - that thing - your workload has significantly decreased. And not because you lacked opportunities. You had them but you turned them all down.” Visibly getting worked up over the issue, his voice rises an octave, then two. “What should’ve been a good spring board, only brought you back to square one. I know I can’t force you to take jobs if you refuse to, but I can say that your potential is going to waste. I’ve never seen someone sabotage herself like this before and it’s driving me up the wall. While I get that you’re under the delusion that you’ve found true love or whatever Disney fantasy Jungmin has sold you, you can’t turn down projects over and over again without there being serious repercussions. You’re smart enough to know this. I shouldn’t have to remind you.”

Seokjin’s chest heaves as he takes in several big gulps of air, visibly out of breath after his monologue.

For him to explode like popcorn kennels in the microwave... You reckon he’d let his feelings pile up inside him for a while, silently stewing.

You’ve never seen your agent look so visibly distressed. He’s normally the picture-perfect image of composure so the sight that greets you is enough of a shock to render you speechless.

Deep down, Seokjin probably means well. There aren’t a lot of agents like him; you’re one of the lucky ones. Most girls are discarded by their agencies as quickly as used tissues once they get milked for all their worth. 

Thankfully it’s never been that way with Seokjin. He claims that he’s in it for the long run. According to him the quick buck isn’t worth seeing the light die out in girl after girl. Perhaps that’s why he takes the task of ensuring your safety so seriously. How many times has he warned you to steer clear of this or that seedy director or ban you from attending drug-heavy parties? While his behavior can come off as overbearing on the worst days, at least he cares.

Sadly, it’s more than you can say for most.

In a way, he’s the only one in this business rooting for your success—if only because his paycheck depends on how well you perform. You like to pretend there’s more to it than that.

“I’m not - what’s Jimin got to do with any of this?” you splutter, still digesting the long tirade you’ve just been subjected to. 

“Are you serious? That’s all you got from what I said?”

“Well, no, but I still fail to—”

“Do you think me a fool?” He crosses his arms tightly across his broad chest. “The only scenes you’re willing to shoot are when he’s on set. Are you a kid or something? Since when do you need supervision to shoot a sex scene?”

“N-no. It just worked out that way, okay?” In reply to his dubious expression, you force yourself to explain. “Okay, okay - I get it. Maybe I might’ve lessened my workload recently but it has nothing to do with Jimin, alright? My vagina needs rest from time to time. Just because it’s my job doesn’t mean I don’t need a break. I’m human too, not some blow-up doll.”

“You expect me to believe that he has nothing to do with it? You were perfectly fine before he entered the picture. And now that you’re all loved up you only pick—”

A knock, so timid you barely catch it, cuts off the rest of his sentence.

“Yeah? Come in, I’m decent!” you yell - not that you care whether someone sees you naked or not. The concept of modesty has long been lost on you. Some might call it shamelessness or vanity, but you take pride in how you look. And why wouldn’t you? Your body is your bread and butter. You spend hours in the gym every week so that your ass looks good no matter what camera angle.

“It’s me.”

The door opens a crack and the speaker tentatively sticks his mop of hair through the small opening. As soon as you recognize him, your heart leaps at the sight and you quickly tighten your robe together.

“Oh, speak of the devil,” Seokjin mutters under his breath.

You resist the urge to throttle him and plaster on your brightest smile instead.

“I wanted to see how you were doing. Sorry I took so long... I would’ve come earlier but they needed my help.” Jimin scratches a spot behind his ear, sheepish. “Someone tripped over the cables and smashed a camera lens so we had to find a replacement. The director threw a fit and wanted to call it quits so we’ve been trying to calm him down this entire time. He did - eventually, anyway, after he called his dealer on set.”

A disapproving frown tugs at his mouth corners and mars his otherwise perfect appearance.

You take a moment to swoon internally. You’ll never get tired of admiring your boyfriend. Unlike the majority of the on-set personnel, he doesn’t reek of weed or booze or stale cigarette smoke. His ironed clothes and immaculate appearance always make it easy to spot him amidst the hungover crew.

“That’s fine! I kept myself busy.”

Jimin returns your smile, his eyes creasing into beautiful half-moon crescents. You don’t know what kind of love-struck expression covers your face but next to you Seokjin makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a gag and a cough.

“Oh! Here, I brought snacks. I didn’t know what you liked so I just grabbed everything I could get my hands on.” He holds up a paper plate stacked with treats no doubt stolen from the catering service. “I know I kind of went overboard but I wanted to make sure you kept your sugar level up.”

“That’s sweet of you,” you coo, reaching to take the plate from him. He’s piled on the sweets so high that it’s a miracle nothing has toppled over yet. You aren’t especially hungry but take a bite out of a chocolate candy to show how much you appreciate the effort. Its gooey consistency melts on your tongue, the taste so sweet it sticks to your teeth.

“How adorable,” chimes in Seokjin, his hand grabbing a licorice stick from the mountain of candy before you can swat him away. “Thanks Jongmin.”

“Jimin,” he corrects good-naturedly, his smile not budging an inch. You think, privately, that’s what you like the most about him. Not many have the ability to block out Seokjin’s bullshit so effectively.

“Mmh,” your manager says around a mouthful of candy. “Seokjin. Pleasure.”

You elbow him while gritting your teeth. “Can you...give us a moment?”

Seokjin swallows down the treat and opens his mouth in protest. He has the audacity to look betrayed. “You’re kicking me out of our room so the two of you can get it on? Really?” 

Jimin’s cheeks flush and you quickly cut in before your agent can make matters worse.

"I just want to talk without you breathing down my neck. Weren’t you going off earlier about how I didn’t need adult supervision anymore? Well?”

“Fine. Fine! But you owe me. Again.” He grabs his portable phone charger from the vanity table before making his exit. “And don’t forget what we talked about!”

What a fucking drama queen. You have no idea why he always insists on making a scene when you know for a fact that he would’ve left of his own volition in five minutes anyway. For reasons he has no trouble disclosing, he can’t stand Jimin’s presence.

“I won’t,” you grumble just so that you can get him out of your hair faster.

The door slams shut with more force than strictly necessary. Silence hangs in the air for a brief moment before Jimin turns his warm gaze towards you.

“What was that about?” 

“Uh, nothing. You know how he is...” You play with the ends of your braided hair. “He can’t go very long without throwing a tantrum.’

“He seems very protective of you,” remarks Jimin, a thoughtful expression painting his angelic face. “I think that’s why he’s not that fond of me.”

“Nonsense,” you rebut immediately as you take his hands in yours. “Who could ever not like you?”

Jimin allows his lips to quirk into a small, self-deprecating smile that you promptly erase with a kiss. His lips feel pillow-soft against yours, and you let yoruself indulge in the feeling before pulling back.

You sigh, remembering the scene you’ve yet to film. “If only my co-star was you.”

He laughs at that. “Seokjin would probably throw a fit, huh?”

.

.

Jimin treats you to dinner that night.

He chooses the restaurant. It’s a small, quaint place, tucked into a hidden corner just minutes away from the bustling main street of the shopping district. It’s not the kind of place people stumble across by accident but judging by the occupied tables, business is doing fine by reputation alone.

The owner comes out to greet Jimin by name. They exchange warm greetings, the woman asking him how his brother’s been doing and whether he’ll stop by anytime soon.

“Ah - I’m not sure... You know how he is... I’ll let him know you said hi.”

“Tell him I’ll give him an extra serving of ribs. That was his favorite, right?”

When her eyes trail over Jimin’s shoulder and spot you, she grins so wide you’d think she won the lottery or something. “Park Jimin! You’ve gone and found a girlfriend! And so pretty, too. Ah, really...time sure flies by. I remember when you first started coming here - and now!”

You smile back, greeting her with a polite handshake. The owner is quick to usher you into a small booth in the back. She hands you the menus while patting Jimin on his shoulder. “I’ll get you drinks. It’s on the house.”

“You don’t have to do that!” protests Jimin, shaking his head. “Really. It’s not—”

“Nonsense.” She waves a hand at him. “You’ll get two more if you keep that up, Park Jimin.”

Once she knows she’s earned Jimin’s compliance, she leaves with a satisfied smile. You can tell by their genuine interactions that she’s close to Jimin. Family, perhaps? Either way, this isn’t a place Jimin tracked down on yelp. He flips through the menu with ease, like he’s done it hundreds of times before. 

“Sorry about that,” he says once she’s out of earshot. “I used to come here all the time with my family when we all still lived here. They moved and live in a different town now so we haven’t had a meal together here in years, but. I still come here. The food is good, of course, but - I dunno. I have good memories here so I thought I’d share it with you. It sounds stupid now.”

He laughs quietly, cheeks flushed a pretty pink. 

“I love it.” You can’t help but smile, cheeks hurting from the force of it. Invisible liquor runs through your bloodstream, a ball of warmth unfurling in your belly. “Thank you.”

A pause ensues. It’s one of those moments in which you’re unsure if you’ve said too much or not enough. Being here with Jimin means a lot. You’re not the most verbose person but you hope that Jimin can feel your sincerity.

Maybe your stare comes off as too intense because Jimin breaks the eye contact and clears his throat.

He fiddles with his earring and says, “The food is really good!”

Pink dots his cheeks as he attempts to change the subject. “I don’t know how long the place has been around for but the food is exactly the same. Apparently it’s the sauce they use? Auntie still won’t share the recipes with me and I’ve known her since I was a kid.”

He chatters on, gaining confidence when he notices you’re not put off or bored by his numerous anecdotes. As time passes by, he’s visibly more relaxed. His laugh is more natural, less restrained, like he’s using all the muscles in his face and not just the ones near his mouth.

It’s a stark difference from the first date, you think. Back then he had come off as quite shy, preferring to let you lead the conversation, only offering up tidbits from time to time. Now the conversation flows easily. Nothing feels forced or awkward and - it’s nice. The normalcy of it. Like a hot cup of tea before bed or the scent of the fabric softener your mother uses. It’s something you find comfort in, that you can see yourself coming back to and not growing tired of.

Seokjin can say what he wants - that Jimin’s too uninteresting, that you’re too mismatched of a couple - whatever. 

Jimin likes you for you.

When you’re out on dates or when the two of you talk on the phone late into the evening, he rarely brings up your job. Instead, he asks you questions about your favorite TV shows, your dipping sauce preferences, the first album you purchased. These small details might seem inconsequential to others but to you, they’re a welcome breath of fresh air.

For all the talks of Jimin being too average and too normal, men like him are in reality surprisingly hard to come by.

Because what you haven’t failed to notice since you began your career as a porn star is that people love the idea of you. People who avidly watch you from their laptop screen in the comfort of their own home think that you’re some type of sex goddess - that you’re basically up for anything. In their minds, you’re a fun girl who loves sex, all kinds of sex, any kind of sex, and who doesn’t have any qualities or attributes other than making people cum until their limbs go numb.

Your feelings? Not really important. Feelings would make you human and being human would ruin their favorite fantasy.

That’s what takes you a while to learn - you don’t get paid to have sex, you get paid to sell dreams.

It doesn’t bother you at first. In a way, you think, it’s like acting. The porn star people jerk off to daily is a character you play, a mask you can take off at your leisure once the camera director yells ‘cut!’.

Very quickly, you learn people don’t share the same sentiment. To them, the line that distinguishes you from your job persona isn’t blurry - it simply doesn’t exist.

In the beginning, you’d stayed optimistic. Once people get to know you past the image they’ve built up in their heads, surely they’ll realize you’re not a sex-craved addict who only has dick on the brain, right? But with every new date you accept to go on, the reality of your situation only leaves room for disappointment and barely reigned in revulsion.

Even in non-romantic situations, people let you down. Old classmates, neighbors... It pisses you off that they assume you have no self-worth just because you’re a sex worker. Stevie from 308 down the hall once tried throwing crumpled bills at you, expecting you to crawl over to him for a fifty. The memory is enough to set your blood boiling. You can’t wait until you earn big enough bucks to move out of your shitty apartment into a nice high-rise penthouse, away and above all the scum of the Earth.

“You okay?” asks Jimin, noticing the crease that burrows your brow. “The food alright?”

You blink several times, belatedly realizing you had zoned out. Guilt and embarrassment well up within you.

“M’yeah,” you swallow down the spoonful of stew stuffed in your mouth. “Sorry.”

Jimin chews his bottom lip. Finally, he settles with, “Tell me if I’m boring you.”

“No, no! You’re not.” His evident doubt does nothing to alleviate the sudden nausea swarming your lower belly. “I’m serious, Jimin. I’m - Sorry if I gave off that impression. I just - I have a lot on my mind but you’re lovely. I’d tell you if you were - you know. Promise.”

“Would you? Sometimes I think you’re too nice.” It’s not delivered as an insult, but it doesn’t exactly sound like praise, either. 

You force out a snort. “Heh. Wish you’d tell Seokjin that.”

“He’s not too cross with me, is he?” Jimin’s expression looks awkward, like he’s forcing his facial muscles to stay relaxed and mien nonchalant.

“Wh- oh, you mean because of earlier? He isn’t. That’s not him being angry. It’s not even you. It’s me. We just have - a slight difference in opinions, I suppose. If you can even call it that.”

“He doesn’t want you to date me,” concludes Jimin.

The frustrations you’d repressed earlier in the day come back. Why does Seokjin’s opinion matter? You huff, putting your spoon down.

“He’s not my dad. And even if he was, I’m grown. I can make my own decisions.” You roll your eyes. “Don’t worry about him. He’ll get over it... It’s not like it’s any of his business in the first place.”

“Still...” Jimin says, unsure. “He’s your agent. I wouldn’t want the relation between you to sour because of me.”

“Honestly, I’m convinced it’s not even you he has a problem with. We talked about it today and I think he’s getting antsy because, um, you know, I haven’t accepted any big offers lately. Like, I’m staying too much in my comfort zone or something. He says that in the long run that can be detrimental to my career.”

It’s a bit strange, discussing your work with Jimin. You both work in the same industry, Jimin as a second camera assistant and you as an adult entertainer, but outside of filming sets, you rarely acknowledge what the other person does for a living.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. He wants me to branch out and try new things.”

“What, you mean anal? Gangbangs?”

“Um, yeah. All that, probably...” You have to blink several times because of the shock of hearing Jimin say that so casually. “...Is that okay?”

“Huh?” Jimin in turn blinks at you, like your question doesn’t properly register. “Oh, yeah, sure. I’m fine with it. You said it’ll be good for your career?”

“Apparently.”

“Then, yeah.” He shrugs like he isn’t bothered by the news at all. “Of course that’s okay.”

A part of you wants to push the issue, ask him why he’d be fine with his girlfriend filming intense sex scenes with random men, but that inner voice is snuffed out before the poisonous thought has time to take root.

Isn’t this what you always wanted? A boyfriend who is accepting and understanding of your profession?

You wash down your worries with a gulp or two of soju, determined not to let your own insecurities ruin the rest of your night.

.

.

Less than 24 hours after you’ve agreed to work on a worthwhile project of Seokjin’s choosing, a slew of texts blow up your phone. 

Unsurprisingly, it’s your agent. A quick scroll through your phone reveals that your agent has left you with no less than 15 messages, 1 voicemail, and 3 e-mails.

It’s...a lot. You’ve grown to expect that kind of fanfare with him. Like any man who deals with legally binding contracts on a daily basis, Seokjin ensures that you keep your word. He can be extremely persuasive when he sets his mind to it. You’ve seen men and women alike succumb to the force of his magnetism. Back when your filmography had solely consisted of amateur sex tapes shot in bad lighting with low-grade filming equipment, Seokjin's charms alone had been sufficient to win over lukewarm casting directors and book you jobs.

SEOKJIN : hey!!!!!!!!

SEOKJIN : ???

SEOKJIN : wow. you’re leaving me on read.........the audacity. 

SEOKJIN : i raised you on my back and this is how you repay me?

SEOKJIN : do you not respect your elders in your household?

SEOKJIN : i swear if you’re blowing me off for jimmy instead of answering your calls .........

SEOKJIN : or blowing jimmy. either one.

SEOKJIN : ok it’s been 10 min. i’m chill but not that chill.

SEOKJIN : can you please stop sucking dick and read your emails. it’s important.

YOU : ever heard of multitasking? god gave us two hands for a reason

SEOKJIN : oh. nasty.

SEOKJIN : way to ruin my lunch.

SEOKJIN : well. suck down that nut sauce asap

SEOKJIN : cos what i sent you needs your undivided attention

YOU : i’m nasty?? me????

YOU : you don’t hear me saying nUT SAUCE you freak

SEOKJIN : nutté sauce

SEOKJIN : there. fixed it.

YOU : ...that’s not even a thing

SEOKJIN : well it should be!

SEOKJIN : adding accents makes it instantly classier, don’t you think? nutté sauce. has a nice ring to it.

SEOKJIN : honestly. sounds like some fancy four star french starter now.

YOU : ???? it absolutely doesn’t but ok

SEOKJIN : imagine. during a scene you just yell out

SEOKJIN : “i’d like a serving of your nutté sauce to go”

YOU : dicks would shrivel up on the spot

SEOKJIN : what? i think it’s brilliant!

SEOKJIN : my talent is wasted as an agent. should’ve been a scriptwriter instead.

YOU : yes i’m sure the oscars are weeping over the missed opportunity

He takes your sarcasm at face value, feeding you more ridiculous variants of faux french cum lingo—that which you very wisely choose not to reply to. Instead of humoring him, you open the .pdf file he’s sent your way, ignoring the near-constant buzzing of your phone as he’s no doubt pestering you for an immediate answer.

Had it not been necessary for business, you’d have blocked his number ages ago. In fact, after that nut sauce comment you’re seriously reconsidering, business obligations be damned. 

To his credit, the film project he suggests you work on doesn't sound half-bad despite its questionable title. Why anyone would choose to name it THE SPERMINATOR is beyond you.

As you read through the proposition, you’re surprised to find it’s tamer than the initial imaginary scenario you’d played out in your head. Expecting to read through a long list of unnameable kinks and dicks, the scene description is rather domestic all things considered.

Your shoulders sag in relief. You enjoy sex as much as the next person, but even you have limits you’re not willing or eager to cross. You’re a human being, first and foremost, and, contrary to popular belief, not competing in the sex olympics.

From what you’ve read so far, nothing in Seokjin’s offer seems too strenuous or perverse. The scene in question is centered around a young, newly married couple trying to conceive for the first time and the sex acts are described as “romantic insemination” - whatever the fuck that means. The only complication you can think of is that you’ve never played the part of a married couple before. None of your previous films specifically target couples or women. Is romance something you can sell accordingly?

You’re quick to shake the concern off once you remember that no one cares if your acting is shit or not. All you probably have to do is yell out ‘Daddy’ a few times mid-thrust and call it a day.

Honestly, you’re a bit disappointed in Seokjin for choosing such a safe, no-risk project - especially since he constantly advocates the risk-return trade off as the way to live by. But you’re not about to start complaining. You’d rather shoot this type of innocuous scenario than ridiculous, hentai-like scenes involving freakish get-ups and toys of monster proportions not realistically made to fit in a vagina.

The deal is perfect. Almost too perfect.

Subconsciously, you must realize something is wrong. Maybe Seokjin’s many lessons have finally rubbed off on you because there’s a persistent voice in your ear warning you that the film proposition is a trap, one that you’ve unfortunately walked straight into.

Your wariness increases when he refuses to send you the script upon request. Alarm bells ring off but by then it’s too late.

“The thing is... Director Ryu wants to try a new type of project," Seokjin says over the phone once you call him up for answers. "He thinks he’s going to pioneer a new genre of porn and revolutionize the industry - his words, not mine.”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

“How do I explain this without you getting the wrong idea..."

“Is this meant to reassure me?!” Dread drips from your tone. You should’ve suspected something was off from the very moment Seokjin suggested to shoot vanilla porn as your next big project. What a joke.

“Calm down, it's not as bad as - whatever you're thinking.” Too bad that his attempts to calm you down have the opposite effect. “He’s been wanting to try out a new improvisation format for his porn movies.”

“Come again?”

A beat of uncomfortable quiet passes. Reluctantly, Seokjin explains, “Which means - there isn’t an actual script to go off of. That’s why I couldn’t send it to you - because there is none. He wants it to be as realistic and natural as possible so he’s looking for actors who can go with their gut and create their own scenario instead of ones who need to be directed.”

Your resounding silence speaks for itself.

Sure, sometimes they provide scripts to act as guidelines, roughly giving the actor an idea of how the scene will unfold, but no one is expected to follow it word for word. Most porn films rely on improvisation rather than scripts because of how notoriously bad porn stars are at acting and memorizing more than a few lines at a time, and the introduction scene never lasts very long anyway for it to make a noticeable difference. Besides, after filming a handful of movies, you’ve noticed the dialogue is more or less all the same.

What bothers you is that this director wants you to carry out a movie that relies heavily on improvised dialogue. Convincingly.

“C’mon,” Seokjin tries when you refuse to deign him with an answer. “It’ll be fun. You like acting, right?”

“Seokjin...” You pinch the bridge of your nose and try to keep your composure in check. “How do I break this down for you? I think you’re forgetting the most crucial detail here - I can’t act! The closest I've ever gotten to acting is faking an orgasm and I’m pretty certain that doesn’t count."

“And you do that very well!" says Seokjin encouragingly. "You'll be fine. Don’t stress over it. Your scenes with Min Yoongi last time were perfectly acceptable!”

“That’s the thing.” Stress makes your voice raise a half-step. “He did, like, 90% of the acting! Back then, all I had to do was moan and act like a slut! Which hardly counts - I was being myself. Whatever this - thing - you’re attempting to rope me into - I’m not qualified for it.”

“Sweetheart, we’re not aiming for the fucking Oscars here.” When he laughs, it’s practiced enough to sound sincere. “At the end of the day, it’s still porn. Nobody’s expecting you to be the next Meryl. And besides,” he presses on, clearly refusing to change his mind. “This is exactly what you need right now. Something fresh, something new. If you pull this off, you’ll gain exposure.”

“If I pull it off. Big if."

“I know it sounds like a gamble. I get it, I do. But remember what I always say? High risk—”

“Yes, yes. High reward. I get it.” Your frown deepens. “There’s no way to know this will work, though.”

“A good co-star already guarantees you half of the success. And luckily for you, the guy they signed on seems like the real deal. He’s hot, you’re hot. People will pay money to see you two fuck regardless of how good or bad the acting is.”

“Well. That’s reassuring,” you say, voice as flat as a board. “Although I suppose watching porn on mute is always an option if it comes to that.”

“It was a joke!” What worries you is that it doesn’t sound like it is. “You have nothing to worry about. I’ve seen some of your co-star’s tapes. He’s got a mouth on him, if you know what I mean. Just let him lead and it’ll go swimmingly.”

“It’s one thing to follow someone’s lead during sex but you want me to - to improvise for God knows how long! That’s just asking for a disaster to happen.”

“You said you were up for a challenge!” Seokjin throws your words back at you, his tone accusing.

“And you said this would be beneficial for my career! How is making a fool out of myself going to help me any? I don’t want to be remembered as the girl who can’t act to save her life.” You want to cry in frustration. If you had wanted to act you would’ve chosen that as your major in college. “I don’t - I can’t do this. I’m not - this isn’t what I signed up for! How do you expect me to convince viewers what they’re watching is real...”

“Just—” Exasperated, he takes a deep breath. Exhales. “Trust me. When have I ever been wrong about film projects.”

Is putting your career at risk really worth it? You’re not sure anymore.

On the bright side, it’ll finally get Seokjin off your back, you reason, trying to remain positive. That in itself is worth celebrating, right?

Fine. You’ll agree to it out of pettiness. Once Seokjin realizes what a terrible idea this entire ordeal is, you won’t hesitate to rub it back in his face. He’ll never hear the end of it.

"Who am I working with, anyway?”

"Ah, hm, well." Hesitation creeps up his voice for the first time, putting you instantly on edge. "...You won't know him. He's new to the scene - got started a month or two ago, I forget."

"Great. Not only am I being used as a lab rat for this director to experiment on but you're also pairing me with a fucking rookie. Jesus.”

"He’s not half bad! He’s not bad at all, actually. I wouldn't be insisting if I didn't trust him not to blow his load early."

"Aren’t I lucky,” you deadpan. “So I don't have to worry about him busting a nut before the director gives the signal?"

“All you’ll have to do is act like a married couple with baby fever,” he talks over you, ignoring your overflowing sarcasm. “And how hard can that be? You’ve been loved up with Jumin for a month now - that’s plenty enough practice if you ask me. I know you’ll be able to sell that romantic shit to the public without too much trouble.”

“It’s Jimin,” you correct from force of habit.

You’re promptly ignored — not that you expected anything less from him.

"Just give it a thought? And get back to me when you make up your mind. The sooner the better. The offer won't stay on the table forever." Even over the line, you can picture Seokjin raising his eyebrows at you, expectant. “If you’re serious about this job, you know what you have to do.”

You both know that you’ll accept the offer. Seokjin’s got you all figured out. As much as you don’t like being pushed around, the need to prove yourself is your main driving factor. The acquaintances who sneer at you, the family members who’ve shun you, the peers who expect you to burn out after the five month mark—you’d rather roll over and die than prove their misconceptions right.

It’s a matter of pride when you sniff and reply, “I’ll think about it.”

But the decision is already made before the call ends.

.

.

SCENE 02 - THE SPERMINATOR. TAKE 02. ROLL B. 

.

Eight days later you find yourself squeezed into a brazenly short dress that zips in the front, more fit for a night out in a club than a dinner at home. It’s so ridiculously tight, you feel like a prey being swallowed down by a snake. There’s no room to breathe. You can’t wait for the scene to start, if only so you can dispose of the piece of fabric and never wear it again.

Unfortunately, your outfit gets worse because thrown over the clubbing attire is a frilly apron with small hearts embroidered along the hem. The mismatch is jarring. You’re not sure what look the stylist is going for but the end result is very...peculiar.

You comfort yourself with the knowledge that it could always be worse.

A quick glance at the digital clock on your phone confirms that you’re running on time. Good. After your last gig, the last thing you want is to spend hours waiting for the personnel to set up the cameras and sound equipment correctly.

Thankfully, today’s team works like a well-oiled machine. All that’s left are the last-minute preparations before the shoot begins.

Your false eyelashes are still drying when Seokjin elbows you sharply in the ribs. You crack open an eye to glare at him. “Ouch - ah, seriously? What is it now?”

“That’s him, that’s him!” Seokjin whispers under his breath, his gaze glued to a point somewhere beyond your shoulder. “Wooow. Aren’t you a lucky bitch? I’d gargle his nutté sauce for breakfast, if you get what I mean. He looks way better in person, damn.”

“Firstly - please never say that out loud again.” You fake a gag. “How do I buy myself a new set of ears?”

Seokjin ignores your dramatics. He shoots you a look. “You let that last guy draw a starfish on your face with his crème de la nut but did you hear me go sick?”

“That’s not the same and you know it!” Your jaw drops in indignation. “And can you stop trying to make nut cream a thing for the love of—”

“What’s this about nut cream?”

You whip your head around, mortification already etched onto your features. Your mouth opens, defense at the ready, only for your throat to clamp up.

“Oh.” You blink up in surprise because - well, Seokjin’s earlier assessment isn’t embellished. The guy is fit as fuck.

You’d seen photos in passing, had even googled his name out of curiosity, but the two-dimensional version of him pales to his real life physique. There’s a sharpness to his features that the camera fails to pick up on, a vibrancy that gets lost in the medium. 

“Hey. I’m Hoseok.” His grip is firm, assertive, and your eyes naturally wander over his form. The loose muscle tee he’s thrown on puts his toned arms on display and makes it easier to admire the seemingly endless expanse of sun-kissed skin. He’s neither too thick nor too spindly, his muscles lean and firm instead of bulging. Strong but not intimidating. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Likewise.” You swallow, mouth dry.

You expect him to leave it at that like most of your past co-stars usually do. Or worse - for him to abandon all pretenses and cross lines that aren’t meant to be crossed. As someone who has experienced it all - from standoffish to creepy and vile - nothing surprises you anymore.

But unlike your, admittedly low, expectations, his gaze is warm and friendly. He speaks smoothly, leaving no time for an awkward silence to instill itself.

