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muntitled · 19 days ago

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Hangman

Pairings: The Salesman x Fem!reader

Summary: What's a broke girl to do when her university bills keep piling up and a sadistic Salesman offers to take all her problems away? All at one tiny little price.

Warning: Dead Dove Do Not Eat, Kidnapping, SociallyAnxious!Reader, Blindfolds, Stalking, Knives, Blood, Stockholm Syndrome, Mentions of Suicide, Restraints, Anxiety, Smut (+18) mdni, Degradation Kink, Praise Kink, Rough Sex, Erotophonophilia, Dom!Salesman, Sub!Reader, Dacryphillia, Sadomasochism, Oral Sex (m!rec), Deepthroating, Blood Kink

A/N: I'm not responsible for the media you consume

You hadn't initially intended on slitting your own wrist. That idea was birthed almost vicariously in the moment. If he hadn't stopped you, your corpse would have been found laying on a park bench, covered in its own wet blood that would have been dripping from its open wrist like a faucet. Surely his proposition would be better than that.

With your vision obstructed by a heavy blindfold, your hearing is ten times more prominent. You hear the sound of your own breathing, as if your body was taunting you with all the life it still begrudgingly held inside it. You also heard heavy yet elegant footsteps cross a marble floor. Then you hear the scratch of a vinyl as the very sounds of an orchestra bleeds into the atmosphere.

"Hello," said the Man in the gray suit who had accosted you in the park. You remember the way in which he had sat beside you.

No one had ever sat beside you. Not even any of your peers that roamed the university. Everything about your countenance was so worried and severe. You wore your money problems on your sleeves and that evidently warded off any chance of a social life you had hoped to have.

The moon was shining particularly bright and the stars were twinkling little spectators to your silent meltdown on the park bench. Your eyes had been reading and re-reading the email sent to you by the university. An urgent email amongst a sea of urgent emails begging you to 'please just pay them'.

"Don't slit your wrist," he had said, "Not before you've given yourself a chance to win at life first."

You had looked up at him with bloodshot eyes from all that crying over potentially getting kicked out of university. He hadn't melted at your expression, in fact he only smiled softly. "We ought to play a game-"

"I wasn't going to slit my wrist."

"You were just holding that boxcutter for fun, then?" He curled up an eyebrow, leading both of your gazes down to the pocket box cutter that sat in your lap, the blade extended.

"I'm not in the mood to play a game."

"Not even at the cost of your university fees?" Your eyes snapped up to him then. He sat a healthy distance away from you. The space between you both was filled with possibilities so endless it was becoming uncomfortable to breathe. "How much do you owe them now?"

"That's none of your business," you were on the verge of gathering your things. Your boxcutter and your pride.

Perhaps you could kill yourself somewhere else, preferably without a man accosting you about the embarrassing state of your funds.

"I could pay for your university fees, you know," His words morphed into an anchor, keeping your butt firmly planted to the park bench. A midnight runner passed by you two. An evening breeze blew through your scalp and the goosebumps descended.

"Of course, you'd have to win first."

Anyone could see the conflict warring within your irses.

"This is how people get sex trafficked," you'd said, "Absolutely no thank you," How utterly in control you had been! A girl with a firm head on her shoulders.

He only laughed then. He laughed and laughed, so much so he had to politely clear his throat.

"You were about to kill yourself. Don't pretend to have any self preservation now," his words had struck a cord deep within the inner workings of your soul. Your face heated as you hid yourself, tucking your chin against your chest. You did suddenly feel remarkably silly and so incredibly juvenile.

"Don't worry," he had said with an almost lopsided grin, "It's your lack of self preservation that I find so incredibly intriguing, hence I'm asking for one game."

It was only one game.

One game and if you were lucky enough to win, you might coast through the rest of university stress-free. Like a normal 20 year old with normal 20 year old problems. Boyfriends. Clubbing. Whatever else all those girls did when they huddled together in their magnificent little groups. You could be a part of them. For once you had to give yourself the opportunity of feeling like a member of society.

"Are these restraints a necessary element of our game?"

