#and hes trying. but he doesnt know what drowning is so he cant sink either | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

hiraeth-doux · 6 years ago

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i am still running

summary: When Barry Allen runs a hundred years into the past to save Diana’s long-lost pilot, he doesn’t know that he is giving her the greatest gift of all.

author’s note: This is a @wondertrevnet Secret Santa gift for @blueincandescence :) I hope I did it justice! Happy holidays!

AO3

1918

“Steve.”

Diana’s voice breaks through the deafening bellow of massive propellers and the roar of blood in his ears, muffled by the wind and the distance between them.

He wavers, for just a moment. Wants to look at her one last time. His throat closes up, his heart so heavy in his chest he doesn’t know how it doesn’t weigh him down to the cold concrete of the airfield that vibrates slightly beneath his feet.

Steve clenches his teeth and surges forward. To look back is to change his mind – he knows it, like he knows that it is not a luxury they can afford. There is no time. If she is who she has been claiming to be all along, if she really can stop this terror then he knows she will, but she can’t be everywhere at once. One of them needs to take care of the deadly gas.

It has to be me.

He has come to this war to make a difference, and he hates that having to choose between Diana and millions of people is the price he must pay for it.

He knows she will understand, though. Knows that she would have done the same thing.

It is the path they have both chosen.

One last burst of effort, and he is climbing into the airplane, fighting his way toward the cockpit. It is easy to move when he has a goal, a clear plan. He tries not to think of Diana, of her disoriented confusion. Tries not to think of the way she looked at him last night, of what her lips tasted like—

Steve sinks into the pilot’s seat, his hands moving on the will of their own as they steer the plane forward, his muscle memory, strong and steady, no match for his scattered mind. For a moment, he can swear he hears her calling his name again, but he brushes the thought off - she is too far away. Must be the wind.

The altitude is making him dizzy, blurring his vision.

The inside of the plane smells of gasoline and metal.

Steve leans back in his seat. He closes his eyes and takes a breath.

He doesn’t think of breaking more promises or wish that things were different for them, but his finger trembles on the trigger nonetheless.

When the fire starts licking at his skin, he thinks of dancing in the snow.

—

2018

The air is fresh.

It is the first thing that Steve notices when his mind swims back to consciousness. It has been so long since he breathed anything but death and blood and gunpowder smoke that despite the fog in his head and dull throbbing in his skull, it is the smell of cold soil and old autumnal grass near his face that snaps him into wakefulness. Even more so than a rock jutting into his shoulder blade.

The other thing is the voice.

“—come on, man. Wake up.” It fades in and out a little, muffled, “God, she’s gonna kill me,” followed by an urgent whisper: “Hey, come on. Steve? Are you Steve?”

There is a tapping on his cheek. And then the other one.

Steve’s chest constricts when he inhales sharply, his lungs expanding as if he’d come up from underwater. He blinks his eyes open, squinting against the brightness of the day even though the sky above him is low and grey.

He is on his back, lying on the cold ground. There is a line of trees to the right from him, blurred in the periphery of his vision; the chilly breeze smells intoxicatingly of snow.

“There you are!” The chipper voice makes him wince a little. “I was starting to get worried–”

He blinks once more, and a face hovering above him shifts into focus. Half a face. Steve’s brows pull together in confusion. There is a man sitting beside him and trying to rouse him - and quite unceremoniously, too. The upper half of his face is hidden under a red mask with some yellow insignia on either side of his head. When Steve looks at him, he breaks into a smile so bright that it is tempting to smile back.

If only he knew what the actual hell was happening to him.

“Look,” he man tones down his enthusiasm. His eyes dart around for a moment or two before he leans closer to Steve, his voice dropping again. “I kinda miscalculated the return point a little bit, but don’t tell Clark. I’ll never live it down.” He makes a face. “Hang in for a little while longer, okay?”

None of this makes any sense. Steve’s eyes drop from the man’s fast-moving lips to his shoulders and then down to his torso, all wrapped in a red suit, tight as a second skin. He tries to think but his brain feels like it is made of jelly, his stomach tied into a queasy knot.

The black sky above Belgium… the plane… Diana.

Headache explodes behind his eyes.

This must be a dream.

“What–” he starts, his mouth dry and his voice croaky. He swallows and wants to try again, but when darkness closes over him once more, he is grateful.

—

There are ten feet and a hundred years between them.

Diana stares at him from across the room in the glass house where the smiley guy who introduced himself as Barry has brought Steve a little while ago. Her face is ashen like she is seeing a ghost, and when she looks at him like that he is not sure he is not one. Even from his spot fifteen feet away from her, he hears her shuddered inhale. His heart drops into his stomach.

The year is 2018, according to Barry and an older man with thin-rimmed glasses sitting on the tip of his nose who opened the door for them when they arrived. A hundred years from the day when he climbed into a German airplane to help Diana stop the God of War from plunging the world into endless chaos. A hundred years that were crumpled and compressed into the few minutes that it took Barry to drag him all the way into the future – Steve chooses not to think of this just yet.

He doesn’t believe that what Barry has told him is true, and Diana doesn’t either, if the look of shock on her face is any indication.

Her eyes roam over his features for several long moments. Someone is talking. There are other people in the room – Barry, the butler whose name Steve missed the first time around, and two other men. If he wasn’t so busy trying to stop his heart from breaking through his ribcage and leaping out of his chest, Steve would probably find it fascinating that the face of one of them if half-covered with a metal plate.

She doesn’t believe that he is real, and he can’t fault her for it. He wants to move toward her, but he is not sure how. Not sure if he can because it has been so long and you can’t walk across time. Yet, he remembers the way she felt in his arms only last night, when the fire went out in the grate without either of them noticing for they didn’t need it. Not when they had one another to keep warm.

The memory is so bright it all but makes him keel over, blood roaring in his ears.

A hundred years…

He stares back.

Diana looks the same but also so strikingly different that Steve is not sure whether to be excited or perplexed, and it is not her hair, slicked back, or her black pants and a fitted long-sleeved shirt – she is dressed like a man but he decides not to dwell on that, or how curious Etta would have been. It is in her eyes, guarded and full of doubt. The Diana he had met on the Paradise Island was starry-eyed and hopeful beyond anything he had ever seen. The woman standing before him now is anything but.

He doesn’t want to know what she has gone through to have the spark that shone brighter than the sun itself grow dim. Not yet.

“Steve,” Diana breathes, and even though her voice is so soft that it barely carries across the space between them, it still feels like a sucker punch that nearly sends him down to his knees.

Steve swallows, hard, and tries to smile. “Hey.”

Someone is speaking. Barry, Steve thinks, but he is not sure. Someone is trying to explain all of this to her. He doesn’t think she is listening; knows he certainly is not. Doesn’t care much for what is being said, either.

All he wants is to look at her, take her in the way he never had a chance to. Before, they were always running out of time.

“Can’t be…” she whispers, shaking her head.

He finds his voice and says, “It’s me.”

A strangled sob rises in her throat. Her hand flies up to her mouth and he watches her face crumple.

“Diana…”

When she slams into him with the full force of an Amazon warrior, he staggers backwards, nearly taking them both down to the floor. Doesn’t care that she has knocked all wind out of him, too relieved, too… everything. He catches her in his arms and gathers her to him, only now realizing that he is shaking all over.

The past hour of his life might have felt like a dream, but this is real. Diana is real. She is warm and solid and so very here. Steve buries his face in the curve of her neck and breathes her in, and god help him, she smells wonderful. Like sunshine and home, and it makes something snap loose inside of him. All the time he has spent holding back – he can’t take it anymore.

“Steve,” she breathes. He feels her lips brush along his jaw ever so briefly. She is saying something, asking something but her voice drowns in a thunderous sound of his heartbeat.

For him, it has only been a few hours, and he still can’t imagine missing her more.

Her hands move over his face, lean fingers skittering over his cheeks, pushing his hair back from his forehead. He can see tears in her eyes, her smile is weak and watery, and the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

“You’re back,” Diana murmurs, cupping his face in her hands, dark eyes flicking between the blue ones as though she is still waiting for him to disappear like a dream. “I don’t—I don’t understand. I watched you–”

She cuts off, a shadow of anguish crossing her face.

When Steve leans in and kisses her, desperate to wipe the last memory she has of him from her mind, he can feel salt on her mouth – hers or his, he has no idea. She kisses him back, deeply and hungrily, a century of longing poured into one touch, enough to leave him dazed and disoriented and breathless. And so alive he can feel it thrumming in his blood. Diana’s hands push through his hair, her arms wind around his neck and he holds her closer, scared beyond words to lose her again.

She feels the same, tastes the same, and after everything it is almost too much to bear.

Steve makes a mental note to thank the cheerful Barry later, but the thought is fleeting. The room falls away. He doesn’t care for anyone standing there. He is lost in her and he doesn’t want to be found.

—

Everything around them is a blur.

Steve doesn’t remember when everyone leaves, or how, but one moment he and Diana are standing in the centre of what appears to be a living room, the weak autumnal sun inching its way towards the horizon outside, and then it is dark and they are sitting on the floor with their backs against the glass wall overlooking the deck and a lake beyond it. The reading lamp on the side table by the couch is switched on, filling the room with warm light, and while Steve knows that they are not alone in the house, he can’t hear anyone else.

His arm is around Diana and her hand idly traces the collar of his shirt. She can’t seem to stop touching him and Steve doesn’t mind. He hasn’t looked away from her once.

His thick coat and the jacket of his stolen German uniform are draped over the back of one of the chairs, a silent reminder of the collision of time. He is yet to understand how they are going to go about all of this because her brows furrow whenever her gaze drifts to his clothes and it is clear that she is no more fond of those memories than he is. He doesn’t want her to remember.

Steve slides a knuckle under her chin, lifting her face to his, and kisses her again, softly.

“I can’t believe this,” Diana murmurs against his lips.

“Yeah, well….” He lets out a short laugh and shakes his head. “Is it really 2018? I can’t exactly… it’s a hard one to process.”

She smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corners, and his heart slams hard against his ribs. God, he loves her smile. She raises her hand to stroke her thumb along his jaw and nods. “It is.”

He nods, too. “I–” he clears his throat. “I—I’m sorry,” he mutters.

She frowns. “Steve…”

“That night,” he continues quickly, his eyes moving over her face. The same face. It’s been so long… how is it possible? He swallows. “I wasn’t planning to—I didn’t want to—it happened so fast.” He is stuttering and babbling but he doesn’t know how to stop. She is watching him quietly, and he tries to remember what it was that he wanted to tell her but never had a chance to. “I’m sorry for leaving you, Diana. I’m sorry that you had to do this on your own for long. I’m so sorry for—for everything.”

She touches his cheek. “Steve.”

When he looks up, her eyes are kind. He leans closer to her and rests their heads together.

“You’re here now,” she tells him, and he feels the weight of guilt lift off his chest. Just barely, but it’s a start. “There is nothing to forgive.” If it wasn’t for his arm wrapped around her, he is certain he would have flown away.

“I still don’t understand,” he admits, glancing around the room before he turns to her again.

“I will explain, I promise.” Diana runs her fingertips down his cheek and Steve covers her hand with his, turning into her touch to kiss her palm. “I will tell you everything you want to know.”

He nods once more.

He has questions, so many of them, but they all fade in comparison to the enormity to what has happened to him, to them. A chance he has never dared to hope for. Everything he has ever wanted right there, his for the taking. They have known each for one week - and a hundred years - and his heart feels so full that he can hardly breathe.

“Diana,” he starts, unsure where he was going with it. His thoughts are a jumbled mess, and she is watching him, her gaze full of wonder, making him forget how to think.

She is so beautiful, and because he doesn’t know what else to say, he says just that.

She smiles. Her hand curls over his jaw. “I missed you,” she says softly.

Steve feels the corners of his mouth tug upwards. “I missed you, too,” he confesses, which sounds odd and silly – he is not the one who has spent a century without her – and it makes her laugh a little.