“Yeah, I know who you are! I saw a video or two of yours before - you were featured on the agency’s main page last month, right? Fuckin’ genius, by the way. Best stuff I’ve seen in a long ass time.” An easy grin sits on his face, nothing about it fake or contrived. “I hope we get along today. I haven’t done much work myself - yet anyway - but I hope this can be a good experience for the both of us.”

“You’ll be in good hands,” Seokjin assures, patting your shoulder like a proud parent. “_____ here is the best talent I’ve signed on.”

“That I can believe,” Hoseok chimes, his smile never waning. “I’ve heard good stuff about you. I won’t lie - it reassured me a fuck ton when I heard I’d be working with you. The stuff we’re doing is, well, it’s a bit of a gamble at this point, but I’m sure it’ll go well because I’ll be working with you.”

For a brief, embarrassing moment, you’re robbed of words, unable to respond to his flattery. From experience, you know to be wary of guys like him. Whenever someone lays it on thick they always have an ulterior motive. But what could possibly be his?

“Seokjin’s saying that because I’m the only one who can stand his nagging,” you finally say, your shoulders stiff. Maybe it’s because you’ve just met, but it’s hard to figure him out and it doesn’t help that you’re naturally wary of strangers.

“Oh hush. You love me.” Sensing how guarded you’ve become, Seokjin mercifully offers you an out. “It was nice meeting you, Hoseok. Wish we could stay and chat but she has to get ready to film the pre-interview portion.”

“Oh yeah, that’s cool. Catch you later.”

You offer a quick smile he returns tenfold, its brightness momentarily dazzling you.

Slightly dazed from the intensity of it, you stagger behind Seokjin, sun spots dotting your vision. Your surroundings blur together as your mind tries to recover from the interaction.

“Sooooooooo?” Seokjin sing-songs once you’ve walked far enough to be out of earshot. His brows are raised knowingly, an infuriating type of smugness clinging to his features. “What did I tell you! He’s hot enough to single-highhandedly melt a glacier, huh?”

You scoff, not willing to admit anything. “He’s okay.”

“Oh c’mon. He’s baby daddy material for sure. Which works out well for you since he’s gonna pump one into you later.”

For once the grimace that crosses your face isn’t exaggerated. “Please. Stop. Talking. I’m this close to heaving out my lunch.”

You’re not even joking with that one. Attractive as Hoseok may be, any talk of baby-making is enough to dissipate any smidgens of lust.

The reminder of what the upcoming scene entails and the expectations people carry crash down on you like a pile of bricks. Although you’ve done your best to ignore the fact you’ll be acting today, the meeting with Hoseok yanks you harshly back to reality.

You’re going to act. As a married couple. Trying to conceive a baby.

Three things that have never, ever been on your bucket list are now about to be crossed out in the span of the same afternoon. To that you can only say - what the fuck is my life.

Like a mounting wave before the inevitable crash, panic crests within you. You feel it gradually build and build, flooding your lungs and every crevice of your body with overwhelming anxiety.

Seokjin sighs. “How are you going to make it through today? The whole point of the sex scene is to get you pregnant. Or fake pregnant. You know what I mean.”

“Um...” You try to laugh but it comes out shaky. Seokjin shoots you a concerned look. “I’ll be fine! Really! I can do it. It’s just acting like you said, right? It’s not like he’s actually gonna knock me up in real life. So. Totally fine. It’s fine. Perfect.”

Seokjin’s concern grows. His eyebrows pinch together and his expression turns serious. He asks with no trace of mockery, “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay!” you reply. It’s too rushed of an answer to convince him. Your palms feel clammy and you wipe them off your damned apron. “Just. Nervous. Y’know.”

His steps slow to a halt and he places a warm, heavy hand on your shoulder. The weight, familiar and comforting, grounds you to reality. “Hey. What’s there to be nervous about? You got this.”

“Yeah.” You nod. Maybe if you say it enough times you’ll trick yourself into believing it. “I’ve got this.”

“Look. Let me be honest for a second. I’ve been an agent for eight years now and I’ve seen a lot of talents come and go. No pun intended.” You smile back at him weakly. “You’ve got something...extra a lot of them lacked. I knew the moment I saw you on film you’d go far. The energy you bring onscreen is insane. I know today might seem new and strange - but so was your first ever professionally shot film, right? And you got through that fine. You’ll do great. I know it. And, not to toot my own horn, but I’m always right.”

That earns him a laugh. The nerves are still there but thanks to his pep talk it’s easier to breathe.

Despite being a big pain in the ass, Seokjin is exemplary at his job. Without him, you’re acutely aware you wouldn’t have gotten half as far as you have. Having him by your side is a reassurance in itself.

Someone calls your name, pulling you from your thoughts. When you turn around, you’re face to face with the round, bespectacled face of Director Ryu. You reckon he’s in his early forties but he acts younger than his age. It’s your first time working with him but so far he’s been nice enough, if a little full of himself. Not that you’re unaccustomed with working alongside conceited colleagues.

“Oh good, you’re back. You can get seated for the interview bit.” He points over to a chair placed in front of a pale yellow wall. From close up, you can see a paint job is in order, the old coat chipping off in several places. “Alright, this won’t last long - just need you to answer some questions on tape and we’ll be good to go.”

“Sure thing.” You nod and follow his directions, sitting still while the hair and make-up artist steps up to give your lips a final touch-up.

Strictly speaking, the before and after interviews aren’t a necessity. In your experience, directors mostly film the short question-and-answer sequence when you’re set to film hardcore sex scenes as a way to show viewers everything is consensual and that you thoroughly enjoyed the experience despite whatever might have transpired on screen.

You reckon the director wants to film you today to document the process behind his “groundbreaking film project”. Cue roll of eyes.

Somebody needs to tell him he isn’t inventing anything, you think while watching him fiddle with the camera until he’s completely satisfied with the angle. All he’s done so far is add unnecessary pressure on you. You hope Hoseok is faring better because the amount of performance anxiety you’re experiencing is an instant boner killer.

“You nervous?” the director asks once he’s done adjusting the camera lens.

While by some standards you’re still considered a newbie in the industry, you’ve done this enough times to fall into a routine. Wake-up, breakfast, get ready, arrive before call time, fill out all the paperwork and get ready to shoot your solo stills. It’s familiar enough that you’ve long stopped getting pre-performance jitters.

Today’s rush of anxiety is as surprising as it is unwelcome. They don’t want to hear that particular truth though, so you keep your reply sweet and bubbly.

“Nah,” you grin, wide and easy. “I’m super excited to film today!”

“Oh yeah? Is it perhaps because of your co-star?”

Your smile freezes for a second. Somewhere over the director’s shoulder you can see Seokjin nodding enthusiastically while giving you the double thumbs up. “Hoseok? He’s hot, sure.”

“Ooh. Already on a first name basis?”

“Hm?” you let out a noise of polite confusion, only belatedly realizing that his viewers know him better as his porn alias, J-Hope. But there’s no way in hell you’re going to yell that out loud while he’s fucking an orgasm out of you. Not only does it sound ridiculous but it’ll shatter whatever carefully crafted illusion you manage to build. “Um, yes. We’re getting to know each other. He’s very friendly.”

“I’m sure he is.” And there’s an implication there that doesn’t sit too well with you but thankfully Director Ryu chooses to move on and put that particular subject to rest.

“You ever shoot an insemination scene before?”

“Not yet.” You make sure to keep the smile on your face even if your cheeks are beginning to hurt. “I can’t wait to get to it. It’s a fantasy I’ve always had but never tried out for myself. I’m excited to film a first on camera!”

The director has yet to call you out for your bullshit so you slowly start to relax. Acting is a bit like lying, isn’t it? Maybe you can get through today after all.

You breeze through the rest of the questions, forcing out practiced laughs here and there all whilst keeping your voice syrupy sweet. It’s quick work, especially when you know what to expect. Before you know it, it’s already time to film the pièce de résistance. Everyone that’s allowed on set during filming filters into the kitchen, conversations between crew members dying down as they use their last recreational moments to check their phones.

The director’s filming style exempts you from shooting the customary pre-shoot sex stills which are essentially promotional pictures of you and and your partner in every sex position that you’ll be filming for real later on. You’re thankful for that, at least. Even with all of your on-camera experience, staying perfectly silent and still with someone’s dick inside you is no easy feat. It’s worse when you have to keep eye contact with your co-star and fake sexual gratification because the shot calls for it.

Hoseok waves at you from the other side of the room, the hair and makeup artist dusting some powder across the slope of his nose.

How can he look so relaxed?! You’re barely holding your lunch down. Honestly, it’s a miracle you’re able to now tat the butterflies are back in full force, making a mess of your stomach.

You feel queasy but try not to make it too obvious even as Seokjin comes around to check up on you. The last thing you want to do is make a scene, especially when your onscreen counterpart's demeanor is making you look amateurish in comparison.

Maybe Hoseok is a better actor than you’re able to give most porn stars credit for because try as you might, you fail to detect any nervous undercurrent in his tone. For someone who is supposedly starring in his first major project, he doesn’t seem all too bothered about how it might play out.

How does he do it?! In all honesty, if Seokjin hadn’t informed you of his rookie status, you would be none the wiser.

There’s an ease with which he carries himself, a fluidity in his movements that belies no anxiety or awkwardness. Even from this distance you can tell that there’s never a hint of hesitation in his movements or speech; he doesn’t seem self-conscious in the least. He talks and moves with the assurance of someone who has been in the industry for months, not weeks.

In that moment you envy him. You’re so nervous about the upcoming scene that it’s hard to feign an air of professional detachment.

His boisterous laugh is loud enough to carry across the room and interrupt your line of thought. When you look over at him again, you find him folded in half, hands clutching his sides, and wearing a grin so bright it eclipses the entirety of his face.

“He seems nice.”

You jump, startled by Jimin’s sudden appearance. You hadn’t even heard him draw near. With a sheepish expression, you turn to look up at him only to find him already staring off into the distance. There’s a strange look painting his face, and a small crease in his brow that usually isn’t present. When you follow his line of sight, you’re met with the image of Hoseok talking animatedly to the the small crowd that’s flocked around him.

“Yeah.” You aren’t sure what else to say. Although there’s no sarcasm attached to his words, you can’t help but find Jimin unnaturally tense.

Which makes sense, you concede guiltily. A mere stranger is minutes away from dicking down his girlfriend. You’re not sure how you’d feel if you were to stand in his shoes.

You breathe in deep, silently willing away the knot of distress in your belly. There’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing. It’s just a job. A profession that Jimin has always been fully aware of, even before you’d begun dating.

Even as you remind yourself of the facts, it does little to dispel the lingering feelings of doubt and guilt.

“Hey.” Jimin frowns at you in concern. “You alright?”

“Yep!” you say then immediately sigh, knowing that lying to your boyfriend is pointless. “I’m just a bit nervous.”

“Nervous?” Jimin’s worry grows, the crease in his brow deepening. “What about?”

“Just—” You gesture around with your hands. “All of this.”

“Oh.” He looks genuinely surprised. “But you don’t usually get nervous... Is it the impregnation thing you’ll have to do? I know you’ve said you’re not a big fan of that. Or... Is it something else?”

“I don’t know,” you answer truthfully. It’s a bit of everything yet at the same time nothing you can clearly pinpoint and put a finger on. In all logic, you know that you’re feeling disproportionately stressed out but you can’t stop yourself from feeling how you feel. “It’s not that I don’t want to film. I just - I’m worried I won’t do well.”

Jimin takes your hand between his, running a thumb in soothing circles across the surface of your skin. He repeats the motion several times until your heartbeat is completely synced to his touch.

“You’ll do great. You always do.” The lines of his mouth bend into a smile. “I’ll be on the sidelines cheering you on.”

“My very own cheerleader.” You allow yourself to relax and and smile back fondly.

As much as you worry about Jimin being upset with you filming sex scenes with other actors, he’s never been anything less than the supporting boyfriend you’ve always dreamed of. Seokjin calls Jimin’s constant presence on set maddening, but you’re thankful that your boyfriend sticks by your side while others might flee or shame you.

Suddenly, you’re overcome with emotion. Maybe it’s the stress, or maybe today you’re more hormonal than usual, but your eyes threaten to well up as you grip his palm tightly in your own. “Jimin, I—”

“Okay, lovebirds!” Seokjin claps his hands once, effectively ruining your moment. “Hand-holding time is over. We’re moving onto the more R-rated stuff.”

“Seokjin!” you hiss, upset over his horrible timing.

“It’s fine.” Jimin shakes his head. “He’s right, shoot’s about to start anytime soon. I need to get ready, too.”

“Right.”

Reluctantly, you let go of Jimin’s hand.

“Don’t pout.” He laughs and presses a quick, chaste kiss to your mouth. “I’ll wait for you after filming and we can go grab dinner. Italian sound fine?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” You bob your head eagerly. “I’m literally dying for carbs. Italian sounds more than perfect.”

“Good.” 

You can’t resist sneaking in one last peck before Jimin retreats behind the cameras and you’re pulled to stand in front of a granite kitchen tabletop. Director Ryu is waiting for you, Hoseok already by his side.

From close-up, your co-star looks even more striking. The make-up artist’s work highlights his features without going overboard. The lines of his face are sharp, like every single one has been meticulously drawn. What usually would give someone a hostile and unapproachable impression is balanced out by the liveliness that lights up his eyes and his wide smile that looks almost too big for his face.

“It’ll start in the kitchen and then we’ll work out way to the bedroom.” Director Ryu points down the hallway. “I was thinking of keeping it all in the bedroom but nothing screams domesticity more than kitchen scenes, right?”

“Uh-huh.” You give a polite nod. Next to you, Hoseok coughs into his fist.

“Depending on how this goes we might have to take several takes - just keep that in mind.”

That’s nothing out of the ordinary. Sex scenes are never filmed in one take. There’s always one thing or another - a smoke break, a flaccid dick, a lighting fixture that needs to be changed. A 45 minute porn movie is the result of the editing team that painstakingly goes through, cuts and assembles hours of footage.

“Remember,” Director Ryu instructs, one hand cocked on his hips. “You’re still stuck in that honeymoon phase. All the two of you want to do is fuck like horny bunnies but your husband’s been away all day. Both of you have been waiting for this reunion for hours and hours. I want to feel that level of tension, got it?”

Hoseok nods like a dutiful student, his expression comically serious. You’d laugh if it wasn’t so inappropriate.

“Yep. Ok. Got it.”

You just want the director to stop talking so that you can get this over with quickly. The monologue is just delaying the inevitable.

Director Ryu spends extra minutes setting up the scene, emphasizing how in love and passionate the two of you should behave, describing how long you’ve been wanting to try for a baby, going into explicit detail about what the sex scenes should convey to the viewers. He just goes on and on and on with no end it sight.

At this point even Hoseok is growing restless. His feet refuse to stay still and his eyes dart around the room as if his attention is drawn elsewhere. It’s Hoseok’s constant fidgeting that draws Director Ryu out of his monologue. He finally senses that there’s a unanimous decision to start filming and retires behind the camera to settle himself in his appointed chair.

Hoseok shares a long look with you. “Is he always like that?”

“God, I hope not.” You lower your voice to whisper, “Seokjin - my agent - he says apparently Director Ryu wanted to make a career off of documentaries once he graduated from film school but quickly switched genres once he saw how little filming the mating habits of koalas was earning him.”

“Ah,” Hoseok nods conspiratorially before his features shift into something more serious. “Hey. Before we start, is there anything you’re not comfortable with? I know this scene is supposed to lean towards vanilla but you never know... I’d rather make sure. Just in case.”

You blink, taken aback. Hard limits aren’t really discussed outside of hardcore scenes. Sure, everyone is given a safeword before shoots begin but even screaming out “STOP!” or “Can we take a break from filming?” is enough to put the filmed scene on hold.

“Ah... No. I’m okay. But thanks for asking.” A moment passes and you add, “Is there - are there any words or kinks that bother you?”

Hoseok shakes his head. “Not for this one. Just - if there’s anything you’d rather me not say or do, don’t hesitate.”

You nod in reply, not sure of what else to say. Unfortunately your past experiences with men have made you suspicious of any form of flattery or kindness.

Soon, though, you relax. What reason is there for Hoseok to deceive you? Maybe he still has that rookie mindset. You can relate to the eagerness and the desire to do well you’d had in your early days of filming.

“Alright. Good luck, Hoseok.”

His smile is so bright that it erases your previous doubts. Surely someone with ill-intentions wouldn’t be able to smile like that, right? You return a tentative smile of your own. Something akin to understanding seems to pass between you. Although you don’t know Hoseok and he doesn’t know you, you trust him enough for this scene.

The moment is broken when Director Ryu directs Hoseok to wait outside the camera’s line of vision and you’re left alone in front of the kitchen stove.

Any moment now, you think. A telltale silence falls over the staff members as they all anticipate the director’s signal for the scene to start.

The first few seconds are always tricky. You’re no actress. There’s no switch inside of you that flips on and off as soon as the director commands “ACTION!” and “CUT!”. The world around you doesn’t fade out, your ‘porn star persona’ doesn’t claw its way out from within you and lunge for the nearest available dick. Sometimes, if you’re not attracted to your onscreen partner, you find your mind drifting off, making an inventory of your fridge and wondering what you’ll be able to cook up for dinner with two eggs and leftover rice.

When Director Ryu shouts “ACTION!” and slams down the plate, you freeze up. Usually you have an idea of what to say or do, but the words and actions won’t come to you this time.

Someone behind the cameras lets out a light cough. Oh right, you blink down at the simmering pot of water in front of you. The cameras are recording you making an utter fool out of yourself.

The spike of humiliation forces you into action. You’re more professional than this, damn it. You give the water a tentative stir, movements wooden and stiff. It’s hard to concentrate. All you can do is watch as the water simmers to a boil, the sound of bubbling water like a roaring current in your ears.

A door creaks open, signalling your onscreen husband’s return home.

To your horror, you find that you’re unable to move, as if your limbs had forgotten their primary function.

Before the scene had started, you had envisioned yourself throwing yourself into the arms of your loving husband and welcoming him home with a shower of kisses and words of affection. You had internally rehearsed it, had even thought of what you could say to him between pecks, but the reality is far removed from what you had practiced.

“Darling?” Hoseok’s voice is soft but loud enough for you to hear him over the angry sounds of boiling water. The vowels he uses are rounded, different from the bright pep in his tone from earlier. 

You want to respond but your tongue feels like lead, too heavy in your mouth to articulate and form the proper reply. What are you supposed to call him, anyway? Honey? Hoseok? A nickname derived from his name? What do newlywed spouses call each other? Why couldn’t you give this more thought before the cameras began rolling?

Panic balloons inside you, threatening to burst. For a terrifying and mortifying second, you think that you’ve gone and ruined everything. The muscles in your shoulders bunch up and you half-expect the director to shout ‘CUT!’, give you a public scolding for missing your cue and berate you for your overall ineptitude.

Hoseok’s arms wrap around your middle before you have time to agonize any further. Just as you suspected, his arms are strong, the lean muscles flexing as he readjusts his hold around your waist. What you don’t expect, however, is the unadulterated warmth he radiates. His body burns hot; even through the layers of clothing separating the two of you, his warmth seeps through. But it’s strangely comfortable, not unlike basking in the afternoon sun during the last days of summer. You let yourself melt into his embrace.

“You’re not even going to say hi?”

With your back turned to him, you can’t be sure, but you imagine the pout playing at his lips. He tucks his chin in the crook of your shoulder. If he feels any awkwardness, he doesn’t let it show.

Miraculously, your mouth seems to be in working order again. It takes you a few seconds too long to find the appropriate answer, but it finally comes before the director can cut in to make any remarks.

“If I turn around right now, I won’t be able to keep my hands off of you,” you explain. “And - I don’t want to ruin our dinner.”

Just to keep up the pretense, you add a handful of spaghetti into the pot of water.

Hoseok lets out a hum from behind you. He’s standing close enough for you to feel the vibrations low in his throat.

“I hate it,” he says after a stretch of silence.

You pout. “What? My cooking? What’s wrong with it?”

“No, silly. I hate -” he sighs, buries his face in your neck before looking back up so the camera can capture his expression. “I hate not being with you. I missed this.”

He hugs you from behind before kissing your neck. It starts off innocuous - his lips pressing short, chaste kisses down the column of your throat. Quickly, however, his mouth lingers on your skin.

“Ah - don’t. I’m cooking!” you shriek when his teeth scrape over a sensitive spot under your jaw. Your protests are half-hearted and go by unacknowledged. The pot of pasta could overflow right now and no one would care, least of all you.

Hoseok noses your neck while he tightening his grip around your waist, the movement bringing his hips flush against your lower back. You give the pot in front of you a very unenthusiastic stir, attention focused instead on the way his lips tenderly skim the surface of your skin, testing and teasing. The sensation feels nice - and keeps your mind off of the several cameras directed your way.

“But I went all day missing my princess,” he sighs, open mouthed against your neck. “Spent all day thinking about you.”

“Y-you did?”

“Mhm.” He gives your exposed shoulder a peck. Then another. “Thought about your cute little laugh.”

His line catches you off guard. Your mouth opens but no sound comes out.

Porn is often crude and to the point. You’re used to men complimenting your body parts or praising your skills in bed. You’d never minded, either. But Hoseok’s choice of words make you eager in a different way.

“What else?”

“Well, your cooking, for sure. Without you I’d be eating out of ramyeon packets for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

You let out a snort.

“That’s true. Your cooking is so horrible it’s offensive.”

“Hey now. Don’t be mean.” He pokes your cheek before pinching your chin to turn your head towards him. “I can cook a decent omelet.”

Hoseok’s a good few inches taller than you so you have to strain your neck to be able to look him in the eyes. The slight discomfort barely registers. You’re too transfixed by the way he stares at you. It’s hard to place the expression because you’ve never seen it on a fellow actor before. Normally, the men you work with stare you down with hungry and lustful intent, but there’s none of that in Hoseok’s gaze.

The expression on his face cannot be described as innocent, either. He licks his lips, drawing your attention to the pretty lines of his mouth delicately curved into a smile.

“I missed the way you feel in my arms.” His voice sounds deeper, this time. “I missed holding you close to me. Kissing you. Reminding you how much I love you. I missed the look in your eyes when - “

“When?”

He smirks. “You sure you want to hear it? What if you can’t keep your hands off of me after? I don’t want to be held responsible for soggy pasta.”

“Hoseok,” you whine, one of your hands reaching down to slap at the hold around your stomach. 

He tightens his hold around you and your breath hitches, suddenly all too aware of how firm his body feels behind you. The smirk on his face widens as he leans forward to confess his next words.

“I was thinking about how I miss the look on your face whenever I make your pussy sloppy with my cum.”

“Hoseok!”

One moment he’s crooning sweet words of affection, the next he’s spitting out filth. The quick back-and-forth gives you whiplash but you can’t say you dislike it. Unlike the tired and overused clichéd porn scenarios you’ve filmed in the past, Hoseok’s unpredictable behavior has the advantage of keeping you on your toes.

“You missed it too, hm?” He kisses your neck, lips soft and warm. “Kept thinking about how pretty you sound. So, so pretty. Especially when I give you what you want.”

“How would you know what I want?” You turn your head forwards so you can pretend to check up on the cooking pasta. “You were away all day.”

Hoseok’s eyes flash dangerously.

“How would I know?” he parrots back, his tone sweet and mocking. Something about it sends tingles down your spine and has you standing up straighter. “I always know what my pretty wife wants. I know because your body can’t lie to me.”

His hands wander, one of them inching up the material of your frilly apron to reach between your breasts. The movement is slow enough for a camera to zoom in and follow its trail. Hoseok rests his hand on your left breast and gives it a squeeze.

“See?” He repeats the action. “Your heart’s racing like crazy.”

You swallow audibly, finding it hard to come up with a witty riposte.

He continues with a chuckle, “You can’t deny it, can you? Your body’s too honest for your own good. It’s okay. You don’t have to say you missed me. I know.”

His self-assured way of talking makes it easier for you to react. This - the cockiness, the playfulness - you’re familiar with.

You roll your eyes and continue to give the pot in front of you a few additional stirs only for your breath to hitch when he starts to grind his hips against your lower back in time with your stirs.

Fuck is your only coherent thought. He rolls his hips so well it’s impossible not to imagine them doing something else. Your bottom lip grows numb from how hard you bite it.

“Of course I missed you.” You keep your tone as light as possible, determined not to show that his words and actions affect you.

Hoseok’s eyes narrow. He removes his hands from around you but keeps his front pressed against your back. He smiles again, dimples poking through.

“You don’t sound convinced... That’s fine.” It sounds like the beginning of a challenge and you soon learn why.

His nimble fingers play with the knot of your apron and you tense, expecting him to make quick work of your clothes and dive straight into dessert, so to speak. Once again, he surprises you by leaving the apron alone, hands falling to his sides.

His knees hit the floor, the noise startling you. Before you have the chance to truly react, he’s quick to pull your hips backwards until your back is arched. The sudden change in position forces you to adjust your stance so as to keep your balance.

“Hoseok?” you start to question but he cuts you off with a tut and light smack to your ass.

“You just keep your eye on dinner like you were doing before.” His fingers play with the hem of your short dress, stretching the fabric until it bunches up around your hips and leaves your lacy thong on display. “You can do that, right?”

Flustered by the position he’s maneuvered you into, with your hips thrust back obscenely, legs splayed wide and pussy on show, you grip the wooden spoon in your hand with more force than necessary. “It’s just pasta. I can manage.”

Maybe you sound less indifferent than intended because Hoseok seems more amused than offended by your feinted nonchalance. He barks out a laugh, his hands spreading the meat of your cheeks aside to get a better view of your lace-covered bits.

Privately, you wish you could witness his reaction. If there’s anything that turns you on, it’s knowing how much someone else wants you. If feels good to know that you’re wanted and desired. Even if fucking is part of your job description, the act needs to be mutually enjoyable for you to be completely satisfied.

“Sure.” The lilt in his voice is so sweet that it borders on condescending. “While you do that, I think I’ll have my appetizer.”

It’s corny, overused and a little degrading - exactly the type of one-liner you’d ordinarily find in porn - but he gives you no time to call him out for it. As soon as he’s done talking, he wags his tongue out and drags it across the red lace, and the repeated up and down motions quickly dampen your panties.

You notice with great frustration that he takes care to avoid your clit, focusing instead on licking broad stripes over slit and, to your surprise, around your rim.  He doesn’t stop until your underwear drips with the accumulation of your essence and his saliva. The soaked lace rubs against you, the rough texture adding pressure to your most sensitive zones, until you can’t tell if the extra sensation is a blessing or a curse. Your hips jerk forward every so often, unsure if you’d rather lean into or escape his torturous games. Because as amazing as Hoseok’s tongue feels, you know your body well enough to be able to tell that this particular tempo won’t bring you to your peak.

An appetizer, he had called it. That’s exactly what the teasing ministrations feel like - a small sampling before the main course. It’s satisfying and maddening in its own way. Good, but not enough to satisfy your ravenous appetite.

He unearths himself from your dripping core, chin shiny with your juices.

“Keep focus,” he instructs as he slots two fingers inside of you. You’re wet enough that they slide in without too much difficulty, the stretch making your stomach clench. “I thought you said you knew how to cook pasta.”

Against your will, you force yourself to focus on the bubbling water in front of you. As much as you want to push your hips back and ride his fingers until you’re pushed over the edge, you can’t take the humiliation of messing up pasta - even if it is for the sake of a porn scenario.

It’s fucking pasta! You have to be seriously inept to mess up such a simple dish...

But what should have been an effortless task becomes more challenging than expected. Hoseok refuses to go easy on you. If anything, your stubborn silence is all the motivation he needs to thrust his fingers inside of you harder, curving them at an angle that makes your knees wobble. You struggle to keep any incriminating noises at bay but despite your best efforts, several muffled moans slip out one after the other.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, the logical side of you points out how dangerous all of this is. What if, during your impending orgasm, your body seizes up and knocks the boiling water everywhere during the process? You quickly switch off the gas stove at the thought. Better be safe than sorry.

Just then, Hoseok adds his tongue to the mix, his fingers relentless in their pursuit of your pleasure. You bite back a curse as the wooden spoon slips from your hold and clatters to the floor.

“Ah fu - Oh God,” you stutter, hands holding on to the edge of the counter for dear life.

You’ve been eaten out God knows how many times in your life, but not many have instinctively known what really gets you going. Hoseok laps at your core, tongue collecting the moisture that seeps through the fabric of your ruined panties, while his fingers scissor you open for his cock.

