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watermelonlipstick · 4 years ago

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Dean’s Jeans 2

What better day to post a sweet little family oneshot than Mother’s Day? This is the same setup as Dean’s Jeans, just a different late summer afternoon on your cul-de-sac with Dean, Sam, your daughters, and their cousin DJ. I already have bare-bones drafts of a few other installments for these cuties, especially considering this one got a little deeper than I had intended. Stay tuned!

Title: Dean’s Jeans 2

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 5561

Summary: Spending the afternoon working on the driveway with Dean, Sam, your daughters, and nephew.

Warnings: fluff, some family angst, minor injury, little dollop of smut at the end

It was a big day for driveways and garages.

You had been sitting in the apron of Sam’s drawing loopy pastel paths with DJ and your eldest daughter for your youngest to roll her cousin’s old matchbox cars down, watching adoringly as everyone’s palms and knees got covered in chalk dust. When the concrete was relatively full and the older two started getting a little antsy, you decided to try to stave off any bored bickering ahead of time.

“Babe, is our garage unlocked?” you called over to Dean where he was trying to snake an extension cord out of Sam’s front door and down the porch.

“Should be. Why, what’s up?”

“I thought maybe DJ could take Picasso here over to the park to break in her new bike.” You turned to your nephew, sitting with his arms resting on his knees. He was just barely starting to fill out around the delicate Winchester features that had made him such an angelic looking child, the angle of his jaw seeming to sharpen every day, growing rapidly though you might still be able to throw him over your shoulder in a pinch. Hopefully it was a sign that he wasn’t destined for the late puberty you knew had frustrated Sam so much when he was younger; at least he could have one gift from his other parent, lost otherwise to the wind without as much as a periodic birthday card. Not the time for that thought, you reminded yourself, refocusing on the child’s glossy hair, carbon copy of his father’s with sun-lightened tips this late into summer. Dean would’ve taken him to get a haircut about a month ago, but as you and Sam both reminded him: not his hair, not his kid. It made you smile and likely made Sam proud that at his age, where so many kids were rebelling against their parents, DJ didn’t mind looking exactly like his dad. Somehow you had a hard time believing Sam would want to rush that process of teenage rebellion along. “What do you think, Deej?”

Your elder daughter squealed and threw her arms around his neck, nearly tackling him onto the driveway. “Please please? Maybe Sarah and Davey can come too.” Her inclusion of the Fiore siblings into the mix was smart. They lived between your cul de sac and the park and were pretty similar in age to DJ and your older daughter. You suspected she thought on some level that DJ was on the cusp of being too cool to hang out with his baby cousin, but hanging out with the Fiores as a group gave them a little more social grace. Hopefully she’d realize, as you had, that DJ absolutely adored her and would likely rather catch some flack from his peers than drift apart.

“Yeah but I’m not carrying your bike up the hill if your legs get tired,” he grinned at his cousin, who immediately took off across the street to get her bike from the garage.

Sam and Dean had to move their whole setup from in front of Sam’s garage door so DJ could get his own bike out, the step ladder, extension cord, and electric drill going into the lawn next to the rest of their project, the basketball hoop. He almost got to the end of the driveway, swinging his leg over the seat, before Sam stopped him. “Nice try. Helmet, please,” he called out after his son, who reluctantly dropped the mountain bike onto the pavement and trudged back into the garage to pull a sticker-covered helmet out of a box and throw it on his head. By the time he made it into the street his cousin had done the same, yelling out over her shoulder for you to Mommypleaseclosethegaragethankyou as she tried to pump petite legs to keep up.

You were thankful that your youngest seemed to be fully engrossed in the chalk patterns on the driveway and hadn’t seemed to notice the other kids’ leaving, not interested in having an argument about whether she was too little or not to go with them alone. Trusting the older kids or not, she was small and curious in a way that led to her sometimes running off to explore, and you didn’t want to add that into the mix. After a while, she picked up the green again, moving up the driveway to draw a picture of a dragon and immediately swipe hair out of her face, covering it with fluorescent dust. She got to her feet, and the amount of colorful powder on her made you beyond thankful that it was Dean’s turn to give her a bath that night. Crossing the driveway in a few skittering steps, she wrapped herself around Dean’s legs, practically leaving a silhouette imprint of herself on his jeans as he ruffled her hair. The way they had worn out and lost much of their dye over the years highlighted the contrast.

“Daddy, come look! It’s a dragon!”

Dean and Sam exchanged a smirk and Dean winked at you. “A dragon? Sounds scary.”

“No, he’s a nice dragon,” she insisted, grabbing his hand and dragging him down the driveway, leaving Sam to drill holes into the wood above his garage door.

“A nice dragon, huh? What’s his name?” Dean asked, grinning as he let her lead him.

“Maurice,” she said, so matter of fact it made you laugh out loud. Sam did too, pulling the drill out of the wall to keep from wiggling the holes. “Can you do the fire?”

“’Course I can, princess. How big are we talking?” He eased down to sit cross-legged next to Maurice The Dragon, accepting when you offered him yellow and orange sticks of chalk. You leaned back in the afternoon sun with a lap full of matchbox cars listening to the radio Sam had brought out to the porch, the chalk scratching on the concrete, and the rhythmic drilling of holes into siding for a few minutes.

“Dean?” Sam asked, backing down the step ladder.

“Got it,” he answered, putting a little flair on a lick of fire that went around Maurice’s nose and handing your daughter the chalk. “I need to help Uncle Sammy for a minute but I can come right back, sound fair? Your mom is better at scales anyway.” The girl seemed to consider it for a second then pouted her lips out in agreement, tilting her head to the side just like her dad did all the time. Dean got up creakily and brushed off his hands on his back pockets, the orange joining the other stains like an abstract painting.

“You guys need any help?” you called over to Sam, who was trying to stabilize the hoop with long arms and struggling a little bit to keep it balanced in the light wind, powerful muscles rippling in his forearms and impressing upon you how heavy it must truly be if even he was having trouble with it.

“Actually, yeah, that would be great,” he chuckled, jerking his chin to Dean to suggest his brother help him hold it up. He did, grabbing one side and having to reach up to his tip toes to match Sam’s stretch. They were both standing on a kind of bastardized stool Dean had thrown together for this purpose, a few planks of wood balanced on some huge cinderblocks that had been in the garden holding up one of Sam’s compost setups. “It’s just those 12 screws, holes should already be lined up.”

You climbed up on the ladder with the drill, having to crane to reach over even with the added height. When the last was in, the Winchesters carefully removed their hands. Seeing that it didn’t immediately fall, Dean grabbed the bottom corner and tried his best to rattle it to no avail. “Good job, babe,” he said, lightly smacking your ass as you backed down the ladder.

“Watch out,” Sam said over your shoulder, and you saw him walking backwards a handful of steps down the driveway, being cautious to avoid his niece and her drawings.

“Dude, there’s no way you can—” Dean started, cut off by Sam taking a running jump and leaping into the air, catching the rim of the hoop like nothing and doing a baby pull-up on the metal.

“Can what?” Sam cackled, punching Dean’s arm playfully as he dropped to the pavement. “Don’t be jealous, old man.”

“Jealous of Sasquatch? You can practically reach it standing, Lurch.”

“Yeah, okay. Let me know when you can get up there without a stool and a trampoline.”

You were giggling as Sam and Dean started putting all their tools way when DJ’s bike came flying around the corner. Neither he nor his cousin were wearing helmets, and she was wrapped around his chest like a novelty monkey backpack, her legs circling his waist and her arms clinging to his neck. He had to arch around her to see, but you could tell from the half-block length away that he was saying something to her. By the time they got close enough to get reprimanded for the lack of helmets, or for one of their dads to ask where the other bike was, you could hear the crying.

Sam crossed over to his son in long, purposeful strides, holding his handlebars so he could dismount without letting go of your daughter. “What happened?” he asked, taking the girl from DJ’s arms and smoothing her hair back with a soothing palm. As he turned, you could see the blood trickling down her raw knees and elbows.

DJ was visibly rattled, trying hard to calm his breathing down and tensing his bottom lip when it began to quiver. “Davey and I went down that big hill and, she—she was going too fast, and, um, she fell—I, I told her we could practice later but these guys were saying only babies couldn’t do it, I swear I didn’t know she would—” and then his voice broke, fat tears finally breaking through and crashing down his face. Sam nodded to you and Dean, murmuring some comforting things to your eldest as he carried her up the porch steps into his house. At the exact same time as if practiced—that same rapid, implicit communication they’d had on hunts now used to coordinate hugging their children in tandem, you thought to yourself—Dean wrapped his nephew up in a big bear hug, cradling the boy’s head and sweeping his hand up and down his back.

“Hey, come on, you’re okay. She’s okay, she’s just shaken up, kid. Shhh shhh shhh, hey, come on, deep breaths. You’re okay,” he hummed into DJ’s hair. He gave you a tight nod over the kid’s shoulder to keep drawing with your daughter. Only a few steps away, you could still hear him as he continued. “I’m so proud of you, Deej. Got her all the way home on your bike, that’s pretty badass.” He waited for a few moments of silence until his nephew caught his breath a little. “Probably scared you, right?” he asked, his voice low and calm as DJ nodded through tears into the growing wet spot on his uncle’s chest. “That’s okay, chief, I would’ve been freaked too.”

You noticed he was rocking a little, almost like he did when he was trying to get the girls to sleep as babies, and it really emphasized the way that no matter how wise DJ seemed or whatever signs of puberty he might be showing, he was still a child, still the same baby you’d fallen in love with when Sam had gotten that call however many years ago. It took a few more minutes for the crying to subside to hiccupping breaths and seeming to sense that the moment had passed in some way, your baby girl grabbed your hand gently. “Mommy, is DJ okay?”

“Yeah, sweetie. He was just scared for a minute.”

“That’s why he needs a hug?”

“Exactly. Everybody needs hugs sometimes.” Just as she had before when considering your ability to draw cartoon scales on a dragon named Maurice, she tilted her head and pouted in agreement. When you realized what she was about to do next you almost had to wipe a quick tear away yourself, watching her get up to hug DJ and sandwich him between herself and Dean.

“It’s okay, DJ,” she whispered, the high tender pitch of her voice like one of those unsettlingly extreme medieval harmonies with her dad’s but so much sweeter, the bright welcome sting of lemon juice in a dense poundcake.

A moment later, Sam came out onto the porch with his eldest niece. One of her knees was wrapped in gauze but the other and both elbows had what looked from the driveway like a collage of Spiderman band aids. Sam appeared to have a matching one on his forehead, and both of them were giggling, though her eyes still looked a little puffy and red.

Dean looked up and turned DJ to see both of them, cradling the back of DJ’s head in one palm. “See? She’s okay, just needed a couple band aids.”

Sam winked at his brother as he walked over and patted his son on the back, taking the band aid off his forehead as he went. “Buddy, we’re going to go grab the bike and your helmets. Is there anything else you think you left at the park?”

His son shook his head up at his dad and leaned back from Dean’s embrace to rub his eyes. “Are you mad at me?” he croaked.

“Mad at you? Why would I be mad at you?” Sam asked, crouching down to a squat to look up at DJ. You had noticed he tended to do this in sensitive moments with all the children, trying his best to seem less looming. The first time you’d identified it, it made you a little sick to your stomach, realizing it likely wasn’t part of how inherently good he was with kids but because he knew what it was like to have an angry man towering over you. Thinking of it now had the same effect, especially compounded by the emphasis Dean had put on telling DJ he was proud of him even if his daughter had gotten hurt, that he too knew a protective kid was still just a kid.

DJ sniffled hard once more, finally able to take a truly deep breath. “I didn’t wear my helmet home because I couldn’t see arou—”

“Aw, DJ. No way am I mad at you.” Sam hugged his son and stood up, planting a kiss on his forehead. “I’m proud of you for getting both of you guys home safe. That was really smart, to get her on the bike with you like that.” You caught DJ’s tiny smile of pride at his father’s praise, watched it deepen a touch as Sam kissed his hair again. “So just the helmets and the bike?”

He nodded and rubbed his eyes before peeking around Sam a little bit to see your daughter. “You’re really okay?” he asked, as though he didn’t trust the adults to be telling him the truth and would have to ascertain her safety for himself. You wondered if Sam and Dean would find that nice or insulting, that ultra-fierce, trust-but-verify loyalty.

She nodded sort of sheepishly. “Sorry I didn’t listen about the hill, DJ.”

“It’s okay.”

The moment seemed a bit heavy for a half-second before Sam wrapped a big hand around your daughter’s shoulder with a reassuring smile. “Let’s go find that bike.”

After helping Dean get his wheels back inside, DJ went up to his room. You had to resist the urge to follow him, cuddle up with him like you used to when he was small enough to tuck into your lap. If he wanted to be alone, he was old enough to decide that for himself. Dean put the rest of the tools and things from putting up the basketball hoop away and walked over to you where you were laying on the ground so your youngest daughter could trace your body with chalk.

“I think we need a pick-me-up around here. How do you feel about i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m for dinner?”

You smiled, knowing you only had a bit longer of these spelling secrets left as your baby got closer and closer to proficient reading age. “Works for me. I think we have 2 or 3 kinds in the garage freezer.”

He smirked down at you. “Can you bring him over in about 15 minutes? They should be back by then.”

You tossed him a thumbs up and watched him walk across the street, the way the denim draped around his bowed legs as he went.

It was only five or six minutes later when Sam came up to the driveway, jogging alongside your daughter with DJ’s helmet in his hand. Of course Sam would know that she needed to get back on that bike right away, and of course he’d come up with something to make her laugh all the way home, even if that meant he had to run the entire distance on a late summer afternoon. He was slightly out of breath when he helped her dismount in the driveway.

“My kid okay?” he asked, taking the other helmet so your daughter could go back to what was becoming a pretty spectacular chalk surrealist piece spanning the driveway.

“He’s in his room, I think he will be. Your brother’s got a very Dean style plan for dinner in a few minutes if you’re hungry.”

Sam looked down at his watch. “Yikes, I didn’t realize we were even close to dinnertime. Let me go wash my hands and grab DJ then we can go over together?”

“Sounds perfect to me. And hey—Sam? Make sure he knows everyone thinks he did the right thing.”

He nodded, and you watched his Adam’s apple jump in his throat as he swallowed hard. Sam reached down and squeezed your hand, saying thank you without reopening the situation in front of the girls.

They came out a few minutes later, Sam in a fresh t-shirt and DJ looking a little more cheerful coiled into his dad’s side. You bundled up the girls and walked over to your house, tipping your head in thanks as Sam opened the door. The girls were the first to see the spread and took off squealing into the kitchen, where Dean had effectively set up a tiny ice cream shop on your kitchen island. Sprinkles of all different kinds, those 3 tubs of ice cream you’d been right to remember were in the freezer, syrups and whipped cream and cherries and bananas and even chopped up peanut butter cups and Butterfinger bars from the stash Dean hid from the kids. He was already handing out bowls before you got into the kitchen.

“Ah, ah! Hands need to be washed before anyone gets ice cream,” you insisted, shooting Dean a look of teasing reprimand.

He rolled his eyes to your oldest daughter, sending her giggling conspiratorially to the kitchen sink. DJ, presumably having already washed his hands at his place, helped your youngest daughter reach by picking her up to the faucet when her sister was done. You crossed over to Dean, kissing him on the cheek and grabbing his hands for inspection. “Babe, you’re literally covered in chalk.”

“You should be happy about me getting some extra calcium,” he winked, sticking out his tongue at you as you grabbed his ass on the way to the sink. “Mrs. Winchester!” he said in a faux-scandalized voice.

As you washed your hands Sam manned the ice cream scoop, doling out much bigger bowls than he would normally, seeming to know as Dean did that a little levity might help the events of the day pass faster. After all the kids doctored up heaping mounds of ice cream and toppings to beat the band, you and the Winchester brothers stood around the island while they piled onto the couch to find a movie they could all agree on.

“How’s our champ?” Dean asked, keeping his voice low.

Sam shook up a can of whipped cream as he spoke. “He’s okay. Just feels guilty, I think. He says he should’ve stopped her from going down the hill.”

“You think any kid of hers would’ve let someone tell her she couldn’t do anything?” Dean ribbed, accepting the gentle elbow you hit his side with.

“I know that, but you know what it’s like. I think once he sees she’s really okay and no one blames him then he’ll be fine.”

“Poor guy. Feels like that Winchester ‘weight of the world’ thing must be genetic.” You were partly joking but also partly not and they both knew it, looking pitiful and pitying for a beat before trying to cover with smiles. “He’s a great kid, Sam.”

“Pretty much feels like you guys raised him as much as I did, I should be thanking you,” he murmured, drawing a lattice of butterscotch syrup over his whipped cream.

You snaked an arm around his waist and gave him a sideways hug. “No, we’re lucky you let us know him.”

Sam bent over and pressed his lips to your hair. “Seriously, thank you. I’m—I don’t know where we’d be if we didn’t, you know, I mean if we—”

“Don’t strain yourself, Sammy,” Dean smiled affectionately, giving Sam a merciful out. “Tell you what, I sure wouldn’t have made it in damn Themyscira without you two around.”

Sam chuckled down at the counter while you disentangled your arms. You took the chocolate sprinkles from in front of him and scattered a few in your bowl. “Themyscira? The hell is that?”

Dean set down his ice cream exaggeratedly and rolled his eyes so hard he put a backwards bend in his spine, holding onto the island to keep his balance. “Babe. Themyscira. Home of the Amazons? Wonder Woman?”

“Riiiight. I forgot I was married to such a dork.”

“As long as you don’t forget how this ‘dork’ makes you screa—”

“Dude, enough,” Sam groaned, exasperated. Dean waggled his eyebrows at you as his brother followed into the living room with the kids, taking the opportunity of temporary privacy to slip his tongue along your neck where it sloped into your shoulder.

“Dean,” you hissed playfully, pushing his chest away from you. “They’re in the other room!”

“You taste like chalk,” he smirked, before holding your gaze for a gooier beat than you would’ve expected. His eyes softened and he glanced down. “Thank you for letting me—letting us—take that, today. I know you’re better at the Mommy Dearest stuff or whatever, but it sometimes feels like, ah, getting a redo?” He cleared his throat where it had gotten a little thick. “You know, um, like proving that it doesn’t have to be the same?”

It was a specific vulnerability he doesn’t often let you see, but you could tell by the softness both he and Sam had with all the kids, how they beat themselves up for days if they raised their voice for even a second, that they both thought about it all the time. In so many ways they were still those same little boys who wished they could’ve drawn on driveways with their parents, that their dad could’ve given them Spiderman band aids and told them everything was going to be okay.

He didn’t have to explain further, and you gripped his hand to tell him so. “They needed you two, not me. For what it’s worth, I think you guys were a pretty great team today.”

Dean smiled, and it was almost like the sleepy thankfulness he had on those nights when he got home and you’d charitably done a couple of his chores for him. He closed his eyes in invitation and you leaned forward, meeting his lips with the smell of ice cream in the air. “So come on, Super Dad. Let’s go watch a movie with these great kids everyone keeps talking about.”

The ice cream had gotten put back in the freezer immediately to keep it frozen, but the toppings had all been left out during School of Rock. Sam and DJ had left a bit after the movie, playing a round of LIFE that had been pretty ambitiously started, considering the time, and ultimately abandoned when all the kids’ yawns started to sync up. You came downstairs after trading with Dean for bath/shower duty to get out of cleaning up all the sticky dishes, the girls falling asleep too quickly for a bedtime story after you’d made sure they were thoroughly scrubbed clean and any wet gauze was replaced.

He was rinsing some bowls in the sink, the majority of the toppings slid to one side of the now wiped-down island. You sauntered up behind him, putting your chin on his shoulder. “Your jeans are still covered in chalk,” you sighed into his neck.

“Your kid was practically using them as a napkin, so I’m not surprised.”

“Like father, like daughter.”

You felt the rumble of his laugh through your chest where you were pressed up against his back. “Can’t argue with that. They asleep?”

“You’d think I drugged them.”

He chuckled again, putting down the last bowl in the sink and shutting off the water before drying his hands on a dishtowel deliberately. When he turned around, his face was inches from yours. “Is that right?” he asked, and his voice was as smooth and silky as any caramel drizzle you could’ve eaten that night. You nodded into a smile as Dean slid a washing-warmed hand to the nape of your neck and wound into the hair there, pulling you into him where he leaned against the sink and slipped his tongue into your mouth. He tasted like maraschino cherry and chocolate and you pushed up into his kiss hard, jamming him into the counter in a way that made him groan into you, tug that hair tighter. “Careful, baby. Been thinking about scandalizing the mother of my children for hours,” he growled, smirking through a voice rough like the sandpaper calluses of his hands.

You bit his bottom lip and dragged it back, leaning away from Dean just enough to reach over to the island behind you, finding the whipped cream and starting to shake it fast. “That’s funny, because I’ve just been thinking about sundaes,” you purred into his ear, nipping at his earlobe before tipping back. Dean’s eyes practically glittered as his pupils blew wide. His shirt was off so fast you almost didn’t see it, feeling like you blinked and opened your eyes to him already yanking his belt open to shuck off those chalk-covered torn jeans. Before he could, you turned over the whipped cream on top of his collarbone, dripping a stream of white foam down his chest and letting it drift for a second, melt down his skin then lapping it up with a tongue flattened wide. You shook the can again, draping a strip onto Dean’s stomach that trailed to his belly button and laying a palm on his chest, leaning him back to the counter on his elbows to watch as you licked the whipped cream with lazy swirls until you were at the hem of his boxers, sinking to your knees and taking them down his legs along with his now-opened jeans. He was already hard as rock when you took him in your palm, laying one last spray of whipped cream along the length of him and humming in delight at the “holy shi—” that punched out of Dean and fizzled into the ether when you sucked it off.

It was only a few minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore, bending down to kiss you rough and dirty, tongue darting out to get the little dribbles of cream around the corners of your mouth and dragging you to your feet. With one hand Dean flicked open your jeans, using the freed slack to dive into your panties, middle finger dipping into you as he held your jaw with the other palm. He breathed hot and sticky along your jugular. “Not even close to how wet I want you.” The viscous pour of his words onto your neck sent goosebumps spreading over your skin in a delicate fan and you couldn’t help but smile as he scooped under your thighs and lifted you easily onto the island, slipping the denim off your legs as the same time he stepped out of his. You relaxed onto your elbows, watching those long eyelashes drift open and closed as his kissed a path down your abdomen, gripping handfuls of your t-shirt to get to skin. A lazy hand offered Dean the can of whipped cream.

The smirk he gave you, bare shoulders between your thighs as he kneeled on the kitchen floor, might as well have been through a time machine for the way it made you see the cocky playboy you’d first met over a decade ago, before the faint wrinkles of years in sunny cars and staying up nights with colicky babies that accessorized his big doe eyes now. It had the same effect on you in a t-shirt that was older than DJ as it had when you were pounding through shots with eyeliner artfully smudged by the power of hangovers: pooling all the blood in your stomach and making you lightheaded. He slowly bit his bottom lip. “You taste way too good to be adding anything,” he rumbled, and when you threw your head back in a shaky laugh his tongue reminded you exactly why smudged-eyeliner girl was ready to drop her independence, jump in the Impala and follow that mouth to the end of the world.

Dean built the earth up and cracked it into pieces beneath you twice perched on that kitchen island before grabbing the counter edge to haul himself up. “Were these tiles always so fucking hard? Feel like I just took a hammer to the kneecaps.” He shook out each of his bare legs, spring of his erect cock as he did looking silly and out of place with the glisten of his lips and chin, the sultry cast of his eyelashes on angled cheekbones. The juxtaposition made you laugh, breathy as it was with muscles that had been turned to jello, thrown in a blender, and scattered about the room by the deft movements of Dean’s tongue and fingers.

“You’re thinking about your knees right now?”

“That’s how hard these fucking tiles are,” Dean chuckled, deep and still sexy somehow, bending forward to catch your lips. When you reached down to stroke him, a hand wrapped around your wrist. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, I’m nowhere near done with you,” he murmured through kisses, a shade of playful challenge in his throat.

You giggled, leaning back as he dragged a wet path of suction down your neck. “I don’t want to torture those legs, old man.” Running a hand through hair you’d sent spiking in all directions in your writhing, you dragged Dean’s head back on his neck, giving you a chance to meet his eyes, still the same dusted olive they’d been since that first wink. Long past the honeymoon stage when it was appropriate to do that kind of thing, you’d been content to spend hours searching them, cataloguing every spindly muscle of iris for posterity, trying to gather up every grain of him for when he inevitably was lost forever to a hunt or the solitude of the road.

But here he was still.

Here you were still. Living a life—living two selves—you never thought you’d get, lucky to have grown in and around each other like mangrove roots. Those eyes still every inch as beautiful, every spark of that electric heat still there now cloaked in layer after layer of what you’d built together: the complete trust and fanatical admiration he had of you flowing out like fountains of sunlight, strong enough they streamed through any raunchy waggle of his eyebrows.

No time to think about it now with a hungry coil of desire tightening in your stomach. You traced the length of him with your fingertips, feather-light and teasing. “If you give me fifteen seconds to get my sea legs back I’ll show you who’s got tougher knees.”

“All right, that’s it,” Dean said. He tipped his head forward and bit your bottom lip with that impossible pressure that made you whimper. “I’ll show you how old these knees are.”

Before you could react, he’d put his shoulder below your sternum and thrown you over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. When you squealed he smacked your ass. “You’re going to wake up the girls,” he buzzed, starting toward your bedroom without a stitch of clothing on, you draped over his back.

“Dean, Jesus Christ,” you giggled. “Get the clothes at least!”

“Don’t need any jeans for what I’ve got planned—quit—squirming—or I’ll give you something to squirm about,” he continued, lowering his voice to a lascivious whisper and giving one of your upper thighs an impish bite as he headed up the stairs.

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percabeth4life · 4 years ago

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Sorry to just jump in here and drop this on you, but i saw a blog once call percabeth an abusive relationship???? and i was like ?????? but none of my friends read pjo so i cant ask them for thoughts, how about you?

Oh boy anon so this is a thing.

Percabeth is abusive is a common thing those that hate percabeth or ship something else and want to validate it say, and why I have the “anti-percabeth” tag blocked.

I’ve seen people say Annabeth just giving him a dirty look was abuse, people will reach for anything done between them that isn’t perfect, usually to justify why their ship is better.

Honestly, I’m open to most ships. Percabeth is my main but if you ship things that’s totally fine, even if I don’t like it I won’t say you shouldn’t ship it. I read non-Percabeth ships, but a lot of people feel a strong need to insist a ship is abusive if they don’t like it.

It’s fine to just not like a ship.

First off lets preface all of this with a warning that I’ll be discussing abuse here so if that’s upsetting skip it.

It got long, like very long (word count is nearly 3k), so it’s all under the Read More, there’s a TLDR at the very bottom.

Now then, what is abuse?

There are two definitions that pop up with a quick google search

Use (something) to bad effect or for a bad purpose; misuse.

Treat (a person or an animal) with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly.

If you look up the legal definition (law.cornell) used to define abuse there are more options, but I’m leaving out 2, 3, and 4 cause 3 and 4 def have nothing to do with this and definition 2 is in regards to child abuse.

Abuse, generally: physically, sexually, or mentally injuring a person.

Now if we want to go deeper in lets define physical and mental abuse. I’ll be leaving out sexual as that has no bearing on this particular situation.

Physical abuse is defined by healthyplace.com as

Non-accidental use of force that results in bodily injury, pain, or impairment. This includes, but is not limited to, being slapped, burned, cut, bruised or improperly physically restrained.

Now lets expand on this.

Something that is pointed to specifically is the mentioned intent. “Non-accidental”. It must be purposeful harm.

Now, I will also point out that Physical abuse doesn’t necessarily say the intent needs to be abuse, but as my lawyer parents state it simply needs to be “intent to harm” and it gets labeled abuse. The legal definition (given above) agrees, it is simply that it needs to be purposeful harm. But then we need to define this harm, especially the bodily injury, pain, or impairment.

Bodily injury is defined by Merriam Webster as

any damage to a person's physical condition including pain or illness

Now what is damage?

loss or harm resulting from injury to person, property, or reputation

So then harm is defined as... damage, so the definition I prescribe to (and I asked my lawyer parents to confirm, unfortunately I have no link for that).

Causes pain (pain defined as suffering)

Pain is defined by Merriam Webster as

a localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease)

a basic bodily sensation that is induced by a noxious stimulus, is received by naked nerve endings, is associated with actual or potential tissue damage, is characterized by physical discomfort (such as pricking, throbbing, or aching), and typically leads to evasive action

mental or emotional distress or suffering

Finally impairment is

diminishment or loss of function or ability

(all of the above definitions except harm are pulled from Merriam Webster linked with Bodily Injury)

Okay, so now lets consider it, physical abuse needs to cause damage to someone, it must be purposeful damage though the intent to abuse does not necessarily need to be the intent. So if your actions do not intend physical harm then it is not physical abuse.

So then, do Percy and Annabeth have a physically abusive relationship?