He reaches behind her to pull the elastic band off of her hair and it cascades down her shoulders. She doesn’t stop him as he threads his fingers through the heavy mass, soft and smooth against his skin.

She presses a kiss to the side of his chin and rests her forehead against his again. “You look good for a 136-year old,” she tells him.

Steve laughs. “And how old are you, again?” He teases. They are quiet for a few moments, content in the comfort of each other’s presence.

After a while, he takes a breath, bracing himself for whatever comes next. “So, where do we go from here?” He asks, yearning for her answer and scared of it all at once. He would have done anything for her, anything to be with her, but a hundred years is a long time, and he doesn’t want to presume, not even after—

A void opens up between them. A hundred years feel like forever.

“What do you want to do, Steve?” Diana asks.

He watches her watch him as he searches for words.

He is a man who infiltrated Ludendorff’s circle, a man who walked – well, rode – into the German High Command like it was nothing, a man who climbed into a plane packed to the brim with poisonous gas and flew toward his death. He has done all that, and yet he has never been more terrified than he is right now. No one has ever told him that baring his heart and soul before someone he loves could feel so paralyzing.

Diana is still waiting, the pause stretching between them.

Steve twists a strand of her hair around his finger. He swallows. “I want—I want to do everything we didn’t get to do… the first time around,” he says, hoping against all hope that those are the right words. “To pick up where we’ve left off.”

“I would like that,” she whispers. “I would like that very much.”

She stands up and offers him her hand, “Come with me.”

Steve grabs onto it like it’s a lifeline and he is a drowning man and she is his salvation. Always has been.

He follows her through the quiet house and down the hallway to the last door on the left. She pushes it open and steps into the dark room, pulling him inside after her. She closes the door and turns around. Her hands reach for him, smoothing over the planes of his chest like she still can’t quite accept that he is standing right there, made of flesh and blood.

Steve lets her, watching her brows furrow ever so slightly, barely resisting the urge to smooth that frown out with his thumb.

“Diana…”

She takes a shaky breath and looks up to meet his eyes.

“You must be tired,” she whispers as she lifts her hand to touch his hair near his temple.

“Not that tired,” he says, his mouth suddenly dry because he doesn’t quite believe that he is real either, or that she is, or anyone else in the house, in this time. It felt so much more different with the smiling Barry and the rest of them around. Here, alone with her, the air feels charged and thick, filled with unsaid words and promises he never got to keep.

Her fingers curl over fistfuls of his shirt and she pulls him to her. When she kisses him, there is a different kind of hunger, different kind of longing to her touch than before. The one that coils his belly into a tight knot and sets his blood on fire. It demands and claims and consumes, and Steve is happy to oblige and surrender. He is breathing her like she is the air, the light, the everything.

“Are you sure?” He rasps when he comes up for air, his head swimming and her eyes the one thing he can see.

Diana doesn’t hesitate. “I am.”

Later, he sleeps at last, his arms wrapped tightly around her body, their legs tangled together, his mind at peace. And for once, for the first time since the war consumed them, he doesn’t dream.

—

The world is a mess.

So much more of a mess than Steve could ever have imagined. It leaves his mind reeling.

He has always prided himself on being adaptable, on coping well with changes, but that was before the reality of the future slammed into him like a freight train. There is no keeping up with it now, no taking his new life in stride. There is only holding on with all his might and praying that he is not thrown off at the next curve.

And boy, oh boy, are there many of those.

Diana tells him the truth. About herself and Ares and the secrets that her mother kept close to her heart for longer than mankind remembered itself. There is an edge to her voice when she speaks Hippolyta’s name and it catches in her throat, and Steve knows that the wound is still open and bleeding. That it might take another century for it to heal.

She tells him about the Justice League, too, and while he is fascinated, by the time she is done talking he has realized that he is not surprised it’s where he path took her. It’s in her blood. He can’t imagine her standing aside and watching the world burn. It’s a bittersweet feeling, too – pride mixed with understanding that she has had a whole life that he wasn’t and never will be a part of.

Steve thinks of her first day in his world, on the streets of London, curious and determined and taken aback by just about everything around her. Now she belongs here more than he does, and he has yet to wrap his mind around that.

The regret quells when he sees the fond look on her face, hears affection in her voice when she speaks of the other members of her team. In the few days that he has known them, he has grown to understand the sentiment, and if nothing else, he is happy that she has found her place.

“So, you guys are saving the world, huh?” He muses with a smile when she falls silent.

Diana shakes her head. “We are doing our best to keep peace,” she corrects, suddenly wistful. “The world can’t be saved, Steve. Not when it is set on the path of destruction, not from itself. But we can protect it—try to protect it when nobody else will.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that. His instinct is to reassure her but even in his mind, the words sound empty. He knows better than to feed them to her.

One day, Steve thinks, he will ask her to tell him about the darkness she has seen and walked through, but the scars are too raw yet. He can see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice; she carries it inside of her like he does his own. Too raw and too tender to the touch, and it is not the pain that he wants to bring back.

They have time, he reminds himself, and lets the subject rest for now.

—

The world is a mess, and Steve has never felt more like a fish out of water before.

He is a little amused and a little insulted when Barry asks him if he knows what a refrigerator is. After all, 1918 wasn’t that long ago. But then Diana has to go back to Paris and he follows – there is no question about whether or not he would. He would have followed her to the edge of the world if she so wished, eagerly and gladly.

The feeling is thrilling and exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

In Steve’s memories, Paris is the city filled with pain and people trying to escape the horrors of the war. The city of hospitals for the injured and a refuge for people running away from the terrors of the front. He remembers grey streets and grey faces, the whole place a smudge in his mind like someone ran an eraser over a pencil drawing. It used to smell of dust and smoke and desperation, bleak image with bleak future.

Diana’s Paris is nothing like that. It is bright and colourful and loud. God, so loud. It sets off his inner alarms and makes him look over his shoulder more often than not. It is packed with locals and tourists, cars honking and cameras flashing. Even in the late November, with its endless rains and cutting winds, it is bursting with life.

Steve tries to match those two Parises together in his head and fails, relieved that hers is nothing like what he feared it might be and scared that it is yet another piece of puzzle that doesn’t quite fit, and might never do. Once again, he thinks of Diana stepping into his world for the first time, his life alien and wild to her. And he wonders if she felt just as lost then as he does now, or if it is different for him because he is looking instinctively for something familiar but comes up empty each time?

Her home is an obstacle course that he needs to navigate with the care and precision of a trained soldier. His boot camp has nothing on Diana’s kitchen with its shiny appliances that confuse and terrify him more than an army of angry Germans. He doesn’t understand why a stovetop needs so many settings, and apparently there is absolutely nothing like a ‘smart’ phone to make a person feel irrevocably dumb.

Steve is not used to feeling so helpless, so hopeless. So out of control.

“You know that I don’t care about whether or not you can use the toaster, right?” Diana asks him one night.

“A waffle-maker,” Steve corrects, frustrated. He has figured out the toaster, thank you very much.

She presses her lips together and tries not to laugh, earning a glare from him in response.

“I almost set your kitchen on fire,” Steve grumbles under his breath.

“That’s what we have a fire extinguisher for,” she points out, amused.

He hums noncommittally and shakes his head, looking away.

A moment later, her arms slide around his waist and she presses close to him. She rests her chin on his shoulder and a shuddered breath stutters unevenly from his chest. He curls his hands around her forearms, thumbs brushing over her wrists.

“And it is our kitchen,” Diana adds – something the she has said before but the sense of belonging hasn’t quite settled yet. Being adrift for so long, he wonders if it ever will. She presses a kiss to his shoulder, warm even through the fabric of his shirt. “Steve?”

“Hm?”

“What if it was me?”

He half-turns to her. “What?”

“After the war, if you—” she falters for a moment.

They never talk of the before, dancing artfully around the subject of his demise that didn’t quite happen, but also did. Sure, they have spoken about Charlie and Etta and Sameer and Chief, trading the stories from his time with them and hers, but there is a wall around that night, an unspoken agreement to never take it down. She is treading carefully along it now, balancing on the edge of it, and there is a tug in his stomach when she comes close to falling over.

“If it worked out differently and you lived, would it have mattered to you that I didn’t know a thing about your life?” She asks quietly.

He thinks of her on the boat, telling him that London looked hideous, in Selfridge’s under Etta’s watchful eye, in the council – equally fascinated and shocked, and his lips twitch a little, the irony in the reversal of their roles not lost on him. He remembers his own amusement and exasperation, their race against time and his desire to slow it down.

“No, of course not,” Steve says decisively. He turns around in the circle of her arms, feeling his shoulders relax, tension draining out of tight knots of his muscles. Diana nuzzles into him, tucking her face into the curve of his neck, her breath warm on his skin, and he wraps his arms around her. “Never.”

“Then why should it matter to me?”

He huffs, unable to argue with his own reasoning.

Some spy, he muses. If he allowed himself to be cornered like that on a mission, he’d be dead within a day. But, as it turns out, that’s the effect Diana has on him. Instant and absolute surrender.

It’s not about that, though. It’s not the coffee machine or her laptop that make him pause in his tracks and do a double-take at his new life. Not the new clothes that fit right but still occasionally make him feel like he is wearing someone else’s persona. He can’t say it, won’t say it, but there are still moments when he is acutely aware of the abyss between them. The one that’s always been there and might always remain.

He has yet to understand by grace of what gods did he get someone like her to love someone like him.

She is a princess and a goddess with a heart of gold. She could have had anything, anyone, and this is not something Steve takes lightly; she could have this whole world at her feet. There is never a moment when he feels like he needs to prove something to her, that he needs to earn her love and affection, but part of him still wants to know that he is worthy, and there are times when it’s not that simple.

But she is right, too. If their situation was reversed, he wouldn’t have cared for a moment. He would have wanted to be with her and he would give himself to her without hesitation. His heart – a little worse for wear but still beating, his soul – a little tired and frail around the edges, his mind and body, and everything in between.

“I love you,” he whispers into her ear.

Never tires of saying it.

—

Steve stops looking for reasoning.

Somebody told him once, a long time ago, that you don’t love someone because of their good qualities but despite their bad ones. Steve knows now that it is bullshit. He doesn’t love Diana because she is generous and kind and full of light, or because she makes his heart beat at a different pace. And he doesn’t love her in spite of her uncompromising stubbornness and impulsiveness.

He just does – because he can. Because he is lucky to have her.

He stops trying to justify it in his mind because it is not a rabbit’s hole he wants to jump into. And more importantly, he no longer feels like he needs to.

He is still learning and it’s infuriating at times. It is not just the technology and the settings on the washing machine that won’t ruin his new clothes. It is everything. The world is made of new rules – how to speak, how to act, how to be. It is a process of trial and error, and there are moments when he needs to remind himself to take a breath. The future is not going anywhere.

He likes Netflix and hates crossword puzzles because everything has changed and he doesn’t know any answers anymore. They invented a new world and gave birth to new people while he didn’t exist. How the hell is he supposed to know who the 39th President of the United States was? When did they get so many of them? Before he died, they were only on the 28th. He likes the cars and doesn’t quite appreciate Indian food that is too spicy for his palate. He does understand the concept of inflation but every trip to the supermarket feels like being robbed in broad daylight.

“We can afford some strawberries, Steve.” Diana picks the crate that he tries to shove back into the fridge and puts it into their cart.

She bites her lip around a smile, and he feels his face grow hot.

Just looking at the price tags is making him mildly sick.

“You could eat for a week on that,” Steve mutters under his breath but doesn’t try to remove anything else from the cart. She will probably send him to wait for her in the car if he does, he suspects, and chooses not to mention that strawberries are not even in season.

Diana shakes her head, her expression sympathetic. “Not anymore, I’m afraid. Not for a while.”

He huffs through his nose.

She loops her arm through his while he ignores an older lady with a young girl giving them curious looks.

Half the time, he can’t help but feel like he is drowning in information that seem to come easily to everyone but him.

He learns not to ask questions when he is not ready for answers.