Your stomach clenches as you imagine how well he’d fill you up. Who the hell would ever want pasta for dinner when Hoseok could feed you his cock instead? Definitely not you, that’s for sure.

It’s easy to picture it. All he’d need to do is stand up, unzip his pants and spear you open with a practiced roll of his hips. Maybe he’d make you toss a salad while he fucks you from behind, slapping your ass whenever you forget to keep stirring the ingredients together. Or perhaps he’d let you ride his dick on the kitchen floor, too impatient to make it to a more comfortable surface.

Your imagination knows no bounds. Once you start, you can’t stop thinking of more lascivious scenarios, each one more daring and debauched than the last. The heat between your legs becomes unbearable and still, you ache for more.

Hoseok pulls away from the apex of your thighs and snorts, the sound pulling you out of your depraved thoughts. The pace of his thrusting slows down without stopping completely, his fingers still pressed deep within you. Your arms tremble as they try to keep you upright, knuckles white from the strength of your grip around the counter’s edge. You exhale shakily.

A whine works its way into your voice. “Why - why’d you stop?”

Ignoring your protests, he pops his fingers out of you and indulges in one last lick of your swollen pussy, before gathering to his feet. He rolls down your dress back over your bum and peers over your shoulder, acting as nothing had ever happened.

“Thought you said you’d take care of dinner, hm?” Hoseok has the gall to hum in disappointment.

Your mouth opens in outrage. “You!”

Hoseok pouts. “I thought we said you wouldn’t blame me for any soggy pasta.”

“You’re impossible,” you say without any real heat to your words.

“But you love me that way.”

He smiles as he leans in to kiss you, lips sticky and warm. You follow the pace he sets as best you can, unaccustomed to the way he takes his time - like you’re a delicacy that demands to be savored and not gulped down. On-screen kisses are usually rushed, messy, with too much tongue. They’re a scripted affair, more for show than out of real affection. When men tuck back your hair behind your ear or palm your cheek, it’s only to better angle your face for the camera.

There is something intimate about the way he holds you, the way he looks at you. Inwardly, you can't help but admire his acting skills. There’s something tender about the way he handles you that’s distinctly different from any of your previous onscreen partners. Sure, you’ve shot vanilla sex scenes before, but never of this variety. None of the male actors’ performances have made you wish, even fleetingly, foolishly, that the scene was real.

Hoseok pulls up for air before your mind can wander off completely, his panting mouth a hairsbreadth away. Lips touching but not quite.

Blearily, you blink your eyes open. You’re close enough that your noses brush against one another, your breaths mingling together. Hoseok’s eyes remain closed throughout, like he doesn’t want the moment to end. He looks so content that you can’t bring yourself to do anything else but melt further into his embrace, gaze drinking in the minute details of his face - like the tiny moles dotting his cheekbone and upper lip and the pretty curve of his eyes.

“And cut!”

You both jump away from each other, startled. For a second there, the storyline you’d been instructed to follow had slipped from your mind. You’re unsure if the lapse in judgement is good or bad but you don’t let the question linger in your thoughts. You’ll have plenty of time to dissect your performance at a later time.

“Good, good. That wasn’t what I was expecting but I don’t think anyone has any objections?” Director Ryu claps his hands. “Fifteen minute break sound good everyone? Then we’ll relocate to the bedroom to shoot the next part.”

There’s a general hum of agreement from the crew members. Chairs and various other equipment scrape the floor as the personnel prepare to migrate to the other room for filming. Jimin’s gaze meets yours briefly but all he can do is smile weakly in your direction before he’s ordered to help push some of the equipment down the hall.

Someone comes up to you with a bottle of water while another steps closer to blot the beads of sweat near your hairline and reapply a layer of lipstick. The make-up artist knits her brows in concentration until she’s satisfied with the touch-ups. She then moves on to Hoseok, make-up palette and brush at the ready, and grumbles loudly about the sticky residue covering his face. You hear Hoseok bellow a laugh, the sound so infectious that even the make-up artist joins in. 

You sip your water through a straw, careful not to smudge your freshly applied lipstick, and check your phone for any missed messages.

“Was all of that okay?”

“Hm?” You look up and are surprised to see Hoseok stare at you expectantly. “I, uh, know some girls aren’t into ass play. I’m sorry. I should’ve asked before jumping the gun but I figured - since you said there wasn’t anything major you were adverse to filming...”

His voice trails off.

“I liked it.” The admission is an easy one. “It did take me by surprise, but - I don’t have any complaints.”

“Ah, really?” Hoseok’s mouth corners upturn in relief. “That’s good to know. I was thinking - for the next scene - what if - I mean, are you okay with calling me Daddy?”

You tilt your head as you mull over the proposition.

“Daddy?”

“It’s not - you don’t have to. But listening to Director Ryu go on earlier made me think of something we could do. I think it fits well with the general idea. What do you think?”

“I’m fine with it.” Using the title doesn’t make you squeamish so you shrug in compliance. It’s not the first you’ve had to incorporate a daddy kink into the scene and it likely won’t be the last. You don’t see why you wouldn’t or shouldn’t do it with Hoseok. “I’ll follow your lead like I’ve been doing.”

It’s only as you’re following him towards the bedroom that you recall that you’ve yet to get to the crux of the scene - the damned impregnation kink. Even though you’re considerably less nervous than you’d been an hour or two ago, the thought of begging someone you barely know for something so intimate makes your stomach flip-flop. You don’t even have unprotected sex with Jimin and he’s your boyfriend.

Speaking of Jimin, you try to sneak in a peck or two before filming but Director Ryu intercepts you before you can make a beeline to where Jimin’s stationed behind a camera.

“How are you feeling?” The overhead light reflects off his round glasses and makes it impossible to hold eye contact unless you want to become semi-permanently blind.

“Good---”

“Wonderful. Well, we’ve positioned cameras here, here, and over there. There’ll be another camera man who’ll film with a handheld camera for closeups. Just keep that in mind. I know we’re giving you free-range to do what you feel is best and most natural but I’d hate to ask you to re-shoot because the camera couldn’t capture the both of you properly.”

You nod and he continues, “Also - please remember that you’re acting as a horny young married couple. I remember at that age I was up for anything, you get what I’m saying? People think just because you put a ring on your finger the sex automatically becomes stale. Fuck that. Show people married couples are freaks in the sheet.”

“Uh... Alright. I’ll keep that in mind.”

He claps a hand over your shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”

Freaks in the sheet? What did he expect you to do? Try out all the sex positions in the Kama Sutra?

“What did he want now?” Hoseok leans over to whisper once you’re seated comfortably on the bed. You’re hoping the mics don’t pick up the conversation but would rather not take the risk of being overheard bad-mouthing the director.

Shrugging, you say, “Just that this scene should be spicier.”

Hoseok raises his brow, lips quirking into a smirk. “That so?”

The same cockiness you’d caught a glimpse of during your escapade in the kitchen is back and the memory you associate it with makes the back of your neck prickle with heat. You clear your throat and avert your eyes.

Thankfully Director Ryu interrupts before Hoseok has the chance to fluster you further. You follow each of the director’s voiced directives until you’re comfortably seated on Hoseok’s lap, dress hitched around your waist because of how far your knees are spread on either side of Hoseok’s thighs. There’s a quick, last minute adjustment as Director Ryu ensures that the camera in the left corner picks up on everything it’s supposed to.

Satisfied, he lets you take the reins from there, then gives the cameras the signal to begin rolling.

You don’t waste a moment, taking his earlier commentary to heart. It’s your turn to pepper kisses all over Hoseok’s golden skin, leaving faint traces of rouge behind like an artist signing their own painting. You stop a few times to admire your work. Lip prints and lavender bite marks color his skin and the sight awakens a possessive streak you didn’t know you had.

Your enthusiasm to mark him up gets a little out of hand.

"Mhm." Hoseok grunts when you lick over a sensitive spot under his jaw. "Slow down, princess. There's no rush. We have all night."

He cups his chin between his hands so you have no choice but to relent and direct your gaze up at him. You’re pleased to see that he’s not completely indifferent to your touch; despite his instructions to take it slow, the smoldering look in his eyes tell a different story.

He runs the pad of his thumb over your lower lip, the pink flesh no doubt swollen. You take the digit in your mouth, unprompted, and run your tongue against its underside, wishing that his cock could fill your mouth instead.

Hoseok makes a noise low in his throat, not quite a growl but close.

"And I intend to take my time with you." The look he levels you with promises a night full of mind-numbing pleasure. Ribbons of heat curl around the base of your spine. "Want to make you feel good."

"You do," you agree, words muffled around the thumb you refuse to let go of.

You take a hold of his wrist and free your mouth, only to quickly replace it with his forefinger and middle finger. The stretch of two digits makes you moan lewdly.

Hoseok’s eyes darken. He lets you play for a few more seconds before he takes back control, his fingers pushing deeper into your mouth until they hit the back of your throat. You swallow down a gag, but his fingers don’t let you rest for long. He drags them over the flat of your tongue, watching as spit dribbles down past the sides of your mouth, and repeats the motion, pumping into your mouth steadily like he would a cock.

As nice as it feels to be filled with his fingers, whether in your cunt or mouth, you’re ready for more. Subconsciously, your hips grind down in his lap, shifting this way and that until you’re perfectly seated over his hardened length.

Drool is pushed out of your mouth as Hoseok squeezes a third fingers in with the other two. You suck harder, hoping that all your efforts will spur Hoseok into finally fucking you. The knowledge that he has to, at one point or another, keeps you from whining and begging pathetically for his cock. You can exercise patience if you put your mind to it; you’re sure of it. 

Your on-screen husband decides to test that resolve.

His other hand starts to wander south, his fingers toying with the short hem of your dress that’s been rucked up even higher with all your rocking and grinding. The movement of your hips slow, your brain unable to keep up with the stimuli coming in all directions.

A crack resounds in the room, the sharp sound startling you more than the sting that accompanies it. Hoseok’s palm rubs over the heated area, only inflaming it further.

“And who told you you could stop?”

The second slap is notably harsher than the first, and your hips automatically lurch forward hoping perhaps to lessen the impact of the sting.

You know he doesn’t expect a verbal answer; his second hand keeps your mouth plugged up, making any attempt at talking unintelligible. It doesn’t stop you from trying, only because you know the muffled protest are greatly appreciated amongst viewers. And if the way Hoseok’s digs his fingers into your smarting ass cheek is any indicator, you’re confident that he also enjoys your squirming and messy display.

“Keep moving, princess. I need both your holes nice and wet.”

The way his voice dips an octave makes your stomach twist in arousal. You long to tell him that you’re sufficiently wet enough for him to slide his cock inside right away but all you manage are pitiful garbled words.

He raises an eyebrow at your delayed response and your hips move before he can smack the globes of your ass for a third time. You have an inkling he’ll only hit harder with the intention of leaving marks of his own all over your skin.

It’s a careful balancing act, but you figure it out as you go. Bounce too fast and the fingers in your mouth will make you gag. Move too slowly for his liking and he won’t hesitate to add to the collection of handprints on your ass.

You lose track of how long he makes you play this game. Your mind focuses on sucking while keeping your jaw slack enough to accomadate the width of three digits. Drool pools down your chin, and you’re certain whatever the make-up artist had done to your lips is now ruined. Worse off are your panties. At the stage they’re at now, you’ll have no choice but to throw them out. Hoseok’s pants might need be as unsalveagable as your thong, you think inwardly, judging by the large, dark wet spot you’re currently sitting on.

“Mmh, good girl.” 

He gently slides his fingers out, strings of saliva attached. He hums in satisfaction at the lewd sight and rubs his fingers across your swollen lips and shiny chin, spreading the fluids and what’s left of your lipstick over your mouth. You swallow, mouth sore from being used roughly for so long.

“This hole is sufficiently wet, I think,” he appraises, eyelashes fluttering before he casts a long look down your body until it reaches where you’re seated on his clothed erection. “Let’s check this one too.”

The way he smirks at you but makes no move to check himself lets you know that he expects you to do the work.

You let your hands trail down your body slowly, cupping your breasts as you do, enjoying his hooded gaze and the way his cock twitches beneath you a bit too much. When you reach the hem of your dress, you lift your hips up to pull the fabric up to your navel giving an unobstructed view of your lace-covered pussy.

Hoseok stare intensifies but you don’t feel any embarrassment from the scrutiny. “Well you certainly look ripe.”

His fingers toy with the delicate string of lace around your hips. He lets the material snap against your skin a few times before he grows bored or impatient with his own game and gives the lace a harsh yank. It tears easily and the leftover scraps fall into his lap.

“... But just to be sure -” His hands grip your waist and manhandle you onto your hands and knees. Your head spins from how suddenly he’s moved you around to his liking that your arms give out and you fall face first into the clean smelling bed sheets. “Gotta give my favorite hole of yours a better look.”

His hands hoist your hips at a higher angle so that your soaked center is visible for the cameras to pan onto. Hoseok slides in two fingers easily, then a third. Loud, obscene noises echo in the otherwise quiet room, noises that are quickly joined by your unabashed moans of pleasure.

Your core is on fire. Hoseok’s fingers are just as good as you remember them to be. No, better. The three fingers pump into you in measured strokes, the drag slow enough to keep you dangling over the edge without pushing you over.

Hoseok spanks your ass, hissing between his teeth as you clench around his fingers, no doubt imagining your inner walls hugging his cock instead. 

“Christ. You’re always such a soft, wet little thing down here,” he croons in dulcet tones. “I could play with you all day.”

You thrust your hips back, shameless.

“Please! Please Daddy, I’ll be so good, I just - please - I nuh, need it. Need your cock fucking me full. I’ll take it so good, you know I will. Want you to - please! Daddy, I need your cum.”

“Shit.”

He fumbles in his haste to flip you onto your back. He crawls over your body, and you watch fascinated as he dives down to kiss you like a man starved. He looks almost feral, pupils so dilated the brown of his eyes is almost gone.

Heat blooms in your stomach as he kisses you deeply. The press of his lips against yours renders you a little less coherent as time ticks on, every brush of his tongue making you a little more dizzy with want.

Everything about him burns. It feels like being kissed by the sun itself. Every caress, every lick and nip leaves you feverish all over, like your drunk off his touch.

"Let me," he says, pinching the zipper of your dress between his thumb and index finger.

You wrap your hand around his and guide his movements. His gaze never leaves yours and it makes shivers run down your back. Even though you're the one controlling his movements for the time being, the look in his eyes makes it abundantly clear that the control you wield is only temporary.

When your dress finally falls open, you try not to preen too much under the reverent look that falls over Hoseok’s face. Your back arches a little off the bed, pert breasts thrust towards him - an appealing offer he doesn’t dare refuse.

Hoseok circles a thumb around your nipple, rubbing and flicking until it hardens into a stiff peak.

You wonder, distantly, how this looks like from the outside looking in. The man in front of you is a stranger in all senses of the word. Yet the way he touches you - like there are years of built-up affection behind every gesture - makes you second guess everything you know.

"Fuckin' love your tits.” He sighs, awe reflected in the dark of his eyes. "Love playing with them. Love how wet it gets you, how hungry your little pussy gets."

"Please,” you mewl, his words igniting a new wave of heat. It rolls over your body, leaving no extremity untouched. You burn from the inside out with raw desire.

You squeeze your own breasts in a bid to get him to touch you more. Hoseok merely chuckles, finding your desperation entertaining. One of his hands reach down between you to play with the wetness that clings to your core like a second skin and it takes everything inside of you not to rub yourself against him like a bitch in heat.

"What is it, princess?" His lips quirk into a smirk like he already knows the answer. "You're looking quite needy. How did you manage to hold it in all this time?"

“Stop teasing,” you growl, the lack of friction making you irritable. "I need your cock. And why - why do you have so many fucking clothes on?”

He chuckles, chest vibrating in amusement.

“Take them off,” you insist. Then, you grudgingly tack on a “Please” for good measure.

As hot as Hoseok looks like in his “work clothes”, he looks infinitely better naked, you decide as he chucks off his button-down shirt and gets started on his leather belt. With each new piece of clothing that gets discarded, the anticipation building inside of you skyrockets.

You take a moment to soak in his lithe figure, not bothering to hide how affected you are by the view. He’s nicely sculpted; you can tell right away that he takes care of himself. Swimming or dancing maybe? You hesitate between the two. His muscles are lean, nothing like the bulging biceps and thick forearms typical of the stereotypical gym rat.

Hoseok’s dick is, unsurprisingly, as pretty as the rest of him. It’s long and curved, a prominent vein running along its underside. The thatch of pubic hair that rests above his dick is neatly trimmed, the dark hair contrasting with the tan skin of his abdomen and the rosy hue of his erect length. Your eyes swoop down his thighs, licking your lips unwittingly at the alluring sight presented to you.

“Daddy,” you say, the whine in your voice unmistakable. “Want your cock.”

For a brief moment you’re tricked into believing he’s given in to your demand, but find yourself disappointed when he contents himself with rubbing his hardened member between your thighs, the glide slippery thanks to the copious amount of your essence that’s pooled there.

“Like this?” Hoseok asks, tone too sweet to be anything but mocking. The head of his cock bumps into your swollen bundle of nerves one, two, three times. You keen, your hips canting upwards in a bid to get more friction. “Want to rut against me until you get nice and creamy?”

He uses his right hand to spread your slick lower lips so that he can nestle his cock snuggly between them. He rolls his hips, the undulations fluid and dirty, and smirks at how you moan brokenly beneath him.

Your stomach clenches. “Need it in me."

"You'll get it," he promises after kissing you sloppily, lips sucking on your tongue. His breath is ragged but his voice steady, firm. "I'll give you everything you need. Make you cum so many times you know who owns this sweet pussy."

He speaks so surely, carries himself with so much confidence, that in the moment you can't help but believe him. The line between staged and reality blurs and you find yourself nodding eagerly, begging him as best you can to give you what you want.

The first tentative push of his dick wipes you clean of coherency. He slowly eases himself into you, reaching forward to lace his fingers with yours. It’s - more intimate than you expected. He squeezes your hand tightly in his when he finally manages to bury his entire length inside of you.

“Perfect.” He kisses the side of your temple before drawing back, his hard cock dragging deliciously against you. With a fluid hip thrust, he slides back in and you feel the stretch moreso this time around. The curvature of his cock has him pressing up against your walls in a way that robs you of breath.

"Daddy! Hh - ah, oh God. You're too b-big."

"Mhm, that's right. Daddy's fat cock is splitting you open. I'll plug you up with it later so none of my cum will leak out."

Every time he pulls back, your pussy clamps down tightly around him, unwilling to be empty even for a second.

Hoseok’s nostrils flare in arousal. He grabs your left tit and squeezes, using it as a hold to better fuck into you. With his body hovering above yours, his hand staking claim of your breast, and his cock drilling into you, you have nowhere to go. Pinned to the bed and unable to do anything but take everything he delivers, you wrap your legs around his waist and moan.

"Daddy's gonna fuck some babies into you,” he rasps, his eyes dark pools of lust. "Gonna breed your sweet pussy over and over. You'll be so full of my cum that you'll be pregnant with my babies for sure."

“Oh fuck. Yes, yes - oh my nhhg.” You sob as Hoseok drives his cock into you with more force. While the piston of his hips isn’t rushed, he pulls out to the tip only to slam back in to the hilt every time. The stretch burns in a good way and the sound of your moans are rivaled only by the wet, obscene sounds from your coupling.

"Fuck. Your cunt just - shit." He cracks down a hand against your ass and you shriek, not expecting it. "You're so tight, holy shit."

"Want it. Want you to fuck me good."

"I will," he says lowly, the promise reverberating deep in his chest. "I'll fuck you until you're begging me to stop. Fill you up so much, you'll be bloated with it."

And it should freak you out, the imagery he paints with his words, but the thought of laying there and him fucking you so well that you won't be able to feel your legs has you gushing out more wetness.

"Mmmh.” Maybe he can feel how soaked you are because he comments, “This is my favorite hole of yours, princess. Always so fuckin' drenched. I bet we’ll have to throw out the sheets again." He chuckles. "You must be hungry for it, right? I made you wait so long. No wonder your pussy is clenching like that. It needs a big, fat cock to milk dry."

“I missed it,” you cry, body skidding a little higher up the duvet each time he fucks into you. Your eyelashes flutter, lids heavy. It’s hard to concentrate, let alone form words, when your brain feels like complete mush. “I - I need your cum. Daddy, please.”

"Don't worry, gorgeous. I've got you. Daddy will feed your cute pussy his cock."

"Th-thank you, Daddy."

"Love you," he murmurs. It’s a quiet confession, lost somewhere in between the mattress creaks, the loud slaps of Hoseok’s hips slamming against yours, and the string of whimpers and groans pulled from your throat. It’s quiet but you hear it.

One of your hands reach up to pull him down by the neck so that your lips meet. He kisses you open-mouthed. It’s a filthy kiss, one that makes you moan into his mouth. You’re certain that if you had been standing your knees would have wobbled.

When you let up for air, Hoseok’s staring you down, his red-bitten lips plump and shiny.

"Love this pussy. So sweet and wet for me. Always for fucking swollen, like it's waiting to get a pounding. Love that. Love how eager you are to be bred by my thick cock."

The impregnation kink is - a bit much. You've never really imagined having kids, at least not anytime soon. You can’t even keep your plants alive for fuck’s sake.

But the way he suggests it is nothing like what you had imagined. His suggestions are - vulgar and primal. Like the urge to fuck you full of his cum is biological and he can’t smother it.

For a moment, you let yourself entertain the thought of being his breeding bitch - of laying on your back and letting him fuck load after load of cum inside you until your pussy physically can't accommodate any more. Of not having any other worries or thoughts but take his cock every moment of the day.

"You just got tighter.” He curses under his breath, voice thick with arousal.  "Such a warm little hole. Taking everything I give it. You'd take anything if it meant getting bred by me, right?"

“Yes, yes,” you chant, pleasure coiling inside of you. “Give me more! I need it."

"Shit. You can't handle more, princess," he tries to reason. "Daddy needs to be gentle with you. Your hole is so small, it'll hurt if I go harder."

"Daddy promised to fuck me.” You whine, uncaring if you sound too bratty and demanding. "B- Breed my hole. It's yours. Puh-please use me."

"God." Hoseok groans, his features twisting in what looks to be pain or pleasure. With tremendous effort he pulls himself out of you and your eyes widen in panic.

“What? Daddy why? I thought—”

He shushes you, reaching somewhere overhead to grab a fluffy pillow. "Just wait a sec, okay? There you go.”

The pillow is placed underneath your hips, keeping them elevated. When Hoseok takes his glistening cock in hand and directs it back in, you both moan in unison.

"Oh fuck, I’m gonna, ah,” you gasp as your mind goes blank with pleasure. The new angle is heaven on earth. It’s almost too much, too quick, but Hoseok’s firm grip on your hips prevents you from alleviating the pressure.

"Take it." He grunts, brows knit together. Every powerful snap of his hips makes your breasts bounce, your breath hitch. Without his hands keeping you pinned down, your head would have collided with the headboard by now. "Be a good princess and take your fucking."

He gains momentum, the new angle facilitating the slide of his cock. He drags the flat of his palm down your thigh and takes a hold of your knee before hoisting it up over your shoulder. The stretch burns the back of your calves but you’re so fucked out, you can’t even find the words to complain.

When you glance up, it’s to fall upon the sight of Hoseok brushing his sweaty fringe out of his face. His cheeks are flushed pink, his skin dewy from the film of perspiration wrapped around his body. Beads of sweat trickle down his heaving chest but he chooses to forgo a quick break. On the contrary, he pushes in deeper like he’s determined to carve out a permanent space for his cock.

"Just gonna keep you here,” he huffs, his eyes the shade of cloudless night sky. “Everyday I'll fuck my cum back inside of you so that you'll always stay full. Want to fuck you forever. Don't want this to end."

"Want it too," you sob, orgasm hovering just on the periphery. "Want you to keep me full forever. Ugh - oh fuck! Hoseok- I'm—"

"You gonna cum around my cock, princess?" He angles his hips downwards, relishing in the wanton cry it elicits. "Gonna give me everything?"

"I'm yours," you profess, jaw slack with pleasure.

It doesn’t take much more for the orgasm to crash over you, Hoseok fucks you through it, groaning as your inner walls spasm around him. He breathes out curses, lip drawn tight between his lips, and doesn’t wait for the last waves of your orgasm to abate to chase after his own end.

In the throes of your pleasure, it doesn’t register then that Hoseok has been holding back all this time. If you thought he had been fucking you hard before, it’s nothing compared to now. He growls and bends forward, forcing your leg to stretch even more, and pushes in and out of you at a pace that makes you scream.

You don’t even have time to come down from your first high that you’re already thrown towards your second. Hoseok plugs your mouth up using two digits, his fingers a firm pressure against your tongue. Your eyes roll back, too overwhelmed from the feeling of being stuffed on both ends.

“God, I could fuck your holes all fucking day.” His rhythm begins to falter as the pressure inside of him grows, his movements frantic and less controlled than they’ve ever been. “How about that? I’ll fuck my princess’ mouth properly next time, stretch it out nicely. Then you’ll let me have your ass, hm?”

Shit, shit, you whimper around his fingers, spit bubbling down the sides on your mouth. It’s scary knowing you have no way to stop the oncoming destruction.

“Yeah, I can tell you love that. You’re gonna cream my dick again, aren’t you?” You can’t tell if the sound he makes is a laugh or a grunt. All you know is that you feel like you’re about to burst. “C’mon, be a good girl and milk my cum out. You better get every last drop.”

There’s an underlying threat in his command. You do your best to obey his words, not wanting to disappoint.

Hoseok pushes his cock in as deep as it can go and grinds his hips into yours. His cock reaches so deep that you swear he might hit your cervix. And considering the nature of the scene you’re portraying, maybe that’s what he intends.

He swipes his fingers through the mess of your cunt, zeroing in on your sensitive clit. He swirls some of your fluids over it before giving it a sharp pinch that makes you cry out. Your hips fly off the pillow but Hoseok is quick to pin you back down. The never-ending drag of his cock along your walls paired with the rough ministrations to your clit is all you need for the pressure inside you to snap.

Above you, Hoseok moans, low and throaty, as he finally dumps rope after rope of warm cum inside of you. He throws his head back, exposing the collar of purplish bruises you sucked onto his skin earlier. Something about the view satisfies you immensely - not that you’d dare voice these thoughts out loud.

Hoseok’s strength gives out and he sags onto your body, his breath warm against your skin. He feels hot, like a furnace, but strangely it’s not uncomfortable. It’s almost like having a personal heating pad; the soreness of your muscles melts away with each passing moment.

Much to your displeasure, your post-coital bliss doesn’t last forever. He's given the signal to pull out and obeys, careful to keep your hips propped up so that his load of cum won’t slosh out. He’s still got a role to play, after all, and the end goal is to get you pregnant.

A cameraman walks forward to zoom in on your swollen and used pussy - physical proof of your exploits. The haze lifts. You become more aware of the people standing on the outskirts of your vision, lighting or sound equipment in hand.

“And that’s a wrap!” Director Ryu calls, his cheeks stretched to accommodate the width of his grin. “Good job everybody!”

You breathe out a sigh, glad your day is finally over. Seokjin walks up to you with a robe for you to throw on and you nod in thanks, slipping the satin gown over your sweaty body.

Around you, the staff start milling about, putting the equipment away and gathering their belongings. You pay them no heed, your attention focused on getting changing into showering and changing into comfortable clothes. You’re in the middle of taming your messy hair when your stomach erupts into growls, reminding you of your hungry state. What you’d do for a big slice of piz—

You remember your date with Jimin and speed up, not wanting to make him wait around for you any longer. It’s not hard to spot him - he’s waiting outside of your dressing room, can of coke in hand.

Something about his smile feels off.

Maybe it’s the way his eye corners don’t crease or the slight strain the curve of his mouth that betray him.

Your expression falls. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing - it’s nothing, don’t worry,” he says after a short, tense moment of silence. The look on your face must have reflected your feelings of doubt because he proceeds by reaching out and pulling you tight against him. Pressed up against his shirt, you can smell the faintest trace of the fabric softener he uses and its scent, familiar and sweet, mollifies you somewhat. “You did amazing today, baby. As usual.”