As you sit in this room- a room he had brought you too- blindfolded- you tell yourself that you are giving yourself a chance to be a normal 20 year old. That's why you were currently restrained to a leather chair. The restraints held your wrists to the armrests and your and your ankles to the feet of the chair. This led to the slight and uncomfortable spreading of your legs- a dangerously vulnerable position to be in when you were wearing nothing but a university jumper and a pleated skirt.

You quickly find out that you didn't like to be restrained.

Your chest rises and falls a little higher with every sharp intake of your breath as you will yourself into calmness. Freaking out now seemed completely silly.

Almost as silly as letting a stranger bring you to his hidden location.

Had you no sense of self preservation at all?

Were you a walking piece of meat, waiting for the first predator to sink its teeth into you?

Has that predator finally arrived?

"The restraints are unfortunately a necessary element.” He says, softly, “The human body tends to get jittery when it's met with unforeseen stimuli, and I don't want you running out on me."

That lets the panic solidify itself even more in your bones. This man walked as if he was a perfectly stand up guy and that helped in your decision of letting him bring you here.

Nothing seemed particularly wrong with him at first glance.

His face has all the workings of a perfectly normal man. He looked like he was in possession of a cushy, stable job with pensions and benefits. A salesman.

He looked like he attended his kids soccer matches on the weekends.

He looked married to a beautiful woman who looks good in mom jeans and baked brownies for her Wednesday night book club.

He looked so painfully normal.

But the panic is rising, the more that ‘danse macabre’ fills the room.

"C-Could you at least play something else," You are fidgeting now and it causes him to raise a brow. "Danse macabre is just," you attempt to swallow but your tongue is completely dry, "-incredibly unnerving, right now."

You try to massage your wrists in the restraints and you breathe through your nostrils as a phantom pain shoots through your legs. The need to move was eating you alive.

"You know your classical music," The man regarded you with slight intrigue as he folded the piece of material he had once used to obstruct your vision. He places it on a tiny coffee table before you. "Interesting for a kid your age. Do you know the story behind it?"

"Of course, I do, why do you think I'm nervous?" You had his full attention now. You were almost drowning in it as he lowered himself to a leather chair directly opposite you.

You had never had anyone listen to you as intently as he does. No one bothered to hear what you had to say. The voices in your head were your only audience…

Now you have someone seated before you, so lax as he urges you to, “Go on, explain why it makes you so nervous.” It was completely addicting.

“W-Well,” you swallowed the air again. “Danse macabre quite literally means dance of death,” he sits back in his chair, his fingers tapping against his mouth.

“Why?” he asks in deeply monotony, as if you had captured him as much as he, evidently captured hou. Like you weren't the only one in restraints.

Your brows furrowed “Is this quiz apart of the game-”

“No. I just want to hear you talk.” He says as he reaches over the side of his chair uncovering a sleek black briefcase veneered in expensive leather. He assures you with a single nod of his head that he's listening as he clocks open the briefcase.

“Well,” your eyes are on the whiteboard he pulls out, “Camille wrote this symphony all dark and depressing because it's supposed to sound like it's being played by death himself,”

The suited man smiles down at his busy hands as he lays your boxcutter on the coffee table beside the whiteboard. “I-It tells us that death is the great equalizer. It doesn't matter if you have money or you're about to be kicked out of university for insufficient funds-” he cracks a small smile at that, pulling out a whiteboard marker in the process, “the dance of death is inevitable for us all. Money can't buy you out of it.” You shake your head, “It's real medieval shit.”

You watch him smile again. It's devastatingly attractive which immediately raises the alarms in your own head. This man has restrained you in a chair, in an undisclosed location. For all you knew, death was very well the thing waiting for you at the end of all this.

But he wouldn't stop you from killing yourself, only to kill you himself, would he?

You'd heard about serial killers being raging narcissists. You would virtually be a lousy victim, having already wanted to die.

That thought calms you somewhat.

“We're going to play ‘Hangman’,” he turns the board to reveal a simple drawing of a gallow and a man hanging from it.

“Are you familiar with it?”