—

The snow falls two weeks later, thick flakes that come late at night and turn the world outside the bedroom window into something enthralling and surreal.

Steve is sprawled half over her, his head on Diana’s chest and her arms wrapped around him, his breathing yet to be found. He can feel her fingers thread through his hair, damp with sweat, her heart hammering away in earnest into his ear.

He tries to shift his weight off of her. “I’m heavy,” he slurs, utterly spent, but Diana tightens her hold on him.

“I like it,” she whispers into his hairline and he doesn’t have it in him to protest. Not when there is a smile in her voice and he is too boneless to move.

He likes feeling every inch of her body with every inch of his. Can’t get enough of her.

There is still an edge of desperation to her touch sometimes – like she can’t hold him close enough, like she is scared that he might slip right through her fingers. Steve is not afraid of losing her, not really. Not the same way she had lost him for a hundred years. But he is, too, because she is the best thing that has ever happened to him and he doesn’t trust it to last. Doesn’t trust whatever powers-that-be that spin the wheel of fortune high above them and dictate their fates not to screw him over. It has happened before, after all, and he wouldn’t be surprised.

However, that is not to say that he doesn’t trust Diana. He trusts her more than anyone in all of creation and part of him knows that he should be wary of it, but he is not. She sees right through him when even he wants to look away. She takes him apart and puts him back together without losing even the small parts in the process, and somehow in the end he is a better version of himself than he was before. She calls him out on his bullshit but so does he, without hesitation, and sometimes it feels like a balance.

Other times, it makes him want to laugh.

They will both have to figure this out one way or another eventually, but he is not in a hurry. Truth is, he wouldn’t have minded spending forever doing just that.

“Like Veld,” Diana says quietly when he starts to doze off, snapping him back into wakefulness.

Steve focuses on the snow storm. He feels her sigh against him and holds her closer still.

“Do you remember Veld?” He asks. Can’t help but ask. Can’t help but ask so many things.

The memory is strikingly bright in his mind, every word, every touch seared into his brain for the rest of eternity. But, technically, it has only been three weeks for him. It has been a century for Diana. He wouldn’t have faulted her memory for getting blurry.

He feels her hand move through his hair once more. “I do.”

“What do you remember?” Steve traces a pattern over her shoulder with his fingers as the whiteness outside grows nearly absolute.

“Charlie singing,” Diana whispers, smiling.

“Somewhat off-key,” Steve adds with a chuckle, a low sound rumbling in his chest.

She laughs a little and he feels the curve of her lips when she brushes a kiss to his forehead. “Us dancing,” she continues.

“Swaying,” he corrects her like she did back then.

“Swaying,” she echoes, amused. “The room above the inn…”

This time, when Steve pulls back and props himself up on his elbow, Diana doesn’t stop him. His gaze trail over her face. He brushes her hair from her cheek, so drunk on her he can’t think straight.

“Yeah?” He smiles.

She grins back at him, and then laughs, her eyes crinkling, and the sound of it makes his heartbeat stutter and trip in his chest.

Talking about the past makes him realize how fleeting the present could be, and how uncertain the future is, no matter how carefully they plan it. There are reasons why this can’t work out, and reasons why it will. He decides that Diana’s smile belongs with the latter category.

Steve wants to live forever because he wants to never forget. Not anything, not a single thing. For other reasons, too, but mostly this, he thinks. Until she kisses him, and he forgets how to think for a long while.

—

Diana doesn’t have a Christmas tree. Doesn’t have a box of mismatched ornaments, either. Never has. All those years in his world, and parts of it are still as alien to her as they were when she first arrived there.

It comes up during dinner one night and is said in passing, without a hint of wistfulness – it never felt like her place, like her tradition to adhere to or her celebration to enjoy – before she moves on to telling him about her day.

Steve stares at her for a long moment, not quite sure how to feel about it, or what to say. It’s not a big deal, he knows that. In the grand scheme of things, it’s nothing at all. But maybe he could—

Maybe he could–

And just like that, Steve Trevor is a man on a mission again.

The last Christmas he can remember is the one from when he was 9, and his chest constricts with a rueful twitch even though the memory is blurred and frayed and out of focus. He hasn’t thought of that winter in so long that he can barely pull the images from the back of his mind – the candle-lit table and modest but delicious meal, the smell of food rich in his mind, and them sitting together at the table by the fireplace as the storm raged behind snow-frosted windows.

On impulse, he tries to conjure the sound of his mother’s voice but it fades off into nothing. Not even a hint of it left behind.

He wonders where those memories went and what took their place, and what happened before or after that made the magic fade. The war, he thinks. So much of it that for the longest time he didn’t know how anything else would ever fit. Good things, too. Friends and shared moments of connection; belly laughs when good spirit was all they had.

Disappointment cuts through him and he shakes his head, forcing himself to stay focused.

Steve hasn’t thought of Christmas in forever and a half. The war never took a break for celebrations, and besides, when each day they woke up and got to see the sun felt like a miracle, if seemed foolish to consider a holiday something special. Sometimes, he feels like the war has lasted for decades. Like it has never ended.

It is not about Christmas though, he decides in the end. Not really. Not in the general sense of things.

He knows he doesn’t need to earn Diana’s love any more than she needs to earn his – and god help him, she never did. He has loved her since the moment he met her. Maybe since before then even – he can no longer remember not feeling the burning tightness of it in his chest, the force of it thrumming in his veins. But it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to give her everything, and while laying the world at her feet and fetching each star from the sky might not necessarily be a practical plan, maybe he can start somewhere else.

Somewhere smaller, for now.

Steve has Diana’s credit card. He has only used it on groceries before, and – once – to buy her flowers. And even though she has told him many times that he can, he should, do whatever he wants with it, he has never taken her up on her offer before.

It is burning a hole in his pocket when he steps into the department store and reminds himself to breathe. The place is loud. It’s packed and full of colour and it sets him on edge (because apparently you can take a man out of the war but you can’t take the war out of a man). It makes him want to turn around and retreat to safety, wherever that might be.

Yet, there is no gunfire outside and no planes in the sky dropping bombs on the city. When hi heartbeat settles, he realizes that it is excitement that surrounds him, and so he squares his shoulders and marches on, wishing he’d made a list and worried that he will forget something.

“Is there something in particular you’re looking for?” A sales assistant whose name tag reads Jen asks Steve when she finds him gaping at the shelves and trying to wrap his mind around the choices that he doesn’t know how to make.

He blinks at her. “Huh?”

Is there?

The list would have been handy right now.

He thinks of Diana and the things that she likes – books with deep meaning but also comic strips in the morning paper and strong tea on cold nights, she likes breakfast food and wearing his shirts and having her hair down, and she really likes that thing that he does with his tongue—

Not helping.

Not helping at all.

Steve clears his throat, feeling the back of his neck grow hot.

Maybe he does need some help, just this once, because he has never felt this out of time in his life, and there is a very good chance that it will take him another hundred years to get used to the world that is no longer his, but he doesn’t have a hundred years. He only has two days.

—

He would have been surprised if everything went as smoothly as he planned so of course it doesn’t.

Steve is a decent enough cook as long as basic survival is concerned – he can assemble a mean sandwich, pour milk into cereal without spilling it, and no one makes those instant noodles like he does, hands down. However, cooking a meal is not the same thing, and even though he is fairly certain that is it not a complete disaster – hey, at least the kitchen is not on fire! – he is sceptical about the overall result.

He is debating the dilemma of lumps in mashed potatoes and whether or not it’s worth giving that mixer thing another try when Diana comes home earlier than he expected, pink-cheeked and with the snow melting on her wool coat.

He hasn’t noticed that it started again.

She is early and he hasn’t cleaned the cooking counter yet and the roast is going to need another half hour in the oven, provided he figured out how to use the damn thing correctly, and even though he knows that none of this has to be perfect – because nothing and no one is, except maybe for Diana herself but she would never agree with him if Steve told her that – he still wishes that he had more time.

For a long moment, Diana stands frozen in the doorway, her hand on the knob, her eyes moving over the Christmas tree that takes up the whole corner, adorned with bright ornaments that don’t look quite like those that Steve’s mother kept in the box that always made him think of pirates and hidden treasures, but they are shiny and pretty and, dammit, he tried his best. She takes in fairy lights strung around the room and two rather tacky-looking socks hanging over the fireplace and more ornaments that he attempted to be creative with.

(There is a present for her in one of the stockings, too. The best idea he could come up with on such a short notice that he didn’t have to pay for with her own money. It’s a braided leather bracelet that Chief made for him a while ago. He called it a good luck charm, and while Steve didn’t believe in luck, never had, he carried it with him. Perhaps because he has always believed in friendship and gratitude above all else.

He found it in the pocket of his pants the morning after Barry brought him back, the only thing he still had from his own time, aside from his father’s watch.

There is not much else he can give her, except for his heart maybe, but she already has it so a bracelet will have to do.)

“Steve,” Diana breathes, turning to him, and he is suddenly very aware of her apron that he is wearing and the flour on his hands and how half the kitchen is a mess while the other half is only a step above it.

“I thought you had a meeting,” he blurts out the first thing that comes to his mind, and grimaces when it comes out like he doesn’t want her there. Because he does. He always does.

She smiles. “I cancelled it. It’s the last day before the holidays, I sent everyone home early.”

He nods and glances around in panic, his mind racing. He turns back to her and clears his throat.

“It was meant to be a surprise,” he confesses.

Diana presses her lips around a smile. “So I see.”

“You weren’t supposed to be here yet,” he adds.

“I figured.”

She steps into the apartment and closes the door, pausing for a second to notice a wreath framing the peephole. (Steve still can remember how they used to make those themselves but now one could buy a hundred wreaths of any shape and colour like it’s nothing, and for some reason, it is mildly disorienting.)

He fumbles with the apron belt until he can yank it off and tries to smooth down his hair—and great, now there is flour in his hair, too. Smooth, Trevor. Very smooth. This is not how it was supposed to happen, he thinks. He had it planned out, and…

And he doesn’t care about any of that, not one bit, because Diana crosses the hallway and walks over to him. She shrugs off her coat and drapes it over the back of the chair – and he catches the fresh scent of winter clinging to her clothes - before dipping her finger into a bowl of sauce he has been working on when she walked in.

“This is good,” she tells him after licking it clean.

Steve gapes at her, his jaw slack. She bites her lip, trying not to laugh, and it is suddenly more than he can handle. He reaches for her, his fingers curling around her hips to pull her closer until there is no space and no air left between them, and then he kisses her like it’s been months and not mere hours since the last time he did just that.

Diana kisses him back, her hands winding into his hair.

“You didn’t have to do so this, Steve,” she murmurs against his lips when he pulls back.

He rests his forehead against hers and traces his thumb along her cheekbone. “I wanted to.”

She smiles at him. “It smells wonderful.”

Steve makes a face. “Don’t say that until you’ve actually tried it,” he warns, his voice self-deprecating. “That… um, Google thing wasn’t very helpful, if I’m being honest.”

He feels her nails scratch through his hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re a marvel,” Diana whispers, shaking her head a little, and kisses him again.

—

They eat, and even though there could be fewer lumps in mashed potatoes and the roast could have used some more seasoning, it is not half as bad. So much so that Steve can’t help but feel all puffed-chest proud because everyone starts somewhere, and having a room to grow is not something to be ashamed of.

He can take a rifle apart and put it back together in his sleep, he survived the war – or almost did, at least; he is yet to figure out how to factor Barry’s assistance into the narrative – but up until a few hours ago he was someone who Charlie once labelled as “a man who can’t fry an egg to save his life”. The roast feels like an accomplishment. (So what if the apple pie is store-bought?)

Intrigued, Diana offers to help, but he waves her off, determined to finish what he has started. It’s the least he can do.

They eat with the music playing in the background, and Steve watches her in the candlelight with fairy lights twinkling above them, a small smile on her face. And he thinks that he would travel across a thousand years to fall in love with her all over again if he had to. If he could.