The compliment you’ve been waiting for makes the sides of your lips rise automatically. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Almost too well.” He hums, one of his hands stroking the back of your head.

“Well, I can’t take all the credit, “ you admit. “The results wouldn’t have been half as good if Hoseok hadn’t been my partner. He’s new in the game but he doesn’t act like it, does he?”

“He doesn’t, no.” Jimin agrees. “He’s... he’s something, alright.”

Your grin widens. All your worrying had been for nothing, in the end. The shoot had gone without a hitch, all of the set members coming up to you with praises of a job well done. You can’t recall the last time any of your performances had elicited such a response post-filming. Even Director Ryu looks particularly pleased, a permanent grin etched onto his features as he reviews the tapes. The knowledge that you’ve done well fills you with a pleasant giddiness that warms your insides and makes your cheeks hurt from how wide your smile stretches.

“Oh good, you’re still here.” Hoseok beams. A damp towel hangs around his neck and the ends of his hair are wet like he’s just gone and doused his head under the bathroom faucet. “I was worried you had left. I just - thanks for earlier. I had a lot of fun! If the chance presents itself, I hope we can work together again.”

“Thank you.” You want to praise him too, know that his performance deserves it, but your next words are cut off before they have the chance to form. Jimin steps closer to you, his grip on your hip tightening suddenly.

When you glance up to check on your boyfriend, he’s sporting a serious expression that you’ve rarely seen before. He doesn’t look angry, but it’s clear as day that he isn’t too pleased with the present situation. His face is closed off, cold, unwelcoming - so drastically different from the usual cherubic sweetness you’re accustomed to seeing.

You’re at a loss for words, unsure of who to address first. What’s going on?

Hoseok senses the sudden change in atmosphere and chooses to tactfully retreat.

“Good work, man.” He nods at Jimin and then shoots you a wave. “See you around sometime, ______ !”

Your eyes follow his exit before you turn to face Jimin again, hoping the smile on your face masks the worry you feel bubbling on the inside.

“Jimin what - I mean, are you sure you're okay?”

Jimin returns a strained smile of his own. “I’m fine.”

Your gaze lands on his right hand that’s still squeezing your waist. It borders on uncomfortable but you try not to let it show. You must not do a very good job at schooling your features because Jimin quickly apologizes for his behavior.

“Sorry.” Jimin lets you go once he notices your discomfort. “I just - I don’t know. You’re right, I’m not acting like myself. I think...seeing you say that stuff and act that way just - I’m not sure why, I guess - Since usually the sex isn’t like that, it caught me off guard.”

“You didn’t like that I acted like I was in love with him.”

“Would anyone?” he shoots back, smile sardonic. “It just looked so convincing in the moment. I guess it got me worked up.”

Sure, Hoseok is hot. If you had to work with him again, you would in a heartbeat. It’s not often you land a colleague you’re so sexually compatible with, who also happens to be so well-mannered and good-looking. It’s like hitting the jackpot, really.

But - just because you’d fuck him again for professional reasons, doesn’t mean that you’re interested in him beyond that.

“Jimin. I don’t want to be with anybody else but you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” The muscles in his face relax. “I love you.”

“Love you, too.”

.

.

It’s not until later, as he fucks you uncharacteristically hard in the backseat of his car parked in the back lot of the film studio, that you begin to wonder if things really are as idyllic as you believe them to be.

.

.

.

[oumaheroes]

Earthbound 1/?

Summary:

Centuries after humanity fled a dying Earth and found sanctuary in the stars, the planet has healed enough to support mankind once more. For some, there is something more than curiosity; memories from another life whisper history in familiar voices, calling them home.

 'He closes his eyes and thinks about blue flowers and large statues of stone, of ships and red coats flapping over a green meadow.'

Part 2 Part 3

……………………………………………………………………  

 Chapter 1: Scattered Amongst The Stars

Alfred is six. It was his birthday last Tuesday and he got to have a really big party and it was really really cool, but the coolest thing ever was that he got an e-tab from his Ma. Everyone at school already has an e-tab -as a July baby he's one of the youngest- so now he can finally join in with the special classes that they have and play all of those games at lunch time.

Alfred doesn't like feeling left out. It's not nice, Ma says, when you don't include people, so that means that the people who play games on their e-tabs when they know he doesn't have one are being mean on purpose and that really hurts. Except now, now he can join in and be their friend again and won't have to sit alone at his table when it's interactive e-tab time.

It's not real learning, Pa says. He didn't want Alfred to have one, says that it rots your brains and makes you lazy, and says that the e-tab time is just 'enrichment', it's not part of the curriculum because they're not learning anything, just downloading and watching stuff. Still, Ma must have talked him around because on Tuesday Alfred opened the box and there it was, all for him. There's some games on it, from Grandpa, and Ma had uploaded some of his favourite movies for him to watch as soon as he'd synced his mind up. Pa got there too, he must have done, because there's also some files on 'Earth History', 'The Fall', and one about extinct animals which Alfred really doesn't wanna read but Pa's been mentioning at least one of them every dinner since so he probably should.

He goes into school and begins to chatter happily to his friend Ben as soon as he sees him about 'Zip Blast', the current school-yard fad, and about how he can't wait to sync up and play because he'd been practising over the weekend and he thinks he's kinda good now.

Ben looks uncomfortable. 'Oh, I don't think we're playing that one any more.'

'Huh? But...' Alfred stops and looks at Ben in disbelief, 'but Friday you said it was the best ever!'

'Well it was,' Ben concedes, reluctantly, 'but now there's the new 'Rock-ite' out so we played that over the weekend.'

Alfred's heart sinks. 'We?'

His friend has the grace to look as apologetic as a six year old can look about these matters but nothing more than that and at recess Alfred is alone once more. He tells himself it's okay, he doesn't care anyway but it's a half-hearted lie at best and he doesn't try to kid himself for too long. Instead, he decides he may as well sync up one of those stuffy files Pa put on the e-tab to pass the time and nibbles a cookie to keep himself entertained.

His teacher finds him gormless, ten minutes later. His eyes are glazed as he stares unblinkingly at the wall and his cookie, one chunk missing, lies forlorn on the table next to his slack left hand but his brain is more full and awake than it's ever been. Information about a long dead planet far far away pound and crash in his head and as soon as the data file has been properly synced he reaches out for his tab and loads up another.

At eight, Alfred has become that kid. No matter what conversation he gets into or who he talks to, if there is an opening or an opportunity he will bring up Earth and once that's accomplished he can go on and on for hours. He's downloaded every possible data file he can find about the entire subject: life before the Fall, the Fall itself, and the human race's desperate escape across the stars and for him it's still never enough. There's always another e-file to sync: about ancient nations, about old sciences and religions, about old wars and songs and dances and food; every second he can spare he gives over to tales of the past woven from the binary of today.

They are a scattered people, he likes to tell his listeners, there are hundreds of us, strewn across galaxies and planets and ships and no one knows how many of us there are any more because the Fall ripped apart alliances and histories so we don't even know who else is out there to find. Everything was lost, everything; the history, the stories, the places, the-

At this point, someone usually either changes the topic of conversation or he realises that they've walked away and left him babbling to himself, his eyes shut as he imagines the flight to freedom that happened too long before he was born. Adults are usually nicer and listen for longer, but they don't mean it either and by pretending to be interested in what he has to say they only serve to hurt him more.

He just can't understand, why does no one else find this interesting? Why does no one else dream of where they as a species came from and long to see it for themselves? Alfred would do anything to feel the wind on his face, to have breeze in his hair and the sun touch his skin because although he could play in a holo-room or go on a special holo-holiday it's not real and Alfred longs to just feel it. The sun on his planet is strong but the dense material of the domes blocks it from actually reaching him; he can't feel the warmth. At school he's learnt that it's too hot out there anyway and he'd die, but according to his data files the sun should be warm and gentle and fill up summer days and spring afternoons, so he can't quite feel the danger as much as he probably should. There's no air outside the domes either and what's the point of feeling the sun without a breeze, so he's not as sad as he could have been. It wouldn't ever compare to mankind's old sun, the sun in the stories he's growing up on.

He sometimes spends his recess and lunch at school rushing about as fast as his legs can carry him. Trying to get his own wind in such space is hard, but not impossible and if he focuses hard enough on his self-made breeze he can imagine that he's running over rocks and cliffs and weaving in and out of long gone animals that only the sky can remember. If this doesn't work, he syncs with his e-files to learn about something else, he's started to get into the people recently and likes the stories about normal stuff the most. Food, clothes, toys. Relatable things that he can see in his own home and use to imagine that he's been transported back through time and space.

There are often pictures of houses and Alfred marvels as how big they are and how much stuff those people must have had, collected form all the many places they must have seen. You can't get wood any more, but maybe if he asks Pa nicely he can get him some of that building material they use for making the new domes and he can practise making his own, just to see if he can.

He spends his weekends tinkering in his room with old bits of plastic, metal and cables and every now and again he plugs in a new circuit board to the plug sockets in his room and sees if he can make the lights turn on or off from somewhere else. Last weekend he built a fan and managed to make it blow. He can sync up a sound file from Earth and imagine that he's in a town somewhere way back when and there's a breeze on his face and there's someone who wants to talk to him.

Alfred is fifteen and is the best engineer in his school. He specialised early -he'd always had a knack for building things and he's good with numbers- and now this is what he's known for. Alfred can look at a electrical hub or a circuit board and immediately he can see either what's wrong or how to improve it and this makes him valuable. He's been building and fiddling with this sort of stuff in his room for ages but now it's finally cool, people actually want him to do that now. He sees it as a lucky thing, that he was bullied so much for it previously, because now he can see how much bullshit people like to throw when they want you to do something, how much an opinion of someone can change depending on their age and talent. Too good too young: weird and a nerd, you're wasting your time. Then you hit the right age and suddenly you're very experimental, very mature, it's good to know what you want in life. But ah, still young enough not to know your worth, you'll fix this for me for free, yes? If he wasn't as good as he is, he thinks, how valuable would they think I am? The answer scares him because he knows what it is and knows how thin the line he treads is; there are others like him, don't forget.

What even is he, without the skills of his hands?

He is seventeen. Alfred hates it, but Ma could use the help and Pa's not getting any younger, so he accepted an offer not too long ago for a entry level job in the government engineering department. It is an amazing offer for someone so young and fresh out of school, he knows that, but as much as he enjoys what he does the days wear him out and he spends less time listening to his e-files and more time building the dreams of others far more affluent than he.

He thinks he's doing okay for a while. The days whittle by easily and he starts to build up a nice savings pile that he uses to help out his parents every now and again. But he's nothing special. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of kids just like him on this planet who have been fed on a diet of strict, specialised schooling meant to produce only the best and Alfred knows that the only thing which sets him apart from the many many many others is his ability to just keep going. There is no safety in what he does at his age, no net to catch him if he slips up, so he begins to take on private jobs at the weekend to build up his CV further and get his name out there, making the chance of falling just that bit smaller. Before he realises it it's been a month since he last had the time set aside to listen to an e-file and that hits him, hard. He'd never had to set aside time before. Hell, he can't remember when he'd last done anything other than go to work, come home to sleep, and repeat.

He's struck by the monotony of it all. He can't see a difference between his life and that of his dad's, or his dad's friends, or anyone he knows, for that matter. Is this all there is? Is this all anyone does? When is there ever a break? Then, he gets it. There won't be a break. As soon as you can't keep up in this crazy race he's in, you're worthless. He's kind of been kidding himself, almost, that there'd be an end to it all, like a video game where you complete the level and then suddenly it's free play. You work hard to get a reward of, of something, or at least you can stop worrying and panicking about being left behind. There is no free play, he realises, it just keeps on going until you can't play any more because life has ground out your energy and sucked the vitality from your bones.

He goes running; pounding his feet on the treadmill he sucks in the humid air around him and imagines than he's running through an old Earthen jungle, dodging trees and leaping over crags in the forest floor. But there's no wind, and Earth refuses to come alive.

Alfred is eighteen. A message came through from Earth, old true Earth, that a new colony there is doing well and he hasn't been able to stop thinking about it since, thinking and dreaming about what he'd do if he ever went there, if he ever set up his life there instead of here. He could...no. There is no safety in history, he knows. There is no definite chance that anyone would want him to do that. Besides, there's no potential for definite growth, no stable career plan because you can't guarantee a career on digging up the scanty past of a long dead planet. But no matter how big of a safety net he could make for himself in engineering he feels no passion about any of it and the idea of spending his days encapsulated in this metal world of domes and tunnels makes him feel cold.

There's something that calls him in his dreams and whispers over the wind in his mind and this builds and builds in his feet until he can't keep them still any longer. One more look out of the window and up at the stars and he's gonna blow, he needs to get out and go go go because if he doesn't then he's gonna sink in this place.

Before he can stop himself he's bought a ticket and finds himself packing hurriedly late at night when his parents are asleep, stuffing clothes into the only bag he only which is far too small for this sort of thing but who the fuck travels anywhere these days? He hasn't got time to be better at this so he crouches under his bed and reaches in, all the way back until his hand scrapes the wall and he finds his old fan that he built when he was eight. He puts it on his bed, places his e-tab next to it with a message of what he's done and that's that.

He slips out without waking his parents, because saying goodbye would only be too hard and he knows that he'd end up changing his mind if they spoke even one word to him, so he says his farewells in silence and disappears.

................................................................................................................................

Peter is five and he sits upon his mother's knee, playing with the buttons on her shirt. She's with other adults and they're all talking about something that he doesn't really understand but they all sound sad and the air feels heavy so he keeps quiet like a good boy should and thinks about other things to keep himself busy. He thinks about the e-book his nanny got him last Christmas, the one with the pretty pictures, and thinks that it would be nice to live inside that book, with the greens of grass that he's never touched before. He wonders if grass is hard or soft and he spends so long thinking of this that that night, when he is sleeping, he dreams that he is running on grass and it is prickly, tickling his feet.

There is a voice in the dream, singing him the story but it is not Nanny's voice, nor Mummy's or Daddy's, but another man's and the lilt of his voice sings a language Peter doesn't know but it is a good voice for story telling and so the dream is vivid and touchable. He flies through the grass, feet pounding at earth instead of metal and the voice chuckles, deep and throaty. It makes him feel safe.

He wakes up because his Mummy is stroking his hair and forgets; school teaches him about how the air system in his dome works. Grass isn't as important as breathing.

He is eight and they are learning about the old Earthen languages. There used to be many, his teachers says, and each language held a culture, a history and a soul of a people and there used to be hundreds of them on Earth before it Fell. The teacher is old; his words are flat and there is no passion in his tone, but a thrill runs up Peter's arms as he imagines so much more. From the nothing he is given his brain decides to give those dead languages life and all of a sudden there are bursts of sound echoing inside his head. The teacher moves on, the class sits bored, but Peter can hear consonants clash against teeth and tongue and fricatives slip between breathy vowels. There are phonemes which glide between dipthongs and tripthongs to bound and fall out of the hundreds of mouths of hundreds of people; whispers of a past no one can hear tell stories long forgotten.

There is a clap very close to his head which scares all of the sounds away. His teacher looms over him, frowning in exasperation.

'Again, Peter?' he says, 'Stop daydreaming, boy. I asked you a question.'

'Er...' his classmates snicker and he feels his ears go red. 'I'm sorry, sir, I wasn't listening.'

'That much was obvious.'

Peter's cheeks burn hotter and he stares at his e-tab, focusing on the light of the screen to stop him from crying.

Before too long the lesson changes, then the day ends and he's allowed to go home. He walks alone through the corridors and exits the school dome, coming into the shuttle bus bay. He's a big boy now, he can take the shuttle bus all by himself and he has a special card to prove it. Weaving in and out of the other children, he hurries to where his bus is docked and scrambles inside to rush to his favourite seat, hopping up and placing his bag on the seat beside him. He likes to sit alone, because then he can stare out of the window and dream for as long as the journey will let him without worrying about talking to someone. Not that anyone wants to anyway, the other children say he's not got a brain because he would rather focus on the story in his head than on their silly games.

Nanny doesn't mind, she says it's good for people to dream and says that he goes off to somewhere called 'Neverland' whilst she pinches his cheeks and calls him her little Peter Pan. But when he gets home Nanny isn't there, Mummy and Daddy are and they're huddled in front of the large e-screen in the sitting room, faces pinched in worry.

He drops his bag by the kitchen table and goes to join them. There is a man on the screen speaking about their air ventilation system and a 'catastrophic degradation' and about some big numbers with a scientist nodding seriously to his left.

'What do we do now?' His mother's voice is hushed, fragile.

His father raises his eyes to her and shakes his head slowly. 'Debbie... you heard what he said. The planet's no longer viable.' His eyes flick towards Peter, suddenly aware that he's there too, and he smiles although it doesn't reach his eyes. 'Hey Pete. Do you mind doing your homework in your room today?'

Peter could ask why, but he sees that his Daddy doesn't want him to and Mummy looks like she's going to cry, so he glances once more at the screen and nods. He leaves them with the scary looking numbers and tips his books onto his bed. That night he dreams of waves crashing against his legs and he tastes the salt on his lip when he wakes.

At nine, there's some breaking news. Earth, of all things Earth, is habitable once more and it can't come at a better time. Peter sits on his favourite sofa at Nan's house, with his father having lunch, when the planet-wide intercom coughs its way to life and briefly deafens them all before the sound adjusts ever so slightly.

'ATTENTION ALL. PRIMARY SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR THE SOUTH SIDE HAVE SUFFERED AN IRREPERABLE MALFUNCTION. BACKUP SYSTEMS WILL HOLD FOR APPROXIMATLY 3 HOURS AND 45 MINUTES. THIS IS NOT A DRILL; MAKE YOUR WAY TO YOUR EVACUATION POINTS.'

Then, it falls silent once more.

South side, that's them. Peter immediately feels as though he's going to be sick and by the look on his dad's face he's not alone. Once one half of the planet goes the other will surely follow. It's something they've all been expecting and planning for for years, but it's far, far too soon, they should have more time than this; they're not ready to go and the government's not even started the evacuation programme yet. His Nan shoots a look at his father from where she's sat in her armchair. It's a look Peter can't really read because there's something there that he subconsciously doesn't want to acknowledge.

'Earth?' Her voice is a thin whisper.

His father nods gravely. 'We got them Mum, the tickets came yesterday.' Peter's heart briefly lifts at the prospect, a longing that's deep and euphoric but then it crashes quickly. 'But...'

His Nan smiles but it doesn't reach her eyes. 'I know.'

Slowly, with growing horror, Peter understands. 'Wait,' he whips his head back and forth between the two of them, 'Nanny, where-'

'Don't worry, Peter,' she gets up and goes to kneel in front of where he's frozen in his chair, hands digging nails into the old material, 'I'll get on one of the other evacuation ships.'

'But you're not-,' his eyes burn and his voice is breaking but he doesn't look away, 'but you're not with us, why aren't you coming with us.'

'Oh Peter, my little Peter Pan,' she hugs him tight, pulling him in to her chest and he grips his hands in her shirt and tries to take in as much of her as he can.

'Mum we- we have to go.' Dad doesn't sound much better and before Peter can register much his Dad is hugging his Nan with a funny tight look on his face, then he's being pulled by the arm and out of the door, stumbling over his feet as he tries to keep up.

A terse shuttle bus later they get home to his mother already throwing their things into cases and boxes, haphazardly grabbing at e-frames and e-tabs to squash them and their memories safe under piles of their clothes. Peter could help, should help, but all he can do it sit numbly on the floor and cry whilst his life is collected and contained into a few measly bags. The rest will be left.

It doesn't take too long, thankfully, as Peter doesn't know what's worse, wanting to get this over with as fast as possible or wanting to stay and cling to the remnants of the only life he's ever known. As they make their way to the loading bays for the Earth-bound travellers he blearily finds himself thinking about what classes he'll miss in school tomorrow, but then he remembers Nanny and the ordeal starts anew as reality sets back in.

His parents are focused on more practical things.

They stand in line, their few pieces on luggage already being loaded on, and wait to board the ship they were assigned to only yesterday. His mother speaks under her breath, as if she is afraid to talk too loudly for fear of jinxing something. 'The Earth ships aren't even ready. They won't have enough food let alone rooms.'

His father shakes his head and slips his hand down to intertwine with hers. 'They must have known something like this could happen at any time, they've been predicting it for years. If anything, the rooms may not be ready but the agricultural sections will be.' He looks determinedly at the back of the head of the man in front of them and swallows. 'They only give out tickets if there's room. We'll be fine.'

Peter's mother glances his way meaningfully, and then back to his father.

'Jo, there're not enough ships; no one was ready in time. They can't have planned for everyone.' She bites the inside of her cheek, one hand on Peter's shoulder. Her fingers dig in, hard, but he doesn't try to shrug her off. He can barely feel it.

His father understands. 'She'll call us when she can.' Then, the line moves and they lurch forward together, huddled close.

Just before the door, where the tickets are being checked and where the din of the engines roaring into life starts to become uncomfortable, his father takes one last desperate look at out of the window at the distant domes of their colony, nestled in the dust. He taps an impatient rhythm against the tiled floor. 'She'll call.'

She never does.

................................................................................................................................

Francis is three and his daddy has just left Mummy.

'He went to fight,' she says as she strokes his hair. This confuses him because fighting is bad and you're only allowed to fight if someone tries to fight you first and no one has been nasty to Daddy that he's seen.

Mummy doesn't answer but continues to stroke his hair, humming softly a tune she sings to him every night before bed that sounds old and sad and sleepy, so he just nods and rests his head heavily against her chest.

He doesn't see his Daddy again.

He is ten when he realises that there never was any war. The notion strikes him dumb one day in the kitchen as he distantly listens to the news playing through the announcer when he helps wash up after dinner. The announcer is speaking about something banal, a fashion show maybe, but Francis is staring out of the window and up at the sky, up at the stars that push through the daytime's thin atmosphere. He doesn't know what caused him to start this train of thought, but once it's started his brain quickly pieces together the puzzle that it has ignored all of this time.

At school they were taught about wars, about age old battles with guns and swords and metal where blood was spilt over land and the wealth it contained. But, there hasn't been any fighting here. He scrubs a glass, sponge squeaking against the side. And even if there was fighting somewhere far away, his dad would surely still be able to write or visit, or come back after all this time. And more importantly, if there was a war going on now then surely he would have learnt about it at school, rather than learning about age old political struggles on the human-ruined home world.

His mother takes the glass from his slack grip. 'Daydreaming?'

He shakes himself to and looks at her. Turned away and out of the window her face is suddenly older and oddly clearer than he remembers it being, she looks like a person rather than just his mother and that's a scary thought. It's as though the wash of childhood has momentarily slipped away and he's now aware of both it and the harsh brushstrokes of reality. She's a person and feels things, just like he does. So it hurts, that she lied, and it will hurt him for a long time because he doesn't know why but cannot for the life of him bring himself to ask her. Francis is good at reading people and he knows that this isn't something he should ask about, so turns back to the dirty dishes and doesn't.

When Francis is fifteen there is a war, of sorts. The planet nearest to them, the one they rely on the most for trade, switches governmental policies and refuses to continue their current agreements. This results in a breakdown of communication and heightened tension between the two colonies, each bristling angrily at the offence yet unwilling to be the first to initiate anything rash. There is minor rationing imposed upon Francis' planet until trade is re-established as well as a draft of specialisation training implemented, just in case. He's unaffected by the rationing; the draft is a different story. Just in case this trade block becomes permanent, his planet needs to be prepared to become fully self sufficient in everything from science, to food, to art, to the army.

The block stays in place and tensions rise. Against his wishes, Francis is assigned a scientific draft. He is now seventeen and knows he needs to be given something but he'd prefer agriculture or education to research, if he could have the choice, or the arts if he's allowed to dream. He isn't. He brain is good, his grades are high and thus he is far more useful to the cause working on the advancement of his planet than working to help feed it.

A few days after his birthday and a month after his posting letter arrives, his mother rides with him on a shuttle to his boarding station. He will try out four different areas: mechanics, medicine, biology, and physics, then he will be assigned to what he works with best, where he can produce the best work possible. But Francis can't think of anything worse than being stuck in a lab all day, shutters drawn and devoid of all personality. Even worse, he's heard the rumours that have managed to float back from those who have graduated and knows that once he boards this ship there's no escaping the life he'll be moulded into. The programme is four years long and then he will be placed into a job where he will stay until he dies. At twenty one he will have no other skills for work other than what he will acquire at the science facility, there is no swapping careers afterwards. He wants to do so much, there is so much that he loves to do, and with each passing shuttle stop his heart grows more frantic, fighting his brain which has accepted the inevitable.

He gets physics. He calls his mother to howl down the phone once, just once, before he realises the futility of doing so; nothing can or will change. Accept it.

At twenty, a year before his training would end, there is finally a truce. Trade resumes and Francis finally tastes sugar after five years but now, after so long, the taste is too much. Not fully qualified yet too old to be automatically accepted into another programme, Francis is in limbo. There isn't much point in him continuing his training, there are more than enough specialists now and not enough jobs to give them, so there isn't anything for him to do. It's odd, now that there is nothing to work towards he feels empty but at the same time everything is just too much. He returns home and his mother fusses and tries to talk to him, tries to get him to come out of his room and sit with her and he did, at first, but the longer he's home the shorter his resistance is and the longer the 'breaks' are in his room.

Emotions seem to be harder to process without a goal, that or he never had many to begin with and without something to distract him from that notion he's finally noticing how few he has. Either way, other people are small insignificant creatures who worry about such useless, banal things. Who did what, with who and where. Did you know, her son the doctor? Well, he's a you know what now and- ugh. Francis can no longer take it.

He doesn't really see this as a problem. He feels as though he's risen above other people and finally understands that such things are not worth his time; why worry, after all, about what job to get. Why worry about whether or not someone likes you. Every day, regardless of what they do, the planet will spin and the domes will reflect the same bleak, churning sky and Francis realises that he's trapped here, by this life and that his life means nothing. None of their lives do, it's all the same; nowhere new to go, nothing new to do. Pick a job, do the job. Come home, go back. Retire. Die.

So he sits in his room, because if he talks to his mother or to anyone else he is reminded that somehow he's supposed to care about it, that life here is supposed to matter to him just as it matters to everyone else. His mother will mention this or that and he'll have to either fake the responses she wants, or not and upset her and neither option sounds pleasing to him.

After years of monotony and training suddenly he is permitted to express again and it's like he's forgotten how, the parts rusty after all the disuse. There are too many emotions and he finds himself forgetting to use them or using the wrong ones because he can't do them automatically any more, for some reason, and reactions that call for an understanding of nuance are just lost to him. Very quickly everything is too much. Food, heat, depth, people, concepts, everything.

He hides away but then they stop becoming too much and they shrink and shrivel up and become nothing at all he can feel how empty he is. Nothing can fill the void he's got because he doesn't even know why it's there and he can scarcely tell that there's a problem in the first place. He does knows he's got a problem though, really, knows how serious it is by the way his mother watches him with fearful eyes and baleful glances. She tiptoes tentatively around the house, carefully softening her words and her gentleness feels like a pressure cooker slowly but surely building something that's going to get bigger and hotter and harder to make go away. She avoids talking about it, about how Francis feels or doesn't, and by doing so the problem is allowed to grow, unchecked. Francis doesn't have to act any more, doesn't have to pretend, and so the feelings of apathy grow and grow until they swallow him whole and all he can bring himself to do is sit and stare and the sky, a dark choking yellow.

It feels heavy to look at, like a lid covering everything in his life, all potential, all future, all growth. It just festers and sinks lower and lower still and he sits and watches it for days before he's realised he's done so.

When Francis is twenty-two, his mother breaks. Not that she herself breaks, but her patience does.

'I can't do this any more.' she says. There are tears on her face and Francis watches one slide off and fall onto her collar. 'You need to go.'

Francis appraises her properly, meeting her eyes. She flinches at his gaze but remains resolute in her decision, though her bottom lip quivers. 'There's nothing for you here, we both know that. You don't want to be here, so you need to go.'

'I don't want to be anywhere.' he replies.

She gives him a watery smile. 'I know. That's why, you might as well see if you can want to be somewhere else.' She lifts up her arm and shows him her e-tab, the translucent screen showing a brightly coloured ticket. 'I've bought you a flight. It's Earth, it was declared habitable a few weeks ago.'

Francis knows he should feel something, this is one of those instances when he knows that he should be feeling something but he can't quite imagine what emotion he should give her.