Lets start with the classic one that everyone likes to bring up, the Judo Flip.

First off, do Judo Flips hurt? [sourcing (1) (2) (3)]

They CAN hurt if done with that intent, but if your intent is to not harm and you are trained properly, No Judo should not hurt. Anyone properly trained in Judo should know how to prevent harm. (1, 2)

On top of that, the first thing anyone learning Judo is taught is how to fall.

All judoka learn to fall safely, by rolling and breaking their fall with Ukemi. This breakfall absorbs the impact of the throw. (3)

Percy should have the basics of this down seeing how he was already in matches (mentioned in book one prior him being claimed) in his first summer at camp, after four years he’s definitely got the basics down.

Therefore, the Judo flip did not intend to cause harm, nor did it appear to. Despite that it was on stone, and Annabeth had him pinned, Percy didn’t even show discomfort. He laughed.

On top of that, when Annabeth last saw Percy he had the Curse of Achilles. As far as she was aware, he still had it. A requirement of Physical Abuse is the intent to cause harm, every factor here shows that there was no intent to cause harm.

This scene was not physical abuse, it was just bad writing.

I can think of other scenes, only a few, before they were actually in a relationship. In book three Annabeth punched Percy in the stomach when he didn’t catch her hint that he should ask her to dance

She punched me in the gut. ‘Me, Seaweed Brain.’

‘Oh. Oh, right.’ (TTC, chapter 1, page 8 of book on my copy)

There doesn’t seem to have been any harm done as he doesn’t even mention it hurting, not even a pause, just went “oh yeah her”. So it was likely a light punch, the kind friends do that don’t hurt just catch attention. Annabeth has been trained since she was 7, she should know how to throw a punch without actually causing harm.

If anyone wants to bring up other examples, feel free, I’m not combing the books right now for examples but I will reply to them (preferably in asks so this post doesn’t get super long...)

I cannot think of any examples of Percy hitting/punching Annabeth nor any other kind of physical interaction, if someone wishes to bring one of those up feel free.

Does this mean that I think they should be hitting each other despite the fact that it’s clear there is no intent to harm?

No, I don’t really think they should be hitting each other.

But! An important thing there is their own boundaries, not mine. I would not be up for being hit but I do share friendly punches with my friends, which is similar in intent. It’s simply that they’ve been trained to fight and have to a lot to survive so their boundaries for what is “harmful” are different.

But that’s a whole different issue and a different academic essay :)

I don’t believe there is any physical abuse in Percabeth.

Moving on, Emotional abuse (which Psychological and Verbal added as they all connect).

Emotional abuse is defined by helathyplace.com as

Any act including confinement, isolation, verbal assault, humiliation, intimidation, infantilization, or any other treatment which may diminish the sense of identity, dignity, and self-worth.

It also covers Psychological abuse and verbal abuse. Psychological abuse does not have a definition available on the site I’m using but it does have a description. If you’d like to read the description go (here). I will add a detail of how it works though

Psychological abuse signs and symptoms may start small at first as the abuser "tests the waters" to see what the other person will accept, but before long the psychological abuse builds into something that can be frightening and threatening.

Verbal abuse definition defined by healthyplace.com is

Any language or behavior that seeks to coerce its victim to doubt their perceptions or their abilities and subjugate themselves to the abuser.

So considering that, we note another important factor here, they also have intent involved. “Test the waters” and “seek to coerce” for Psychological and Verbal abuse.

Emotional abuse is different in that it does not specify intent, except every item mentioned is purposeful. If you’re confining someone then you’re doing that on purpose, you cannot easily accidentally do most of that. Those actions carry intent, even if the intent is not abuse.

Now then, is percabeth emotionally abusive?

Once again I’ll start with the big thing people point out, the Judo Flip.

I’ve seen it point out that it could be seen as humiliation.

Annabeth grabbed his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder. He slammed into the stone pavement. Romans cried out. Some surged forward, but Reyna shouted, “Hold! Stand down!”

Annabeth put her knee on Percy’s chest. She pushed her forearm against his throat. She didn’t care what the Romans thought. A white-hot lump of anger expanded in her chest—a tumor of worry and bitterness that she’d been carrying around since last autumn.

“If you ever leave me again,” she said, her eyes stinging, “I swear to all the gods—”

Percy had the nerve to laugh. Suddenly the lump of heated emotions melted inside Annabeth.

“Consider me warned,” Percy said. “I missed you, too.” (MOA, chapter 2, page 19 of my copy)

If you look at the scene itself you’ll see that Annabeth is very emotional right then, she just got her boyfriend back, she’s exhausted from months of worrying, she’s emotionally very strained, and she judo flips him as all her pain just fills her.

A lot of people with anxiety or high stress or similar issues have times when the anxiety doesn’t affect them during the time they’re stressed, but right after the stressors are gone.

It’s clear that’s what happened here, all her feelings that she’d been burying to work just filled her.

And Percy smiles up at her and says he missed her.

It’s clear from her own comment that she didn’t care what the Romans thought (said right after they almost attacked her) that her thoughts were not on how this looked for Percy, but for her. She knew it looked bad for her to attack him.

She wasn’t trying to embarrass or humiliate Percy, she was trying to get all that pain and stress and anger out. I don’t like how it was done, but it did not physically harm him (nor did she expect it to) and it clearly did not humiliate him.

He smiled and said he missed her.

He understood what she was going through, and made it clear he loved her.

I still think it was bad writing, but it’s not humiliation, nor is it emotional abuse.

Another thing I’ve seen pointed out is Annabeth’s nickname for Percy.

Seaweed Brain.

I will start this with a reminder that both of their nicknames for each other were originally meant as insults.

Wise Girl was first used by Clarisse and it clearly upset Annabeth, it is used twice by Clarisse actually.

Once in TLT, when she and Percy first meet, and once in SOM when they’re attacking Charybdis.

Percy in comparison uses Wise Girl twice as well, both in TLT, once when he was mocking her at her coming along on the quest and once when they were saying goodbye. It’s also used once in HOO, in BOO.

Honestly it’s not much a nickname... only used by Percy 3 times in all the (main) books. There are like 3 other cases in all the side stories and MCGA combined.

Annabeth uses seaweed brain a total of 41 times in all the books combined, in PJO it’s used 25 times, 22 by Annabeth, and HOO it’s used outloud 9 times, all by Annabeth. On top of this, while the PJO cases were all outloud, the HOO cases were not, with 2 (making the total 11) used only in Annabeth’s thoughts.

Seaweed brain is used in TLT 6 times, 5 times by Annabeth.

The first time is when Annabeth is joining the quest, then when he says things are going fine so far when they start the quest, then when at the Ride of Love, then when Annabeth calls him her friend, then when they’re saying goodbye.

If you watch the progression of it it’s the same as with Wise Girl, though used more often. It starts as an insult, and then becomes fond and a term for her friend by the end of it.

I don’t particularly want to label every single instance, but a quick overview of all the PJO books is that it’s used by Annabeth in annoyance a total of 4 times, in fondness/exasperation/worry 18 times. Those times of annoyance were all in books 1 and 2, the time of exasperation (1 of the 18) was in book 2.

The vast majority were done out of worry, and the rest when she was being soft.

It’s not meant to diminish his intelligence, nor is intended as an insult beyond book 1 and 1 instance of book 2. It is rarely used because he’s being ignorant either. You can make an argument for the first case in book 3 being done because he wasn’t catching her hint to dance and thus was mocking his inability to catch a hint, but it was mixed with fondness from my read.

Overall the nickname is not intended as an insult anymore, it has become a friendly name for Percy that shows how fond Annabeth is of him. She does not have nicknames for anyone else.

In HOO all the cases were relatively fond, with one that she didn’t say outloud being used when she was cheering Hazel up by telling stories about Percy (ah the benefits of long time friendships, you get to tell all the good stories).

In the end I think that it’s cute that they have a nickname for each other, and though there could be more flattering ones, the intent that Percy understands from it and the intent Annabeth uses it with clearly show that it is meant in fondness and was a gradual change from a name that was meant to poke at him. It’s meaning is is fond and loving and it was only used 3 times prior with any other (negative) intent.

Also friends give each other nicknames, and commonly they are meant to be teasing.

There is one other thing I’ve seen brought up, being Annabeth thinking that she needs to keep Percy on his toes (specifically about Rachel in this case) when they’re in Tartarus.

‘Rachel?’ Percy asked. ‘You mean our Rachel? Oracle of Delphi Rachel?’

‘That’s the one.’ Annabeth suppressed a smile.

Whenever she brought up Rachel’s name, Percy got nervous. At one point, Rachel had been interested in dating Percy. That was ancient history. Rachel and Annabeth were good friends now. But Annabeth didn’t mind making Percy a little uneasy. You had to keep your boyfriend on his toes. (HOH, didn’t bother to check chapter number, page 109 of my copy)

So here we see that Annabeth is “keeping him on his toes” but in context, they’re sending a note to Rachel through the Hermes temple in Tartarus. It was not Annabeth bringing it up to mess with him, it was her smiling at the little moment where he was thrown off about Rachel.

Frankly, in general Annabeth doesn’t do anything like that. She occasionally teases Percy but he always teases back. After the Rachel stuff in book 5 things were chill with all of them. We’ve seen no evidence of Percy being uncomfortable with Rachel being brought up, nor Annabeth thinking that it should be brought up for that purpose.

If anything Annabeth has shown some serious abandonment issues in fearing that Percy would leave her over other girls (she needs some therapy after that mess of a childhood but Khiron apparenlty doesn’t think so).

I see this as a case of bad writing with nothing else supporting it, including the scene it happens in.

Even had it actually been something supported by other instances, in the context she says it in it seems more like teasing over an ex where the break was amicable and everyone is still friends, which isn’t abusive or manipulative.

It’s just that Rick is tasteless.

So is Percabeth emotionally/psychologically/verbally abusive? No.

If someone wishes to bring up other instances shoot me an ask.

So in conclusion,

I do not see how it is abusive. There are elements I do not like, and some parts that in my own relationship I wouldn’t be okay with. But in Percy and Annabeth’s relationship they have clear boundaries, they are both more than capable of stopping the other if they do something that upsets them. They have both shown fondness towards the others actions even if it is something that we don’t approve of in our relationships.

If Percy showed upset at her actions that would be different. But we literally see into his mind and he shows no upset at her words or actions. He is fond, he is understanding, and he responds to each instance of teasing with teasing of his own.

Notably I never see people saying Percy is abusive, only Annabeth.

I get a feel that people ask for flawed characters then crucify them if they’re not flawed in easily likeable ways. Annabeth is not a perfect character, I don’t like everything she does, but she is a realistic character and should not be demonized.

TDLR: Annabeth has never purposefully harmed Percy, and Percy has never purposefully harmed her. Neither have verbally/emotionally/psychological taken actions with the intent of harming the other when in their relationship or since becoming friends. There have been instances of upsetting the other but they talked and it clearly was not meant to hurt the other but because they themselves were hurting

Percabeth is not abusive

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becomewings · 4 years ago

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The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’M FINE>

BTS Universe Story Highlights, pt. 1 / 4

» pt. 2

Introduction

BTS Universe Story, a mobile game published by Netmarble, was released on September 24, 2020. While the majority of the app is essentially a sandbox and engine for users to create their own interactive stories, it also includes official and canon BU content. The first eight segments were introduced between the release date and December 2020, gathered under the title The Most Beautiful Moment in Life <I’M FINE>.

“I’m Fine” is half of the I’m Fine/Save Me ambigram introduced in the Love Yourself era. Notably, all of the BU content available in the game so far falls between events of the webtoon Save Me (also called HYYH0 in its logo) and The Notes 1—chronologically, that is, while bearing in mind that time resets to the morning of 11 April Year 22 whenever SeokJin fails to avert a tragedy among his six friends. I want to assure anyone who is unable to play the game that you are not missing any new, major plot beats from the overall BU narrative. Instead, the stories provide more insight into the motivations and consequences of SeokJin’s decisions in the earlier time loops, as well as more depth to individual characters and their circumstances.

The goal of this guide is to summarize each of the eight stories and highlight noteworthy details, especially if they are not yet present in other BU media. Within each story (which I often refer to as an arc, due to their character-focused nature), episodes must be played successively, but the stories themselves can be played in any order. I will present them over a series of posts in the order they are listed under the <I’M FINE> heading. The Prologue and NamJoon’s arc are free to play; the rest are paid content. Please note that due to the app’s Terms & Conditions, I will not include in-game footage here. The images in this guide are sourced from the official trailers/videos and the live action MVs as appropriate.

Content warning: contains references to death, suicide, suicidal ideation, child abuse, domestic violence, blood, homicide, depression, trauma, PTSD

This guide contains major spoilers and includes references to other BU media

Do not repost, copy, or quote without permission

Game Mechanic

Before diving into the summaries, I would like to address the primary mechanic of the game: the user’s control of character choices at designated moments in the stories. It’s a primary marketing point that the player can influence the progression of the narrative, with a frequent in-app tip also declaring, “stories’ endings can vary depending on your choices.” The latter is not strictly true—and it cannot be true due to the structure of the game. Choices are presented within most (not all) episodes, but each episode is an isolated unit: episode 2 provides the same content regardless of what you choose in episode 1. Since the consequences of your decisions are not cumulative, each episode reaches the same ending, and each decision inevitably rejoins the “main” story path (effectively reducing the script size).

So what is the point of this mechanic? While the system is not nearly as complex as what major platform titles are capable of nowadays (I suspect due in large part to the story creation portion of the game), it does foster a sense of interaction with the narrative that isn’t present in static visual media like comics or film. The episodes with choices also have incentive for replay to discover the impact of changing a character’s dialogue or action. Sometimes the differences between the outcomes are inconsequential, but other times you unearth new details, interactions, or memories that are missing in the other path.

I say this partially in reaction to all of the comments and tweets I read for the game trailers and even Smeraldo Book twitter’s choose-your-own-adventure style teasers with The Notes 2 excerpts released last summer. Many users expressed excitement, through words or memes, about finally being able to give the boys the happy ending they deserved. I don’t fault anyone for wanting that happy ending—I wish for it, too. But no matter what the rather overzealous marketing has claimed, I don’t believe that the canon ending of BU is ever meant to be in the audience’s control. But I do feel that this mechanism fits the BU narrative. It echoes the “countless loops” SeokJin has experienced in an effort to save his friends, the choices he must make at every crossroad, and the butterfly effect those actions have on all of their lives. I think it is reasonable to interpret the simple branching paths in the game as alternatives SeokJin has explored across multiple loops in his struggle to find the “right” way forward. I’d love to hear if you have theories of your own!

Prologue

The prologue is a brief episode introducing SeokJin’s repeated struggle and failure to save his friends. He wakes up yet again in his bed on 11 April Year 22, the beginning of the time loop. After reflecting on the tragedies that keep befalling the others, SeokJin realizes that he has only tried to fix the problems he can see. He wonders: “Have I tried to understand the root of my friends’ misfortunes? How much do I really know about my friends? Maybe I was never brave enough to confront their real scars and the worlds they’ve been living in. But I need to do it. Because it may be the key to saving them all.”

How to Offer a Hand

In this story, SeokJin attempts to prevent NamJoon’s arrest after he gets in a fight with a rude customer at Naeri Gas Station, his place of work. The first episode opens on the night of 11 April Year 22 with NamJoon curling his fists, glaring as crumpled bills lie untouched on the pavement. (The money looks similar to the shot from the I Need U MV.) SeokJin reaches for his shoulder, but NamJoon shrugs him off and strides away to punch the customer who deliberately dropped the bills for him to pick up. The gas station owner runs over at the customer’s furious shouts and orders NamJoon to apologize. He refuses, and police officers soon arrive and charge him with assault. No one listens to SeokJin’s protests that the customer started it first. The man sneers as NamJoon enters the police car. “Do you even have money for a settlement? Hey, you’re done for.” NamJoon is sentenced to prison again, and SeokJin hears glass shattering before the loop resets.

Rising from his bed on the morning of 11 April, SeokJin reflects on his failed efforts so far. He has hit the customer’s car, called for NamJoon in the middle of the incident, and stopped the fight himself, the latter of which caused his friends to avoid him later. The fight has even escalated; the details are unspecified, but the audience is provided an ominous shot of SeokJin speaking to a police officer alone at the scene. NamJoon is not the kind of person who would normally respond to that kind of provocation with his fists. SeokJin realizes that he cannot merely stop the fight but must discover and fix the true cause of it.

With this in mind, SeokJin heads to Naeri Gas Station during the day and tries to engage NamJoon. This is their first time meeting since they both returned to Songju, although SeokJin has experienced it in many loops already. “It’s been a while,” he greets (as he does at the end of the Blood Sweat & Tears Japanese version MV). Before SeokJin can dig deeper in their conversation, NamJoon is called away by his boss. SeokJin enters the small employee break room which serves as NamJoon’s living space when he’s not at the container, hoping to find some clues about his friend’s life. SeokJin locates something bundled in newspapers. If the player chooses to open it, he sees a strange shard of glass inside that may belong to a car or motorcycle headlight. He continues on, finding the book Cosmos by Carl Sagan and a notebook. SeokJin hesitates over the invasion of privacy but decides to read it since he needs all the information that he can gather. The journal entries detail NamJoon’s daily life since returning to Songju: his work at the gas station isn’t too bad despite the occasional rude customer; he purchased a book and hopes to get more in the future; he picked up a second job at a wedding hall to help catch up on bills; his brother NamHyeon got in trouble again, leading to more expenses; and his dad’s health has worsened, with hospital bills after an emergency surgery rising to levels that the family cannot afford. SeokJin knew that NamJoon was the de facto head of household due to his father’s illness but was unaware that it was to this degree. He feels sorry for NamJoon yet is also impressed by his maturity, for NamJoon never writes how difficult his situation is.

NamJoon arrives and asks what SeokJin is doing in the room. If the player chooses to answer “reading” instead of “just sitting there,” SeokJin privately observes that the conversation flows more easily when they talk about books. NamJoon says he must leave and declines when SeokJin offers to wait for him there. SeokJin knocks over a pile of books along with money and receipts as he stands. He thinks it is unusual that NamJoon picks up the books before the money. The books seem to be more than a hobby to NamJoon, holding special meaning. Walking to his car, SeokJin wonders if it is pride or determination not to falter that keeps NamJoon from journaling his grievances. He realizes that money is a constant source of frustration and misery to NamJoon, and that’s why he can’t stomach being insulted over the customer’s dropped money. SeokJin’s new plan is to prevent NamJoon from picking up the money. He also calls Palgok County Hospital and offers to pay the patient bill for NamJoon’s father. Anticipating that NamJoon will be angry if he finds out, SeokJin says the payer is Songho Foundation.

That night, SeokJin returns to the gas station with the excuse that he forgot to fill up earlier. The luxury car arrives with a honk, and NamJoon hurries over to assist. He shakes with anger when the customer drops the money on the ground. “Why aren’t you picking it up? You don’t want it? What’s with that look? Pretty arrogant for a part-timer, aren’t you?” goads the customer. SeokJin intervenes. Whether the player chooses to have him advise NamJoon not to pick it up or to order the customer to pick it up himself, the end result is the same. SeokJin asks the customer, “Why are you harassing a pitiful part-timer?” The customer drives away, and something about NamJoon seems off. His face is expressionless, not mad or humiliated. “SeokJin, you…” He stops. “Never mind. Thank you for your help.” The words sound difficult for him to speak.

SeokJin believes that he has saved NamJoon, although this ending feels sloppy. He continues on in the loop to rescue JungKook and later YoonGi, but uneasiness plagues him. Though he meant to help NamJoon with his actions, SeokJin wonders if he hurt him instead. On 5 May Year 22, he returns to the gas station and follows NamJoon when he leaves work early. NamJoon enters a bookstore, and SeokJin sneaks in after him to watch from afar. He overhears employees talking about NamJoon, worrying that he might dirty the pages of the book he’s perusing. NamJoon is too absorbed in the book to notice one of them calling for his attention. SeokJin recalls a memory from their school days when he found NamJoon reading alone in their classroom hideout: he asked why NamJoon read so diligently, and his friend explained that he found it comforting to empty his thoughts of everything else while focused on the book. In the present, SeokJin wonders how he forgot how much books mean to NamJoon. He sacrifices some of his food and transportation budget to afford them, but they enable him “to endure the weight of the world he’s forced to bear on his shoulders.” After realizing this, SeokJin wants to apologize for carelessly sympathizing with the reality that NamJoon has weathered alone.

The next episode is from NamJoon’s perspective, revealing his excitement over being able to purchase a book for the first time in two months. He wants to buy two but can only afford one. The employee at the register sighs and asks why he leafed through a book he wasn’t going to buy. NamJoon apologizes, and she mutters, “So dirty.” He notices his reflection, clothes worn and smelling of gasoline, and realizes she’s talking about him, not the book. He tries to shake off these depressing thoughts, but he is still not accustomed to this treatment despite experiencing it regularly at work. As NamJoon begins to exit the store, the security alarm goes off. The employees demand to check his bag despite his insistence that he didn’t steal anything. Their certainty of his theft angers him. NamJoon allows them to look through his bag, and they are suspicious of the like-new book in it which he brought from home. One begins to call the police until SeokJin appears, vouching for NamJoon by saying he saw everything. The employees accept that the alarm malfunctioned and excuse their suspicions as a mistake.

Outside, SeokJin asks NamJoon if he is all right. NamJoon is thankful but wonders how SeokJin materialized right when he needed him. “How’d you find me here?” he asks aloud. SeokJin explains that he happened to notice him while walking through the neighborhood. NamJoon wonders if it’s because they said goodbye on a weird note last time. He thanks him and turns to leave. SeokJin calls after him. “I’m sorry. I wanted to apologize. I didn’t mean to upset you that day at the gas station. It was a mistake to have called you pitiful. If my rash actions hurt you, I’m really sorry.” NamJoon accepts his apology, believing it to be sincere, and says that things would have turned out a lot worse if SeokJin had not intervened. Thunder rolls overhead, and NamJoon uses the impending rain as his excuse to depart. He declines SeokJin’s offer of a ride and runs home, feeling his friend’s eyes on him.

Before he can settle down to read at home, NamJoon receives a call from his cheerful mother. She thanks him for paying off the entire hospital bill. NamJoon is perplexed and asks what’s on the receipt, since he didn’t pay it. His mother wants to leave it be, but he insists that they investigate so they don’t get in trouble or sued. She reads that the Songho Foundation is credited as the payer. NamJoon calls the hospital, introducing himself as the guardian for Kim YoungMin, but they can’t transfer him to the administrative department at this time. Disappointed, he looks up the foundation’s website, unable to recall why it sounds familiar. He wonders why a scholarship foundation in the city would get involved with him. Spotting photos of a recent launch ceremony on the site, he recognizes a few people: Songju High School’s principal, the familiar-looking face of the foundation’s chairman, and SeokJin. First, NamJoon forces a laugh, and then it’s difficult for him to breathe. He thinks that SeokJin really had pitied him at that moment. The only thing keeping NamJoon going is the idea of getting through life on his own strength. Why does he have to live like this?

The last episode opens on 5 May back in SeokJin’s perspective. He is confident now that he has saved NamJoon, although it occurs to him that a better alternative may have been to simply pick up the money himself instead of stepping forward. (This decision is enacted in a later loop and depicted in the Euphoria MV.) While reflecting on what comes next to save his other friends, he receives a text from NamJoon. “What’s your account number? I’ll pay you back for the hospital bills. I don’t need your help. I’ll handle my concerns on my own.” Heart sinking, SeokJin wonders how he found out. With a sense of foreboding, he tries calling NamJoon, but no one answers. SeokJin texts him back, pretending that he doesn’t understand, and tells NamJoon to call him. SeokJin’s second attempt connects while he’s gathering his car keys to visit the container. “That’s enough. Just send the account number over text,” NamJoon instructs. SeokJin coaxes him to talk for a moment, and NamJoon asks flatly, “Are you going to apologize again?” SeokJin attempts to salvage the situation, but his friend turns cold when he insists that NamJoon is misunderstanding and that he just wanted to help. “So, why? Why are you helping me?! Yeah, you’re always a good person. You’ve done nothing wrong and I’m the one misunderstanding.” SeokJin apologizes again. NamJoon refuses his request to meet in person. “No, I thought maybe there was a reason for everything you did… But I guess I misconstrued it. I’ll pay you back, so I’d prefer if you stopped contacting me.” Long after the call ends, SeokJin stands holding his phone, feeling that the glass is going to break at any moment. He wants to believe that it’s not over, but hope is slipping through his fingertips.

The episode finishes in NamJoon’s perspective. On 8 May and 9 May, he accepts part-time delivery work and reflects on his three jobs. Whenever he thinks he’s at his breaking point, he focuses on his new goal of returning SeokJin’s money. On 10 May, NamJoon wakes up to his buzzing phone and is called in to work. On a scooter, he passes by a bus stop and notices graffiti. (This is the same bus stop, with matching graffiti, that appears in the Highlight Reel.) Mesmerized, he wonders if it’s TaeHyung’s. As soon as NamJoon looks up, the scooter’s brake fails, and he crashes. The shattered glass on the cold pavement reminds him of the headlight shard and the kid who looked like TaeHyung. (So the piece of glass SeokJin saw in April was really a memento NamJoon retrieved from the scene of the crash in the mountain town, where the delivery boy whom he privately called TaeHyung died. This event is described in NamJoon’s 17 December Year 21 entry in The Notes 1.) NamJoon’s vision grows blurry, and the distant sound of an ambulance doesn’t come any closer.

The arc concludes there, but it obviously marks another reset for SeokJin. It is interesting to note that in this failed loop, NamJoon suffers the same fate that he narrowly avoided in the snowy mountain town before returning to Songju.

Please stay tuned for the next Highlights post featuring JungKook and YoonGi!

#armiesnet #networkbangtan #bangtanarmynet #armysource #dailybangtan #bts universe #hyyh #bangtan universe #bts universe story #bts universe story highlights #seokjin #namjoon #namjin #bts theories

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tuagonia · 3 years ago

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sunflower - mason x f!detective

pairing: mason x f!detective (mia garcia)

Summary: mason thinks about mia at the town’s florist.

rating: T

warning: i think there's like...one swear word.

word count: ~1.7k

note: lol ok since i flopped at getting mason x mia done for the hotwayhaven event.... i have been waiting to write this for a while and the amazing event organisers at @wayhavensummer finally gave me the excuse I was waiting for to fully indulge in this. thanks for hosting and putting in all the great work!! This is for Aug. 18 - Flowers.

They remind him of her.

Large and dangling free from her ears; brightly painted papier-mâché “monstrosities”.

That’s the word he’d used to describe them, making no effort to mask his distaste.

Instead, Mia smiled widely in response, reaching up to touch one at its faux-stalks. It stopped that distracting swing, back and forth with every slight movement of her head. Chuckling, and pride lifting her cheery tone, she told Mason she made them herself.

Lemony-yellow, mossy-green, the burnt-chestnut centre.

All crammed together outside of the tiny flower shop. Dozens upon dozens of them staring back at him; yellower under the blaze of the mid-August sun.

A makeshift sign stuffed among the mass of summer-ripe bouquets reads: “TOP QUALITY. Giant Sunnys £14 per bunch”.

Mason is just looking.

He tells himself there’s no harm in just looking.

And anyway, they’re hard to miss under the hot sun. It’s not his fault they’re in the way of his usual patrol route. Quite literally.

Bundles and bundles of large sunflowers, taking up the pavement. Usually, grey and cracked, now overrun with the sight of them. The florist’s quaint store looks like a child’s plaything next to the dramatic assortment.

He has to blink, thinking the sunshine and its heat has started playing tricks on him. It’s almost as if they multiply; little suns with their earthly centres, drawing him closer.

From the moment he rounded the corner to the main square, he never stood a chance against the brilliance of them.

Mason should have kept moving. He doesn’t have time for this— to stop mid-patrol, to idle in front of flowers.

But they remind him of her.

Not just of the — and his lip curls at the memory — weird handmade jewellery.

(A set for every occasion.

Cakes and candles for colleagues’ birthdays, candy canes for Christmas, glittery hearts the size of her fists for Valentine’s Day. Tiny pieces of reflective plastic shedding onto her delicate neck).

They remind him of the sunshiney smiles. The ones she so easily tosses his way, like they’re never any work, like they could never go to waste. Always patient, always bright, always...happy.

And as he glares down at them, he realises they don’t offend him. The observation renders him sceptical, partly convincing himself he’s stopped to figure out why he hasn’t felt repulsed at the overwhelming powdery aroma.

It’s not floral. No. Instead, it reminds him of...reminds him of… Mason racks his brain and frowns accusingly at the vivid flowers opened up at him.

Mason reaches for one, fingers wrapping around its surprisingly sturdy stalk.

He’s still just looking. He just— he just needs to get a closer whiff to figure this out.

Honey. That’s what it is.

Mason’s frown deepens at the realisation. His grip on the flower shifts, the skin of his palm uncomfortable against the fuzzy stem.

Bright and honey-sweet.