“Of course,” you nod your head, your nerves level somewhat at the sight of the little stick figure.

Just guess a letter to a mystery before the Hangman is drawn. These were children's games.

“For every word you get right, a semester of your studies is paid in full.” He smiles, warmly, watching the awe blossom across your face. “You'll get your degree and become the psychologist you've always wanted to be.”

Your brows furrow, “H-How did you know I-”

“Of course there's a penalty to the game,” you watch him erase the little stick figure, as he draws the little lines corresponding with the amount of letters in the mystery word. “If you don't guess the correct words in time,” Time stands still. “Well… The word get carved into your skin.”

You had never been a cautious individual. When your mother would fret and nag about your safety, you would roll your eyes. Everyone else always had self preservation for you. Why would you need it? Bad things rarely happen to boring people. The news coverage worthy stuff? You?

But here you were, fucking drowning in the Bad stuff.

"I'm not playing,” You begin to try and twist your wrist out of the restraints as your panicked eyes zero in on the blade seated on the desk. “I'm not fucking playing-”

“I'm afraid that isn't an option. What's your first letter?”

Despite the soundproof padding stylishly plastered against the sleek black walls you still scream "HELP-Oh my god- HELP”

He walks over towards you in large strides, clamping his hands in your skull and pulling your head back. He's much closer now. Closer than he had been at the park. His eyes are sparkling with intensity and a manic sort of quality that escaped you on your first meeting. Where were these eyes when you were still on that park bench, still able to choose to run far, far away to the nearest police station.

Where were these wild eyes then?

“Look at how scared you've gotten...” He laughs, in your face, “A scared, terrified little Doll-”

“Please let me go-”

“I'm not the one keeping you restrained here.” He lifts his hands as if he were completely crime-free, “You decided to play this game out of your own volition. You're restraining yourself, Doll”

“Jesus, that doesn't even make sense-” you cry, “HELP-”

He pulls a tighter grip around your hair, silencing your cries as a wince bleeds out of your instead..

“You don't wanna do that,” he says, staring deep into your glassy irses, “I have a thing for little girls with pretty tears-”

“Please don't hurt me-” you didn't wanna be a newspaper girl. You didn't want to be a nobody-turned-somebody because her death was so grisly it graced the front pages of a newspaper. That isn't the way your story was supposed to go and so you plead with the humanity inside him. You search for it under all that black ink filling his almond eyes.

Nothing.

They're absolutely black.

“Guess a letter, Doll."

You steal your nerves. Your shoulders slump.

“E-Every word has a vowel in it right?” his eyes flutter shut as he presses his lips against the side of your face. He seems like he's transforming into a completely different person right before your very eyes and it set you alight with fear.

Fear and something else.

“That's it, now we're getting somewhere,”

“I'll go with ‘A’,” a tense, mortifying silence stretches between you too. He begrudgingly removes his hand from your hair, patting down your head like the child he regressed you to as he strolled to the white board.

“Correct.”

He writes the letter ‘a’ twice on the little lines. The first one of the second line and the second one on the fourth line and almost with your brain slotting into place you raise your head. you wipe a stray tear on your shoulder before saying, “I-I- know what the word is.”

He raises his eyebrow. “Already?” Intuition was a scary thing. It was like a last resort, leaving you clamouring for hope.

“Care to share,”

“Is there an ‘r’” you look up at him. “I need to be sure.” Your legs are fidgeting in anxiety. Your fingernails dig into the leather under the armrest.

He is quiet as he draws an ‘r’ over the second last line.

“Macabre. The word is ‘macabre.’”

A slow almost predatory grin stretches across his face.

“How much did you say tuition was?”

Your heart stammers in its chest.

For those few moments you don't think about death. You don't think about blood. All you think about is that outstanding amount as you murmur a quiet, “₩3,893,852.”

You had it memorized.

The number that haunted your every waking hour, bleed from your lips like a prayer.

You watch as he lowers the white board marker to uncover a phone in his back pocket. He taps a few buttons and in a matter of moments- he turns his screen towards you.

What a remarkable day this had turned out to be.

