#and i still think of it as one of the best experiences i've ever had with fictional media | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

niningtori · 3 months ago

Text

an iron man | oneshot

pairing: choi beomgyu x you

summary: beomgyu has only ever known how to live function as a rental sexbot. he fucks whoever and whatever comes his way with a forced smile plastered on his face. that is, until you, a self-proclaimed trainwreck, come along.

genre: android!au, sexbot!au, angst, romance, fluff (more than i ever thought i could ever write i fear...), skippable smut at the very end (will be marked)

warnings: very brief and vague mentions of beomgyu being forced to engage in sexual acts he does not want with previous clients, skippable smut at the very end (will be marked)

smut warnings: unprotected sex, creampie, cockwarming, praise, dacryphilia, sub!gyu

word count: 14.7k (trust i will not be writing this much again if this flops BWNWJSJEJDK)

notes: terrified to post this one because this is probably my favorite thing i've ever written and if it gets a bad reaction i might die :,) also very unsure if this is the best time to post it since it's during kinktober so i'm not sure if the demand is there but i love this work so so much i pray you all like it. if you don't read anything else from me, i hope that you read this bc i rlly care ab it :,) please don't be mean i beg

beomgyu doesn’t know how long he’s been living like this. living is an odd term, too, and it’s not just because “life” is ill-defined for an android, but because to call what he experiences a life feels like a bastardization of the term. his power is turned on at some point, usually late at night, he fucks or gets fucked by somebody he probably doesn’t know, then he does the same shit all over again. so yes, he may be “alive”, but he wouldn't dare to call what he experiences living. living is too precious of a term to be used so cheaply on a sex android who’s made available for rent for the highest bidder of the night.

he’s seen how people live through his scattered vignettes of human life. he only gets them when he’s powered on, but he soaks them up with pleasure because they’re the only thing he’s ever known. some people do it wildly, living unattached to everyone and everything. their lives are not completely dissimilar to his, in a way, except they have a choice in the matter. they have time to find themselves, what their likes and dislikes are, and they get to connect with people in a way he will never have the power to. others, though, live the kind of life he really wants. they live by loving and being loved, knowing and being known. he wonders what it’d be like to know somebody outside of whatever secret deviant sexual pleasures they have. he wonders what it’s like to be known, too, but he guesses you would need to have something for someone to care enough to know about in the first place. he has no such thing.

it’s a night like any other when he’s powered on by a total stranger. he briefly takes in his surroundings and notices that it’s a really nice place, but you wouldn’t be the first rich person to rent him — not by a longshot. next, he takes you in. now, there’s no reason for you to dress up, really. you have no need to tempt him, as he will be able to feign attraction no matter what you look like, but he still finds it odd that you seem to have forgone any effort to appeal to him, if only because most people’s fantasies require them to look and feel sexy; but you don’t look sexy at all. you look like you’ve just gotten home from a long day at work, and honestly? you kind of smell like it, too.

“do you think you could do the dishes for me? i’m exhausted,” you ask with a perfectly-timed yawn. what… ?

he short-circuits for a moment as he tries to think of an appropriate response. he’s never had anyone try to get him to do chores for them, but maybe this is some sort of weird roleplay? maybe you want him to act as a house husband for you before doing the deed, which isn’t necessarily a problem since he’s well-versed in acting, but there’s just one issue.

“i don’t know how,” he tells you honestly.

“you don’t know how to do dishes?” you ask curiously,

“it’s not in my programming,” he replies. if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he’s embarrassed because of the way he hesitates and looks away from you when he says it. he can’t possibly feel that, though, so it must just be your imagination.

“oh… that’s alright. okay, do you know how to clean a room? mine’s kind of dirty,” you try.

“n-no,” he says, and he wishes the earth would just swallow him whole. he’s never failed at living up to expectations, and never so badly, at that. just what kind of fetish is this?

“that’s okay,” you sigh, and he may not fully understand it, but he can sense your disappointment. “well, what can you do?” and the question is not asked maliciously, but with what seems to be genuine wonder. ah. he knows how to answer this one. slowly, he walks up to you and loosens your hair. you look up at him in shock, but he just cups your face, swiping his thumb across your lower lip.

“i can do whatever you want me to, baby,” he whispers alluringly. “just tell me how you like it.” you’re so stunned at his switch in demeanor that you forget how to speak for a moment, but you quickly recollect yourself and pry his hands off of you.

“i don’t want you to do anything,” you insist. “i’m just tired. if you can’t help me clean, that’s alright. you can watch something if you’re bored. i think that’s it. well, goodnight.” beomgyu is malfunctioning at the moment. he thinks the gears in his head might be sparking while he tries to understand this new development. you don’t give him time to process it, though. you just slam your bedroom door shut behind you. he thinks he hears you lock it, too.

genuinely at a loss at the thought that he has nothing and no one to do, he sits himself on your couch. he tries not to make himself too at home at first, just barely making a dent on it and scooting to the very edge of the cushion as to not appear to be too relaxed. what if this is some sort of test? what if you’re actually going to come out soon so you two can fuck? until then, what should he do next? thoughts like this plague him until he accepts the fact that you are actually sleeping. your obnoxiously loud snoring is a dead giveaway, and he finally, finally feels brave enough to fiddle with your remote control.

he scrolls for something to watch. movies and shows have been on as background noise during sex before, so he’s somewhat familiar with them, but he’s never gotten the opportunity to pick for himself or actually pay attention to what's happening on screen. he settles on a romantic movie about a robot who joins human society. the robot falls in love with a human girl, but in the end, the robot has to leave the girl because the town won’t accept him, even after using him. she marries a human man and has children, and eventually grandchildren, too. she still loves the robot even though he’s gone, which he thinks is supposed to make him feel sorry for her, but all he can feel is pity for the robot, who spends the rest of his life alone.

it’s enough to make him cry, which he shouldn’t be able to do in a non-sexual setting, but he does it, anyway. it’s just so unfair to him. the girl is able to live a normal life while the robot is doomed to be alone forever. why? because he was born different? it’s not his fault that he was invented, but he spends the rest of his time on earth paying for the crime of existing in a world not built for him. the more beomgyu thinks about it, the more wronged he feels. he’s outright sobbing by the time you plop down on the couch beside him. he jumps up and straightens his posture while trying in vain to regain his composure.

“yeah, this movie makes me cry, too,” you quietly remark. he’s silent, not because he didn’t hear what you said, but because he genuinely doesn’t know how to act after being caught red handed.

“can i ask you something?” you ask in lieu of his lack of a response.

“yes,” he feebly answers.

“why are you crying?” you question with a tilt of your head, but something in him tells him that you already know.

“because the movie made me sad,” he admits after a pause.

“are androids supposed to feel things like that?”

“... no,” he replies after a pause.

“then why can you?”

“i… i don't know. just please don’t say anything to my owners,” he pleads. he knows that if the company that owns him were to find out about this, he’d be scrapped in a heartbeat. or worse, they’d analyze him like a labrat to try to find the anomaly within him. his “life” as a sexbot will be over, and he’d really rather be a box of scraps than live as a case study in a lab somewhere.

“it’s okay,” you tell him with a reassuring smile as you watch him trying not to spiral. “i won’t tell them. it’ll be our secret.” beomgyu has never had a secret to share with anyone before, so he feels an overwhelming amount of excitement at the idea that he will finally have one. his chest feels warm at the thought.

“thank you,” he says with a grateful smile.

“no problem,” you reply with a yawn. “i’m tired, so i’m heading back to bed. i just wanted to get some water. goodnight, for real this time.”

“goodnight,” he murmurs softly. you return his words with a sleepy smile and go back into your room. he finds that he’s smiling even when you leave.

he spends the night consuming as much media as he conceivably can before he has to leave. usually, he'd be powered off after he’s done being used, so he greedily savors every moment he can. who knows if he'll ever get this chance again. when you wake up, you're surprised to see that he's exactly where you left him, still watching the screen intently.

“good morning,” you say while stretching your arms.

“good morning,” he replies.

“are you ready to be returned?” you ask.

“... yes,” he lies.

“okay. i think somebody will be here to pick you up in an hour or so. you hungry?”

“i don't really eat,” he bashfully answers. for some reason, he's embarrassed at the fact that you're treating him like a human while he's unable to fully act like one.

“oh. i guess that makes sense,” you nod.

things are quiet until he’s picked up, but it’s not an awkward silence. you sit next to him on the couch as you wolf down some breakfast and let him watch whatever he pleases. when he eventually hears knocking at your door, he feels an incomprehensible sense of dread.

“i think that's them,” you remark, breaking the silence.

“y-yeah,” he replies.

“well, it was nice to meet you,” you say, reaching out your hand for him. he’s unsure what to do with it. not missing a beat, you gently grab his hand and shake it. he's stunned at the physical contact, and he's still reeling when you let the man from the rental company in. you have a brief conversation with him before he walks towards beomgyu.

“goodbye,” you tell the android with a smile and a little wave.

“... good—” and the man switches him off.

the next time beomgyu is powered on, he’s in your house again. relief floods him when he realizes it. you don’t seem as exhausted as the last time he saw you. when that was, he has no idea, but if he had to guess, he’d say it was just last night because of the fact that he’s so popular he’s rented almost every day.

“hey,” you greet him with a smile. he’s still feeling relieved before he realizes that tonight might be the night where you ask him to have sex with you. maybe you were just tired last night and had no desire to fuck, but he can tell that you’re feeling more energetic tonight.

“i didn’t catch your name,” you add.

“... beomgyu. i’m part of the choi line, but i’m a custom model, so they gave me a name,” he tentatively replies.

“nice,” you nod, and you briefly introduce yourself before asking if he wants to watch a movie.

“watch… a movie?” is this some sort of euphemism for fucking? it wouldn’t be the first time he’s heard of something like this. as mentioned before, some people like movies as background noise.

“yeah, you can pick,” you say, casually plopping down on the couch and patting the cushion next to you. he hesitantly takes your cue, and he’s mentally preparing himself for what comes next before you take a blanket and cocoon yourself in it so tightly, it’d be impossible for him to touch you.

“what’s wrong?” you ask, and he jolts a bit when he realizes that he’s been staring in disbelief. “oh, are you cold? do you want a blanket, too?”

“‘m fine,” he replies.

“are you sure? the clothes they make you wear look a little thin,” you observe with your nose wrinkled, and he feels impossibly small under your surveying eye. “here, i’ll get you some sweats. i think soobin left some the last time he was here.”

“who’s soobin?” he asks a little too quickly. so quickly, in fact, he doesn’t even have time to process why he even asked.

“my friend. stay here, i’ll grab them for you.”

when you return, you have a long pair of sweatpants in hand and a big t-shirt.

“you can change in the bathroom. it’s down the hallway and to the left, okay?” he nods in response.

he strips his clothes off as best as he can, and it feels like he’s shedding a second skin. when he’s finished undressing, he pulls on the clothes you gave him and stares in the mirror. it’s in his programming to always be mindful of how he looks, but he feels especially self-conscious now that he’s wearing a normal outfit. he fixes up his hair and clears his throat before exiting your (messy) bathroom and making his way back into your living room. he finds you fiddling with your phone before you look up at him.

“took you long enough,” you tease, and he blushes, which stuns you. just how human is this guy?

“s-sorry, i —”

“hey, i’m just kidding. you’re fine. you look pretty good in those clothes — soobin would be jealous,” you chuckle. his ears perk up at the mention of soobin again. is he your boyfriend? he must be. why else would he have clothes at your house? is that why you don't want to sleep with beomgyu? because you have someone already? if that's the case, why rent him at all? but he is not brave enough to ask these questions, so he settles for a soft “thank you” and returns to his spot on the couch.

you toss him the remote and he catches it with ease before unsurely flipping through your streaming services. he finds something that piques his interest and turns to you with an uncertain look before you nod encouragingly. he selects it and lets it play. he doesn’t mean to, but he finds himself sinking further and further into the cushions as it progresses.

it’s a sweet movie — a romantic comedy about an amnesic woman whose memory is wiped clean every morning, but a man falls in love with her, anyway. she never remembers him, so he has to make her fall in love with him in a new way every day. he finds himself smiling throughout it, but a particularly funny scene has him actually laughing for the first time. it’s a squeaky sort of thing, and he has never laughed before, so he’s somewhat surprised as it leaves his throat. he looks to you in trepidation, but you just smile warmly and respond with a soft chuckle of your own. he finds that he looks to you every time a new development occurs, and you always answer encouragingly.

the end of the film surprises him. it’s bittersweet in that she never does get her memory back, but the man makes a video recounting their entire love story for her to watch every time she wakes up. it ends with them living happily together in spite of everything, and it’s enough to make him sob. he turns to you and sees that you’re teary-eyed as well, but you seem to be enjoying his reaction so much that there’s still a grin on your face. after the film ends, you can tell that he has something on his mind.

“what’s wrong? didn’t you like it?” you gently ask.

“i did. i just don’t understand,” he replies timidly.

“don’t understand what?”

“why he would do all of that for her, i guess,” he says.

“because he loves her. when you love somebody, you’d do anything to be with them. you always find a way,” you tell him, and the sentiment seems to strike a chord within him.

“even if they’re that different?”

“of course.”

beomgyu spends the following nights with this same routine. he’s switched on, sees you standing in front of him with a smile, gets comfortable, and watches as much media as he possibly can while you two chatter away about every scene. he learns much more from it than he ever did from experience with his previous renters, and he finds himself becoming more and more emotional by the day. you never try to question him or press him to explain any of his feelings, and it just makes him feel even more comfortable with you.

one day, he even feels comfortable enough to ask you a question. the question.

“can i ask you something?”

“of course! what is it?” you reply in earnest. beomgyu has never directly inquired about you.

“why do you rent me? i mean, i know we watch stuff together now, but why rent me in the first place?” and even when he feels exponentially more at ease with you than he ever has in any other context, he’s still nervous when he asks it.

“oh, my friend did it as a joke, i guess,” you shrug. “he thought i needed to get laid or something, but i’m not into stuff like that, so i just thought i’d ask you to help me clean. obviously, that’s what i actually need,” you giggle. what he feels at your words can only be described as disappointment. “stuff like that”? so you’re not into sleeping with sexbots? is it because you find them disgusting? is it because you find him disgusting? he’s not sure what he expected, but this wasn’t it.

“oh. so why don’t you buy a cleaning bot?” he asks softly, and while you are usually pretty perceptive of his emotions, you don’t register the fact that he’s at a loss right now.

“i dunno. my parents were always against that sort of thing. they thought it was wrong, i guess, so i didn’t grow up with them like everyone else did. i didn’t really have an opinion on them until i met you,” you tell him while grinning and lightly nudging him with your elbow. he tries his best to smile because, in theory, your words are really sweet. you see him as more than just another android, so why does he feel like that’s not enough?

the fragile connection you two have made seems even more fragile now. at least, it does to him. you only met each other because of a joke your friend just so happened to make, not because of fate or the divine intervention that he always sees in the movies. maybe in another world, your friend rented a different sexbot. maybe you’d even treat them the same way you treat him. the thought alone makes something ugly burn in his chest.

still, you are oblivious to the internal war raging within beomgyu.

“hey, i’ve got an idea,” you tell him, and he perks up a bit. “have you ever listened to music?”

“not really,” he replies solemnly. people have played it in the background of their sexual escapades, but he hasn’t really gotten the chance to listen the same way humans do. you finally register his crestfallen appearance, but you chalk it up to him feeling like he’s missing out.

“why don’t we listen to some? i can play a bunch of different genres so you can find what you like,” you suggest, and he agrees to it. truthfully, he doesn’t fully understand how music can be better than movies and shows, but he is curious to find out what makes it so special.

and special, it is. he doesn’t like every song you play, he realizes, but that’s only natural given how different they are from each other. he finds himself being drawn to the more emotional and moody ones, but he can’t help but enjoy the way you quietly sing and nod along to the more upbeat tunes.

as you continue to sit together, you begin to fiddle with your hair. you’re scoffing and loosening it for the umpteenth time before you’re about to give up, but beomgyu stops you.

“let me do it,” he says.

“do you know how?”

“i think i can. i’ve been watching you,” he says simply.

“... okay.”

you turn your back to him to give him access to your hair and he scoots closer to you. closer than you’ve ever been. his touch on your head is careful as he gently gathers your hair and begins to braid it. you’re not sure how much time passes because he’s actually quite slow, but it’s relaxing all the same. you find yourself softly humming to the tune of the song playing. the lyrics are a little dark, but you follow along in earnest, and beomgyu thinks he finally understands why people like music so much. for moments like this. he tries to soak up every detail he can, from the way the light hits your frame to the melody you hum, and he wishes this moment could last forever.

but you only have so much hair, so the moment does have to end, eventually. he ties up your hair and you pull out your phone camera to admire his handiwork. admittedly, it’s a lot better than anything you could’ve done. it seems that he’s a fast learner.

“this looks perfect! thanks, beoms,” you say warmly. he’s stunned for a second at the nickname.

“beoms?”

“yeah, like beomgyu. beoms,” you say with a casual shrug, and something in his chest blossoms. “i give all of my friends nicknames.” and something in his chest explodes at the title of “friend”.

“you do?” he asks excitedly.

“yeah. like, i call soobin ‘soobinie’ or ‘soobie’, sometimes,” you giggle, and the bloom of hope in his chest dies with it.

“are you two close?” he asks, even though he knows the answer will probably hurt him.

“very. he’s my best friend,” you answer fondly. oh. you’re beomgyu’s best friend — you’re beomgyu’s only friend, and tentatively at that. the idea that the deep connection he feels with you is even deeper with someone else, at least in your eyes, makes him feel sick. do you let soobin play with your hair? do you hum along to songs you’ve shown him while he does it? do you smile at him after he’s finished and compliment him on his skills? probably, probably, probably. the ugly feeling that was previously completely foreign to him now takes its usual place in his chest, and it makes his stomach hurt so much that if he could vomit, his metaphorical dinner would be all over the floor.

“oh,” is all he can say.

days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months, but every time beomgyu awakens, he finds you smiling up at him. this can’t be good for your bank account — he’s quite expensive to rent, after all — but he’s far too afraid to actually bring it up. what if you realize just how much money you’re sinking into him and want to stop renting him? what will he do if you don’t want him anymore? he feels an incomparable sense of dread at the thought.

he prepares to sit on the couch and watch something, listen to music, or even play a video game with you. you two have gotten into them recently, and he’s discovered that he very much enjoys playing with you, even when you’re yelling at him and demanding that he stop letting you win. he can’t help but grin when he thinks about it. you start playing a song, and you do, indeed, invite him to sit on the couch, but you don’t sit down next to him and start babbling away about your day like you usually would.

“do you think you could do me a favor?” you ask.

“what, do you want me to wash your dishes?” he jokes, and you share a laugh before you say your next words, but all laughter and joy is profusely sucked out of him when you say them.

“no, smartass, but can you braid my hair for me? i’m going over to soobin’s tonight, and i want it out of my way.”

“soobin’s?”

“yeah, it’s been a while since i’ve stayed the night, and he said we’re way past due for it,” you tell him, and the world as beomgyu knows it comes crashing down around him.

“you’re staying the night with him?”

“mhm. he’s right, it’s been too long; but don’t worry, i bought a pass so you can play video games online. there’s even a headset so you can talk to people, if you want. maybe you’ll even make some friends,” you say while playfully waggling your eyebrows. beomgyu’s silence is pensive, to say the very least, and you worry that he’s apprehensive of making a friend that isn't you.

“seriously, you might like it. it’ll be good for you to meet more people, honestly. i’m sure it’s driving you crazy to only have me to talk to,” you jokingly add, but to beomgyu, it’s the worst joke he’s ever heard. no, it does not drive him crazy to only talk to you every day. in fact, even though he’s not conscious during the time you spend away from each other, he thinks, deep down, that he still somehow misses you when you’re apart. and no, he does not think he needs to have anyone but you. you are more than enough for him, so how could you ever think he needs more? again, he is taunted by that same strange and implacable feeling he’s been having ever since he met you, yet he can’t quite put his finger on it, even when he nods and tells you that he’ll try making new friends.

but as he brushes out your hair and you sing along to the words:

"i’m glad i didn’t die before i met you

but now i don’t care

i could go anywhere with you

and i’d probably be happy"

he finally understands what that feeling is. that warm, all-consuming feeling. that feeling of comfort, safety, and unconditional understanding. that feeling of infinite curiosity about the other person. that feeling of wanting to known and be known in a way so profound it physically aches.

yes, as he gathers your hair and ever-so-gently twists it in his hands in preparation for you staying the night with a man you clearly prefer over him, the feeling becomes clear as day. love. what he feels for you is love — an emotion he should never be able to even fathom, yet he does.

and it makes him loathe himself to a degree he never thought he was capable of.

he’s so put off by this sentiment, he almost can’t finish the braid because his hands are shaking so much, but somehow, he finishes, anyway.

“are you done?” you ask as you fiddle with your hair and look back at him.

“mhm,” he replies.

“yay! thank you!” you say giddily.

“you’re welcome,” he mumbles. you’re not stupid, so you notice that something is off about him, but you just assume it’s because he’s nervous about being left alone to make new friends. you feel guilty in a certain sense, but it’ll be good for him to branch out and meet new people, so you tuck the feeling away as best as you can before packing your nightly essentials and getting ready to leave.

“i’ll be back tomorrow morning,” you tell him, and he only nods with his lips pursed, which makes your heart feel sour.

“try not to miss me too much,” you tease, but it doesn’t seem to cheer him up in the slightest.

“have fun,” he replies weakly, and your previously sour heart now kind of aches, but you have to do this for him. you can't always be beside him for everything, right? besides, it's only for the night.

you open the door to leave, but before you go, you turn back to him and he senses hesitation in you. before he can question it, you’re opening your arms, and his eyes widen when he realizes you’re inviting him in for a hug. you almost regret doing it as soon as you open them for fear of making him uncomfortable, but he embraces you before you have time to process such feelings. on beomgyu’s end, he has always been wary of touch for obvious reasons, but he gravitates towards your open arms like he was meant to be in them.

he rests his chin on the top of your head for a moment and you spend an unknown length of time just standing with your arms wrapped around each other.

“i’ll miss you,” you admit, and before you can smack yourself for being so dramatic and sentimental over what will ultimately only be one night, you can swear you feel his grip tightening even more around you.

eventually, you break away and look up at him with a smile. you ruffle his hair and promise to see him later, and he answers you with a nod. then, you're leaving and locking the door behind you.

immediately, beomgyu feels a sense of loss he’s never felt before. after all, to experience loss, you must have something worth losing in the first place, and he has never had anything like that. at least, not until you. so he stands at the door for who knows how long, just like a puppy waiting for his owner to get home.

soobin can sense you’re out of it before you even finish crossing through his doorway, and it puts a halt to your typically overdramatic greeting.

“what’s the matter? are you feeling okay?” he questions concernedly as he pulls you in for a hug. you nod before you break apart from him and walk through the threshold.

“y-yeah. it’s just, i don’t know, i guess i just feel bad about leaving beomgyu all by himself,” you tell him as you plop down on his couch.

“the android you’ve been renting?” he asks incredulously. “i’ve been meaning to ask you about that, actually. why’re you renting it so much? i barely even see you anymore. is the sex that good?”

“you know i don’t use androids like that,” you snap in annoyance, partially because he’s calling beomgyu “it”.

“i know, which is why i’m so confused. why rent it in the first place if you’re not getting anything out of it?”

you struggle to answer his question. you promised beomgyu you’d keep his secret, but you trust soobin, and you know he won’t judge him, or worse, report him. besides, it’ll be good to have an unbiased third party weigh in on the situation. with this in mind, you tell him about beomgyu, skipping over some of the more personal details. he’s in disbelief at first and actually thinks you’re just fucking with him, but as you tell him more and more about the time you’ve spent together, his smile falls and his face turns serious.

“so that’s why i feel so guilty about leaving him alone,” you finish with a deep sigh. he’s silent for a few moments before collecting his thoughts.

“god, i can’t believe this is actually happening,” he whispers.

“i know. it’s insane, but it’s true. he’s just so… human. you should've seen the way he looked at me when i told him i was leaving. i don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone look so sad before.”

“well, you’re right about him needing to make friends,” he says with a nod, and it validates all of your misgivings about leaving him alone. “but don’t you think you should, i don’t know, think about what all of this means?”