(There’s that memory of her kiss, soft and saccharine as powdered-sugar; should make his teeth hurt.)

The crown of gold petals distracts him, fills him with a warm something that he’s more desperate than annoyed to figure out. He can’t place it, can’t place it, can’t place it— wants to know it.

Maybe it’s the frustration of chasing after the unnamable thing that makes him forget the purpose of stopping, the reason why he plucked the flower to begin with.

...so distracted he doesn't hear when the round-cheeked vendor pops their head outside of the shop, all smiles that he feels nothing for (not her like smiles, though. Nothing like her smiles).

They mention the weather and ask if they can be of any help, but Mason’s attention slides back to the sunflower in his fist. But he shakes his head, unconvincingly but he’ll never know.

It’s the heat, he thinks. The arse-end of nowhere town at the tail-end of an unforgiving heatwave.

But just as he’s about to slot the stalk back into its bucket, the vendor stops him— shaking their head emphatically, their grin growing by the second. They sweep of their hands in a take it, take it, please motion, and send Mason off. They shoot him wink from overly-kind eyes.

Like they might be in on some big secret, and Mason will be the last in this entire godforsaken town to know.

There’s no harm in taking the flower, Mason insists, staring down into its dark-brown centre.

He’ll hold onto it until he can find the next rubbish bin, and in the mean time he’ll try not to think about how it reminds him of the dusting of dark freckles across her nose.

(He gets it now. He gets it when he’s with Mia.

He understands — finally — why everyone before her kissed his freckles like they wanted to taste the stars.

Her galaxies, his constellations. Every time they meet, Mason expects a seismic shift to take them asunder.)

His usual strides have shortened, his pace slower than normal, his senses overwhelmed by the true yellow of its petals.

For a moment, Mason forgets all about the patrol and just...walks.

It’s a quiet and lazy summer day. The sun (high and hot) urges residents to stay in the shade, seeks refuge in cool indoors. The streets are empty. Sleepy. So, he takes his time, the crease on his brow deepening with every side street he takes.

It’s hot inside his boots. That’s the only reason he’s leaning against her tin can of a car, outside of the station, holding this ostentatiously large flower.

A quick detour for some shade. That’s all it is. And when there’s a whisper of a breeze, rustling the leaves of the tree above him and the little crown of petals in his hand, it’s all the more cooler.

Mason can hear her colleagues moving in and out of the station, but pays them no mind as time moves on, still staring down at the flower in his grip. It’s far too large to twirl it with sturdy fingers, forcing him to keep studying it and wondering what exactly about it brings Mia to mind.

Lively, but not intense.

(Her laugh, he guesses. Loud and clear, broken up by giggles. The sound of it never jarring.)

A drop of sunlight, buried underground. Persists and blossoms through cracked earth.

(Her kindness, he ascertains. Not to be mistaken for weakness. As easy as she can dole-out radiant smiles, her sharp tongue can just as quickly follow.)

...like he’s been holding a piece of her this entire time.

The taut pull at his cheeks is foreign, and he lets the corners of his mouth drop.

Pointless because Mason hears a familiar drumming, a quick skip he’s grown used to over the last years.

He looks up just in time to watch Mia push through the station’s glass doors. At the top of the steps, she stops to survey the car park, and he feels a flutter in his chest when he realises those brown eyes are searching for him. He confirms it when her gaze lands on him and...that smile (the beating inside his chest is ten-fold) breaks out across her face.

She shields her face with a hand, squinting against the harsh glare of sun bouncing off windshields. With easy, unhurried steps she walks towards him and he drinks in the sight of her.

That scratchy yellow cardigan that’s become synonymous with Detective Garcia is nowhere to be seen. Probably thrown over the back of her office chair and forgotten, along with whatever work she’s been putting off all afternoon.

Dark curls scooped up and away from her neck, gives Mason a great view to the line of her throat and down her naked shoulders. A sage strappy shirt stretches down her small frame, trying its best to keep her cool in the heat...reminds him of the stalk in his hand.

He tenses.

Mia’s eyes flicker to the sunflower he’s holding and her smile (fuck, that smile will be the end of him) grows and grows.

All teeth (white, and...harmless with the dull edges) and she gives an airy chuckle.

“That for me?” she asks with one eyebrow lifting into a curly fringe.

Pushing off the car, Mason musters up his best grimace and fights back the fear fighting its way up his spine. He doesn’t understand it, doesn’t know why fear is the first thing that possesses him when she stands this close and gestures to the flower with a tilt of her head.

Before he can respond, before he can let his tongue and fear get the better of him— Mia makes for the sunflower in his grip.

Fear tells him this should be a mistake. This memory must be a mistake; one that he’s sure will be the only one to matter in a dizzying spiral of time: Mia smiling down at this sunflower.

The leaves rustle again, and sunlight filters through, dappling the deep brown of her hair.

She makes it easy, never has to wrestle with the feeling for too long before she distracts him. If it’s not a quip, it’ll be an expression that should not be equal parts funny or cute. Spears Mason somewhere deep, somewhere he doesn’t think he’s touched before— doesn’t know if it could ever be before her.

Mia speaks to the flower, a lone fingertip running over its petals. “It’s very pretty.”

Mason watches her stroke the large leaf at the stalk, leaning in nose-first to catch its scent at the centre, eyes fluttering shut. Dark lashes meet her cheeks, and he follows the line of her freckles (darker in the summertime).

He wants to take his time here too, with the same pace as he did those side streets (seeing parts of Wayhaven he would have never traversed without coaxing).

“Yeah…” his voice is rough and unused, studying as she looks up at the way the branches move above them. Sunlight casting down on her, and that easy smile fixed on her lips. “Very pretty.”

#not proof-read we die like men or w/e #wayhaven summer #rbs whs #twc mason #twc m #the wayhaven chronicles #twc #mason x mia: cigarette with my tea #queue but said like moira rose #tuagonia writes twc

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kusagrasskusa · 4 years ago

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Kabuto and Adoptive Reader - "Shihaikigo"

Part 1, possible a part 2 (will be linked if it comes out)

Summer: Kabuto had been walking home from a fight and met a little girl there. She had a special kekkei genkai called a Shihaikigo, meaning "controlling marks," which contained the ability to control half the mind of an opposer. She's willingly taken to the Sound Village after she began to trust Kabuto and there she met Orochimaru. She would either be sent to another Sound Villager to be raised or stay under Orochimaru's watchful eye until her kekkei genkai gets stronger. If Kabuto were to aid Y/N in life and to raise her, he could be killed in order to break down Y/N. She's very distrustful in a lot of people but Kabuto since they met. Her kekkei genkai is something that is strong enough to rival a Sharingan or Byakugan so Orochimaru plans to use to for himself one day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Laying there, on the sidewalk on a rainy night, helpless was a child with long, messy, hair and a soaked light-grey dress with red stains. She had no shoes, no home, no comfort, and nobody. She was essentially useless; helpless in this dark, cruel, magical world full of demons, heros, and killers. No matter where she searched for any kind of sanctuary or light, there was nothing. She was left with no motivation or thing to hold on to as right inside the very woods that surrounded the village she is in, was a clan hidden deep within. In this clan was very few powerful, but nonetheless meaningful and strong.

They managed to survive alone and strongly for centuries since their beginnings, as their kekkei genkai is the ability to control 25%-50% some signals heading towards someone's brain, which can therefore nearly control their actions and thoughts and feelings. Of course, such power comes with restrictions. The hair of the people in the clan is very sacred; although it could be cut, it limits the ability for them to use their kekkei genkai forever, even when the hair regrows. If their power is overused, they will be become sick and possibly will be paralyzed, mentally unstable, and others even among death.

This power is stores within three marks on the person's body; it doesn't matter where they are as long as it's on the head, neck, palm, or shoulders. The mark travels between the brain and fingertips, and the user then has to touch their opponent with their fingertips in order for their power to be in use. As mentioned, it has a limit so typically the user's kill is fast and clean. For it's dark advantages and evil disadvantages, this power is represented with horns and a halo;

This clan was feared quite a lot for it's abilities, and most people are raised to never use their abilities as it could be dangerous. But some people would use it on accident as it was surprisingly much easier to use than thought. And it was a certain child's accidental use of that power that caused her to be so helpless on the pavement of Konoha on a dark, wet night. It was empty and alone on these streets aside from the sound of slow footsteps immersing from the left side of her.

The six year old girl barely turned her head to the person walking passed her; he didn't even seem to notice her. But upon seeing his silver hair, a sparkle appeared in her eyes; it was too foggy to even notice the difference between this snake and the ninja she thinks he is.

"Kakashi, is that you?" Ahe asked weakly, slowly standing up. She pulled her arms to her chest, shaking as the cold rain began to rain down harder. The man in front of her stopped, paused for a moment, then slowly turned around k face her. "Oh...I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else." The girl's look returned to hopeless as she hung her head low.

"Why are you out here all alone at night? Where are your parents?" He asked emotionless as he pushed his glasses up, eyeing the helpless girl. The girl was silent for a moment before whimpering a little. Then all at once, she broke into tears and collapsed onto the concrete floor beneath her. The man stared at her hopeless form for a minute, watching her cry and whimper before he finally crouched down besides her. He pet her back before sliding his hand up under her chin, moving her head up so he could see her clearly.

"You are part of the L/N Clan, aren't you? You possess the Shihaikigo kekkei genkai, do you not? I can see marks on your skin." The silverhead asked, cockkng his head to the side. The little girl sniffed as she wiped away her fallen tears, her lip quivering as she nodded. After a moment, he hummed. "Why is there blood on your dress?" He asked as he wiped away her tears.

"I didn't mean to," she whimpered out. "It was an accident..." And just from that, Kabuto understood. The blood was from her parents; she accidentally killed them. He smirked lightly upon seeing her fragile body break down once more, but this time she lunged towards him and wrapped her small arms around him and clenched his clothes tightly. She cried into his chest as Kabuto brushed his fingers through her chair.

"It hurts, doesn't it? To have lost everything you had ever cared for just like that. And you fear the people around you will hate you; hurt you emotionally snd physically; kill you. It's truly frightening. Such a shame someone so oung has to endure such a thing, hmm?" He asked as he pat her back. She remained in her broken state, his more quiet and listening closely to him. "However, what if I told you there was a way to make these problems disappear? I know people who will except you and love you and raise you for who you are."

Y/N pulled away, her small hands wiping away her tears once more. "But...but...killers don't deserve happiness," she breathed out softly. Kabuto clicked his tongue, shaking his head.

"I think you'll find that everyone deserves happiness. Except," he paused, gritting his teeth as a wider smile appeared over his face. "Excpet those who try to take it from you because they have no idea what you've been through. Selfish people like that will never deserve happiness." Y/N pure yet terrified E/C eyes stared deep into his; she was so young, so naive and so gullible.

"I, for one, believe you deserve happiness. You're a little girl who made a mistake. That's all," he spoke, looking down at her with such manipulation in his eyes. "You deserve a good home with a warm bed for you and nice food. You deserve good parents and most of all, happiness. Don't you want that?" Y/N slowly nodded her head, never breaking her gaze into his eyes. She was so helpless that it was sickening for Kabuto to pry on such a little girl and obviously only for her kekkei genkai.

Y/N sniffed, sighing a shakey breath before replying. "Thank you...so, so much, suh-sir. I really do want things to go back to normal," she replied. She wrapped her arms around him again and sobbed away her last tears in his chest as he held her close. He was patient with her but the heavy rain and fog was making it very hard to see through his glasses. Suddenly, he burst out in a little laugh.

"How rude of me to offer this before I even introduced myself. My name is Kabuto Yakushi. What is your's?"

"My, my name? It's Y/N L/N," she mumbled as she pulled away from him for the last time. "I just really, really, want things to go back to normal. Please, take somewhere safe, please," she begged. Kabuto softly wrapped his larger hands around her waist and picked her up while standing up straight as well. He held her close smiling softly at her with closed eyes and a tilted head. Y/N smiled back at him and giggled for the first time in a while.

He than began his walk to his original path with Y/N in his arms. Along the long walk, he would ask a question about her age, clothing type, school life and grades, hobbies and other things, and he'd give his own answer as well. Anything to get to know each other. Puddles splashed with each step he took and the clouds seem to just get darker and darker. But luckily, about 30 minutes later, it all came to a stop once Kabuto had arrived to his destination: the hideout of Orochimaru or Otogakure.

"Stay here for a little please, Miss Y/N," Kabuto spoke lightly as he walked inside the underground home. "I must go talk to someone right now, but I'll be back with a surprise," he smiled at her as he left her by the entrance doors. She waved goodbye to him as a large smile remained on her face as she was happy to finally by out of the rain. Kabuto's face dropped as he walked to Orochimaru's room in order to discuss Y/N to him. On his way, what played in his mind was the conversation he had with her on his way here.

Such a young girl was capable of such intelligent responses and detailed storytelling. She may have stuttered here and there but overall she was very consistent and concise. She reminded him a lot of himself as he was willing to abandon his orphanage and family to make them live a better life out of fear for their lives. Y/N attacked her parents for nearly harming a few civilians out of thr goodness of her heart. The situations may have been different but deep down, his heart was just as pure as her's at one point in time.

"A member of the L/N clan, you say? My, my Kabuto, you found quite the prize," Orochimaru smiled darkly as he finished hearing the word of his pawn's finding. "Is she capable of using the Shihaikigo?"

"Yes. In fact, she ran away from her clan because she ended a life with it despite her young age," he explained with a dark smile on his face. "She has a very intelligent mind as well."

Orochimaru laughs were hushed as he considered his moves with the girl. "Perhaps after Kimimaro could be her, don't you think? After all, her kekkei genkai is worth as much as a Byakugan or Sharingan; what good is simply seeing chakra when you could control it? A power like that must be harnessed," he thought out loud. "How about this... A girl of her age can't comprehend what it's like to have a meaning or worth and what giving up her life for another would mean. We will raise her to be desensitized to any evil she sees before we break the truth to her."

Kabuto nodded, "Understood, Lord Orochimaru."

"Well, don't just stand there. I'd love to meet the child," he laughed as he looked Kabuto in the eye again, his smirk growing. Kabuto obeyed and walked out, returning again later with a soaked little girl by his side. She was so happy when she heard she could meet the one who would make her dreams come true, only to be met with fear when she saw the pale snake-like man himself. Her smile dropped and she started to shake; Y/N hid behind his leg, staring at the creature with fear in her eyes.

"Y/N, dear, you can't always judge a book by its cover. This man is Lord Orochimaru; it would be wise to-"

"Come now, Kabuto, this reaction is understandable really." The snake stared down at the little girl with interest glimmering in his dead eyes. He then extended his hand towards the little girl crouching down before her. "Give me your hand, darling. I don't bite, I promise," he laughed. Y/N's lip quivered as she looked up at Kabuto. He had an encouraging smile on his face that told her everything would be alright. That's all the validation she needed before reaching out to take Orochimaru's hand and have him pull her closer.

He held her chin and examined the three marks along her body (you choose where they are :)) before laughing once again. "You're kind is so incredible. That even a child managed to murder with it. Yes, truly incredible." Y/N's eyes widened with fear and she started to freak out even more.

"Mister Oro...Orochimaru, I don't understand," she mumbled fearfully. Orochimaru brushed his fingers over one of her marks and then stood up, patting her head.

"You'll understand one day, child. I promise you," he said as he looked at Kabuto. "Do you wish to help raise her or have other ninja do it?"

"I want to stay with Kabuto, Mister Orochimaru," the little girl called out. Kabuto's dark eyes looked down at her small form. He felt helpless against the adorable voice of the girl and sighed out loudly. She turned to Kabuto and took his hand, hugging it possessively. "Please don't leave me! I just met you and you're the only friend I got now! Please, Kabuto, I'll be good, I swear!" Orochimaru raised a brow, laughing.

"You are good with children, I see. Good. If you wish to take her, I'm sure you would have no problem finding food and clothes for her, right?" Kabuto crouched down by Y/N, her still hugging his hand, and chuckled before booping her nose. He could guess that Orochimaru may kill him in order to destroy her and use her in the future, but for right now, a little more time with the girl wouldn't hurt. After all, it had been quite a while since he had been near a child. In the back of his mind was always the home he grew up in and forever, he will miss it. If being around a single happy child will make him feel more at home, so be it.

The thing is, Kabuto doesn't care about Y/N enough to care about raising her; after all, Orochimaru may kill him. However the idea of having a piece of his past that was taken frkm him back meant a lot to him. So why throw it away? And the thing tipping the scale towards possible death was Y/N's adorable big E/C eyes and cute voice, just like some of the girls in his old home. Plus how she can expirence what it's like to be parentless and be able to relate to him kn a deep level.

"Alright, I made up my mind," Kabuto spoke.

"Kabuto, please," Y/N spoke, her dry eyes swelling up with tears again. "I want to stay with you." Orochimaru smiled at Kabuto patiently, awaiting an answer.

"I'll take her in. It's best to keep a watchful eye under such a kekkei genkai, isn't it?" He asked rhetorically. Y/N gasped loudly before smiling widely and hugging him so tightly.

"Thank you! I promise you woke regret it, haha!" Kabuto frowned, patting the top of her head.

"Let's get you cleaned up before we sleep, Y/N. While you bathe, I'll find clothes for you, okay?" He asked as he pulled away from her hug. Y/N smiled happily as she nodded grabbing his hand before desending out if the room with Kabuto. Orochimaru stayed behind, watching closely, laughing under his breath about how innocent she is and what his plans for her will be.

It had been an hour later when the two of them were ready to go to sleep. After all, although it wasn't mentioned earlier, Kabuto was dirty from fighting earlier that day and he needed to bathe as well. Of course, separate from when Y/N did. The silverhead's chamber was relatively large and minimalistic, though now more crowded with a little mattress across the room and two bags full of clothes for her age group. There was a big bed, a dresser, a mirror, and a bunch of candles around the room for a light source. There, of course, was no windows and no toys for Y/N to play with much to her dismay hut she was too tired to question.

"You will sleep in my bed tonight," Kabuto spoke as he helped Y/N climb into his bed. "If you need anything, let me know. I'm blowing out all the candles so if you need anything, you have to speak before you doing anything else, okay?" Y/N yawned and nodded in understanding.

"Yep. Thank you," she replied as she rubbed her tired eyes and laid down. Kabuto blew out each candle on every side of the room before he returned to the small mattress across the room. It was comfortable but it would be removed so as Kabuto would eventually get Y/N a chamber of her own to sleep in of course. He pulled the covers over him and set his glasses on the floor besides him. "Hey Kabuto?"

"Yes?"

"I love you as much as my real dad. Thank you."

Kabuto frowned, taking a moment to comprehend what she had said. "I care about you too. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite," she giggled before slowly falling asleep under the covers.

#kabuto x reader #kabuto #kabuto yakushi #kabuto yakushi and child reader #child reader #adoptive child reader #naruto x reader #naruto #naruto shitposting #naruto shippuden #orochimaeu is a snake #anime #shounen #reader insert #x child reader

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corie-the-writer · 3 years ago

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Won’t Let Go - Chapter 6

Chapter 6 Several weeks had passed since Jay had made it official with Sophia. He couldn't have been happier. The couple had fallen into a routine that they both were happy with. The nights Sophia worked at the bar, Jay would come hang out until she was done for the evening. If she had a late night and Jay had to work early the next morning, he would go up to her apartment to sleep until she had gotten in. On the nights that Sophia had off, they would go on various dates, and during the day when Jay was at work, she would often stop by with lunch for them. Since the summer days were close to ending, they had decided to take a couple days off to head to a cabin to get away from Chicago for four days, before arriving back for the annual Chicago Fire and Chicago PD cook-out. Jay had enjoyed his time at the cabin with the dark haired woman. During the day the would lounge around on the beach, swam around in the lake, then once the sun had started to set, they would sit on the small dock near their cabin to watch the sunset, and then Jay would whisk her away into the cabin to make love. On the final night they were there, Jay and Sophia had cooked dinner together. Sophia had been wearing nothing but Jay's t-shirt, while Jay had nothing but a pair of black briefs on. They had just finished making love, and Sophia had declared that she was hungry. Jay was standing at the stove, while Sophia was sitting on the counter, her face was free of make-up, the suntan illuminating her skin, and her dark hair was in a messy bun on her head. He had walked to stand between her legs, his hands on her hips as she wrapped her delicate hands around his neck. " I love you..." Jay had let the words slip from his mouth slow and quietly, knowing that he in fact loved the woman in front of him. He had almost gulped realizing that he had said those three words out loud but knew that he couldn't take them back, even if he wanted to. His blue eyes found hers and she was looking back at him, almost into his soul and repeated the words with a kind smile on her face. "Earth to Halstead..." Jay blinked his eyes a few times from the picnic table he was sitting at to see Adam Ruzek sitting across from him, "I said how was your guys trip to the cabin?" Adam questioned again with a chuckle. "It was good." Jay let out a breathy laugh, "It was really good." Jay reached for his water to take a drink, noticing that Sophia was sitting in the grass on a large blanket with her little sister reading a book. "Man you've got it bad." Adam turned to look over his shoulder seeing that Jay was staring lovingly at his girlfriend. "Okay, listen up..." Chief Boden's deep voice caused Jay and Adam to look towards the older man, "Every year we hold a volleyball tournament, PD verus fire." Chief started out causing the police department and firehouse to begin to cheer since it had been a fun rival between the two departments, "This is how it will go, PD and fire will pick two teams each. Each department will play one game, whoever wins advances until there are two teams left. Whoever wins gets bragging rights until next years tournament." Chief explained, "Now keep it friendly, and keep it fun. We will be starting in twenty minutes." Jay and Adam pushed themselves up from the picnic table and headed towards where PD was starting to gather around. Jay had noticed Sophia smiling at him and he had shot her a wink. Halstead knew that one team would consist of him, Ruzek, Atwater, Kim, Antonio, and Vanessa. So he had just stood around listening to who would be on the second team. Sophia watched as her mother had called for Annabelle since the volleyball games were getting started, so the oldest Herrmann child moved towards the edge of the beach to sit and watch the games. As she sat down, Jay had jogged over to her, resting his hands on her knees. "You're gonna cheer for me, right?" Jay questioned with a boyish smile. "I don't know about it." Sophia smiled back, "You're going against my dad and friends..." Sophia added causing Jay to put a hand over his heart playfully pretending to be hurt. "Halstead, let's go!" Christopher Herrmann yelled for the detective causing Sophia to grin. "Love you..." Jay ducked his lips down to kiss hers before running back to the sand to start to game. . . Later that evening Sophia was sitting in Mollys next to Jay as he nursed a beer in one hand, while his other arm was laced around her shoulders, hearing Firehouse 51 brag about winning the volleyball game. Sophia chuckled as Jay leaned towards her to kiss her temple, "If you would have been my cheerleader, we would have won." Jay spoke causing the table to laugh as they drank their beers. "I doubt that. You ate more sand than you hit the ball." Sophia teased causing a round of laughter. "I kept tripping because I'm use to running on pavement, not in sand." Jay stated with a playfully stern tone causing Sophia to roll her eyebrows. Sophia was enjoying her night off with Jay and all of her friends, listening to the banter between her father, Chief Boden Jay Halstead and Adam Ruzek. She was about to get up from the table to get another beer when Stella Kidd approached. "Hey Soph..." Stella grabbed her arm gently and leaned into her ear, "Noah is here looking for you." Stella spoke quietly into her ear causing her to furrow her eyebrows within seconds. "What?" Sophia questioned quietly glancing to Jay to see him speaking to her father and then back to Stella, "You sure it's him?" Sophia questioned and watched her friend nod. "Yeah. He said that he needed to speak with you, that he would be outside because he did not want to interrupt." Stella explained. Sophia was internally groaning because she had yet to find the right time to tell Jay about her past with Noah. It had never came up, but now that Noah was in Chicago, she wasn't sure where to even begin with that entire conversation. "I'll be back..." Sophia commented to Jay, moving from the bar table and heading towards the front door after giving Stella a knowing look. Walking out into the chilly air, Sophia's dark blue eyes scanned the area for the familiar face. She was able to easily make out his dark suit, his large frame leaning against a black vehicle across the street. His arms crossed over his chest as he looked down the road. "Noah." Sophia approached him, "What are you doing here?" Sophia questioned. "Good to see you darlin..." Noah moved to hug her, Sophia froze for a moment as the man wrapped his arms around her and then pulled back, causing him to chuckle, "I know we didn't end things on the best note, but I wanted to be respectful enough to let you know that I'll be in town for a couple of months." Noah explained. "Oh..." Sophia hummed, not entirely sure why he had wanted her to know. "I have a couple of people who are interested in your artwork." Noah explained, "A couple of business men's wives are wanting to get in touch with you about some of your paintings." Noah added. Sophia took a breath and looked up to the tall man, "I don't really need the money, I'm pretty well set from the paintings I sold before I came back." Sophia stated, knowing that Noah was wanting to make sure that she was financially okay. Noah let out a laugh, "I'm aware of that. These women are wanting to pay ten thousand for your paintings, if not more." Sophia's eyes nearly bugged out of her head causing Noah to chuckle lightly, "Look, there's no funny business as you like to call it." Noah started, "They were in the apartment I'm staying at while I'm here and saw the artwork of yours I have displayed and fell in love, asked me to reach out." Noah explained. Sophia knew that Noah was always a fan of her art and tried like hell to help her spread her work around to different people they had came across. Sophia found herself nodding her head, "Yeah, okay..." Sophia knew that the extra money would help her to find an actual home to buy so she could settle down in Chicago finally. "Soph?" Sophia heard her boyfriend's voice, and she turned to look over her shoulder to see Jay Halstead standing outside Molly's with his eyebrows furrowed. "I'll be in touch." Jay Halstead watched as the dark haired man in a suit leaned down to kiss Sophia's cheek before getting into his car and driving away. Jay watched as Sophia's shoulders dropped before she headed towards him. "Who was that?" He found himself questioning.