When he pulls out the bracelet, recognition sparks in Diana’s eyes. Recognition and understanding when she touches soft, worn leather, old memories flaring up in her mind. He watches them chase across her expression, her features softening.

“Steve.” She looks up at him, her thumb tracing the curves of the delicate braid.

She hasn’t known his friends like Steve knew them, but so can be said about him, too. All those years that she spent with them after the war…

He is suddenly very aware of the thread connecting them – with each other and with the past. Something that runs deeper than anything he has ever felt. Something that, he suspects, will still be there long after they are both gone.

“I know it’s not much…” Steve starts and trails off.

Truth be told, he knows nothing about current trends and fashions, or what one could give to a woman who seems to already have everything, and that’s the problem – there is so much that he wants to give her, but he is only a man. The only who loves her desperately and unapologetically, hoping and praying that it’s enough.

Diana is shaking her head. “It’s beautiful,” she assured him earnestly. “It’s–”

“From Chief, yeah,” he nods.

“I don’t have anything for you,” she says as he affixes it around her wrist.

She touches his cheek with her other hand, and when he raises his eyes, he finds her watching him, her expression odd in the way he can’t read. There are still moments like this sometimes, when she looks at him like she can see into his soul, and he wonders if she can find there something that she might not like.

He has never wanted to share more of himself with anyone than he does with her. He has never been more scared to do so, too.

“I have you,” he says simply, moving closer and reaching up to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear as he tries to bottle up the contentment that he feels around her so he can remember it for as long as he breathes. Knowing what Diana is and what she is capable of doesn’t make it easy for him to believe in magic, not entirely, but this moment - with the fire crackling in the grate and the smell of pine and cinnamon heavy in the air and the snow falling outside - is as magical as it can be. “What else can I ask for?”

“Flatterer,” she says, breaking into a smile so bright that it unravels the tight knot in his chest and he laughs before dipping his head to press his mouth to hers. She tastes of sugar and wine as she kisses him back, her hands on either side of his face.

He could do this forever, Steve thinks. Every day for a thousand lifetimes.

—

“Why would you do it?” Diana asked Barry the morning she and Steve left Gotham, their bags piled in the corner and Bruce yelling from the Batcave that the weather was about to turn for the worse and they should get going.

Barry stuffed his hands deep into the pockets of his pants and looked down at his socked toes. Mismatched, Diana noted as she watched the tips of his ears turn red.

“I saw the photo,” he told her, grimacing a little, and her heartbeat stuttered in her chest.

She never knew he could do that, run faster than time itself, and even if she did, she would never have asked him to do this. Not for her, not for anyone else, not any more than she would have used her own powers for personal gain. And here he was, standing before her and looking like he was about to get chastised for giving her the greatest gift Diana could ever imagine.

Affection pooled in her chest, her throat tight with emotion.

“Barry…”

“And the watch,” he added quickly, looking up to meet her eyes. “That time, in the Batcave, you had that watch… which I assumed was his because it was all old and ugly—sorry,” he catches himself, “and I just–” he ran his hand over his hair, shrugging a little.

As if it explained everything.

As if it explained anything at all.

She smiled and moved toward him, wrapping her arms tightly around him, his body stiff for a moment because apparently the gesture came as a surprise. “Thank you,” she whispered into Barry’s ear as a bout of Steve’s laughter carried from the lounge. “Thank you for bringing him back to me.”

The memory feels weirdly old now.

It is impossible to believe that it has only been several weeks since he ran all the way back to 1918 to pull Steve out of the plane seconds before it went up in flames. Since Steve smiled at her from across Bruce’s living room and made a hundred years that had passed since that fateful night a century ago fall away, her time without him feeling like nothing but a faint dream.

There are still moments when she can feel his absence like a gnawing tug in the pit of her stomach, a chill running through her system when she least expects it. There are times when she wakes up in the dead of the night certain that it has all been an illusion. But the pain is not as sharp. It no longer takes Diana’s breath away or leaves her gasping for air, and all she has to do is roll over and reach for him to get all the reassurance that she needs that he is really and truly back.

The process is slow, but she is healing.

On Christmas morning, the world outside is quiet and white. Steve is in the kitchen, making hot cocoa for them – like they used to do in his family. With marshmallows – because he knows that she likes it that way. He is humming under his breath, and Diana smiles despite herself watching him from the doorway, her hands itching to smooth down his rather epic bedhead, his hair sticking out in every which way.

Last night, they did a puzzle, a thousand pieces strewn over the coffee table, and talked late into the night. They drank wine and danced to the melodic ballads about finding love and the miracles that happen on snowy nights. And then he took her to bed and made her forget what it felt like to be without him. Until her world was nothing but him.

Diana runs her index finger absently over the bracelet still wrapped around her wrist. She feels magic thrumming through it, ancient magic that has existed since before her time and will still do when there is no trace of her left in this world. And she wonders if Chief knew. If he knew to keep Steve safe until his time came to return to her. And she says a silent thank you to whatever gods that made it happen, to the stars that needed to align just the right way.

Steve turns around, two mugs filled to the brim in his hands with marshmallows bobbing on the surface. When he spots her, he smiles, and her very soul unfurls in her chest, taking up the space carved out by loneliness and heartache.

He puts the mugs down and walks over to her, his arms sliding around her waist. His grin is cheeky when he glances up, and Diana has a split second to follow his gaze and notice a sprig of mistletoe above their heads before his mouth captures hers.

When he kisses her, she feels safe. Like being lost and finding her way back to where she belongs.

“Merry Christmas,” Steve whispers when he leans back, and she can’t help but smile, her heart so full it might burst.

“How many of those did you put around the house, Steve?” She asks because it’s not the first mistletoe she’s come upon and she doubts that it’s the last one, either.

Not that she minds it, all things considered.

“Hey, it’s a tradition,” he protests without answering her question. “It’s what people do…” when they have no wars to fight. He trails off, and she feels like she is drowning and soaring all at once.

Man’s world finally feels like home.

#wonder woman #wondertrevsecretsanta #wondertrevnet #diana prince #steve trevor #wondertrev #my fic #secret santa #wondretrevedit #wwedit

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happycakestories · 5 years ago

Text

old mx fic dump pt. 7

some particularly notable aus -- they stand out for the imagery/themes or how much i personally invested in the story

rusalka au - still love the idea of a drowning kind of love, myths of alluring water creatures, and the wet, decaying rot of old eastern european mansions - the kind that still seem to grow, wholly alive, within the marshes

cowritten w a friend who made a cool graphic :)

honey’s mom is a rusalka and his father is a korean ambassador or whatever, she was supposed to lure the dad in and kill him but she falls in love with him and gets married to this mortal, he builds a house for them near the lake she came from, she hears the voices of her brothers and sisters calling her and telling her to go back, slowly driving her insane the longer she keeps away from the water

This undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and would be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged. Her main purpose is, however, to lure young men, seduced by either her looks or her voice, into the depths of said waterways where she would entangle their feet with her long red hair and submerge them.

when honey is born she gets remorseful bc he’s half a fae and she condemned him to be shunned and also his nature is supposed to be inherently dangerous so she tries to keep him away from bodies of water of any kind

but rusalki need water to live so she has to stay in the tub for a loong time very often

lots of childhood memories of him grabbing a stool and scooching to the edge of the tub as she blew pink bubbles at him

honey wonders why he’s not allowed to go near water bc he’s a child and children are nosy and during a family outing when his mom is distracted he explores and gets lured into the water bc the other rusalki kinda want to kill him to get revenge on his mother but he’s half fae and he manages to escape

when he comes back he’s changed, he has blue eyes and her fears are confirmed

so that night after saying goodbye to her husband and son she goes back to the lake and makes a deal with her brothers and sisters, she goes back with them but they must promise they’ll leave her son alone

everybody tells honey his mother drowned, but he’s suspicious bc she never went near any body of water, so he investigate and approaches the lake and sees young, beautiful rusalki floating under the water, his mother is there too but she looks so different and totally not human, he runs away in fear and after this he develops a terrible phobia of water bodies

every night he hears his mother sing and call him, trying to lure him in, so his father for fear of his mental health decides to move, but everywhere they go in russia, honey’s mother finds them and haunts him, so his dad decides to go back to korea, where he marries hyolyn who is the daughter of some fancy ass noble family and honey comes to love her like a good stepson but he cant forget about his mom, who is like a ghost to him, and he cant help but wonder if the memories he had of her before she drowned are even real

then he’s introduced at a fancy ass party, and honey is super shy bc he doesnt know anybody and his korean isnt that good, but at the party there’s ck too, the son of a general, and he’s a little nerd and also doesnt have many friends and he sees this super pretty boy with the most unusual eyes

and he notices this super pretty boy with the most unusual eyes

and he's shy bc his korean isnt too good also living in russia he doesnt have any friends here

who is looking around nervously since he doesn't know anyone or the language well enough

and ck falls in love at first sight bc he's shy too and a bit nerdy and doesnt have many friends

for the first time he's the one that approaches someone else

he goes over coughing out an awkward "hi" as he leans against the wall next to the other boy

blue eyes perk brightly at his prescence and the other boy also lets out a soft hi in return

it's thick and clumsy and ck immediately recognizes the slavic accent

he takes a chance and switches to russian, re-introducing himself again in the other language

he's immediatly bombarded by rapid fire russian, the blue eyed boy jabbering away with relief in his eyes AND LIKE IM IMAGINING THIS 1910's SALON YKNOW, and the two boys huddled in a corner speaking in russian

and i was thinking that they become friends and ck notices his friend is weird, he doesnt want to go swimming in the pond in summer and sometimes he looks at water with authentic terror in his eyes

but he doesnt know he's afraid to see a face under the surface

i'm figuring they're around 12-13 at this point?

jooheon's still fully draped in a high colored blouse and pants

manyeo0

YES and at first he didnt want to let ck go into the water because he was afraid his mother would snatch him

happycakeycake

won't even take off his shoes near the water

OOH GROWING UP TOGETHR

but Ck is also so genuinely enthusiastic about going to swim

so he decides to follow him to at least watch over him

but he is NOT GOING IN

"i don't understand, i mean its just pool water..." changkyun mutters even as instant regret fills his chest at the other's shaking form

happycakeycake

there has to be a scene where jooheon totally looks feral and ck is actually scared

i want dangerous jooheon sorry woops

manyeo0

that we can get man, maybe the one time honey (as an adult tho) gets into the water

and ck is scared and turned on at the same time

happycakeycake

omg DUDE what if he almost gives into his instinct

and drowns ck

manyeo0

also my dude i want this fic to be FILTH Y

happycakeycake

but he snaps back in time

manyeo0

and then cue underwater sex like in movie

happycakeycake

to push ck back to the surface and onto the bank

manyeo0

happycakeycake

HOHA

manyeo0

yes man

i want the filth

manyeo0

romantic, pretty filth

happycakeycake

AND HE LOOKS UP INTO BRIGHT EYES, PUPILS SLITTING INTO THIN LINES OF BLACK

LIKE AN IDLE BOAT DROWNED INTO TWO ENDLESS POOLS

HE CAN'T LOOK AWAY

manyeo0

YES

happycakeycake

BUT HE GREW UP SO MUCH

manyeo0

WAHAHAH AND THATS THE ONE TIME JOOHEON ISNT THE SUB

happycakeycake

OH POWERBOTTOM JOOHEON COUGH

manyeo0

OOOH MAN

manyeo0

YES

happycakeycake

OMG OF COURSE

manyeo0

fucking on the riverbank

happycakeycake

like reeds and fallen petals from the water clinging to his body as he pulls onto the bank

pushing ck down onto the mossy ground

he can feel the wetness sinking in through his clothes but he can't bring himself to move

not with jooheon sat naked and wet as the day he was born, staring down at him

manyeo0

joklkllflfklfkfdlkd

happycakeycake

and then he gets ridden an inch withinhis life woops yep i can't write porn anymore

manyeo0

AND HE'S LIKE "I SHOULD BRING U TO THE RIVER MORE OFTEN WHOOPS"