“what do you mean?” you ask, and in that moment, he knows you have no idea about the way beomgyu probably feels about you. he’s not 100% confident in his deductions, but the way you describe how beomgyu acts around you pretty much tells him everything he needs to know.

“i mean, you basically have a completely sentient creature who relies on you for everything. if he’s as human as you say he is, then he can probably feel everything that we do. right now, i’d guess that he feels like you’re all he knows.” and the sneaking sense of guilt that was previously threatening to creep up on you is now completely overwhelming. you’re all he knows. and you left him all alone to fend for himself and make his own friends. yes, he needs to learn how to make connections, but how could you expect him to know how to do that? it took weeks for him to finally seem comfortable around you, so how could he possibly know how to make them on his own? moreover, even though it's nothing to you, you're his entire world. he must feel like you abandoned him.

“i’ve gotta go,” you mumble.

“what?” he asks.

“i–i’ve gotta go home,” you repeat as you hurriedly stand up and hug him goodbye.

“wait! i think you should —”

“love you, bye!” you shout as you book it out of the doorway.

when you return home, you open the door to see beomgyu listlessly staring at the television screen. when he hears you, he turns to look at you with watery eyes. he looks so lost in this moment, and all of your suspicions are confirmed.

“beoms, i am so sorry,” you tell him as you rush over and throw your arms around him.

“for what?” he asks with a gulp as he stays in your embrace, shakily wrapping his arms around your waist.

“i’m sorry for leaving you all by yourself. i thought it was just for one night, so it’d be alright, but you don’t have anyone but me right now; and i realize that it’s unfair for me to expect you to meet other people all on your own when you’ve never had to do it before. if you want friends, i’ll help you, okay? i’ll be there with you as you do it,” you tell him, and you feel his body trembling.

“i-i’m sorry. i know it’s not a big deal, but when you’re not with me, i feel so scared. i… i don’t know how to do anything by myself. i’m s-sorry i need you so much,” he whispers, and your heart breaks.

“don’t be sorry,” you say gently. “how about this: i’ll join you online and we can talk to people together. then, when you’re ready, you can start hanging out with my friends in person, too, okay? we can keep going until you don’t need me anymore.” beomgyu outwardly agrees, which seems to put you at ease, but there’s just one issue: he’ll always need you.

gaming online is actually really fun, but making friends is hard for someone like beomgyu. he’s quiet and a little awkward at first, but after a few nights and with your help, he finally warms up to the people he games with. he gets so comfortable, in fact, that he’s even able to shit talk with them a little.

“fuckkk, that’s so unfair!” his new friend, kai, wails over the headset.

“it’s not unfair, you just suck,” beomgyu chuckles, and kai whines again. you laugh at their interaction before kai continues.

“how are you so fucking good at this game? you’ve only been playing for a few nights, and you’re already better than me!” he pouts.

“i’m just gifted,” beomgyu boasts.

“very true,” you add, and he beams, but kai’s next words throw him off-kilter.

“whatever. stop asking your girlfriend to argue with me — you two make me sick,” he jokes with his signature maniacal laugh, but the two of you are too stunned to laugh along. you look at each other in sheer embarrassment, and you can see beomgyu’s ears turning bright pink beneath his blond hair. you’re not sure why you feel so mortified, but you do. this is beomgyu, for god’s sake. there’s no earthly way you could ever see him in anything other than a purely platonic way, so why does your heart feel uneasy at the notion? while you’re still too stunned to speak, beomgyu tries to pipe up and respond.

“sh-she’s — we’re not, uh —”

“damn it!” kai yells as his character dies yet again, and any momentum beomgyu previously had to clear up the misunderstanding is killed stone dead in its tracks.

he turns to look at you unsurely, but the awkward moment seems to have passed for you as you laugh at kai’s character’s death. if only he could be as unfazed.

after kai goes offline, you two decide to quit gaming for the night. you turn to beomgyu nervously, and he immediately knows that you’re going to say something serious. he hopes beyond hope that it’s not about what kai said.

“can i ask you something?” and his heart sinks. oh god, you probably caught onto his feelings. he’s not sure he has the confidence to tell the truth, but how could he lie to you?

“y-yes,” he replies, voice a bit unsteady.

“okay, you can say no if you want, but soobin invited us to a get together he’s having pretty soon. it’s not anything too crazy, so there’ll only be a few of us. i think it’ll be a good start for you. maybe you’ll even make some new friends, you know?” he’s silent at your words just out of sheer shock. he’d definitely missed the mark when guessing your intentions.

“it’s okay to say no,” you hurriedly add, “but my friends are really nice, and i’d be with you the entire time. even if you don’t talk to anybody, you can talk to me.”

“okay,” he agrees before he can even really think about it. he guesses he’s just relieved that you still don’t know about his feelings, but part of him aches even still.

“really?” you ask incredulously. “oh my god! i have to tell soobin — he’ll be so excited!” you babble, and his lips curl upwards at how happy you are. he wishes he could always make you happy like this, and it seems that he’d agree to absolutely anything if you were the one asking.

work has been especially taxing today, which is nothing new, but you have this insatiable suspicion that something feels… off as you finish up for the day. as you’re about to head out for the night, you wonder what beomgyu will want to do once you get home. maybe he’ll want to play games with kai, or maybe he’ll want to watch a movie with you. maybe he’ll let you cuddle up to him for warmth, which he’s been very willing to do, lately. the unspoken rule that you two will never touch has become blurry for some reason, but you’re pretty touchy with all of your friends, so it only feels like a matter of course to you.

you’re thinking about all of the potential ways tonight could play out when it hits you: you didn’t reserve beomgyu. you spit out a curse and hurriedly take out your phone to book him, but it’s too late. he’s already assigned to someone for the night. fuck.

when you get home, you’re anxious beyond belief. you haven’t spent a night without beomgyu in months, but more importantly, he hasn’t spent a night without you. you try not to think about how scared he will be when he’s powered on in a stranger’s home. you hope he’s able to just switch back to his initial programming, but somehow, you just know it won’t be that easy. you feel sick with worry when you think about how someone so human will have to involuntarily turn his feelings off and pretend to enjoy something he’s being forced to do — with no compensation, no less. he must think you abandoned him. he must think you don’t care about him. how could you forget to reserve him when he needs you so much? fuck how busy you were with work, his wellbeing should have been your first priority.

so you sit and watch the hours tick by. you try to relax. you try to tell yourself it’s only for one night, and he’s been doing it for years, but something just feels wrong, wrong, wrong. you’re about to try to force yourself to go to sleep so the night ends more quickly when you hear a rapid knocking on your door. it’s strange for someone to call on you so late, indeed, but when you look through your peephole, you see none other than the very boy you’ve been worrying about.

“beomgyu?” you say incredulously when you swing open the door. immediately, he embraces you, and you feel hot tears streaming down your neck as he nuzzles his face into it. you hold him as best as you can as you rub circles into his back and try to shush his cries.

“it’s okay, i’m here,” you tell him, and he whines. you try to break away to get a good look at him, but he just pulls you in even closer, as if you’re his only lifeline in this world, and in a way, you are.

after his breathing slows and his sobs die out, he reluctantly parts from you, so you hold his hand and lead him to your couch. his eyes are swollen and bloodshot while his nose is a bright pink, but he never once takes his eyes off of you for fear of letting you out of his sight. in his mind, you can’t leave as long as he can see you.

“are you alright?” you tentatively ask, hand still holding his and soothingly caressing it in an attempt to calm him down. he goes to nod before stopping himself and shaking his head in the negative. your eyes soften even more at the action.

“do you want to talk about what happened?” you try, and he nods before clearing his throat.

“i, um, i woke up and i was at this woman’s house. she… she wanted me to get undressed, but i didn’t want to, so she started doing it for me.” you wince at his words, but he’s not finished yet.

“she kept touching me, and it was so disgusting i just — i just couldn't stand it, so i ran away and came here. i don’t mean to make your life harder, and i won’t ask for you to stay the night with me anymore, but if you could just let me stay here, i promise i’ll learn how to clean or do anything you want. please, just don’t make me —”

“beomgyu, stop it,” you say softly, but firmly. “you are not making my life harder. you can stay here as much as you want and do whatever you want while you’re here. i’m so sorry, i didn’t mean for this to happen. i was just so busy with work, and by the time i realized it, somebody had already booked you. i promise you that it’ll never happen again, okay? so you don't have to be afraid. i’m not leaving you, and i won’t let anyone hurt you, either.”

you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone look so relieved before. it looks as though you just saved his life, and to beomgyu, you essentially did. he holds your hand even tighter, as if you’re the only thing keeping him from falling off the face of this planet.

“wait here, i’ll get you some clothes,” you say gently, but as you go to leave, he holds you even tighter. your eyebrow quirks in a silent question at his actions, and he looks sheepish for a moment before saying his next words.

“c-can we just stay like this for a bit? just for a little while? i’m still scared,” he mumbles, and your heart melts.

“of course. come here,” you beckon, and he falls into your arms and rests his head on your shoulder, breathing your scent in as he tries to imprint this moment into his hardware. you stay like that for a while before you finally convince him to change out of his uncomfortable clothes. he reluctantly lets you go, and his eyes follow you everywhere you walk.

that night, you stay up later than usual to spend more time with him. he stays glued to your side and ensures that he’s always touching you in some way, which is endearing in a way you can’t seem to put into words. when you’re about to head to bed for the night, you swear you hear him whimper, but he lets you go, anyway. as you lay your head down and get comfortable under the covers, you hear a timid knocking on your door. you call him in, and his gaze shyly flickers between you and the floor.

“c-can i stay with you tonight? i won’t bother you, i swear. it’s just — i just still feel weird. y-you can say no! i just thought that —”

“come here,” you softly interrupt, and he doesn’t hesitate to listen. he closes the door behind him and shuffles towards you, stopping uncertainly at the edge of the bed in a silent plea for permission to enter it. you feel a weird, warm feeling in your chest when he does it. you scoot over and pat the open space next to you before he gathers enough courage to slide in. you cover him with your blanket, and he stiffly accepts it. you giggle at his awkwardness and cuddle up to him, placing your arms around his waist before thinking better of it. how could you just invade his personal space when he’s clearly traumatized? you go to remove your arms and scoot away before he firmly locks you in place.

“it’s okay,” he whispers, settling himself into your embrace and mindlessly toying with the ends of your hair.

“are you sure?” you ask.

“i’m sure.”

it isn't long before beomgyu hears your breathing slow down, and eventually he hears you begin to snore. he smiles at the sound. he can't really sleep, but he's perfectly content with watching you rest. he continues to play with your hair, and you nuzzle into his touch every so often. he doesn’t want to repeat the events leading up to tonight, but he would do it all over again — any number of times — with a smile on his face if it meant he got to be with you like this again.

the next morning, beomgyu waits for the usual delivery guy from the company to pick him up, but it’s currently way past the usual pickup time. he’s most certainly not complaining, but you don’t seem even remotely fazed by the matter. however, while you’re casually flipping through your streaming catalog literal hours after he’d already be gone, he can’t stop himself from asking:

“um, d-do you know when i’m being picked up?” you pause, and he worries that he may have said the wrong thing before you turn to him.

“do you want to be picked up?” you ask solemnly.

“n-no! of course not. it’s just, you know, i’d usually be gone by now, so i —”

“do you want to stay here? with me, i mean,” you interrupt.

“i… i do,” he replies with a gulp. usually, that’d be all you get from him, but it feels like the perfect opportunity to be honest about his feelings. “i always want to stay with you, but i know i’m expensive, and i don’t want to be a bother.” he looks ashamed as he admits it, but if he had the courage to look in your eyes, he’d note the fondness that lies within them.

“i told you that you’re not a bother to me. i also told you that you could stay here for as long as you want, remember?” and he does, so he nods.

“alright. i meant it when i said it last night, and i mean it now. if you want to be here, you can stay for as long as you’d like. you don't have to worry about your owners anymore, i promise.” and he thinks he’s never seen you as serious as you are now. he wonders what you mean before it dawns on him.

“you… did you buy me?” he asks in disbelief.

“y-yeah. i’m sorry, it sounds so gross when i hear it out loud, but that doesn’t mean that i own you or anything. what i really wanted to buy was your freedom, so you can stay as long as you want, but that also means that you can leave whenever you want, too.”

“i’m so sorry,” he says in a hushed, hurried tone. “i know i'm expensive. i’m really sorry.”

“money is not an object to me,” you dismiss in faux arrogance with a wave of your hand in hopes that it’ll lighten the mood, but beomgyu can’t stop the tears from falling over his waterlines, and you’re afraid your attempt to help him only made him feel more indebted to you. all worry is promptly washed away when you feel him pull you into his arms.

“thank you,” he just barely breathes out. “i don’t know how i’ll ever pay you back, but i’ll try, i swear.”

“you don’t have to do anything for me, beoms. i should’ve done it a lot sooner, but i’m just a little slow, i guess,” you muse, and he chuckles softly into your neck.

sleeping with beomgyu should’ve only happened once, but every night when you say you’re heading to bed, he looks at you with puppy eyes and you find yourself inviting him to come along. each time, he looks so excited that if he had a tail, it would most certainly be wagging. he obediently follows you to your room and settles into the empty space next to you before holding you in his arms as you drift off. he’s even taken to humming the tunes of songs he likes when you struggle to settle down, and his baritone voice lulls you to sleep like a charm every time. he spends his time by just looking at you and trying to reconcile with his new reality. this is real. he gets to spend however many nights he wants next to you, as per your own words. even if you didn’t mean them, he plans to take them seriously. he is perfectly content with spending the rest of his life just sleeping with you, looking at you, being with you.

soobin’s get together is tonight, and you look different than usual. your typical look is very casual, which makes sense because you’re only ever at home when you’re with him, but you are now primped and ready to be seen, and it makes him anxious because you look even more lovable. he knows these people are your friends, so they must’ve seen you dressed up before, but that only makes him all the more uneasy; they know a side of you he is only now seeing, and it makes that same old ugly feeling he's grown so accustomed to sprout in his chest.

when you arrive at soobin’s place, the first thing you do when soobin swings open the door is jump in his arms like you didn’t just see him a week ago. he spins you around with a dimpled grin that’s so sincere, beomgyu feels emotionally decimated by it. you both giggle as you break apart, and the jealousy beomgyu feels brewing within feels unpacifiable.

“is this beomgyu?” soobin asks, grin still very much apparent.

“yes! you’re gonna love him,” you answer giddily.

“it’s nice to meet you,” soobin says warmly while stretching out his hand, which beomgyu awkwardly shakes while he tries to force his lips to curl upwards in what he prays is a believable smile.

“nice to meet you,” he mumbles.

“everyone’s already here, but you’re late as always,” soobin playfully chastises, and you pout in response.

everyone greets you when you walk in, mostly by hugging you and lightheartedly scolding you for not coming out anymore. they’re very clearly bantering with you, but each reproach feels like a knife to beomgyu’s heart. he’s the reason you haven’t seen them in so long.

clueless to it all, you introduce him as your friend to everyone, which only makes him feel worse, somehow. he is just one friend out of many, meanwhile you’re his entire world. you’re far too caught up in the joy of seeing some of your favorite people after so long to notice his dismay, however.

you lead him to soobin’s couch to have a seat with you and one of your friends, taehyun maybe, offers him a drink, to which he awkwardly declines. you quickly follow up with something to the effect of “he isn’t much of a drinker,” and beomgyu nods in affirmation. you try your best to include beomgyu in conversation, but they’re all talking about people and places he doesn't know. all he knows is you, and the world you two built together seems smaller and smaller with every new topic of conversation.

he notices that soobin seems to be eyeing him somewhat strangely, though he tries his best to play it off. he could just attribute it to surface level curiosity, but his intuition tells him it’s much deeper than that. is soobin sizing up his competition? maybe so, but there’s not much to see. beomgyu is handsome, and he knows it, but soobin knows a side of you beomgyu has only ever heard stories about. you’ve told him about your friends and the goings on between you and your coworkers, but it pales in comparison to actually meeting them. he makes an internal note to ask even more questions than he usually does the next time you’re telling him about your day. until then, he sits as close to you as humanly possible and clings onto your arm, which is so second nature to you, you don't even notice that he’s doing it.

soobin, who is usually not the inquisitive type, can’t help but question the dynamic between you and beomgyu. at first, the lingering glances and intimate gestures were innocuous enough to be written off as mere friendliness, but when you whisper something in beomgyu’s ear and he flushes a bright pink, soobin knows he can’t ignore it any longer. he especially can’t ignore it when you turn away from beomgyu and he raises a hand to the ear you just whispered into as if he’s reliving the moment. well, time to test his theory.

soobin slides into the open cushion next to you and begins excitedly chattering about how pretty you look tonight, and he even takes your braided hair into his hands and twirls it between his fingers.

“your hair looks pretty,” he muses.

“beomgyu did it, actually,” you grin, and soobin glances over to said boy, who is currently glaring daggers at him. the look in beomgyu’s eyes is so intense, he almost wants to back off, but he has to get to the bottom of this.

“did he? you know, it’s been a while since you stayed over. wanna have a sleepover tonight? you have some clothes here from last time, and we can cuddle, i know you like that,” he says as innocently as he possibly can.

before you can even reply, beomgyu is slamming his hands on the coffee table. you turn to face him in surprise, and the look on his face is the angriest you’ve ever seen him. his eyes are dark and his nostrils are flared as he heavily breathes. he’s never been angry at all in front of you, actually, so to say you’re taken aback is the understatement of the century.

“beoms? what’s wrong?” you ask concernedly, completely turning away from soobin. your voice is enough to somewhat placate him, but before he can fully calm down, soobin is saying his next words.

“i’m sure he’s fine. beomgyu, you can find your way home tonight on your own, can’t you?” beomgyu is positively seething at this. before you can question him again, he’s gripping your hand so tightly it’s like it’s the only thing keeping him from drowning, so you excuse the both of you and drag him to the bathroom for some privacy.

“are you alright?” you ask, frantically scanning his figure for some sort of sign of pain or discomfort.

“i-i’m fine, i just, uh, i don’t feel good,” he says flatly.

“what’s wrong? is it too much? do we need to go home?” he’s so flustered, he barely registers that you’re calling your house “home”, but he still notices it in spite of everything, and it’s like a balm on his aching heart.

“y-yeah, can we go home? please?” he pleads, and you hurriedly nod.

“of course, just let me say bye to everyone before we leave, okay?” and he wants to say no, but he’s as weak as ever in front of you, so he relents.

that doesn’t stop him from gripping your hand, though, as you say goodbye to everyone. you go to give soobin your usual hug, but beomgyu pulls you back to him even more tightly. you write it off as him not feeling well and just wanting to leave as soon as possible, to which you oblige, and before you know it, you two are scurrying out of soobin’s place like there’s something chasing you.

as you’re driving home, you feel your phone buzz in your pocket, but it isn’t until you’re walking through your doorway that you check it.

soobie: we need to talk. call me as soon as you get home

you’re worried beyond belief at his serious tone, so you tell beomgyu that you’ve got to make a call before ducking into your bedroom. you don’t shut the door behind you, because why would you?

you quickly call soobin and the line connects after just one ring.

“what’s wrong?” you ask anxiously, and soobin just sighs, which makes you all the more anxious.

“we have to talk about beomgyu.”

“beomgyu? what about him? is something wrong?” you question.

“yeah, i mean, maybe. this might sound crazy, but i think — i know — he likes you.” you’re stunned silly for just a moment before bursting into laughter.

“likes me? what the hell are you talking about?” you dismiss, and you sense his agitation even through the phone.

“i’m serious. i had a feeling before, but tonight just confirmed it. he likes you.” you’re silent for a moment, just trying to process his words, but once your mind somewhat clears, you can’t help but deny, deny, deny.

“you’re wrong. it’s not like that at all. i’m just the first person who’s ever treated him nicely, and i —”

“you’re not listening,” he cuts in irritatedly. “he looked like he wanted to skin me alive tonight. how else do you explain that?”

“soobie,” you sigh. “you’ve got it all wrong. maybe you’re right and maybe he was feeling insecure, but that’s probably because i’m the only person he knows. he most likely just felt like you were stealing my attention away.”

“you’re always so dense about these things, you know?” he groans. “okay, look, i’m not sure how they came about, but i do know that he has feelings for you. maybe it started out as dependence, i’m not sure, but it’s definitely much more than that now.”

“that’s impossible,” you snort, actually feeling a bit impatient now. how could he possibly think that your relationship with beomgyu was anything other than platonic?

“why? because he’s a robot?” oh, that shuts you up. “just think about it. if he were a human, would you still be saying the same thing? like i said before, if he’s as human as you say he is, he can feel the same way we do, and he’s definitely capable of feeling love, too.” you are, again, stunned into silence. suddenly, as if there was a fog that covered your brain before, things that you never really considered become clear to you. the soft touches, the gentleness. sleeping in the same bed and waiting for you to get home. wanting you — needing you — around all the time. the way he plays with your hair. the way he’s so interested in everything you have to say. the clinginess, the dependence. it all makes so much more sense to you.

“i —” you begin, but you just so happen to glance up and see beomgyu right outside of your doorway… looking absolutely devastated.

“i’ve gotta go,” you tell soobin as you hang up, not even bothering to say your usual goodbye.

“beoms, did you hear us?” you ask tentatively, and he flinches a little bit before looking down at the floor and nodding.

you’re unsure of how to navigate this situation from here, but while you’re still trying to figure it out, beomgyu speaks.

“i-i’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly. “i understand if you don’t want me anymore.”

“w-what? no, i —”

“i’m just really sorry,” he says, looking as ashamed as a person ever could. “i know it’s wrong, i know it’s disgusting, but i —”

“beomgyu.”

“but i can’t help it. i wish i could, but i just can’t; and i understand if you want to return me or whatever, but if you could just —”

“beomgyu, stop it,” you interrupt firmly, no room for argument. he stares at you with defeated eyes, and you feel your heart break in two. “i am not disgusted, and i don’t want to return you.” his eyebrows furrow as if he doesn't quite understand, so you continue.

“your feelings are not disgusting to me, don’t ever say that again, okay? please? it makes me sad,” you plead, and he hesitantly nods. “i think it’s normal, actually. you don’t really know anybody else other than me, so of course you’re confused.”

“confused?” he asks incredulously, eyes snapping up to meet yours.

“confused,” you nod. “it'll change once you meet more people, i swear.” you try to smile reassuringly, but suddenly, you see tears welling up in beomgyu’s eyes.

“beoms?” you carefully try.

“i don't need to meet more people. i just need you,” he chokes out. “don't tell me i'm confused because i'm not. i-i'd rather you just say you don't want to be with me than tell me that.” your heart clenches at his words, but he continues.

“i just want to be with you, no one else,” he tells you desperately. “i can understand if you don't feel the same way, but i can't stand to hear you say i don’t love you, because i do. i really, really do.” and as if you're dissociating, your mind is bombarded by times where he's shown you this exact sentiment. again, you go back to every intimate moment you two have ever shared. it was easy to just chalk it up to his lack of experience, but when he's telling you that's not the case so earnestly, is it truly possible to still believe it’s nothing? after a while, you decide that it most certainly is not.

the question is: do you feel the same way? you try to put a name to the feelings you have when you’re with him. the trust you have, the understanding. the desire to share everything you know and like with him, no matter how mundane it may seem to others; and consequently, the endearment towards him when you see how eager he is to listen. more than that, the intimacy between you two. how you like waking up to him smiling down at you, and how when something happens, he’s the first one you want to tell, good or bad. how when you listen to new music, you feel excited at the prospect of sharing it with him.

you realize you want to know more about him, the happy things and even the sad things. why he is the way that he is, why he thinks the way he thinks. the peace you feel when he’s running his fingers through your hair and holding you close when you watch the same film for the dozenth time. you try to picture a world where somebody else rented him. a world in which somebody else got to see him as soon as they wake up or as soon as they get home from a particularly grueling day at work, and you finally understand that you wouldn’t like that at all. but why? you’ve only ever thought of him as a friend, right? so why does it matter to you?

your eyes focus on beomgyu again, and you notice how utterly defeated he looks. his heart is on full display for you — and you alone — as tears stream freely down his pretty, doll-like face. are these tears just for you? you think so. is it safe to trust that these feelings he has for you are real? you’re not sure, but you want to. still, there’s something stopping you.