#jay halstead #detective jay halstead #jay halstead imagine #jay halstead x reader #jay halstead one shot #jay halstead x oc

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chunhua-s · 4 years ago

Note

congrats on your milestone event!!! id like to request for kita soulmate!au with angst to fluff genre 👉👈 yknow sumn rejection shit bcs im hopeless like that wehee once again congrats! and i love your writing style :3

anon you’re gonna make me cry 🥺 seriously i’m happy you enjoy my writing and that you think my style’s okay! most of the time i go off of what kind of feelings i get when i’m writing or the imagery that comes up in my head and i’m never sure that it translates well enough for you guys to feel or see the same thing. hopefully as i keep writing then i’ll be able to show you guys what’s on my mind better when i’m writing! thank you again for requesting — seriously, it means a lot! and like always, you guys, don’t be afraid to come and talk to me on and off anon! your interactions mean a lot, especially for content creators! we love hearing what you all think, what you like/dislike about our work, what you think of certain characters — absolutely anything! come and talk with us more whenever you can 💕

writing for kita feels calming somehow. normally the things that come up in my chest or my mind when i write gets nearly overwhelming if that makes sense? like i’ll have to pause and remind myself to breathe because it takes up so much of my attention that i kinda get lost, but with kita, it feels more flowey to me. it’s not demanding but more like a gentle coaxing kind of thing or like looking at the surface of a calm river. i was initially scared to write for him because i was worried i wouldn’t get him right, but i feel satisfied with how this turned out, i think. i hope you guys will find it as calming as i found it too! it might not be exactly what you wanted, but because i had already written the rejection of a person for atsumu’s soulmate oneshot, i wanted to play around with kita’s character and make it instead the rejection of a concept/idea? which would indirectly lead to him... you know, rejecting his soulmate initially, but— ahhhhhh it might make sense to just read it!! these rambles keep getting longer and longer :v i’m sorry for that!! please go ahead and read and tell me what you think in the end! 💕

NOTNING MORE THAN HUMAN ➽ KITA SHINSUKE x READER

genre: angst to fluff

au: soulmate

warnings: none

shinsuke kita is human.

and of course, that much is obvious. he isn’t a machine that’s incapable of feelings and emotions, whose heart is unfamiliar with melodies of an overwhelming joy, or the quiet hymns of deep rooted sadness. his skin still burns under righteous fury and anger, his tongue still weighs heavy under hesitance and silent worries. at the end of every long day, he’s still human.

it’s because he’s human that the words on his collarbone feel so heavy, as if they might cave into the bone and destroy him under their weight. it’s because he’s human that the sight of black markings in the mirror clouds his mind with a new kind of fear and worry. shinsuke kita is human, but he’s long since taught himself how to abandon anxiety and nervousness. he surrounds himself in familiar routines that calm the turbulent voices of doubt, he builds habits that ground him to the earth lest he should be swept away by the current. shinsuke has taught himself not to be afraid for the things that will happen everyday, but meeting his soulmate isn’t one of those things he can prepare for.

it’s a strange concept, he considers to himself. shinsuke doesn’t believe in words like fate or destiny, doesn’t care for the higher powers that should judge his actions. as far as he’s concerned, his own will is what dictates where his life goes — he’s in control, and that’s how it’s always been for him. let the gods watch, if they must, but he’s already decided that he’ll live by what is right, and he wouldn’t dare falter in the face of it. and yet — and it’s such a strange thing for him to do so — he pauses under the notion of a soulmate, of a destined partner who’s supposedly bound to him for as long as he should live. at first, he hadn’t given the idea much thought; it wouldn’t serve any purpose to worry about something that would happen whether or not he wants it, he decided. the truth of it is inevitable, just as the leaves must fall in autumn and the earth should be buried under clouds of white in winter. shinsuke is human — what more can he do but to accept it?

the black words that spread across his skin like droplets of ink became the bitter seeds of doubt that he hadn’t felt in a long time. it’s raining a lot today, isn’t it? the sentence by itself is so bland, like something maybe aran or anyone else might say to him in passing, and at first, it didn’t shake him too much, until he was caught one day under a sudden summer storm. seventeen year old kita somehow found himself stranded beneath a small shelter, where the wooden covering could protect him more than his umbrella until the rain passed. it was nearly unconscious, but he somehow found himself on edge, his breath faltered with the harsh pitter patter of rainfall that tumbled from green leaves and tore ripples from the surface of the lake. shinsuke kita found himself with a stomach full of butterflies and a thundering heartbeat that stole him away from solace and calm, cast the peace that he would so often carry with him away and left him stranded among chopping waves. every trembling breath he took stung on cold air and left him with a burning feeling on his lungs. it’s unfamiliar in its presence and shakes him to his core, but shinsuke kita is reminded of his own humanity when he realizes that what he feels, is anticipation and nervousness.

and it’s an odd thing. as he becomes aware of it, he finds himself twisting his fingers together during spring time; he worries his bottom lip between his teeth during unexpected showers. he feels like a child who stands in line to ride a roller coaster for the first time in his life — wide-eyed and drowning in the millions of feelings that race throughout his body. the feeling itself is nothing new, though it’s unfamiliar and intense in its ferocity and demand, seizes his heart and squeezes so tightly that whenever it rains, he’s left breathless.

it’s almost enough to drive him mad.

his very foundation seems to fall apart with the thunder that rolls across grey skies. for every drop of rain that hits the pavement, he finds himself a jittery mess as his heartbeat tears through his chest. the man who taught himself to abandon his fears reverts into the young boy who watched out for god, for the higher beings who watched his every move. and the thought that comes with every brilliant bolt of lightning burns him just as hotly, invasive and demanding when it flashes through his mind on a single, low whisper:

will you be happy?

shinsuke kita is human. he learns as he sees and lives as he’s learned, and what he saw growing up was that soulmates were bounded together till death do them part. a connection that’s set deep in stone, never to be erased by unforgiving weather and to persevere during the cruelest of storms. it’s an inevitable reality that the gods designed, so that mortals like himself should dance on stage and tell them a story. but shinsuke knows that not all these stories have a happy ending.

there are plays that end in tragedy and loss, those that only knew memories of pain and sang with death’s violin. man becomes the actor to a play that he has no choice in and dances on the puppet master’s strings, he surrenders control and gives himself up to the music, and he has no way of knowing the end of it until the curtains should fall. shinsuke has never been one to lay down his will, and yet, as winter melts once more into gray rain clouds and scattered showers, he’s reminded of his mortality, of the fate that’s been sealed away in the falling of rain. shinsuke kita is human, and so he must, like all men do, bend to fate’s will and never utter a word against her.

and for a long time, the sentiment caused him to completely reject the idea of a soulmate.

that feeling of helplessness that would wash over him with the rain turned into a bitterness that crushed his lungs between tightened fist. the acceptance of an inevitable waltz — whether it be to eternal happiness or to a cruel melody — turned into rebellious loathing that spat in the face of destiny. it’s entirely childish in its tale, like a toddler throwing a tantrum because he doesn’t want to give up his precious toy. that toy is his control, the power he had to live his life by his truth, not by that of a higher being. he’s human, after all, and humans are selfish and resentful by nature.

he finds himself with a heavy chest today, as well, as he waits for the pouring rain to subside. the small shelter in the middle of the garden park is familiar, and carries with it the memories of his epiphany, the one that created thunder storms in his once tranquil heart, and for that, he hates this place. the sound of the rain hitting the roof is like nails scratching against the chalkboard; the sound of droplets hitting the lake like an annoying whining that he can’t get out of his head. shinsuke curses this little pocket away from the world with all the childish anger in the world — let it be damned that doing so wouldn’t change anything. for once, he let himself go on a petty grudge against the universe, and against that looming stage and its heavy curtains.

it’s nearly faint, but he picks up on the patter-patter of footfalls that quickly approach him, and he turns bronze coloured eyes to find your rain-drenched figure running for shelter under the little gazebo. you’re out of breath by the time you make it underneath, letting out an exhausted and frustrated sigh as you press your hands to your knees, and shinsuke finds himself sympathizing with the way you bitterly push your hair from your face. you’re an ordinary office worker, from what he can see; you’ve hidden what looks to be a messenger back beneath your coat, leaving you to tremble in a thin button-up. this day’s downpour had been sudden, unexpected as spring would soon surrender to the approaching summer, and he imagines that he would have been in a similar position as yourself had he not packed his umbrella beforehand.

a silence settles over the both of you that’s only broken by the heavy rain, but the presence of it is so soothing that shinsuke finds himself breathing on a lighter air. suddenly the smell of petrichor turns sweeter, the melody of raindrops melting into a distant lullaby, and for the first time, shinsuke feels his heart melt under an indescribable sense of warmth despite the weather. and when your eyes turn to find his, a helpless grin on your lips, he feels that warmth explode under summer fireworks and coarse throhgh his veins like liquid lightning.

“it’s raining a lot today, isn’t it?”

for the second time in his life, shinsuke has an epiphany under the shelter in the garden.

he feels every bit of resentment vanish on a sudden gust of wind, one that sends raindrops splashing against his skin, but he doesn’t seem to notice. not when grey clouds suddenly reveal to him pillars of sunlight that embrace your figure and makes you glow against a background of green leaves. the rain turns into something sweet and enticing, and it suddenly gives shinsuke this unexplainable urge to grab your hand and dance with you underneath the pouring showers, where he can hear your voice ring out on chimes of laughter and innocent bliss. in mere seconds, he manages to let go of the dark clouds that he’d unintentionally harboured on his chest, he let them burst with the weight of anger and childish fury so that they would hit the earth on giant droplets of rain.

shinsuke kita is human — he’s imperfect, mortal. he feels and he thinks and he speaks what’s on his mind. he can hate, and he can love: he can make that decision on whether or not to hold useless grudges and to curse a destiny he can’t change, or to welcome that inevitability with the willingness to learn and grow.

today, as he stands beneath a wooden shelter, hiding from the heavy rains, he decides to stretch his hand out and let the water hit his skin.

davi hits 200 followers — haikyuu!! au writing event! 💕

taglist: @aiiishiiiteru @bootylikepeachy @tsumue

send an ask to be added!

#kita shinsuke x reader #kita x reader #kita x reader scenario #kita x reader imagine #kita x y/n #kita x reader angst #kita x reader fluff #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu x reader imagine #haikyuu x reader angst #haikyuu x reader fluff #davi hits 200! ✨#haikyuu!! au event 💫

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ecrivant · 4 years ago

Text

the station | annie leonhart

(annie leonhart x fem!reader)

that night, one marked by abject sin and rapture: annie’s single, inescapable memory. she, forever haunted by this painfully raw thought of you.

c.w. – homophobic slurs

word count: 2.2k

a.n. – this is technically a reader insert but it’s honestly just an exploration of annie’s repression and sadness. also, in general, i’m very wary of assigning gender to the reader, but the lgbt+ themes are important to this story, so annie’s love interest is a fem!reader. i’m sorry if this excludes anyone, next piece will return to the usual gn!reader.

very much an au + me experimenting with style.

At the world’s marge lies a service station—carburant siphoned long ago, insides, bare. Its skeletal façade abuts a backroad, a display of collapsing substructure succored by gusts of vagrants and drifters, cataracted from history’s view. At one time, when you entered, the clerk would greet you from the left with a gaze that conveyed a hesitant familiarity—the type of trivial recognition that was unimportant in the moment but retrospectively haunting. The lights within, garish halogen, were ceaseless, always alight, and only dared to die out once the ceiling caved, and the walls peeled, and the vinyl floor cratered like some artificial topography. The edifice now no more than a nebulous memory only existing in the minds of those who ever once visited it.

A memory nonetheless in the mind of the woman who fucks for the first time in a sedan parked behind the station, where the smell of sex and summer air and gasoline is seared into her brain as she breathes hard, lightheaded and high on ecstasy and fear. She feels her own death, a quiet specter which guides the touch of her lover. Her burning skin; the eroticism of demise, destruction. The nocturnal breeze gasps with her.

She offers to drive you home. You—flushed and debauched, breasts exposed. Eying her intensely. You refuse.

“I can walk.”

She laughs. Your name on her lips, a carnal, depraved prayer, “We don’t even know where we are.”

She is corrected. Curt.

“You don’t.”

She is gored, laid open and vulnerable and bare for this stranger who parts without another word. She watches you go, ambling towards the unlit dirt road, swallowed by a beastly darkness. The vehicle, suffused by an amorous smog, windows opaque. Her organs all but spill onto the floor, mixing with dust and dog hair and garbage and an old takeaway cup that was always there no matter how many times she threw it away.

She slinks into the station and asks for a pack of cigarettes. She pays in coins, a button among them, but the cashier never notices.

At home.

“Mama’s been askin’ ‘bout you.”

“Okay.”

“You’re gonna get an earful tomorrow.”

She’s already halfway up the stairs. They moan beneath her.

“She thinks you’ve been spending too much time with that Eren boy. Is that where you was tonight?”

The stairs sound like you. Everything sounds like you—the gasp of a closing door, the sordid exhale of a creaking bedframe. The sweat on her face: a lover’s curious tongue.

—

“Pull off here, ya’re low on gas.”

Prick prick pricks of fear smart on her skin. Mama knows. The station, the unholy consecration. Mama knows. This car, this place. Mama knows. Her brother in the back, resting on the shadow of his sister’s bare figure. The pop of the fuel door says dyke. The crack of the gas nozzle trigger says fag. The unseen eyes that bore through her say queer. She enters the station to pay. The clerk, a gaze of recognition—the only one who knows of her transgressions.

—

She is married. Cheers to the happy couple. She cries on her wedding night, tears staining bedsheets—her own virginal blood. He touches her, stagnant, pale skin collied by bereft contact. She only comes when she thinks of the station.

—

She could tell. She could tell him and free herself, and then the kid’ll wonder why Mommy’s never around and Daddy’s a druggie and a drunk and never leaves the house anymore and the kid’ll make his way through the social services system until he’s beaten and cracked and broken like Mama’s old doll collection smashed against the wall and he puts a bullet in his head before he turns eighteen. No, she could never tell.

—

Thanksgiving. She stares at her sister-in-law—a city girl, with heavy lids and blush-dusted cheeks and a pronounced cupid’s bow. The eyes of a hunter, the lascivious gaze of a she-wolf. Her husband comments on how well they seem to get along.

—

A loneliness begotten from her own bones, born from emptiness and the inimitable way she and death caressed all those years ago. She only has a name to utter, breathless, when thoughts of you tenant her mind. The first and the only fuck was truly a stranger, all but nameless in memory.

—

Her mother’s funeral. An apathetic and unfamiliar affair. People she doesn’t know. Her brother, his wife, their child. Her husband, her child, her. She could not be more distant.

Her childhood home smells sweetly of tobacco and cardamom.

Indifference during the wake mistaken by the others for numbness. She feels no need to mourn—her mother lived and died uneventfully, and that was it.

“Mommy, are Grandma’s dolls going away?”

“I don’t know, we’ll see.”

“Do you think I can keep one?”

The boy has his eyes fixed on one in particular, his implicit selection. The one that has your eyes. The one whose gaze makes her squirm. Mama knows.

“I don’t know, we’ll see.”

—

She sneaks away from the house with a pack of her mother’s cigarettes, the box crumpled and stained at the edges and the tubes inside wrinkled and mildewed, emitting a stench that filled her with inexplicable nostalgia. It brings to mind her unshakable compulsion to eat cigarettes, to feel the flakes of tobacco coat the inside of her mouth like the ground dregs in a cup of cheap coffee. She lights one instead, pushing the thought aside—if she was to ever eat one, she fears she would not be able to stop. The low hiss of her inhalations on the ember briefly joins the sonic ambience. She sits in her car and smokes and occasionally flicks ash outside of her window with shaking hands. Rancid and familiar aftertaste. Thick dust clouds kicked up by her car tires coalesce with her hazy exhalations as she drives nowhere. Not nowhere. She needs gas.

—

The station still stands as it had before, insusceptible to time. Always seemingly aged. Covered in an ever-present grime. She gets out and leans against her car and drags on her cigarette, the virulent inhalations scratching her lungs. The road on which you disappeared all those years ago looked profoundly unremarkable during the day—just a long, dirt road in a town wholly comprised of long, dirt roads. The heat shimmers above the ground, and the afternoon sun drapes itself across her skin, and the hot breeze drags its fingertips through her hair like a lover you’d meet behind a bar—the same who would abandon that perpetually lit cigarette between her lips in exchange for her mouth on yours.

Her last drag—she drops the butt and crushes it underfoot.

She sits in her car and smokes the rest of the pack—in her eyes, the final remnants of her mother.

She waits in the parking lot. As if her presence alone would invoke some bygone wraith.

Her hand reaches under her dress, between her legs, and she is touching herself to the pervasive miasma of summer breeze and carburant, and the darkness of closed eyes almost feels like the night, and her frantic digital movements are arrant pleasure until they’re not; she stops and is suddenly crying, and her thoughts are occluded by her mother’s pale, dead face, and she realizes that Mama’s death, mundane as it was, represents the furthest she’s been from that singular night years ago which was so verily marked by sin and rapture; the one that has haunted her and will continue to haunt her until she herself dies an uneventful death after an uneventful life, and her child thinks of her passing as she does her own mother’s: a nonevent among nonevents.

She is met with understanding eyes as she returns to the wake crying.

—

She moves to the city with husband and child. Suburbia forgone. The apartment is small and cramped and reminiscent of her sister-in-law’s. The adjacent view from the living-room window is an identical high-rise—ten stories of the same brick and dirty-white AC units. She is filled with an ineffable sadness as she stares at the spare greenery in streets below, confined to plots of dry soil surrounded by cracked and potholed pavement.

Her sleeplessness often leads her to the living room long after the apartment falls to silence. One night, she watches, captivated, as a couple in the adjacent apartment fucks on a couch, curtains wide open and shame forgotten. The man, hovering above a body obstructed, is suddenly flipped on his back and mounted by his lover, and she swears this woman, breasts bobbing, and face marked by a concentrated intensity and unusually devoid of pleasure, looks like you.

—

Two years in the city bypass her as if she were already dead. The tenant who resembled you moved out the year prior.

—

She sits in a booth sequestered in the corner of a dark and begrimed barroom. Alone for the night. Her husband no longer questions her bouts of silence and absences from the house and disdain for intimacy; her child, accustomed to fissure.

She ignites a cigarette, her lukewarm liquor no longer of interest, and no one stops her. She is indifferent to the other patrons, who were, at this point in the night, nothing more than hazy and incorporeal forms populating the shadows.

The chime of the door—jarring and tangible—cuts through the muted atmosphere and demands the attention of those there to give it. Another specter drifts to the bar. A woman shouldering something—a fact elucidated by a hunched posture and a quiet request for three fingers of scotch.

And then the woman turns, and Annie sees her face.

And suddenly she is collapsed on the scum-covered tile of the bar’s bathroom floor, hurling upchuck into the toilet. That woman had your face—she is not you, at least not anymore, as Annie is no longer the girl who fucked and died in that gas station parking lot years ago. But that woman had your face. And she looked at Annie with your eyes, melancholic eyes which held no recognition for her, and turned away in the same movement. Less than a look—a glance. But that woman had your face. And Annie had not seen it again before she hied to the bathroom to regurgitate four drinks and years of accrued and bilious agony.

The bathroom door swings open. Groaning hinges. She knows it’s that woman who has callously co-opted your likeness.

She enters the stall next to her and pisses and flushes the toilet whose water drains slowly and weakly, and the sounds of the sink are harsh and cacophonous against the tile walls. Steps towards the exit suddenly pause. A knock on the stall door. Your voice asks if she is alright—a voice unheard for decades, last encountered in a low, debauched whisper against her skin.

She heaves, again, but nothing is left to expel; she coughs and spits and does not answer.

“Can I at least help you get home?”

The question looms above her, looped and tied like a noose.

“I can walk.”

A laugh. Dry, unfamiliar, never heard. It’s harsh and barking; a warning.

She is corrected, curt: “You can barely stand.”

She had long been unacquainted with fear, now more often than not consumed by a vacant numbness, and she admittedly did not miss it. It was ugly and pervasive and bore deep within her with debilitating potency. She could do nothing but sit on the disgusting tile floor with body supported on yellowed porcelain and wait.

She imagines she allows herself to believe this woman is you—you, as you were, unchanged—and opens the door. And you, being unchanged, ask if she would like to come home with you. And she, apparently the same as well, says yes. And back at your apartment, cluttered and cramped yet simultaneously vacant, you spare no time backing her into the bedroom, lips tethered to hers in lurid predation. Touches that are lustful and intimate and familiar only to her. She cannot bring herself to care that you do not remember her—your breath on her neck and your incursive touch efface all thoughts, good or bad. She wants you on top of her, around her, within her, and you oblige like some prurient altruist. Her coming is purgative and cathartic, and the pleasure of that night at the station feels archaic and antiquated in the face of this wholly new gratification, heighted by an immense and prolonged yearning. And this time, after you are both finished, you do not part and neither does she, and she embraces you in a way that feels intrinsic, and you ask her to stay the night. And she does not think of her husband and child as she says yes. And she does not think of her husband and child as she agrees to spend the next day with you, as she dances with you in your living room, finally and only feeling held and loved. Finally, finally, finally.

—

But Annie says nothing. And the woman—not you, but an apparition—softly and finally knocks on the door with the side of her fist, unfazed, and walks out of the bathroom. And even now, as she slumps further and shuts her eyes and clutches her head, Annie can only think of that fucking gas station.

—

hi there! thank you so much for reading; i hope you enjoyed this piece. it’s a little different than my other stuff, not drastically so, but still different. i think i like it, though.

thank you to the anon who suggested I write something for annie, i really appreciate the request. i have another request in the pipeline for reiner, so expect a piece for him soon.

as always, feedback and criticism are very much appreciated! feel free to drop in and request something if you want.

taglist: @flam3bird

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot #snk #attack on titan imagine #attack on titan x reader #aot imagines #aot x reader #annie leonhardt #annie leonhart #annie leonhart x reader #annie leonhardt x reader #annie leonhart imagine #writing!

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velvetsehun · 4 years ago

Text

Born to Die| OSH | 06

pairing: Oh Sehun x Reader genre: Mafia!Sehun rating: 18+ warnings: violence, gun use, mature language, smut (in future chapters), slow burn. words: 13.4k summary: a collusions of worlds is supposed to kill, but what if it can do something else? A/N: chapter 06, who would of thought huh? i certainly didn’t think anyone would care about this fic to begin with but here we are... 6 chapters in and 14 left to go! I hope you all enjoy, remember feedback is appreciated so drop into my askbox, lets chat ;)

TW// Warning this part contains some material that might be sensitive to readers as it depicts scenes of blood and violence, readers discretion is advised.

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The sound of wet shoes slapping against the pavement and the overwhelming humidity laying itself thick on his lungs was often something that Chanyeol liked to cherish about summer evening – to feel the season in the air and know that you were set for a long break away from the burdens of life, but what Chanyeol didn’t cherish was the pelting of rain whipping against his face in those summer evening as he ran for his life.

The thickness in the air made it almost impossible to breathe at the rate he was going, the feeling of his blood carting around his veins at impossible speeding making almost impossible to keep running; but he had to keep going.

“Come on…” He panted to himself, shivering at the feeling of his clothes clinging to him in such an awful way that he wanted to shed the damn second skin immediately.

The screeching of his shoes against the pavement as he rounded the corner reminded him of just the predicament he was in; homeless, alone, and wondering when whoever was looking for him would eventually catch up. It was a lot for a 20-year-old, a lot to think about and a lot to deal with, but Chanyeol made his own decision to leave home and he had to live with it.

They say the best things in life are often not planned, and to Chanyeol at one point that might have been true – but he knew deep down as he waded through the rain for his life, that every moment he spent fucking up got him here. Leaving your 20s was supposed to signify leaving behind adolescences and entering adulthood, but for him, it meant leaving behind his mistakes in the teens and carrying that burdens into his adult life. Glancing behind him briefly, he winced softly at the rain pelting against his flushed cheeks, the skin raw with the force of the water, but through the blurriness of the weather he could still spot the distorted shaped following him; clothed in black and hungry for vengeance.

“More like hungry for money,” Chanyeol corrected his inner monologue softly, taking a moment to shove his hair out his face as he kept running.

The streets were barren of people, the occasional passing car showing the thickness of the rain that coated the ground – the lights glinted off it like stars passing, Chanyeol liked the city rain but he liked living more.

“Shit.” The young man swore, hearing the boom of a gun before a bullet whizzed past him lodging in the pavement in front of him, his tattered shoes skidding to a stop in freight.

Eyes glancing at the cracked gravel where the smoking bullet laid now – its world took a complete turn as his running stopped, unsure if the chase was worth it anymore. Glancing around the street Chanyeol took in what he thought could be his final moment, the rundown restaurants and homes witness to his life. He could hear the footsteps rushing closer and his eyes shut softly as his neck went limp, shaggy hair falling into his eyes as the strands clumped together in a wet mess that dripped onto his face.

“I’m sorry...” He thought to himself, sighing softly at the sound of footsteps nearing closer, he was bracing himself for the impact when his eyes burst open.

The feeling of a hand grabbing his sleeve and yanking him sideways sent him tumbling behind however done it, the familiar sound of a gun clocking filling the small ally – he winced softly at the impact his body to the ground but his eyes still flicked up to see who done it; a rather well dressed guy who looked around the same age as himself had his back to Chanyeol, now looking at the guy who was chasing him with his gun pointed.

“Give me the kid,” The guy asked gruffly, nodding behind the other man, “And I won’t hurt you either kid.” But the man holding the gun merely giggled, much to Chanyeol’s shock.

“I can’t do that…” The giggling man teased, and honestly, Chanyeol wasn’t sure if he’d lost his mind.

“And why is that,” Chanyeol’s assailant demanded, a look passing over his face.

“Because I don’t want to.” The giggling man stopped giggling, but he still had an amusing edge to his voice.

“Fuck this,” The assailant tried to push past the other man, and Chanyeol felt himself scuttle back slightly but that grip of fear didn’t last long as the smaller man pushed the assailant back with a hard shove.

“Now now,” The younger man toyed, “Let’s not get violent...” He sang softly like a mad man.

“Step aside, kid.” The assailant, who truthfully Chanyeol didn’t know the name of demanded again, raising his own gun at the younger man, “Or I’ll shoot you instead.”

“No, you won’t,” The man said melodically again, and Chanyeol caught a glance of his face as he flicked the barrel of the gun that was pointing at him away like it was a fly much to Chanyeol’s horror.

“And why is that.” The other man demanded, whoever was defending Chanyeol was clearly getting on his last nerves, but the younger man merely giggled again.

“Do you see that car over there,” The young man pointed to something that was out of Chanyeol’s eye line, and he watched as the two men looked in the same direction.

“Not saying I wouldn’t shoot you,” The young guy laughed softly, “But if you even lay a hand on me, there are going to be two very angry men ready to beat the shit out of you in that very car.” He giggled again.

“Who the fuck are you?” The other man demanded, trying to distance himself away from the other guy, but the other man guy merely leaned in closer with a smirk whispering to him.

“Who the fuck is this kid…” Chanyeol thought to himself, glancing between the two of them. Chanyeol kept watching in some twisted horror as the other man backed off with a blanched expression.

The man backed away slowly before bolting out of the ally, the younger guys shoulders slumping in a sigh before he turned around fully to look at Chanyeol, a small smile gracing his mouth as he held out his hand to help him up.

“You’re welcome,” He grinned slightly, still holding his hand out to Chanyeol who looked between the hand and his face in slight horror.

“Who…” Chanyeol stuttered slightly, but he was soon cut off as the other guy laughed.

“I should probably introduce myself, I’m Byun Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun wasn’t sure if he’d ever have kids, but if the man had to name anything as his child then he’d say that Electric Kiss was as close as it was ever gonna get – albeit it was a booze-filled, drug flourishing child, but his none the less. It was something Sehun had given him as a side project to keep the man busy during the slower times that they faced every so often, not every day was shooting and plotting, it was a small sense of normality in Baekhyun’s otherwise weird schedule, it was something he could call his own. With tensions running high between the members of Exodus at the moment, he had expected tonight to be somewhere he could “let loose” for a while but his glass ceiling was shattered as he watched with annoyed eyes as his loving boss made his way into the establishment – security scattering around him like he was the president of some foreign country, not just a gang leader entering a club.

“Smile now,” Kyungsoo scoffed softly from his place in front of Baekhyun’s desk while the latter looked out the tinted glass to the empty dance floor where his boss was currently making his way through, “You’re normally happy go lucky,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes at that.

“Happy go lucky,” He repeated annoyed, “When did you become such a nice person,” He scoffed back.

“When Junmyeon decided to promote me,” Kyungsoo teased with a small smirk gracing his lips.

“Promote,” Baekhyun turned around with an eye roll, “Junmyeon also told Sehun to stay inside the compound but the giant idiot is here, so let us not call Jun’s word as bible now.”

“Did you think for one minute he’d listen to him?” Kyungsoo asked honestly, the scowl on Baekhyun’s deepening slightly as he plonked himself down at his desk with a grunt, “Sehun is in charge after all…” Kyungsoo ended with a small drawl.

“I’d hope he might have,” For the first time, Baekhyun looked put out, “Even I listen to Junmyeon.” The man exclaimed softly but Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, sometimes I listen to him,” Baekhyun corrected, “But I don’t currently have a bounty on my head, do I?” His eyes were blazing with concern for his younger boss.

“Idiot,” Baekhyun scoffed, picking up a random ornament on his desk to play with, “He’s going to get himself shot,” Kyungsoo hummed.

“Aren’t you like his bodyguard or something,” Kyungsoo asked, but there was a teasing edge to it – an enjoyment that he was undermining his job.

“He wishes,” Baekhyun huffed, “Glorified babysitter for a while but not his bodyguard, I’m his brother.” A small fondness glinting in his eyes.

“Brother…” Kyungsoo thought about it, “Isn’t that just a fancy term that says you have to take a bullet for him?” Baekhyun rolled his eyes to his company with an unamused look.

“I’d take a bullet for him, yes,” Baekhyun began with a pointed look, “But typically bosses aren’t supposed to be out in the field, and certainly not out in the field when some mystery person is out to get them,”

“Even I know he doesn’t like the compound,” Kyungsoo reminded Baekhyun, who huffed.

“None of us like it,” Baekhyun drawled, “Fuck, I’ve been there nearly every day of my life since I was a kid, I hate the place as much as the next person”

“Explains a lot,” Kyungsoo laughed softly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Baekhyun furrowed his eyebrows.

“You grew up around Sehun didn’t you?” Kyungsoo asked honestly, he was never one to ask too many questions – especially questions about the past but he’d been in the gang so long that it didn’t matter anymore.

“Well, yes…” Baekhyun nodded, “My father was Sehun’s fathers second in command…” He looked confused about where this was going.

“Have you ever thought that he gets it from you?” Kyungsoo smiled slightly, drawing the commonalities between the pair – recklessness being a big factor.

“He wishes,” Baekhyun laughed softly, “That’s all his own, even I was still doing as I was told back then.”

“Hard to believe” Kyungsoo tsk’ed softly.

“I was a good kid,” Baekhyun mumbled softly looking off into the distance, “Shame really, this is how I turned out.”

Kyungsoo frowned slightly, even if he didn’t always toy around with the man like he often wanted him too, Kyungsoo could see that Baekhyun’s actions always head somewhat good intentions – it was family first, and he’d seen first-hand the lengths he’d gone to for someone before.

“You’re a good man,” Kyungsoo assured him, but it didn’t sit right with Baekhyun.

“A bad man that does a good deed isn’t a good man,” Baekhyun sighed softly, “He’s still rotten at the end of the day, it just shows he can think of something else besides himself for once.”

“Do you really believe that?” Kyungsoo asked with a raised brow.

“I don’t exactly have a clean record,” Baekhyun tutted softly, “Sometimes if I look hard enough, I think my hands might be permanently stained with someone else’s demise.” He frowned softly staring at his hands.

“I know a few people that might beg to differ,” Kyungsoo said almost softly to the older man, much like how he’d seen his companion speak to their boss sometimes, “He’s not here right now, but I know Chanyeol thinks the world of you,” Baekhyun chuckled softly at that.