happycakeycake

and all he gets in a response is sharp teeth against his neck, biting harshly before pressing a soft kiss against it

he shivers but makes no move to shrink away

manyeo0

my aesthetic for this fic is lots of water and lots of filth

happycakeycake

i love that please

and dark green moss

dark woods with decaying trees sticking out of rivers

manyeo0

maybe ck gets sent to one of those military schools

happycakeycake

nooOOOOOO

omg but when he comes back

manyeo0

and honey keeps studying at home and they only see each other when ck is back home but they write letters

happycakeycake

both of them would 've changed so much

YES

and ck gets progressively worried as the letters become rambled and messy

manyeo0

MGMGD

happycakeycake

jooheon's thoughts jumbling into conflicting opinions about the rivers and lakes

JOOHEON KINKILY DROWNS GUNHEE

happycakeycake

there's something so satisfying in the way the other man's eyes dull and his heartbeat lulls to a stop against jooheon's own chest

manyeo0

IOFOFJSMSMDN

he'd be horrified if he knew man

also i posted the thing

happycakeycake

he can't hold himself back from stealing the man's last breath of air with a searing kiss

swallowing his last gasp and sealing their mouths together until he grows completely limp in jooheon's hold

happycakeycake

oh my god but like what if changkyun totally saw that poor man walk into the lake

manyeo0

OJJDJDDDKKS

happycakeycake

and jooheon rises out of the surface, only able to whisper out a "hi" as changkyun's eyes widen in horror

and then the whole sex scene happens

manyeo0

OGHH HIT

YES

happycakeycake

except he totally forces him during it to promise to forget about it

i just want a scene of jooheon reveling in the extent of his full powers, breathing in the scent of the waters as the moon drapes across his skin

and changkyun can only watch to the side, terror and awe all mixed into one

-----------

The dry gravel gives way under Changkyun’s boots into the ever-familiar softness of wet moss, as he makes his way back home.

Hoseok always jokes that he’s going to become a forest hermit one day, but what with the continually mounting stress at work, the younger sergeant is starting to seriously consider it as a viable option.

Even the annoying scratch and tug of wild branches against his uniform seems almost playful and comforting this evening. His uniform coat, brocaded with a once-flourishing embroidery of a yellow bird, is slung casually over his shoulder as the forest gives him its usual clinging welcome.

It wouldn’t be quite an exaggeration to say that he was forest-dweller, since he had literally settled down inside a patch of quiet, secluded woods, easily buying up an acre or two of unused land to live on.

The dense underbrush finally opens to a quiet grass bank. It’s perpetually secluded - the forest hunching inwards like a mother, leafy arms spreading wide to block out almost all traces of sunlight. Everything flourishes in the dark, moss and mud squishing wetly underfoot as they appear in larger and larger pieces towards the pond.

Well, it’s more of a lake than anything: deep and dark enough to hide any man’s secret. Dilapidated trees, raised half mast in the water, reach with stiff branches for any kind of light, even as they inevitably rot deeper into the water with each passing day.

And all of this is Changkyun’s home.

He plops down at the edge of the bank with a content sigh, relaxing fully even as freezing wetness seeps through his trousers. His reflection is clear and unbroken when he leans over the water, a perfect mirror image of serious brows and slim cheeks.

He leans closer, enough so that his nose could kiss against his mirror self’s, his hair could dip against the dark surface, and his lips could press a cold greeting to his home.

His face is only a millimeter away from touching the lake when he’s grabbed and pulled face-first into the water, pale wrists and outstretched palms flashing across his vision to latch onto his collar.

The initial panic and breathlessness soothes over when a familiar softness fastens itself wetly over his frozen scream. His vision shadows over, and Changkyun can’t tell if his eyes or closed or if it’s the unreachable darkness of the water.

Either way he pushes back, hands coming up to grope for full cheeks and bare shoulders as he bites against a plush mouth. A gasp comes out, muffled into tiny air bubbles, rising and popping towards the lake surface.

In a few seconds he follows, gasping and collapsing onto the bank, mouth raw as it’s assaulted by the chilling air. He sits up as quickly as possible, lungs protesting and limbs groaning when he raises himself up to glance toward the water.

Vectored ripples streamline across the surface, flowing into a direct stop in front of his dangled legs. The bottomless reflection breaks into a pale face and lake-slick hair - slitted pools of blue that sit atop of round cheeks which bunch into dimpled glee.

“Darling!” pierces through the air as a happy shout from pink lips, cupid’s bow arching in obvious delight. The cooed syllables roll off in thick Russian, curling gutturally through a taut throat.

“How was your day?” Changkyun replies simply, switching abruptly to Korean and exaggerating each word teasingly as he watches his lover frown in immediate discontent.

“I- miss - missed you,” Jooheon slowly replies, choosing each word with careful consideration as he forces away the Slavic sounds fighting to escape through his throat.

It all started many, many years ago, in Russia, Vladimir district, in a villa next to a lake.

---

The thing Jooheon liked the most about his mother was her hair.

Most of the time she wore it pinned on top of her head, or coiled in elegant braids that framed her face. When she let it down it fell in heavy, wavy tresses, red and shiny as polished copper. She let him run his little hands through the silky locks, and sometimes he helped her untangle the most stubborn knots with her favourite silver brush. It was difficult to choose the thing he loved the most about her, because in his mind Mother was absolute perfection: she was beautiful and wise, she had strong and nimble hands and the softest voice he had ever heard.

Jooheon had inherited her pale hair and pale skin and her heart shaped lips, but the cut and shape of his eyes, their colour, those were like his father’s, Mr. Lee. He was an ambassador from Korea, which was very far away from Russia, and didn’t look like his wife at all. He even spoke a different language, and hired a teacher who taught Jooheon how to write and speak it correctly. It sounded strange to Jooheon’s ears, and so different from the lazy drawl of Russian, but he did his best because it made Father proud and Mother happy.

Not that his father was home much: he spent most of the year in Moscow to tend to his business, which made Jooheon’s mother sad, though she tried not to let it show. She wasn’t very happy in that big wooden villa all by herself, with only her little son, his teachers and a couple of maids to keep her company. Jooheon was very young at the time but he understood that his mother felt lonely and he always tried to do his best to cheer her up.

She especially got a wistful, far-away look in her eyes when she glanced at the lake next to the house, which was strange, since she never even walked close to it.

In fact, she seemed to have a deathly, unbreakable fear of all bodies of water, not just the lake, but rivers and small streams too. Jooheon was forbidden to go near water, not even on hot summer days when he would’ve loved to take a swim in the mossy lake to refresh himself. His doctor had suggested it once and Mother had been so upset she had almost thrown the poor man out of the door.

One day, Jooheon had asked her about it. He was sitting on the cold tiled floor of her bathroom, his fingers idly tracing the shape of one of the bath’s clawed brass feet, while his mother blew rose-perfumed bubbles at him. “Mother, why are you afraid of water?” His mother had let out a very unlady-like snort “Why do you ask that, pchelka? I’m taking a bath in water right now, am I not?” Little Jooheon had scoffed, knowing she didn’t intend on answering his question seriously. “I don’t mean that! I mean, why are you scared of the lake, or the streams and rivers? Why don’t you ever want to go swimming in the lake?”

This time, his mother had glanced at him through narrowed, impossibly blue eyes, so different from his own, and he had felt a sort of chill go through him. It felt like looking down a well full of icy cold water, knowing it could suck you in at any moment.

“I’m not scared of anything, pchelka. I just don’t like moving water too much. You never know what’s hiding beneath the surface. Something might grab your pretty little foot while you’re swimming and you’d never see the light of day again!” She had started tickling him then, his laughter bouncing through the tiled walls, and every thought about water and its mysterious depths was momentarily forgotten.

It all came back to him one day, a couple of years later.

At seven, Jooheon was still a small, pudgy boy with round dimpled cheeks and curly blonde hair. His mother and all the maids doted on him, they called him pchelka, solnyshko, angel. His father - those rare times he saw him, for he still spent the best part of his time in Moscow - wasn’t as affectionate, but he seemed satisfied with his progresses and always brought him presents from the city, such as intricate egg puzzles, imported sweets and books.

Mother received silver combs shaped like dragonflies, silk dresses that floated around her figure like gentle waves, and more diamond necklaces and earrings than she could possibly wear in that secluded house in the forest, where nobody could see them. Her only chance to show her off where the fancy parties Ambassador Lee attended in Moscow. On some occasions, he brought his family along, his wife (“my lovely Dar'ja” as he would introduce her) as radiant as ever, his little son adorably awkward, nervous from all the attention he would get as a mixed child born of an Asian man and a Russian woman.

Jooheon didn’t like those parties much, they felt so fake and stifling, and he was always immensely glad to be back to his quiet villa by the lake, with its creaky wooden floors and the fading paintwork on the walls.

There was something about the perpetual wetness of the wood - the way it creaked and gave way underfoot, as if the water in it had made it alive, shift, and grow with every slap of his chubby feet.

The city maids always shook their heads at the mess, stomping their heels in disgust at clumps of rich moss creeping up in damp corners and whispering about how it’s not good for the mistress nor the young master, for that matter, to be in these kinds of conditions. For all their hard efforts though, one rainy day later and the lake would be back to its original state: creaky, wet, rich, and alive.

As much as his mother guarded against lakes or any form of wild contact with water, Jooheon can see the unfiltered want behind the frenzied fear in her pale eyes. He understands the feeling - the same pull rising up within him every time his bare toes gripped dewed grass, every time the splatter of rain on his windows sent him into a panic, nerves driving him into a state of suspended alertness.

It’s these moments where he and his mother sought each other out, simultaneously as if on instinct. She would cradle his pulsing head to her chest, wrapping her own thinly clad, nightgowned body around his own, their hearts pounding to the same erratic rhythm. It’s the only thing that can calm him down enough to sleep: the fiery curtain of his mother’s loose, long hair soothing him safely back into the land of dreams.

"pet” / mafia au

GENERAL AESTHETICS: “it got her on her knees like religion” “every saturday night i get dressed up to get ready to ride for you baby” “movie stars and liquor stores and soft decay” “so imma care for you, you, you, you, yeah” “if i cannot move heaven, i will raise all of hell for you”

PET AU: jooheon’s a quiet pet but he watches everything his master does with wide, brown eyes. They say he’s too docile, too vapid, too silent, but well - he just wants to be good for the man he loves. https://ton.twitter.com/1.1/ton/data/dm/920057578448670730/920057561562451969/D8Lvlc_K.jpg:large

https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/dm/920750240050933765/920750232492822536/3Wm36U-f.jpg:large

https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/dm/920750283805904900/920750273085280261/xQ7RY3nU.jpg:large

https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/dm/920750203677921285/920750186447753216/vTzzE4p6.jpg:large

https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/dm/920750190239330316/920750166130520064/kFTbt0ay.jpg:large

Playlist: “le noir” by bap, “ribbon in the sky” by bap → only for action scenes maybe, “Galaxy” by Ladies Code, “All about You” by Taemin → beginning 1st part of video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEURku1dTfU), “move” by taemin, “in the night” by the weeknd, “Wires” by the neighborhood-Minhyuk?, “White Noise (Chinese Version)” by EXO - in Jooheon’s absence, MAYBE TAEMIN STUFF IN GENERAL (Press It album - song → sexuality→ Until Today (it's perfect!!!) → Ace → Experience), “Burning Desire” by Lana Del Rey, “Gangsta” by Kehlani, BANKS MUSIC,

Scenes:

Confrontation: “We only wanted to rough him up a little for show,” Minhyuk sighs, nudging a hard toe against the soft, pale flesh of Jooheon’s thigh. The pet whimpers, warbling and desperate, and tries to shuffle away on bound, bloody knees. The same shiny black dress shoe comes stomping down over bare skin a second later, dragging out a raw cry of pain from between Jooheon’s torn lips. Jackson digs stinging half-moon crescents into his palm with the bloody tips of his blunt nails. Still, he stays silent.