“i think… i think i feel the same way,” you admit, and his previously downtrodden appearance immediately lights up with hope. “but we shouldn’t.” and the words are like lead in your mouth.

“why not?” he asks, clearly distressed. you just gave him an inch, and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t take a mile. he never in a million years would have thought that you’d ever reciprocate his feelings, so he can’t just let them go so easily.

“i just… it’s just not something that i can —”

“is it because i’m an android?” he questions, voice teeming with self-loathing.

“n-no! i mean, we’re just so different,” you tell him, trying to skirt around the topic as best as you possibly can, but he won’t have it.

“whatever it is, i’ll change it. please? i can do anything,” he pleads.

“it’s not like that. i want to, but we can't. i-i'll get older. i won't look the same — i won't be the same,” and it’s embarrassing as hell to admit it out loud, but you mean it. beomgyu’s urgent gaze softens, and he inches closer to you before he’s standing before you. he reaches out to gently cup your face and tenderly pushes your hair behind your ears.

“and what about me?”

“what about you?” you scoff, but you don't pull away from his touch, though your eyes do dart away. “you’ll still be you, and i’ll be old and —”

“what about when my parts start creaking? what about when i don’t remember things like i’m supposed to? you’ll still love me then, right?” he asks, but he already knows, and your eyes snap back to his.

“th-that’s different. you can get repairs. i can’t —”

“then i won’t. you’ll get old and gray and i’ll get rundown and out-of-date. i don’t care what happens, as long as i’m with you.” you’re silent in the wake of his heavy words, so he quickly continues.

“you told me that when you love somebody, you’d do anything to be with them. you said you always find a way, and i want to find a way to be with you.” your heart simultaneously warms and aches at this sentiment.

you consider what it would be like to be with him. things would be difficult, yes, but not impossible. maybe you’ll come to regret it someday, but you don’t want to think about that right now. you feel like the luckiest girl in the world when you think of the fact that somebody so beautiful, inside and out, wants to be with you. you don't think you’ve done anything particularly special for him, but he still wants and accepts you for everything that you are and ever will be.

“okay,” you say shakily, and you finally recognize that his hands are still very much cupping your face, fingers lovingly rubbing against your cheeks. he smiles in pure relief at your answer, but he makes no move to break away his hold on you.

you notice how his gaze flicks between your eyes and your lips, and you decide you'll have mercy on him as you lean up to him and press a chaste kiss on his pouty lips before parting. he’s visibly red at the action, and you grin at how flustered he looks. on beomgyu’s end, he feels another bloom of excitement and swell of hope threatening to overcome him. when he looks at the playfulness in your eyes, he smiles even wider.

“i love you,” he whispers affectionately.

you pause before you tell him:

“i love you, too, beoms.”

that night, beomgyu is even clingier than usual. he sticks like gum to your side. when you head to sleep, he eagerly nestles in your bed and holds his arms wide open. you follow his lead and settle into his warm embrace. he sings you one of his favorite songs you’ve ever shown him. the last words you hear before you sink into sleep are:

“to die by your side

is such a heavenly way to die

to die by your side, well

the pleasure, the privilege is mine”

notes pt. 2: sfw work ends here!

you and beomgyu have been “together” for a few weeks now, so the relationship is still very new. surprisingly or not, things seem more or less the same. you guess you never realized just how intimate you two have always been until you put a label on things. the only tangible differences are that instead of just a mere hug when he greets you, he plants kisses all over your face before finding his ways to your lips. and when you’re watching movies or even just talking, he’ll steal a kiss or two. and when you head to bed, you know you can expect him to catch your lips like a man starved before you sleep. things get heated, sometimes, but they never lead to anything besides labored breaths and promises to calm himself down. you take his hesitancy as him wanting to take it slow and treasure your first time together, and you realize he still may be traumatized from the years he spent as a sexbot.

you have apologized to him for telling soobin his secret. you let him know your reasoning for telling him, and he accepted your apology quite graciously. honestly? he was never mad, and he tells you that very clearly, but you still feel somewhat guilty even when he says he understands. your guilt is only absolved when he says he’s thankful you told soobin because things may have never changed without his wise input. he says that he’s grateful to soobin for being a voice of reason in the face of your emotional density. you blushed when he told you this, and apologized for being so slow on the uptake, but he just assured you that he wouldn’t have you any other way, which made you love him even more, somehow.

you’re now about to go to soobin’s again for another get together with your friends. second time’s the charm, you cheekily told him when you brought it up, and he blushed in response. when you two walk through the doorway, everyone cheers. you greet everyone as usual, and beomgyu tries his best to keep his searing jealousy at bay, but his anxiety starts clawing at him as soobin seats himself next to you and asks you how you are.

you giggle and tell him you’re doing well, and he responds by updating you on his tumultuous work life. beomgyu immediately wonders why you haven’t told soobin about your new relationship. are you embarrassed to be seen with him? it’s not like he doesn’t understand, what with him technically being made out of wires and machinery. of course a human like you wouldn’t want to be seen with a metal man like him. you could have the entire world in your hands if you wanted, so what’s the point of playing pretend with a fake like him? maybe, if he were you, he’d be embarrassed, too. he likes to think that maybe you aren’t like that, but at the end of the day, how could you not be? he’s nothing more than a robot masquerading as the real thing.

his anxiety worsens the more in depth your conversation with soobin gets. you try to include him by briefly giving him context about the stories soobin tells, but he can’t stop himself from worrying. again, he feels like soobin is stealing you away from him, and his mood sours.

your other friends try to talk to him, too, but he’s very obviously in a bad mood as he watches you two continue to laugh together. when you finally do turn to beomgyu, you immediately notice how awful he looks.

“beoms? are you alright?” you ask gingerly, but beomgyu’s discomfort is not at all placated even at the term of endearment.

“‘m fine,” he mumbles, and you’re genuinely in shock at his change of attitude. soobin looks very concerned, but he excuses himself to get a drink so you two can work it out, though he has an inkling of an idea of what’s triggering beomgyu.

“what’s wrong with you?” you ask concernedly, but he shakes his head sulkily.

“do you wanna go home?” you offer, and he immediately nods. you look torn for a second, but when you see how sad he looks, you know you can’t deny him.

you say your goodbyes to your friends and apologize for leaving early, but everyone says they understand. soobin makes you promise to host the next get together, though, to which you happily agree.

the ride home is mostly silent, but you look over to beomgyu in concern every so often. you grab his hand and squeeze it in a way you hope is comforting, but he doesn’t look any better at all.

when you enter your house, you immediately head to your bedroom, and he follows you in silence. you sit on the bed and pat the space next to you.

“beoms, what’s the matter?” you ask pleadingly as you grab his hands, and his heart, which was previously aching, is (a little) soothed by your concern.

“i-it’s nothing,” he answers, but you can tell that he’s lying because of the way he refuses to make eye contact with you.

“baby, i can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s wrong,” you say. you’re right, and he knows you’re right, but you’re already doing him the favor of a lifetime just by deigning to be with him. how could he dare to ask for more? he’s ashamed at the thought, but you look so sincere, and he knows in his metaphorical heart that he needs to be able to communicate with you if you two are going to have any shot at a lasting relationship.

“i-i’m just j-jealous,” he sputters.

“oh, baby, why?” you ask.

“because i’m not like you,” he admits after a pause. “i already feel like i’m not good enough for you, so seeing you with someone who actually is makes me feel awful.”

“who? soobin?” and you’re absolutely petrified when he sheepishly nods.

“honey, it’s not like that at all,” you tell him. “we’re just friends, i promise.”

“but it would be so much easier to be with him. you wouldn’t have to be ashamed about telling everyone you’re with an android,” he argues.

“beomgyu, i am not ashamed of you. i just wasn’t sure if you felt comfortable with me telling everyone. if you want me to tell them, i’ll happily do it. you’re so good, how could i ever be embarrassed of you?” his eyes soften.

“do you mean it?” he asks, and you nod.

“do i not show it enough? how much i love you, i mean.” he furiously shakes his head no, but you know it’s a lie. beomgyu himself will admit that he needs more validation than most people, and it’s going to take him a while to ever get over it because of his own issues. that doesn’t mean you can’t try to help him, though, so you brush his cheek with your hands before wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him in for a kiss.

“does this make you feel better?” you ask after you pull away, but he still looks somewhat depressed, so you pull him in again before pressing your lips against his. this time, you swipe your tongue on his pout, which makes him gasp. you tease your tongue against his and electricity thrums between you two when you do it. he reciprocates your enthusiasm immediately, and before long, you’re both sucking and teasing each other until you’re out of breath.

you pull away again and rest your forehead against his.

“better?” you question.

“a little,” he says. “m-maybe a little more?” you grin at his coquettishness, and you go in for another kiss. your tongues tangle, but you don’t stop there. your mouth travels, peppering kisses down his jaw to his sensitive neck. he shivers at the contact when you swipe your tongue over his unmarred skin before lightly sucking. he lets out a broken moan when you do it, and it reverberates throughout your entire body and straight to your core.

“better?” you ask again.

“m-more,” he pants.

“anything you want, baby,” you tease before your lips hungrily capture his. one of your hands snakes its way up his shirt, and he gasps when you roll his hardened nipple between your fingers. beomgyu is more sensitive than most people, as is the nature of his model, so every little touch drives him crazy.

you seem to have noticed this, so when your other hand palms his hardened length through his sweatpants and he almost screams, you have to bite back a giggle.

“d-don’t tease,” he begs, and you’d do anything for beomgyu, really, but not this time.

you palm him even more harshly and his breath catches in his throat.

“more?” you ask, and he fervently nods. you oblige, sliding your hand under his waistband and teasing the sensitive skin around his length. your fingers brush against it every so often, and he involuntarily bucks every time you do.

“c-can i touch you?” he practically implores.

“of course, my love,” you tell him as you remove your devious hands and pull your top off before unclipping your bra.

his mouth waters when he sees you, and you can see him gulp almost comically as his big hands meet your breasts. he copies your movement from earlier, rolling your sensitive buds between his very clearly experienced fingers. you let out a contented sigh at the action, but you won’t let this be all about you, so your hand sneaks it way back down his pants. this time, you grab his girthy cock and give it a harsh tug. his actions stutter, and you smirk devilishly at how fucked out he is when the fun part hasn’t even begun.

you pull at his waistband, and he eagerly tugs his pants and boxers off as soon you do it. he even goes as far as to tear his t-shirt off over his head before he pulls your half-naked body flush against his, falling onto the bed as he desperately kisses you for everything that you’re worth. eventually, he situates himself on top of you, rutting his thick, long cock onto your still clothed thigh. you didn’t really get a chance to get a good look at him before, but you’re able to look down at him now, and you realize his dick is gorgeous. just like every other part of him. it stands tall, blushing profusely at the tip and practically weeping precum. it’s a bit hooked, too, no doubt to elicit the most pleasure out of his clients. your pussy is drenched just thinking about how it’ll feel when it’s inside of you.

he almost rips your bottoms off of you and his mouth waters even more at the sight of your pussy, all slick and glistening in anticipation for what’s to come.

“so gorgeous,” he whispers as he prepares to lay himself between your legs, but you hook them around his waist before he can do so. tonight will be all about him, you’ve decided, so you tug him closer and put one of his pretty nipples in your mouth, swirling your tongue on it and occasionally nipping at the sensitive skin. your other hand continues to tweak the other one before you alternate between the two, causing him to let out a low, guttural groan.

eventually, he goes in for another kiss, all tongue and teeth and saliva, and you take one of your hands and harshly clench around the base of his throbbing cock.

“is this what you needed, beoms?” you tease, and he nods pathetically as you tug again, harder this time, and let your hands stroke all the way up to his reddened tip. your thumb glides over his slit, and he’s seeing stars.

“i don’t know why you’re so jealous of someone else, my love. you’re so perfect,” you praise, and his ears get even redder, somehow, in spite of the situation you’re both in.

“i — nghh — i don’t like when you’re with him,” he pants, in spite of everything you're doing to him. “only want you with me.”

“oh, baby, you have me,” you coo. “always.” and with that, you begin to feverishly jerk him off with one hand while the other returns to his nipple. his hips buck with every movement, and his eyes are screwed shut. you can tell he’s about to come before you completely take your hands off of him.

“n-no! w-why?” he asks with a crack in his voice, watery eyes shooting open at the sudden action.

“don’t you wanna come in my pussy, instead? it’s warmer and wetter than my hand,” you ask with faux innocence with a tilt of your head, and his previously aggrieved demeanor morphs back into pure lust.

“that’s what i thought,” you giggle as you grab his length and rub it against your slickness. he groans at the feeling, but you don’t immediately take him in, opting to instead roll your hips up, just barely letting his flared head catch against your entrance.

“baby, please,” he whines, and with a smirk, you finally wrap your legs around his waist and line him up with your entrance. you just barely take the tip in, easing it into your pussy, before you force him out again. he gasps raggedly at how tight you are, and he’s wound up so much, he feels like he’s on the brink of exploding. he’s about to take matters into his own hands before you guide him back inside of you, and he feels your walls struggling to accommodate him.

“s-so tight! h-how are you so tight?” he hisses, eyes reddened and face strained, but you’re far too busy with the euphoric feeling of him finally inside of you to reply. he eases in inch after throbbing inch, and it is a snug fit, indeed. he almost wonders if he’ll even fit, but though the stretch burns you, the pleasure is too great to ignore. finally, your walls slightly relax, and he’s able to completely sheath himself in you. you both moan as his tip pulsates against your cervix, and he considerately gives you time to adjust, walls contracting wildly around him, before he attempts to pull out and really begin.

“stop,” you command before he can do so, and his eyes fill with worry at your words.

“w-what’s wrong?” he stutters.

“oh, nothing,” you say between pants. “i just want to see how long you can last.”

“w-what do you —”

and you interrupt him with a kiss. he ravenously reciprocates it, and he can’t help but unconsciously thrust his hips, tapping deliciously on the deepest parts of you, but you prevent him from ever fully pulling out. you tangle one of your hands through his hair and grip it — not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make him groan into your mouth.

“c-can i move?” he pleads, but you shake your head no.

“why?” he whimpers, but you just smirk as you kiss him again and bite his bottom lip.

he doesn’t know how long you two stay like that, but it’s far too long for his liking. he feels his dick swell, and you still refuse to let him move, but you teasingly scrape your fingers against his balls and it’s all he can do not to come.

“p-please let me move, it hurts,” he cries, tears now flowing from his eyes. for once, sex is all about beomgyu and what feels good to him. he could cry just from the sentiment alone, but his current tears are the direct result of how you’re teasing him.

“and where does it hurt, baby? use your words, i know you can.”

“h-hurts, my c-cock hurts,” he sputters out.

“and would pounding my pussy make you feel better?” you goad, and he whines even louder at the imagery.

“y-yes,” he sobs, and you smile as you say your next words.

“such a good boy. you can move.” and that’s all it takes, really, before he’s pulling out despite your cunt’s attempts to suck him back in, and ramming himself back inside of you again and again.

the curve of his cock hits places previously untouched, and your walls spasm around him at the sensation.

“does it feel good, beoms?”

“s-so good,” he mumbles as drool pools off of his tongue and out of his mouth, eyes rolling to the back of his head. “so warm and t-tight.” you clench against your will at his filthy words, and it makes a strangled cry leave his throat.

“pussy so good, baby. your pussy is the b-best,” he babbles, and your lips meet his again before your mouth travels down, sucking a blooming hickey onto his neck. he trembles at the pain that comes with the pleasure, but somehow, he still has the presence of mind to roll his skilled fingers against your clit. just a few touches, and you already feel your orgasm approaching. he can feel every spasm of yours, and it makes his dick twitch inside of you as he wildly fucks you open.

he’s drilling into you so hard, you have to dig your fingernails into the skin of his back to keep yourself grounded. with each thrust, you feel more and more like you’re about to burst.

“gonna come!” you whine.

“do it, baby. c-come all over my cock,” he pleads.

“come inside? want it so bad,” you mewl.

“of course, my angel. a-anything for you,” he tells you as he tenderly brushes your hair out of your sweaty face, and he hammers himself into you at an inhuman pace as you feel the pressure in you crescendo into a searing hot orgasm. you clench even tighter around him while you come, gripping him so forcefully he can barely pull out, so his thrusts become sloppy and uncoordinated before he rams himself into you one last time and paints your inner walls with his cum.

you two stay like that for a while, just panting and basking in the feeling of closeness you feel. he presses a kiss on your forehead as he relaxes his arms and lays on top of you. you giggle at the intimacy and he finds himself sharing your laughter, your joy.

“you’re so beautiful,” he says between breaths, nuzzling his face into your neck and sighing. “i love you.”

“i love you, too, beoms,” you tell him, and you do love him. unconditionally.

notes pt. 3: :,) :,) :,)))))) i'm very sorry if this was disappointing but i hope it was worth it! i would love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions you may have about this fic/universe. feedback is needed to a disgusting degree bc i need validation to survive #sorry

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quimichi · 3 months ago

Text

⌗﹒THEIR VOICE LINES ABOUT YOU ౨ৎ˚₊‧ GN!

Aether

❝Since the beginning of Mondstadt they've been with me. They actually turned out to be my second guide! Which makes Paimon even more of an emergency food❞

❝Whaa-Paimon will pretend Paimon didn't hear that!❞

❝No really, I'm glad I found them...or rather they found me. It really wasn't much of a surprise when I-oh-I'm already talking too much again.❞

❝Traveler can go shy when he talks about his lover, hehe. STOP PULLING ME AWAY-H-HEY-!❞

Albedo

❝Oh? I see, you already heard about Y/n. Well, its not a big of a surprise, they're well known here in Mondstadt. Don't worry, if you ever encounter them, dont be shy to talk to them. They have actually been a great help for my researches and experiments. ❞

Al-Haitham

❝ Y/N? Yes, what about them? Yes, we're in a relationship, and? No, I'm not mad, why? I'm asking to much questions? Could ask you that, you seem awfully interested in my partner. Passive aggressive? Pff, now you're just pretending things. ❞

Ayato

❝ You'd like to know more about Y/n? What makes you think I have answers? Oh? I see, Ayaka has told you about it, well...Me and Y/n have been in a relationship for quite a while now. They're a very good support, doesn't matter what path i take or decisions I make, they always have my back. Without them I wouldn't be half the man I am right now. Satisfied with this answer? ❞

Baizhu

❝ The person that always helps out here is not some assistant. Don't worry, I'm sure they're not insulted. Who else are they then? Oh, my lover. Whats with that surprised look on your face? Didn't think I'd be taken? To be frank...I'm quite surprised too that I got this lucky.❞

Bennett

❝ Y/n? My lucky charm? They're awesome! A loyal member in Benny's adventure team...the only one though...They go on every adventure with me! Saved my life multiple times! Bring me good furtune! And are my partner! Wow, I really lucked out for real this time.❞

Capitano

❝ I'd like to keep my private life as private as possible...but for you I make an exception, just this once. Yes, Y/n is my life partner, my lover if you'd like to put it that way. I hold them very dear and would protect them with my life if i have to. So, if I ever sense any bad intentions coming from you, I will crush you with everything I've got.❞

Childe

❝ They spend last winter with me and my family. So, to show them around and make them feel more comfortable in Snezhnaya we had a little snowball fight. Y/n got hit a dozen times in the face by Teucer. They lost, obviously. But the best part was, when we went home, the slipped right before the door and fell ass first to the ground...but instead of being upset or annoyed...they laughed. I knew they we're the one right then and there.❞

Chongyun

❝ Oh you know Y/n? Well, I do too. You knew? Xingqiu huh?...Can't seem to keep quite sometimes...Yes, I am dating them. Saying this feels foreign...I still can't believe they chose me of all people. But I'm not too insecure about it, after all, they chose me of all people.❞

Cyno

❝ Y/n is one of the few people who actually laugh at my jokes. I don’t know if its out of pity or if i truly make them laugh, but either way i don't care. As long as i see a smile on their face I'm at ease. Huh? What do you mean i sound lovesick?❞

Dainsleif

❝ There are things that I'd rather keep private and save, including my relationship with Y/n. So I have to apo-...no, i trust you but-...You're right. Y/n and I have been in a relationship for quite a long time now. They mean a lot to me, thats why I want to keep any information about them as private as I can.❞

Diluc

❝ Yes, I am in a relationship with Y/n. I guess the topic makes his rounds, huh? We announced our relationship just yesterday, but have been serious for a long time now. I am...not a public as you know. And i didn't wanted any unwanted or negative attention on both of us but i know i can trust you. Right?❞

Dottore

❝ Did i ever had a lover? What an inappropriate question of you~ Of course i had lovers, but none could compare to my favorite. Have you heard of Y/n? Oh yes, they are quite popular aren't they~? Well, they're mine, all mine. So it would be better for you if you keep your hands off them. ❞

Freminet

❝ Are they my friend? Uhm...no...they're a bit more than that. Uhm, yeah they're my partner. We've been together for a while now...Am i happy? Of course i am...I'm just a bit embarrassed thats all. No one has really asked me about our relationship yet except for Lyney, Lynette and father.❞

Gorou

❝ You want to know about Y/n? Sure, what do you wanna know? Yes, they're my partner, in fact, we live together! They're a really caring, they make breakfast every morning, tend any injuries i have and sometimes even run me a bath...that was too intimate.❞

Heizou

❝ Y/n? What do you know about them? Nothing yet but you wanna know more? Why? Interested? Why am I asking all these questions? I'm a detective, and you're interested in my lover-oops-now i ran my mouth.❞

Itto

❝ You mean the oni one for me?! The true love of my life!? THEY'RE AWESOME. I'm so incredibly lucky to have them. AND they're so incredibly lucky to have the awesome one and oni Arataki Itto as their boyfriend!❞

Kazuha

❝ They are currently waiting for my arrival...i cannot wait to have them in my arms again. I miss them every day...What's that book? Oh, it's just for all the poems i write for them while being away. One poem for each day. Once I'm back, i read them to them.❞

Kaeya

❝ Oh you mean my little snowflake? Yes, i know them quite well, i can assure you that one. Wasn't always like that though, took is a while to actually get closer. But i won't complain either way, I'm happy that we finally found each other...damn, look at all the sappy things I'm saying, they've done this to me.❞

Kaveh

❝ I'm still planning our house, i just cannot make it perfect! Ugh, it's really getting on my nerves. I NEED this perfect for them, I need to make this the house of their dreams. But it's taking way to long. Since when am i planning? About 3 years. And since when are we dating? Also about 3 years...oh...❞

Kinich

❝ When they first traveled to Natlan they didn't met me immediately. I've only got to know them through Mualani and Kachina. They once expressed their hatred towards saurian hunters, went off yapping for a good hour too. You should've seen the look on their face once i told them i was one of them. They're still embarrassed to this day, even more after i explained what i really do. One of the many memories that truly make me happy.❞

Lyney

❝ They're aware that true magic doesn't exist. That all my shows are just an act. That somewhere is a trick hidden, so simple its ridiculous. And yet, they're still amazed, still getting big eyed when I'm on stage preforming. Even after countless shows that are the same, they're clapping along like it was the first....I couldn't not have asked for a better support and love in my life then them.❞

Mika

❝ I still don't know how i managed to confess, maybe it's because i can't really remember it anyway. It's a memory I'd like to forget entirely, mostly because i was so embarrassed afterwards. But I never want to forget what they said afterwards. Everytime i hear those 4 words from them I get butterflies.❞

Neuvillette

❝ Y/n and I are in a serious relationship since 5 years and 4 months. We have been living together since 3 years and 1 month. I do consider our relationship deep and intimate. I trust them deeply and never once did I think about it otherwise. I truly believe that our relationship will hold on for eternity. Is this enough information or should I tell you more?❞

Pantalone

❝ Ah, my spoiled little brat? Joking, joking...well, only half. I do spoil them quite a lot, but i wouldn't consider them a brat...most of the time. Just last week I bought them this new coat, winter in Snezhnaya are the hardest in all Teyvat. Oh, and new gloves, a scarf an-no, why would i brag with my money, it's not like i have enough to buy at least million of coats.❞

Pierro

❝ The only thing you need to know is that they are with me and well taken care off. Should you not remember the fact that any hate or violence towards them is strictly forbidden, i will gladly remind you. ❞

Razor

❝ Y/n helped Razor a lot. Razor appreciates it, the help. Razor also loves Y/n. That's what Y/n always tells Razor every day. So Razor tells Y/n every day too.❞

Scaramouche

❝ Who? My lover? Them? No, I would never. No, I'm not keeping anything private?! Neither am I ashamed of anything...quite the opposite, huh? No, said nothing. Screw off now, i need to be somewhere. Where? None of your damn business...So what if its a date?!❞

Thoma

❝ Mhm, you're quite right, Y/n and I arw together. Lucked out, huh? I'm currently teaching them how to cook some dishes, been going well...for the most part. No, they have a hand for it but both of us always seem to lose any focus once we're 30 minutes into it.❞

Tighnari

❝ You should've heard their begging, "Oh Tighnari please, i can keep my own garden!" Yeah, keeping it, but not take care of it. Because who takes care of it? Correct, me. It's easy work, so it's not too troublesome. But what is troublesome is how they don't take care of it. *sigh* maybe i am a bit to harsh on them, they are a bit stressed lately anyway. They deserve to take a rest and calm down from everything. So i gladly take care of the garden, for as long as they need me to.❞

Venti

❝ Our first meeting was quite the embarrassing one, almost feel quite shy telling it....Ok! Ok! I'll tell you!....I fell into their lap...No, i wasn't drunk! Someone else was, pushed me by accident and i stumbled backwards right onto their lap in angels share. And to top it off i took their plate and drink with me. Lucky for me, they weren't mad at all. Still...it's so embarrassing!❞

Wriothesley

❝ Took them quite a while to adjust to Meropide. Understandable though, it's a change from the surface. But once they grew comfortable, it's almost like they don't want to leave. They quickly befriended almost everyone, especially Sigewinne. They grew quite popular here in the matter of just a few weeks. Good for me i got them first before anyone else could.❞

Xiao

❝ Hm? Oh, them? Yes, we're close. Why do you ask? Just curious? Ugh, don't look at me like that. What do you wanna hear? How much i love them? You can wait till the day Teyvat will shatter entirely, I won't say it to you, only to them.❞

Xingqiu

❝ Our love story is picture perfect. A written love story by the finest ink. Full of clichés. We reached for the same book, and our hands touched. Then and there, i was mesmerized...until they snatched the book first.❞

Zhongli

❝ Our love story has been holding on since 3717 years, and it will hold on for many years more. What makes me so sure it will? We love each other like it was the very first day. Never once did we lie to one another, were apart from each other or lost our trust. I do have a contract anyway if anything should happen.❞

#genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #sagau #genshin cult au

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royalarchivist · 6 days ago

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Bad: I don’t think people understand the effect QSMP had on some of the streamers in terms of like… The real raw mental impact, so I’m gonna set the stage for you. [...] Imagine that you were given a friend to play Minecraft with — like your best friend — BUT if this person dies, if they die in the game, you never get to talk to them again. Can you imagine what that’s like?