“Right place, right time,” Baekhyun said honestly, “Not that I’m not glad, but that’s not redemption.” He kicked his legs up on the desk.

“Who said you need redemption?” Kyungsoo asked honestly, “You’re not exactly the average person to begin with,”

“The second heir to the Byun estate,” Baekhyun mimicked his father’s voice with a sarcastic edge to it, “Not like that shit matters now,” Kyungsoo looked slightly interested in that.

“How so?” Kyungsoo was always a questioner and Baekhyun chuckled at that.

“The second son gets nothing in our world,” Baekhyun laughed slightly but there was no humour behind it, “I’ll serve Exodus till my untimely death with no land, barely any family and no life” He sounded a bit put off by that.

“No marriage on the cards?” Kyungsoo asked, he knew it was common for the sons to get married off to affluent daughters.

“I’m sure If my father cared enough, I’d be married by now,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes, “But I don’t think he remembers I exist at this current moment,”

“Does anyone in this damn gang have a nice home life?” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes slightly and Baekhyun chuckled at that.

“Ask Yixing, I’m sure he’ll regale you with tales of his adoring family,” A new voice entered the conversation and the two men jumped too caught up in talking to each other. “Or maybe Jongdae, that man is always smiling for a reason.”

“Oh, so the prodigal son has decided to make his grand appearance,” Baekhyun raised his eyebrow looking at Sehun who had decided to make himself known to the two men, “Weren’t you told to stay home?” Baekhyun tutted.

“I’m here for business,” Sehun rolled his eyes while leaning against the door to Baekhyun’s office, “And I can handle myself,” He reminded them.

“Business in my club?” Baekhyun raised a brow, “Do I get to know about it?” Sehun smirked softly at that.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Sehun teased, a lot more jovial in demeanour than when the two men had last seen their boss.

“I don’t fancy having my ass handed to me by Jun because I let you do something stupid,” Baekhyun’s eyebrow twitched slightly as the younger man merely hummed in a soft laugh.

“Just tell me where the bartender is, Baekhyun.”

Despite being a 25-year-old man, Sehun still found himself bossed around from time to time from his older brothers – the irony of it laying within the fact that he was at the end of the day still their boss, and by obligation, they were supposed to do what he says but regardless, he says nicely and listened to Junmyeon rant to him again.

“Please Sehun,” Junmyeon had a sternness in his eyes that Sehun knew he got from his father, “For the time being, just say out of the light for a while – we can handle the heavy lifting.” Sehun hummed at that, say at his desk gazing at the man who was flanked with their tallest member.

“And what if I don’t want to?” He argued slightly, his hands resting on his stomach as he lounged in his chair, “Last time I left you all to do your work it didn’t exactly go to plan” He tweaked his brow at them.

“Sehun,” Junmyeon warned, Chanyeol looking almost uncomfortable beside him.

“Junmyeon,” Sehun pointedly said back, “I am not a child.”

“Then stop acting like one,” Junmyeon argued, Chanyeol flinching slightly at the heat in his boss’ eyes.

Sehun stared darkly at his second in command for a second before collecting himself, he detested being labelled a child, but he wasn’t about to cause a scene in the compound – he was better than that and doing so would only solidify Junmyeon’s statements.

“Fine,” Sehun grumbled after a beat of silence, “I’ll stay here if you wish me too,” He rolled his eyes slightly, Junmyeon deflated slightly at that – curious to how he gave in so quickly.

“You will…?” Jun quizzed looking at him sceptically.

“Yes.” Sehun affirmed, “I’ll stay out the light for a while if you’re so worried.” He pushed his tongue into his cheek in thought, clearly still not happy.

“Thank you,” Jun nodded glancing back at Chanyeol for a second, “I’m taking Minseok to scope out some of our casinos, you and Chanyeol try to get more out of our guest.” Junmyeon sighed slightly.

It wasn’t uncommon for the second in commands to overstep their places, Sehun’s had seen his fathers’ SIC do it all the time – but that still didn’t mean it didn’t grind his gears a bit. At times it felt like he was just the face for the gang, an affluent name that took “control” while the others schemed behind the curtains.

“Who am I in this game instead of the king?” Sehun thought wistfully while Junmyeon ran Chanyeol, who for the last few hours had been choosing to remain silent in the house, past everything he had to do.

The last few day’s had been tolling on everyone so it seemed, most of his men being sent off every direction in the city to just and find out how someone could infiltrate their shipments, while he stayed behind and handled the numerous phone calls from his head underlings about why his men were sniffing around their territory – Sehun hated the phone calls more than anything, but he had to but on a tone and brave it while he explained that his men were doing intake since he’d felt like things were “getting sloppy” within his ranks. No one really dared question him too much, he was their leader at the end of the day and if someone blinked wrong at him, they’d be taken out, but that still didn’t mean he enjoyed listening to them grumble.

“You get that, Sehun?” Junmyeon interrupted his thoughts while the younger man merely hummed and looked at him.

“Yes,” He grated out, waving his hand at his counterpart to just leave already, “Loud and clear, stay here, do this and most importantly keep out of trouble.” He rolled his eyes.

“Sehun…” Junmyeon warned slightly, but Sehun paid it no mind.

“I’m sure Chanyeol will make a fantastic babysitter, Jun” Sehun huffed, fixing his suit slightly in a fidget, “Go before I change my mind and elect to completely flout your warnings.”

Junmyeon merely gazed at the two with a pointed look before nodding slightly, making haste to get out the room with his phone already glued on his hand – the fluttering of his conversation bouncing around the empty hallway as he departed.

There was an air of silence before Sehun stood up from his desk, making sure his suit jacket was buttoned slightly and his phone was pocketed before he spoke.

“Tell someone to get my car ready, Chanyeol,” Sehun asked while he rounded his desk, much to the other man’s shock.

“But didn’t Junmyeon just say…” Chanyeol began but was promptly cut off by Sehun.

“Don’t go out in the light, yes I’m aware,” Sehun smirked softly before gesturing to his window – it was well past daylight and the moon had taken her role in the sky for the night, “But that doesn’t look like going out in the light to me.” He remarked as Chanyeol’s face dropped slightly.

“I won’t be able to stop you, will I?” Chanyeol asked honestly, crossing his arms over his chest

“Nope.” Sehun popped his lips slightly, “I’ve got business to attend to.” Chanyeol’s brow quirked.

“Business?” Chanyeol asked, “What are you up to now?”

“I’ve got a bartender to talk to,” A look passed over Chanyeol’s face at that.

“Why?” Yeol was getting defensive again, but Sehun merely chuckled.

“You’ll find out eventually,” Sehun hummed touching the older man’s shoulder as he walked past him, “Do me a favour, integrate our guest with Jongdae, if he’s still not talking after a while kill him” A dark look past over Sehun’s face.

“We have no use for him if he won’t talk,” Sehun said to his companion, “Understood?”

“Understood,” Chanyeol mumbled back, nodding slightly.

Sehun merely nodded back at him while patting Chanyeol’s shoulder as he finally walked past him to the door of his office, there was a brief pause at Sehun’s door while he thought for a second.

“I say this from a place of care, Chanyeol,” Sehun spoke honestly while looking over his shoulder, “Whatever’s in your head about this girl, let it go.”

“There’s nothing in my head,” Chanyeol grumbled back, “I just think your plan is stupid, what do you gain from this?” But Sehun merely chuckled.

“It’s not often I see your heart bleed,” Sehun hummed, “I’m trying to keep my men in check, you included”

“I am in check,” Chanyeol frowned.

“Really? You could have fooled me,” Sehun tutted softly, “I’ve watched you beat a man within an inch of his life and then some, but you’re choosing now to grow morals about who we involve?” Chanyeol’s eyes darkened slightly at the jab.

“I just think…” Chanyeol started but Sehun cut him off quickly.

“No Yeol,” Sehun began with a slight frown, “You’re not thinking, not at the moment – I don’t know what that girl triggered in you, but you need to sort it out, otherwise you’re going to get yourself killed or maybe even her.”

“I won’t.” Chanyeol tried to reason with his boss.

“Civilian relationships in any form don’t work.” Sehun reminded him, “Ask some of your brothers, your enemies don’t care who they are to you, as long as they’re something”

“Sehun...” Chanyeol started but again he was cut off.

“I did you a favour by making sure your family was protected the first time around, I can’t extend my kindness any further.”

“Sehun…”

It felt like a hit to your soul when you met eyes with the man situated at the bar, your physical body stagnant in the present while your soul decided to bolt out of there, leaving your flesh with a cold tingle to it. He looked a bit more casual than the last time you’d seen him, an all-black suit tailored perfectly to his lissom body; sans the tie and shirt unbuttoned three from the top, he looked like a walking piece of opulence, especially with his hair messily pushed back – a far cry from the hardened exterior of a man you’d seen before.

There was a cocktail of not only fear but anger swirling in your vein’s as you keep your gaze locked with the very man that caused it, his eyes dark and strong as the whiskey he was asking you for and settling straight onto your own, they were reading you; that much you could tell, the subtle twitch of them told you he was reading your face.

“I see you’re still alive,” He spoke, his tone deep and smooth as you remembered.

“No thanks to you,” You gritted slightly, hands wringing the cloth you were carrying like it was his neck, “What the fuck was that,” You leaned closer to him, his eyes dancing with a verge resemblance of shock at your tone before he straightened himself out.

“Be thankful you’re alive,” He drawled to you, leaning in himself as a challenge to your currently strong demeanour, “Some people aren’t always that lucky.” You could feel his breath hitting your cheeks, he smelled vaguely of mint and something stronger.

“I don’t think I should be thankful for almost suffocating in a plastic bag,” You hissed, eyes flickering to a group of people that were seated in a booth not too far from the bar.

“And what are you going to do about it,” He challenged you, his brow raised, his shoulders were squared but he wasn’t trying to threaten you, but you felt yourself stutter anyway.

“I…” You sentence dropped off, what were you going to do about it? It’s not like you could hit him like Chanyeol, the security guard in the corner was glaring at you enough to know that if you raised your hand, you’d lose it, not if Sehun himself didn’t get you first.

“Can I have my drink now?” His brow plucked up again, “Or will I have to tell Baekhyun to fire you on your first day?” You shook your head at him, spinning around to grab the fucking bottle of booze he wanted and a glass.

You weren’t light as you slammed the crystal onto the wooden bar counter, Sehun’s eyes following you as you poured it straight into the glass not bothering to glance at him. Sehun was intrigued, to say the least, his eyebrows furrowing slightly as you placed the bottle back onto the counter with a huff.

“That’ll be –.” You were cut off by Sehun.

“Free,” He smirked slightly, “Owner perks”

“Of course, he was the owner” You bit down on your tongue as your inner self cursed him out.

“Of course, Sir.” You gravelled out, “Will that be all?” Your eye twitched slightly while he hummed, taking a sip of his drink, glancing between the amber liquid and you.

“Leave the bottle,” He requested with a look, your head nodding before you sighed – spotting some patrons making their way to the bar.

You didn’t spare him a second glance, as you went back to work; the feeling of his eyes following you sent a small chill down your spine but you tried to shake it off, a small smile gracing your lips as you tended to other paying customers. It was strange, having him right there when he’d told of so many threats to your life every time you saw him, it was even stranger than you were now working in a club that was affiliated to him – a small calling that Chanyeol could have warned you echoing on your head, but why exactly were you here? Sehun made it clear he wanted nothing to do with you so why hire you at a club he owned.

There was a thick emotion coating your throat as you tried to focus on serving customers, all while the man that shook you to your core sat on the other end of the bar – checking his watch every so often that it had you on edge; Baekhyun had yet to see you again after you stole his drink for him, leaving you here with a bunch of rich twenty-somethings and a syndicate boss. You were leaning against the back of the bar, the music thumping slightly in your brain as you watched the intoxicated customers dance and laugh with their friends – something you haven’t done in a while, you noted to yourself.

The night had only really just begun and you were already ready to go home, your body still emotionally tired beyond belief and your wits at their end at the idiocy that was this bar; you were hired here for a reason and that was fraying your nerves, you didn’t believe for one second that you were hired here out of kindness, the men you had seen behind this all didn’t look like someone that extended their kindness beyond their gang.

“Let’s just say, Junmyeon likes to keep all his cards together,” Chanyeol’s lips pursed together in a look you couldn’t place, it was vague, but you nodded anyway.

Chanyeol.

You remembered his face as he handed you the job description letter, he looked put off giving you it, but you couldn’t argue and seemingly neither could he.

“Think any harder and you’re going to hurt yourself,” The voice from the corner drawled lazily again, glass raised to his mouth and an amused look in his eye while your own eyes flicked to him.

“Shut up,” You scoffed, crossing your arms tighter over your chest in a glare, “Don’t you have lives to be ruining?” Sehun hummed at that.

“Is that what you think I do?” His eyes danced with mirth.

“Monsters prey in the dark, but here you are” You rolled your eyes, “Which means that you’re up to something.” Sehun’s eyes narrowed slightly at your wording, his lips pursing together slightly.

“I’m here on business if you must know.” Sehun scoffed, “Not that it matters to you, bartender.” His jaw was set slightly, and you flinched at the fact you’d put him in a mood.

“Business,” You sneered slightly, “Gonna shoot up this place too?” Sehun rolled his eyes.

“I think you’d know if I was, darling,” He jeered back at you, “I might not be as nice to tell you to get under the bar next time.”

“There’s going to be a next time?” You bantered back to him, disregarding the fact your heart was hammering in your chest at the dark look in his eyes.

Setting your jaw, you walked back over to him with a pointed look; the cloth that was in your hand was tossed on the counter as you leaned.

“Tell me,” You asked honestly, “Why am I here?” His eyes met your own, no emotion being given away behind them.

“Because you work here,” He deadpanned like it was the simplest thing in the world, and that made your jaw tick.

“Chanyeol told me that Junmyeon likes to keep all his cards together,” You gritted slightly, “What does that mean.” Sehun mouth ticked slightly in a sneer.

“Why don’t you ask your buddy?” His eyebrows were raised.

“I’m asking you.” You swallowed thickly, “Now answer me.”

“And what makes you think that you’re in a position to tell me what to do?” Sehun tested you.

“Sehun,” You said his actual name to him for the first time, a tone of stress coating the words like honey, “Please.” Your eyes softened slightly.

Sehun looked conflicted for a second, his eyes skittering around your face trying to look for anything that told him you had other intentions; there was a beat of silence between the two of you before he sighed annoyed. You watched him toss his drink back before he reached into his inner suit pocket to retrieve his phone, a look passing his face as he did; it was just as quickly pocketed as it was taken out while his eyes flicked to you, an unresolved emotion waving in them.

“Stick around after the bar closes,” He grumbled out, standing up from his stool, “I’ll answer your questions then.”

“But…” You began, your mouth slightly open in protest when he cut you off.

“No buts.” He snapped lightly, “I’ll answer your questions then or not at all.” His eyes were angry, but you could tell it wasn’t at you.

“Fine…” You deflated slightly, shoulder slumping slightly as you watched him turn on his heel.

Curiously, you looked at his back as he retreated from the bar without a second glance at you, looking as he passed his security guard to walk over to one of the private rooms on the VIP area that you had been told was used for business meetings, he stopped slightly before the door, look off to the side and our brows furrowed slightly at the person that walked up to him.

“It’s the girl from the house…” You mumbled to yourself slightly, watching as she strutted up to the man; her head very much held high.

She looked gorgeous, made up in a dress that seemed to almost glitter in the light; she practically glowed under the strobe lights of the VIP room, she was a beautiful woman – and when you had seen her last you could tell she suited Sehun a lot, the two of them had an aura about them that matched. You didn’t mean to stop and stare at them, but as the girl entered the room before Sehun you caught the latter turning around to give you a pointed look; a sheen of embarrassment coating your cheeks at his stare.

“So this was his business huh…”

It wasn’t long before Irene was making her way up to the VIP room, a soft smile gracing her face at the sight of you working like you belonged at Electric Kiss; she had been sceptical at first since there was already a tightknit of people that worked here, not just anyone was hired, but when Baekhyun approached her and told her, she knew she’d try to be as welcoming as possible. But the devil in her ear currently was stopping her from greeting you like how was wanted too.

“Is Sehun anywhere around?” She rolled her eyes as she heard Baekhyun through her earpiece, something she used in case of emergency and she needed to get security quickly.

“We have security cameras, Baek,” She grumbled slightly, making sure no one in VIP heard her talking to herself, “Check those, I’m busy.” She smiled at a customer who walked past her.

“But you’re my informant on the ground,” Baekhyun teased softly, treating it like he did when he was probably on missions.

“Baekhyun,” She warned with a look, even though he couldn’t see her.

“I would be he’s not down the stairs,” Irene could hear the roll of his eyes, “There’s a reason he hangs around up there.”

“It was your choice not to put camera’s up here,” She sniped slightly, “But for your information, his guard is still up here.” She confirmed to him, watching the man she only knew as Johnny walking around.

“And the He in question?” Baekhyun pressed a bit, much to her annoyance.

“I don’t know, probably one of the private rooms.” She tutted, gazing around the room looking for the infamous boss – Irene had only met him a few times through Baekhyun, but he’d never really said much to her. “Have one of your men check it.”

“He’s been a foul mood the last few days, lovely,” Baekhyun huffed, “I don’t fancy facing any wrath.”

“Chicken.” She teased with a smirk.

“Am not.” He snapped, but there was a playful edge to it.

Irene hummed softly, her eyes flickering around the room at everyone that filled the VIP section; she could spot the security guards a mile away, they stuck out like a sore thumb but none of the socialites that gathered up here bothered, if anything they ate it up when anyone from Exodus visited, they were Royalty here after all. Irene’s eyes did widen slightly as she caught sight of the very man, she was looking for storming out of a private room; a glance at a familiar woman sitting at the table before the door slammed shut. Sehun looked mad, and she could see him storming down the staircase that leads to Baekhyun’s office.

“Uh Baekhyun,” Irene chirped quickly, “Problem.”

“What?” Baekhyun quickly responded, “What is it.”

“Found Sehun, and he’s very mad.” She shuffled quickly of the way of one of the security guards who was rushing past her. “And currently on his way to you.”

She could hear the slam of a door from the audio of the earpiece, Baekhyun yelping slightly in freight, herself jumping at the sound of it pathetically. She tried to listen in for a second but before she could hear anything the call cut – one last word passing from Baekhyun before it dropped.

“Oh shit.”

Truthfully, your first at Electric Kiss had been an eventful one, and eventful couldn’t even fully sum it up. Working at the bar of the VIP section truly showed you a life that’d you’d never know, rich kids were willing to throw their money at anyone that served them drinks and you heard all kinds of gossip through the night that you honestly had no business in knowing; Joohyun was right when she said you get tipped well up here, and it wasn’t just in case. You had seen your manager briefly before you took a small break earlier, she looked a bit frazzled but she kept her composure as she questioned you on how your first night was going here, she’d been nothing but kind to you since you started, so you felt a sense of connection when you did manage to talk to her again.

Aside from that, you never saw anyone again for the remainder of the shift – Sehun never graced your presence again and Baekhyun was MIA, it was truly just you and the customers up here, and it was strangely nice. However, what Sehun had said to you was still echoing in your mind as you slowly shuffled to get your things from the breakroom.

“Stick around after the bar closes,” He grumbled out, standing up from his stool, “I’ll answer your questions then.”

It was 3:30am now and the bar was closing early for the night since it was the middle of the week; Irene had been gracious enough to let you go straight home since you’d turned up early for training while herself, Joy, and a girl you’d not met yet cashed out for the night. They gave you soft smiles as you left but your eyes were scanned around the bar.

“He never said where to meet him…” You thought to yourself, “Or maybe it was just a ploy to get you to shut up.” That was probably more likely.

The annoyance was radiating off you slightly when you decided to leave the warmth of the bar and step into the biting cold of the street; the sounds of customers that still littered the place echoing into the frosty air, there wasn’t anyone around, something you noted as you stood on the sideway next to the club – taking in the scene of it all.

Electric Kiss was on a very nice side of town, surrounded by affluent shops and restaurants for the rich, and apartment buildings for the even richer; it wasn’t your usual side of town, the elevators probably worked in the buildings here. It was always a fantasy to think about what it would be like to own a home here, to see the city in its full glory every day and not have to worry about making rent.

“Must be nice…” You commented softly into the air, looking up at one of the bigger apartment complex buildings; the skyscraper-sized tower glittering with thousands of little lights in the early morning.

Winter had its grasp around everything you looked at, the faint sight of steam covering windows while the pavement froze over with a shimmering frost; it was truly beautiful but the beauty was interrupted by the sound of a car engine so much so you rolled your eyes. Thought you thought of it as just a passing car you jumped back slightly from the edge of the sidewalk when a sleek black car pulled up in front of you, the passenger window rolling down so you could peak in. Leaning down slightly, you almost choked at who was driving the car.

“Get in,” Sehun grumbled out, one hand on the wheel while the other used a finger to prop his head up while he leaned on his door, he looked a bit annoyed.

“Why?” You stuttered slightly, confused at what was going on, but he only rolled his eyes before he looked at you.

“You wanted to talk, so we talk,” He sassed you slightly, “I said get in.” He nodded to the door.

You were gaping at him slightly, so much so that you forgot to answer him straight away – his handsome features pulling a face before he shook his head.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” He grumbled, reaching over the dash to creep the window back up – he stopped slightly when you jumped, placing your hand on the closing window to stop it.

“Wait.” You yelped softly, “Just wait.” You huffed before looking around at the empty street, shaking your head you grasped the door handle to the car, pulling it open with a bit of effort before you sat down in Sehun’s passenger seat.

His car was warm and smelled vaguely like cigarettes, not that you minded, but the focus was the man who was driving; the fact that his eyebrows were pulled together in a frown as he looked again.

“Where are you taking me?” You asked softly, keeping your eyes on him; his own flicking to you slightly before he put the car in drive.

“Home.” He grumbled slightly like it was paining him, “Put your seat belt on.” You rolled your eyes at that.

“You’re one to talk,” You sniped slightly, doing what you were told anyway, “Haven’t you been drinking?” He rolled his eyes.

“One drink,” He scoffed, “I’m a busy man, I can’t exactly afford to drink on the job.” You shook your head at him, watching at the night started to pass by you from his tinted window.

“You had questions,” He sighed, “Ask them.” Your eyes flickered back to him slightly while he drove; like everything he did, it was attractive.

“What did Junmyeon mean…” You sighed slightly, settling into the leather of his car seat; it was all black interior, but it didn’t feel cold because of it.

“About the cards?” Sehun hummed while you nodded.

“It would seem, miss bartender…” He began with a sigh as he stopped at a stoplight, “That we have use for you yet.” You frown at that.

“What?” You hesitated slightly, “What do you mean by that?” His face pinched slightly as he turned to you, tiredness settling in his eyes.

“For once, you know a lot more than we do,” He started, glancing at you before his eyes settled back on the road and the driving started again, “That man that was showing up at Oasis, we need to find him and currently you’re the only one in existence right now that knows what he looks like.” Sehun didn’t look proud to admit that.

“Me?” You frowned, “Surely someone else does?” Sehun hummed.

“You’d think,” He started, “The only person that might, won’t tell me, and we can’t find anything on him anywhere.”

“Oasis wasn’t the only joint of mine’s he was… looking into,” Sehun frown, hand gripping the wheel a bit tighter, you listened to eagerly as he spoke, “A few days ago, a few weapons from my stock went missing – the same man that was stealing stock at Oasis was behind it.” You frowned softly as he continued.

“He’s been redistributing the stolen and tampered drug stock at clubs around the city; his latest was Teardrop,” His eyes flicked to yours.

“I’ve been there once or twice, yeah…” You said softly.

“No security cameras could catch him and no one in the crowd could point him out,” Sehun shook his head, annoyed.

“But how does this involve me,” You frowned. “If he’s bold enough to walk into my establishment once, he’ll do it again.” Sehun spoke simply, “We think he’s going to turn up at Electric Kiss, he’s been in clubs in the surrounding areas.”

“And you need me to spot him out?” You asked, clocking your head to the side, “How do you know he won’t just hide from me? After all, he knows what I look like”

“He seems like he loves a thrill,” Sehun glowered slightly, reaching into his glove compartment to retrieve a small box; cigarettes.

You watched in some weird fascination as his free hand managed to get on out of the box and lifted it to his lips, before he quickly grabbed the lighter that was sitting in his pocket and lit it, the waft of expensive cigarettes filling the car before his window was left slightly ajar, so it could filter out. His tongue running over his teeth as he took a draw had you turning away slightly, a blooming of red covering your cheeks at the simple movement.

“Why didn’t you just ask me to help you,” You asked softly.

“Would you have?” He quizzed slightly, ashing his cigarette out the window.

“Maybe…” You stuttered softly as he chuckled.

“It was easier to trick you than to ask you,” He said simply with a slight shrug.

“What about back at the warehouse…” You swallowed thickly, “You didn’t kill me, why?”

“Because I didn’t have to.” He sighed, “Believe it or not, I don’t like shedding unnecessary blood, plus I had my own plan that I had to see come to fruition.”

“I timed everything for a reason,” He continued, “I knew as soon as I put the bag on your head, I only had a few minutes before the police showed up – I knew you weren’t going to die.”

“But the police…” You started before he cut you off.

“To some degree were in on it,” Sehun hummed, “Some of the higher-ups were sniffing around your case, it got worse when our name got tagged to it, I needed you gone quickly and your boss in my possession before someone started sniffing around my business.” He told you honestly.

“I couldn’t just let you go,” He told you, “We all knew the police would find that far too suspicious and you’d be tied to all this, it was easier to stage something”

“But during the interrogation, the officer was saying all this stuff.” You shook your head while he smirked softly, eyes glancing at you.

“I knew you’d crack under pressure, that’s why I had the commissioner interrogate you and lead the thing along,” He chuckled, “It was also a test.”

“A test of what…” You mumbled.

“A test to see if you’d heeded my warning,” He glanced at you again, capturing your eyes with his own, “I wasn’t kidding about the bullet between your eyes.” He smirked darkly.

“I hate you…” You mumbled softly looking out the window, “Like a lot.”

“I’m not too keen on you either, sweetheart,” He hummed, looking at the road with nothing but boredom.

“So, I keep an eye out for your mystery guy, then what?” You grumbled, biting your lip softly as you watched him flick his finished cigarette out the window. “I get fired?”

“If we find him then whatever you want,” He shrugged, “Work at Electric Kiss or leave, I don’t really care, just as long as you keep your mouth shut.” He tapped softly on the leather of his steering wheel.

“Right,” You rolled your eyes, “Charmer aren’t you.” He smirked softly at that.

“You mean you don’t love our talks,” He quizzed with humour behind it, “Or are you upset that I’m not Chanyeol right now?”

“You’ve threatened me every time I’ve talked to you so no, I don’t like our talks,” You huffed, “And I’m not happy with Chanyeol either, he lied to me as well.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll survive,” He mumbled as he pulled into the street that held your apartment block, not commenting further on it.

“I’m sure I will…” You muttered back.

The car dropped into silence as he pulled into the parking lot that sat outside the back of your building, his fancy car probably looking entirely out of place in the shithole that you lived in – for some reason you almost felt embarrassed as he gazed up at your building.

“Not all of us can live in luxury,” You said quickly before he could get a snippy remark in, but you were left a bit confused when he frowned softly.

“You work for where you live, that’s respectable enough,” He muttered, “And luxury isn’t worth what you think it is.” He had a faraway look in his eyes that you couldn’t place.

“I don’t know, you live a pretty comfortable life,” You commented slightly, and it was true – the man probably had more money than you’d ever own or work for.

“Something like that,” He muttered, deciding not to comment any further on your claim. The brief silence you both went into was enough to make you want to crawl out your skin, but you held your composure as you sighed softly.

“Thank you, Sehun…” You said lowly, you hated feeling like you owed someone something and the idea of thanking him after everything he’d done to you left a bad taste in your mouth, but you did it anyway, “For answering my questions and driving me home.”

“Think of it as payment,” He remarked slightly while turning to you, “For almost suffocating you to death,” You chuckled at that.

“It’s going to take more than that to make up for it,” You smiled slightly, locking eyes with him.

He was doing the thing again, where he was trying to work you out from merely just looking at you; his almost black eyes flicking around your face to try and find out your intentions, it was almost flattering but it was also uncomfortable. While you enjoyed looking at his face, you’d rather someone just ask you a question than try to sus you out but knowing what you knew about this man; that wasn’t going to happen.

“I should go…” You spoke softly, “Its late.” Whatever he was into, he snapped out of it while he turned around humming in agreement with you.

“You should,” He nodded keeping his eyes forward.

You looked at him softly, taking in his ridged side profile before you smiled a bit, nodding slightly while you pushed his car door open.

“Goodnight Sehun…” You spoke softly, glancing back into the car as you stood up, you didn’t bother to listen to his reply but you caught it anyway as you slammed the door shut, a small smile lifting your face.