“But, well-” the slender man kneels down on one leg, all coiled grace and deadly power as he takes Jooheon’s stained cheek in hand with feigned tenderness. “He made it a little too hard for us in the process,” a thumb digs into the exact spot where Jackson knows a dimple would sit during a deep smile, and Minhyuk smiles benevolently, “didn’t you pet?”

Minhyuk + jooheon interactions:

The bargain: Jackson reaches for the man, the leader’s outstretched hand, making sure to keep his fingers strong. Judging from the other’s pointed grimace, it’s a little too much. He bares his teeth in a smile anyway.

“Welcome, Wang Jia Er.” He keeps his expression open. “Please, call me Jackson.” Whispers arise immediately, like the chirping of crickets on a late summer’s night, and a laugh bubbles in the back of his throat. Jackson finally relaxes his grip, smile poised even as Howon’s hand comes to wipe casually against his fitted trousers. It’s bargain day, he reminds himself.

Howon nods, the cutting edge of his jawline turning to jerk towards the second room, bordered by the casual exoticness of an imperial era styled door, intricate lace-like designs carved out of fine mahogany and painted a fading red. Red for luck, his mother’s voice twines like threads of yarn knit with slender fingers through his hair. Red for marriage, his father’s crumbling visage breathes from behind his shoulder, the choking smoke of cigarettes winding a loose remnant around Jackson’s throat.

Red for power, he tells himself, a quiet echo within the blank space of his own mind.

He’s led into the intricately designed room, two rows of men flanking him loosely from both sides in a uniformed wall of black lapels and sharp white button-downs as they go. Inside, his nose is invaded by the curling scent of smoke, sweeping him into a momentary lapse of forgetfulness as images of decadent 19th century opium dens rip off from his wrinkled textbook pages and balloon inside his mind. Jackson huffs out a heavy breath at the decaying pictures, tasting the filmy sensation of marijuana clinging like a summer’s cup of sugary lemonade against his tongue.

The sunken-eyed, emaciated stare of poppy-drugged prostitutes have been replaced by the straight backs of bare-legged pets, kneeled so obediently in front of their masters Jackson’s arrival barely turns any of their steady gazes. He can’t say the same for his own impulsive curiosity.

Howon strides forward with calculated, casual steps, weaving past stained upholstery and scattered silk cushions until Jackson finds himself presented before a simple rectangular table, bare, save for a spotless china ashtray, surrounded by wood-backed recliners that all boast the same exotic design carved into the doorway border. They’re grouped into seats for two at the short sides of the table, then a seat for four lined up against the top edge, and finally a single chair placed directly on the opposite side to finish up the quadruplet seating. The hard tip of Howon’s shiny dress shoes stop right at the edge of the rigid circle, the rest of his men flocking behind him like a pack of well-dressed deadly penguins.

Jackson carefully seats himself in the single chair, spreading his legs and leaning forward with his elbows against his knees, shoulders relaxed and open. The wood of the chair shakes and creaks loudly on its spindly legs.

A pause. Howon’s dress shoes click in deliberate movement.

Howon’s penguin men begin shuffling in, taking up their invisible spots around the table with waddling gaits as their boss stalks among them, a panther among their midst. They all settle into the same position, legs bared, smiles plastered, all leaned in towards Jackson as Howon places himself directly opposite of him, hooking his legs together with a quiet shift of slightly too-tight fabric. Jackson notes the way the other man’s slacks pull and wrinkle like a fan’s folded edges around his crotch. He twitches testily within his own seat, looking up to catch Howon’s glowering expression with his cheery own.

Finally, the fine china of the untouched ashtray seems to come into use as the other man lights a simmering cigarette, roiling smoke unfurling from the slit of his mouth as he takes in a choppy inhale, releasing it in the same brisk manner. Smoking was always absolutely prohibited when training with weapons, but Jackson admits he quite likes how hazy it makes Howon appear in the seedy lighting of the underground den. Now, on his father’s harsh breath, that’s a completely different story. He keeps his smile pleasant, eyebrows rising just a fraction in surprise when a waft of cancerous fog brushes his way. He waits, and the cigarette is stubbed out against white china with a sizzling hiss, the red of its embers fading into black tar that spreads itself out along the pristine bottom of the previously untouched tray like a malignant tumor.

“So,” Howon puffs out one last trace of wispy smoke, “What’s your deal?”

Jackson can’t stop his smile from twitching, widening just a fraction across his face. He leans forward even more, back curved, fingers interlaced loosely at the knuckles as he rattles off every detail from the tip of his tongue: “167 shipments of illegal firearms to your district the minute our supply arrives from overseas on the first of each month - that’s roughly around 2000 per year entirely for your group alone. Free access through our subway tunnels for anything you need, and of course - solidarity for any-” Jackson flicks a hand at some invisible dust mite in the air, “-power struggles.”

Howon sits there, eyes grey, legs poised in his too-tight pants as he works down the last bit of smoke in his system. Despite everything, Jackson can see the purring glimmer of satisfaction in the other’s stone-cold gaze. “

And?” The other man prompts, shifting forward, hands clasped in front of his thin lips as he finally faces Jackson. “What do you want from me?”

Jackson’s words rattle off his tongue, smooth and rehearsed: “Complete and free movement through your district, all the way past the Gyeonggi-do station.” Howon’s single arched eyebrow reads something akin to that’s it? and Jackson’s mouth immediately gets the better of him as he finds himself blurting out, “Maybe one your pretty little pets as well,” motioning towards the boys and girls, lounging, supple and silent, outside of their tense bargaining ring.

Howon’s straight mouth finally twists, the man unable to keep the amusement off his face at the younger man’s brazen request. “Why not?” he chuckles dryly, bending deep at the waist before pushing himself upright on strong thighs. “A symbol of our union: your guns in exchange for a warm body to keep you company on cold, lonely nights.” He smiles openly for the first time since their meeting, teeth straight and canines sharp. Jackson has the distinct feeling he’s being made fun, but well, Howon isn’t exactly wrong.

This time, it’s Howon stepping out first through the ring of carved chairs, all his men rising to follow, leaving Jackson to exit last. He’s led through another rigid set of dusted hallways, only made worse by the rotting tapestries draped over the walls with fading beauties clad in kimonos, hanfus, and the like. Jackson has to admit, the other man’s sense of appropriation is quite elegant, even though it lacks something to be desired in the cleaning department. He keeps his pace even, lagging towards the bottom end of the group as he watches Howon pull a man forward, conversing with him in hushed tones and subtle motions. There’s nothing left for Jackson to be worried about, but he finds himself anticipatory for the first time in the long months since his assumption.

The room they come to must be the heart of the den, Jackson considers, stepping inside, practically pushed towards the middle of the circle by an imperceptible pressure. It’s covered entirely in silk drapery, tapestries and knotted curtains slipping down the walls onto the floors, floors that are a pool of various cushions and round beds, barely a hint of grey cement able to peek through the garish colors of the silk. Jackson wrinkles his nose for the barest of seconds; the musk of sweat and perfume permeates like a fog throughout the room.

“Namjoon,” Howon’s voice echoes throughout the room, nodding slightly at the man Jackson watched him converse with before. “Bring them in.”

The other man-Namjoon, bends almost imperceptibly at the waist before striding out the room, slipping out through an easy chink in the circle’s armor. Jackson blinks once in vague surprise, and the circle is formed once again, no weaknesses to be found. Howon turns toward him with a patient grin, and Jackson shoots back his own tight smile.

The mind-numbing incense of the pressure in the room grows, and he shoves his hands into his pockets, steadying his fingers against sweaty palms. He waits.

The familiar tap of dress shoes sound, muffled over the scattered layer of cushions on the cement floor. Jackson looks up, hands tensed within his pockets to see the penguin ring rearranging itself into lumped bunches as Namjoon re-enters the room, the hard pound of his boots followed by an unfamiliar string of soft brushing footsteps, the imprint of their sound pressed like dandelion dust into silk by light, bare feet.

Bare feet, long legs, all pale flesh on show as Jackson watches, breath caught, as a line of collared boys and girls kneel onto the floor of cushions, turning to him the open edge of their cheek with wide eyes and ramrod straight backs. The last one files in, presenting himself in the same fashion, but, huh - the entire curve of his porcelain collarbones to his arched throat is noticeably bare of any thick bands of leather. He lingers, just for a moment, on the pet’s bowed head and turns back to face Namjoon with a relaxed smile plastered over his face again. It’s time to negotiate.

“This is it?” he prompts, leaning back a little, rolling his shoulders ever so slightly in the tight confines of his suit jacket. The other man responds to his jibe with a quick flash of short canines, light dimples dipping into an angled jaw as he casually pushes the starched sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows. Tattoos, Jackson notes, with a jaunty raise of an eyebrow. The Virgin Mary winds her way up the man’s veined forearm in a picturesque coloring of black and grey, save for the sickly green tears rolling down her 2D cheeks. Religious? No can’t be it, Jackson decides, dampening a snort as he notes the two stark lines that form the upside down cross adorning the knuckle of Namjoon’s middle finger.

“I’ll have you know,” Namjoon comments, calm and frank, stepping beside the first pet and lightly running the crook of his finger over her cheek, “our pets are trained thoroughly in all aspects of behavior.” A response comes almost immediately as she dips her head back against his touch, the perfect picture of pretty obedience. Jackson’s stomach jumps at her unreadable glance. Satisfied, the other man lifts away his tattooed hand, straightening himself with a smug, dimpled smile.

“Of course, that’s not to say they don’t have any personality - isn’t that right Youngjae?” He moves onto the next pet, a boy with pink, perked lips who shoots Jackson a puffy, dark glare as Namjoon’s inked fingers come to rest under his sharp chin. Instead of following the tilt of the man’s hand, the kneeled pet bites, jerking a tan digit into his glossy pout, catching it in a hard flash of white teeth. Still, Namjoon only chuckles, wrenching back his thumb and wiping it casually up Youngjae’s flushed cheek in a long, possessive motion. There’s barely a hint of the bite against the skin of the other man’s finger, and Jackson watches the pet settle back down against the cushion, lidded gaze once again fixed upon the silk in front of him without a sound of protest. What a show, he considers carefully as Namjoon moves on to the next kneeled pet.

Of course, he’s thoroughly interested, perhaps even fascinated by these pets, almost inhuman creatures that bare themselves so transparently before an entire room of black-eyed men, before his own stare without a moment of hesitation in their absolute submission. Even for the ones like Youngjae, feigning at spitefulness, the automatic reaction of their bodies when Namjoon approaches, quickly gives them away in their convincing play. Still, to give credit where credit’s due, Jackson can’t help but wonder, just exactly how the other man has got all these wispy, pretty things turning towards him like he could somehow hand them the moon on the string with just a simple brush of a blasphemous finger at their jaws, under their throats, through fluffed hair, and against pouted cheeks. He can’t say his own pocketed hands haven’t begin to itch, urged, just slightly to touch, with the careless affection Namjoon gives and inexorably receives with every passing pet.

It’s been too long on his own, too cold without at least the casual embrace of another human body. Jackson had thought himself stronger without it, but, scanning over the blatant display of soft, bared flesh before him, he considers the possibility of self-sabotage.

The end of the chain of murmured introductions finally reaches the last kneeled pet, and Jackson looks down, a short spark of remembrance tripping in his mind. He was the only one without a collar, Jackson notes, eyes traveling over the open skin along a pale neck all the way down to exposed collarbones. The pet wears the same half-unbuttoned dress shirt, spread across wide shoulders to show off an expanse of unmarked flesh, paired with black silk shorts, barely a hint of its hem peeking out beneath draped linen, and the rest of it practically swallowed by the thick muscle of bared thighs. He looks up at Jackson now, gaze a hazy mix of brewed coffee, hazelnuts, and a clear night’s sky, and Jackson swallows around the sudden lump in his mouth. He does his best to stare back, steady but not demanding, and all he receives is a dreamy blink from sleepy fox eyes.