She doesn't seem to expect one. 'It's one way. And this, this is all of my savings, Francis.' Her eyes are wide and her face is suddenly so very very old. 'If you don't want to be any more, at least make that decision once you've seen this. You can't go without seeing this, after all. See this, see it for me and then you can decide, okay?'

Suddenly she looks shocked and runs forward to embrace him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and knocking her e-tab into his face. The garish purple of the ticket burns his eyes. 'Oh Francis.' She sobs into his shoulder and clutches tightly into his shirt. 'Oh Francis it's okay, you can cry if you want to.'

Oh.

He's crying.

................................................................................................................................

Ludwig is six, and is sick again. The doctors don't know what's wrong with him; they know what's causing it at least but they have no idea why. He can't keep food down and every time he tries to stand the world pitches and swims and he can't keep his balance so he never manages to stay up for long before he bonelessly falls to the floor, where he feels no better.

It's the gravity, the doctors say, for some reason he's affected by the gravity. The artificial gravity that he's known all his life; it's as if he's just climbed aboard and his body suffers from relapses where it just can't acclimatise. Where it suddenly realises that something's not quite right and rebels against him for a week or so. This his family already knows, but his mother isn't satisfied with such a lacklustre answer so she takes him to a different doctor every time he suffers another attack just in case one of them is even marginally more competent than the last. These 'episodes', as his mother likes to call them, don't happen all that often, but he seems to have one every ten months or so and they are regular enough to annoy his mother to no end. Ludwig doesn't really know if she's annoyed that no one can fix him or with him himself, Gilbert won't say and normally his big brother talks to pretend that he knows something so his silence worries Ludwig the most.

Mother is a very important person with a very important job: she's a governor of the space station upon which they live and it is very important that Ludwig remembers this. So, when he's laying in bed clutching at his belly and desperately clenching his eyes shut to minimise the swaying, his friends at school think that he is away for a special training academy. Because can you just imagine, the governor of a space station's son being space sick?

His father doesn't like to call it that because he thinks it's degrading so his mother doesn't, when she thinks Ludwig can't hear, anyway, but Ludwig knows that's what the kids at school would say so he happily keeps mum because it's easier than lying. They don't talk to him much besides, they find him too cold and distant but that's because he's so scared of disgracing his mother further that he can't quite relax fully.

When Ludwig is thirteen his mother, after exhausting all doctors aboard their large floating colony, finally accepts that it's unlikely that this small problem of his is going to go away. Her way of dealing with it is to pretend that it just doesn't happen; during an attack Ludwig is sent to his room where he stays painfully alone with only his books for company whilst she busies herself with her new campaigns. She's running for director now, aiming as high as she can go and there's no room for weak, feeble Ludwig all the way up there.

His brother tries his best to keep him entertained and happy during these times, but Gilbert is healthy, strong, smart; he's everything that Ludwig should also be able to grow up to be and their parents have sent him off to expensive schools which means that he's more often away from home than not. Sometimes Ludwig wonders if they've sent him away because they want Gilbert to be the all around best he can be, or if it's to distance him as much as they can from Ludwig. It's almost as if they're worried that Ludwig will taint him, or that maybe Gilbert will grow too attached to him and distract himself from what's really important. That Ludwig will anchor him down.

At five years older it's highly unlikely that Ludwig will be the one doing the influencing, but his brother, despite hardly seeing each other and such a large age difference, does seem to genuinely care for him. During one particular attack, when Ludwig is eighteen, Gilbert is home from university; it is almost Christmas and his family are preparing to travel to where his grandparents live on the other side of the space station, where they'll spend the holiday. Of course, it is now that his body decides to betray him.

He, his parents, and his brother are gathered around the large dining room table finishing off dinner. It is tense. Mostly it is Gilbert who talks because despite their mother's cool demeanour and their father's lack of interest he seems to always have something to say to fill the silence and speaks easily. Even with the response he gets, or lack of it, he seems honestly unperturbed and remains cheerful, somehow managing to both eat and speak without seeming impolite. As much as he loves his brother, Ludwig is also supremely jealous.

He stares at his fork, contemplating which point in the evening would be best to ask if he could slip away, when his body decides for him. His stomach swoops, his ears pop and the table tilts alarmingly. He clenches the edge in panic to remain upright and the noise alerts his mother, who looks up from her dessert in irritation.

'Ludwig, we are going away tomorrow.'

'M- mother-'

His mother sighs and looks at his father, who sharply stares back. 'Dear?'

His father grunts and spears another forkful of fruit pie. 'They're expecting him to come.'

'But the photographers-'

'What do you want me to do, Hilda?'

Meanwhile, Ludwig has still not been dismissed and cannot now seem to find the words to ask for permission himself without spewing all over the fancy silverware. He doubts that that will make the situation better, somehow. Gilbert notices and stands, attracting his parents' attention.

'I'll take Luddy to his room.'

'Darling...' their mother tries to say something, but it's what she's trying not to say that comes across the loudest.

Gilbert ignores her and walks around the table, slowly helping Ludwig to his feet, then away from the table and swiftly towards a bathroom. They make it just in time. Gilbert pats him comfortingly on the back and rubs soothing circles into his shoulders until he's finished, then hands him a glass of water.

'So, they're still arseholes, huh?'

Ludwig snaps his head up in horror, but this is a bad idea because the image of Gilbert swims before him and he has to shut his eyes.

'Don't call them that.' He finally manages, weakly.

Gilbert tuts. 'What the fuck did they feed you with in order to churn your personality out.'

Ludwig lays his head on the cool tiles of the floor and groans inwardly at how nice the feeling is. 'They're not arseholes.'

'Yeah, and my name's Shirley.'

Ludwig cracks open an eye, but Gilbert's not joking. He is, for once, deadly serious. 'How'd you put up with them Lud?'

Ludwig shrugs and gives a small shake of his head. 'They're our parents, Gil. They still care for me. Besides, I'm not exactly making it easy for them.'

Gilbert looks disgusted. 'You're their fucking son, arsehole. They're supposed to take care of you. They ain't even doing that right are they?' Gilbert runs a hand through his shock of white hair and bits his bottom lip whilst he shakes his head. 'Look at how they treat you versus me.'

'Yes, but I'm not exactly-'

'But nothing!' Gilbert raises his voice slightly and swallows. When he speaks again, he's much quieter, back under control. 'Have they got you in a university programme yet?'

Ludwig's silence is answer enough and Gilbert sighs deeply before brushing back Ludwig's sweaty fringe. 'There's nothing wrong with you Lud.' His brother sounds so very sad. 'Fuck, there's nothing wrong with you at all. They know full well that if they put you on a planet rather than this floating heap of rust that you'll probably be alright. And have they? Have they fuck.'

Ludwig wants to argue against him, wants to say something to stand up for himself if not for their parents but his eyes are suddenly burning and his throat is choked up. He knew a long time ago that his parents had given up on him, but to hear it from someone else hurts more sharply than anything he tells himself.

There's an odd companionable silence for a while; Ludwig lays still with his face against the floor and his brother's hand carding through his hair so he almost misses what Gilbert says next.

'I was gonna wait till Boxing Day, but I've got us tickets for Earth.'

Ludwig tenses and holds his breath. Gilbert continues. 'I was gonna wake you up on the 26th and take you away with me, but I want to tell you now instead, cause you look like shit. We're gonna get out of here Luddy; I've always wanted to take you to a planet and what better one is there than the original, huh?'

'You, I- you can't- what about your studies? The internship you've got?' Ludwig manages to stammer out, opening his eyes.

Gilbert brushes his concerns aside. 'I never liked medicine, really. I've always wanted to go to a planet, so I'm mega up for it.'

Ludwig knows he should say no, knows that he shouldn't take up the offer. He'd be denying his brother so much, he'd be exactly what their parents worried he'd be because he'll only drag Gilbert down and down and down like a heavy lead weight and ruin all of his chances at a good life.

But Ludwig wants to be selfish. He reaches out and clasps onto Gilbert's hand, squeezing it tightly. 'Gil...'

Gilbert flashes him a grin and winks. 'I know, right? How awesome am I?'

[maddiethebull]

Hello there! Can I request #19 from the prompt list with Leviathan? Its possible to be NSFW? Pretty please 💕

18+ Content

Thank you for making a request! also lowkey here, I’ve been dying for someone to leave an ask about levi lmaooo

Leviathan (Obey Me!) - Prompt # 19 - “You’ve changed my entire world.” - NSFW version 

You were drying your hair after taking a shower when the door swung open. 

“Hey, normie, I need to ask you something…” his voice trailed off. 

Levi stood there, his eyes open wide, and looking extremely panicked, he immediately slammed the door shut without a word. Why did he leave so abruptly, you ask? You were buck fuckin naked. 

Levi still had the same shocked expression as he stood outside your room. He was bright red, blushing like a damn spring tomato. In a low whisper, all Levi could get out was, “fuckerino,” and he ran back to his room to take care of a certain problem in his trousers that seeing you naked had catalyzed. 

Meanwhile, you were standing there frozen, you simply kept staring at the door. After a moment, you put down the hairdryer and began freaking out. Out of the sheer embarrassment, you covered your bright red face with your hands, thought seriously about starting anew as a hermit living in a cave, and mumbled your embarrassed thoughts to yourself.

After a bit, you finally calmed yourself down and realized the hermit life was not for you. You finished your hair, got dressed and decided to go to Levi’s room. You were only going to go and ask what he wanted to talk about earlier, after all, you didn’t want the awkwardness to last between you and the brother who you were closest to and it might’ve been best to just put this happening past you. 

You walked up to his room and put your hand on the door knob. You immediately pulled your hand back and covered your face, trying to psych yourself up to see him after what happened. You’d imagined Levi seeing you naked before, we all have thoughts like that about the people we’re attracted too, and, safe to say, it never went down like that. The intrusive thoughts came rushing back, ‘what if he didn’t like what he saw? Why didn’t you lock your door, stupid!! Ungh this feels so weird.’ You sighed, trying to somehow exhale your problems, and removed your hands from your face. Thoughts crept up from the depths of your brain, a scenario where he did like what he saw and it only made your situation worse. You were so nervous to open the door, but you came to a point, ‘it doesn’t matter, MC, if he saw and didn’t like then things are fine, if he saw and liked, I mean, that’s what you want, right?’ The feeling of needing to scream into the void swaggered off and you waggled your hands to release tension and with any confidence you had left, you made your decision. You knew that if you hesitated, you would be there all day, so you swung the door open with more power than needed and guess what you saw. 

It was Levi, on his bed, on his back, with his dick out, practicing a self care of sorts. He immediately shrieked like a little girl and flopped around like a fish out of water as he desperately tried to cover his genitals. Him yelling made you yell and, mirroring the situation earlier, you slammed that door closed. You nearly crumbled to dust from the embarrassment. 

“I-I’m sorry, MC!” Levi said as he frantically put his pants back on. Talking to himself, saying, “No NO NO nO, idiot, why didn’t you lock the door?” “God, I probably look like a perv now, of course I look like a perv now, I was just Stroking the Sausage to MC for fucks sake!” He rustled his hands through his hair, not sure if he even wanted to check that you were outside. Then your voice made its way through the door, 

“I-I’m sorry Levi, I- I didn’t see anything!” Even though you saw e v e r y t h i n g. Worse, you liked it, you really, really liked it. 

You heard some faint swearing and Levi continuing to talk to himself until the door knob clicked and through a thin crack, Levi spoke,

“S-so, um, what- what, uh, did you n-need, MC?”

“I just wanted to see why you came into my room earlier.”

The eye contact was scarce, the both of you being shy people to begin with made it even worse as you both just looked at the floor. 

Without a response, you questioned him further, “you said you wanted to ask me something?”

“Oh, yeah… I- well, I was gonna ask if you wanted to play this new game I got and then I- uh, well, you know.” His hands were tousling with his hair, he felt so awkward. He was nervous for the same reason as you, he wanted you to have liked what you saw. With his low self esteem, though, it seemed an impossible fantasy to him. 

“I-its okay, really.”

“Neato.” 

Right after Levi said that, he mentally punched himself in the face because he knew how lame that response was. 

“S-so did you wanna play that game?” you asked. He let you in (after he cleaned up a bit wink wink) and he opened the package that held the game in it. He fumbled with opening it so you offered your help, but him being the tsundere he is, declined. He sat down on the bed and put the box on the floor in frustration. 

“Listen, MC, I’m really sorry about what happened earlier. I really don’t want things to be awkward between us, I mean, you’re like my second Henry the second.”

“I don’t want things to be weird either,” you said, “and you’re my best friend too.”

A rosy hue crept up to his cheeks. 

He eventually said, 

“You know, even though y-you’re a normie and all…” as he looked to the ground, “you’ve changed my entire world.”

He’d never met anyone like you before, he never met anyone he cared about so much, anyone who could compare to just how cool he thought you were. You didn’t make fun of him for liking anime and manga, you were even interested in it yourself. You were so kind and caring and you reminded him to sleep and drink water, he’d never had that before, he’d never had someone who he loved in a romantic way (other than ruri-chan). He’d always been a shut-in, but now, he had someone to be a shut-in with, and it meant everything to him. He gave you a pensive, gentle look. He looked right into your eyes, the eyes he adored even more than any rare figurine he could get his hands on. 

He continued, “so like, thank you, MC.”

Filled with emotion, you leaned close, breaking an invisible barrier you’d built in your mind, and he followed. Hesitantly, he closed the gap between you and him. His soft lips kissed you gently, but you felt an underlying hunger in the way his hands moved up and down your waist. You pulled from the kiss and whispered in his ear, too shy to say it any louder, 

“D-do you want to, um, keep going? Like this, I mean?” The hand you had on his shoulder squeezed and Levi felt a surge of pleasure all throughout his body. The mood changed from sweet to hot and ready with that short question. 

He let out a sharp exhale, and in a breathy whisper he said, “p-please.”

You brought your lips back to his and he began getting fidgety with his cock twitching in his pants. His hands caressed your body, over your chest, down to your hips. He moved his hand up to your neck, pulling you in so he could kiss you as intensely as he’d always wanted. You swallowed the soft moans escaping from his lips as you let out your own. The countless times he’d imagined this moment and its continuation made him incredibly aroused. Slowly but surely, he got less nervous, and he wanted more of you. One of his hands made itself known on the inside of your upper thigh. You shivered, and he looked to you, wanting to know if this was really what you wanted. You nodded and his hand crept up, massaging your inner thigh before reaching your undies. His breath was hitching as he rubbed your sex. You moaned in little whimpers, driving him crazy with lust. He pulled you in for a kiss as he kept rubbing you. You pushed his hand away and before he could ask why, you began reaching for his pants. He bit his lip as you unbuckled his belt. After you took his belt off, he frantically removed his trousers and got back on the bed. You removed your pants as well and with an impish glance, you sat on his lap and began grinding your sex into his hard on. The grip he had on your thighs tightened. 

“T-that feels really good,” he said as his cock twitched beneath you. He nuzzled his head into your shoulder as moans escaped his lips. He began to kiss your neck, sending a buzz of pleasure throughout you. Your hands went up and down his arms, they were slim, but toned while he put his hand on your hips, rocking you back and forth on top of him. He kissed you haphazardly, he was desperate for more of this feeling, desperate for more of you. At his limit, he pushed you down onto the bed. He took the sight of you in, you were a blushing, panting, horny mess. He gulped and removed his underwear. Before gearing up to have sex with you, he looked at you nervously and said, 

“I’ve never done this before, so, I’m sorry if I- if I don’t make you feel g-good too.”

You brought his face to yours, giving him a peck on the lips and reassuring him by saying, 

“It’s okay, it’s my first time too, actually.” 

You gave him a sweet smile and he mirrored it while saying, 

“I’m happy th-that I get to be your first and that you get to be mine.”

He lined his cock up with your entrance and rubbed the head on it. He was whimpering, he couldn’t believe how good it felt just to do that. He slowly pushed himself into you, inch by inch, making you squirm and moan. He was fully inside of you and began thrusting, with a grunt, he collapsed onto you. He began moving faster, hitting your most sensitive spots as you ran your hands through his hair. He was moaning and grunting into your shoulder.  You tightened around his cock each time his length made it all the way in. He pulled your face to his, sloppily making out with you. He began to pick up his pace, thrusting harder into you and it all felt too good for the both of you. He tried not to cum so fast, but this was his first time, and you just felt too good to him. He was gasping and grunting. His one hand was on your hips, the other gripping the headboard of the bed so hard that his knuckles were turning white. The way he was moving inside of you quickly made you reach climax, you dug your nails into his back and moaned, 

“L-Levi!”

He was shaking in ecstacy as he grunted out, “fuck oh fuck! MC, I love you!” 

With a final thrust, he reached his limit and came inside of you. His breath was shaky as he looked down at you,

“You’re so beautiful.”

You were silent for a little bit, which worried him, but you broke the silence, saying, 

“Did you mean it?”

He blushed and tried to hide it with his arm,  “y-yeah. I think you’re beautiful, so what?”

“No,” you said as you looked into his eyes, “did you mean it when you said you loved me?”

He started blushing harder and stuttering out nonsense, he did mean it, but he didn’t even realize he said that out loud! He’d thought it so many times that it just felt natural to say it to you. He cleared his throat and said, 

“Yes. I meant it. N-normie.”

You giggled, you were elated to know he felt the same way from his actions and his words. You snuggled up to him and with your head on his chest, hearing his heartbeat, you said,

“I love you too. Otaku boi.”

In his embrace, you laid there, happy that he accidentally walked in on you and you on him because it led to this endearing moment with the demon you’d fallen in love with.

“Do you wanna play that game?” he asked. 

You began laughing, “Of course I wanna play.”

—————————————————————————————————-

Hope you enjoyed! 

My prompt requests are open, so feel free to leave an ask

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #357

“your magic white rabbit has left its writing on the wall  /  we follow like alice, and just keep diving down the hole”

Are you better at telling stories or writing them? Writing, by a long shot. What’s one song you hate, but know every word to? i'm a barbie girl in a fckn barbie woooooorld What’s your favorite magazine? I don’t read magazines. If you could be an animal for one day, which animal would you choose? Probably a house cat. Be indoors and safe, able to just nap... lol. But I'd want another cat as a friend, too! Do you prefer outdoor or indoor concerts/events? Indoors, by a mile. I get hot outside way too easily. Do you know if you were a planned child? I don't know. What’s your favorite gem? Dragon's breath opal. As an adult, do you want to live in an apartment or a house? I'd like to live in a house, especially with the pets I want. I doubt many apartment complexes would allow multiple reptiles and inverts. Do you like the stem or leafy part of the broccoli? It doesn't matter much to me, but I prefer the stem. The texture is more likeable to me. Do bats frighten you? No, I adore bats! Does Paris appeal to you? Yeah, it's a pretty place. Are you a KPOP fan? No, I've never really checked it out. How long was your longest relationship? Over three and a half years. First time you kissed the last person you kissed? We were outside roasting marshmallows one night. Do you have to really know someone to kiss them? Absolutely. I don't dish 'em out for nothing. Were you anyone’s first kiss? No. If you had to be named after one of the 50 states of America, what state would you WANT to be named after? I actually think "Nevada" would be kinda pretty as a name? Do you think morals are universal or relative to the beliefs, traditions, or practices of individuals or groups? I've wondered this for a long while, really. I lean towards it being a mix, maybe? But more towards universal, I think... with some exceptions. This answer is all over the place, I honestly don't know. Is torture ever a good option? If no, why not? If yes, when? No? I think the "why not" is obvious... You just don't. What do you think is one one of the most undervalued professions right now? Teachers, garbagemen, retail and food workers... There's a lot. Have you ever seen anyone have a heart attack? Thank Christ no. Have you personalized your answering machine/voicemail? No. Have you ever had Fiji brand water? I actually don't believe I have, though it's always looked appealing to me, haha. What’s your favorite horror movie? The Crazies and the first Silent Hill, as well as both Blair Witch Projects. What was the worst thing a friend has either done or said to you? I'd rather not even think about things the bitch said to me. Are you biracial? No. When was the last time you got mad and broke something? I've never broken something when mad. What color dress did you wear to prom? My first was maroon, second one was black. Who is the cutest baby you know? My friend has a daughter named Scarlett who is absolutely gorgeous. Have you ever thrown a rock at a window? No, because I respect people's fucking property. Has anyone ever thrown a rock at your window? No. Does your hair react well to dye, or does it damage it? It likes to not take dye at all. >.> I have only had one instance where a friend dyed it red and it stuck for months and months, but we kept it in for a couple hours, I think. My normal hairdresser says it's because my hair is really healthy and I guess rejects it. What kind of pet do you wish you had? I ramble plenty about how I want tarantulas and more reptiles, haha. I also DESPERATELY want to rescue or foster an opossum. When was the last time you were diagnosed with something? Are you concerned about anything regarding your physical or mental health at the moment? I haven't been diagnosed with anything in quite some time, I believe, but as I'm going through the process of being approved for TMS therapy for my depression, my bipolar diagnosis is being questioned, which is... strange to me. It's been acknowledged by many a doctor that I have bipolar 2, but if insurance recognizes my primary diagnosis as bipolar, they won't cover TMS because it can massively excite the mania portion of bipolarity, and therefore I can't do it because we can't manually afford it. I'm willing to take the risk by far, as I've never had issues with mania, but I can't without insurance. I'm just waiting to hear back from them... What is one blanket judgment you tend to make about people (like, you judge all people who live at home, all people who drink, etc)? Does this judgment come from a particular personal experience? I really don't know. How do you react to other people yelling or slamming doors? Is this something you ever do too? I get very scared if it's a man. I don't like anyone doing it, and my anxiety will spike regardless, I'm just terrified of angry men. Have you ever lost your cool at work or somewhere else important? What happened as a result? No. Who has the power to break you? Jason still might. I don't know. Is anyone in your family blind? My sister is legally blind in one eye. Do you believe in evolution? Yeah. I do find the concept odd, that ALL LIFE originated from one thing, but I sure ain't got a better explanation, so. What job do you think people should be paid the most for? Surgeons, maybe? I dunno, that's a big question. Were you ever held back a year in school? Did you ever skip a grade? No. Have you ever been given a hickey? Have you given one? Yeah to both. What is your least favourite thing about your full name? I have the most basic white bitch middle name in the world, lol. Do you like the age you are? Eh, I don't mind it much, but I think it'd be better to be in my early 20s versus mid 20s. I'm just always so tired now. I can't believe I used to refuse to go to sleep before 10:30. What’s your favourite kind of poptart? The chocolate sundae one. If you had to eat one type (Chinese, etc.) of food which would it be? American bc I'm not very adventurous with food at all. When did your family immigrate to wherever you live now? *shrug* Are your fingers long, or short? Long. Mom's always said I have "piano fingers." Do you play Pokemon Go? If so, what level are you and who’s your buddy? Yeah, I love it, but don't play it nearly as much as I want because I don't exactly go anywhere, lol. My bud's Charmeleon, and I'm probably like five EXP from level 28. Do you ever sit indoors and wear sunglasses or a hat? I don't own either, so. Do you know how to read animals’ behavior? I honestly think I'm very good at it. Do you like playing video games? If so, what do you usually play? Yes, but not as much as I used to. All I really play nowadays is World of Warcraft. The only working console I have is a PS2, and I haven't bought a new game in probably a couple years, but there are definitely ones I want to play, mainly on PS4. Just can't afford it right now. Have you ever viewed the moon through a telescope? No. Do you know how to properly eat food with chopsticks? No. There's no way I could, given my tremors. Do you prefer reading books, comic books, manga/graphic novels, magazines, or the newspaper? Books. When is the last time you ate donuts? It's been months, man. I've seriously been craving a glazed one, though. Krispy Kreme sounds amaaaaaziiiiiing. Has anyone ever called you sexy? Somehow. Do you like raisins? NO NO NO NO NO. Have you ever overheard a conversation you weren’t supposed to? More than once. Do you like ants? They're genuinely extremely fascinating animals, but they're seriously annoying nevertheless. Did you like the movie Antz? I loved it as a kid. What was your favorite ice cream flavor when you were little? Chocolate. Is it still your favorite? Eh, depends on the day. By the way, what is your name? Brittany. What time zone do you live in? EST. Do you like cats? I love cats. What’s the most creepy experience you’ve ever had? One night when my mom and sister were at the beach for a dance competition, I was having trouble sleeping, and it only got worse when my dog Teddy started freaking the fuck out, barking loudly and staring intently at the foot of the bed. I was so scared that I tried to force his head to lie down, but he fought against me. I was terrified, but got up out of the bed and went into the living room to call my mom at like 3 in the damn morning, and she had to have our neighbor come over to sleep in the house with me (I was in a different room that night). You can't convince me that there wasn't paranormal shit going on. I think the house was haunted honestly, for multiple reasons. What’s the most boring game to exist? Why do you dislike it so much? Hm, I dunno. What’s the coolest place that you've ever been to? What’d you do there? Disney World was very memorable as a kid. We just went around collecting signatures, going on rides, all that fun stuff. I'll never forget fireworks at the castle. If you’re interested in having a long-term relationship with someone, do you think that waiting a certain amount of time before you first have sex is a good idea? Or does it not matter? I think it's a good idea, personally, mostly for the sake of reducing the spread of STDs. Just because you think you'll be long-term, doesn't mean you will be. Besides that, isn't there a science that sex and feelings of love are connected? Like, sex is impossible without at least some underlying emotions? I might be entirely wrong, in which case forgive me for spreading misinformation, but if that's so and things don't go as planned, you've gotten emotionally invested in someone too early and wind up getting hurt. You do you, I just don't think it's smart. Have you ever discovered something big by looking through someone’s phone, Facebook, email, etc.? No. Have you kept anything from your past relationships? (Things they left at your house, gifts, notes, etc) Do you think that’s a big deal for future relationships or not? Yeah, like plushies and little stuff like that. When it's tiny things like I just mentioned, I really don't think it matters. I think some things might be questionable to keep, but at the same time, I don't think it's really wrong to keep memories of a happy time, if the thing still brings you joy and has been emotionally disconnected from the ex? Idk. Do you have any financial regrets? Either way, what’s an example of a GOOD financial decision you’ve made? Going to and dropping out of college three fucking times. I don't know about a good financial decision seeing as I'm not even in charge of my own finances, nor really have any to begin with. Are you a believer in “signs” from the Universe about things in your life? If you are, can you think of a particular example? No. Name some things that one or both of your parents are really good at or really interested in. Mom LOVES medical stuff, like watching surgeries and stuff like that. She is also absolutely incredible with children. Dad likes sports a lot, hockey and football especially. Think of a good friend of the opposite sex (currently or in the past). Have you ever had any sort of “more than a friend” or sexual thoughts about them? If not, can you explain why? Well, we dated briefly, so... It was awkward to, but I let myself imagine sexual situations a few times to help myself understand if I really did like-like him, or if he was truly just a brother to me. Turns out, he's a bro. If someone told you that you would never achieve something and you ended up doing it, would you have any interest in finding that person and showing them? I'ma be honest, yes. I wouldn't actively seek them out, but rather just hope they somehow find out or I run into them or something. What is the most jealousy-induced thing you’ve ever done? Apparently, be the girl Juan liked instead of this girl that literally threatened to deck me. Guess what? We're friends now lmaoooo.

[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 4

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader   Warnings: Like one big boy word. Criminal activity. Word count: 3,185. Chapter Summary: Staying late at work is usually nice and quiet. Usually. A/N: This chapter is so dumb but I love it a lot.

Ao3 if you prefer

Y/N would say that one of the perks of her job was getting out of the office from time to time. Sometimes a case required anything from a simple home interview to speaking to several family members over a number of days. She relished in the peace working away from inboxes and water cooler talk however, every once in a while she could find the same serenity in the uniform walls of her employment building. Today was one of those very days. Today she sat at her desk, alone, long past her colleagues' departure at five pm. The overhead lights were off and Y/N, whose fingers sped over the keyboard urgently, was lit only by the cool glow of her screen. 

“It’s not super peaceful when you won’t shut up.” As much as you fought becoming complacent to the voice in all honesty you were glad to have her back in some small way. You hadn’t heard her for days now, not since you started reading Supernatural. It’s only now that you’d finished, she was back to her usual tricks. Some ridiculous ten-minute lecture about you waking up late for work was your reunion this morning. While it was true that you were very late for work today—two hours to be precise—she didn’t once mention that it was because of your late-night finishing off Swan Song. 