Bad: If you did not live through the QSMP, if you did not live through that, it almost sounds like, crazy. But I don’t think people realize how much of a joyous experience the Eggs were. They were SO awesome! They were literally so awesome to just hang out with and spend time with.

Bad: I’m not saying I regret it. To this day, I loved the experience. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Even knowing how everything went, I would still do it all over again. [...] I would still do it all over again, because — even knowing like, all the trauma and suffering and stuff like that — because it was just… It was just that fun, it was just that fun.

Earlier today during his stream, Bad shared his experience and thoughts about the Eggs and the significant emotional (and traumatic) impact they had on him and his fellow QSMP members.

This clip a very edited-down version since his commentary was ~13 minutes long, so I highly recommend checking out Bad's VOD if you have the time. (Timestamp: 47:36 - 1:00:14)

[ Full Transcript ↓ ]

———

Bad: To be fair Chat, I really think the QSMP... I don't think anyone really can relate to it, Chat. It's something that's so... I've told people this before, like– but it's hard to understand. Right? Like...

Where was I? Sorry Chat, I'm losing my train of thought. Look, let me explain Chat– here's the dealio, ok? Here's the dealio, and this is what I mean when I say like, it's important to keep this in mind, Chat. Ok? It's important to keep this in mind:

I don’t think people understand the effect that the QSMP had on like, some of the streamers, in terms of like… The real raw mental impact, so I’m gonna set the stage for you. This is the analogy I’ve given to every person who I’ve like, shared this with. Imagine you meet somebody– [He hears a strange noise] What the fudge was that? Did you hear that?

Anyway– Chip! The story I was just relaying to Chat, Chip, was this: I was sharing this story with them, I said– I was giving them an analogy.

Imagine Chat, for example, imagine that you were… playing Minecraft, with like– you were given a friend to play Minecraft with, Chat, like your best friend, and [unintelligible] were like, “Hey, you get to play Minecraft with this person, right? BUT if this person dies – they’re currently your best friend, Chip – but if they die in the game, you never get to talk to them again. Ever again.” Can you imagine what that’s like, Chip?

I don’t think a lot of people understand like, what that does, right? I’m not gonna say that like, it creates this situation, Chip, that like, messes with your head, but it– Chip – but it totally, totally does, Chip. It messes with your head! It literally puts you in a position where you’re second-guessing and thinking about everything, Chip! You’re thinking about EVERYTHING Chip! Ok? And that’s the problem, Chip– is you turn into a paranoid monster because of it, Chip! Like, you don’t understand Chip– I was- I was so afraid of every dirt block, I used to carry a shovel with me Chip, and I would specifically right-click dirt blocks that looked suspicious because mines, Chip– mines could not be shoveled! Like, I was crazy, Chip! But here’s the problem, Chip: that craziness is still there. I’m genuinely like–

I remember thinking Chip, that I would one day– I was like, “I’m going to move past–” here, let’s go up here, Chip. I remember thinking one day Chip, I was like, “I’m gonna move past the underground base, one of these days. You know, one of these days, I feel like I’ll be able to grow and achieve the desire to build a base that doesn’t have to be underground.” But I don’t think it’s possible now Chip, because I think… I just don’t know. I feel like the paranoia– there’s still like, residual leftover trauma from that situation, Chip.

But here’s the problem Chip: I don’t think I don’t think– I don’t think people understand it. Like, I just really don’t. But I also don’t blame them Chip, ‘cuz I don’t think it’s possible to fully understand it if you haven’t lived through it. Like, if you did not live through the QSMP… I’m talking about the QSMP, I don’t- I don’t know if that was obvious– if you did not live through that, it almost sounds like, crazy. But I don’t think people realize how much of a joyous experience like, the Eggs were. Right? I don’t think people realize it. Like, they were SO awesome! They were literally so awesome to just hang out with and spend time with, Chip. So, it’s just one of those things that–

[He’s interrupted by a loud rumble of thunder above them]

Did lightning just strike here? Is it thunderstorming out…? But anyway, Chip. That’s the food for thought.

But that’s the problem– Like, every time it rains in Minecraft, I have to like, look at the sky, and I get this weird, like, second--hand vibe because of the trauma. The trauma, Chip! The trauma is real! But that’s the point– I’m not saying I regret it. I, to this day Chip, I loved the experience. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Even knowing how everything went, I would still do it all over again.

[He falls down] Dangit, don’t come over here Chip, ‘cuz I’m coming back up! Ok.

I would still do it all over again, because — even knowing like, all the trauma and suffering and stuff like that — because it was just… It was just that fun, Chip, it was just that fun. I really wi– I don’t think it’s ever gonna be possible, Chip, to give people that same energy, like that same experience. You know what I mean, Chip? I don’t think it’s ever gonna be possible again. Like, EVER.

Because… because like, one: I will say on one level Chip, I will say on one level, like– it’s sort of emotionally like… It’s emotionally devastating, and I think to actually go through that– and this is where like, if I ever do end up going to a– see a therapist, if I ever do end up going to see a therapist at any point, I’ll talk it over with them and be like, “Hey, what do you think about this?” Because I genuinely think on one level, like– it’s created this fear of forming attachments because of like, how things can go. You know what I mean? Like, the fear of getting attached to something and then potentially losing it. Like, it’s- it’s a genuine thing. I think people forget about that.

Like, at the end of the day, everything was RP, right? On the server. You know what I mean? Like, everything was RP, Chip. BUT at the same point, even though it was RP Chip, it was still like– there the reality of you were still playing like, with another person, and you were still getting that experience, and it felt like you were genuinely attached to someone and you didn’t want anything bad to happen to them. It was GENUINELY stressful, Chip.

But at the same point, I don’t regret it, and I don’t think it was a bad experience. I’m–

Sometimes in life Chip, you go through stuff, and maybe you have a certain amount of like, things that like, can happen, that you’re like, “You know what, maybe this wasn’t a good thing that this happened,” but at the same point, you still aren’t necessarily upset about it, because… it’s like growing as a person, right? Here’s the thing Chip; even bad situations, Chip, can lead to an overall good outcome. Like–

Even if you’re going through something bad Chip, just because a bad thing happens doesn’t mean that only bad things have to come from that. That’s one of the things I tell people all the time, Chip, is that if you go through a bad situation, you can learn from it, and you can use your experience to help others. And you can be that– you can be, at the worst-case scenario, you can be someone for other people who are going through that same experience to lean on when they go through that.I think there’s a certain amount of comfort that comes from that; from knowing no matter how bad your situation is, you’re not the only person who’s experienced it. You know what I mean?

#Badboyhalo #BBH #Bad #QSMP #January 8 2025 #Edited #I know folks are going to add their two cents on this subject in the tags / comments / replies (and as always you're welcome to do that)#But for the sake of my sanity please don't be an asshole to any of the CCs / ex-admins / fellow fans / anyone else. Thanks #Most folks here don't need a ''Don't be a dumbass'' reminder but I had to block someone for that earlier and it was a bit disappointing #This is going to be a Tumblr exclusive clip because I don't trust Twitter to have common sense or common decency about this topic #Tumblr exclusive #Anyways business aside – that black line on the side is just part of Bad's stream btw. He just Has That #Took too long for this to render otherwise I'd edit it out because it's annoying #I'm just realizing this screenshot doesn't even have Dapper OTL but it's the best one I have so I gotta work with what I got #Honestly; I still miss QSMP dearly... I love the core intent of the project and the multicultural exchange #I love all the language barriers that were broken and I loved all the stories that were told and watching beautiful friendships bloom #But I am still so angry and disappointed about how things ended and all the poor communication and the admin situation as a whole #It's a complicated feeling #I agree with pretty much everything Bad says here #It's ironic that he uses that analogy because I've said almost the exact same thing when explaining why losing any Egg was so devastating #We weren't just mourning for the characters. We were mourning for the admins too #I'll never forget that last stream with Tazercraft and Richas; and Pac ending stream in tears #I wish they'd done away with the Egg life system. I wish they'd done a lot of things differently #If the project ever does come back in some shape or form I hope they are more transparent about things and have better communication #I dunno how I'd feel personally. They would have to do a lot of work regaining people's trust #And frankly I don't think they'll ever regain that trust from a large portion of the community #I remember near the start of QSMP I saw a comment from a fan that simply said ''QSMP; please don't leave me feeling bitter''#I think about that comment a lot

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jiminrings · 11 days ago

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anything

pairing: yoongi x reader

wordcount: 10k

glimpse: yoongi doesn't want to move on from his ex because she's everything he's ever known, whereas you want to move on from him because he's everything you've ever loved.

alternatively, yoongi's your best friend and you've been in love with him your whole life.

[ angst, fluff, friends to Not Friends to lovers, pitiful amounts of Yearning And Pining, emotional constipation, second lead taehyung being unbearable And delicious somehow, jealousy, the harrowing argument of what it means to seek growth n seek comfort, VINDICATION!!!, redemption ]

notes: because i've decided that i will never become sick of writing lovers who are doomed but not really, here we are 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ to get the full experience, pls listen to the song that was the inspo behind this!!

as always, lmk what you think <3 send in feedback n love to my askbox anytime!!

Yoongi's only ever been with one woman his entire life.

Ever since he turned old enough to introduce someone to his parents without them mistaking it for puppy love, which in his case was at seventeen years old, Yoongi quickly realized that he doesn’t ever want to introduce anyone other than Haein.

Yoongi, at his fresh age of seventeen, made a pact to himself to never bring someone home again if it’s not Haein, because bothering a nineteen-year old you for your own house slippers to lend to his girlfriend (he didn’t want to spend his allowance buying a nice pair when he could just sacrifice his dignity by groveling at your feet for it) was too much of a hassle.

He didn’t like the fuss that came with forming crushes. Yoongi’s spent countless nights scrutinizing his first love’s actions during recess and microanalyzing her tone towards him from the morning earlier— he doesn’t want to go through any of that again.

He doesn’t want the grown-up equivalent of it either, because all throughout high school and some bits of college wherein he and Haein were together and totally not broken up in a perpetual on-off cycle as usual, Yoongi thought that he was set for life with her.

Unlike you, he hasn’t had his share of multiple first kisses. Yoongi, not even once, stepped into a bar with wandering eyes and a hopeful perk to his tone. He hasn’t worried about making first impressions again, nor has he ever had to ask how many people came into the picture before him.

In Yoongi’s eyes, it’s only been Haein the entire time. There’s no before, during, and after her, even if the last phase in time is just something he hopes for and is not set into stone.

It’s still Haein for him, the kind, starry-eyed girl that wore your house slippers when she stepped foot into his childhood home for the first time to meet his parents, and it’s been her ever since.

It’s still her, because she never knew that the slippers she wore was actually yours, which made it her one and only designated pair, so much so that she even took it with her when she moved in with Yoongi in their shared apartment.

It’s still her, because you’ve gone through multiple pairs ever since, and so did the boyfriends you took home to meet your family.

It’s still Haein, because Yoongi hasn’t moved on from her even if they broke up for good (or atleast that’s what you’ve heard in verbatim and what Yoongi refuses to confirm) a year ago.

"There's nothing wrong with being with someone new," you snort, your tone bordering on condescending to which Yoongi predicted correctly, simply because you’ve had this conversation a million times already.

You told him that in your attempt to comfort him when Haein broke up with him back on the second semester of their first year in college, wherein he found himself wailing against your sheets at your dorm.

You told him that in your attempt to appease him when he broke up with her during their junior year, wherein he had to wipe at his tears furiously before fixing his tie because it was only hours before your graduation and both your parents downstairs are calling for a picture.

You tell it to him now too, in your attempt to convince both Yoongi and yourself, as he starfishes on your couch while reminiscing what could’ve been another anniversary (albeit choppy and not at all continuous) of the first time they held hands.

"Yes there is," he groans, his emotions maturing enough not to cry helplessly unlike the past breakups, but not enough to stop glomming onto you. “I don't want to talk about my favorite color again. I don't want to answer how many siblings I have. I don't want to be asked the extremely quirky question of whether I think pineapple belongs on pizza or not, again!"

"It's only normal to introduce yourself again and again until you find the right one for you!" you laugh, your self-built amusement keeping the entire situation light for you because if you don’t find a way to distract yourself from Yoongi holding onto Haein pathetically, just like how you do so with him, you’d be as devastated as him.

You’d be devastated too if you realize that there’s little to no chance of earning back the only person you’ve ever truly loved, if not more— except you’re not Yoongi, and he’s not Haein.

What you have to go through is more devastating because Yoongi’s never really been yours in the first place.

"But I want Haein to be right for me," he whines, his eyes sleepy from all the fatigue that comes with driving all the way to your place, just so he could be miserable around you and not apart from you. “Even if she's not, I want it to be her."

You’re quiet for awhile, and Yoongi doubts your silence because you’ve only ever chewed his ear off whenever he started moping about Haein. He’s noticed it ever since you were young; you’d never let a single second pass without overwhelming him with your words whenever he thought too deeply, too lowly about anything. You didn’t give him a break to even think when it comes to times like these, so Yoongi grows even more concerned when you give him a break.

He’s used to the noise that is you trying to distract him from everything that pains him.

"For the record, you already did those things twice in your life,” you murmur after some time, looking up from the glass of wine that Yoongi poured you and bought for your collection before he made the decision of crashing out over Haein in your living room.

"Oh my god, did I kiss someone while I was drunk? When you dragged me out for drinks last week? When-… when it was, uh, when it was the anniversary of me and her moving in and-…”

"No, you monogamous asshole," you interrupt, rolling your eyes. "You did it with Haein."

"What are you talking about?" Yoongi tilts his head, his eyebrows furrowed as he tries to comprehend what you’re saying.

You still look annoyed at him, as you’ve always done whenever he comes to you crying about her, but now, you look more subdued; like you’re a little more melancholic for god knows what reason (Yoongi knows it’s definitely not about him and Haein’s breakup), and a little less agitated at having to have this conversation for the nth time.

"I knew you first, Yoongi," you remind faintly, shoulders offering a weak shrug. "You had to do it all over again for Haein when she came into your life, but I don't see you complaining."

Yoongi hits pause on his agony to frown slightly, sitting up on your couch in order to nudge you with his shoulder. ”But that's different because I grew up knowing you. It's only natural for you to know me this way.”

The snort that leaves you borders on offensive, and Yoongi automatically narrows his eyes when he senses the hint of sarcasm in your smirk.

”You mean know you as intimately as your one and only girlfriend did? Maybe even more than Haein actually does know you?"

"If you put it that way it sounds weird, but yeah," Yoongi scoffs defensively, crossing his arms on his chest before looking up at the high ceilings of your apartment in surrender. “Aren't just close friends basically lovers without the formalities?"

Yoongi’s only ever been with one woman his entire life.

You figure it’s because of that so he doesn’t know what he’s saying.

You figure it’s because of Haein’s monopoly on his feelings and experiences that you convince yourself that Yoongi hasn’t been kicked around enough, to realize that what he’s saying is enough for you to assume a higher, closer place in his life.

You figure that Yoongi only knows love because of Haein and not love itself, enough for him to tell you that being close friends with him is the equivalent of loving him in that light, only without the coveted crown that comes with being his first and only love that Haein still possesses.

"You're right," you mutter, downing the rest of your wine and the assumption that Yoongi knows it’s him whom your hearts yearns for. "It does sound weird when you put it that way."

( ♡ )

Yoongi’s a manny.

More specifically and less confusingly, Yoongi’s a male nanny and he enjoys the job.

When you graduated two years earlier than he did, all he talked about was how happy and envious he was for you over being born earlier than him. He told you that you were unfair (and so were your parents) by bringing you to the world earlier and not as the same time as him, even detailing how he wants to be just a day older than you instead of you being ahead by two full birthdays.

When you graduated two years earlier than him, proving just how lucky you were (even if Yoongi argues that it’s your sheer intellect and not something as silly as luck) by landing a coveted job, all Yoongi could talk about was how he wanted to follow in your footsteps.

He’s not in the place where you are now, and although neither of you are bitter about it, some part of Yoongi still thinks what could’ve been.

“I should’ve never brought it up,” you apologize sincerely, nudging him with your knee to get the point across because you didn’t really mean to throw him into a loop.

You’re sure that Taehyung, your colleague who’s one year your junior and knew both you and Yoongi from college, didn’t really mean to offend the latter either, or atleast that’s what you think.

You only opened up about your brush-up with Taehyung in the elevator because it was your first time bumping into each other having worked in the same company for so long, and you thought (read: thought) that Yoongi would be amused about the interaction too.

You thought that Yoongi would be amused about your encounter with Taehyung because the third question he asks you (the first asking how you were doing and the second asking if you were single) ventures straight to Yoongi and what he was up to.

You thought he’d be amused that Taehyung still remembers how the both of you were attached to the hip despite being apart in year levels, but with the way Yoongi scowls (even for just the briefest second), you knew that you hit a sore spot.

“Nah. It’s okay,” Yoongi exhales, glossing over the random question of Taehyung asking if you were taken before willing himself to forget it completely, and moving onto the facet that you thought offended him. “It pays well, honestly. I didn’t think I would ever score a job like this.”

“Me neither,” you shrug lightly, being relieved when you see the playful roll of Yoongi’s eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he whines, throwing his head back in faux annoyance, to which he may or may not attribute to Hwayoung’s (one of the children he looks after) tendencies.

“I don’t mean it in a bad way, Yoongs. It’s just that, well, I pictured that you’d be this hotshot data analyst, or I.T, or something equally as technical and now-…” you trail off, the smile in your face genuine. “You’re a hotshot nanny.”

“This wasn’t my dream. You knew that,” he snorts, asserting his point by once again bringing up your extensive knowledge about him. “But I was just strapped for cash this one time, and I was behind on rent and my stupid, complicated job at my old company didn’t pay on time– then you already knew about my neighbors being these newlyweds with twin babies and before I knew it, I was looking after them! I was making bank by staying up like I’ve always done, and I get an audience when I’m talking to myself!”

Yoongi doesn’t overestimate your familiarity for him, and neither does he overestimate your sincerity towards his decisions. You judge him, sure (you’ve never made your annoyance for his weakness for Haein and his affinity for their backwards-moving relationship a secret), but you’ve never actually discouraged him from anything.

You didn’t talk him out of getting back with Haein all those breakups ago.

You didn’t talk him out of applying for unrelated jobs outside of his degree.

You don’t talk Yoongi out of anything, even anyone, that’s capable of bringing him joy.

“You love what you’re doing and you’re earning a shit ton. You don’t have to be affected by what an old classmate is asking.”

“That old classmate is working in the same Fortune Global 500 company as you are,” he chuckles just a little bit bitterly, making you nudge his knee a little harder this time. “But still,” he deadpans. “It’s okay. I’ll get over it. I can consider this as practice anyway.”

“You’re… opening up a babysitting company…?”

“Stupid,” Yoongi snickers, squeezing your knee tightly before his hold disappears. “No! I mean practice before I have a family in the future!” he laughs, shaking his head at you as if it wasn’t the most obvious thing in the world; as if his optimism for a future with Haein isn’t persistent. “I don’t know what’s Haein’s take on working if we ever do have children, but either way, it’s nice to know that I already have the basics mastered.”

Whenever you least expect it, even if you should know by now after spending so much of your life with Yoongi, he reminds you of your place.

“You and Haein aren’t even together now,” you mutter, keeping your gaze low.

“Can you shut up?” Yoongi groans, slouching in his seat. “I’m not saying we’re gonna have a family now. I’m saying maybe we’ll have one in the future.”

“But you’ve been broken up for years.”

“Again, Y/N,” Yoongi rolls his eyes, the playfulness between the two of you slowly but surely dissipating. “I need you to be quiet.”

( ♡ )

Your parents like throwing thanksgiving parties for you and your siblings.

It’s quite literally the joint event for all seasons because your parents don’t even dare to set out cake for anyone outside of your family to eat when the holidays come, promising to make the party they excessively fuss about to be an umbrella for the rest that they miss throughout the year.

It’s an event that none of you really asked for but your parents insist on anyway; mostly to celebrate their accomplished children, and just a tiny bit more to brag about the lives they’ve managed to cultivate.

Yoongi, like for every other thanksgiving party that your parents have thrown, shows up in his most prized suit. It’s his most expensive and cleanest one to date, and it’s a suit that he reserves only for your parents’ shenanigans; not for a relative’s wedding, and not for a rich friend’s event either — he wears it just for you.

“I’d hate to be your unemployed cousin during this time of the year,” he jokes, being unable to look around the room without locking eyes with atleast one of your relatives or mutual friends and waving at them, yet Yoongi’s not really peeved about it at all.

“Yeah, that side of the family hates us,” you laugh, the tension in your shoulders loosening when you realize that you have nothing to be anxious about, especially when you’re just across the person who knows you the most.

You have your fun in these thanksgiving parties, and Yoongi has his own. Your definition of fun means owning up to your achievements and not attributing them to luck, poking fun at your siblings behind their backs, and maybe striking up a conversation or two with a family friend that you forgot was more handsome than you thought he’d be.

Yoongi’s fun on the other hand, only ever revolved around you and Haein when it comes to these parties. Now that the latter wasn’t invited this year and he’s not capable of trailing after her like a puppy, feeling like an outcast amongst a sea of accomplished individuals, Yoongi can now trail after you, feeling like he belongs.

“Look at my parents. They keep boasting about you so much, you’d think they gave birth to you,” he nods his head to them, talking your aunt’s ear off as they keep gesturing to you, grinning when you catch their gaze.

“I don’t look at you as a brother. Gross!” your nose scrunches, making Yoongi roll his eyes and subsequently kick you lightly in the shin.