There it is again - the twitch in his fingers, the hot irritation against his palms. Peach round cheeks call for the lightest of pinches, the glossy curve of a sharp cupid’s bow tempt an errant finger. Jackson has never met a cherub with such inky black hair, swirling in wisps of silk across gently fluttering eyelashes. The pet tilts his head, baring the translucent vein of his collarless neck in the dusty yellow lighting of the drug den, and Jackson is compelled to cover the spotless skin there with his own calloused, scarred palms.

What is something so vulnerable, so soft doing here, trapped, in a place like this?

The compulsion grows stronger, to do more than watch - rather to touch, to cover, to protect, and Jackson realizes it’s too late when Namjoon’s gone silent, when the whole room has fallen into a smoky hush because somehow, suddenly, there’s a warm cheek pillowing itself into the curve his palms, black silk nuzzling over his jumping pulse, and the innocent brown light of two upturned orbs drawing him in like a silent siren’s song. He can’t breath for an eternity of uncountable seconds.

“I see Jooheon has already introduced himself to you.” Namjoon’s deep baritone rings through Jackson’s jumbled thoughts, and his hand inadvertently flinches against the lenient curve of the pet’s - Jooheon’s - proffered flesh. A soft chirrup echoes over his palm, and his attention is drawn down to a pair of full lips, pulled into an expression Jackson would call a strangely petulant pout.

“Feeling forward today, hmm?” the other man hums, so sweet it’s like a mother cooing to her baby, and Jackson watches the same tattooed hand that had caressed so many others, thread itself into gleaming locks, pressing and kneading until Jooheon’s porcelain neck is arching backwards in plain submission. His own hand falls empty to the side, only a heated imprint left along its flattened palm.

Jackson forces himself to speak, to keep up an unfazed pretense, even as Namjoon’s ink-stained finger begins winding its way down the stretch of Jooheon’s bared neck, the upside down cross of his middle knuckle pressing against the hollow indent at the base of the pet’s collarbones. “So,” he prompts, voice raw and rough, “why no collar?”

It’s like he hasn’t been heard at all as Namjoon’s reverent touches continue for a few moments, arched gaze completely focused on the slight part of the pet’s supple mouth. He’s about to dislodge the awkward cough in back of his throat, when finally, the other man straightens with an age-old sigh, hand slipping, reluctant, from Jooheon’s unmarred throat. He slips the same hand into his pocket, shoulders flat, a perfect mirror of Jackson’s posture as his voice hardens into the same deep register from before.

“Simply put, he doesn’t talk.” He glances back down, meeting Jooheon’s diaphanous gaze, eyes softening for the barest of moments before looking up again. “We know he can understand us, but ever since we found him three years ago, he hasn’t uttered a single word. The clients are, to say the least, a little put off by his muteness.” Namjoon sighs again, body depressing with the strong exhale as if from some sense of personal disappointment, and Jackson’s heart picks up pace again as he picks through the hidden implications behind the other man’s statement.

Broken, not good enough, a simple piece of decoration, abandoned, pushed off to the side - and perhaps his for the taking.

“I want this one.”

Jackson is brazen, unflinching as he steps forward, the remnant of heat on his clenched hand drawn, magnetized, to Jooheon’s tilted stare, and he boldly declares his newfound intent with his gaze directly on Namjoon’s and his grip at the side of the pet’s sluggish pulse. A vibration sounds against his palm, and he finds himself stroking his thumb absentmindedly over the edge of a rounded jaw, soothing away what suspiciously sounds like whines under the rough pad of his finger.

Namjoon’s sharp gaze shifts minutely towards his boss, who’s lit up another acrid cigarette between his stern lips, some kind of invisible assent passing between the smoke curling through the room before he’s turning back to Jackson, eyes narrowed with an unpleasant twist to his mouth. “Don’t be brash. I mean, I’ve just told you what’s wrong with him - are you absolutely sure?”

An ugly twitch convulses through Jooheon’s previously smooth pulse, and Jackson tightens his grip around the back of the pet’s neck until the minute shaking finally subsides into his touch. “Of course.” He smiles, baring his teeth in what Kihyun calls his absolutely shit-eating grin.

Namjoon frowns, a dark shadow flitting over the hard edges of his expression, and Jackson tenses in preparation for another growled protest, but then Howon’s cold-steel voice is ringing through the thick air between them, dispelling the argument with the sharp incense of his smoking cigarette.

“Let him have what he wants. After all-” he takes another drag of the burning cancer stick, its flaring embers illuminated in his dead gaze, “what more could you want than a pet that would never talk back to its master? Perhaps,” he blows out another trail of gray smoke, pinched eyes turning on Jooheon for a second, “maybe even more should learn from his example.”

Jackson smiles, the lines of his face tight, and he nods his silent thanks. Howon returns it with a minute twitch of his own lips, and motions with a careless sweep of his hand for everyone to file out of the room. His men blend into an amorphous grouping of plain back as they sweep out the door, and the pets rise to their bare feet, following after them in a line of pure white. Jackson strains his neck, catching Jooheon’s hazy coffee and stardust eyes with an attempt at a genuine grin. He receives a slight perk of lips, complete with a hint of dimples, before Jooheon (pet, his mind whispers) is gone, the curled crown of his jet black head melting back into a sea of black and white.

Namjoon stares as he stalks past Jackson, the last one out of the room save for Jackson himself and Howon. His stringent gaze is unreadable, and the young boss watches the hunched lines of his back disappear out through the carved doorway before deciding to wipe away the worry in his mind for other much more pressing thoughts. Namely, thoughts about his newly acquired pet with the face of a cherub, the stare of an oracle, and the voice of a trapped songbird. Jackson is determined to hear him sing somehow.

Howon flicks the cigarette to the floor, grinding it into ash with the heel of his shoe as he regards Jackson with something akin to acceptance as he finally strides towards the empty doorway. “He’ll be sent your way shortly. Please feel free to wait outside.”

He gestures with an upturned palm towards Jackson’s direction, and they shake hands again, meeting each other’s gazes with unfiltered intentions. Howon smiles, broad lines indenting themselves into each cheek, the top row of his teeth glinting like a full moon on a dark night.

“It was good doing business with you.”

Sleep with me: (it’s after the first afternoon of the bargain)

Jackson's brought Jooheon home, got him all soft and settled in his room with a big fancy upholstered bed as he sits behind his desk to finish up some work, quietly observing the pet occasionally the entire time. Jooheon is technically allowed to roam free, but he only sits at the foot of Jackson's bed dozing with his head and arms propped against a corner, looking up ever so often out through the open windows and over at Jackson. Jackson gets up every 30 minutes or so, just to squat down next to the pet, looking him in the eyes only to receive a sleepy blink and he can't help but run his hands through fluffed locks as Jooheon coos contentedly into his hand. He always wonders if Jooheon needs anything, if he ever wants to get up, but it doesn't ever seem like it so the come and go kinda cycle continues until it's dark and Jackson's stripping messily out of his jacket and pants to go to bed - all nightly rituals forgone for today due to the big deal. And there's Jooheon, still propped against the bed, watching him out of the corner of sleek eyes, pale thighs a creamy contrast against the dark wood of his floor and jackson's plodding over on bare feet, squatting again for a last time, patting lightly at chubby cheeks as Jooheon props his head up to smile at him and Jackson's like "...I'll be going to bed now"

And Jooheon's plain smile only continues, nodding a little as Jackson begins slipping under his covers, and of course Jackson can only sit there, warm and suffocating in bed as he watches Jooheon's dark head lay back down against the corner of the mattress, legs still coiled against the cold hardwood floors - and it its him, he hasn't given permission yet. So then he's throwing back the covers, and scooching to the edge of the bed and cradling his palm under Jooheon's cotton soft cheek again, lifting the pet to look up at him and there's little red wrinkles of sheet imprints against Jooheon's round cheeks and jackson's heart twinges w such a sore ache he doesn't know how to reach out without immediately forcing himself onto the pet and scaring him off. Jooheon just blinks at him, brown eyes liquid and hazy with sleep, almost pouting indignantly. and Jackson, just reaches the same hand through his hair, smoothing back rumpled bangs, over and over again, scratching lightly at the pet's scalp as Jooheon's neck arches in his grasp and he's wiping a thumb over the red marks on Jooheon's face as he whispers "Sleep with me?" patting lightly at the silk clad body of his bed. Jooheon's cocking his head for a few seconds, staring at Jackson with soft open eyes and the older man is almost scared he wasn't understand - but then there's a sleeved hand pulling around his arm and he's automatically hauling up jooheon by his waist, the light weight of arms looping around his neck as the sweet scent of warmth and strangely dried flowers blooms through his nose. Jooheon's cradled in his lap, smooth legs curled up over his tanned own and jackson looks wonderingly down at his hands, practically melting into the curve of Jooheon's waist (Ref: https://ton.twitter.com/i/ton/data/dm/920418165968003077/920418148964212736/eph4Vr04.jpg:large ) All curled in Jackson's lap, wisps of hair brushing against the other's cheek Jackson is casually just holding Jooheon, feeling the way a warm soft body is shifting against his and of course Jooheon is still clad in the "uniform" of the other pets a plain loose white dress shirt and a pair of fine silk shorts. He's roughly fingering the edge of said shorts, looking over when a breathy whine comes past his cheek and he hikes the pet up higher in his lap, securing both hands around his waist and asks slowly, calmly "what kind of clothes do you like Jooheon?" He's receiving that same tilted stare again, eyes slit in an unreadable moment of consideration and jackson finds himself stroking casually at the pet's flank, some kind of strange reassurance he supposes. (like even getting a pet in the first place was only a power play, but now that he has one that's so soft...he's not sure how to handle him) Then there's a rounded finger poking, tracing down his bare chest and he has to stop himself from reacting at the sudden thrill that runs through him, following the pet's lidded gaze towards his own bare chest and he can't help but sigh, even as he tightens his grip around the other's supple waist like "You really don't talk, do you?" but the finger keeps poking, insistent, and there's a high whine reverberating at the edge of his cheek as Jooheon adamantly pushes up against Jackson's bare chest and Jackson really doesn't understand, no clothes? His chest? Naked? But then frustrated, a little huff of breath tickles along the column of his neck and the finger turns to point at the scattered pile of loose t shirts on the back of a dressing chair at the other corner of his room and Jackson tentatively tries "...My clothes?" and suddenly there's a happy coo of approval, sliding like silk over his collarbones and Jooheon's dark head of hair is bobbing eagerly as he re-situates himself back into the cradle between Jackson's legs. The next morning Jackson is pulling a droopy Jooheon by a limp wrist over to his closet and opening the entire thing as he gently pushes Jooheon in front of him and he's stating calmly into Jooheon's ear, lips brushing past wayward curls, pressing the center of his palm into the small of the other's back like “Choose whatever you want" and then there's a small sound of wonderment in the back of Jooheon's throat and he's carefully approaching the vast closet. Pushing and pulling things aside so slowly if Jackson closed his eyes he wouldn't be able to hear a thing, but he waits, patient, watching as he carelessly rifles through his own suits and pulling a pair on. But when there's finally a soft pair of footsteps behind him, he looks over to see Jooheon clad in one of his old, ratty oversized winter sweaters, collarbones entirely on show, still bared neck too vulnerable in the warm morning light. The hem of the sweater is most definitely too long, falling midway to bare thighs that all jackson can see is leg and more leg, he gets the cocked head look for the third time since the bargain, and all he can focus on is the long stretch of skin at Jooheon's neck. The only thing he can do to distract himself from Jooheon's suddenly more scandalous choice of fashion, is to draw the pet close, wrapping the callused skin of his palm over the other's dimpled cheeks as he mutters "We've got to get you a collar soon." in which he receives a purring sound of approval sleeved fingers come up to clutch gently at his wrist, keeping his hand there as Jooheon presses himself happily into Jackson's grip.

Outside perspective: Word spreads fast that the boss is entirely enamored, even obsessed, with his new pet. Kihyun notes the daily gossip with a blank face and open ears. He can’t refute it; Jackson practically brings Jooheon with him wherever he goes - regardless of societal propriety.