That wasn’t too concerning. The voice ignoring your reading habits was minor in comparison to her being back at all. Her return meant your aneurysm hadn't been temporary and you were closer to one of two things. Solving the mystery of why Maggie Hall’s file was so important, or dying.

Obviously, option number one was preferable.

After an entire day of her, you have fallen completely into accepting that she's not going away anytime soon. For the most part, you have let her harp on like she’s looking for a book deal but now that you’re alone and trying to concentrate, you find yourself responding to her. For your own satisfaction of answering back.

She was feeling productive. Each word she wrote punctuated by the precise click of her fingers on the keyboard. A familiar sense of achievement swelled within her chest as she began to summarise her decision on the claim. Summaries are nothing more than detailed endings, which is why Y/N was particularly excited to be writing this one. More so than any other claim she had finished up before.

An ending was exactly what she was hoping for. The unusual situations she had found herself in over the last few days were too messy for even her to organize. Tangled up like a ball of string after being batted around by a cat. Logically then she was focusing on the only thing that made sense, tie up one loose end and the others would right themselves. Finish this piece of work and maybe she'd live.

How unfortunate then for Y/N that the universe did not look kindly upon her attempts to be orderly. How utterly unlucky that she had not guessed any of the answers correctly. Today was not fated to hold any happy endings for her. Not the closing of file twenty-four zero one, nor the reasonable explanations she had been searching for. 

Your fingers stutter to a stop. What the hell does she mean you weren’t closing this claim? You are ten minutes of proofreading away from pressing submit, you had stayed late to finish. At this point, it would take an act of God himself to stop you. 

That’s when you see a flash of light coming from reception. Flash is vague. A beam of light might be a better description, as in, the kind of beam emitted by a flashlight. Wait, there are two flashlights now. Oh shit. 

Suddenly you taste bile in your throat and your hands are clammy enough to be sticky. The voice said this case would kill you and now you’re sitting here working late, and she’s saying you weren’t going to close it and… and… is it going to happen now? You’d assumed it was something in the file that killed you but you’d also assumed you had more time. Really, truly, this could be it. Imminent death means about to happen, not will happen when it’s convenient for you. This is it, isn’t it? You’re about to be accidentally murdered in an office robbery because you stayed to work late. On that particular file. 

She was not prepared to die. Not while there still wasn’t a grey hair on her head or while she hadn’t been to the Grand Canyon. Y/N had no preparations for the end.

No. Not now. It couldn’t be. 

She had no will, no funeral plans, and no video message to her family about a series of clues leading to a great treasure. And on Wednesday night, early June with spring barely making way for summer was the last possible moment she would ever expect to meet her maker.

You want to hide but it’s impossible. Hiding would require you to have some control over your body. An impossible feat, while you're listening with bated breath to what you assume, is your last paragraph. 

Obviously, Y/N would not be dying tonight.

“Are you joking? How is that obvious?” You whisper into the dark, edging into frustration. Barely enjoying the relief of not dying when your narrator is toying with you. 

She still had a new life to begin. One which began and ended with two men that had left as quickly as she'd met them. Fate has a perverted sense of humor and had chosen to push her forward into the unknown. This is why these important men were breaking into her office at precisely that moment.

The footsteps of the intruders get closer. You don’t have a direct view of reception but you’d seen the flashlights on account of it being dark in here. They sound like they're near reception, maybe twenty seconds from coming in. Once they’re in the main part of the office then all they’d have to do is turn a little to their left and they’d spot you. In the corner hanging out. 

But it’s the guys breaking in? The cosplayers. They’re the wannabe Winchester’s who have turned to robbery to get their kicks? 

You don’t know if it's actually them, not really. Not until they do take those last steps into the room but you hear them before you see them. 

“Remind me why you haven't done some nerd computer thing to get this?”

“I already tried, remember? Their system says it’s still in process so none of the details are on their servers yet. And since we need to find out where the money went…”

“... we need to get the physical file. Got it.” Mystery man number one sighs before he continues, “S’no fun killing a monster if you don’t have to work for it.” 

A monster? It’s almost impressive how much these guys committed to whatever insane game they're playing. Almost being the keyword. These guys were genuinely crazy, and that was coming from someone with an unexplainable voice in her head. 

Y/N finally overcame the initial wave of fear that had hit her when the flashlights had cut through the darkness. She reached up and shut off the monitor on her desk, the last thing that had been lighting her up like a Christmas tree. Her laptop was still running in its dock, she had no intention of losing all her work. She only wanted to lose herself, hide, snuffing out the screen, and rolling her chair backward seemed to do the trick. She felt safer already. Her heartbeat returning to something akin to its normal steady rhythm now that she was cloaked in darkness. As soon as they were distracted she might even be able to risk slinking to the floor and hiding below her desk. It wasn’t a risk she was willing to take right now though, while they were still on high alert having just arrived.

You’re grateful that the voice is playing ball and giving you some useful information. It’s completely new, having so far only heard ominous foreshadowing and cryptic introductions, but it’s nice. Dare you say it, fun. For once in this whole ordeal, you actually feel like you’re in a story while you do exactly what she says. You sneak the smallest smile when you see their large shadows, finally step into the office. This might be where you have some luck on your side. 

“You check out the desks, I’ll go find the filing cabinets.” It’s pretty hard to make out with their backs to you but you’d wager it was the taller shadow that said that. 

The same bigger shadow starts walking towards the back of the office. He doesn’t know he’s heading towards the break room, although he probably thinks he has all night to figure it out. He can have all the time he wants as soon as you’re under your desk. Once you’re properly out of the way you look forward to not interrupting them as a stupid person might. You were perfectly ok with not being a hero.

Of course, she was not accustomed to the cat and mouse game of breaking and entering. Y/N was not used to dark corners and darker rooms. And since she hadn’t used one since the last time her power went out, she seemed to have forgotten how flashlights worked as well.

“What?” you splutter. Faith in the voice shattered in an instant. 

In the next second, you’re blinded by a light in your eyes, you reach up to block it out but as you do his voice booms out. “Sam! We got company.” 

The tall guy comes running and now there are two lights in your face.

“Do you think we could not blind me?” They start lowering their flashlights when the other shoe drops, “wait, Sam? You-you’re using the names too?” It shouldn’t shock you, they’re driving the car and wearing the flannel clearly, they’re adopting the names too. But until now you’d been able to compartmentalize the books you’d read and the men that drove around in a car with the Winchesters fictional license plate. 

Coming face to face with them she feels completely different now. The territory is hers; her office, her desk, her mug with her name on. The problem; this was not her game, it was theirs. Y/N was simply working late whereas they were more adept at the after-hours version of this story. She might think they were delusional but this wasn’t the first crime she had them on the hook for. She could only imagine the hundreds, if not thousands, of other illegal activities they had gotten away with, all to play pretend.

“Nobody was supposed to be here.” The guy pretending to be Sam says to the guy who you can only imagine is pretending to be Dean.

“Well, there she is anyway.” Wannabe Dean huffs, both angry and disappointed at the same time. “But hey, maybe this can speed everything along, no more looking around in the dark at least.”

They’re both very good at talking about you while simultaneously ignoring you. Neither of them even flinch when you get up out of your chair and walk over to the light switch.

The room flooded with light like any room would when a switch is flipped, however, this wasn’t any kitchen light switch. The office is a large space and the fluorescents required to illuminate it are industrial. It’s enough to pain anyone's eyes with how sharply their pupils contract. Unless you are the one pressing the switch in the first place. It was Y/N’s hand flipping the four switches required and so her eyes were closed in preparation. However the mystery men had been seconds from bickering so they jerk their heads as if trying to escape the inescapable, like it's the first time they've ever seen anything so bright. Y/N felt wholly better with the heat on her closed eyelids. Because she knew when she opened them the office would hers again, the control would be hers.

When you dare to look they both whip their heads to you, shocked that you’ve moved. You’ve managed to find an ounce of confidence in the light, or if you believe the voice in your head, a whole gallon. “I don’t know what game you’re playing pretending to be people, first at the house and now this. I didn’t tell anyone about this,” you motion a hand at where they're standing, “clearly that was my mistake. So, uh-just get out of here and I won’t say anything else about it.”

“Sweetheart, we ain’t playing games here and we ain’t leaving.” 

He steps towards you, a finger pointing to the floor to reiterate that he’s staying put. You wrongly assumed this would be as easy as it had been at Mrs. Halls when they'd run so quickly, forgetting that you'd had an audience there. 

“You are if you don’t want me to call down to security. I’m sure the cops would love a case like this—there’s an eyewitness!” 

Y/N would never in a million years be able to describe where the sudden anger that consumed her had come from. She was hardly an agitated person. She could be sad or sarcastic, she’d been known to give a measured but scathing comeback and some would even call her curious. That’s not to say she’d never been angry, she had, but anger was never the first thing she chose to be, or feel. It was always such a demanding emotion. So, then this agitation was almost foreign to her and the way it forced her hand, more so. 

“Maybe we should…” Not Sam starts before he’s interrupted. 

“No Sam. We need that file if we’re going to stop this thing and right now this is our only option.” He points at you now signaling that you are the ‘this’ part of his sentence; their only option. 

In another life, she might have rolled over rather than stare down the barrel of this argument. She might have seen the opportunity to get rid of them by giving them something small, like say confidential information, and done it without question. This was not her old life, nor the old Y/N. This was the new life she hadn’t realized was starting. The funny thing was she hadn’t needed to know. All she’d needed was this man in front of her to force her into a rage and as if by magic, she had begun to transform.

You push past fake Dean to make your way back to your desk, “that’s not happening. All client information is property of First National which means it isn’t mine to give. Not to mention the fact that you didn’t say please.”

Her shoulder connects with his and it's the exact moment she realizes how close he was standing to her. He realizes the same. He’s close enough to grab her and spin her around but Y/N's body shudders tellingly with his fingers pressing into the flesh of her forearm.

“I don’t know what kind of power trip you think you're on but..." He grits through his teeth still holding you.

“Dean, can you calm down?” 

The breaking point of your anger turns into a sardonic laugh aimed at him. “You too?” You pull your arm away and get back to your chair. “I can’t get normal criminals breaking in while I’m working late? It has to be two weirdos running around pretending to be the Winchesters.”

It’s clear immediately that you’ve said something neither of them was expecting. You’re sitting at your desk waiting for one of them to stop you from picking up the phone, while they don’t seem to even notice your hand is on the receiver. 

“How do you know that? I mean, how do you know about us?” The tall guy that you refuse to call Sam, even in your head, asks. 

Two pairs of eyes bore into you waiting for an answer and for some reason your hand goes lax on the phone. “I ran your plate from outside Mrs. Halls because you don’t work with me. And I found these books but I mean, why are you even driving around with fake plates from some books anyway?”

It was a simple question that you were hoping had a simple answer, you know, fanboys or something. Instead of any answer at all, they start having one of those lovely conversations that excludes your existence, again. 

“Goddamn son of a bitch, we’ve got to get rid of those things.” 

“Charlie said there’s no point now they’re online. How would we even start? Great example right here.” 

“So what? We just roll over and die?” 

Tall guy, not Sam, takes a reassuring step to fake Dean which means he takes a step away from you and your desk. “This might be a good thing ok, if she knows she can help us track it.” 

You refuse to believe it because it’s ridiculous. Those books are works of fiction and there’s no possible way they are real. Because if the books are true then that means monsters are… nope. You live alone so there’s definitely no way. But you should clarify. Even if it’s a thousand percent the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard, you should still double-check. 

“Are you trying to say that you’re actually Sam and Dean? Like, you think you’re Sam and Dean from the books?” 

It’s scarily-similar-to-the-description-of-Dean who leans in with both hands flat on your desk and growls. “Honey, we don’t think okay, we are them. I’m Dean and this is Sam, and those books you decided to read? Yeah, they’re about us.” 

“But that means monsters are…” 

“Real. Monsters, angels, and everything between.” 

She may not have known about the ticking clock already counting down the remaining seconds of her young life. She may mistakenly have thought that her newfound temper was the reason for her flushed cheeks. She did know one thing for sure. One completely life-changing fact with absolute certainty, because that fact was staring at her with more intensity than she'd ever known. A man named Dean Winchester just told her that every terrifying monster she could imagine was real. 

The voice in your head, unfortunately, had not been wrong yet.

Continue to Chapter 5.

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23   Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278​ @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson

[sigritandtheelves]

Hour of Lead - Part Three

(Part 1, Part 2)

2.8k wds | angst | s8: Alone through Existence; reference to s9: NIHT

A/N: Here’s the final part, only about a month late. 🤷‍♀️

—

Mulder seeks her out in the forensics lab, toting his visitor’s badge, and she is not entirely surprised to see him. He’d said he would come back to her apartment, and she can only imagine what he thought when he found the hasty note on her dining room table: Doggett missing; gone to forensics lab to help however I can.

He seems to want her to go home, but there is also that pride in his eyes when she tells him it’s an X-File, that the work still needs her. He tells her he’ll go look for Doggett in the morning, that she can check on the lab work later, and she wants to dig in her heels because how else will he know that she hasn’t given up? That she never once gave up?

“I’m okay,” she says. “Really, I’ve been sitting down every few minutes.”

“Come home,” he says.

His pleading eyes convince her, and the word home coming from his mouth, which makes her chest tighten. She gives her second swab to the lab tech and asks her to put away the body until tomorrow.

“I’ll come back to check the results first thing.”

“Hmm,” Mulder says. He touches the back of her shoulder to usher her toward the door.

“Scrubs.” Scully gestures to her clothes, and he nods and waits for her to change.

In the car she wonders if he is tense, but she has trouble reading him now. “I’m sorry about the note,” she says. “I couldn’t just sit there.”

“You need to just sit there.” His hand fidgets the steering wheel. “Scully, you need to rest. You’ve been out three times today already.”

“I feel fine,” she says, but it’s something of a lie. Her back hurts and it feels like the baby’s head is shoving her cervix down between her legs.

Mulder looks over at her, scrutinizing, and then back at the road. He is quiet for a minute, thinking, and then his voice is soft. “Were you like this the whole time? Did you put yourself in danger?”

The words take a moment to sink in, but then a spark of anger lights in her. Damn him, she thinks, for using his profiler’s mind on this and nothing else, for finding a way to make her feel guilty for both doing too much and too little. “I did what I had to do,” she says. “And it wasn’t always me... putting myself in danger.”

He seems to think about this for a moment. “But you were sometimes. In danger.”

She bites at the inside of her cheek. “Yes.”

She watches his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “You could have… what if you’d been hurt and lost the baby?”

He is digging around inside her for the infected tissue, but his words are a blunt instrument. They bruise as they seek. It feels like a test, his question. It feels like he wants something from her. But she is too tired and she has only the truth to give him. “I’d have thought…” she closes her eyes. “I’d have thought it a just punishment, I think. What I deserved.”

“For what?”

“For failing you.”

She waits for some explosion, some reaction, but nothing follows. They are rounding the last corner before her street. Mulder is quiet as he parks, helps her out of the car, follows her inside.

“Sit,” he says, gesturing to the couch. She does, watching him pace awkwardly for a moment, scratch the back of his head, before sitting to face her on the coffee table. Their knees almost touch. “I meant what I said before.” He reaches out and takes one of her hands, searching her face. “I do still love you. And I need you to be more careful.”

She can feel the frown forming on her face, even as her heart beats faster. His fingers are warm and the electricity between them is strong as it ever was, but there is hesitation yet in his manner and his words: a hanging negation, a silent conditional. “What about you?” She asks. “Why don’t you need to be more careful?”

His jaw clenches, and then he tries to conjure a smile for her but does not succeed. “Rest,” he says. “I’ll make dinner.” He touches her shoulder on the way to the kitchen.

She listens, as he works, to the sound of a pan set on the counter, the refrigerator door opening and closing, the click click whoosh of her gas range coming to life. Then she is opening her eyes as he brushes her cheek and sets a plate in front of her: salad and chicken and crusty bread with butter. She’d fallen asleep.

“Thank you,” she says.

They sit together in silence. She feels him watching her eat. For a moment, she’s able to pretend that it is Before and they are just eating after work and things are normal.

“The Gila monster is venomous,” he says after a while. “It produces venom in the saliva and delivers it through chewing.”

She takes a sip of water. “Not native to the east coast, though. And there were no bites on the victim, so no chewing.”

Mulder shrugs. “Not native, but maybe someone brought some in to extract their venom and experiment with it. We should check with herpetologists in the West Seneca area.”

We, she thinks, and almost smiles. “Okay,” because she is still playing this game in which they are Agents Mulder and Scully of the X-Files division, continuing their shop-talk over dinner. When they finish, he’ll follow her toward the bedroom where they’ll change into pajamas and brush their teeth and wash their faces and climb under the cool sheets and find each other’s skin amidst the cotton. He’ll bury his face in that part of her neck that makes her shiver and she’ll whimper and press her body to his. It will be quiet and sweet, their lovemaking, because it is a work night and they are tired. They will fall asleep entwined, and she’ll wake with his arm heavy on her ribs and his erection pressed to her back. She can almost feel it now, and it makes her want. She puts down her plate and looks at him, the pull in her chest overwhelming.

“What?” He asks around a bite of salad.

“I miss you,” she says. Present tense.

He chews slowly and swallows. “I’m right here,” he says.

But she shakes her head. 

They finish in quiet, the spell broken.

—

Two o’clock in the morning and she needs to pee. She climbs from the bed, with no small effort, and to the bathroom. She emerges toward the blue flicker from the television: he’s awake on the couch.

“Mulder?”

He cranes his head over the pillows to see her. “Hey.”

“Why are you awake?”

A shrug. “Thinkin.”

She crosses her arms over her chest and takes a few steps closer. “About what?”

He shakes his head and pats the seat beside him. “Doesn’t matter.”

She hesitates, caught between returning to bed and his invitation. She’s afraid of her own neediness at this hour, but approaches anyway, lowers herself to sit. Now is the quiet time when they are fully alone. They know this dark lull, these easily forgotten hours. They have found respite here before. His arms come around her and she breathes deep, needing so badly the pressure of his body on hers. He pulls her against him, presses his face to the back of her shoulder.

“I need you to be okay,” he says into the fabric of her pajamas. “That’s all that matters to me right now.”

She cups his forearm in her palm, knowing so well the warm solidity of its muscle, the soft hairs. There is something he’s holding back, as always keeping his secret knowledge. “I’m okay,” she says. “We’re all okay.”

He’s quiet, stewing in whatever it is he won’t tell her.

“Mulder,” she says. “Is it… it’s that you don’t want this, isn’t it?” This baby. This family. This version of her. He’d told her, once, that he did. But that was when it seemed impossible, when it wasn’t real.

A sound against her back, like a whimper or a soft cry, and his arms tighten. His words are still muffled because he won’t lift his head. “I do,” he says. “I want it. I just wish…”

She tugs his arm, tries to get him to look at her. She keeps her voice low, as if a whisper won’t scare away his answer. “What?”

He shakes his head. “I wish I could know this baby was…” but he doesn’t finish. Can’t.

In the silence he leaves behind, she hears what he didn’t say: mine. Ice in her veins, then, she realizes why. She understands his distance, his reluctance. He thinks the baby isn’t his. He thinks, maybe, that it is a monster, and he doesn’t want to frighten her.

Though her limbs seem filled with lead, she stands, leaving him reaching for her.

“Scully,” he says: an apology.

“You might be afraid to get too close, Mulder, but I don’t have a choice.” She touches her belly, rubs it as if to reassure the child that it is wanted. “I’ve had to… I have to believe this child is yours. I have to.”

He looks ill; the pain carved onto his face is visceral and haunted. She goes back to her bed and does not invite him.

_+_

Even your mother isn’t safe, can’t be trusted. It isn’t her fault, you try to think.

Mulder is on fire. He’s pulled taught like the skin of a drum. He stays to see that you are not dying, have not been poisoned, and then he is off with Skinner and you are alone again, just your blubbering apologetic mother holding you tight in the sterile room. She is the only one left to bring you home. You try not to be angry.

You cannot trust your own mother.

You cannot trust yourself.

Mulder is gone, smashing things to find the truth.

You can’t do this. You can’t live like this.

You are shoved into cars and told your baby is from some experiment, or from God, but not from love. You are passed around like a thing, then shoved into another car to be taken away without him again.

Scully’s baby…

This child you’re carrying…

He’d put as much verbal distance as he could between himself and your child because he still refuses to acknowledge that it could be his.

Mulder lets you go. He puts you in a car with an almost-stranger to have “this baby” without him. He absolves himself of fatherhood again and again.

He doesn’t say goodbye.

He doesn’t say he loves you.

You could die, will probably die.

You are in the moving car, passing houses and families and people living lives with their children and their dogs, even now, and he is not even beside you anymore.

There is nothing else to be done, so you sleep.

—

Things happen in Georgia. Things happened. Bad things. You cannot touch them with your mind without breaking apart.

—

In the hospital he holds the baby by the window, bounces, kisses it, runs his finger down the tiny nose. He turns to you comfortable, smiling, like he has done this one-hundred times: held his child in the morning light, waiting for you to wake.

“There’s mom,” he says to the bundle.

You sit up carefully and reach for your baby without thinking. How did you get here? What has your memory blocked to allow you this consciousness at all?

The child you recognize with an instinctive pull. The child you must have, must hold against your breast in this still-unfamiliar act. Mulder watches, unashamed, while you check the infant’s latch and feel the strong tug of his mouth. The skin at his still-reddened temple, his wrinkled forehead, his cheek as he eats—they are beyond any softness you’ve ever known.

“The doctor said she wants to keep you one more full day, so we can leave tomorrow. Your mom is already on her way. I told her to wait, but she wouldn’t, wants to see him right away.”

You wonder what your mother will think. You wonder if she will be angry about the way this happened.

“The nurses showed me how to change him while you were sleeping. They said we have to cover him with a cloth while we do it, or he’ll pee on us.”

You smile some. Your insides warm at the thought of Mulder taking instruction from the nurse, listening carefully as she probably called him dad and showed him how to slide the new diaper under the old, how to fasten the tabs. For a moment, your heart feels full.

When you swap the baby to the other breast, Mulder slides in behind you on the bed and his arm comes around your shoulders. “Are you okay?” He asks.

“Yeah,” you say. “Yes. Just... a little dazed, I think.”

He presses his lips to your temple. “You did so well,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.”

You won’t let yourself think about that night, about the terror that has marked every single milestone of this pregnancy and birth, but your breathing changes anyway. Your heart speeds and you feel your fingers tremble under the warm weight of the baby.

“Mul—“ but you can’t even finish his name and suddenly the room is blurry through your tears and slipping vision. You are woozy with the speed that blood moves through your veins.

He brings both arms around you now, his face buried in your neck. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You’re okay. We’re all okay.”

He doesn’t let you faint while holding the baby, and for that you are grateful.

You are three in the bed, you think, an entire newborn nuclear family. The baby drifts, and you drift, but you are held up by the third. Three, oh, it’s a magic number.

—

He stays for a week, and then two, but you are still bleeding when he leaves. You are milk-sore and tired and waking too often sweaty and this isn’t how you thought you’d have to say goodbye. Your apartment fills with his things, paradoxically, as he removes himself from your life. He holds William constantly and tells you he is sorry, so sorry.

You look for the pieces of your armor, but they are in tatters, crushed like egg shells under a heavy boot. You must mother alone, after all, and still raw. You are not even supposed to use stairs yet. Or drive. You feel all the time that someone is standing on your chest.

He holds you while the baby sleeps and whispers into your hair. “I don’t want to go.”

You are shaking with the terrible truth of it. “Don’t,” you say. “You can’t. I knew this would happen somehow, but you can’t. I’ll die, Mulder.” You shake. You can’t breathe. Your breasts hurt and your cunt hurts and your heart is so bruised you think it will soon give up all together.

“You said I had to,” he says. “You said What if they hurt him?”

You splinter. You crack. You cannot hold either of them apart from you, but neither can you hold them together, and the broken law of noncontradiction shatters the core of your rational self.

“What if…” but nothing follows. There is nothing else: no certainty, only a series of escalating, increasingly horrible what ifs. He kisses you again, a full kiss with both palms on your cheeks, but between his skin and yours there are tears.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I love you,” and then, “I’ll go tomorrow.”

It is like a blow that makes your ears ring, a car crash that rips your perception from the world, a numbing buffer between your senses and surroundings that will protect you from ripping crashing searing pain. You wait and wait and wait, but the numbness lingers. It stays for months.

Your greatest fear, and one that has borne out over and over, is that he would, and did, choose heroic martyrdom over you. In the end you are not enough to make him choose the subtler fight, the one of minor action and unremarkable bravery and holding the joy of small moments against the swallowing dark. In the end he chooses the blind, grand thrust of his sword against unseen forces and you are left, like the abandoned women of yore, with spit-up on your blouse, an empty heart, the weight of a thousand future days alone.

You think you should have known: he was never intended to father. That was never his verb.

— end —

Note: I apologize for the pain. I know a lot of folks wanted a happy ending for this, but the truth is that Scully did not get one, and neither did Mulder. At least not in this story arc. Canon is terrible and traumatic and cruel, and I guess I wanted to explore that a little more closely.

[svtmatokis]

2: Going Shopping For Presents Together

I’m a day behind on this because work and sickness got in the way again (why does December bring a weak immune system?) but I’ll be posting Day 3 Right after :)

Pairing: Reader x Taehyung

Genre: Friends to Lovers

Words: 5203

“Where are you?” you asked through the phone as you looked around from your meeting spot near one of the Christmas trees.

“I’m almost there, we’re meeting in front of the tea shop right?” the person on the other line asked, “Oh wait, I think I see you.” 

You turned your body to see if you could spot your best friend and froze when someone covered your eyes from behind.

“Guess who.” the voice said as you put your phone to your side and you turned around with a large grin only to come face to face with Taehyung who had a black mask covering his mouth.

The first thing you did was throw yourself into his arms. It had been close to three months since the two of you last met up and he promised you that he could go Christmas present shopping with you for his members. They had invited you to their annual Christmas dinner and you were more than excited to attend since you haven’t seen any of them for so long.

You and Taehyung met during the Christmas season back when he was a trainee. You were just an art student working as a barista to make ends meet at the time and he was working towards his debut. He accidentally spilled coffee over one of your paintings you were working on during your break and had been extremely apologetic about it.

You obviously forgave him at the time since it wasn’t a big deal and he promised to repay you in someway. What you didn’t expect was for him to come back a few months later after not seeing him for a while with a wooden box full of acrylic paint and state of the art brushes. You tried to reject the gift at first since you assumed that he was just some random student but after much insistence, he admitted that he had admired the painting he ruined and wanted to see more of your art.

After that, he would be a constant at the coffee shop where you were able to work on your paintings during your break and after work times and as time went on, a strong friendship developed. 

What you weren’t aware of was that as the years went on, Taehyungs admiration for your paintings turned into admiration for you. After you graduated art school, you became a well known painter and had your work displayed in various galleries throughout Seoul. Though you were young, it was obvious that you had a lot of talent that people could only wish for. Your fan base only grew when few discovered that during one of your projects, you used Taehyung as your muse. 

You had taken various photos that the two of you had taken during your days out and used them as inspiration which resulted in your Best Friends with the Flower Boy series which Taehyung bought quite a few of them from local galleries without your knowledge. 

Between your busy schedules it was close to impossible to meet up but whenever Taehyung made a promise, he ensured to keep it. Especially when it came to you.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!” you said with a wide grin, “How was the tour?” 

“It was good, boring without you obviously.” he responded with an equal grin, “You look good.” 

“And you dyed your hair again.” you said ruffling his light brown locks, “Was pink not good enough?” 

“Not for Christmas.” he stated, “Shall we get started?” he asked offering his arm which you took and the two of you started your walk down the street.

There were a few stores you knew you already wanted to go to but you knew that Taehyung also had a list of stores he’d been wanting to go to as well. 

“What are you planning on getting the members?” he asked casually as the two of you entered a music shop where you were picking up Yoongi’s gift. He’d been talking about it during your text conversations as of late and you knew it would help him a lot with his music production so you went ahead and preordered it for him. 