The two of you, thankfully, are okay. The awkward conversation that transpired about Taehyung’s curiosity and Yoongi’s own insistence of a future with Haein seems to never have sprung up in the first place.

You’ve known each other for a lifetime; it only felt appropriate, nevermind unhealthy, to let familiarity take its toll to make the two of you complacent enough to not apologize to each other and still be okay by the next day.

“My parents didn’t graduate college, but you knew that already,” Yoongi talks, gaze still holding out to his parents from a distance like it’s a stare he can’t break off because his eyes feel too comfortable. “They found a lot of things– a lot of people annoying because they made them feel inferior, but we never felt that way with your family, y’know?”

You’re not one to deny the distance between you and Yoongi; everything from your age difference, to how your childhood house overlooked his, and even to the feelings you share and don’t share, there’s an imbalance the two of you would never be able to tip.

“Your parents are genuine, close friends with my own, and your family never pitied ours,” he smiles, eyes crinkling in gratitude as he does so.

“I know that,” you return the sincerity, eyes set on his while his gaze is directed elsewhere. “But where’s all this coming from?”

“I see the way you look at me,” Yoongi shrugs, the second that it takes him to turn his attention to you making you falter.

You don’t know if you’re more scared or relieved at the possibility of Yoongi knowing about your feelings.

“And how do I look at you?” you test the waters, tilting at your head to try and closely gauge the tiny smile on his lips, but you come up empty.

“I can’t tell exactly, but you always look at me with some sort of guilt.”

“Why would I look at you with guilt?” a breathless laugh escapes you, the ease plastered on his face making you more and more pressured.

“I don’t know either! You tell me,” Yoongi laughs brightly, slinging an arm across your shoulder to which no one bats an eye to, because although they don’t know the two of you as well as you know each other, they have a semblance of it.

They know how you and Yoongi are friends; how you and Yoongi are close friends who are basically lovers without the formalities.

“We’ve known each other for a lifetime, Y/N. There’s nothing about one another that could surprise us anymore.”

“That sounds so boring,” you mutter, the words slipping out of you before you could even control them, effectively dampening the sentimental mood that Yoongi’s in.

“Excuse me?” he asks, a little bit offended but a lot more hurt over your comment.

“We’re not always gonna be the same, Yoongi,” you continue, staring at your feet with your voice low because it’s not like you can retract your words anymore; they’re as out there as you are when it comes to loving Yoongi silently.

“Do you… not want to be friends with me anymore?” he whispers, arm suddenly stalling as he tries to deduct whatever the hell you could possibly mean.

“Where did that come from?”

Yoongi chuckles uneasily, almost regretful he even said that outloud in fear of manifesting it.

“I don’t– I-I don’t know! It’s just weird with the way you’re talking. Like you purposely want us to change.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I don’t,” he emphasizes. “If you’re already comfortable with the life that you have now, you don’t need to change,” Yoongi blinks slowly, unfamiliar with the way your eyes lack emotion. “I have you. I have the manny job. I have Haein.”

You’re quiet as you let Yoongi think and simmer in whatever he had to say, and he hates it.

“Is this life not enough for you yet?” he asks hesitantly, the premature scoff that leaves his throat making the bitterness linger for the slightest second. “What more could you want?”

You want to say it’s only him whom you lack, but you stay quiet.

You give Yoongi both the silence and the space to think, and he realizes that he’s never wanted to be overwhelmed by you more.

( ♡ )

Things have been awkward between you and Yoongi.

You didn’t mean to sound beyond ungrateful and out of touch, but simply (and maybe even arrogantly) put, Yoongi just didn’t get it.

He didn’t get where you were coming from because he’s only stayed in one place long enough to call her his future. He didn’t get what you could be possibly going through because Yoongi only longs for comfort and not change because the latter wouldn’t benefit him in any way.

He’s right about him having the manny job makes him happy because he gets a heavy check and a learning experience. He’s also right, even if he’s rarely accurate when faced with her, about having Haein because you figure that if you were in his position, you wouldn’t ask for anything more.

If you were anything like Yoongi by having had the privilege of harboring the person you love and the life-long burden of having to yearn for her, you would be satisfied too.

It’s been a full week since the two of you talked and it’s the longest you ever went without any communication. There’s no texts coming from your end, but there had been plenty of it coming from Yoongi’s.

Yoongi, your best friend, knows that you didn’t end your thanksgiving party in the happiest note because he happened. He felt apologetic about it ever since because he didn’t mean to sound self-absorbed to the point of projecting his selfishness onto you; painting you as the villain would be the last thing he’ll ever do because he knew that between the two of you, you were the stronger one.

You’re the more rational, focused one who studied the same degree as he did, yet actually amounted to something infinitely more even if he’s the younger one who had more opportunities than you ever did.

You’re the more unyielding one between the two of you, because you can stomach ignoring him for a week while he’s about to lose his mind.

Yoongi could send a hundred more texts wherein he pretends to have mistakenly sent a discreet, low-lying sorry to you (because the two of you barely ever apologized to each other) instead of another person. He could react to a message of yours from two months ago just to try and see if you would comment on it.

He could even call you by Haein’s name just to purposely piss you off because he’d settle for anything if it meant breaking you out of your silent treatment, yet you don’t even move an inch whether he calls you on your phone or lingers in the coffee shop you frequent at in your workplace.

Yoongi can pull a hundred different reasons with most of them involving how he’s running errands with the children he looks after. He can say that Hwayoung knows your name (and he’s not lying about it either) and that she asked where you worked, and the both of them just happened to be in the area during their morning walk. He can say every excuse under the sun just to try and get you to talk to him, but you won’t budge.

Yoongi doesn’t like change but he likes the days wherein you rant to him about your day and ask how his went, just like every week before this one. He doesn’t like growth in the guise of everything he’s comfortable with being stripped away, but he likes the nights wherein he could call you and ask you to look after the children in the living room while he goes to the bathroom, when really, he’s just standing from a distance to look at you coo at them.

So when Yoongi got the call from your brother, asking him for a favor to look after your nephew if only he was free for the day (he wasn’t, but he made it work nonetheless), he immediately jumped at the chance of maybe, just maybe seeing you drop by at your family’s home.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” he says under his breath when he locks eyes with you in the nursery, your presence only being a surprise to him alone because he didn’t think you were staying with your parents the entire week when normally, you’d be a little high-strung staying with them after three consecutive days.

“Just been busy. Sorry,” you reply quietly, your apology only being an afterthought because you’re unsure who’s at fault.

“Me too,” Yoongi clears his throat, bouncing your sleeping nephew on his arms as he indiscreetly makes his way to you. “I’m sorry too, I mean.”

It’s weird for the both of you to apologize to each other.

It’s weird for you to see Yoongi in your childhood house and have no one question his presence, because the scene of him cradling your brother’s baby with a cloth strewn over his shoulder and your sister’s headband on his head to keep his hair away from his face, only looks right.

It’s weird for Yoongi to see you so torn up over him, and it’s even weirder that all the anger he had towards you for ignoring him just immediately dissipated.

Yoongi puts your nephew down on his crib with a precise gentleness to him, his hands cramping up not because he spent so long trying to get him to calm down, but because he doesn’t ever know what to do with them whenever you face him.

“You didn’t have to do this for my brother, y’know? You shouldn’t feel pressured to say yes just because he asked,” you clear your throat, filling the silence in with your voice that Yoongi has missed so badly.

“What are you talking about? I’m not on the clock right now,” Yoongi furrows his brows, the frown on his face evident. “I’m not here as a manny. I’m here as an uncle.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh,” he snorts, the snarky expression from him cutting through the tension between you. You could just throw your head back out of relief, knowing that Yoongi’s not that mad at you, but the both of you know you’re far from the clear.

You’re far from the clear when you don’t make a single move to come towards him across the room, even if it’s the only thing you wanted to do the past week.

You know you’re far from the clear and even further from moving on when it’s Yoongi who comes to you, his pace slow yet definitive, his fists unclenched for once as he practically leaps towards you in the end.

It takes one, two seconds for you to realize that although it’s Yoongi who made the first move to get close to you, it’s you who puts your hands on his cheeks, forehead rested against his with your eyes closed, tightly. Painfully.

Yoongi opens his eyes when you do, staying in your grasp even if he realizes that you almost kissed.

“You can read my mind, Yoongi, right?” you whisper, pulling apart briefly to look up at him, yet close nonetheless because you could still practically hear his heart beating out of his chest.

“Yeah,” he swallows the lump in his throat, the hand he has around your waist loosening for just a fraction of a second, yet you don’t need it— you don’t need him to unravel further to confirm what you’ve always known.

“So I don’t need to say it out loud,” you smile tightly, the shaky sigh that leaves you making Yoongi’s lips purse out of guilt. “So I don’t need to say it out loud that I love you,” you say in your mind, eyes already stinging even if Yoongi hasn’t let go of you yet.

“You don’t,” he affirms, his voice hoarse as his hand on your waist still doesn’t budge, the other cradling your wrist because he can’t decipher if it’s him wanting to keep your hand on his face, or if it’s him keeping you away. “You can read my mind too, right?”

You nod earnestly, the smile that he gives you even being tighter than yours.

“Right,” he clears his throat. “So I can’t— I-I don’t have to say it either,” he whispers. “I don’t need to say out loud that the feeling isn’t mutual,” you read in his mind, the silent admission effectively relieving you of the weight you’ve carried ever since you knew him.

Yoongi’s phone ringing is the only thing that snaps the both of you from your daze, your immediate composure being shaky despite having prepared for this for so long because you knew it anyway.

You know that no matter how much Yoongi looks like he belongs to you, your life, and everything in between, you still won’t stand a chance against the person who’d make him drop everything new for the promise of coming home to everything he’s familiar with.

“It’s uhm— it’s Haein,” he explains, the nervous grin he has on face being infectious despite your very own appearing for a much different reason. “She wants to talk about things.”

“You don’t have to let me know,” you shake your head, shoving your hands into your pockets. “Go, Yoongi.”

You’re not ignoring Yoongi anymore.

Apropos of nothing, Yoongi and Haein are talking again.

They’re not together, yet, but you know how it always ends between them anyway, so you steel yourself for the worst despite it being Yoongi’s best.

( ♡ )

You badly want to change.

You badly want to change and although it’s not Yoongi’s fault, the way he hovers around you makes you feel otherwise.

You already made well on your promise of not shutting him out whenever things get tough for you, but even then, no part of the way you’ve been acting recently ever appeases Yoongi.

He’s accustomed to you growing like you always have been, yet he didn’t even think that you changing bit by bit could ever impact him this greatly, Sure, Yoongi’s happy that you’re no longer ignoring him intentionally, but his stomach still turns every time you do reply to him at an ungodly hour and he’s reminded of your little joke (he hopes it is) that you’re more active at that time of night because of your extracurriculars.

Yoongi’s happy that you still turn to him, but a large part of him, if not the entirety, grows bitter when he sees you looking happier nowadays and he can’t tell if it’s because of something you’ve already told him or if it’s because of something totally unrelated and how he could never know, because the one thing that he made you promise is for you to keep being his friend.

You’re still Yoongi’s friend before, during, and after your confession, and he doesn’t know if that placates him.

Yoongi doesn’t want to amount to anything less than a friend to you but he doesn’t want to be your family either. He wants to be whatever it is in your life that knows why you’re smiling so much and why you barely rant to him.

He wants to be whatever, whoever, it is your life in order to know that you’re seeing Taehyung right from your mouth and not from your brother’s like he’s a jaded suitor that’s been anticipating bad news.

Yoongi wants to matter enough, as if he already doesn’t, to know about you having a boyfriend.

“You have a boyfriend and you didn’t tell me?” he spits, the way he barrels into your apartment with his own keycard being unceremonious.

Yoongi knows today’s your rest day and he knows that by this time, you’d be on a call with him to ask about his day and entertain Hwayoung who keeps butting into your conversation. By this time, it would’ve still been you and him, whether or not Haein and Taehyung were in the picture.

“You’re hooking up with the guy that talked shit about me, and you didn’t bother telling me?”

“Taehyung didn’t talk shit about you,” you scoff, closing the door after him as you follow him into your living room.

Yoongi’s eyes widen comically, heart clenching when he realizes that you have no comeback for anything else he’s said, jaw clenching as he points a finger at you.

“He fucking looked down on me-…”

“He was just shocked!”

“Are you seriously defending him instead of being on my side?!” he exclaims, the sarcastic chuckle that leaves his lips rubbing you wrong because for any other person and any other instance, you’d laugh with him too.

“Do you not expect me to?” you snarl. “You’re dragging my boyfriend’s name to an argument that you started, and you don’t expect me to defend him?”

“You’re being a hypocrite,” he grits, nostrils flaring in sheer anger.

“And if I am, then what about it?!” you throw your hands into the air, poking your finger at his chest yet he refuses to get out of your face. “Have you not ever been a hypocrite when it comes to defending the person you love?”

It’s not your glare that gets him to back off.

It’s not your hostile, defensive nature towards Yoongi, in defense of Taehyung, that makes him deadly silent.

It’s you, holding up a mirror for the same blind defensiveness that he’d always carry whenever your words just barely graze Haein’s honor.

You’re guilty of judging Yoongi, but not of dissuading him from pursuing Haein like he’s always done — Yoongi, however, can’t say the same for himself.

“I hope Taehyung’s worth it,” he spits. “I hope he’s worth treating me like this, because not once have I ever made you less of a priority even when Haein was still in the picture.”

The use of was makes you pause, the past tense making you blink owlishly and finally take a step back from Yoongi as if it’s just your proximity to him that was the raging problem.

“Haein was my girlfriend but I never, never turned my back on you. I never made things awkward for us. I never stopped showing up for you, even if it costed me with her. I never made you feel the way you’re making me feel now,” Yoongi heaves, jaw clenching from how hard he’s ignoring the lump in his throat.

You chuckle sarcastically, the briefest glimpse you have of yourself in Yoongi’s words making you feel utterly pathetic. “Yeah? And how am I making you feel now?”

“Like we haven’t known each other our whole lives.”

( ♡ )

It’s been months since you and Yoongi properly talked to each other.

Life got in the way between the two of you and as much as Yoongi didn’t want to push, you didn’t want to grow out of the comfort that you already had with Taehyung either.

There were still texts and calls, but in between Yoongi getting whisked away for his employers’ vacation for a change and you being content with your job and your boyfriend as your comfort, neither of you made any drastic moves after your fight.

The only apology that Yoongi could get out of you after storming off from your apartment was you asking if he had already eaten dinner two nights after your fight, while the only apology that your close friend could ever give to you was that he hadn’t (even if he actually did), just to get your conversation rolling.

You feel guilty reserving parts of you from Yoongi, namely Taehyung and how he fits into your life, even if it’s always been established that there’s no use hiding. You know a terrible lot of information about how Yoongi and Haein are in bed against your will, and Yoongi has an awful amount of knowledge about your preference for condoms and how you like your men.

There’s guilt in your chest and you don’t think it would ever disappear for as long as Yoongi’s still in your life. Being defensive about anyone outside of your family and Yoongi, specifically because neither are synonymous no matter how much Yoongi keeps recurring from your family’s mouths, is something entirely brand new.

Taehyung is new to your system, just as Yoongi was all those years ago, and it scares him more than it scares you.

The concept of lagging behind someone who had just been a casual topic of interest (more specifically because he had seemingly offended you and him) then became your boyfriend overnight feels like a giant slap on the face because Yoongi, not once, has ever entertained the possibility that you’d be as lovesick as him.

He didn’t think that you were also capable of being defensive about a loved one who isn’t him, just like he is over Haein.

He didn’t think about how angry and offended he’d feel seeing you become so protective of someone who doesn’t know you like he does, because in Yoongi’s defense, Taehyung doesn’t know shit about you.

Taehyung does not and will never know you like he does, because he never trailed after you and idolized you in everything that you do, so much so that he only pursued his degree because you did before him.

Unlike Yoongi, Taehyung never had to be taught by you how to drive and what it means to have his family’s manual transmission car stall right after the stoplight turned green, because it meant you having to comfort Yoongi who was in tears after being honked at, and you lying straight through your teeth to his parents by saying that he was excellent and should definitely be trusted with driving the car alone with Haein to take her on dates.

Unlike the person you know the most, Taehyung never had to have the conversation with your dad about looking after you in college despite being younger, yet puffing his chest out nonetheless to agree because he made it his personal mission.

Taehyung will never be Yoongi and the latter takes pride in it, except now, he feels that Taehyung doesn’t ever want to be in his position—

Why would Taehyung vie for his position when it’s clear that he’s at an advantage?

Yoongi ignores his feelings and grievances the best that he can, yet unlike the old him who could endure so much shit because it meant having you to lean on, he can’t help but explode now that it’s you whom he can’t see eye to eye with.

“Taehyung and I were thinking of eloping,” you say out of the blue, your admission feeling appropriate (in your eyes, atleast) because you and Yoongi have so much to catch up on after being apart and he strayed the topic towards your sister who’s expecting her first child.

You thought it was your turn to say something equally as life-changing, because with the way Yoongi hasn’t talked about Haein once and you assuming that it’s because they were back together and he was just shy to talk about it, you bit the bullet first.

You thought wrong, clearly, because the happiness completely drains away from Yoongi the moment you finished your sentence.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t be stupid.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, don’t be stupid,” he repeats, eyes narrowing at you in anger. “You’ve only been in a relationship with him for months-…”

“I’ve known him for years-…”

“And that still doesn’t justify you marrying him just because you feel like it,” he spits, your revelation far from making him happy like you thought it would. “Stop being stupid, Y/N. You’re not marrying Taehyung just because you’re in another one of your impulsive moods.”

Your mouth falls open at that, scoffing in disbelief because Yoongi isn’t letting up in the slightest with the way there’s no hint of his outburst just being a sick joke.

“I’m not being impulsive. I really do want to marry him!”

“Oh yeah? How’s married life going to work out for you when-…”

“I only told you because I wanted to let you know. I wasn’t asking you to weigh in, Yoongi,” you snap, crossing your arms in defense while Yoongi only steps towards you.

The thought of eloping with Taehyung crossed your mind once after a weird dream, and you thought nothing about it at first so you texted him and went right back to sleep. What you didn’t expect was that he didn’t hate the idea at all (in fact, he was even happy that you thought about it), and Taehyung’s confirmation for something unlike you, for something that resembled to settling and being comfortable, changed you completely.

“You don’t expect me to interfere when you tell me you’re going to make the biggest mistake of your life?” Yoongi huffs, his eyes widening over your seeming indifference.

“Who the fuck are you to tell me that getting married to Taehyung would be the biggest mistake I’ll ever make?”

“I’m your closest friend! I know you better than you know yourself and-…”

“You don’t,” you retort. “Clearly, you don’t know me at all or even respect me when you think the worst of Taehyung when you barely even know him!”

“I could know Taehyung for a decade and still think the fucking worst of him!” Yoongi raises his voice, laughing humorlessly as he runs his hand through his hair. “I could know Taehyung or any other guy for a lifetime and still think that they won’t ever be good enough for you!”

The laugh that escapes you is offensive.

It’s as offensive as Yoongi making your graduation about him by crying to your sheets because Haein broke up with him, and it’s as offensive as you scoffing to his face when he said that having his job serves as his practice for a future with her.

“What, because you’re in love with me?” you spit, trying to trigger something in him just so he could leave you be, for good, because everything that’s he’s saying to now– with the defensiveness you’ve only heard from yourself whenever he rationalized trying to get back with his first love — takes you right back to your previous pining.

Yoongi’s only silent, trusting that you could read his mind, and you’ve never hated knowing him as much as you do than now.

“You’re telling me that you’re in love with me, right when I decided I was sick of loving you my whole life?” you whisper, the tears stinging from the corner of your eyes making your heart clench. You’ve been called too stubborn. Too calculating and too heartless, even by your own family, and for you to unfold in front of Yoongi this easily makes you wail. “Are you shitting me, Yoongi? Are you— are you out of your goddamn mind to tell me this?”

Yoongi looks down in shame, the truth of him being over his first love not relieving the weight on his shoulders like he foolishly expected, because everything he falls short when he sees you crying.

“I didn’t want to get back to Haein with something weighing so heavily on my chest,” he whispers. “I didn’t want to get back with her because you just ignoring me for a fucking week hurt more than any breakup I’ve had with her.”

Yoongi, vividly, can remember how distraught he was. He can remember how he can’t recall a time wherein he didn’t have you to depend on, as if he didn’t ever outgrow the phase of him idolizing you and following you wherever you went.

As if he’s still the seventeen year old him asking to borrow your slippers for Haein, while deep down seeking your approval for her because he didn’t want to do anything without you beaming at him.

“I-I felt… I felt like I was losing my mind, Y/N.”

“Can you read my mind right now?” you ask, shakily exhaling as you look down on the floor.

“That’s a really stupid thing to bring up right now,” Yoongi breathlessly chuckles, letting his hair brush past his eyes because he’s a little terrified of looking how distraught, how disappointed, you are. “But no.”

“Do you not want to say it out loud?” he asks, making you laugh silently as you gathered the strength to sit next to him, yet not as close as you always did. “Whatever it is, it’s not like I’m going to give up now,” he mumbles, looking down on your hand that’s rested on the cushion, your pinky finger just centimeters away from his, yet he can’t move to hold you like he wants to.

You wanted Yoongi and he wants you, and there’s only so much points where you could intersect until you say what’s been lingering in your mind, just like every other apology the both of you have passed up.

“We need some time apart, Yoongi. We need space,” you mumble. “We need to figure it out on our own before we figure it out together because-…”

Yoongi finishes your thought for you, head tilted down and hand outstretched with the hope that comes with being a little too late for someone who’s waited a little too long.

“Because we’ve known each other our whole lives.”

Yoongi refuses to break even if he comprehends exactly what you’re saying, because there’s no point in it when he knows he’ll never be angry at you. You can defend him and you can hurt him all at once, yet he’ll never curse you, simply because there’s no point picking at wounds he’ll keep on licking anyway.

“Do we just-…” he shrugs lightly, pinky finger painfully close to yours until he makes the heavy move of lifting it, just enough to to cover yours. “Do we find our way back to each other? Is that it?”

“That’s the plan, hopefully,” you smile, sucking in a breath you never thought would be this heavy. “I’ll find you if you find me.”

“I’ll find you when you find me,” Yoongi corrects. “We’ll find our way back to each other.”

You resent comfort and Yoongi abhors change, but there’s only so much the both of you could take until you realize that the only thing constant in your lives is each other, no matter how many seasons pass you by.

For Yoongi, it’s you.

Despite everything, it’s still you.

( ♡ )

The year that you spend with Yoongi flitting every once in awhile like he’s only a friend, and not the man you’ve first loved, is a year you didn’t think you’d ever spend.

Despite you and Taehyung separating amicably, he still took with him the love that you sincerely invested. He wasn’t the first boyfriend you’ve ever had, and although you were no stranger to heartbreak, he still imprinted a large chunk of him onto you.

At one point in your life, you did want to marry him; and at several points in your life after him that you don’t even think of denying, you really thought it would be him if not for the life that you led.

You don’t resent Yoongi for loving you a little too late because there’s no point in it, as much as Taehyung doesn’t even hate you in the slightest for letting him let you go in pursuit of the change that the both of you badly needed.

Yoongi could never bring himself to hate you either, even if being apart from you gnawed at him from the inside. Making something out of himself had been his biggest plan outside of pursuing you from a distance, because as soon he tendered in his resignation letter to his employers and cried right in front of the children he looked after, Yoongi won’t ever lie and say that he wasn’t scared.

Yoongi resents change even if you’re someone who yearns for it, and even with the terror that wracks his bones of starting new without you being there for him as his safety net, Yoongi does it scared anyway.

He does it scared with one eye closed as he puts the degree he’s only learned to love because of you to work, developing an app for families to look for certified, trustworthy nannies.

He does it scared anyway with his heart barely into himself and fully into you when he shows up a full night early before your family’s thanksgiving party, donning his reserved suit as he clutches a new pair of house slippers, which again, like always and just like he is, is only for you.

For you, it’s Yoongi.

Despite everything, it’s still Yoongi.