“Goodnight…”

It felt as though you had been punctured but something as you watched his car drive away from you, the feeling of your blood rushing out your veins and leaving your body with that cold feeling of hollowness all while your eyes glanced at the vehicles retreating from. It was an indescribable feeling flooding you every time you found yourself near him, but it was a feeling that all though you’d never admit; you lusted to feel again.

“I wish I could understand you…” You whispered softly, small tuffs of white curling in the space surrounding your mouth; almost like a soul leaving the body, the words falling onto no one but mother nature.

The air was biting as you stood in the small carpark that laid itself out in front of your apartment but despite the chill, you found yourself not whiling to move; you had a lot to take in, and even more to process. It had been a very long night, the timepiece on your wrist reminding you that it was in fact very early morning. It was hours to be alone, but for some reason, a chill crawled its way up your spine that wasn’t an effect of the cold; the eerie feeling of someone else being in the barren car park with you.

Glancing back at the building behind you that held your home, you blinked slowly at the idea of just running into it but foolishly your steps carried you carefully into the middle of the empty lot; borrowed heels crunching on the gravel cracking into the night as you spun slowly to observe what you could.

“Hello?” You spoke softly, looking around at any hideaway spot you could; the balconies that held all the doors and the small allies that cut into different ways to get out the building, “Is anyone there?” Sheer stupidity seemed to be a trademark for you at this point, but after the last few days; if something was going to get you, you’d rather it showed itself.

You were met with silence, the deafening silence that was known as 4:00am and nothing else; barely any light or movement, it seemed like it was just you and your thoughts. But it wouldn’t be out of style for you to jump when you felt the vibration of your phone in your pocket, the new device spurring to life in an angry notification that said you were getting a call. You didn’t even bother to check the caller id before you clicked accept but after what you were met with, you wish you had.

“Where the hell are you!?” Jeonghan snapped on the other end, as your eyes widen.

“Woah…” You began slightly shocked at his tone, “What do you mean?”

“I’m here,” He grumbled, “At Electric Kiss, I said I’d pick you up?” You blanched slightly.

“Jeonghan, I’m so sorry…” You began softly, “I’m already home,” Your eyes scattered around while you made a gentle walk back to your apartment, the familiar feeling of being watched not leaving you.

“How the hell did you get home?” He sounded shocked, and you sheepishly responded.

“A uh… Friend from work drove me,” You lied to him, a small gnaw of guilt eating at you, “I’m sorry I forgot to tell you.” You pouted softly down the phone in the hopes you’d pick up on your tone.

The sigh you heard on the other end confirmed that it worked.

“It’s alright…” He grumbled softly, “Sorry for snapping at you,” He said as you shouldered your way into your apartment, a small grunt passing your lips as you did.

“You’ve only just come home after being kidnapped,” He sighed, “I was just making sure you’d get back alright.”

“Hannie…” You said softly, honestly feeling your heart melt, “It’s okay, I’m okay…” You assured him.

“Do you want me to come over?” He asked while you walked up the stairs to your apartment, choosing to forgo the elevator, “I’m sure I can pick up some food.”

“Hannie, don’t worry about it,” You told him with a small smile, “Go home and get some rest, I’m a big girl, I can stay by myself.” He sighed at that.

“Okay,” You could hear the small smile in his voice, “Just message me tomorrow okay?” You laughed slightly at that.

“I will,” You smiled softly, “Get home safe Jeonghan,” He sighed softly.

“You too…” The call cut off after that, you were in a rush to get back home that you booked it up the last 3 flights of stairs to your floor, your chest-puffing slightly as you scurried to your door – after the car ride with Sehun, you had a lot to look into.

After practically falling into your apartment, you kicked your shoes off and made your way into your bedroom – making haste to boot up your laptop while you sorted yourself out for the rest of the morning. Electric Kiss needed you in by 7 tomorrow to work a short shift since they were working out your rota, so you had time to do what you needed, and what you needed right now was not to go to bed.

The blinking of the cursor of the search engine you were using was taunting you as your fingers hovered above the keyboard – the limps twitching to write; you were doing your own research since you couldn’t trust anyone to tell you anything anymore, so you wasted no time in typing what you needed into the search bar.

‘Oh Sehun’, You bit your lip softly as your eyes tried to take in the search page.

You weren’t sure what you expected, he wasn’t a celebrity by any means, but the cloud of news articles that littered the page was a bit overwhelming.

“New heir of Oh Industries takes over after Owners death.”

“Owner of Oh Industries, Oh Dae-suk, passes in a drive-by murder, rumours of son to take over.”

“Oh Sehun named CEO of Oh Industries after legal battle.”

The search was littered with dozens of pages about how Sehun came to be the heir of the company he fronted, something that was clearly a decoy for whatever Exodus was. But you could feel a slight tension in your shoulders as pictures of him from the past popped up; one, in particular, was a photo of a teenage Sehun at his father’s funeral, a far cry from what he looked like now.

Shaggy haired and red-eyed, Sehun looked miserable as they caught a photo of him coming out of a funeral car; flagged by a woman you could only guess was his mother, your heart bled a little as you looked at him, he was so young. Flickering down you read the passage under the photo.

Heir to the Oh family, Oh Sehun, and his mother Oh Jieun pictured stepping out for the first time in public after the death of the CEO Oh Daeksuk – flagged by family and friends the mourning family attend the wake in his honour.

You felt a bit sick reading how the family were being hounded even on such a sad day like a funeral, but you clicked out the article anyway. Another one instantly catching your interest.

Rumour: Oh Sehun tied to gang affiliation after leaked photos show millionaire CEO partying with Criminals?

Rumours broke Saturday night after Oh Sehun was pictured partying with suspected drug cartel member Jung Insik in Rouge lounge earlier in the week. The two seemed friendly on the couch of the VIP section, sharing drinks and laughing with each other, although partiers claim there was nothing suspicious going on between the pair it's suspicious that the CEO of a medical company is hanging around with a suspect in a large drugs case – Oh Industries couldn’t be reached for a statement.

You puffed air out of your mouth as you read it, already in the know to what the young CEO gets into behind closed doors – to you it was clear that Oh Industries seemed to be front for Exodus, they were rarely in the news for anything else with the last article on Sehun being nearly a year ago about his charitable donations to an organisation; it made sense that they’d hide in plain sight, no one could accumulate that much money and not be talked about in some regard.

It was interesting to read, but it told you nothing about the man in question; just that he liked to party, his father died when he was young and that the new suspected him of doing dodgy things but nothing had been given as solid evidence to confirm any rumours. Sehun and his gang were truly an enigma, not even a mention of any of the other members anywhere associated with his name.

It was very early in the morning at this point, but you had no intention of stopping anytime soon; you were going to find out whatever you could about this man, even if it meant a sleepless night.

“Who are you, Oh Sehun…”

The next day, for the first time in forever, felt completely and utterly normal; you woke up at noon after staying up most of the morning doing research and you could leisurely get ready for work after eating a huge breakfast since you declined to eat anything last night. It was nice to not have anyone hounding you or jumping you for once, it was that peaceful that when you did eventually turn up for your shift it flew past in a breeze. Neither women from the night before were working with you today but you were introduced to both Seulgi and Yeri, both of whom welcomed you with open arms when you came through the door. It was nice, and it was a peaceful day at work, or as peaceful as it could be working in a bar, but you enjoyed it none the less; it was a lot less stressful than what Oasis had been.

What you didn’t prepare for was what was waiting for you at home.

You had got home just after midnight after sharing a cab with Seulgi who lived near the complex that you lived in, the street was as always quiet as it normally was at night and honestly, you felt like nothing could go wrong when you go into your apartment, but that hope was shattered after 15 minutes after getting home; 3 weak knocks sounding at your door.

“What the…” You spoke softly to yourself, barely getting a chance to settle into your couch before you were called up again.

Freaked out and slightly scared, you grabbed you keys as a form of defence while you slowly opened the door but they were dropped in an instant when your eyes caught sight of what was on the other side.

Chanyeol, hunched over and holding his side with one hand while the other kept him steady on your door frame, the strong stench of metallic filling your nose as you watched his stained hands slip slightly on the wood of your door.

“Chanyeol,” You yelped rushing to catch the 6 foot something man that started to tip over, “What the hell happened to you?” You stressed trying to tug him instead, your nose curling at the smell of blood.

“Ran into slight difficulties on the job,” He wheezed slightly, tripping up while trying to walk with you; flinching as you slammed the door behind him.

“Difficulties?” You snapped a bit scared; your eyes were wide as you tried to get a look at him.

It was clear that he’d been stabbed in the side, the way he was clutching the area was a dead giveaway; along with the blood that stained his fingers. He looked ashen and pale while he tried to look at you; a cold sweat clouding over his skin, something you could feel as you tried to hold him up.

“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?” You demanded, dragging him to your small bathroom; his body wincing softly at the bright light that emitted from the room.

“Can’t,” He wheezed again as you managed to get him to sit on your counter, your small hands pushing him back completely so the wall could support him, “They ask too many questions.” He winced again at your pushing.

“And you think I can handle this?” You gestured wildly to his wound, in this light you could see he had a few bruises and cuts on his face, “How did this happen?” You demanded softly, raiding one of your bathroom drawers for the first aid kit.

“Baekhyun and I were on a job not too far from here,” Chanyeol could slightly, groaning while he pulled his shirt over his head knowing he had to, “We were following a tip-off that was given to us, but we were jumped.” You jumped slightly at his bare torso but puffed out air to try and compose yourself, the man was possibly dying on your counter.

“Where’s Baekhyun now?” You stressed slightly, wetting a rag to try and clot his wound.

There was a massive gash on the lower right side of his stomach, it looked deep, and he groaned loudly as you pressed down on it, your own mouth shushing in slightly as you did.

“I don’t know,” His face was screwed up in pain, “We got separated.”

“Right,” You swallowed thickly, “Chanyeol, I don’t know what you want me to do about this, I’m not a nurse…” He looked down at you with a sad smile, something flickering in his eyes, he was extremely pale right now, almost deathly.

“Just try and stop the bleeding,” He rasped out, unaware that his hand was clutching the sleeve of your shirt, “Do you have a needle?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how to stitch a wound,” You panicked out, watching his eyes flutter shut softly, “It’s like sewing a shirt…” He sounded a bit far away now like he was having a conversation, but it wasn’t with you.

“Chanyeol,” You shook him softly, “You have to stay awake.” He was slumping slightly, the blood lost evident on his face.

Taking your free hand, you slapped him softly on the cheek trying to coax him into staying up, “Chanyeol, please…”

“Hmm…” He hummed softly trying to move his face away from the slap, “Please just hurry…” He gargled softly while you started to panic.

“Chanyeol.” You snapped slightly, hitting him a bit harder but it wasn’t working.

You gruntled when he suddenly slumped forward, his head banging onto your shoulder with a hard thump as you winced; the feeling of his hand letting go of your sleeving extremely worrying.

“Chanyeol…” You could feel his soft breaths on the exposed skin of your neck before your eyes widened something spilling out his lips that’s clearly wasn’t directed at you.

“Don’t worry Yoora, I’ll be okay…”

#sehun fic #sehun imagine #sehun scenario #exo imagines #oh sehun #sehun au #sehun x reader #exo scenarios #sehun angst #sehun mafia au #sehun fanfic

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lu-undy · 4 years ago

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Valentine’s day 5 - Alternate Universe

My choice went to have Lucien be a baker in Paris while Mundy is visiting the city with his parents!

Here it is on AO3!

"Micky, please tell your mum I'm starvin'."

"Mum, Dad's starvin'." Mundy's head swung from left to right.

"Micky, tell your Dad that I'm done with this cathedral now and we can get some lunch."

Both father and son cheered as they exited the impressive Cathédrale Montmartre.

It had been a few days now that the Turner family had travelled from their native Australia to Paris, France. After years of saving, the farmers and the hunter managed to gather the amount they needed to take some very well earned holidays and see a part of the world that Caroline, the mother, had always dreamt of visiting.

And it was Mundy, the son, now close to forty years old, who had suggested the idea of the trip. In his line of work, travelling was usual and he had seen a few places, and a lot of species already. He knew that his mother had always dreamt of seeing the City of Lights and so, he pushed for the idea to become a reality.

At first his parents thought it was way out of what they could afford not only financially, but physically. They were getting close to their seventies! But Mundy insisted and told the tale of a lot of his patrons who were that age and older, yet still roaming the world.

Caroline and Mike, mother and father, eventually accepted the idea, and Mundy worked extra shifts in pubs, playing the saxophone in some bands here and there, to add a few notes in the piggy bank.

There they were now, the three of them, in the capital of romance. The cathedral they had just visited was on the top of a hill from which they could see the entire city of Paris splayed out and spread in le Bassin Parisien, the valley in which the capital was planted. It was easy to distinguish the business district with its towers of black and blue-ish glass, from the more residential or commercial areas. The Eiffel tower obviously pointed to the sky further away.

Mundy had turned out to be the official photographer for the trip. He just enjoyed seeing the delight on his parents' faces and took pictures of them doing absolutely anything. They had never travelled much and he wanted them to have physical memories of it. On some pictures, they were pointing at a monument, on these ones, they were trying to decipher the names of the streets with a map wide open under their eyes, or just sitting on a bench and enjoying a cone of ice cream. Yes, it was July and peak summer in France, which was quite a surprise for the Aussies, but a welcome one. They all preferred hot and sunny weather, and were used to it.

"Let's try this bakery maybe?"

Caroline pointed at a reasonably small shop. The front of it was Burgundy red with the name shining in golden letters.

"Chez Lucien".

[Lucien's.]

Mundy pushed the door and let his parents through. The jingle of a bell rang and immediately after, a wave of delicious smells washed their lungs and made their mouths water even more.

"Bonjour." The baker greeted them. "Que puis-je faire pour vous?"

[What can I do for you?]

"Bonjour." Mundy tried his best accent. "Do you speak English?"

"Oui, I do." The Turner family sighed in relief. They were now used to communicating in sign language but finding someone who could understand even a bit of English was just their luck. "How may I help you?" The baker answered with more than a hint of a French accent.

"Just give us a second, son. I mean look at all these good things, the smell's amazin'!" Mike said, his eyes running through the sandwiches, the quiches and pastries.

"Merci. Will it be to eat here?”

“Yeah, think so.” Mike answered.

“In that case, you may make yourselves comfortable at a table.” The baker suggested.

Mundy noticed there were only two tables inside and one on the pavement. They relieved themselves of their backpacks and came back in front of the glass.

“Do take your time and don't hesitate to ask me if you need me to explain anything."

"Thanks, mate." Mundy answered.

Caroline held Mike's arm dearly as they chatted and pointed at sandwiches here and there behind the glass. Mundy gave them a bit of space and had a look at the desserts.

The colours beckoned his eyes. Red strawberries, all the shades of brown chocolate, white sugar, green pistachio, orange apricot tarts, yellow lemon ones. And the textures looked very different too. Mundy wished he could try a few.

And what a powerful yet pleasant mix of smells. The smell of hot flour was drowning Mundy entirely. As he raised his eyes and looked behind the baker, bread of different shapes, sizes and colours were neatly arranged in wicker baskets. It was impressive.

"What's this one, son?" Mike asked, pointing at a sandwich.

"This has goat cheese, salad, and a drop of mustard with honey." The man in the white apron answered, and Mike and Caroline nodded. "Do you have any dietary requirements maybe? That might help you make the choice easier."

"Mike here has to watch out for sugar and cholesterol." Caroline said.

"Bah, I'm fine." Mike answered.

"Mike, the doctor said to watch out…! Micky, tell your Dad…!"

"Dad…" Mundy started.

"C'mon son, don't side with your mum! Men's solidarity!"

The baker smiled.

"I can recommend a classic French one, if you want a full French experience." He suggested.

"Sure!" Mike answered. "We haven't come all the way from home to stop at sugar and cholesterol!"

"In that case, I would suggest the classic jambon-beurre."

"John what?" Mike repeated.

"Jambon-beurre." The baker said. "Ham and butter. Now, I can make one with a light butter and lean ham for you."

"That sounds great, what d'you say Caroline?" Mike looked at his wife. "Can I get that?"

"My father himself used to have those when his diet became more strict." The baker explained.

"Oh that's very kind of you." Caroline said. "Sure, go for that. I will have the goat cheese and honey one, I never tried that combination of flavours."

"Very well."

Mundy had been watching the whole scene unravel before his eyes and was grinning. He was over the moon to see his parents so relaxed and enjoying their time. They had worked hard all their lives to provide for their only son and had rarely taken a holiday as significant as this.

"And you, Micky?"

"Huh?"

Caroline's voice had broken her son's daydream.

"Oh, uh, I'll get the ham and butter, the normal kind is fine for me."

"Very well, give me an instant." The baker gathered his ingredients and a bread knife. He prepared the sandwich in front of his hungry clients as they watched him.

Mundy found himself staring. The baker was a bit shorter than him by half a foot or so. He looked a bit older too. His temples were grey and his front tuft, which swung between his eyes as he cut the bread, was greying too. However, his eyes shone with a kind of vivacity, of life, that Mundy found made him younger than himself maybe. He had very light blue eyes with dark eyelashes - beautiful - a slightly hooked nose and thin lips. His hands were trained and used to his work as his efficiency showed, but Mundy guessed that he hadn't been a baker all his life. His fingers were too slim to have done manual work all their lives like his parents'.

"I guess you are visiting France for the first time?"

"Yeah, first time out of home since a long time, son." Mike answered.

"Where are you from, if I may?"

"Australia."

"Ooh, that is indeed a long way from home." The baker chuckled and Mundy saw a flash of his pearly white teeth.

"Yeah, the wife's always wanted to come and see it here, y'know, with it bein' the city of romance and all…" Mike explained and he held his wife's hand dearly.

"But of course." The baker placed the sandwiches on a tray. "Will that be all for you today?"

"Micky, ask your mum if we can get desserts."

"You could ask me directly." Caroline answered.

"Yeah but you'd say no to me, honey."

Caroline rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Fine, let us have a look at what you have, uh…?" Caroline adjusted her glasses, looking for a badge or anything to address the shop owner. His name was sewn on his apron, in black, cursive letters. "Lu…?"

"Lucien."

"Ooh, original name. Sounds very French, beautiful!" Caroline said.

"Thank you, Madame." Lucien bowed his head politely. "May I suggest the strawberry tart for Monsieur? It is mostly fruity and the dough has very little sugar. My most faithful customers do like it particularly."

"Yeah, looks very good." Mike said enthusiastically.

"I'll have one of these, uh…" Caroline pointed at the glass.

"Oh, éclair au chocolat. Do you know what éclair means in French?" Lucien asked.

"No?"

"It is a lightning bolt. As a child, my mother used to make me believe that they were called that way because of how fast I devoured them."

"Ooh, that is sweet…!"

Lucien put the mini tart and the éclair on the tray.

"And for you, Monsieur?" He turned to Mundy, who blushed under the piercing gaze.

"Oh, uh, I mean… Maybe one of these…?"

"Cannelé, they are called, because of their shape. They are typical from the South-West of France, where I come from. Have you ever tried them?"

"No, why?"

Lucien smiled.

"They are rarely a tourist's choice." He simply answered. "Here for you. I recommend enjoying those desserts with some coffee. Pray take a seat, I shall bring you your tray."

"Oh, thank you, dear." Caroline said and the Turner family sat around the table. Lucien closely followed. He added a jug of fresh water and glasses.

"Enjoy your meal, or as we say here, bon appétit." Lucien bowed his head and left his customers to enjoy their meal.

"Mum? Dad?" Mundy was holding the camera and took a picture when they both bit in their sandwiches. "There we go."

The Turners enjoyed their sandwiches and the fresh water. After all, it was summer and it was hot. Caroline reminded Mike to take his pills as usual and Mundy was sitting next to them. He loved his parents more than anything or anyone else and in truth, they were all he had. He had a few friends back in Oz, not a lot, but good ones.

"Son?" Mike's whisper pulled Mundy out of his daydream.

"Hm?"

"Can you please tell your mum to stop starin' at the baker like that."

"If I was a few decades younger…" Caroline whispered.

"Yeah, well, if you were a few decades younger, you'd remember that ring on your finger maybe, eh?" Mike teased.

"Mum, please… You're makin' it obvious…" Mundy nudged his mother's elbow gently.

Lucien was behind the counter, leaning on the wall on his side and reading a newspaper.

"C'mon, Micky, tell your Dad that he's handsome!" Caroline nudged her son back.

"Mum…!" He blushed.

"Yeah well, go and have sandwiches with him, then!" Mike answered.

"Oh I would!"

"Caroline!"

"Mike!"

"Mum, Dad, please…!"

"Nah, son, I've seen her stare at enough guys here. Since the moment we landed here and now, her eyes jumped from bloke to bloke like a bee from flower to flower!"

"Not my fault that they all look so charming! And I didn't say anything when you stared at that young sheila in the short skirt in the cathedral…!"

"Well…" Mike blushed, ashamed. "I'm a simple man…!"

"Besides, I'm not the only one who's starin', Mike."

"Hm?"

Caroline nodded in direction of Mundy, for whom the whispers of his parents had dissolved in the air. He had eyes and ears only for that baker. God, his mother was right, he was handsome!

Caroline was right on that people there in France were quite good looking and it made the journey all the more pleasant to the eye.

"Micky?" Mike's voice pulled Mundy out of his staring.

"Huh?"

"Well, I can't tell you to stop cause you got a ring on your finger but uh… make it a bit more, y'know, discreet…?"

Mundy blushed beyond his ears and lowered his head.

And that was the first encounter with Lucien, the baker. From that day on, the Turners would try to have their lunch there everyday. Caroline was the one to push for it. Not only did Lucien turn out to be an incredible guide for them, recommending good and inexpensive restaurants as well as little corners of paradise within Paris, but she could see the blush on Mundy's cheeks whenever Lucien talked to him.

In the evenings, Mundy would take a stroll outside, to give his parents some space. He would walk in the streets of the city, under the lamp posts, letting his feet decide where he should go. More often than once, he found himself not far from the bakery. On one occasion, Lucien was smoking outside of his bakery, as the sky was still bright. Mundy was paralysed with fear. He wasn't supposed to be standing there! He was supposed to be in his shop, and then Mundy could casually look through the window as he passed it, maybe even wave if he made eye contact with him. Yeah, that all made sense, but not Lucien being outside and-!

"Bonsoir, Mundy, wasn't it?"

[Good evening]

Mundy's blood froze. As he was panicking internally, his feet had continued walking until he was within a few feet from the baker.

"Y-yeah, hi."

"Do you smoke?" Lucien asked.

"Yeah, I mean, sometimes."

"Here." Lucien offered one of his cigarettes and Mundy accepted it.

"Thanks, mate."

"Come closer."

Mundy blushed when Lucien closed the gap between them and lit his cigarette up. He closed his eyes and all he could feel was the smell of the Frenchman's cologne, mixed with pastries and fresh bread.

Gosh… He thought as he felt his insides melt.

"Voilà." Lucien chimed as he put his lighter away. Mundy opened his eyes and he felt as if he had emerged from a dream to another one. Now, the ice blue eyes of the elegant man were on him.

"Y-yeah, thanks, heh."

"You like to walk at night?" Lucien asked as they both exhaled the bitter smoke.

"Yeah, it's nice and calm."

"And I guess it is your break from your photography duties?" The Frenchman chuckled.

"What?"

"You are the one carrying the camera all the time, and taking pictures of your parents. Do you have any of you?"

"Uh, yeah, we do have a few of all three of us together."

"I would be delighted to take more in my shop next time you have lunch here."

"Ah, thanks."

They stayed in front of the shop and smoked in silence, watching the few people in the streets come and go.

"Mundy?"

"Yeah?"

"I will soon close the shop. Would you like anything?"

"Oh, uh, no, I'm fine, thanks."

"Very well." Lucien put the cigarette between his lips and entered the bakery. Mundy wasn't sure he could or should follow him so he stayed on the threshold. He watched as Lucien disappeared through a door behind the counter. Soon after, the lights switched off in the shop and Lucien emerged. Mundy couldn't see him clearly in the dark but his silhouette stood out.

"Very well. This is it for today." He said as he came out and locked the shop. "I could do with some good coffee, would you like to join me, perhaps? I know a quiet café." Lucien turned to Mundy who was staring at him. "Mundy?".

He had never seen the baker outside of his natural habitat and a bit like a schoolboy who couldn't imagine his teacher living outside of school, Mundy was taken aback. It turned out that underneath the apron was a white polo shirt and now a beige linen jacket, with a matching hat and trousers.

"U-uh? Yeah? Sorry, you said somethin'?"

"You daydream a lot, hm?" Lucien chuckled.

"Sorry…" Mundy looked away and felt the heat of the embarrassment on his cheeks.

"It is alright, I do like to daydream too." He smiled as Mundy raised his eyes to him and the Aussie immediately averted his eyes. Oof, that grin…! "But you haven't answered my invitation."

"Y-your invitation?"

"Oui, coffee, with me?"

"You sure? I mean, I guess you're tired after work and maybe you want to go back home to your family or see your mates…?"

"I don't have one or the other." Mundy's eyebrows jumped. "You and your parents are the closest I have got to having friends for a long time. So, what do you say? Un café avec moi?"

[A coffee with me?]

"Oh, uh, alright. I mean uh, oui?"

Lucien smiled.

"Très bien, follow me."

[Very well]

The Frenchman led the way through the streets.

"So you left Maman and Papa at the hotel?"

"Uh, yeah. I try to give them some space. Mum's always dreamt to come here with Dad."

"Not with you?" Lucien asked.

"No, I didn't want it to sound so bad… I mean that she'd wanted to come here even before they found me."

"They… found you?" Lucien repeated as they took a turn.

"Oh Gosh, I can't keep my mouth shut…" Mundy mumbled to himself. "Sorry, mate, I-I meant… Ugh… Nevermind."

Lucien didn't insist.

"Here is the café." He pulled the front door and held it open for his tourist friend.

"Oh, thanks."

And it lasted for a couple of weeks, the nights out, sometimes in a café, sometimes just a tour of a neighbourhood with an incredibly patient and passionate guide.

"You like Paris quite a bit, eh?" Mundy asked under the dark blue sky lit by the Eiffel Tower. Lucien had taken him to the Champs de Mars, an open park just in front of the beautifully lit, iconic tower. They were both sitting on the grass.

"Believe it or not, I do not like it much."

"Really?"

"Oui."

"You know it well though, historical stuff and all."

There was a slight smile on the Frenchman's lips.

"Oui, unfortunately so, for some part of it. Non, what I have come to appreciate about this city recently is how you like it."

"What?" Mundy asked, embarrassed and confused. Lucien chuckled.

"You enjoy visiting Paris."

"Well, there's a lot of monuments to see, lots of history behind it, and it's a proper city. The Outback's very different."

"Tell me about it."

They exchanged a glance and Mundy's throat tightened. He could see all the lights on the Eiffel Tower shimmer on the Frenchman's eyes, like stars in a clear blue sky.

"Well… Uh…" Mundy looked left and right. "See everythin' around us?"

"Oui?"

"Imagine there's nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Yeah, and imagine there's no grass but just orange dust."

"Hm…" Lucien looked keenly around him.

"Now add a few cacti, not too many, eh? And boulders. Just big rocks, basically."

"What shapes are they?"

"Any weird shape you can imagine. They're a bit like clouds, if you stare at them, you start seeing that they look like stuff but they don't really…"

"Oh… And what shapes have you seen?"

Mundy looked at Lucien sitting next to him. He had removed his hat and jacket. His polo shirt was white with dark blue stripes and he wore matching dark blue chinos trousers with beige loafers. Elegant, he was just so elegant…! What's more, he was lying on his side on the grass, resting part of his weight on his forearm, with one leg folded. Gosh…

"Uh… I usually see animals."

"What kind?"

"Sometimes, it's a gigantic wallaby, or a koala. But sometimes, it's stuff that doesn't even exist."

"Hm, like what?"

Like you, Mundy thought. No one had taken the time to go out with him, take the time to know him, go to cafés and odd little bistrots with him. No one had ever listened to his life in the Outback, no one had ever asked. And certainly, no one had done all that and looked half as gorgeous as Lucien. It was to the point where Mundy struggled to maintain eye contact with him for long. He would sometimes cross Lucien's eyes and avert his gaze the split second after. His feline, light blue irises were too much to take, especially because each time Lucien graced him with a gaze, Mundy could feel a punch to his guts and the blood rush to his cheeks.

"I-I don't know, it's a bit silly…" He answered, blushing and looking down between his crossed legs.

"Mundy…"

He froze when he felt a finger under his chin, pulling it up.

"Huh?"

"Please, tell me."

Gosh, not those eyes…! Oh and fuck it… Mundy couldn't refuse or ignore anything to those ice blue irises.

"Sometimes it's a mix of animals… Like something with the head of an owl, the body of a falcon, but legs like a wild cat. I know, it's ridiculous, ahem…"

"Non, not at all." Lucien answered and maybe it was all in Mundy's head, but he felt the Frenchman's index linger on his chin a bit before parting. The Aussie's jaw was electrified. "I find it poetic."