“Yoongs has been wanting this new piece of equipment so I went ahead and ordered it for him a few weeks ago and I got Nam the original copies of  book he’s been wanting when I was in Paris a few months back. For the rest I’m not too sure.” you said putting your finger to your chin in thought, “Maybe new dance shoes for Hobi, headphones for Jimin, a cookbook for Jin and a gaming laptop for Kookie.” 

You paused for a moment to talk to the sales associates regarding your order and as they disappeared to the back to retrieve it, Taehyung took the opportunity to ask you what you got him.

“You’ll find out when we do the gift exchange” you said with a grin leaving Taehyung to pout. “What you getting me?” 

“My heart.” he said in a slight joking manner, making a heart with his fingers, though in reality he wasn’t.

Your eyes widened as a blush made its way to your cheeks as you took him seriously for a moment. No one knew, but you had been crushing on Taehyung for quite a while now, ever since he took you to once of his concerts and introduced you to his members about a year into your new found friendship. You never really did well with rejection so you never told him about it, plus you were already content with the friendship you already had.

Pushing him away slightly, you scoffed, “Please Tae, you know that only works with your fans.” 

As the sales associate came back with the item you had gotten Yoongi, you quickly took the item from their hands and gave your thanks and bid them farewell before quickly walking out of the store and away from Taehyung. You just needed a few seconds to calm your fast beating heart.

Taehyung followed behind you just as fast and matched your walking pace. He saw the perplexed look on your face and thought it was because of something he said though in reality, you were frustrated with yourself.

How many times had you seen Taehyung “flirt” with his fans and pretended that it never bothered you? How many times had you been to his modelling shoots with other female models only to be introduced as his “best friend” while you watched the girls shamelessly flirt with him?

It was stupid and you shouldn’t have let that one comment bother you, especially if it was meant to be a joke but you’ve had feelings for Taehyung for so long and it was getting harder and harder to deny that seeing all that hurt you. But, you couldn’t say anything about it because he would never be yours and even some sort of Christmas miracle happened and he confessed to you, nothing would change.

He had an image to uphold and you didn’t want to change that. He was just a friendly person in general. Eventually, he would find someone he really cared about and you would try to get over him and heal your broken heart in your own way.

The two of you went to a few more stores where you shopped in silence. In the process, you were able to pick up Hoseok, Jimin and Jin’s Christmas gift and all that was left was Jungkooks laptop that you would order online. 

By the end of it, Taehyung couldn’t take it anymore. He knew something was bothering you and he couldn’t figure out what it was. Throughout the shopping trip, he would ask your opinion on various item and you would respond but other than that, there really wasn’t any small talk or banter between the two of you.

As you walked out of the last store with both hands full of bags, Taehyung suggested stopping by a cafe for a break which you silently agreed to.

He watched your facial expressions as you looked out the window. You were absentmindedly stirring your coffee and the cake he had ordered for you remained untouched. 

“Y/N” he said quietly causing you to stop midstir to look at him, though before he could continue, you both heard a shutter go off and panic rose as he thought that the paparazzi had found the two of you.

He was about to turn around to talk to the person who took the photo but your voice caught him off guard.

“Myungsoo?” 

Taehyung watched as you got up to give the man behind the camera a gentle hug before proceeding to sit down again. The only thought in his mind at this moment was how the two of you knew each other.

“I thought it was you.” he said with a small grin and looked at Taehyung, “And this is…” 

You looked between the two men and face palmed, “Right, where are my manners. Taehyung, this is Myungsoo formally known as L. We met at my last art exhibition in Paris a few months back.” you gestured with your hand, “Myungsoo, as you may already know, this is BTS’s Taehyung, a friend of mine.” 

Taehyungs heart dropped when the word “friend” left your mouth. Not “best friend” but just “friend”. Giving the other man a tight smile, he held out his hand, “It’s nice to meet you.” 

“Likewise.” the man said with a gentle smile before looking back at you, “I was wondering where you were. My manager had a meeting with yours and I was hoping to run into you.” 

You raised your brows curiously, “What for?” 

“My agency was intrigued with a piece you did back in Paris and wanted to purchase it. They also wanted to see if you were interested in appearing in one of my photobooks I plan to release in the coming months. I heard you were in the preparation process for your next exhibition.” he explained.

“That’d be cool.” you said with a slight nod, Taehyung temporarily forgotten as you went into business mode, “Why don’t you email me your vision and we can talk details, it probably won’t happen till the new year though…” 

“That’s perfect really.” Myungsoo said before looking down at his watch, “I have a meeting to get to but I’ll email you what I have in mind later this week and we’ll have our management sort out the details.” 

You grinned at your friend as you nodded your head, “Sounds great, I look forward to it. I’ll see you around then.” 

“I’ll see you around.” Myungsoo said with a nod before bowing slightly at Taehyung, “It was nice meeting you.” 

“Likewise.” Taehyung managed to say before Myungsoo was on his way.

After he was gone, Taehyung looked at you and noticed the lost look in your eyes once again.

“Do you want to know why Christmas is so important to me?” he asked out of the blue and you thought for a moment before shrugging your shoulders.

“Why?” you asked tilting your head to the side slightly, you knew that he really enjoyed the lights and the snow but other than that, you never really understood why he enjoyed the holiday so much.

“I met by best friend at this very cafe a few years back. I actually didn’t know we were going to be best friends though until a lot later.” he said with a soft smile, “I remember asking her to hang out once and unfortunately, Jungkook had to tag along but the reason I remember it so well was because he took this picture of the two of us.” 

He took out his phone and showed you his lock screen which was one of the first pictures that Taehyung had taken with you in this very shopping district. The two of you looked more like silhouettes, but the grins on your faces were undeniable. 

Looking at the picture brought back a lot of memories and to this day, the two of you did your Christmas shopping together every year. Be it online or at a mall, it was always done together. It was like a way to celebrate your friendiversary and you cherished every moment.

Then it hit you, for the longest time you had no idea what to get Taehyung for Christmas. How did you get someone who had everything anything? You even went as far as to message Jungkook about it and the ideas he gave you weren’t exactly your cup of tea since the only thing he told you was, “Tell him how you feel, it’ll be the greatest gift of all.” 

After looking at that picture which you also had a copy of, you stood up quickly and picked up your bags, catching Taehyung off guard.

“Is everything okay?” he asked as he stood up with you, utterly confused.

“I know exactly what to get you for Christmas.” you said and threw on your hat, “I have to go though if I want to get it on time. I’ll see you later Tae!!” 

You then blew out the door leaving an extremely confused Taehyung behind.

“Did she forget that we still had more shopping to do?” he asked himself with a slight pout and shrugged his shoulders all the while wondering what had gotten you so excited suddenly. 

A few weeks later, you were at BTS’s annual Christmas party which was hosted at an apartment rented for the specific occasion. You had arrived late due to an unexpected email but even after showing up an hour later, it seemed that no one had noticed you had arrived. 

You had originally thought that it was going to be a BTS exclusive party but upon arrival, you noticed various executives and even a new girl group the company was going to debut  in attendance. You had noticed Taehyung with one specific person throughout the night and it was obvious she was flirting shamelessly with him and to you, looked like he was flirting back. The rest of the BTS members were scattered talking to several people and you didn’t want to interrupt so you kept a low profile.

You put the gifts except one under the tree and made yourself comfortable people watching from the kitchenette and it had been your resting place for close to an hour now. You were surprised no one had noticed your presence, that or they didn’t care.

“Hey, when did you get here?” a voice asked as an arm was thrown around your shoulder and you looked up to see Jungkook with a drink in his hand.

“About an hour ago.” you replied, “Something came up and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.” 

“Why didn’t you say anything? Tae’s been looking at his phone all night waiting for you.” Jungkook said as he leaned against the counter and the two of you looked at the sight before you where he and the girl were now sitting on the couch and the girl was chatting animatedly while Taehyung looked engaged.  “Well he was…”  Jungkook gave you a slight look of concern.

“We actually didn’t know till last minute that more people were going to be coming…” he tried to explain as you shrugged your shoulders trying not to look put out. “Did something happen between you two? Ever since he came back from shopping with you, he seemed a bit off.”

“He met Myungsoo.” you said as if that answered all his questions.

“And? I introduced the two of you like a year ago.” Jungkook said slightly confused, “When I was photographing one of your exhibitions. Tae was there too.” 

“And he probably forgot. Myungsoo came to my Paris exhibition a few months back since he was in the area.” you explained, “We’re going to be collabing in the new year and he was at the cafe Tae and I were at.” 

“Okay...that doesn’t explain things though. Tae seemed put off...like he just kept muttering to himself. Friend? Friend? I’m only a friend?” Jungkook said in his best Taehyung imitation.

“Oh, I introduced him as a friend to Myungsoo.” you said, your eyes still glued to the two. You wondered if Taehyung had actually noticed that you were there and was just ignoring you. You actually wouldn’t have put it past him considering how you’d been avoiding his texts and calls the last few weeks as you were holed up in your studio trying to finish his Christmas gifts. In fact, you were ignoring everyone as you spent most of your time on this project.

“Well that explains it.” Jungkook said with a slight roll of his eyes, “So are you going to tell him this year? You know he likes you too right?” 

“Does he?” you asked, “I’ve been to over ten shoots with him this year and five shows and ALL of them I’ve seen the same thing. This is my best friend this, oh my best friend is an amazing painter that. Even if he did like me, would it stop him from being TOO overly nice with the other girls?” you asked him and let out a slight huff, “Even after all that, I wouldn’t want him to stop being who he is.” 

You looked down at your watch, “Plus, this year wouldn’t be ideal anyways…” you muttered.

Your phone buzzed and you looked up to see Taehyung on his phone.

[9:59pm] Tae: Hey are you here yet? We’re going to be opening the gifts soon.

Jungkook read the message over your shoulder and scoffed, “If only he looked towards the kitchen…Why wouldn’t this year be ideal? Do we have to have the talk again?” 

“I’m spending Christmas in Italy.” you said not responding to Taehyungs text, “I got the email yesterday and I spent the whole day packing. A client wants to meet and my manager booked the tickets without letting me know.” you gave Jungkook a sad smile, “I leave in a few hours and I don’t know if I’ll be back before the new year.” 

“A client in Italy?” Jungkook asked eyes wide, he knew you were famous but he didn’t know you were THAT famous in the art world.

“Something about an exhibition they want me to contribute to.” you said and shook your head, “Anyways, I just wanted to stop by and give everyone their gifts. Remember, I told you this last year, my insecurities are too big for me to tell Tae how I feel and with my job taking me all over the world, it’ll never work even if he felt the same way. I’ve wished every year for a Christmas miracle. That something would change my mind but I guess I’ll just wait another year and hope for the best” 

You handed him a medium sized canvas which was wrapped in glittering wrapping paper, “Give this to Tae for me would you? The rest of your gifts are under the tree.” You gave Jungkook a tight smile, “I have to get going though if I want to make my flight. I’ll make sure to call on Christmas day.” 

Jungkook nodded silently as he held Taehyungs gift in his hands, “Are you sure you can’t stay? I can let the guys know you’re here and we can take you to the airport after…” 

“It’s okay. I think I need a bit of fresh air and I’m meeting my manager at the airport.” you took one last glance at Taehyung who was now looking around the room and you decided to make your exit quick and quiet. 

Giving Jungkook a quick hug you silently slid out the door just as Taehyung made an excuse to leave the conversation he was in. He caught a glimpse of your hair just as the door closed and he looked to Jungkook who was standing in the kitchen looking slightly dazed so he decided to make his way over to him first.

“Have you seen Y/N?” he asked, “She hasn’t been responding to my texts but she must’ve texted one of us.” Taehyung said as Jungkook shoved the canvas in Taehyungs hand.

“Yea...she was actually here a while ago…” Jungkook said, “She was here for about two hours actually...I’m not sure how any of us didn’t notice her…but she left not too long ago...something about catching a flight.” 

“A flight?” Taehyung asked as his brows furrowed together. 

At this point, the rest of the BTS members had congregated around the two as they saw Taehyung with the gift in his hand.

“Hey Tae, where’s Y/N? We’re waiting for her to open the presents.” Namjoon said but noticed the look on Taehyung and Jungkooks faces. “What’s up guys?” 

“Y/N was here…” Taehyung muttered still holding the wrapped gift in his hand.

“I came to check the kitchen to see if there were any rags since I spilled my drink and I found Y/N just watching everyone. Apparently she’d been here for about two hours…” Jungkook explained. “She just left a few minutes ago..” 

“Two hours? How did we not notice her?” Jimin asked with a slight frown, “She didn’t even come and say hi.” 

“Apparently no one told her about the extra additions to the party so she kept a low profile.” Jungkook answered, “She left our presents under the tree though.”

“We literally only found out about it today…” Jin said, “The gift exchange was still going to be between us though, we were going to go to the master bedroom and everything…Can’t you call her to come back?”

“She said that she’s spending Christmas in Italy this year and it was a last minute decision.” Jungkook said and looked at Taehyung who had been silent throughout this whole conversation. 

“ITALY?!” all the boys chorused together gaining the attention of various people around the room.

“Something about a client or whatever…” Jungkook explained as Taehyung suddenly ripped open the gift in his hands and everyone looked at the painting in awe.

On the canvas, was a painting that resembled the photo that Taehyung had showed you back at the cafe, the only difference about it was that the shadows below the two people that you painted were holding hands and a heart was etched between the two.

Attached to the painting was a small note in your neat handwriting.

Tae, 

As I write this note, I’m also listening to my manager briefing me about this trip that I’m about to go on. Last year, I got you a new coffee machine because you literally broke yours the day before we were supposed to go shopping. This year, I wasn’t sure what to get you. I mean, how do you get something for someone who has almost everything he wants?

It hit me when we were sitting in the cafe last time that in all our years of friendship, I never painted you anything as a GIFT and when you showed me the picture of our first outing together, I knew what I wanted to gift you… I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about this and I’ve been debating on this for years but I need to get this off my chest.

It’s always been you...♥

-Y/N

Taehyung read the note not once but three times to make sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him and he looked up at all his members who had similar looks on their faces. 

“That bitch said she wasn’t confessing this year.” Jungkook suddenly muttered and Taehyungs head whipped to look at the maknae. 

“What do you mean? This year?” Taehyung questioned and Jungkook sighed as he motioned everyone to join him in the master bedroom for the gift exchange and story time.

“Tae Tae, where are you guys going?” The girl he had been talking to earlier asked clinging to his arm, it was obvious she was slightly intoxicated and Taehyung could only grimace. Thankfully, Yoongi was there to save the day.

“Group emergency.” He said grabbing Taehyungs arm and dragged him to the master bedroom while the rest of the members got the presents under the tree.

“Just remember, I didn’t tell you this.” Jungkook said as the group sat around the big room. “Y/N likes you...like ALOT. Every year since the two of you first went Christmas shopping together, Y/N’s debated on confessing to you...The only reason I found out was because I heard her talking to herself one day when I decided to join you guys and every year to this day, I’ve literally tried to get her to tell you but she always finds a different excuse…” 

Taehyung stared at Jungkook with wide eyes as the rest of the members listened already knowing the story. It was obvious that you had fallen for your best friend all those years ago, it was why Christmas shopping was YOUR thing and none of the other members joined because they knew it was the one time of the year where it was just the two of you with no one else. No managers, no members, just you two.

“Oh and I introduced her to Myungsoo like a year ago...he’s kinda dating my sister.” Jungkook said sheepishly while scratching the back of his head and Taehyungs jaw dropped. He had been jealous for nothing.

“I...fucked up…” he whispered but all the members heard him. He had wanted you to walk in to see him talking to the girl group member tonight and when you would’ve come over, he would’ve introduced you to her as his friend. He had intentionally wanted you to feel the way he had that day at the cafe.

 “Why didn’t she say anything sooner?” he asked looking around the group who had already opened their gifts from you and were looking at them in awe. 

“Because she didn’t want you to compromise you for her.” Jungkook explained, “You know Y/N, she’s humble as shit and all the shoots and shows you’ve taken her to, you’ve introduced her as your best friend…” 

“You can also be a bit too friendly with the females…” Jimin added, “I can see why she never wanted to confess….” 

“But I would do anything for her…” Taehyung whispered, “I literally book the month of December to go shopping with her. It’s been like that for the last few years.” 

“We know that...but does she know that?” Jin asked with a tilt of his head as he admired the cookbook you got him.

“It’s about time you two stop dancing around each other but it’s obvious she’s too scared to make that move.” Yoongi said, “You know we’ve cancelled our schedules this month so I mean…” 

“Except for that one day, but I’m sure if you move fast you can make it back by then.” Namjoon said with a wink.

“I think her flights already gone but I don’t see why we can’t catch you the next one out.” Jungkook said with a small smile, “Give her the Christmas miracle she deserves. I just gotta kiss up to her manager...again..”

A few days later, you were staring at the painting you had just completed. You still had about four more to complete but at least one was complete enough for you to be content.  You had received texts from everyone expressing their disappointment that you didn’t say goodbye but they thanked you for the gifts and made you promise that you’d spend time with them upon your return.

The only one you didn’t receive a text from was Taehyung and despite not wanting to admit it, you were kind of disheartened. You had hoped that your message had come across clearly and you felt bad for lying to Jungkook but it was the only way. Had you told him about the note, Jungkook would’ve made you talk to Taehyung face to face and you weren’t sure you were ready for the assumed rejection.

“The painting looks beautiful.” a familiar voice said from behind you and you whipped around so quickly, you ended up knocking over the jar of water that held your paint brushes. Thankfully, you had tarped the floor before hand and the nice hardwood floor was unaffected. 

“Tae?” 

Stepping over the spilled water, Taehyung marched up to you and took your face in his hands before pressing his lips firmly against yours.

Your eyes widened for a brief moment before closing as the sensation of his lips moving against yours took over and slowly, you wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him back. It was something you’d been wanting for a long time now and the feeling compared to what you imagined was a lot better. 

When air became a necessity, Taehyung pulled away but his hands that had moved down to your hips kept you close and his forehead rested against against yours.

“It was always you.” he said, repeating the words from your note.  “No one else.” 

After he explained to you how he got to Italy in the first place (Jungkook owed your manager a GREAT deal), he then proceeded to lecture you on proper party etiquette and then told you he was going to be staying in Italy till your exhibition was over. He knew you still had paintings to finish but he was patient and wanted to spend as much time with you as he could and over the next few weeks, he would sit in your studio with you as you painted while he would take photos of you and even started painting a few pieces of his own.

During one of your painters block moments, he dragged you out to explore the shopping districts where he proceeded to spoil you with gifts that you insisted you didn’t need. 

“Please!! Just let me spoil my girlfriend this once.” he whined as you stopped in your tracks and gaped at him.

“G-girlfriend?” you asked with slight shock and Taehyung only gave you a ‘Duh’ look.

“You kissed be back so by default, you’re my girlfriend.” he stated crossing his arms before he brought you close to him, “I know that I was stupid around other girls and I let a lot of them get too close even though I knew I had feelings for you...The guys kind of told me a lot and I feel like a complete idiot to disregard your feelings like that when I knew that I had them myself.” he took a deep breath.

“We’re in one of the most expensive shopping districts in Italy and it’s still technically before Christmas so we’re still technically Christmas shopping...please let me spoil you” he whined as he nuzzled his nose against yours.

Eventually, you gave in and you found yourself having to buy a whole new suitcase for the things he got you. After that, the two of you went back to your Air Bnb where you proceeded to cuddle and watch Christmas movies but this time as a couple.

Words: 5203

[sunevial]

Annus Terribilis

Commissioned by @kylethewarrior, the following story follows the Part Timer long before the genetic experiments and his attempts to play god.

I have commissions open here.

TW: Death, Illness, Child Death. I also recommend that if you have any recent anxieties regarding COVID-19, please keep yourself safe and do not read this.

---

Eleven years ago, she had dragged him far outside the city center, driving out past fields of golden corn and wild forests to ‘somewhere special’ that wasn’t too terribly far away. That somewhere happened to be an old farmhouse, still structurally sound but in need of an awful lot of time and love before it would be up to code again. She laughed at the time, saying that anything worth doing was worth doing well and slow, and so the two of them got to work. Or, well, she got to work, and he stumbled along realizing that construction was much more difficult in practice than in theory. It was always her project, her wish for a place outside the bustling and busy city, and she turned it from a house to a home.

There was always someone over, be it friend or family or business partner or just a neighbor passing by, and he was nothing if not a good host. It was a lively place, and the birth of their daughter, the thing he was most proud of in all this world, made the celebrations only last longer. In her spare time, they, she, Eveline, continued improving the place: lightning fast internet, holo-projectors for the walls and table, hard-light molded into bridges and fences, a virtual reality playspace for their daughter. Away from everything, this strange blend of archaic living and modern technology blended into something new, something beautiful. 

It was meant to last.

It was never meant to be this quiet.

“Hey kitty Cat, look at me,” he said, voice low and comforting as he wrung out a washcloth. It was the one with the dog print, the one she had picked out at last summer’s fair, the one she always used to wash her face before bed. Ever so gently, he set it over his daughter’s forehead, trying not to notice her burning red cheeks or the mound of quilts over her shaking body. “You’re gonna be alright, just keep looking at me.”

Slowly, painfully, wearily, she opened her eyes. Usually so cheerful and so inquisitive and so full of childlike innocence, they were heavy, dull, barely registering their surroundings. Clouded irises turned his way, looking up at him with an understanding someone this young should never have to consider. “Daddy…I’m cold,” she murmured, each word seemingly forced out of her lungs.

“I know, I know, I’ll turn up the heat soon,” he said, running a hand down the top of her head.

Two months ago, Catherine had come home from school with a fever, complaining of chills and a terrible dizziness. They kept her in bed for a couple of days, watching as medicines failed and tests for various diseases came back negative, the doctors quietly informing them that they had matched the genome of this disease to everything they had in the database and finding not a single match. It evaded all attempts at classification, exhibiting no real similarities to a known virus or a bacteria or a fungi. Discouraged with the doctors and geneticists, he took a strain to his own home lab and began work, spending hours looking through microscopes and sequencing DNA until he came to the same sobering conclusion.

If there was an easy and fast way to treat this, it was beyond science's current capabilities. They had been into deep space, mastered light speed travel, eradicated poverty and scurvy and food shortages, and they couldn’t figure out something to properly kill off a sequence of random chemicals.

He would give anything, anything at all for a cure to this damned disease that had stolen his daughter’s smile, her beautifully creative mind, her ability to walk and sing and play with her friends in the gardens behind the house. She should be in school, learning about the wonders of humanity and what they had accomplished in times of great peace, finding love kind of gross but bugs cool. She should be getting into so much trouble, trouble that he had to condone as her father, but he was secretly so proud of her attempts to create a Mentos and Coke geyser in the bathroom sinks.

They had taken her home from the hospital two days ago.

“Daddy…I’m scared…” she whispered, eyes drifting back to the stars painted on the ceiling.

“What’s got you scared?” he asked, grabbing a glass of water with a curly straw and setting it to her lips. 

She didn’t take a sip. She hadn’t all day. “I’m…” Coughs wracked her battered body. “I’m…not going to see you again.”

He quickly set the glass aside, kneeling down until they were at the same level, hand never leaving the top of her head. “Now, don’t say that, kitty, you’re going to be just fine, the doctors are working hard to find a way to make you better. You just gotta keep fighting for a little longer, you hear me?”

Another round of coughs, this one drier than the last. “Daddy…you’re a bad…liar…” she murmured, eyes fluttering faster and faster, voice dropping down until there was hardly more than a shakey breath. “I’m…I’m scared…”

He leaned in closer, smoothing away her shining hair, hair that she had gotten dyed a beautiful shade of red, hair that he was initially against but now would give anything to be mad at something as silly as her hair color. “Kitty Cat, come on, look at me, eyes up.”

She met his for just a moment, a defiant moment of fire and hope and desire and such a deep, dark fear that he couldn’t save her from, before they fluttered close.

Her fever, finally, went down.

How long he knelt there, one hand on her too-cool head, other clutching her galaxy-print bedsheets, he couldn’t tell. Tears streamed down his face, silent and furious and hoping that this wasn’t real, that it was all just a cruel nightmare or a simulation or some stress induced hallucination, and that all was just some cruel game played by someone who didn’t value life for its own sake. 

But that was impossible.

He was a man of science, and he had to believe what his observations showed.

Sliding the washcloth over his daughter's eyes, he slowly got to his feet and methodically made his way over to the next room, each step echoing down the wooden walls Eveline insisted on installing, each step muffled by rugs she had bought from far corners of the world and set down to keep Catherine and her friends from getting too hurt if they fell. The walls were lined with picture frames of happier times; the wedding and honeymoon, learning to walk, riding first a bike then a hoverboard, science fairs and talent shows, festivals and picnics and sports games. 

Between them all was a holo surface, detailing all the work he and Eveline had done trying to fight an enemy they couldn’t see. While he had dove headfirst into research, pouring days into a frenzy of sleep deprived desperation, she had never left her daughter’s side, doing everything in her power to keep her spirits up and the grim reality of the situation at bay. Up until then, the doctors had assumed that transmission was going to be rare and difficult, not requiring protective gear that would’ve made Catherine all the more scared of her situation.

When he emerged with only bad news, he found Eveline propped up in a chair, face flushed and eyes distant. She was so strong, so brilliant, so determined, but their first date had ended with him rushing her to the emergency room. They had laughed it off after the fact, because why would either of them be concerned about asthma? It was barely more inconvenient than poor eyesight these days, a problem of the past that had been thoroughly managed with reduced air pollution and specialized medication.  

Unlike Catherine, this disease ended up in his wife’s lungs. 

It was even less time before she was bedridden.

He hesitantly opened the door, quietly walking to his wife’s bedside and kneeling down next to her sleeping form. Face as red as their daughter’s, she was hooked up to oxygen, a last ditch effort to give her a couple more days when everyone knew that the inevitable would only be delayed, not stopped. A quick glance to her oxygen levels on a nearby monitor dropped his heart down even further. With a heavy heart and trembling limbs, he slipped his hand under the covers until he found hers, ring still wrapped around her finger. It wasn’t their wedding ring, no, that had been lost in a river a couple of years back when they went kayaking and it slipped off when their barely watertight vessel overturned. When the panic died off, they went to a new jeweler and got something new, a beautiful golden band with a diamond flanked on both sides with small rubies.

“Honey…” Her voice was barely a whisper.

“I’m here, sweetie, I’m here,” he said, scrambling up so they were face to face, her face, the face of the woman he fell in love with on sight and had never stopped loving since. 

She smiled weakly, each movement clearly bringing her more pain. “You…shouldn’t be here…with Catherine,” she muttered, each word sending her into a coughing fit more painful than the last.

“Hey, you shouldn’t be talking, you know that,” he said, squeezing her hand and trying to put on the gentlest smile he could manage. “She’s just resting.” 

The squeeze was not returned, her eyes instead meeting his and her face falling with a sorrow he had only seen a handful of times before. When her father died of cancer, when they realized there would be no more children, when the doctors said there was nothing else to be done. She was a radiant woman, slow to sorrow and slower to anger, and each time he saw either of them, his heart broke a little further. “You’re…such a bad…liar,” she said, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes. 

“I…I know…I’m so…so sorry…” he muttered, squeezing his eyes tight to keep the tears from falling again, to stay strong for the one he loved, to not make her worry when she was in so much pain, but she was the strong one. She had always been the one to take what life gave and spit it back with a cold demeanor and a stoic face. In the past two months, he had shed more tears than she had in all the years he’d known her, and each time hurt even more knowing that her heart was so much stronger than his.

“Don’t…” Her body shook and her lungs heaved, wet and painful coughs that didn’t stop for almost a minute straight. “Don’t…worry about…me. I’m…the one…that should be…sorry.”

“You’ve never been sorry for anything, why start now?” he said with what little humor he could muster up, gently trying to wipe away her tears. 

Her smile was weak, her calloused hands that had built up this house with so much love and care now so fragile in his own. “I love you…so much…promise me…you’ll keep on…for me…for her… ”

Any semblance of strength broke with such a simple phrase, sobs choking in the back of his throat as he brought her hand to his forehead and held it tight, a twisted mirror of when he knelt down and asked to be hers through all the good and the bad that was yet to come, through sickness and health. Through all the good times, through all the bad, please to anyone who was listening let this not be how it all ends, let the until death not be so soon. “Sweetie, please…don’t do this…don’t leave me too…I can’t…”  

He held her hand as it went limp, as it went cold, as tortured sobs echoed through the otherwise silent house.   