#first fic of 2025 :D YIPPEEEEE #yoongi imagine #yoongi oneshot #yoongi oneshots #yoongi angst #yoongi angst imagine #yoongi fluff #yoongi x reader #yoongi x y/n #yoongi au #yoongi scenario #yoongi fanfic #yoongi x you #bts yoongi imagine #yoongi scenarios #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi oneshot

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lavenderchqn · 4 months ago

Text

"TO PRACTICE FREEDOM"

synopsis — You're the biggest scaredy cat living amongst the people of Scions of Canopy. You try to get over your fear of heights... by trying out bungee jumping under the watchful eye of your partner. Let's just say... it doesn't go according to plan. pairing — kinich x gn!reader warnings — near death experience (falling from heights), minor character death, spoiler warnings for kinich's story and voicelines, ajaw is a lore accurate menace notes — I've had an idea for this as soon as we learned that Kinich has interest in extreme sports... reading his story felt weird (the longer I am in genshin fandom, the more stuff I predict right...)

The People of Huitztlan believe in the concept of absolute freedom. That’s why so many youngsters throw themselves into dangerous sports with a lack of safeguard measures. Perhaps having nothing securing a person allows them to experience said freedom.

To practice death is to practice freedom, after all.

“We’re here,” Kinich says, looking in your direction. He has held your hand ever since you started your trek up the higher regions of the Coatepec Mountain. “Do you want to take a break?”

“Y-Yeah… I need to… sit.” You slowly get down with the help of Kinich. Only after he signalises being opposite of you, do your eyes open.

Kinich has taken a sit too, still holding onto your hand. He’s slowly rubbing circles trying to ground you as best as possible.

Well… here you are — the biggest scaredy cat, who decided to try and work on your fear of heights by trying out bungee jumping. It’s quite ironic really. Not only are you a resident of Scions of the Canopy, which literally is suspended off the cliffs, but also in a relationship with a guy, whose second name could be ‘extreme sports’.

To say your mind felt pressure to get over it would be quite an understatement.

“We can still get down. Just say the word.” Kinich says, keeping his eyesight directly on you. Even if you had asked him to help you with your fears, he’d never force you to do so. Sure, it’d be pretty cool to share interests with a partner, but it should never come at the cost of their mental health.

You shake your head. You have to try. Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think? Kinich will do everything in his power to keep you safe.

“I can do this.” You answer, taking a deep breath.

“Well then, chop chop SLOWPOKE!” Ajaw zooms right near your face, spooking you to bits. “Stop wasting MY precious time!”

“Just how loud can you be…” Kinich sighs, getting up to shoo Ajaw away. “Tone it down a notch, will you?”

The tiny saurian starts arguing with your partner, although you can easily tell it’s one-sided. No matter how much he would try, the most he could bring out of Kinich were insulting comebacks. Ajaw could try and rage the male in multiple ways… and yet, unfortunately for the dragon, your partner was too resilient to die from anger.

In the meantime of their dissing match, you slowly get up on your legs. Ajaw is right… You don’t want to waste Kinich’s time because you’re scared and worried. He takes notice of your sudden movement, once again getting close to you.

“Do you want to try now?” He asks, holding his hand out. These are obvious signs, that he will lead you step by step.

“Yeah… I think I’m ready.”

“Alright. Hold still. I’m going to put the climbing belt on you now.”

As he says, he does. Kinich does it slowly, explaining his movement every step of the way. You’re aware, he’s doing it to ease your mind… and it’s working well. In the blink of an eye, the sound of a snap-hook getting attached brings you back from a short daydreaming session.

“All done.” He takes another look at you, checking if the equipment is snug against your body while making sure it isn’t digging into your skin. “Can you move for me?”

“Yeah, sure!” You do a slow spin, followed by kneeling on one foot. “Although I can feel the harness… it’s not uncomfortable.”

“That's good.”

Once again, it’s another series of your partner explaining the next steps. All you need to do is find a point to connect your line to. He already connected the rope to your belt. The other end is currently sitting tightly in his hand.

“You’re not going to hold me when I jump?” You ask, growing worried.

“I know you’d feel more comfortable with me doing that,” Kinich starts answering, his eyes wandering for an anchor. “I don’t want to also fall down the second you jump.”

He even explains the physics behind it, ending his speech by saying it’s best you move further to look for a good place to jump from.

You’re walking next to Kinich, admiring the scenery. With the rope in his hands, you’re feeling much more comfortable. Although he’s trying to talk here and there… his eyes are still locked on finding a stable anchor.

Unfortunately for the both of you, an anchor is nowhere near. Curse you lunatics with no regard for their safety.

“So many jumping platforms, and yet not a singular anchor?” He questions, closing his eyes.

All of a sudden your eyes land on a ruffed pheasant that just landed on one of the platforms. You’ve never seen one so close! Without thinking about your safety, you start inching closer towards the bird.

Your steps are slow and cautious. The bird, a magnificent creature with iridescent plumage, seems utterly unaware of your presence. Its feathers shimmer in the sunlight, creating a mesmerising display of greens and oranges. An odd sense of calm wash over you, momentarily forgetting the anxiety that’s been gnawing at your insides.

"Careful," Kinich warns, his voice seeming distant as if muffled by the pounding of your heart.

The platform beneath your feet is uneven, its surface worn smooth by the countless jumps of those, who came before you. With no warning, Ajaw jumps from behind your shoulder, screaming right next to your ear. The bird, startled, flies away. You try to also get away when your foot catches on one of the loose boards. The world tilts violently, and suddenly, you're weightless.

A scream tears from your throat as you plummet downwards, the wind rushing past your ears, drowning out all other sounds. The landscape blurs into a mix of greens and browns, the ground below rushing up to meet you at an alarming speed. For a split second, your mind goes blank — pure terror seizing every thought, every instinct. You’re going to fall to your death.

Back on the hill, Kinich’s body goes numb for a second. He’s seen this happen once before. He cannot allow it to happen again. You’re not his drunkard gambling mess of a father, and he’s not his seven-year-old self. Kinich will save you, even if it’s the last thing he ever does.

The blood is pounding in his ears when he shifts all his weight to his legs. Only when he cannot feel any force trying to get him off the cliff, does he start pulling up. With a sharp tug, he jerks you backwards, the rope connected to the harness snapping taut. The force of the pull knocks the air out of your lungs, but it stops your descent abruptly. You swing wildly in the air, the ground still far below, the rope swaying and creaking with the strain of holding your weight.

Above, you can hear Kinich shouting your name, his voice frantic, barely audible over the sound of your racing heartbeat. You cling to the rope, your hands shaking uncontrollably as the realisation of what just happened crashes over you. You almost fell to your death.

"Hold on!" Kinich yells, his voice breaking through the fog of panic in your mind. "I’ve got you, just hold on for me!"

Tears sting your eyes as you try to steady your breathing, every muscle in your body tensed and trembling. The rope holds firm, and slowly, agonisingly slowly, Kinich begins to pull you back up. Each inch feels like an eternity, but his strength and determination never waver.

As soon as your body reaches the ledge, Kinich grabs onto you, pulling you up with a force that nearly knocks you both off balance. He wraps his arms around you, holding you close as you collapse against him, shaking uncontrollably.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers, his voice unusually tight with emotion. "I should have been more careful. I should have—"

You shake your head, unable to speak, still trying to process the fact that you're alive, that you're safe. Kinich's arms tighten around you, his hand cradling the back of your head as if to shield you from any further harm.

"You're okay," he murmurs, repeating it like a mantra. "You're okay, and I'm here. I'm right here."

For a long moment, you stay there, clinging to him as the fear slowly ebbs away, replaced by a deep, overwhelming sense of relief. The world around you, once a blur of panic and chaos, begins to settle back into focus. The mountains, the sky, the distant sound of birds—all of it feels surreal as if you’ve been given a second chance to experience it. In your state, you don’t notice the glare Kinich is giving to his companion.

If looks could kill, Ajaw would be dead.

After a while of sitting idly, Kinich pulls back slightly, enough to look into your eyes. His face is pale, his expression filled with concern, but there's also a deep, unspoken resolve in his gaze. It’s quite different considering the death stare he was giving the saurian just a second ago.

"We’re done here," he says gently but firmly. "No more extreme sports for today. We are getting you home.”

You nod, still too shaken to argue. As he helps you back onto solid ground, you realise how much you’ve relied on him, not just for safety, but for the courage to face your fears. And even though the experience was terrifying, there’s a small part of you that’s glad you tried, that you didn’t let fear win entirely. You can clearly say, you did indeed practice freedom today.

In a moment you’re seated on his back, Kinich deciding you’ve had enough walking for today. He’s in absolute control now — and he’s picking the safest route possible.

“Oh and Ajaw,” Kinich’s voice is laced with coldness. “Don’t think you’re getting away with the stunt you pulled today.”

"WHAT?!"

date of posting — september 5th 2024

#lavv.writes #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact fanfics #genshin oneshots #genshin fanfic #kinich x reader #kinich x you

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buckets-and-trees · 5 months ago

Text

Obsidian Stain and Sin

Characters/Pairings: soft!dark Ari Levinson x Female!Reader, soft!dark Curtis Everett x Female!Reader, Ari x Reader x Curtis Word Count: 8.1k Summary: You've thought of getting your first tattoo for a long time. When you walk into Obsidian Stain Studio, you experience services beyond what you bargained for.

Content/Warnings: tattooing/needles, DUBIOUS CONSENT, explicit smut, semi-public sex, vaginal fingering, kissing, anal play/rimming (female receiving), eating it from behind, vaginal intercourse, unprotected sex, praise kink, innocence kink, corruption kink, size kink, manhandling, fade to black/abrupt ending

Author Notes: I've had this idea all summer. I've been eager to write it, but literally the muse only kept teasing me with it until literally about six hours ago when she said, WE'RE DOING THIS, AND WE'RE DOING THIS NOW, so it's almost late/maybe it's still you're birthday week for a hot minute in some time zone, but I'm slipping this to you @stargazingfangirl18 for your Birthday Bonenanza! Literally, when I tell you that when you originally tagged me in the announcement, and I read over the myriad of prompts, I thought, "Oh, wow, this is so tattoo Curtis and Ari coded, it HAS TO happen for Siri's birthday..." that's really how my brain thought it was finally going to get the jump on working on this. But then no. Then that other Steve story happened, and I was stoked about that. Then the new chapter for Nomad Steve, and I thought, ah well, still fun stuff, maybe someday this, and then AT THE LAST MOMENT, Muse pulled a plot twist. So here's some ruinous hoe shit. Multiple dialogue prompts from the challenge are used here, and you'll find them in bold.

A/N 2: Shout out to @vonalyn for a few convos hashing out some of this concept!

You are surprised by the tinkling of a classic bell hanging over the door that rings pleasantly as you enter the tattoo parlor.

A man behind the reception desk immediately looks up to greet you. He doesn’t shoot you a phony, business-y smile, but his demeanor is still warm and approachable. “Welcome,” he greets you. “Walk-in or appointment?” he asks.

“Um, walk-in,” you manage. In a black t-shirt with shoulders that are nearly bursting through the fabric, lush hair and beard, and striking blue eyes, he’s more than an impressive specimen. “If you’ve got an opening?” you quickly add.

“Sure, we can take you,” he says. His gaze flicks to a scheduling book in front of him on the counter. “A couple of the boys are on break or about to finish up with other clients. Your first time here, yes?”

You nod. “First tattoo ever.”

“Oh,” he says, and his eyes brighten. “Even better. Let’s get you booked in.”

He takes your name, email, and phone number to set up a profile for you in their system. There are some electronic consent forms that he takes you through and has you agree to and sign on an iPad, and then he takes asks a few questions about what you’re interested in.

“Based off what you have in mind, Curtis might be the best artist, but he won’t be finished for maybe an hour.”

“Ah,” you look at your watch. It was a bit of an impromptu idea for you to drop in to get the tattoo this afternoon, and you had time, but you had probably been foolish thinking a walk-in was any sort of good idea.

“But,” he interjects, “I’ve got two other guys who are excellent, and either one of them should be ready to take you pretty soon. Take a seat just over there, and I’ll go check in with them and get a call on time for you. I’ll also grab you a drink. Pick your poison - we’ve got water or Coke products.”

You give him your preference, and he nods and smiles.

“Right then, sit tight, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He disappears around the corner, and you do as you’ve been told and take a seat on one of the black leather couches in the lobby.

Now you have time to really take in your surroundings. The walls are black with white moldings at the floor and ceiling, and the hardwood floors are a warm walnut. Everything is dark but clean. Classic but clearly in line with current trends. On the wall behind the desk, there’s a gorgeous, white-lettered feature with shop name - Obsidian Stain Studio - that’s sleek and impressive. On the wall next to you, there are ten framed pieces of art on the wall in a mix of sizes, some of them hand-drawn artwork, and the rest photos of finished tattoos on skin.

You’re nervous but determined not to be, so you cross your legs and try to keep your anxious energy limited to just running your fingers back and forth over the edge of your phone. Looking at the different designs on the wall does serve to capture your attention, though, and quell your nerves slightly.

The man working reception returns and hands you the drink. “We should have you back there in a chair in ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Great,” you respond, and the nerves kick up a notch, but it’s with a surge of excitement.

This is happening.

You take a sip of your drink, grateful for something to occupy your hands. The cool liquid helps soothe your nerves a bit. As you wait, you observe a few other clients entering and leaving the shop checking in or paying as they leave. Some sport fresh bandages, while others are clearly here for consultations, clutching sketches or reference photos.

The buzzing of tattoo machines creates a constant backdrop of sound, occasionally punctuated by muffled laughter or conversation from the back rooms. The atmosphere is more relaxed than you expected, nineties music underscoring it all.

As you wait, a couple emerges from behind the partition separating the lobby from the work area. They're both grinning, the woman cradling her forearm gently. Her companion is animatedly discussing something with her, gesturing excitedly. You catch a glimpse of fresh ink on her skin as they pass – a vibrant butterfly with intricate, colorful wings.

The sight makes your heart race a little faster. Soon, that'll be you walking out with fresh art on your body. The thought is both thrilling and slightly terrifying.

But you won’t be walking out with a friend or partner.

Your gaze wanders back to the artwork on the walls. One piece in particular catches your eye – an intricate mandala design with flowing lines and delicate detail. You find yourself drawn to its symmetry and complexity.

"Which one’s got your attention?" a voice asks, startling you from your reverie. You look up to see someone you can only describe as a lion of a man standing before you. All of his attention is focused on you like you’re his next prey. He towers over you with a mane of golden brown hair that’s grown out to tuck nicely behind his ears and curls out at his neck. He’s got a broad chest and shoulders covered in a denim shirt with a few buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. You can see peeks of ink mingled with some chest hair as well as intricate designs over his forearms. His dark blue eyes are zeroed in on you in a way that both unsettles and steadies you at the same time.

You point at the mandala, and the man smiles. “That’s one of Steve’s. He says you’re here for your first tattoo.”

“He… wait, is that Steve?” You nod and glance over at the man at the front desk who’s now consulting with an older man and showing him a few designs.

“Yep, he owns the place and loves to work the front almost as much as the back with the rest of us. I’m Ari, by the way.” He puts his hand out, inviting you to shake hands.

You push up from the couch, stand, and offer your hand for the shake. It’s engulfed easily by his big, warm, calloused hand.

“I’m the one who’s going to make your first time special.”

Your heart stutters and your face flushes. He didn’t just… your mind races. Did he?

He chuckles and drops your hand quickly. “Follow me,” he says and turns and begins striding into the back.

You fall into step behind Ari, your eyes inevitably drawn to his broad shoulders and the confident swagger in his step. The back area is an open space divided into several stations with partial walls, each with its own tattoo chair and equipment, creating semi-private booths. Ari leads you to one in the back corner.

"Have a seat," he says, gesturing to the chair.

You perch on the edge, your nerves returning full force. The air is thick with the scent of antiseptic and ink.

He pulls up a rolling stool and sits, leaning in close. "So, tell me about this tattoo you want."

You explain your idea - a simple constellation of stars for your zodiac sign - watching as his blue eyes light up with interest. He nods along, occasionally asking questions or offering suggestions. His enthusiasm is infectious, and you find yourself relaxing despite the butterflies in your stomach.

"Alright, I think I know what you're after," Ari says, reaching for a sketchpad. "Let me rough out a design for you."

You watch, mesmerized, as Ari's hand moves swiftly across the paper. His brow furrows in concentration, and you find yourself studying the angles of his face, the way his beard accentuates his strong jaw. Within minutes, he presents you with a design that takes your breath away.

"What do you think?" he asks, a hint of pride in his voice.

The constellation is there, just as you imagined, but Ari has added subtle details that elevate it beyond your expectations. Delicate lines connect the stars, and a hint of shadowing gives the piece depth and movement.

"It's perfect," you breathe, unable to take your eyes off the sketch.

Ari grins, clearly pleased with your reaction. "Great. Now, let's talk placement."

You indicate the spot you've chosen - your inner wrist. Ari nods approvingly. "Good choice. Nice and visible, but easy to cover if needed. Mind if I take a look?"

You extend your arm, and Ari gently takes your wrist in his large hands. His touch is surprisingly soft as he examines the area, his fingers tracing the spot where your tattoo will soon be. You can't help but notice the contrast between his rough, inked skin and your own unmarked flesh.

"Nice canvas," he murmurs, more to himself than to you. "Skin's good here. This'll work well." He looks up, catching your eye. "Ready to get started?"

You nod, a mix of excitement and nervousness bubbling in your chest.

“You’re a sweet, innocent thing, aren’t you?”

You open your mouth but shut it again, unsure how to respond, and he brushes his thumb over the pulse on your inner wrist, and you think you see his eyes darken.

He releases your wrist and turns to prepare his equipment. You’re frozen in place, but luckily that’s fine as it’s not necessary for you to move. You watch as he efficiently sets up his station, laying out ink caps, adjusting his machine, and pulling on a fresh pair of black latex gloves. The buzz of the tattoo machine as he tests it sends a jolt of excitement and nervousness through you.

"Alright, I'm going to clean the area now," he says, swabbing your wrist.

His touch is clinical now, professional, as he prepares your skin. The cool antiseptic makes you shiver slightly.

"Cold?" he asks, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"A little," you admit.

"Don't worry, I’ll have you warm soon enough," he says with a wink that makes your cheeks flush.

Ari places the stencil on your wrist, pressing it gently to transfer the design. When he peels it away, you see the outline of your constellation on your skin for the first time. It sends a thrill through you - this is really happening.

"Make sure you’re happy with the placement before we start," he instructs. "This is your last chance to change your mind."

You focus to examine the design on your skin more closely, heart racing. It looks even better than you imagined.

"It's perfect," you say, unable to keep the excitement from your voice.

Ari grins. "Alright then, let's make it permanent. You ready?"

You nod, settling back into the chair and extending your arm.

Ari takes your arm gently, positioning it just so on the armrest. "Now, I need you to stay as still as possible," he says, his voice low and soothing. "It's going to hurt a bit, especially at first. But I promise, I'll be as gentle as I can."

The buzz of the machine fills your ears as Ari brings the needle to your skin. You hold your breath, bracing for the pain.

The first touch of the needle is a sharp, burning sensation that makes you wince. Ari pauses, his eyes flicking to your face. "You okay?"

You nod, determined. "I'm fine. Keep going."

“Move an inch, and you’ll be sorry.”

You open your mouth wordlessly again, and he laughs.

“Only joking. I know you’re going to be a good girl for me, aren’t you?”

You bite your lip and nod, something fluttering in your stomach, mixing wickedly with your nerves and the uncertainty around this man who skirts between being casual, soothing your nerves, concentration on his craft, and making these comments that insinuate and evoke wholly inappropriate thoughts.

He smiles, then concentrates back on your wrist and resumes his work. Gradually, the initial shock of pain fades into a more manageable discomfort. You find yourself relaxing, mesmerized by the steady movement of Ari's hand and the way the muscles in his biceps move and flex.

As Ari continues, your eyes shift to his face. His brow is furrowed in concentration, his blue eyes focused intently on your skin. There's something mesmerizing about watching him work, seeing the care and precision he puts into every line. The buzz of the machine becomes almost soothing, a constant backdrop to the occasional murmur of voices from other stations.

"So," Ari says after a while, breaking the silence without looking up from his work, "what made you decide to get your first tattoo today?"

You hesitate, unsure how much to share. "It's… kind of a long story."

Ari glances up, a small smile playing on his lips. "We've got time. I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you."

You take a deep breath, wincing slightly as the needle hits a sensitive spot. "I've been thinking about it for a while. But today… today felt like it was finally the day to take the leap."

"Spontaneous decision, huh? Those can be the best kind."

You nod, feeling the heat creep up your neck. "I guess I just wanted to do something for myself. Something permanent.”

Ari nods thoughtfully, his eyes still focused on your wrist. "Sometimes we need a physical reminder of the changes we're making inside," he says softly. "Something to look at and think, 'Yeah, I did that. I made that choice.'"

His words resonate with you, and you find yourself relaxing further. The pain has faded to a dull, almost pleasant sensation.

"So, what's your story?" you ask, curiosity getting the better of you. "How did you get into tattooing?"

Ari chuckles, pausing to wipe away excess ink. "Now that's definitely a long story. But the short version? I was a troubled kid, got into some bad stuff. Tattooing saved me, gave me a purpose."

He glances up, meeting your eyes. "There's something powerful about creating permanent art on someone's body.”

The words send another thrill through your body and you nod, trying to ignore the way your pulse quickens at his intense gaze. "I can see that," you manage to say.

Ari returns his attention to your wrist, a small smile playing on his lips. "It's intimate, you know? Creating something that becomes a part of someone forever."

The word 'intimate' hangs in the air between you, charged with unspoken tension. You're acutely aware of the warmth of his hand on your skin, the gentle pressure as he works.

“You’re the one Steve says I nearly got to mark for the first time,” a new voice startles you, and you jump slightly in your chair.

Ari tsks, but his left hand had been holding your arm down firmly.

The other man chuckles. “Sorry, sugar.”

He steps closer, coming into Ari’s booth. He looks to be slightly taller than Ari, and a shade leaner, but he’s still built with more muscles than the common man. His hair is dark, shorn close to his head, and a dark beard covers his angular jaw. Ice blue eyes pierce into you, and you fight hard to suppress an actual shiver running down your spine.

"Curtis," Ari says without looking up, his tone a mix of amusement and mild irritation. "Didn't anyone teach you it's rude to interrupt?"

Curtis leans against the partition, crossing his arms over his chest. The movement draws your attention to the intricate tattoos covering his forearms. He’s got more ink than Ari.

"Just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Steve said we had a noteworthy first-timer."

You feel your face flush, unsure whether to be flattered or embarrassed. Curtis's gaze is intense, almost predatory, as he looks you over.

"Well, now you've seen," Ari says, his voice tight. "Don't you have your own client to attend to?"

Curtis huffs. "Just finished up. Thought I'd come say hello." He turns his attention back to you. "How're you holding up, sweetheart? Ari treating you right?"

You nod, finding your voice. "He's been great," you manage to say, your voice a bit shaky. "It doesn't hurt as much as I expected."

Curtis grins, a glint in his eye. "Oh, Ari knows how to make it feel good, doesn't he?"

You feel the heat rise in your cheeks at the innuendo. Ari's hand tightens slightly on your wrist, and you see his jaw clench.

"Curtis," Ari says, his tone a clear warning.

Curtis holds up his hands. "Alright, alright. I can take a hint." He fixes his gaze once again on your face. "Maybe next time you'll let me be the one to mark you up. Lot more skin still to explore."

With that, he stalks away, leaving a charged atmosphere in his wake. You can feel the tension radiating off Ari as he resumes his work on your tattoo, his jaw clenched.

“Sorry about that,” Ari says after a moment, his voice low. "Curtis can be… intense."

You nod, still feeling flustered from the encounter. "It's okay," you manage to say, trying to calm your racing heart.

Ari looks up at you, his blue eyes searching your face. "You alright? Need a break?"

You shake your head. "No, I'm fine. Let's keep going."

He nods, returning his attention to your wrist. The buzz of the machine fills the silence between you once more. You try to focus on the sensation, the slight sting as the needle moves across your skin, rather than the lingering tension in the air.

After a few minutes, Ari speaks again. "You know, you don't have to let anyone pressure you into anything you're not comfortable with. Not here, not anywhere."

His words surprise you, and you meet his gaze. There's a protective glint in his eye, but he quickly returns his attention to your wrist. Ari's movements become more deliberate, almost possessive, as he continues working on your tattoo. The tension in the air is palpable, and you find yourself hyper-aware of every point of contact between your skin and his.