"D-do you?" Mundy's surprise was so obvious, so naive that it made Lucien grin sweetly. The Aussie uncrossed his legs and let them flow in front of him.

"Oui." Lucien laid down and rested his head on Mundy's thigh.

"Huh-?" Mundy gasped.

"Oh, am I weighing too much on you?"

"N-no, it's fine. I'm just-I'm just surprised, is all." The truth was that Mundy felt the heat in him surge as unexpectedly as Lucien lay on him. Was he just tired of holding his head on his palm? Was it friendly? Was it more? Was it a French thing?

"Hm. Look around you." Lucien said and Mundy did as he was told. It was the dead of night and not many people were out. "The city is almost empty. The Paris of the night is waking up and claiming the streets now."

"The Paris of the night?" Mundy repeated.

"Oui, people who shun the naked light of day because society shunned them first. Those are people whom morality and customs do not understand yet, people who are too free."

"What d'you mean?"

"Look at the pavement there." Lucien pointed and Mundy saw a few women wearing short skirts.

"Yeah?"

"Do you see these women?"

"Yeah."

"They are not women."

"What?"

"They are not women in what is most commonly accepted as the definition for it. They need the cover of the night to exist as they want to. I find it tragic yet strongly inspiring." Lucien went on. "They need the blanket of the dark night sky to wear the dresses, skirts and make-up that they want. We are not too different from them, you and me."

"How? You wanna wear a dress now?" Mundy joked and Lucien chuckled, his head still using the Aussie's thigh as a pillow.

"Non, we too are taking advantage of the night to be what the light of day prevents us from being."

Mundy's heart pounded in his chest. He was afraid he was understanding what Lucien meant, or maybe he wasn't at all and he was just hearing what the thin voice at the back of his head was whispering.

"Huh?"

"May I?"

Mundy sweated. Lucien had taken his fingers in his.

"Y-yeah, I think."

"Are you sure? I wouldn't want to force you - oh?" Lucien's eyebrows jumped and he then relaxed when Mundy pushed his trembling fingers shyly between his. Lucien held on to his hand dearly. "Mundy?"

"Mh?" The Aussie was screwing his eyes shut hard and was trying to calm his pounding heart and the rush of blood through his body.

"Merci."

[Thank you.]

His eyes snapped wide.

"What?"

"I said thank you."

"For what?"

"Everything."

And that night, they stayed on the Champs de Mars all the way up until the sun showed its first rays of light. At that point, they were both lying on their backs. The wide lawn was their mattress and the early hours of the new day captured the murmurs of what no one else but them should know.

It lasted for weeks, enough to make a habit out of it and to make Mundy think that it could last forever. Unfortunately enough, the holidays were coming to an end and Australia was calling the Turners back.

"You're not going out tonight? You should take a walk, Micky."

In their hotel room, Caroline and Mike were talking to Mundy.

"Your Mum's right, son. You could do with some fresh air."

"We spent our day outside. I'm tired."

Mike and Caroline exchanged a glance and went to the bathroom.

"I'm tellin' you, Mike, we have to push him out." She whispered to her husband. "He's as sad he could be."

"Yeah, I know, I know… But you're absolutely sure it will do him good?"

"Mike, I'm a sheila. We feel those things. Look at him…"

Caroline held the bathroom door ajar and Mike peeked through the slim opening.

"Doesn't he remind you of someone?" She asked.

"Hm. Yeah, course he does. Look at him lyin' on his bed, starin' at the ceiling. His body is here, his heart is elsewhere. He's exactly like me when I first met you, honey." Mike sighed. "Right, I'll get him out of this room. But you gotta help me."

"Ok, what's the plan?" Caroline asked excitedly.

"Follow me."

Mike took his wife by the hand and they exited the bathroom.

"Uh, Caroline, darl', d'you mind waitin' in the bathroom. This is guys' only talk."

"Fine."

Mike went to sit on Mundy's bed, next to him.

"Look, son. Uh… Your mum and I… Uh… We could do with a couple of hours alone if you… uh… If that's ok with you…?"

Mundy's eyes snapped wide and he sat up, looking his father in the eye and blushing. Mike was averting his gaze from his son, a bit ashamed.

"Oh…" Mundy answered. "Right, fine, I'll uh… I'll go have a walk. I'll be back in a couple hours then. Sorry."

"Good boy, no, no, don't apologise, it's fine." Mike said as Mundy put on his shoes and hat. "Take a bit of money with you and stay safe, eh?"

"Will do. Thanks, Dad."

"No, thank you, son."

Mundy exited the hotel and soon found himself in the streets. The sun was gently setting and the sky was orange with a few streaks of pink. The next day would again be very sunny.

Mundy didn't see it. His eyes were riveted on his shoes, his hands in his pockets, and his back hunched. He was in his own bubble and wanted to stay there, have some time alone to think.

About what? The obvious, of course. He was about to leave Paris, to leave France, to leave Europe, the Northern Hemisphere. He was about to leave Lucien and hadn't told him the dreadful news yet. Why? Because he didn't know how to tell him, especially now…!

Mundy sighed as he recalled the events of the previous night. They were on the quays of the Seine, the river that slithers through Paris.

"You can see almost everything from this river, eh?" Mundy realised.

"Oui, most monuments and important buildings you can see from here."

"Impressive… Oh…"

Lucien had slid his arm around Mundy's and his hand glided down until his fingers laced between the Aussie's. Mundy clenched his hand. He liked it way too much. Oh, hold on, maybe it was too much? He could feel his hand sweating…!

"S-sorry…" He pulled his hand off and wiped it nervously on his trousers.

"There is no problem." Lucien took Mundy's hand again. He pulled it up to his lips and kissed it.

"W-woah… Uhm…"

Lucien chuckled.

"You are such a delightful hint of the exotism I used to love…"

"What's that mean?"

They stopped walking along the river banks. Lucien went to the edge and looked at the streamflow for an instant. He removed his loafers elegantly and rolled his trousers' ends up along his calves. Mundy blushed. Contrary to him, Lucien didn't have a tan and being lighter in skin tone than him, he appeared almost snow white compared to Mundy. The Aussie watched as Lucien sat at the edge and let his feet dangle down. They were in the water up to his ankles. Mundy copied him and they were soon sitting side by side, their feet in the river.

Lucien leaned on Mundy's side and took his hand again. He held it dearly between both of his own.

"Mundy?"

"Yeah?"

"You are leaving a strong impression on me."

Mundy's eyebrows jumped.

"Y-you too." He removed his hat and leaned his head on Lucien's.

Silence fell for a while. It was soothing, hearing just the lapping sounds of the cool water licking their feet and their breaths.

"Lucien?"

"Oui?"

"Can I ask you somethin'?"

"You just did, and yes you may."

"How come you uh… I mean I don't want it to sound bad but… How come you spend all your nights with me? I mean, don't you have anyone waitin' at home? Family, friends? Even the weekends you spend with me. Y'know, it's ok if you wanted to not see me for a few days, I'd understand."

"I have very few friends. To be truly honest, I have none. The only person waiting for me back home is Perle."

"Oh, who's that? Family?"

"Better than that, she is my cat."

"Oh, you have a kitty?"

"The best in the world."

"What does she look like?" Mundy asked.

"Look here, I have a photograph of her." Lucien took his wallet off of his inner pocket and retrieved a small rectangular picture. It wasn't much bigger than a stamp. He handed it to Mundy.

"Oh, woah… Expensive she must be, eh. Gorgeous, long, snow white fur and light eyes, like you almost - huh, I mean…"

"Oui, she has blue eyes." Lucien simply answered. "You wouldn't know on the black and white picture. And I had no idea she was expensive, even though she is priceless to me."

"You didn't buy her off a shop or someone?"

"Non, I rescued her when she was a kitten, cold, shivering and skinny. Poor baby, she barely had the strength to mewl."

"Oh, woah…" Mundy handed back the picture and as Lucien stored it safely in his wallet again, the Aussie was devouring him with his eyes.

"I raised her as best as I could and we understand each other pretty well. She is my little baby, or as I like to call her, mon petit bébé."

"Uh… I… I mean…" Gosh, words jangled and mixed in his head. He had found a man gorgeous as a God, patient with him, who respected his shyness, didn't take advantage of it, didn't force him to do anything and loved his cat?

"Oui?" Lucien raised his fair eyes to Mundy and that didn't help the Aussie at all. His thoughts were broken, everything broke under those eyes.

"Uh?"

Lucien chuckled.

"It is fine. You don't have to say anything." He leaned his head on Mundy's shoulder and held his hand. "What about you? Do you have any relatives besides your parents?"

"Uh, no. It's just them and me. I got a few uncles and aunts. See them for Christmas with my cousins and their kids. And for the pets, we got a few dogs to keep the beasts away from the hens and geese. Mum has a cat too, Percy, he's black and white, with green eyes."

"What kinds of dogs?"

"An Aussie shepherd and a border collie. Good girls they are. We had a few through the years but dogs don't live as long as we want them to, eh?"

"Indeed."

"How old is your cat? What's her name again?"

"Perle, or for you, Pearl. She is now seven years old."

"Oh, a big girl."

"A wise lady indeed. My only companion since… A long time."

"Fair enough. Haven't had anyone to talk to for years too. I mean, apart from my parents."

"You don't have friends in Australia?"

"I do, yeah, but… Uh… Not like you."

"Well I don't imagine you have bakers who have become part time tourist guides there, hm?" Lucien teased.

"Nah, that's true. But uh, yeah, I mean… We've talked about anythin' for the past few weeks, right?"

"Oh oui, from cacti, to desert, to wild animals, Australian beers, dishes, weather, slang…."

"Yeah, and now I feel like I know Paris almost better than where I come from!" Mundy chuckled.

They looked in each other's eyes.

"We indeed have had conversations about anything with baffling ease."

"Yeah…" Mundy confirmed.

"Merci. It had been ages since I last felt such a pleasant connection with someone."

"Same for me."

Lucien had looked up at Mundy and stared. The Aussie hadn't noticed that the Frenchman's pupils dilated as they sank from his lagoon blue eyes, down his long, straight nose, to his rough, thin lips. Mundy was lost in the ice blue irises and time had stopped. Lucien did half of the work and pulled his neck up. Mundy could smell his perfume and his cigarettes, maybe a lingering faint aroma of hot flour too. But the Aussie had been oblivious and didn't meet the Frenchman half-way.

It had been roughly twenty-fours hours after these events now, and Mundy couldn't have got any of it out of his head. He was stuck there and then, his hand between Lucien's, his head leaning on the Frenchman.

And he found it ridiculous! Dinners in little, hidden bistrots, holding hands on the banks of the river Seine, pulling an all-nighter on the grass under the Eiffel Tower… What the hell had he become?

If his parents knew of it, if his friends knew of it, what would they all think? A holiday romance, nothing much? Pfff…

What hurt Mundy wasn't any of that. It was the fact that he had grown attached to Lucien. For him, it wasn't just a holiday matter, he wanted it to be more. Why? Because where on Earth would he find someone that would treat him so well and with whom he felt that he could share his everything? He felt safe with Lucien. He felt safe in a way that the hunter never thought he would one day experience because what that meant is that he was much more insecure about himself than what he let on…

Most people he knew would describe him as a nice bloke if not very talkative. They assumed he was just like that. But now, Mundy realised that he was just… shy. Part of him even thought that he was afraid. Of what? Of people, constantly watching and judging him.

He didn't like people and preferred animals in that respect. Animals didn't care that you were still mostly living with your parents, driving your father's van around the desert. Animals didn't ask about his job only to fantasise about it, use him for the night and throw him away. Animals didn't think they couldn't build anything with him because of his almost nomad way of life. No, animals cared for him because he cared for them, end of story.

"Bonsoir, Mundy. You took your time tonight, I thought you wouldn't come."

[Good evening, Mundy.]

The voice with the French accent broke Mundy's train of thought abruptly and he winced. He looked down at his feet and gave them an angry glance.

Well thanks for that… He was thinking. While he had been pulling on the thread of his thoughts like a cat on a ball of yarn, his feet had guided Mundy to the bakery.

"Oh, uh, y-yeah, sorry…"

"Are you alright?" Lucien asked, as Mundy still hadn't made eye contact with him.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

The Frenchman could have smelt that it was a lie from a mile away. He nonetheless ignored it and they both walked together along the street.

"What would you like to do tonight?" He asked.

"Don't know. You choose."

"In that case, there is somewhere that we could try." Lucien took Mundy's hand and led the way. He had an idea to cheer up his more-than-friend.

The walk was silent as Lucien decided against insisting. Mundy seemed the type to like silence and solitude well, which the Frenchman respected. He too had his moments where he would rather be alone.

Soon enough, they entered a café. Lucien quickly found a table and they both sat down, opposite each other. A waiter soon came. The Frenchman placed their order while Mundy was still brooding, somewhere between his own mind and nowhere… The waiter placed two mugs on the table and disappeared again.

"Here." Lucien took Mundy's hand and pushed it to the mug gently.

"Huh?" When his fingers registered the heat from both Lucien's hand and the mug, Mundy's eyes snapped wide and he landed back on Earth.

"Drink this."

"What is it?"

"Can't you tell?"

Mundy's sense of smell woke up as he raised the mug closer to his lips.

"Hot chocolate?"

"Oui, but not any kind. Try it."

Mundy did as he was told and took a sip.

"Hm… Very soft but not too sweet."

"As my mother used to do to me whenever I felt low, as a child. I kept the habit of coming here and having one whenever I felt like nothing else could help."

"Mh."

"Are you sure you don't want to talk to me about it, whatever it is?" Lucien asked after Mundy took another sip.

"I… I don't know…"

"Is it your parents? They seemed fine for lunch today."

"No, it's not them. It's me."

Lucien tilted his head on the side and his hand slid on the table until he cupped Mundy's, against the mug.

"Tell me, please."

Mundy sighed.

"I'll be goin' back to Oz. I-I'm gonna leave and… I… I kind of… I don't wanna." He mumbled, his eyes riveted on the hot chocolate. Lucien looked at him distraught.

"I see." He answered. "Do you really wish to stay here?"

"Y-yeah."

"You like Paris that much?"

Obviously, Mundy couldn't care less about the city. What counted was Lucien, and Lucien was staying there.

"Mundy…? Talk to me, please. I hate to see you distraught." Now, both of Lucien's hands were on Mundy's, wrapped around the warm mug.

"I don't wanna go, is all. It's childish and just plain ridiculous. But I wish I could stay and have… Have more tours of Paris.. With you."

Lucien's thumbs brushed Mundy's hands.

"I wish you could stay too, Mundy." Finally, the Aussie raised his head and met Lucien's sad eyes. "I have rarely felt the peace that I do with you. Your company is soothing for my now fragile nerves."

Mundy raised an eyebrow.

"What d'you mean?"

"There was a time where I was able to withstand a lot of pressure on my shoulders; the pressure of an entire country even. The moment it was gone, my body and mind collapsed. I didn't know anything anymore, even my own identity, what I was, who I was, was hard to grasp. It took years to come back from there. Years that I wouldn't have survived if not for Perle. I focused my time and energy on her. I devoted my attention to her and it distracted me from thinking too much about myself." He paused to catch his breath.

"Y-you got ill?" Lucien raised his eyes to Mundy.

"Oui, a kind of illness that no doctor knows exactly how to cure. A lot of soldiers go through it. They come back from the battlefields and they find it very hard to adjust back to civil life."

"You were a soldier?"

"Worse, but oui, I belonged to the army."

"How did you become a baker then? You were already one before you went to the army?" Mundy asked.

"Non, I was not. I had no skills besides those that I learnt in the army, or so few. You will mock me, but the idea came from Perle."

"Your kitty?"

Lucien nodded.

"One day I took her out to buy some bread with me. She was lying on my shoulders and when I was queueing to get my bread, she jumped out and into the back of the bakery." Lucien smiled as he remembered the events. "The baker let me through and we looked for her together. When we found her, she was asleep on a tray of still warm brioches."

"Aw, was that a long time ago?"

"She was somewhere between a kitten and an adult cat; a teenager, if you will."

"Ah, right. But how did you become a baker?"

"I apologised profusely to the baker and told him I would pay for all the damage and the pawprints… He told me he'd rather have someone to help him make all that again rather than take my money. So I offered my help. He taught me most of what I know now."

"Wow… Talk about finding work randomly, eh…"

"Oui, indeed. Since then, I have felt much better. Working put my attention and energy into something that brought smiles to the customers and apparently, to me too."

"So you got your own bakery goin'?"

"The previous owner of my bakery happens to be that man from the story. He was very old and decided to retire a few years later. He offered to let me buy the shop from him, which I did. I then changed the name to mine and redid some parts inside, the decoration mainly."

"Oh, I see… Wow… Great story you have."

"Merci." Lucien took a sip of his hot chocolate. "What about you? You said you were a hunter?"

"Yeah, but work is more and more rare now when you mainly do pest control and poacher scarin'."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't hunt beasts for trophies, fur or fun. I hunt and tranquilise whatever happens to be a bit too far from its natural habitat, load it on my van, and drive it back where it should be or in a reserve. As for the poachers, I scare them off of endangered species."

"So you don't kill animals?"

"Very rarely. Only for food when I'm out for days and far from home."

"Oh…" Lucien's eyebrows jumped. "I did not expect that. In fact, I didn't even know that this job existed."

"As far as I know, I'm the only one who doesn't actually kill the beasts. I get contracts that get me travellin' through the world quite a bit."

"Very exciting."

"Seein' the sights is nice, yeah. But uh, I miss my family quite fast and uh… It's not so much my family but… I feel a bit… Uh…"

"Lonely?"

Mundy nodded.

"Yeah…"

"I would recommend getting a cat," Lucien said. "But I am afraid that it doesn't completely fill the emptiness that you feel inside."

"I'd imagine so, yeah…"

Silence fell for a while as they both drank more of their hot chocolates.

"I would love you to stay, but your life, your family and your job are in Australia." Lucien said and his eyes met Mundy. They were both distraught and could hardly hide it.

"Yeah… And I don't know anythin' else but shooting a rifle." Mundy looked through the window. It was now properly dark outside and only the yellow lamps inside the old café provided them with some light.

"I am immensely grateful to you however."

"For what?"

"I wouldn't be able to put a name on it but you brought me some peace and you made me wake up in the morning with a new feeling; the eagerness of welcoming a new day that will for sure contain some spark of joy, namely, your presence, your… Hm, you."

Mundy blushed and turned as red as a brick.

"Y-you do the same. I mean, for me. I uh… I'm not just happy to visit the city with my parents. I'm uh… I'm happy in the evenings, with you."

They hadn't realised until then but they were holding hands on the table, the mugs had been pushed aside.

"I wish I could stay, I really do. But uh… Yeah, without a job or anythin', I can't."

"I understand and, for what it is worth, I would love for you to stay too." Lucien hesitated but thought that it might be his last evening with Mundy. He looked around and could see the few customers in the café were far from them. "And not just to help you visit the city."

Mundy's eyebrows jumped as Lucien had spoken quite low. The Frenchman was staring at him with a particular shine in his eyes. He slightly bent forward and Mundy mirrored him. Their faces were a few inches apart.

"L-Lucien, I'd uh… I'd better get back. We still gotta pack a few things before leavin' tomorrow."

Lucien's chest burnt. Hot lava was being poured on his heart.

"Before you go, may I tell you something?"

They were both whispering. Mundy nodded and Lucien gestured to him to get closer, which he did. The Frenchman wrapped a hand behind Mundy's neck and the Aussie froze rigid when he felt Lucien's breath on his ear.

"Je t'aime." He simply whispered and Mundy's entire being burst and melted when he felt Lucien's lips on his rough cheek.

[I love you.]

"U-uh…" The air was scarce in the room but it happened too fast and Mundy was left alone at the table. Lucien had dashed out faster than a shadow. "Fuck me…"

Soon, the surge of love was replaced by boiling rage and Mundy stormed out of the café, almost running back to the hotel. That night, he cried himself to sleep as silently as he could. He didn't want his parents to hear it.

The next morning, Mundy was woken up by his mother.

"Micky, sweetie? You've been sleepin' a long time, it's lunchtime now."

"Don't wanna eat." He rolled himself under the blanket and his parents exchanged a concerned look. "You can go if you want."

"Micky, you can't travel on an empty stomach, son." Mike's voice took the decision for everyone and Mundy sighed before getting out of bed and dressed up.

They arranged for their luggage to be transferred to the airport while they went to have lunch. Obviously, they ended up in Lucien's bakery.

"Bonjour, Lucien!" Mike tried his best.

"Bonjour, Mike. What will it be today?"

"Hold your horses, son, I've gotta see with the wife if I can get dessert first…!"

"Mike, you know the answer to that…"

"Lucien," Mike turned to the baker. "You married, by any chance?"

Lucien shook his head.

"Non, I nearly did but it did not happen."

"Well, before you get married, ask them if you can get dessert for the rest of your life."

"Mike…! You know why you have to be careful, the doctor said so, now be reasonable, dear." Caroline tried.

"And only get a ring on your finger if they say that yes, you can get dessert until your very last breath!"

Lucien smiled, albeit sadly. After that, the Turner family placed their order and soon enough, their sandwiches and salads appeared on the table.

"Lucien, excuse me, dear?" Caroline called and Lucien came to her.

"Oui, Madame?"

"I saw the poster on your front door. You're looking to hire?"

"Oui, indeed. I think this is the end of a chapter for me. Time maybe to do something else."

"Oh, that's a shame. You're very good at what you do!"

"Yeah, your sandwiches are amazin'." Mike added.

"Thank you very much."

"Did you receive applications?" Caroline asked.

"I am afraid not, but I have only put that poster up this morning."

"What kind of people're you lookin' for?" Mike asked.

"Anyone, from inexperienced to confirmed bakers. In fact, I learnt this trade as a beginner and I would like to pass on my knowledge and techniques to someone else. But don't let me bother you. Enjoy your lunch."

He bowed and returned behind his counter. Mundy hadn't listened to any of it. He couldn't even raise his eyes off of his shoes, especially not to see Lucien. It hurt too much.

"Micky?"

"Mh."

"Micky, you want to eat before we go, dear." Caroline said and her son sighed before taking a bite. He chewed slowly and looked away from anyone else.

"Don't like your sandwich, son?"

Mundy didn't answer and didn't see Caroline and Mike exchanging a glance.

"You can try another one, eh."

Still no answer from the heartbroken Aussie. It was a torture. Eating a sandwich made by the hand of a man he had cried for, hands that he had spent the past few weeks holding fondly even if he had never initiated it. Gosh, now he regretted it, he should have done something, anything…! But he wasn't ready, he never was, he had never been prepared for it! In more than three decades of existence, who the hell would come to him and teach him?

"Mike, Madame Caroline?" Lucien had come to the table.

"Yeah?"

"I have a… an unusual request, if I may."

"Go ahead, son." Mike wiped his mouth and frowned to listen better.

"It is actually for Mundy." Lucien said and Mundy frowned too but his eyes were still low. "If you would rather make your own sandwich, you may help yourself to the fridge and the breads that I have."

Mundy didn't flinch.

"If you want… You can… Make not only your sandwich, but… other sandwiches."

"Oh, you mean to take away? Ouch!" Mike asked and received an elbow to his ribs from Caroline who glared at him.

"That is lovely of you, Lucien. Yes, I think he would love doing that, if that is ok with you?"

"It is the least I can offer, Madame."

"Oh, you really don't have to…!"

"Allow me to insist. You have been lovely customers throughout all these weeks."

"And you have been a lovely guide! So, Micky, what do you say?" Caroline asked her son and he sighed.

"Don't know." He mumbled.

"C'mon sweetie, go and make your own sandwich. And make a couple of extra ones for your Dad and I, for the road."

"Mum…" Mundy hid his face in his hands.

"Micky, you don't want to be impolite to Lucien." She insisted.

"Hm…" He grumbled and pushed his chair back before standing up, not seeing his mother whispering something to his father.

"Here, wear this. It would be a shame to have flour on your polo shirt." Lucien handed him an apron. Mundy took it and put it on without looking at it. This whole show hurt and was preposterous�� "Now let me show you around the house, pray follow me."

Mundy dragged his feet on the floor and followed Lucien behind the counter.

"What sandwiches would you and Mike like, Madame Caroline?" Lucien asked.

"If you have that ham and butter, what d'you call it again, Lucien?" She answered.

"Jambon-beurre, Madame." He answered. "Mundy, please take one of those in front of you? Thank you, now, follow me to the fridge. Here is the light butter and the lean ham. I keep them on this side to not get them confused with their regular counterparts. Now, you will do your father's sandwich. Here, chopping board, a fresh baguette and a knife. Go ahead."

"L-Lucien…" Mundy sighed in front of the ingredients. "I can't."

Caroline stood up and went to the counter with Mike, customer side, while Mundy and Lucien were on the other side.

"C'mon, son, your first sandwich here, Micky! Caroline, get the camera!" Mike encouraged him.

"And we get to see you make it!" Caroline added enthusiastically and readied herself to take a picture.

"Wh-what?" Mundy asked, confused that his parents were that thrilled for… him making a couple of sandwiches.

"C'mon, cut the bread, Micky, chop, chop!" Mike said and Mundy got to work, missing the point entirely. He made the sandwich for his father and added his mother's to the plastic bag.

"I won't take one for myself." Mundy said and started undoing the apron.

"Of course not, son!" Mike answered with a chuckle and Mundy's confusion just jumped a notch.

"And what are you doing, Micky? Keep the apron!" Caroline laughed.

"What? I'm not gonna travel with that!" Mundy answered.

"Of course not!" She answered.

"What the hell's been going on? Look, this is just - it's just…!" Mundy covered his face with his hands to hide his shame. At that point he thought it was a nightmare and he would wake up.

"Ooh, we're sorry, sweetie…" Caroline hugged him. "We didn't want to upset you."

"But why…?"

"Micky, look at your apron, son." Mike said.

"Dad, look, I'm just tired. Let's go back home." Beyond the distress of leaving Lucien, Mundy felt embarrassed, ashamed to have been put on the spot with the apron, the sandwich making… What was that all about…?

"S'il te plaît, Mundy."

[Please, Mundy.]

Caroline and Mike stepped back to let Lucien get closer to Mundy. The Aussie turned his face away. He couldn't take any of it anymore.

"Mundy…?"

"Take it back and leave me alone." Mundy removed the apron completely and pushed it against Lucien's chest.

"On one condition, you look here."

Mundy sighed but obeyed. Lucien held the apron between his hands.

"What do you read here?"

The apron was white with something sewn on it. Mundy squinted. His shoulders and jaw dropped when he read the word.

Mundy

It was sewn in cursive letters. Mundy looked at Lucien's apron. His name was sewn in the same style.

"What? What's that mean?"

"It means, and forgive me for repeating myself, that I am offering you a job here." Lucien answered.

"What?! I know nothing of bread!"

"I will teach you, you will see, it isn't hard at all."

"But why? I gotta go back home…" Mundy turned to his parents.

"Micky, you can stay longer if you want." Mike said.

"Yeah, it's fine, you're a big boy and you've stayed with us long enough. Maybe this is your chance?" Caroline added and Mundy's eyes lit up with joy and excitement.

"Really?" His voice broke under the emotion he was trying to prudely contain.

"Of course!" Caroline answered. She went to the tip of her toes to put a hand on Mundy’s rough, slender cheek. "Look, for the past few weeks, we realised with your Dad that we hadn't seen you that happy in years. Each night, when you come back from your walks, you smile and even when you sleep, the smile stays on…!"

"Your Mum's right, son. If you're happy here with Lucien, then stay, at least a bit more. And it's not like you were exactly earnin' a decent wage out of a few hunting contracts, eh? Folks will find other people to deal with their beasts. You deal with you, ok?"

"Oh my God…" Mundy's tears came to his eyes faster than he could control. "Gosh…!" He hid his face and his shame with his hands.

"Aw, baby Micky…!" Caroline went to the tip of her toes to hug him and Mike tapped him on the back.

"It's alright, son, it's alright."

"But, you sure, though?" Mundy withdrew from the hug and looked his parents in the eye.

"Of course! We'll make it back home and give you a call when we get there." Caroline said, pinching his cheek gently.

"Yeah, of course!" Mike added. "Now, c'mere son." Father and son exchanged a long hug. "You make your parents proud, yeah?"

"Yeah, Dad, don't worry."

"And you be a good boy, eh?" Caroline added.

"Yes, Mum, I will."

"You look out for each other, alright boys?" Mike looked at Lucien.

"We will, Mike." The Frenchman answered. "But Mundy…?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you accept my offer?" Lucien held the apron up.

Mundy looked at his parents who nodded, then back at Lucien.

"Yeah… Please."

"Fine." Lucien got closer and put the apron on Mundy. He then tied it for him as the Aussie's eyes were riveted on his parents. Caroline was leaning on her husband's side and both wore a proud smile. Mundy hadn't seen his parents smile like that for a long, long time. "There, you are ready."

"Thanks, Lucien." They exchanged a tender gaze and didn't see Caroline's eyes light up.

"Right, boys, I think we should be on our way." Mike said.

"But of course." Lucien answered. "Here, your sandwiches for the road."