[novelconcepts]

Okay, but all silliness aside: I owe a ridiculous amount to Critical Role. Or, more specifically, to having found CR when I did. I came in around the beginning of the second campaign, and I had no idea what this thing was. I didn’t know a damn thing about D&D. I didn’t watch gamers stream. I think I’d been on Twitch a handful of times to watch Jim Lee draw, and that was...it. 

I came into Critical Role having seen a handful of gifs on my dash from people whose opinions I trust, and I realized Ashley Johnson was involved. That was my full base of knowledge: Ashley “hey, I know her from Recess/Growing Pains, I like her” Johnson was the whole deal. And that could have been a breaking point early on, because the first thirty episodes of Campaign 1 are a little rough if you don’t know what you’re getting into. The audio is questionable in places, it can be hard to track what’s going on, there’s the whole...obvious cast issue. And if you came in knowing only Ashley, you didn’t even get that lifeline the whole way through. 

But here’s the thing: this was 2017? I had just gotten married, and while I married the love of my life, who I had been engaged to--we originally had a slapdash courthouse wedding the day after the election, because it was the only safety net we could grab hold of. At least it would be a legal marriage, in case something really cataclysmic happened before our actual wedding date. I was obsessively refreshing six different news sites every hour while at work, and falling down the darkest political rabbit holes on Twitter every night. I was have terror dreams of nuclear fallout and panic attacks over climate change...and, on top of all the fear and the anger broiling in me, my dysphoria was getting worse by the day. My anxiety. My depression. I was sinking. Fast.  So I did the only thing I know how to do when things get truly bad inside my head. 

I hid inside stories. 

Namely, I hid inside Critical Role. The new campaign wasn’t quite on its feet yet, so I went back and started with Vox Machina. I went into these 3-5 hour episodes, letting them play in the background at work, letting these people I did not know or even really get yet into my head. And, at first, it was just the fascination of the concept. A long-form narrative built by upwards of 8 people, all sitting around a table, just...improvising. Not an inch of that is the way I tell stories, so it was brilliant and baffling, and curiosity had me straight out the gate. 

And, if it had just been the concept, that still might not have been enough to hold my attention. If it had just been the idea of it, it might not have been loud enough to drown out the voices in my head telling me the whole ship was going down, that there was no hope, that there was no point in even getting up in the morning to face more bullshit. 

But...it was Matt Mercer. Matt, with such an incredible array of characters and maps living inside his head, who could so easily have been That Guy--the English Major Asshole who knew he was smarter than everyone in the room and played it up--and instead chooses to be so kind. So utterly engrossed in the desire to give everyone a seat at the table, to let everybody into the narrative he’s weaving. It takes a certain kind of person to not only write the sort of stories he invents for CR, but to be open enough to lean back and let other people take the wheel every night, and to roll with whatever comes his way. 

And it was Travis Willingham. This huge dude who had to sit at the edge of the table because he was all muscle and thumping energy, who I kept expecting to be tight-lipped and brewing with that toxic masculinity judgment straight dudes are taught to value--and, instead of even a modicum of that, he was so excited. So invested in these characters and this game, in these friends, in playing the wisest dumbass ever to cross a screen. Travis, who hugs his male friends, and doesn’t pull the no-homo card, and stans his wife with such delight, there is no way you can watch even half an episode without falling in love with their love. 

And it was Liam O’Brien, who could have played the arrogant Cool Dude, and instead leaned so hard into having fun with his place at the table. Into deep-cut jokes, and his love for his friends, and such an affinity for Laura that I genuinely believed they were siblings. Liam, who wears his soft heart on his sleeve, and understands that sometimes the best way through tragedy is to weave it into a story, to let that be a kind of therapy among friends. 

And it was Taliesin Jaffe. Tal, who is just gonna be him, and not even fuck you if you don’t like it--he doesn’t even seem to notice. Tal, who is physical with his friends, and who laughs with his whole body, and who has the quickest one-liners in the world one minute and “life needs things to live” the next, and who just is such a joy to watch as he immerses himself at the table. He’s gonna have his hair, and he’s gonna wear mismatched socks, and he’s gonna paint those nails, and love his people, and inspire everyone around him to do the same. 

And it was Sam Riegel, who--I’ll be honest--I didn’t get for a while. He was hilarious, and he was a quick-draw, and I loved his songs, but I didn’t understand how much he cared, how truly in it he was. Sam has said he’d do anything to make these people laugh, and I don’t think everyone realizes just how valuable it is to have someone who understands the need of a good laugh in a bad situation. Sam lights up the table in the strangest, silliest ways--but he also brings some of the most vital human moments to the story. 

And it was Laura Bailey, who was just so...warm, it bleeds straight through the screen and envelopes me every time I watch her play. Vex is cool as shit on the surface, but Laura is so full of affection, so quick-witted, so hugely into this game that she transforms herself utterly when she plays. Laura comes to the table to play with everything she’s got, and she’s so honest when she does it. Impeccable voice work one minute, flirtatious wink the next, and then she’s dying laughing at a dick joke. It’s so open, it’s impossible not to love. 

And it was Marisha Ray. Marisha, who took so much shit, and came out the other side standing taller than ever. Marisha, who commits wholeheartedly in voice, in affectation, in climbing up on her chair or lunging backward out of it. From day one, I was rooting for Marisha--I was inspired by Keyleth getting to grow up onscreen, as I’ve been invested in Beau slowly cracking open and letting herself shine out from the spaces she’s spent so much time shoring up. She loves these characters like true friends, and she loves her people, and she loves her husband, and she loves this craft to such a degree, I want to quit my job and come work for her instead. There’s such a strength and a dignity to her that I find myself needing to be stronger, too. 

And, of course, it was Ashley Johnson--deceptively sweet, intensely funny, so much tougher than she looks, and when she turns up in a game, the affection could fill a stadium. Ashley being in town or on Skype for a game is like coming into a party and finding a friend you hadn’t gotten to hang out with in six months waiting for you. Everything just feels brighter with her in the game.

And it is a game, and it is a story, but the family these people have built--people I’ll likely never meet, people who live on the opposite side of the country--is somehow big enough to let complete strangers bask in its reflected glow. I built a habit of listening to CR at work...and then talking about it to my wife, with all the hyper-fixation glee I can’t help when I fall in love with something...and then I was putting it on at home so she could fall in love, too. I was putting on Talks or Between the Sheets while I ran on the treadmill, or when I needed to focus on a project. I put on episodes I’d already seen when I was sad, or when I was lonely, or when I just needed something to fill the silence and keep the darkness in my head behind a wall. For two years, I’ve gone back to these people again and again. To the silly videos. To the serious conversations. To the Twitter feeds and the fanart people can’t resist making to commemorate these characters who feel so tangible. 

Matt always ends the stream with a claim of love, and with most shows, with most streamers, with most people, that just feels like words. With these guys, with the way they open up and share this lightning in a bottle family and story they have created with the rest of us, it feels honest. It feels like these are long-lost friends who may never be in the same room, but are always there when I am drowning because the world is a nightmare, because work is kicking my ass, because this gushing essay is the most I’ve written in months. They are so good. They are human, and fallible, and invested in telling stories that get dark and ugly one minute, and devolve into hysteria the next, because that’s what life looks like. Even life with gods and magic and talking swords and goldfish deaths. 

Critical Role keeps me throwing my shoulders back, keeps me laughing, keeps me insisting on showing the people in my life how much they mean to me. Critical Role keeps me on the board when the demons in my head have me thinking it’d be easier to throw the game. It’s a show, and it’s silly, but it’s given me such a safe, warm place to curl up in some of the bleakest times of my life, and I love them so much for being willing to share some of that light with the rest of the world. They’ve given me a place on the internet that truly does feel like home. 

[elane-in-the-shadows]

Prompt list (Fade) 1-. “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.”

A/N 1: Here it is, finally! I hope the wait will be worth it. Contains mentions of sex/smut. 4610 words.

Update: There’s a Part 2 now!

Find this on Wattpad and on AO3

The Candle Flame

Dusk

Farley POV

By the time the setting sun’s light begins to slant in, I’ve been sitting still for hours. Back straight, rifle perched on my legs, I keep watch at the lookout at the notch’s back entry.

Its door is small, well-hidden and not optimal for a fast and safe evacuation of the twenty-odd people currently residing in the notch. It’ll have to make do, of course, like all Scarlet Guard safe houses as well as our equipment.

To be honest, I don’t expect infiltration from here. The exit isn’t even watched 24/7; on top of Farrah muting any sounds we might produce, a watch patrolling the grounds is considered enough.

I am the one to consider that, obviously. I chose to be here. Alone. Huddled deep in the silence Farrah sinks over the woods because I had the faint hope that if no sounds surround me, then my mind will stay quiet as well.

It works, almost. I’m used to emptying my head when I wait and wait. Part of the job on an operative. It can be meditative or giving me space to concentrate, to look ahead and plan.

The latter is what leads me askew. I can’t think without seeing the dead family from yesterday. Can’t see them without reviving the sight of my dead family four years ago. And I can’t remember my family without –

I grab the rifle tighter and take several deep breaths. I thought I’ve seen enough dead bodies but they always get at you. As I can’t help the foreboding fear the slaughtered little baby caused me.

In a way, I was glad for Mare freaking out. She gave me all the reason to stay calm myself and act swift- and safely.

Mare cuddled into Cal as a result, we all saw it. I told him about the raid we’d witnessed, to look after Mare when she avoided Shade and Kilorn. Seems like the prince had more success.

It was all that I could do for her. Have an eye on the team. Encourage them to help each other. Care for their needs. Basically, still barking orders.

This morning was the same. Overseeing and preparing, walking the grounds with my not-quite-smirk, not-quite-frown expression on my face. The hunters must be setting out by now, searching game in the twilight forest to find us food for tomorrow. Housekeeping, hunting and training, that’s what fills this day both calm and on edge. No one is in haste for another operation but it’ll arrive soon enough. Our ragtag group cannot afford to be idle for long.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, when I had to stop playing pretend that I was alright, I took the chance to come here.

 Today’s dinner must be cooking right now and I can almost smell it, taste it on my tongue. Suddenly, the hunger is upon me and waking absurd fantasies regarding our dinner. I chew on my lips. Kilorn jokes that you can only be hungry or sick but he has no idea how literally I feel these ways lately. I crave food. I can’t look at it. I …

There’s a change of air against the back of my neck. I rise and get in stance although I know there shouldn’t be an enemy behind me –

Someone whistles right beside my ear and covers my eyes. A cry escapes my throat and I ram my elbow behind me, my other hand reaching for the assailant but I grab into nothing because they’re gone, invisible even as I spin on my heels.

They – no, he – is already on my other side, and on another yet again. The corners of my mouth twitch. I put down the rifle and I move with him, yet I merely catch glimpses of his shadow and the grin on his face. I must be wearing the same on mine.

I know this game, our personal sparring that is both a dance and a duel. I try to anticipate and fight him, he jumps away. If he wants to attack me, he risks my superior fighting skills while I can only guess where he will be by grasping the patterns of his movements. I shift and duck, enjoying the exertion as much as the taunting touches he leaves on me.

He prides himself on always catching me in the end.

And I long to be found.

Finally, my instincts scream at me to step forward to my left. He has to be there and as fast as lighting, my arm extends to grab him at the chest.

Instead, my hand is pushed back and I startle as Shade jumps forward another yard at the last moment. I bite back another squeal, to protect my pride but also because he stops my stumbling by gathering me in an embrace, hugging me close.

The bastard.

We pant at the contact, the end of our battle. Inches from each other, we breathe the same air.

“Cheat,” I sneer after a few seconds. He chuckles. I pull at his shirt and choke his laughter with a kiss.

He leans into it greedily. His hands reach up, over the curve of my spine to my shoulder blades. For a second, his fingertips tickle the back of my neck.

I moan and let my mouth travel along his jawline. “Make me forget,” I murmur between kisses.

When his hold tightens, I believe he’s going to give in, touching me until I know nothing but the present and the intimacy between us.

Instead he grows tense. He pulls away, not breaking our embrace but drawing back so much we can stare at each other.

I tense as well, if only not to reveal my turmoil. We’d be perfectly serious, if not for our hugging; grave comrades, if not for his thumb brushing my cheek.

“I should’ve come with you,” he says.

I shake my head ever-so-slightly – it offers me the chance to break eye contact. “You were limping again. Your ankle – “

“A limp doesn’t matter to me.”

His gaze catches mine again. I know he means his teleporting, as I know being able to teleport isn’t the same as being in perfect health. I also know that Shade is right, we need him now that Harrick has made clear, even without saying it out loud, that he won’t join our operations again.

I am aware of all that but what I focus on is how similar we are, Shade and I. Both we are raised by the responsibility the cause gives us, both we feel its weight.

He is my partner, my equal, in all regards.

I’m intensely aware of my palms on his waist, the warmth and shape of his body. Of his breathing.

I clear my throat, evading his eyes. “I’m okay,” I say, shaking my head to get a tress of hair out of my face. “You should look after Mare” – he winces – “or Harrick, or Ada.”

The mention of his sister has scored a hit, obviously, he’s tried and failed to talk to her. But he recovers quickly and I realize he’s done all of that already. Shade Barrow knows to how to care for his comrades, in many regards.

Because he is a better friend than I am.

“I’ve come to you,” he says, and there it is again, his yearning, his desire. For me. I feel his touch on my shoulders but more than that, it speaks of the depth of what he feels for me – and I for him.

Shade means more to me than anyone else in the last years.

I haven’t let anyone else get this close to me. I did what I had to, became who I had to be. For survival, to go on, to make a few victories, how little they were.

It’s not enough any longer.

I’m not enough.

I recognize it. I’ll have to pry my heart open. I have change, once more, for him, for –

I swallow, as if to keep in all I need to tell him, what I haven’t told anybody. I don’t even know where to start.

I look up. “Shade,” I begin carefully. Sadness and hesitation swing in my voice.

Suddenly, he startles. He lifts his hands to cup my face, making it impossible for me to turn my eyes away. “Don’t try this, Diana,” he grumbles. “We’re not just friends and you fucking know it.“

I realize he misunderstood and it’s my fault. Too often, I’ve played it cool and aloof. The need to reply increases. His stare would be enough to claim my full attention, even without his hands framing my face.

Almost. Heat rushes to my head in further embarrassment. I want to give in and reassure and kiss him and get on, but as his words reverberate through my mind, my thoughts speed back to the suspicions plaguing me, to the question I both want answered and to run from.

As I open my mouth to agree, no reply but only laughter escapes. Not just friends.

If only, Shade, if only.

Do you have any idea how much more we are – could be?

Even as he frowns at me, I merely laugh harder, so hard it shakes me and I can only squint at him. I grab him tighter, bringing us chest to chest, leaning my head into his hands.

He falls in eventually, seemingly without noticing the obscure meaning behind my laughter, only the ridiculousness of his claim.

We’re not just friends and so I kiss him, hungrily, my desire for him quickly replacing my former wish for food.

That wish comes and goes so fast these days.

When we have to catch breath and our laughter dies down, I brush over his neck, my thumb caressing his cheek with its faint stubble. I lift an eyebrow. “Not good taste to dismiss the importance of friendship, Barrow,” I tease him.

He snorts. Well, who am I to talk? He has more and closer friends than me. “I’d never,” Shade insists, playfully, and our faces soften in tandem. “We are friends, after all,” he concedes, but puts a finger on my lips before I can retort.

“We became friends and now we’re something else on top,” he says, like he wants to go on. But he hesitates, looking puzzled.

I wait for him, holding my breath. I am – not expecting him to share my suspicions, no. Just dying to hear how he defines us.

He swallows. “We’ve been comrades, friends, and now … we’re in love.”

I haven’t guessed how much this admission, this little word, would shake me with its truth. My heart races and so does his, as I can feel with one hand on his chest and another on his neck.

“Yes,” I breathe, almost inaudibly, before I kiss him in confirmation.

 The world sways. Darkness falls; whether I open or close my eyes, I can only make out moving flashes of colour. I stop trying quickly. I hold on to Shade instead because I begin to understand what’s going on here, he’s teleporting us somewhere. I’d curse at him if I didn’t fear losing my breath or throwing up if I did.

It goes on and on and even with my weakness when it comes to jumping, I grasp we’re covering a longer distance. I just want it to stop and return to feeling nothing and nobody but Shade – until it suddenly does end.

It’s like dropping out of the sky and while I’m afraid of the fall for the fraction of a second, there comes no pain – as the moment I sense my surroundings again, I lie on a huge, soft bed with Shade propping himself up above me.

I blink wildly, gasping. Shade grins, even as my fingers bore into his arms as if I still fear losing contact to earth.

He bends forward to kiss my brow. “You didn’t think I’d keep making you sick, did you?” he murmurs, helping me up as he sits up on his haunches.

“What?” I say tonelessly before I realize: No nausea rising up my throat after teleporting for once. My hand lifts to me stomach nonetheless, out of reflex, as my head spins to take stock of my new surroundings. A huge room, both lavish and neglected, used – or rather out of use – and very dusty.

I look at Shade. “You’ve trained?”

He nods and I have to bite my lips. I wish he was really right about not giving me nausea anymore. In all regards.

Shade doesn’t let go of my hand even once we’ve risen from the bed. He holds it up, leading me like I was a Silver lady and he my dancing partner. I’d chuckle if the gesture wasn’t so entrancingly charming, to both him and me.

He brings me to the other end of the room and bids me sit at a small table covered with a white cloth – besides the bed sheets, the only furniture that appears truly clean in here.

His palms press on my shoulders in reassurance because I can’t stop glimpsing around, in every corner. It gets at me how uncanny the place is. I expect Maven’s sentinels to appear, or an old Silver hiding in the abandoned house.

The image of a lone Silver reminds me of the time I encountered one before, in the night that resulted in the scar on my face, and Shade and I –

Inadvertently, I seek Shade’s eyes at the memory and as if he can read my thoughts, he blushes along with me.

“You don’t have to worry, Dee, I’ve scouted the manor for a while,” he says. He’s rounding the table, flattening the cloth to fight his irresistible nervousness. Slowly, a smile spreads over his face and the next time he reaches me, he whispers in my ear, “for now, this is our palace.”

Shade pulls candles out of his backpack and I follow him with my eyes as he lights and places them around us. “Unfortunately, there’s no electricity,” he says. “No running water either.”

As yet, the sunset lasts, casting a bright orange light from the windows. The sun and the flames array Shade in a warm halo belying his name.

Hadn’t he told me to stay seated, I’d be too transfixed to move either way. He’s so beautiful. I long to stay in this dream he turned this evening into. Forget the bloodshed of the morning and hide with him from the world and the future.

But that is only a dream.

I laugh in rejoice when he presents the food he took from the notch. Damn, I might’ve ignored it for a while, but I’m still hungry. The air is filled with the smells of spices and cooked venison, decorated with mushrooms and vegetables, all served on the same wrappers they were brought in here.

“I got the table here, but it would’ve taken too long to search for and clean the silver plates,” Shades apologizes as he sits down opposite me.

I shake my head and squeeze his hand. “No matter. It’s better this way.”

“The food has gotten cold enough already?” he teases.

I shrug, smiling back at him. I can’t wait to eat, to enjoy, devour, this dinner and not giving my unpredictable stomach a chance to change its mind on the food.

I eat careful and slowly for the same reason, taking my fill but not more. Food alone can’t sate me either way. During the meal, our fingers find each other over the table to play and tangle, and our gazes do the same.

The candlelight becomes him. It reveals new colours in his sable hair, hues of dark brass and bronze, and brings out the warm tones of his brown skin as well as the elegant lines of his face.

Does my face disclose my yearning as much as his?

In my ears, the ring of our laughter, the sound of his voice, shift into a kind of music that is both enticing and existing only for us.

When our makeshift plates are empty, I rise from my chair and go to Shade’s. He twists in his seat and I sit down on his lap. I kiss him, tasting him as much as the residues of the delicious meal. “Thank you,” I whisper once more. He giggles and his hands go to my hips as my fingers dig into his back. For a while. It’s not easy, but I pull away and get up, smirking.

He grins back. “Time to clean up.” He understands the game well enough, the procrastination of lust. We remove the traces of our dinner, even carry away the table.

Whenever our eyes meet, it pierces like a knife.

Whenever we touch, by accident, it is electrifying.

The draw between us grows stronger by the second. When we’re done cleaning up, there’s only us, the candles, and the bed. I stand before him, letting the last of our things drop into his bag without looking. I have only eyes for him.

“Well,” I begin, having no mind for further words.

He doesn’t need any. He smiles with his hands on my waist, and in the next moment he pins me against the wall, kissing me.

I feel his fingers on the naked skin of my waist; so fast has he found his way under my shirt. When we gasp for breath, I use the second of pause to spin us around, pinning Shade against the wall around the corner.

His laughter tingles between our tongues. I moan as his fingertips press deeper into the muscled flesh on my back; I love it when he touches me there.

In a frenzy, always keeping in touch with some body part or other, we step away from the corner, shedding out shirts and loosening our belts as we inch for the bed. It’s like both a dance and a duel – like the sparring fight we had before – and neither, just us, Shade and me.

When the backs of my legs tackle the high bed, I fall behind, holding on only by my hands on Shade’s waistband. He doesn’t let me down. He takes my wrists and pulls me forward, then heaves me up by my hips.

I yelp. Only them do we fall on the foot of the bed. I want him closer, caressing his spine and butt and kissing his neck but first he props himself up by his elbows, then he presses his palm on my stomach, between my ribs.

My eyes widen, locking with his.

Does he guess?

His gaze is intense and questioning like mine. I breathe against the weight of his hand and he feels it, I can see. My cheeks heat as the colour deepens in his. It’s strangely intimate, enthralling. The moment lasts long and even though the unsettling question returns to my mind, I cherish every second of t.

“You’re both soft and strong,” he marvels softly. Finally, he removes his hand and lets it glide over my sides to slowly shove off my rousers.

I smile as I sit up to unclasp my bra. “Thanks for the compliment,” I reply before I let my fingers wander over his chest in return. “I’m sure,” I say with certain awe, “that many people told you how beautiful you are, too.”

From the corners of my eyes, I glimpse his face as I kiss him. His smile is shy and precious. “They weren’t you,” he whispers, very quietly.

 He goes down on me, not even alluding to penetration or mentioning condoms – as if that’s not safe enough. I want to cackle. I should say, “no need for concern, it’s already too late.”

I’ve seen it, how his expression wavered when he leaned atop me, just before he made that compliment. Instead I surrender to the pleasure he gives me. I follow suit, using only my hands and mouth to make him come.

It’s easier this way, on this evening we grant ourselves to forget our fears, be they small or large, private or shared by our allies.

 “I’d like to sleep here,” I admit eventually, knowing we should return to our duties at the notch. But I’m tired and this night so perfect. Shade has to feel the same as his longing expression is enough of an answer.

I put my shirt back on for warmth as he extinguishes the candles, every one but the last which goes out right when we lie down in a hug, he behind me and pressing a kiss on the back of my neck as we snuggle in the blankets.

I ignore how sensitive my breasts are to his touch, switching from treat to discomfort and back again from one second to another. Just as I ignore how I change from energized to exhausted, hungry to nauseous, generally.

The biggest cowards are those who lie to themselves.

 He wakes me with a pat on my shoulder and a kiss on my chin. Or did I dream that? A yawn escapes my throat and I blink furiously against the candle on the nightstand he’s lit again. Shade’s gaze is warmer than it.

I moan against the lingering sleepiness and sit up. Then it’s no longer just sleepiness – my sight wavers and my sense of balance shatters as the nausea rises.

I jump up despite it and rush to the adjacent bathroom. There might be no running water but a drain is a drain. I bend over and retch.

Shade follows. He gathers my hair out of my face and draws circles over my back. It’s soothing, even when the heaving stops. His palm stays on the small of my back as I get up carefully.

He hands me a bottle of water and I drink gratefully, rinsing my mouth and flushing the sink with it.

My heart still beats too fast. Delicately, I hold on to his arms.

The corners of his mouth twitch. He lifts his head to kiss my brow, waits, and kisses me on the mouth. Blood rushes to my head. I can’t taste nice and l feel a lick of shame over throwing up – part of – our dinner.

He doesn’t care about that. He cares about me.

I hug him tight. “I love you.”

The words spill out by themselves. I’m shocked by them as I know they’re true.

Shade is similarly aghast. And yet, mixed with his startlement is this innate determination of his. I’ve seen this face on him often – and often, I am a cause of it. Sometimes, he seems surprised by it himself, by how far he’s come and how far he could go. It bespeaks both his innocence and commitment and it’s drawn me to him from the moment we met.

He cups my head in his hands. “I love you too, Diana,” he says.

His tenderness is piercing. I bury my face in his chest so he can’t see my quivering lip. Why do I even want to hide it though – because I’m used to bottle up my emotions?

That bottle began to fracture the moment we met, too. In truth, I want more. Crave more. More than quick fucks in the shadows of days and nights filled with planning, fighting, running.

I want a life.

I look up to his eyes and wish to find his earnest, loving gaze on me every time I fall asleep or wake up, without fearing it’ll be the last time. I imagine the last evening wasn’t a dream or an escape but our real future where we can cook together in a safe place we’ve made our own, along with our family.

I close my eyes, resisting the temptation to kiss him into oblivion. The time for forgetting and evasion is over. If I want to bring about a different world, I can’t run away from myself.

Shade’s lips brush my temple as I move. I shake my head ever so slightly and lead him back to the bed where we sit down. I don’t look at him. I clench and unclench my fists, breathing heavily.

“I’ve missed my period,” I say. Silence. No answer but a choked breath.

“It should’ve come around the time of the Sun Shooting,” I continue. “I didn’t even notice until weeks later. And then …” I grimace. “Well, if I was too stressed out to notice, maybe I was too stressed out for my period as well.” I suppress a cackle, blindly searching for Shade’s hand. I can feel his fast pulse.

Quietly, I go on. “But there’s still … nothing, after two months.” I clear my throat and finally turn to Shade. “You know what that could mean?”

I frown at him yet my hand squeezes his. Waves of emotions flicker over his face but he tries so hard to stay calm. Just like me. His throat twitches. “You … might be pregnant.”

“Might,” I insist. He nods reluctantly.

I fall back on the bed, balling my fists against my eyes. Shade lies down beside me. His touch, his presence, always so tender and soothing when we are together. So soft as if daunted and yet exactly what I need.

I know a different side of him as well though: when we stand side by side, watching our backs before the enemy.

His voice is a similar kind of caress. “Is that what you want?” It’s a whisper filled with understanding and the wish to understand more yet. I yearn him to. I’ve let him in and don’t want him to let go.

“I couldn’t have a child at the notch,” I say in a decidedly neutral voice. “Nor care for one. We don’t have …” I sigh. “My mother almost died of a fever after my sister was born. It was mere luck we could get medicine in time.” I glance at Shade.

“The notch was never an option to stay at forever,” he says slowly. But his voice lifts at the end of the sentence. Slightly, yet the hint of a question nonetheless. His thumb brushes over the back of my hand.

I know. I know what I didn’t say, what I haven’t denied. No “I don’t want a child”, and he realized that.

I didn’t want to get pregnant. I don’t want to be afraid for a baby.

I’ve ignored the signs, brushed off my suspicions because I wanted them to be false.

But that are also the only “nos” in my mind.

I’m not sure.

Maybe not.

I can’t be certain.

I’ve wished not to be pregnant in the first place because that would be the easiest way. Yet if I accept it – just for a second, just a little bit – to be true … I feel a small surge of protectiveness. My palm glides from my ribs over my abdomen to my thigh. I look at the candle flame burning low.

If I bled right now, be it my belated period or an early miscarriage, I’d feel both relief and loss.

Shade inches closer to me. His gaze earths me. “What happened to your mother and sister?” he asks, tucking a curl behind my ear. He already knows about my father who’s cold and uncaring toward me and everyone else. There is still so much to tell him.

I swallow. “They died,” I reply tonelessly. I close my eyes and the light of the candle flame still burns on my eyelids.

When I open my eyes, the candle has gone out.

“Shade. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

“I know,” he murmurs. He holds me tighter. “And I’m with you, Diana.”

A/N 2: As we can see Farley having some substantial character development in books 3 and 4, I wanted to show the moment where she decides to change towards being less reserved and more caring toward her friends and comrades.

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