"Almost done," he murmurs after what feels like both an eternity and no time at all. "Just a few more touches."

You watch as he adds the final details, marveling at how the constellation seems to come to life on your skin. When he finally sits back, setting down the machine, you can't help but gasp.

"It's beautiful," you breathe.

Ari's eyes meet yours, a mixture of pride and something deeper in his gaze. “It suits you perfectly."

You feel a warmth spread through your chest at his words. Ari gently wipes away the last traces of excess ink, revealing the full beauty of your new tattoo. The stars seem to shimmer on your skin, the delicate lines connecting them creating a sense of movement and depth.

"Now, let's get this wrapped up and I'll go over the aftercare instructions with you," Ari says, reaching for a roll of clear film.

As he carefully covers your new tattoo, his fingers brush against your skin, sending little sparks of electricity through you. You can't help but notice how his large hands handle your wrist with such care and precision.

"There," he says, smoothing down the edges of the wrap. "All protected."

Ari walks you to the front, and your heart races when you see Steve and Curtis speaking quietly with their heads together. Ari clears his throat, and at the sight of you, Curtis nods, rakes his gaze over you once more. “Come back soon, sugar.”

You feel a shiver run down your spine at Curtis's words, but Ari's steady presence beside you helps ground you. Steve steps forward, a warm smile on his face.

"How did it go?" he asks, his eyes flickering to your wrapped wrist.

"It was amazing," you reply, unable to keep the excitement from your voice. "Ari did an incredible job." You extend your wrist, showing off your new tattoo.

Steve nods approvingly. "Beautiful work. Ari’s one of our best. Let's get you checked out."

As Steve begins to ring up your work, Ari leans against the counter beside you. His arm brushes against yours, and you're acutely aware of his proximity.

"Remember," he says softly, his voice low enough that only you can hear, "take care of it. It's a part of you now."

You nod, shyly meeting his intense gaze, looking up at him through your lashes. "I will," you promise, your voice barely above a whisper.

Ari's eyes soften, and he reaches out, his fingers ghosting over the edge of the wrap on your wrist. "Good girl," he murmurs, the words sending a shiver down your spine.

Steve clears his throat, breaking the moment. "All set," he says, handing you a receipt. "We hope to see you again soon."

You nod, suddenly feeling flustered. "Thank you," you manage to say, gathering your things.

As you turn to leave, Ari's hand catches your elbow gently. "Wait," he says, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a small business card and presses it into your hand. "In case you have any questions about the aftercare. Or anything else."

Your fingers brush as you take the card, and you feel a jolt of electricity at the contact. You look down at the card, noting the personal cell phone number scrawled on it. "Thank you."

Ari's blue eyes lock with yours, intense and filled with unspoken promise.

You barely seem to turn away, but somehow manage to break off from the eye contact, and quickly rush out of Obsidian Stain Studio.

You keep Ari’s business card, but as the weeks go by, you don’t use it.

After a couple of months, you move the card from the spot next to where you keep your keys where you see it every day, into the top drawer of your desk. Out of frequent sight, but not out of mind completely.

It’s a solid six months before you return to Obsidian Stain again, but ultimately you do. The bell jingles above your head as you step inside.

The tattoo on your wrist had healed beautifully, and you loved seeing it on your skin. You had decided fairly soon afterwards that you wanted another tattoo, but even after saving up for your next one, it had taken you longer to decide whether to return Obsidian or not, the experience with Ari and encounters with Curtis leaving you torn between terrified and desperately curious to go back.

Ultimately the allure was too strong to deny.

But, more logically, although finally going in to get your first tattoo had been on a whim, you had been very thorough in narrowing down and exploring your options for months before. You knew they were one of the best in your area, especially for the style you wanted, and the price point you knew you could afford while still ensuring quality.

Unwilling to make an appointment, though, you were going to gamble on a walk-in again.

No one was immediately at the front desk, but at the sound of the bell, Steve quickly appears. “Welcome back,” he said, a broad grin on his face.

“Walk-in?” you ask, and remind him of your name.

“Oh, I remember you.” Steve beckons you forward. “Let me see that wrist,” he says.

You offer your arm with pride, and he smiles warmly.

“Looks good. You hit us on a slow day, perfect for a walk in. I’ll get you booked in, and then I’ll take you right back.”

You feel a mix of excitement and nervousness as Steve leads you to the back. The familiar scent of antiseptic and ink fills your nostrils, bringing back memories of your last visit. Your eyes scan the room, half hoping and half dreading to see a certain tattooist.

"Curtis is free right now," Steve says, guiding you to a station. "He'll take good care of you."

Your heart skips a beat at the mention of Curtis's name. You remember his intense gaze, his bold words from your last visit. Part of you is disappointed it's not Ari, but another part is intrigued.

Curtis looks up as you approach, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Well, well. Look who's back," he says, his ice blue eyes locking onto yours.

You swallow hard, suddenly feeling very exposed under his gaze. "Hi," you manage evenly.

Curtis's eyes rake over you. "I was hoping you'd come back to us," he says, his voice low and smooth. "What can I do for you today, sugar?"

You begin to explain the design you have in mind - a delicate, line art floral piece. As you talk, Curtis listens intently, occasionally nodding or asking questions. His focus is entirely on you, making you feel both nervous and oddly thrilled.

“And where do you want it?” he finally asks.

You trace an area of your other arm - opposite of the one with your inked-up wrist — moving your fingers over the delicate skin between your wrist and up toward the crook of your elbow.

“Hmm,” he hums. “You sure?”

Your eyes shoot to his. “Yes?” an edge of hesitation now in your voice at his query.

He narrows his eyes slightly, then shakes his head. “No.”

“No?”

“No. A piece like this could work well there, but that’s not where you want me to put this.”

“It… isn’t?”

“No, it should go here,” he says, and he reaches out and brushes his fingers lightly over your ribs instead, causing you to shiver.

He gestures for you to take a seat in the chair. As you settle in, Curtis rolls his stool closer, leaning in. "Now, this is going to be a bit more intense than your other wrist. You sure you're ready for it?"

You nod, trying to project confidence despite the nervous flutter in your stomach. "I'm ready."

Curtis grins, a predatory glint in his eye. "That's what I want to hear from that pretty mouth. Now just sit tight and wait for me while I draw something up.”

Your heart races as you lean back in the chair, Curtis's words echoing in your mind, causing heat to pool in your core. You watch, mesmerized by the intensity of his focus. After a few minutes, he turns back to you, holding up the sketch.

"What do you think?" he asks.

Your breath catches in your throat. The design is beautiful - delicate flowers and vines intertwining in a way that would perfectly follow the curve of your ribs.

"It's perfect," you breathe, unable to take your eyes off the design.

Curtis smirks, clearly pleased with your reaction. "Alright then, let's get started. I'm going to need you to lift your shirt for me."

Your cheeks flush as you slowly raise the hem of your shirt, exposing your ribs. Curtis's eyes darken as they roam over your skin.

"Beautiful canvas," he murmurs, his voice low and husky.

You feel exposed, knowing your own soft belly and imperfections, but he looks at you in a way that has your head spinning, it’s a hunger that’s almost reverent.

“Better if you take your shirt off for me, sugar,” he says, his tone firm.

Head swirling, you don’t think to refuse, just do as you’re told. With trembling hands, you pull your shirt over your head, feeling incredibly vulnerable as you sit there in just your bra. Curtis's eyes roam over your exposed skin, a look of satisfaction on his face.

"That's better," he says, his voice low and approving. "Now, let's get you positioned just right."

His hands, surprisingly gentle, guide you to lie back and slightly to the side. You shiver as his fingers trail along your ribs, mapping out where the tattoo will go.

"Nervous?" he asks, a hint of amusement in his tone.

He already knows the answer, but you nod, not trusting your voice.

Curtis leans in close, his breath warm against your ear. "Don't worry, sugar. I'll take good care of you."

Your breath catches in your throat at his words. He chuckles softly, clearly enjoying the effect he has on you.

Curtis begins to clean and prepare your skin, his touch clinical yet somehow still intimate. You try to steady your breathing, hyperaware of every point of contact between his hands and your body.

"Now, this is going to hurt more than your wrist did," Curtis warns, his voice low. "But I know you can take it. You're tougher than you look, aren't you, sugar?"

You nod, steeling yourself for the pain. The buzz of the tattoo machine fills the air, and then you feel the first bite of the needle against your skin. You gasp, your body tensing.

"Breathe," Curtis instructs, his free hand coming to rest on your hip, grounding you. "That's it, nice and steady."

As he works, Curtis surprisingly stokes and then keeps up a steady stream of conversation. Mostly it’s inquiry after inquiry, forcing you to focus on finding words, but his deep voice also helps to distract you from the pain. He asks about your life, your interests. You find yourself opening up, sharing more than you intended about your life, your dreams, your fears. His voice continues to provide the counterpoint to the buzz of the tattoo machine.

"You're doing so well," Curtis murmurs, his eyes flicking up to meet yours before returning to his work. "Such a good girl for me."

The praise sends a shiver through you, and you bite your lip to stifle a small moan. Curtis notices, a knowing smirk playing on his lips.

"Sensitive, aren't you?" he says, his voice low. "I like that."

Your cheeks flush, but you can't deny the thrill his words send through you. The pain of the tattoo blends into the sensations he’s evoking as his hands move with practiced precision across your skin.

"So, sugar, what made you come back for more ink?" he asks, his eyes flicking up to meet yours before returning to his work.

You take a shaky breath before answering. "I loved how the first one turned out. And… I guess I wanted to experience it again."

Curtis chuckles, darkly. "Addictive, isn't it? The pain, the permanence... the intimacy of it all."

His words make your heart race, and you're acutely aware of how close he is, how vulnerable you are beneath his hands.

"Speaking of your first time," Curtis continues, the steadying hand that had been at your waist ghosting just a little lower, "Ari seemed quite taken with you. Did you ever give him a call?"

The question catches you off guard, and you feel a flush creep up your neck. "No, I… I didn't," you admit softly.

Curtis's hand stills for a moment, and he looks up at you, his ice blue eyes intense. "No? Now that's interesting. Why not, sugar?"

You swallow hard, unsure how to answer, yet unable to stop the words from flowing. "I... I guess I was nervous," you finally say.

A slow smile spreads across Curtis's face. "Nervous? Of Ari? Or of what you felt?”

Your cheeks flush at his perceptiveness. "Both, maybe," you whisper.

“Or maybe you were waiting for something else?" His hand resumes its work, but the touch his anchor hand seems more deliberate now, each movement charged with unspoken intent.

"I don't know what you mean.”

Curtis chuckles, a low, dark sound that sends shivers down your spine. "I think you do, sugar. I think you knew exactly what you were doing when you came back here today."

His words hang in the air between you, charged with tension. You can't bring yourself to deny it, can't even find your voice to respond. Curtis seems to take your silence as confirmation.

"That's what I thought," he murmurs, his eyes glinting with satisfaction. "You're full of surprises, aren't you?"

The buzz of the tattoo machine fills the silence as Curtis returns his focus to your ribs. You try to steady your breathing, acutely aware of every point of contact between his skin and yours. The pain of the tattoo blends with the heat pooling in your core, creating a heady mix of sensations.

"Tattoo nearly done," Curtis says after what feels like hours.

You let out a shaky breath, a mix of relief and disappointment washing over you. The intense experience is coming to an end, but part you that scares you doesn't want it to.

"Just a few more touches," Curtis murmurs, his eyes focused intently on your skin, and the buzz of the machine continues for a few more minutes.

"There we go," Curtis murmurs. He wipes away the excess ink, then sits back to admire his work. His eyes roam over your exposed skin, a mixture of professional pride and something darker in his gaze. "Want to take a look?"

You nod, not trusting your voice. Curtis helps you sit up, steadying you with a hand on your lower back as you move to face the mirror. Your breath catches in your throat as you see the intricate design now adorning your ribs. The delicate flowers and vines seem to bloom across your skin, following the curves of your body perfectly.

"It's perfect," you whisper, unable to take your eyes off the mirror.

Curtis's smile widens, and his eyes darken. "Of course it is. I knew exactly what you needed."

His words send another shiver through you, but then suddenly you feel the heat of him too close, and he’s pressed right up against your back, planting his large hands on your hips and caging you in.

"You're trembling," Curtis murmurs, his breath hot against your ear. His hands tighten on your hips, holding you steady against him. "Are you scared, sugar?"

You can't find your voice to answer, your heart pounding in your chest. You're acutely aware of every point of contact between your bodies - his broad chest against your back, his strong hands on your hips, the heat of him seeping through your skin.

"Or maybe," he continues, his voice low and dark, "you're excited."

One of his hands slides up your side, carefully avoiding the fresh tattoo, until it comes to rest just below your breast. Your breath hitches, and you see your pupils dilate in the mirror's reflection.

"That's what I thought," Curtis says, satisfaction clear in his tone. "You've been thinking about this, haven't you? Since the moment you walked in.”

You can feel the heat radiating from his body, smell the faint scent of ink and something uniquely him. Your heart races, a mix of excitement and nervousness coursing through you.

"Tell me, sugar," Curtis murmurs, his lips brushing against your ear. "Did you come back here hoping to see Ari? Or were you hoping it would be me?"

You swallow hard, your mind spinning. "I… I don't know," you manage to whisper.

Curtis chuckles, the sound low and dark. "I think you do know. I think you've been thinking about this for months." His hands slide up and down your sides, careful to avoid the fresh tattoo. "Thinking about what it would be like if you came back. If you let yourself give in."

Your breath hitches. “No.”

“No?” he challenges. His right hand, still gloved, audaciously slips past your waistband and down the front of your panties to cup your pussy. He laughs softly, discovering a growing wetness there. “Yes.”

You gasp as Curtis's hand begins to stroke your most intimate area, your body betraying you with its response. Your mind races, torn between the thrill of his touch and the shock at how quickly things have escalated.

"Wait," you manage to breathe out, your voice shaky. "We shouldn't…"

Curtis pauses, his hand stilling but not withdrawing. "Why not?" he murmurs, his breath hot against your ear. "Your body is telling me a different story, sugar."

You're acutely aware of how exposed you are, standing there in just your bra with Curtis pressed against your back, his hand between your legs. The mirror reflects your flushed face and wide eyes, Curtis's intense gaze locked on you.

"Someone could walk in," you whisper, a weak protest even to your own ears.

Curtis chuckles darkly. "They could.”

Your mind is spinning, caught between the intense sensations and the voice in your head screaming that this is wrong, that you shouldn't be doing this here, now, with him. But your body betrays you, responding eagerly to his touch.

"Curtis," you manage to whisper, your voice shaky, and tears springing up in your eyes. "We can’t—"

"Shh," he soothes, his free hand coming up to gently grip your throat. Not choking, just holding. "Don't overthink it, sugar. Just feel."

His fingers continue their exploration, finding your clit and circling it slowly. You bite back a moan, plant your hands on the mirror, and your hips rock back against him.

“Fuck, knew you wanted this,” he speaks directly into your ear.

You whimper and shake your head, but then his hand moves up to cover your mouth. “Gotta keep more quiet than that unless you want someone else to join us, sugar.”

Your eyes desperately seek his in the mirror, fear flashing in them, and the tears begin to spill over. There’s a predatory glint in his icy blue gaze.

His fingers continue their skilled ministrations, drawing forth sensations you've never experienced before. Your body betrays you, responding eagerly to his touch despite your mind's protests. You're caught in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions - fear, excitement, shame, and an overwhelming, undeniable pleasure.

"Look at yourself," Curtis commands softly, his eyes never leaving yours in the mirror. "See how beautiful you are like this."

You force yourself to look, to really see yourself - flushed cheeks, wide eyes, chest heaving with each ragged breath. Curtis behind you, his large frame dwarfing yours, his hand between your legs, the other still gently but firmly covering your mouth.

Curtis's eyes meet yours in the mirror, his gaze intense and predatory. The fear in your eyes seems to excite him further, his grip on you tightening slightly.

"Don't worry, sugar," he murmurs, his voice low and husky. “I knew all those pretty tears were just for show, you want this just as badly as I do, and I've got you."

His words send a shiver down your spine, a mix of fear and arousal coursing through you. You're acutely aware of how vulnerable you are, how easily he could overpower you if he wanted to. And yet, there's a part of you that thrills at the danger, at the forbidden nature of what's happening.

Curtis's fingers continue their skilled exploration, drawing involuntary gasps and moans from you that are muffled by his hand. Each deliberate movement sends waves of sensation coursing through your body, igniting a fire that you never expected to feel. Your body continues to betray you, responding to his touch despite your mind's protests, creating a tumultuous conflict within you. The thrill of the moment is undeniable, yet a flicker of apprehension lingers in the background, whispering the dangers of being caught in such an intimate entanglement, making it impossible to pull away.

"Damn, that’s a pretty sight,” a familiar voice jolts you nearly out of your skin, and you whip your head around to see Ari looming in the entry.

Curtis stops only for a moment and looks over his shoulder at the other man. "Didn't anyone teach you it's rude to interrupt?"

Ari shrugs, all nonchalance, and palms the large bulge pressing at the front of his jeans.

Your heart races, caught between exhilaration and apprehension. The sight of Ari standing there, a blend of curiosity, mischief, and lust in his eyes, adds an element of unpredictability that excites and terrifies you.

Curtis grunts, then says, “I’m not stopping, but I’ll share.”

Your jaw would have dropped to the floor in that moment had Curtis’s hand not been holding it in place, securing your response and anchoring you to the present. The idea of a threesome, tantalizing yet fraught with risk, swirls in your mind. How did this escalate so quickly? The thought of being discovered sends a shiver down your spine, but the allure of the forbidden is intoxicating, pulling you deeper into the moment.

You sob, overwhelmed and afraid, but it’s muffled as Curtis turns your body around with him, his grip firm yet reassuring His fingers are still moving, relentless and sure, and you can hardly focus on anything else. Your mind races through the possibilities, the dangerous thrill of being discovered adding an exhilarating layer to the encounter. Would Ari join in, or would he simply stand by and watch, adding to the intensity of the moment? The idea of indulging in such a forbidden experience fills you with a mix of dread and excitement, as if you’re teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to leap into the unknown.

Ari pulls a privacy curtain you had failed to notice across the opening to the booth before taking the few short steps to close the distance between you. This sudden shield from prying eyes heightens the anticipation, transforming the atmosphere into one charged with desire and unspoken possibilities. Ari traces the back of his forefinger down the column of your throat, down your sternum, between your breasts, and then circles around the expanse of your new tattoo, eyes roaming over the beautiful design.

Not to be forgotten, Curtis tweaks your clit, cracking the pleasure that had been mounting like a whip, demanding an orgasm from your body, and you tremble in his arms as you cling to him. Each flick of his fingers sends shivers through you, igniting a fiery response that leaves you gasping for more.

“Knew you were such a good girl,” Ari praises, and your chest surges from his praise, his low, sultry voice invading your mind. Then, he unzips his jeans, the sound echoing in the booth like a promise yet to be fulfilled. He goes to sit on the black leather chair, pushing his pants and boxer briefs down around his ankles, revealing the enticing sight of his big, throbbing cock.

Curtis lifts you with ease and places you in Ari's lap. The transition is seamless, and you find yourself enveloped in the warmth of Ari's embrace. His hands instinctively find their way to your hips, grounding you as you settle in. With Curtis standing close, the dynamic continues to shift and evolve. You can feel the heat radiating from both men, each one eager to exact pleasure, and you hope the fire doesn’t consume you completely.

“Take off your bra,” Ari directs you.

Your eyes widen over his immediate demands, but, nervous as you still are, you don’t hesitate to do as he says. His hands on your hips hold you steady while you reach around to unclasp, and then you let it drop and fall away, biting your lip. Ari groans appreciatively, and grinds your core against his cock. You let out a shuddering breath at the friction, but it’s a singular sensation for only a moment, because then Ari dips his head and takes one of your breasts into his hot, wet mouth, and you gasp. Your fingers tangle immediately into his hair, looking for some kind of anchor.

Vaguely you hear the rustle of fabric from Curtis close behind you, and then you feel the heat of his now naked chest press against your back. He nips lightly at your neck, but then pulls back slightly. He rucks your loose skirt up over your hips, but then he rips the fabric of your panties right off, and you yelp in surprise.

Ari’s quick to muffle your sound by shifting his lips from your breast to your mouth, but his lips and tongue are no less eager, and the kiss is delicious and demanding, and you’re easily almost completely lost in him again. But Curtis has also discarded his gloves, and now his warm, calloused hands move slowly up your thighs before squeezing your hips, then start to knead the flesh of your round ass.

Curtis places a hand between your shoulders and pushes you forward, coaxing you against Ari’s chest. Ari takes the hint and leans back in the reclined chair, pulling you with him. This exposes your most intimate parts to Curtis, and he spreads you open, then presses his tongue flat against your cunt, eliciting a moan that, luckily, is swallowed up by Ari, who’s still eagerly kissing you, and now kneading your breasts in his large hands. Curtis continues to lick and lap at your cunt, but then his tongue begins to move up, and then suddenly he’s tonguing the tight rosebud of your ass, and you whimper and freeze.

Ari stops when you stop, pulling away to look at your face and assess the situation.

Curtis teases you with his tongue for another moment before pausing to pull away as well.

“Not a virgin,” he guesses, “but never had anyone play with your ass, have you, sugar?”

You close your eyes and try to take a steadying breath, your, “no,” soft and barely audible.

“Do you want him to stop?” Ari asks, and you can feel him studying your face.

Your mind is racing, but you remain frozen, unsure of what to say.

Ari brings one hand up to stroke your cheek. You lean into his touch and open your eyes again, but still don’t speak.

“Keep going,” he says to Curtis, and Curtis does.

While Curtis works your tightest hole with his tongue, still splaying your cheeks open, Ari reaches down to slip two fingers into your dripping cunt, and you eagerly rock your hips for more. Ari smiles, then brings you down with his other hand to kiss you again.

When you’re positively humping his hand, Ari pulls back from kissing you again with a darker laugh than you expected, but you’re so far gone between them, you think of stopping or slowing at all now.

“Open your eyes,” he commands.

But it doesn’t register.

He withdraws your fingers and slaps your pussy, making you gasp and groan, and your eyes whip open.

His dark blue irises are barely visible, pupils blown wide with lust, and it just cause another surge of electricity to run through you to your core.

“Do you know how long I’ve waited for this?”

And then it’s his cock nudging at your entrance.

“Ari,” you groan.

“Since that first fucking minute I saw you in the lobby,” he says. He taps his cock aggressively against your swollen clit, and you keen for him. “Knew you were an innocent little thing, and I wanted to absolutely ruin you.”

You bite your lip, unable to look away from him, and think of that day, too.

“We both wanted to ruin you,” Curtis adds. And his finger takes over where his tongue had been, working gently but insistently into your ass.

You moan softly, but the two men hear it and exchange a glance over your shoulder. Ari looks pleased.

“I didn’t touch you that day, only teased you, enticed you. I knew you’d be back,” he growls. “Shame I didn’t have you on my chair again, but that wasn’t going to stop me.”

He pushes your lips back to his for another devouring kiss, but it’s brief.

“You’re desperate to be filled up, aren’t you?” he asks.

Closing your eyes again, you whimper and drop your forehead to his, but your answer is undeniable. “Yes.”

“You didn’t have to wait this long, but we won’t punish you for that. We’re patient men.”

“It only gave us more time to think of all the ways we’ll take you apart, sugar,” Curtis murmurs against your shoulder, then presses open-mouthed kisses against your hot skin there.

And then Ari is slipping his cock inside of your cunt, slow, insistent, and doesn’t stop until he’s into the hilt, pushing all the air out of your lungs. He’s so big it feels like he’s everywhere, and it takes you concentrating on making your lungs work again to suck in deep breaths, impossibly full of him.

But as full as you feel, it wasn’t everything. Because while Ari was slipping his cock inside you, Curtis had removed his fingers, and now his thick cock was splitting you open and finding room in a hole that had never been filled before, and it was unfamiliar pain, but already pressing into impossible pleasure, and really, you had to press your palms to the leather on either side of Ari’s head and focus on breathing and only breathing if you were going to survive this.

And then they both began to move.

In and out and in and out and inandout.

And you were sure you were going to black out or bliss out from how full you were and all the sensations surging through your body and –

read the next part: TAKING YOU HOME

I make no apologies for this. Send me your medical bills as needed.