"Mum, you call me as soon as you can, ok?" Mundy said, as they all went to the front door.

"Yes, dear, don't worry."

They were now standing outside of the bakery under the beautiful and powerful summer sun.

"You call us sometimes, Micky, eh?" Mike said.

"Sure, I will."

Hugs and kisses were exchanged.

"And you, you take care of our son, alright?" Mike was shaking Lucien's hand and patted his shoulder. After that, he waved for a taxi to stop.

"I will think of him before I think of myself." Lucien answered while giving a nod.

"And Micky, you take care of Lucien too, eh?" Caroline said as she winked, making her son blush beyond his ears.

"Y-yeah Mum, will do…"

"Bye, son."

"Bye guys, careful on your way back, eh?" Mundy answered.

"We will, don't worry."

And on that, they all waved at each other as Mike and Caroline slipped in the taxi and they went their way. Lucien and Mundy stayed for a while, even after the taxi disappeared. The Aussie was out of breath, everything had happened quite fast.

“I’ll miss them.” He said.

“I will miss them too. You are lucky to have very supportive parents, Mundy.”

“Yeah… But I’m glad to stay here.”

"So…" Lucien said as both him and Mundy entered the shop again.

"Yeah?"

"Ready to learn the fine art of bread and pastry making?"

"I guess… I mean, I didn't really think it through, eh." Mundy chuckled and looked at Lucien. "But with you, anythin'."

The Frenchman smiled.

"First lesson: follow me."

They went back behind the counter and Lucien even invited Mundy in the hidden workshop, behind a wooden door. There were tables lined up in the room, fridges on one wall and ovens in the other.

"Woah… It smells incredible in here…!" Mundy said as he was hit by a wave of hot flour.

"Indeed. You will see, you will never get tired of that incomparable smell. Hot flour and sometimes, hints of sugar."

"Yeah…” Mundy inhaled deeply and when he exhaled, his eyes were half closed. That place was heaven... “Right, so what's first?"

Lucien shut the door and looked up at Mundy.

"First, I have to ask you, are you sure you want to stay with me? We can still call a taxi for you and you can join your parents."

Lucien's light blue eyes raised up to Mundy were a sight to behold for the shy Aussie.

"Y-yeah."

"Yes, what? Shall we call a taxi or…?"

"No. I wanna… Try, with you."

Lucien's smile made all his face beam up poetically. He closed the gap between Mundy and himself and hugged the taller man.

"Thank you so much." Both closed their eyes and held dearly to each other. “Thank you so much for trusting me and for believing that this is all worthwhile. I do appreciate that you are leaving everything behind just for me and… I am beyond grateful.”

Mundy bent down to put his lips next to Lucien's ear.

"Lucien?" He whispered.

"Oui?"

"I think I… I love you too." Mundy screwed his eyes shut and buried his head deep in the crook of Lucien's neck, holding Lucien not like a friend, but like the salvation he felt God sent to him through that man.

"Mundy…?"

"Yeah?"

"Look at me."

Mundy did as he was told and Lucien wrapped his arms around the Aussie's neck.

"O-oh… Right… Y-yeah?"

Lucien smiled before his eyelashes bowed down as he slowly closed his eyes. He pushed himself to the tip of his toes and did what he had dreamt of doing.

Mundy's eyes rolled up in bliss and if he froze for a second, the kiss made him soon melt such that he bent down and pulled Lucien from his back and his hip, to feel more of him against himself. He yielded to the passion of the moment, he let everything explode in him, the yearning, the longing...

It lasted for a few seconds that they both wanted to extend, but the call for air was stronger. When they broke the kiss, they stayed with their foreheads against each other.

Neither knew what to say first, to exit that moment.

"Hold on…" Mundy eventually said.

"Oui? Something is the matter?" Lucien asked.

"No but… You had an apron with my name all along?"

"Non," Lucien chuckled. "When I came back yesterday night, I spent some time thinking and smoking. I couldn't help but repeat the discussion we had in the café on loop in my head. And then I remembered what you said, that you wouldn't be able to stay without a job. That was when I got the idea to hire you."

"Oh, woah…"

"So I woke up this morning, my mind set as hard as stone. I thought that I would ask in front of your parents."

"How did you know they'd accept?"

"I think your mother felt it, for a long time."

"She felt what?"

"Mundy, she is a woman, and your mother, she feels those things. Besides, each time you have lunch here you stare at me with such insistence…!"

"What?! No, I don't!" Mundy protested and his cheeks turned red.

"Yes, you do, mon amour, and don't blush so much…" Lucien chuckled and tapped the tip of Mundy's nose.

"Did you just call me-?"

"My love, oui. Now, let us go to work - oh?!" Lucien's sentence was interrupted by an intense - if slightly awkward - kiss. Mundy held him dearly, almost clawed in his sides and Lucien smiled.

"That is quite unprofessional, hm?" The Frenchman teased.

"Well, you started it, eh?"

"Non, I did not kiss my employer."

"You kissed your employee, that's worse."

"Non, you are not my employee yet."

"What?"

"You are my apprentice…"

"Right, fair enough. What's that make you then?" Mundy asked.

"... And my lover."

"Oh, right, ok, uhm… I-I mean…"

"And very shy."

"Well…"

They spent the beginning of that afternoon in the workshop dealing with bread and pastries as they teased each other. When the time came to close the shop and go back home, Mundy's eyebrows jumped.

"H-hold on." He said on the pavement with Lucien.

"Oui?"

"I… I don't have a home here… I could probably be able to pay a couple more nights at the hotel but…"

Lucien's chuckle cut Mundy's sentence.

"Why're you laughin'? I'm telling you I'm homeless…!"

"Don't be silly, Mundy. Come." Lucien took his hand and led the way.

"Right… I s'ppose you can walk me back to the hotel…"

"Non, I will not and I am not."

"Where are we goin' then?"

"Home."

Mundy frowned in confusion but decided to wait and see. Meanwhile, he held Lucien's hand dearly in his own. A few minutes later, Lucien stopped and got some keys out of his pocket. He unlocked the door and flipped a switch.

"Meow…!"

A white cloud brushed the floor and jumped in Lucien's arms.

"Oui, mon bébé, bonsoir, Papa est rentré…"

[Yes, my baby, good evening to you too, Papa has come home…]

He kissed her countless times and carried her in his arms indeed like a baby.

"Mundy, this is Perle. Perle, this is Mundy."

"Oh, yeah, your kitty…! Hello there, pretty lady…" Mundy scratched her cheeks and jaw, and soon both Lucien and him heard her pur.

"She likes you already." Lucien said.

"I'm good with animals usually, yeah… Hold on, what d'you mean 'already'?"

"Perle," Lucien said to his cat. "Mundy here is more than just a man who knows how to scratch you perfectly."

"Meow?"

"Oui, he is Papa's very good friend."

"Meow…?"

"Fine, oui, he is Papa's… Second half."

"Meow!"

"Don't worry, you are still my baby, but now, you are our baby, because Mundy here" Lucien raised his eyes to his lover. "Mundy here will live with us."

"Wh-...? Wait, are you serious?" Mundy asked in shock at the door's threshold. Lucien pulled him in and closed the door after him.

"I am. Now, make yourself at home, and give me an instant, someone has to feed this snow white baby."

"Meow!"

Lucien went to the kitchen as Mundy opened wide eyes and observed every little thing in the room. The paintings, most of them abstract, the furniture, the brown leather sofa, the persian style carpet in front of it, on which was the coffee table. There was a fireplace too and on the mantelpiece, pictures. They were all about Perle, the white kitten who grew to a majestic, fluffy creature with mesmerising blue eyes, a bit like her master.

"One last thing Mundy…!" Lucien said from the kitchen.

"Yeah?"

"I have only one double bed!"

Mundy blushed and smiled.

#tf2 sniper #tf2 spy #sniperspy #dontneedavalentine2021

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dickspeightjrs · 4 years ago

Text

Do It For A Dollar (au / 1.5k words / college student!cas / actor!dean)

Prompt 18 from my ‘30 Destiel Prompts’ for @breathingdestiel

ao3 link

The warm heat of the New York summer clings to Castiel as he walks along to his favourite coffee shop. (It’s his favourite for one simple reason - it’s cheap and he’s a broke college student.)

Despite the air conditioning of the shop welcoming him in when he arrives, Castiel decides to take a seat under the awning outside. As a student, struggling to pay for college, and all the other costs that come with simply being alive, Castiel has to find entertainment in the smaller things in life. One such entertainment is buying a coffee and sitting, just watching people go by.

It’s a beautiful day outside so there’s plenty of people for Castiel to flit his eyes over as they walk past, going about their days. He’ll likely never see them again and that thought alone fascinates him immensely. The idea that your life can seem so huge and overwhelming and yet there’s seven billion of them walking around the planet at this moment. Seven billion perspectives.

Castiel’s eyes follow a bobbing balloon, clutched in the hand of a small child babbling to his mother. As the balloon disappears out of eye shot, Castiel’s focus is snapped to what looks like a couple of trailers pulling up and some guys with cameras jumping out. It looks as though they’re filming something across the street.

That was something Castiel had found it odd getting used to about living in New York. There was always some movie or show being filmed around the city. If he didn’t see it himself, he always heard about it. He’s at college to study film after all.

He squints against the beating sun, to try to get a better look. People watching is sure to get a whole lot better if the people he is watching are celebrities.

A couple of minutes pass and Castiel is starting to lose hope that he’s actually going to see anything before he leaves. He’s just about to get up from his seat when he chances a glance across the street again.

It seems something must be starting as there’s a rather hyper looking man holding a microphone and talking into a camera. The man must be introducing someone as he suddenly holds out an arm to bring someone into shot.

Oh god, it’s Dean Winchester! That man is a legend in film and he’s only thirty. Castiel had been hoping that they’d study some Dean’s movies and performances in his classes. There is so emotion Dean can’t portray with intense accuracy and believability. His latest movie was a heart-wrenching story in which he played a monster hunter who fell in love with his angel best friend, only for them to be ripped away from each other in a scene that left Castiel breathless.

The man with the microphone is now shouting things at people on the street, while Dean seems to just be standing next to him. Castiel can’t quite make out what the man is saying but members of the public seem to be bewildered and are walking away quickly from the mad man - Castiel can’t say he blames them.

Both men suddenly pick up the pace, jogging down the street until they stop abruptly and a microphone gets put in another strangers’ face. This person looks confused until they do a double-take and spot Dean. Finally, Castiel thinks, everyone should know who Dean is. The stranger says something that makes Dean throw his head back with a belt of laughter.

Gosh, that man is truly beautiful. Castiel doesn’t imagine they’ll come over to his side of the street and he is definitely much too nervous to pretend to casually cross the street as if he had no idea what is happening there. Instead, he decides that, if Dean is still around after they finish filming whatever this is, he’ll pluck up the courage to go over and say hi. (To brag about it in class tomorrow, if nothing else.)

“Would you kiss Dean Winchester for a dollar?!!?” Castiel hears the hyper man’s voice shout to the next unsuspecting member of the public. He snorts to himself. There’s no doubt, he would do a lot more with Dean for a lot less than a dollar, if given the chance.

Whatever game the two men seem to be playing carries on for a while longer. Castiel sits and watches them film for a while, plans to leave forgotten in favour of watching Dean.

Dean looks like a nice person. When the microphone man shouts at people and even pushes some away, Dean always makes sure to catch them before they leave and give them a hug or handshake. And Castiel can’t help it every time Dean laughs, he lets out a little laugh too, though he covers his mouth so the people enjoying their coffee around him don’t think he’s strange.

Eventually, it looks like filming is winding down. The camera guy drops his camera from his shoulder and walks off back to one of the trailers. Now the spotlight is off him, the mad man’s energy has left him and he’s just taking in quiet tones with Dean. They must be saying goodbye because Dean claps a hand on the guy’s shoulder and shakes his hand before heading towards the trailers too.

Castiel drinks the final drops of his coffee and Dean doesn’t return. Figuring he’s missed his chance to say hi to Dean (not that he’d have worked up the courage anyway), Castiel picks up his things and throws his coffee cup in the trash. At least, he got to see one of his favourite actors in the flesh, not many people can say that. Plus, he couldn’t stay for longer, he’d already spent too much on coffee to keep his seat outside, which wasn’t good for his student budget.

Compared to the walk to the coffee shop earlier that day, the weather is now cooler under the setting sun and Castiel relishes the reprieve from the heat. His mind begins to wander to other things, mostly his new short film he’s got to work on for school.

Just as he’s about to cross at the end of the street, he hears someone shout from behind him.

“Wait!”

Castiel frowns and turns to quickly look over his shoulder, though he’s not actually expecting the person to be shouting to him.

Only, when his eyes fall onto the source of the voice, they immediately go wide in shock.

Dean Winchester is standing in front of him, green eyes filled with… nerves?

“Uh,” Dean says, as if he wasn’t expecting Castiel to actually turn around, “I noticed you watching us film from across the street. And I guess I just wanted to say that you look cute when you’re laughing. You shouldn’t hide it.”

When Castiel’s brain finally decides to reboot itself, he replies. “I was only trying to hide it because I didn’t want to look like an idiot.”

“I’m sure you could never do that, man.” Dean says, a small smile creeping at the corner of his mouth.

Castiel blushes and looks down at the pavement.

A comfortable, happy silence falls on them.

But then, Castiel frowns when he sees Dean reach into his back pocket. He tilts his head in confusion. The confusion doesn’t clear when Dean pulls out a dollar.

Castiel gives Dean a questioning look.

Dean clears his throat and holds out the dollar to Castiel. “Would you kiss Dean Winchester for a dollar?”

Castiel makes an unattractive snort of laughter at Dean’s gesture. He places his hand over Dean’s and gently pushes it away.

“I don’t need a dollar to want to kiss you, Dean.” He whispers, finding courage from the kind eyes Dean is showing him. “Plus, it’s a little crowded on this street, and people are starting to watch.” He flicks his eyes around them where some people have started taking their phones out to film Dean Winchester talking to this random guy on the street.

Dean deflates slightly under the attention.

“But,” Castiel says and notices Dean brighten up again, “if you wanted to find somewhere more private and, perhaps, put that dollar towards dinner, maybe we could talk a little more about that kiss.”

Dean’s smile could rival the beaming summer sun.

* * *

Two years later, Billy Eichner (turns out shouty microphone guy had a name, who knew?) presents them with a gift at their wedding.

Unbeknownst to them until that moment, some of the crew had noticed Dean run after Castiel on the day they met and they’d filmed what they could from afar.

All their guests chuckle when they see Dean try to offer Castiel a dollar to kiss him. Dean groans and hides his face in Castiel’s neck. Castiel runs a comforting hand down Dean’s back.

“In your defence, it was incredibly adorable.” Castiel says.

“Ugh”, Dean groans, “that doesn’t help, Cas.” He lifts his head to look at Castiel in the eyes, pouting like a sulking child.

Castiel smiles at his grumpy husband, and places a soothing kiss to his lips.

Yes. He definitely didn’t need a dollar to do that for the rest of his life.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed it Ivana! Sorry it took so long, I had a whole other idea before this but scrapped it because I couldn’t make it work lmao

If you’re not familiar with ‘Billy On The Street’ go look it up on YouTube. It’s hilarious.

TAGS: @eccentriccas @starrynightdeancas @credentiast @imbiowaresbitch @starclaire @cockleslovesdestiel @bend-me-shape-me @destielfactory @dea-stiel @wendeano @wingsandimpalas @aggressivedean @flowersforcas @chill-legilimens @pancakesofthelord @saltnhalo @caslikescoffeeandfreckles @assbuttboyfriends @jhoomwrites @breathingdestiel @simplymisha @thekingslover @aelysianmuse @2musiclover2 @cas-you-assbutt-dean-needs-you @50shadesofsubtext @destielle

(let me know if you’d like to be added/removed from the tag list, we don’t have to be mutuals!)

#destiel #destiel fic #destielfanficnet #dean winchester #castiel #myfic #fluff #au #1k #collegeau #actor!dean #student!cas #prompt fill #quite happy with this one #might do a time stamp or two for this one #just like the little universe i've created #also notice the deancas s15 reference #because i'm in full clown mode

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otonymous · 5 years ago

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Afterglow (Jackson Wang - NSFW)

Description: Breakups lead to make-ups...and make-up sex in an alleyway Pairing: Jackson Wang x Reader Warnings: NSFW/18+: Explicit/graphic language — reader discretion is advised. Potential trigger warnings: public sex, angst, breakups Word Count: 2748 words (~ 14 mins of smut, angst and fluff-lite™️) AO3: read here Author’s Notes: This story is a BIG milestone for me, because it's the first time I've written about a man who exists outside the two-dimensional plane 😆 The thirst was undeniable ever since I saw Jackson’s Bottle Cap Challenge video, then he dropped the fly Kinjaz dance moves in his Titanic MV, and this story has been slowly brewing ever since.

I found it challenging to write about a living human being, and I strove to be as respectful as possible in the process of crafting this story. That being said, happy reading and hope you all enjoy it! 🥰

Disclaimer: This is purely an exercise in creativity. Unfortunate though it is, I do not know Jackson Wang in real life lol

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“What do you know about me?”

The slight tremble in his voice. A hint of panic.

You squinted as the headlights of a passing car caught the diamonds in his wristwatch, dazzling and disorienting in the dark as light reflected in your vision, and then…over as soon as it began. The magic of the moment so terribly brief.

And as neon street signs threw electric shadows in the alleyway where you found yourself unable to look Jackson in the eye, the heat of a Hong Kong summer had never felt more oppressive.

Brown eyes no longer crinkled at their corners as they so often did before the cameras, their depths set instead on scrutinizing your features, looking for cracks in the wall you swore would never fall.

Because falling for him never should have been an option.

“You think you’ve got me all figured out, right? That I’m just another pretty face looking to play around?”

English bleeds seamlessly into Cantonese, Jackson’s voice rising in the deserted corridor where he had chased after you when you left him at the food stall on the corner — the place where you finally mustered up the courage to drive the blade into your heart even as you broke his with a single word:

“Goodbye.”

He hadn’t even finished his lo mein.

“Keep your voice down, Jackson. You don’t want to attract attention—”

“DON’T TREAT ME LIKE A CHILD!”

The desperate echo of his outburst left him feeling like he’d been punched in the gut. Eyes following your gaze as it dropped to the ground, Jackson Wang had never felt so small.

The sound of his breath fills your ears, shaky and shallow and accompanied by the drip of an air conditioner nearby — pace steady like a clock to mark the passage of time the two of you no longer had.

He covered his face, tapered fingers dragging from forehead to chin as his throat bobbed, choking on all the words he couldn’t afford to say aloud.

Because in that moment, Jackson hated it all — everything he had ever worked for. The recognition. The fame. Schedules packed with recording, shoots and interviews that it wasn’t until the car ride home that he realized he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the sun.

And in the mire of those lost days, he despised himself. Hated the way he wished your time would stop too, just so he could share in every missed moment:

Your breath on his skin as you blew out the candles on a cake, warmth gentle like extinguished flame.

The laughter that shook your body till you doubled over, the most beautiful music to his ears.

Tears that rolled down your cheeks to reflect silver moonlight, stealing in through half-drawn curtains while the world outside slept.

Jackson Wang wanted it all. Selfish though it was, he couldn't help it. Because all he ever wanted was to give you everything. But now, in the tremble of capable hands, he felt you slip through his fingers like grains of sand, scattered by the winds of a fate he was powerless against.

Powerless. Hadn’t he sworn he would never allow himself to feel this way again?

His hands curl into tight fists.

“Jackson, we…we just…don’t belong together.” The words felt foreign on your tongue. Faint, as if you yourself didn’t care to hear them.

“You and I both know full well that’s bullshit,” he scoffs, pulling off his black cap to run a hand through hair dyed chestnut brown.

And you remember.

Remembered the way he did the same in a flustered apology when he first bumped into you that fated day, eyes wide to see your skewer of curried fish balls drop to roll away on the sloped pavement.

Remembered being simultaneously fascinated and frightened by a smile as bright as the sun. And suddenly, the way he artlessly thrust an egg tart into your hand in exchange for your lost snack made you shy.

Recalled the silk of his hair, wound between your fingers as they anchored to tug and pull with every movement of his body within yours, each wave of ecstasy overwhelming and absolute.

And suddenly, you are nauseous at the thought of never again hearing him whisper your name -- deep voice laced with fatigue on the other end of the line, or husky with lust as he trailed kisses down your neck. But you swallow hard and sweep the thoughts away, preparing to twist the knife in a bid to be kind.

“All the things I want, Jackson…you cannot give me."

Liar.

The words wooden in your ear, you wondered if Jackson, too, picked up on the charade. But the quiet shudder that leaves his lips tells you otherwise. Strangely detached, as if your consciousness had transcended your body to hover over the scene of a crime, you continue, eyes on the ground as you pantomimed the lies rehearsed since the day you decided to let the love of your life go.

“I want someone whose hand I can hold in public without it becoming front page news. Someone who can be there, who doesn’t need to hop on a plane when I need him to just…hold me. Texting and FaceTime, it’s not enough for me anymore. Being with you, Jackson, it’s…too hard…”

Hypnotized by the rise and fall of his chest, you trail off as he steps closer, the yellow Batman logo on his black tee looking more faded than the last time you saw him in it — one month and three days ago. The last time he came home. The last time he was close enough to touch.

The first time you really saw what was happening to Jackson Wang.

For the truth lay in the violet circles beneath gentle eyes, in the tired rasp of his voice. All those times he fought exhaustion to hear you tell him about your day at the end of his. The way he’d apologize profusely for falling asleep mid-conversation the morning after while drinking that awful chicken breast shake he still couldn’t quite get used to. The red-eye flights taken to surprise you on a whim. The guilt you knew he still carried for missing kisses under mistletoes and summers spent on tour.

“Time. Just give me a bit more time and I’ll give you everything. Please. That’s all I’m asking for.”

Jackson’s voice is quiet. Pleading. You would’ve given him the world had he wanted it, but it still wouldn’t change the fact that your lives never should have crossed. Jackson burned bright, a shooting star meant to blaze new trails. And exhilarating thought it was to have momentarily basked in the warmth of his fire, you knew he couldn’t afford to be weighed down by anything — or anyone — in the pursuit of his dreams.

Love shouldn’t be a burden.

So you remain silent, sorrow heavy on your tongue as you fight the sting in your eyes that threatens to give you away.

“Look at me?”

Jackson’s breath, warm and soft at the crown of your head, sets your pulse on fire. And on reflex, your trembling hand flies to your chest, fingering the delicate chain of the necklace he himself had put on you so many months ago until you remembered that this, too, was to be returned.

Voice thick with emotion, Jackson whispers again: “Please, look at me.”

And when those large hands cradle your jaw to gently tilt, the angles of his handsome face finally come into view, blurred through tears spilling past lashes as your traitorous body revolts — every nerve, every inch of skin screaming out for the touch of his lips.

Those lips.

Plush pink and soft satin, how often had they pressed against yours, hot and insistent to leave you breathless in the ardour of his kiss? Even now, with your lies breaking your heart and his, they moved to caress the apples of your cheeks, infinitely tender as he tasted the salt of every bitter tear shed.

“I love you. Please…please, don’t go.”

Confession laid at the corner of your lips, his hands wrap around your waist to pull you flush against his body, Jackson willing his embrace to express the depths of his sincerity in a rare moment where he found himself speechless.

And there, melting into the searing heat of his chest against yours, you curse your lack of resolve as it crumbles — the cracks in the wall you said would never fall deepening with every sweep of his tongue along the seam of your lips, begging for entry. Begging for your reconsideration.

So you relent, and the ecstatic shudder that shakes him to taste your mouth at last makes you weak. But before you can drop, the arms around you tighten — strong and supportive like Jackson himself, constant even as his kiss deepened, greedy for more, more, more.

For when it came to you, Jackson was insatiable.

“This is yours,” he says, breathless when he finally pulls away, lips kiss-swollen and cheeks pink under fluorescent blue lights, his hand covering yours to pull it beneath his shirt, wandering the crests and dips of that defined torso and crossing the broad smoothness of his chest until finally coming to rest above his heart, beating steady just left of centre.

“No matter what happens, this will always belong to you. Always. Me and you…together…we’ll figure something out. We can make it work. So don’t give up on us, because I’ll never give up on you. Okay?”

In the gravity of those big brown eyes, shining with determination and sharp with intent, you couldn’t help but concede, nodding as a wide smile transformed his face and you were once again bathed in light, heart warmed in the afterglow of his indomitable spirit even as your “Yes” is swallowed up by another kiss, hungrier than the last.

And suddenly, you are ravenous for the man, yielding to the honesty of your body as your tongue slides past open lips to explore that talented mouth, fingers gripping the muscles beneath his shirt — hard lines and solid planes all at once new and familiar and so exciting.

Exciting, like the way Jackson loved to take you - wherever and whenever desire struck, desperate to make the most of whatever time the two of you had together. And when you felt the wall, cool and solid behind your back, the grind of his sturdy thigh between your legs left no question as to what you were in for.

So after a cursory glance down the alleyway confirmed you were still alone, Jackson trains that burning gaze onto you, lids heavy with lust as his eyes study yours before dropping to your mouth, and then…slowly…down to your chest, entranced to watch it heave beneath your top. And when he sees the diamond pendant he chose for you adorning the skin above the swell of your breasts, his tongue sweeps out to wet that lower lip before it disappears behind the bite of perfect teeth.

Hands drag down your waist and hips, patiently tracing your curves even as the mouth on your neck burned kisses into skin — lips and teeth and tongue fervent as Jackson sought to mark you as his own for the world to see.

And when those long, tapered fingers linger at your knee to draw slow circles before wandering past the hem of your skirt, he angles his beautiful face, the register of his voice deep and low when he whispers in your ear, “Do you think of me when you wear that necklace?”

You nod, finding it altogether too difficult to speak with the way his hand caressed your thighs, fingertips following a gradient of heat as they moved along sensitive skin, inching closer and closer to silk that grew increasingly moist with each press of his muscular leg against your pussy.

“Good girl,” Jackson says as he sucks your lobe into his mouth - hot and wet — and you are further rewarded with a low hiss of pleasure when you reach to palm his cock through his pants, already impossibly hard and intimidatingly large. The thought of him in you, sliding slick and thrusting fast to stretch you to the limits of your capacity, sent another surge of moisture to your core, Jackson smiling to feel the intensity of your response through drenched fabric.

“I think of you too…”

Your man continues, hand tracing the outline of your slit.

“…Wearing my necklace…”

Thumb hooks silk aside.

“…While touching yourself.”

You gasp. Finally, fingers on bare skin. Index and middle dragging from end to end to gather your arousal before skirting slick circles about your clit. And when you feel two fingers, then three, penetrate to curl and press in torturous repetition, your head falls back as your legs shake, inviting the kiss of his lips on the notch of your neck.

Eyes blown wide with desire lock on your own as Jackson finally pulls his hand away — shiny with arousal even in the dimly lit passageway. And as he brings it up to his face and yours in some obscene exhibition, your core twitches again to see him taste you, pink tongue running the length of each digit to catch every last drop before those lips wrap around his ring, sucking the remnants of your juices from a bed of diamonds.

“Delicious. You always taste so sweet. But right now - "

Your hands leave the bulge of his erection to unbutton his pants, trembling slightly in haste and excitement when you pull down his fly. And when you finally release that cock — hot and hard — the movement of your fingers pumping slowly along its length steals the words from Jackson’s mouth.

So you speak on both your behalves when you say,

“I need you to fuck me. Right now.”

Breath hitching in his throat at your command, the feral spark in Jackson's eye makes you bite your lip before it is promptly sucked into his mouth, your boyfriend kissing you deeply to silence every scream for discretion’s sake, the way he liked to do when fucking in public.

So you throw your arms around his neck, moaning against his lips as Jackson effortlessly lifts to slowly lower you onto his cock…stretching deeper and deeper until you swear you feel him at the pit of your stomach. And when he begins to thrust in earnest — biceps bulging as he wraps your legs about his waist to dive hard and fast — the wet sounds of flesh hitting flesh add to the electric hum in the darkness.

Beads of sweat rolling from forehead to chin drip from Jackson's face to the skin of your chest, tracing between the swell of your breasts in the humid night to add to the primal urgency in the swing of his hips. And when he shifts to hit that spot — smiling, as if proving that he had the totality of your body mapped in his mind — you lose your senses in yet another consuming release, convulsing in his arms until his own is drawn out, depositing hot and deep within you.

And when you finally descend from the clouds, the frantic rhythm in your chest slowing in time to his…you believe. Believe in the honesty of your bodies and the attachment in your hearts. Believe in Jackson’s words when he says that together, love will always find a way.

So you bask in the afterglow of Jackson's affection...warm, bright and magical like the man himself.

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Thanks so much for reading! Check out more of my work here! 📚

#jackson wang #got7 #jackson wang smut #got7 smut #jackson wang fanfic #got7 fanfic #jackson wang scenarios #got7 scenarios #jackson wang imagines #got7 imagines #kpop smut #my writing

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