You like sweets?:

He needs glasses: probably kihyun again?

A pet for a pet: kitty

“You really don’t talk, do you?”: probably the whole “jackson” “master” thing

What else would it be used for?: kihyun being mean

“I need to be careful tonight - for you”: the party

--- cowritten with and conceived with the brilliant @deardystopia

Blind/mute magic au

in one of those fantasy universes where everyone happily coexists and the humans live well in the world w/ other magical creatures

and jooheon's just your typical neighborhood witch

but what if he was cursed somehow when he was younger and so he's blind

but he still manages to get around well enough and every week there’s a delivery boy to help get him materials and to send off the charms he makes

its like a quiet and domestic life but what if his usual delivery boy gets switched for someone else

because they're doing their new spring reshuffling thing so older employees get a new route and the new ones get to learn the old ones

and so changkyun is one of the new delivery boys and its one of the few jobs he feels safe enough doing w/ his disability - he's deaf

and so the old delivery boy knew about Jooheon's disability and knew how to work with that, knowing which wards on the door he should purposefully set off to let the witch know he was there

RIGHT LIKE IM JUST IMAGINING jars with dried flowers and crystal sunlight filtering through open windows as jooheon makes some tea for ck

ok so like usually jooheon's used to the right wards going off and so the delivery boy will just leave the package and then take the already pre-wrapped and pre-set charms to ship off

but like this time it feels completely different and so he gets up to go an d check

so like ck standing there awkwardly cause he doesn't see a doorbell and decides to knock on the door but then it swings open on its own to reveal the owner of the house

i kinda think jooheon would wear like soft browns and whites, like a white turtleneck probs

and changkyun probably layers w/ a ton of jackets and plaid and jeans?

that’s what i was thinking

like this kinda look w/o the kiddy stuff for jh and ck's hairstyle for that too

ck would totally wear a ton of hoodies and loose jackets

this hairstyle w/ the middle part for jh

soft flower witch jooheon

omg yesss

yeah the middle part is what i was thinking

and like a simple silver necklace or smth w/ a little bee charm

or a flower i honestly can't decide

i think it'd just be really cute to have a scene where jooheon gently feels around changkyuns face to get an image of him and he doens't realize he's kinda looking directly into ck's eyes and is a little too close

i totally want them to go for a walk together on a rainy day

and jooheon puts a charm on their umbrella so nobody gets wet

its cute and ck taps against his wrist to guide him away from big puddles

and whispers lowly because he totally wants to describe how pretty it is outside to jooheon even though he doesn't usually like to speak cause he doesn't know what he sounds like

delivery boy outfit totally needs a snapback

dude but like what if ck always wears a ton of layers and pulls his hat down low cause he always feels so unsure of himself w/ his disability and tries to shield himself w clothing

but after meeting jooheon

and seeing how open and happily he lives w/ his disability, always smiling and never hiding his eyes even though he can't see

he kind of starts gaining his own confidence

like one day he comes and like jooheon always physically greets him to makes ure its the right person and he's like "oh, no hoodies today?" cause the fabric under his hand is usually thick, but today its just bare skin

and changkyun just smiles shyly and taps out "yep" against jooheons wrist

THIS IS THE TEA JOOHEON MAKES FOR CK IN THE OTHER AU WITH CRUSHED PETALS OR SMTH, And Changkyun s like asks you're blind and yet everything you do is so beautiful

Jk wait that's too early

Like "the tea and the cup match so well" and jooheon just laughs tapping blindly at Changkyun s head and just says "witch senses", the words flowering beautifully across Changkyun’s charmed board as jooheon settles down with his own cup, AND FLOWERS TOTALLY RESPOND WELL TO HIS TOUCH AND IT WORDS SO NATURALLY HE JUST STICKS TO THAT AREA

Like turning up their faces just subtly everytime he walks by, Responding naturally to him and it's very easy for him to use flowers, more so than any other material

Ck would totally be able to see all this sitting at a table and he's just so lovestruck watching the flowers crowd adoringly for Jooheon's attention, Omg what if he usually makes packages of homemade tea with some simple spells integrated to help w sleep or relaxation, Yeeeesssssss but they work really well so he has a good customer base

And also KIHYUN helps design an online page and process Orders

And takes a ton of sample photos to put up on the page

Also in the like about section there's a cute pic of jooheon doing a peace sign w muddy fingers next to some flowers and that's like the only pic of him ever, And there’s definitely an online group dedicated to his tea, like freaking out when a new sample comes out

And also like screaming about how there's only one pic of him but definitely a confirmed cutie bc there handwritten notes that are shaky and messy but super sweet in every package

Ok but like what if minhyuk was blessed w the gift of visual arts so of course he draws

But he also loves running his aesthetic blog and he posts artsy pics of his drawings and cafes and shit

And like one day there's a pic of him and at the corner is boy with softly curled hair and a pink sweater, facemask pulled below his chin as he cups both hands around his cup of coffee, sipping it through a straw as he looks blankly to the side, And his fans are like ???!?!?! And someone is LIKE OH FUCK THAT’S JOOHEON YO

And then minhyuk’s secretly laughing about how adorable jooheon looks and didn't know he took a pic

When his phone suddenly is just like blowing up w alerts, And jooheon sighs "hyung please check your alerts"

And minhyuk is like wtf is going on

And he's getting DM s like

OMFG THATS JOOHEON

YOU KNOW JOOHEON?

PLEASE POST MORE WITH JOOHEON

And then minhyuk Fits the phone against Jooheon's palm, And jooheon can feel the phone continuously vibrating like not stopping at all and he's like "hyung what's going on"

And minhyuk just chuckles at the lost look on his face and says "my followers love you"

And it's the 2nd time he's only ever seen jooheon this red

Followed only by the first time minhyuk had teased him about that new delivery boy and his oh so deep voice, And so jooheon face bursts into flames as he squeaks out "what!!?" before snatching his hand away and desperately sucking at his coffee adamantly ignoring minhyuks guffaws

jh would have this phone case

When Jooheon gets knees deep in fresh spring earth he of course has to change into more suitable clothes. He doesn’t actually know the material or (ha) color of those nice sweaters Minhyuk always forces him to buy, but they’re beautifully soft against his skin. He wants to keep them that way, and as much as he loves the press of wet dirt under his fingers, his sweaters probably wouldn’t appreciate it to the same degree.

So one day Changkyun comes on his usual delivery route, and there’s a note left in Jooheon’s blocky script, I’m out back! with a round creature resembling a bee drawn at the bottom. He finds the witch completely kneeled on the ground on all fours, dressed in tight leggings and a black hoodie, as he digs at an already significantly deep hole. He taps lightly on the ground with his foot, alerting Jooheon of his presence.

“Changkyun?” Jooheon immediately looks up, eyes blindly flickering towards his general direction. The delivery boy hums lowly and taps again in affirmation, and Jooheon’s smile widens even more, eyes crinkling shut into thin slits, the indents of dimples forming like two shadowed ponds on his cheeks.

Once he’s sure of the right person, the witch turns back to the task at hand, fumbling for the shovel as he starts digging again. The pit’s deep enough Jooheon has to sink his upper body forward, raising his lower half in the air in a meager attempt to keep balance. Changkyun’s eyes are inevitably drawn to his pert bottom, tightly clad in leggings he’s never seen before.

He shuffles over and sits down next to Jooheon, clearing his throat as he prepares to speak. “I’ve never seen you wear this before,” he comments casually as Jooheon pauses to pay attention to his words. “That’s right,” the witch ponders, and the shape of his mouth corresponding with the letters scrawling across Changkyun’s charmed board. “I don’t usually wear this kind of….” he grimaces, searching for the right word, “tight clothing?”

He sighs, ruffling dirt crusted fingers in his hair and Changkyun watches, scrutinizing as the wet earth sticks adamantly to shining locks. Their disabilities make them sensitive towards certain forms of contact, and brushing the other’s cheeks clean of dried earth would definitely be a violation of Jooheon’s comfort zone. He keeps his fingers clenched and still against his lap.

“My friends alway watch out for me, bringing me clothing and such. This one,” he gestures at the lycra stretching over his legs, “was from a friend who modeled for an exercise brand. I guess he thought he would send me some to try…” He plucks at the fabric, letting it snap back against his skin, laughing nervously. “It’s not really my kind of thing, well as much as possible to figure out what “my thing” is, but at least it's good for dirty labor?”

Changkyun laughs at his vaguely apologetic expression, the sentence ending itself on his board with a question mark, and he nods sagely in response, tapping once to show his agreement. “You look, you look good.” he forces out, his voice catching tightly in the middle. He doesn’t need to look at his board to understand Jooheon’s reply, all of it completely apparent in the pink in his cheeks and the “o” of his mouth before fumbling quickly into a “thank you.”

Like "you look amazing in pink" and jooheon sighs "I don't know what it even looks like" and minhyuk just flounders to describe it "it's just light, and soft, and....pink??" He ends up stubbornly pushing a pile.of sweaters into Jooheon's hands anyway

Maybe like cursed when he was still in the womb or smth

Cause eventually I want like a scene where he and Changkyun are hanging and he just realizes how happy and comfortable he is w the other and he blinks

And the next moment piercing rays are flooding his eyes and it hurts so much he hides his face in his hands as tears leak out uncontrollably

I need a good reason for why he got that kind of curse put on him tho

Then he gets to match a voice to a face when Changkyun urgently asks, "are you okay"?" leaning over to grasp his wrists

Pink lips pressed into a worried line and almond eyes gazing directly into his own tear stained ones, jooheon can't help but cry even harder

Changkyun flails in panic, wrapping an arm around his back, trying to soothe him as he asks again "what's wrong?"

His board stays empty for a few moments more before they fill with 3 words that leave him perfectly stunned

“I can see.”

Changkyun immediately goes to draw away, some part of him panicking at Jooheon's newfound sight

But the witch turns and immediately lunges to embrace him, both of them landing harshly against the ground as the other hides his face in changkyuns neck

I want to like do something where ck gets to hear like they're made for each other and them being together breaks it but hmmmmm. Changkyun stays still, relaxing his body as Jooheon shakes against him. His neck is wet with tears and its soaking through to his jacket, but he only pulls the other man closer to himself, wrapping both of his arms around the other's middle. Suddenly, something is filtering into his brain, the ever static silence interrupted by pin pricks of hiccuped cries. It can't be, he panics, hands leaving Jooheon's middle to cup around his ears. He can hear the echo of sound against his palms, and curls up, completely overwhelmed. Jooheon sits up confused at the sudden shift of the body below him, and sees with his newfound sight, Changkyun's face scrunched in pain as he turns away from him. Jooheon hurriedly wipes away the gathered moisture, before leaning over to shadow over Changkyun's prone form. “Changkyun, Changkyun-ah! What happened?” He whispers urgently, completely forgetting the other’s charmed board. Neither of them realize it for a moment, when Changkyun looks up at him, comprehension immediate in his eyes.

“I...I can hear,” he stutters, hands dropping incredulously as a world of sounds flood through his ears; the chirp of birds, the whistle of the wind, but most importantly Jooheon’s shocked gasp as he sits up, toppling back onto the ground.

The witch presses a hand over his mouth, muffling any other sounds that could unwillingly escape his throat. It’s silent between them, but for Changkyun it’s more than he’s ever heard all his life.

Jooheon waits hesitantly, before asking as quietly as possible, “Is...is this real?” His voice, light and almost whiny, fits perfectly with the curved script that had written itself across Changkyun’s board many times.

“It,” he chokes at the low rumble of his own voice, “it is.” The shock sets in for the both of them, Jooheon still squinting furiously at all the colors and shapes passing rapidly through his retinas, and the echo of sobs still bouncing in Changkyun’s ears. They lock gazes, newfound senses tingling with every movement, and it’s not definite who moves first, but they simultaneously meet in the middle, bodies crashing in a locked embrace.

#happycakewrites

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