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purinfelix · 3 months ago

Text

just for the weekend ᯓᡣ𐭩.ᐟ - franco colapinto

summary: your teammate has an absolutely ridiculous plan to bring your team back from the dead - but it might be just crazy enough to work w/c: 5.5k + some smau style tweets warnings: a little angst, some uncomfortable touching/kissing since it's fake dating (not too bad but better safe than sorry), some miscommunication - just two idiots in love i fear

a/n: WOW it's finally here, fake dating is literally a guilty pleasure trope for me so i hope yall enjoy this HAHA - also sorry to Williams fans bc there's a lot of slander in this but trust its all for the plot <333 (also holy shit this is the longest fic I've ever written WOW)

"You're actually insane."

"Oh c'mon, at least think about it for a minute, it's perfect!"

You fold your arms over your chest and try your best to look uninterested in whatever it is your teammate has to say. The two of you had been racing together for a little over half a year now, and you had witnessed him make (at least in your opinion) a grand fool of himself. Flirting with interviewers, winking at cameras, having absolutely no filter during press conferences - but this, this was by far the craziest thing you had heard come out of his mouth.

"A fake relationship?"

"Ah ah ah," he tuts, jutting a finger in your face, "a media relationship, one that will draw the attention away from how crap we're doing and onto the personalities of the team. Think about it, McLaren has whatever Oscar and Lando have got going on and Ferrari basically has two models for drivers. We need something to put us on the map, to make people care about us!"

You pause, and for a minute you seriously consider his outrageous proposition - he isn't completely wrong. For the two of you, making it into the points range was a rare occurrence, and even though the team always made sure to celebrate it like a podium there was something that stung about constantly being at the bottom.

"Do you realise how much trouble we could get into?"

"Ah," he sighs, and it's starting to annoy you how lightly he's talking about this, "ever the pragmatist."

"Well one of us has to be if the other's going to keep saying stupid shit," you huff before turning around and beelining out of his driver's room.

Seriously, a fake relationship? Had he lost his mind? Maybe if he focused more on his racing you wouldn't be constantly outperforming him.

"At least think about it, okay?" You hear him call out from behind you, and consider yourself lucky to be facing the other way so that he doesn't catch your obnoxious eye roll. Surely he had to be kidding because there was no way you were going to devote any amount of time to this ridiculous thought.

God fucking damnit.

It was frustratingly confusing, the kind of power Franco had. You had witnessed it first hand with how smoothly he spoke to anyone and managed to get his way almost instantly - but this was your first time experiencing it first-hand. It was another weekend, another country, another race, but the only thing you could think of was his stupid consideration - which, with each passing moment, seemed increasingly genius.

You had almost a year of experience with the team over your teammate, and with that, your fair share of embarrassment and disappointment. Sure, his idea was a little out there but you were close to being at your wits end and if nothing else, you hoped this would at least be a little fun. Plus you were pretty sure at this point if you didn't act on this thought soon, it would start interfering with your performance.

"Fine," you said a little breathlessly as you burst into his driver's room ahead of a race.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, looking at you with a shocked look, "whatever happened to knocking? I could've been naked in here!"

You roll your eyes before continuing, "You still up to the ..." You pause, thinking of how best to word it, "Fake relationship thing?"

His eyes light up immediately, "Ah, I knew you'd come around eventually."

Letting out a soft huff, just to let him know that you still aren't fully convinced this will work, you sit down on his couch. "I think we should lay down some ground rules first."

"Yes ma'am." He nods, straightening up and forcing a serious expression you can only assume is mocking yours.

"Firstly, no kissing."

"Understood."

"Actually no public affection at all, holding hands, hugging, nothing."

"Oh sure and how exactly are we going to convince people then?"

You pause, thinking for a little, "Okay maybe hand-holding and hugs are fine, but you better not push it - that goes for the pet names as well." He nods with a satisfied smile.

"And no one other than us two can know this is fake, alright? Otherwise, it'll spoil the plan."

"Trust me, I don't need anyone knowing I'm going along with something as ridiculous as this. It'll be our little secret."

"Our little secret," he repeats with a hum, a sly sort of smile spreading across his face as he gets up from his spot. "See you after the race, my love."

You sighed in exasperation, tossing your phone to the side of the couch in your driver's room where it fell with a light thud. You had about a thousand other things to be worrying about - your pretty disappointing result in qualifying for one - but for some reason, the main thing on your mind was your 'relationship' with Franco. Somehow, it had proved even more intense than you had expected, which planted a seed of worry in your mind as you realised how hard this was actually going to be to pull off. Since his not-so-subtle announcement to a hoard of hungry press members at last week's race, the media had managed up a flurry about the two of you.

There were supportive fans who liked you both enough not to see any problem with two teammates dating, as well as others who were more sceptical about how it might impact your performance. However, what really seemed to get to you were those who doubted you more than the relationship.

Your social media had been bombarded with comments and theories about the reason behind your relationship, doubting your place on the grid, and calling you names that - after shedding the status of 'first girl rookie', you thought you had left behind. Regardless, you feel a little stupid for being so unprepared for all this - not just the tweets but the harsh articles, the questions during press interviews and even shouting fans. Maybe if you had done a little more thinking about it first, you would've realised this was a stupid idea that should've been left at just that.

Throwing your head back you let out an exasperated sigh, trying to clear your head so that you could move on and focus on the race that was happening tomorrow. The last thing you wanted was for this plan to start impacting your driving. But Franco always seemed to have the worst timing - or best, depending on who you asked.

"Hello?" A couple quick knocks alert you of his presence before he cracks the door just wide enough to peek in. "There's my beautiful girlfriend." The way the pet names and affection seem to come to him so easily makes you simultaneously impressed and concerned, unsure of whether it's an indication of his great acting or flirting skills.

"What do you want?" You try to make it as obvious as you can that you're not in the mood, and he realises this right away.

"Oh, nothing, I just wanted to ask if you were free after this."

"You know I'm not really a huge fan of the big team dinners, especially not when we have a race tomorrow."

"Oh it's not like that, I was just going to go check out a restaurant near our hotel and wondered if you wanted to join me."

When you finally speak it's just above a whisper, "Is this a part of the fake dating thing?"

He laughs softly, his ability to find everything entertaining has always amazed you. "If you want to, it can be. If that gives you a reason to come hang out with me, though if you don't it's totally fine."

"No, I'll come, not like I've got anything better to do." You hate how every word you've said so far has sounded so pathetic.

"Great, I'll meet you by the paddock entry in ten?"

"See you then."

The street lights were dim, just bright enough to illuminate the street the two of you were walking down. The night was cool and still, and there were barely any people out other than you. You weren't sure why, but you had ended up telling Franco a lot more than you had expected. Maybe it was the extremely fancy restaurant you had initially gone to or the local one the two of you agreed to ditch it for instead, or maybe it was just the freeing feeling of being in another country.

The two of you had talked before, of course - as teammates it was difficult to avoid. But beyond the casual small talk, discussions about strategies or banter during challenges your relationship never extended beyond casual co-existence. It was one of the reasons you were glad your higher-ups had never tried to force the two of you into a professional friendship. There was something about Franco, his ability to strike up a conversation and maintain it even when the topic clearly strayed far beyond his interests, that made him so likeable, so easy to get along with. And the support he got from fans and the media reflected this well. You just never felt like there was any room for you in that equation.

But here, away from the cameras and shedding the roles of drivers, the two of you became normal people. You spoke, you laughed, you vented to him everything that worried you about your 'relationship' and he listened throughout all of it - all the while the two of you shared the biggest, best, pizza you had ever had.

"I have to say, I don't know if our engineers will appreciate the extra weight I've just put on," he jokes, breaking the comfortable silence that had been lingering around you two as you walked.

"Me neither, they might have to roll me into the car at this rate."

"You know, I think this is the first time the two of us have hung out, just us two."

You think for a little before answering, "You're right."

"Do you think there's a reason for that?"

"You mean besides us both being extremely busy people and already seeing each other pretty often? Not really, no."

"Good point, though with our little plan, we're definitely going to be seeing each other a lot more."

There's a beat of silence. "This is nice though, right?" He asks, and his voice is so tentative you almost find it endearing.

"It is nice, this was fun." You try not to think too much about the fact the two of you could be mistaken by any passer-by as a couple of lovebirds on a first date - or that fact that even to those who knew you, you were.

"I appreciate you telling me all that stuff, you know, about what people are saying about you."

"Oh, if anything I should be thanking you for listening to me vent about it."

"It is serious though, I'm so stupid for not even thinking about what you'd have to deal with."

"Well I don't think either of us gave it enough thought but," you pause and look up at him, "we're too far in to back out now."

He shoots you a comforting smile, one that shows how reassured he feels that you seem to finally be coming around to his idea. That is, at least, before his face morphs into one of discomfort.

"God, I'm so full."

"We're almost back at the hotel now, let's just sleep and then we can wake up early tomorrow morning to-"

"Wait, is that ice cream?" Franco interrupts you to point out a street vendor who's about to pack up for the night, and before you know it he's running up to the man eagerly. You can only follow suit with a sigh, knowing full well you wouldn't mind some dessert either.

"You two are lucky, you'll be my last customers for the night," the moustachioed owner of the cart says with a warm smile.

"Thanks," you reply kindly, before turning to Franco, "what flavour do you think you'll get."

"Hm, not sure, maybe chocolate?"

"Wow, boring."

He scoffs, "Oh yeah? And what exotic flavour are you going to get then?"

"Mint choc," you smile, but your face drops once you see your teammate's disgusted expression.

"You've got to be kidding me, that's like the worst choice."

You feign offence, "How dare you insult the best ice cream flavour of all time?"

"Ah, you two are quite the couple," the man laughs and you watch as Franco's eyes widen in embarrassment.

"Oh we're not-"

"Thank you," it's your turn to interrupt him, turning to the man with a smile. "One chocolate and one mint choc chip please."

You go to reach for your wallet to pay but you feel a hand on yours, stopping you.

"No, it's okay, I got this."

"Wh- Franco c'mon you know full well both of us could afford about a thousand of these ice cream cones don't be ridiculous."

"I know," he smiles and even though he's trying to be serious you know he's also trying not to laugh, "but I just figured you know, I'm the one who dragged you out here and like, got you into this whole fake dating mess."

You furrow your brows, a little confused at what exactly he's getting at.

"I guess I just want to say thank you, you know?"

"Alright, alright," you laugh softly, watching as he pays and takes both of the cones, handing you yours. Once you grab yours, you instinctively loop your arm around his, pulling him close and resting your head against his shoulder. The ice cream man laughs endearingly at the two of you.

"You're the best boyfriend ever!" you say in as high and cute a voice you can manage, cringing a little but determined to keep up the bit - you don't even bother to think about how fast you can feel Franco's heart race when you do.

Last night was really nice. You're sitting next to your race engineer, nodding along as she points to various multi-coloured dots and lines on the screen. You hear yourself agreeing with a couple quick "mhms", "of course" and "yep"s even though you can barely hear what she's saying. You're mere minutes away from getting in your car for a race, getting briefed on your strategy, and the only thing you can think of is the 'date' you had with Franco last night - if you can even call it that.

You had thought that getting everything off your chest, the hate comments, the doubt you had, would help you feel better and relieve any worries you had. And it did, at least until you got back to your hotel room alone and caught yourself smiling at the thought of seeing your teammate again the next day. How, even as you washed up and got ready for bed, you found yourself thinking - pizza, ice cream, walking at night together, isn't that something a real couple would do?

"Are you listening to me?" your race engineer's voice cuts through the haze of your thoughts, causing you to straighten up immediately.

"Yes! Sorry," you mumble, but just at that moment, you see him walk into the garage, greeting a couple of the mechanics warmly. Before you realise it, he's beelining straight for you, his arm coming around your waist as he leans in close to your ear.

"There's a ton of cameras, I just wanted to be believable," he whispers, and when he pulls back you can see the smile on his face. You nod curtly, fully aware of how red your face feels over such a small interaction as he waltzes away.

"Okay, so as I was saying," your race engineer pipes up again, though you couldn't be paying her less of your attention - watching as your 'boyfriend' walks off, his brown hair illuminating in the afternoon light. For a fake relationship, the quickening pace of your heart felt far too real.

"Well you two have been teammates since the beginning of this year, can you tell us a little about when you realised you might be more?"

Your struggle was never-ending - or at least, that's what it felt like, finding yourself at the centre of an impromptu interview with Franco. Around you, the other drivers were getting questions about their place in their teams, how they felt about their current strategy and about their racing futures. And there the two of you were, getting thrown question after question about your 'relationship'.

"Well," you begin, before being saved by your teammate. You had to give it to him - he was great at making stuff up on the spot.

"Well, I think it was somewhere around a month after I first joined the team, and met her. It was just something about her, she's sort of electric in this almost untouchable way, you know?"

You try not to look too awkward standing next to him as he talks, feigning your best-interested smile - though a part of you is extremely intrigued by this fake story he's creating.

"At first I thought I just wanted to be like her, her passion and talent were just so respectable, but the more time I spent with her the more I realised it was something completely different."

He turns to look at you, his arm wrapping around your waist and pulling you close to him. Your expression falters a little as you're caught off guard by the sudden contact and as you turn away from the journalists and towards him, your eyes widen in shock at the sight of his pursed lips nearing yours. Before you realise it, his lips are against yours and you're pulling away as quickly as possible, face bright red. You're just barely aware of the thousands of flashing camera lights as you turn to quickly excuse yourself.

"Thank you all for coming, it was nice talking to you but, uhm, I have to go!" You hurriedly blurt out before slipping out of Franco's grip and darting off to your driver's room.

You hear his footsteps following closely behind you, as well as the sound of him calling out your name. When you near the door of your room, you turn around and grab his wrist to yank him in before you shut the door.

"What the hell was that?" is all you can muster out, "I thought we agreed no kissing?"

"Look, I can explain!"

You cross your arms with a huff, looking at him expectedly.

"I was just going to peck you quickly on the cheek, you know because we were getting all romantic and I wanted it to be believable! B-but then you turned, and then we," he's struggling not to ramble and his quickly moving hands do little to help. That's when you also realise his face is bright red as well, and he doesn't seem any less flustered by it than you do. "I'm really, really sorry I really shouldn't have done that."

You'd be lying if you said his explanation didn't make you feel any better. You're not actually upset about the kiss itself though, in fact, it's the opposite - actually, the grudge you're holding is doing little to help the internal struggle going on in your head. The kiss didn't make you angry, but the realisation that you wanted it to be real, did.

You sigh, rubbing your temples as you slump down in the nearest chair. Franco does the same on the adjacent couch, though his gaze stays carefully on you, almost afraid of what you might say next.

"It's fine, I think we just need to coordinate our PDA a little better then."

"Yes, of course," he nods quickly.

There's a beat of silence. "You're really good at acting though."

"What?"

"That whole story you made up about how you fell in love with me, it was really believable." You laugh lightheartedly trying to lighten the situation and alleviate the awkwardness that's settled between you two.

"Well it's pretty easy, I didn't need to make up much of it," his eyes catch yours and his gaze is soft when he smiles at you.

"What?" you're confused.

"Never mind," he scoffs lightly, his gaze dropping to the floor as he rubs the back of his neck. He looks almost disappointed at something, though you can't realise what. "Well, I'll leave you alone now. I really am sorry about what happened before." You watch as he pushes himself up from the couch, his head hanging guiltily - looking almost like a scolded puppy.

"It's fine Franco, really, please don't feel too bad about it." He nods thankfully before slipping out the door, leaving you alone.

Being a driver, hotel rooms had come to be a companion you knew far too familiarly. Their high ceilings, plush sterile white bedsheets, the empty bathroom - almost everything about them felt a sign of loneliness, of temporality, a house that never felt like home. Even though you knew how ridiculous it would be to complain about something that others would see as a privilege, it was hard to deny the isolation you felt whenever in a new country, away from most of your family or friends.

Maybe that's why you had been so eager to latch onto Franco's idea - it made sense, he had become the person you spent the most time with so why not give yourself some ridiculous reason to be around him even more? However somewhere along the way you stopped needing the reason of fake dating, somewhere in between hushed conversations, planned posts and candid photos - and instead found yourself genuinely enjoying his company. It was a little strange and sometimes acted as a sour reminder of how lonely you'd become but more than anything it felt like a blessing in disguise.

You were reminded of this fact as you lay, wrapped in a plush white hotel robe, across your messy bedsheets - laughing to yourself at the tweets your boyfriend had sent you. They were all about you, or the two of you, of course. Comments on the tiniest things, the way the two of you looked at each other, the way Franco held your hand, the way you worried about him.

"I feel a little bad, they're all so gullible," you typed quickly.

"Oh, so now you feel bad?" His response was almost instant.

"Don't you?"

"It's fun, isn't it? All this playing pretend."

Right, pretend. You rolled onto your back with a deep sigh, staring up at the tall hotel ceiling. All of this was just so confusing - as if figuring out how you felt about someone wasn't difficult enough, the two of you had complicated it by tricking the entire world into thinking you were in love. Whether you truly liked him or not, the idea was doomed for failure - and the more you thought about it, the more it seemed like the former.

"You're right," you typed back, watching intently as the three tiny dots appeared, disappeared then reappeared. What could he be saying that would need so much thinking?

"Can we talk tomorrow, after the race?"

You felt your stomach drop, had he finally caught on to how obvious you were being about how you truly felt, and decided that actually it might be better to just drop this whole act and go on as just teammates? With trembling hands, you typed back.

"Sure, what about?"

"I'll tell you then, for now, we should sleep."

"Goodnight Franco."

"Goodnight mi amor." You laughed softly to yourself at the nickname he had given you, though a small part of you took it as salt to the wound - almost as if he was dangling the possibility of something that could never happen right in front of your desperate little face.

However, not like you had a choice - all you could do now was get ready for bed and brace yourself for whatever tomorrow brought.

You couldn't believe it. The sounds of celebration erupted around you, but you sat completely still in your car, silent, attempting to process what had just happened. Your first win, and, your first double podium, with Franco. Your head was spinning as the never-ending stream of thoughts raced through your mind. Suddenly, you heard a voice coming from above your car's halo, muffled by your helmet. You flick the visor up, lifting your head as highly as you could - locking eyes with your teammate.

"We did it! Oh my god!" The excitement on his face is enough to send a slight surge of energy through you as he offers you his hand, helping you out of the car. When you do though, you stumble a little - the nerves are almost too much for you.

"Woah, you alright?" Even through the fog clouding your mind you can make out the concern in Franco's voice and feel his arms steadying you.

"Yeah, just-" you mumble, gesturing to your helmet and making weak attempts to undo the clasps underneath it. It's almost suffocating you, and the chaos going on around you isn't helping the pounding headache.

"Oh, let me," he reacts immediately, dropping his own helmet and bringing his hands below your chin to swiftly undo the clasps and pull the helmet off of you. You take a deep breath of air as you pull off your fireproof mask, though it sounds more like a desperate gasp.

Around you, the crowds roar with excitement, both your team and others as they make attempts to gesture at the two of you to join them. Your head spins though, and you wobble backwards into Franco.

"It's too loud," is all you can stutter out, though he understands you almost immediately, a strong hand gripping your wrist and pulling you away from the noise and somewhere quieter. You're not entirely sure where he's taking you but at that moment you feel as though you'd follow him just about anywhere.

Luckily though, when your eyes refocus you're in his driver's room, and even though outside you can hear the cheers continuing, you're offered some solace here, the walls muffling the sound. You sigh, sinking into his couch as you throw your head back, panting still.

You feel like it's all just too much - not just the physicality of the race, but the feeling of winning it, winning it with Franco, just Franco himself. When you finally manage to catch your breath you lift your head to see him standing over you, watching intently.

"Better?"

"Much better, thank you." You smile earnestly, "Though I don't think we'll be able to hide in here much longer, there is a cooldown room for this exact reason."

"Oh, I mentioned it to someone, not sure who but he looked important, and he said it would be okay."

You laugh softly, amazed at how he can seem so calm even at a moment like this.

"We did it," you say, still not being able to believe it.

"We did," he smiles, sitting on the couch next to you, "a couples podium."

You feel your heart skip a beat at the sudden reminder of your conversation last night, him mentioning he had something to tell you. Was this it? The two of you had achieved what you had been wanting this entire time, and there was no better time to let this ridiculous bit go than now.

You stare at the wall of his room, the gigantic flag of his home country, and let out a shaky breath, mustering up the courage to break the silence. "So..."

He turns to you, one eyebrow raised in interest.

"What was it you wanted to talk to me about?" You're trying your best to keep your voice lighthearted, "it sounded serious."

"Oh, well about that," he seems to have forgotten it temporarily as well, but the fact that he turns to look at the flag as well, almost unable to maintain eye contact with you, isn't a good sign.

Maybe it's the adrenaline from the race, maybe it's the fact that both of you are going to be needed out on the podium in about ten minutes - or maybe it's the fact that you're so desperate to get out these feelings and make him understand how you feel, but you start talking before you even realise it.

"Look, Franco, I," you start, not entirely sure of where you're going to end up, "I know you asked me to do this whole fake dating thing with you and I completely understand if you want to end it now, I mean why wouldn't we? It's perfect!"

He looks at you confused, lips parted as if about to interrupt you but you continue anyway, stupidly.

"But, look, here's the thing," you turn to him now, and you're sure your face is bright red, "I don't want this to end!"

You let out a deep sigh, and clutch your hands together to stop them from shaking, though it doesn't help that Franco looks even more confused now.

"What?" he says, and your heart drops.

"I," you pause, struggling to find the right words, and struggling to get them out, "I think I like you, like, for real." Okay, not exactly the best choice of words but it'll do.

"Like, not for the whole fake relationship thing?" his tone is still concerned and he leans in a little for clarification.

"Yes! Okay, I know it's not exactly what we thought would happen and it'll probably jeopardise our relationship as teammates but there, I like you okay."

"When did you realise?"

"A couple days ago, I'm sorry."

There's a beat of silence, and you're left with the agonising feeling of your heart racing in your chest, waiting eagerly for his response - for him to laugh in your face, for him to get mad, for him to reject you.

But instead, you watch as Franco's confused expression melts into one of pure relief as he sinks back into the couch with a sigh. "Oh, thank God."

It's your turn to be confused. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You have no idea how long I've waited to hear you say that," he says, eyes fixed on the ceiling with the widest smile you've ever seen.

"Wait you mean you-"

"I win!"

You're absolutely speechless, not a single coherent thought on what is going on or how to respond. All you can get out is a confused sort of grunt.

"I win, I've liked you for longer!" he laughs, sitting up and grabbing your hands in his.

You feel as though your jaw is going to dislocate at how fast it drops, "I'm sorry?"

"Oh c'mon, we've been teammates for a year I know you're not that oblivious."

"Well, apparently I am because I'm really confused."

"I've liked you since the moment I met you, you idiot."

"Wh-" You're about to be offended at the name-calling until what he says finally hits you. He likes you. He has liked you. For ages. You idiot.

"Even when you proposed this to me?"

"Yep."

"Even when we went to get ice cream?"

"Yep."

"Even when you kissed me?"

"Y- well wait no that was completely unintentional," he holds his hands out in defence. You slump back, trying your best to process everything today has entailed, it's almost too much. That is until you feel Franco move a little closer to you, his arm stretching around your shoulders and gently moving your head to lay on his. At that moment, it all becomes clear, and you're suddenly unsure about why you ever felt confused about any of this.

"What now?" You say, barely above a whisper.

"We go and get our trophies," even though you're not looking you can hear the smile in his voice. "Though, before then."

You lift your head up off his shoulder to turn to him with raised brows. "Hm?"

"Now that we aren't fake dating, do the rules still apply?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I'd really like to kiss you right now," he whispers, and there's a hint of nerves as you watch his eyes dart in between yours and your lips.

"Really can't wait can you," you tease, though you still move to close the space in between you to. But just before your lips can touch his there's a knock at the door, causing you both to slump back with a sigh.

"Hey, are you two in there?" it's your race mechanic, "you're needed, you know, on the podium."

You roll your eyes to show your obvious disappointment at being interrupted, though Franco just watches you with an endeared smile.

"What are you thinking about?" you ask, not being able to hide your own smile.

"I'm just thinking about how beautiful you're going to look up on that podium, and how I won't have to pretend not to be in love with you anymore."

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