“How do you know my banking details?,” you ask, squinting your eye at the screen, “Who are yo-”

“That round was too easy.” He moves to sit back down, “Here's your next word,” your heart falls when he only draws three lines underneath the gallow.

Three letter words could be the easiest or the most difficult when it comes to a game like this.

“A?’” you ask through wet lashes. Your only option was to hammer through the list of vowels.

“Ooh-” he pouts, before drawing a Hangman's head. “Try again.”

“E?”

He's silent as he draws a stick for The Hangman's body. The panic kickstarts once more.

“Shit-”

“That's not a letter?” He jests, “One more non-word and you're Disqualified, Doll.” His knee is bouncing up and down. As if everything in him was anticipating the end of the game. Your nerves are drowing in anxiety.

“I-”

“You can't just name every vowel under the sun, Doll. You don't have very many options remaining.” He draws the stick figures first arm.

4 chances left.

“O?” Your breath catches in your lungs. You watch as he throws his head back to lift his hips slightly, as if adjusting his pants. It almost immediately lowers your gaze to the prominent bulge there. Fuck. Not only was he anticipating your loss, he was getting off to the thought of it.

“Well done.” He writes ‘o’ in the second line. Right between the middle and end lines.

“Uh- ‘c’”

He adds another appendage to the stick figure. “3 more chances remaining.” He says, standing up. His arm jitters as he picks up the boxcutter in.

“G-” you ask through tears. He kneels in front of you, his eyes are almost as desperate as yours.

“You are the most fun I've had in years,” he admits, before turning to draw another appendage.

“Guess again, Doll,” the boxcutter extends and you cry.

“You don't have to do this,” You plead and he only sighs as he places his forehead against yours.

“You are such a brave little girl, you know that-”

“Oh my god-”

“2 more guesses.”

“‘T?” You squeak out so quietly, as your eyes squeeze shut.

He presses his lips to your right cheek and you melt. The fear all disappears and it's just you and him. Even on his knees, he's so large, so towering. It sets you alight with incomparable need.

“Well done, Doll- I'm so proud of you, " he sighs, “One more word, baby.”

“P- wait, No!" the sound barely makes it out of your mouth and looks down at you, chest rising and falling.

You hold your breath, eyes wide and wet and it makes him so fucking hard.

“Y- my answer is ‘Y’.” He exhibited all the signs of a sadist. Of course his word for you word be-

“That's my answer. “Toy”

A tense silence bleeds as he brings the boxcutter into your field of vision, and you're once again writhing in your seat. “Please- please no-”

“Fuck I'm gonna need to cum-” He admits gravely. Even more grave, even more harrowing, you're squirming in your seat. Lust balling deep within your cut. You're terrified but so utterly turned on.

Is masochism a symptom of loneliness?

“Please-”

He presses the blade to your leg and you both watch as he sinks the tip down onto your skin. For all those moments, you revel in the pain. The blade breaks skin and you cry out as droplets of blood grows pregnant along your thigh. Danse macabre crescendos and tears fall. As he swipes his finger along the drop of crimson.

“D-Did I not get it right?"

“”You got it right,” he admits, undoing the buttons of his blazer as he stands to his heavy feet once more. The menacing shadow of a God. He's humongous and you crane your neck back to look at him.

“my little winner-” he mumbles, planting a heavy hand on your head as his other hand rubs over his erection.

“I-If I got it right,” you mumble through your sniffles, “Th-Then why did you cut me?”

He looks down at you. The hand planted on your head moves down to the side of your face as he unzips his pants. Your heart is banging out of its cage as he lowers his pants just enough to have his hand slipping into his boxers.

He watches the blood smudged across your thigh.

“I just-” he curses as he uncovers his fully erect cock, leaking precum,“I just wanted to see your blood.” he admits gravely before bringing his cupped hand to your lips.

'Spit.’ He commands.

You're unable to look away. The precum beading the head of his cock slides down the thick veins along the length of it- all the way to the base. You want him in your mouth. Inside you. The need and the pain is an avalanche of contradictions.

He makes you feel so scared, so wanted.

“Don't make me ask again.” He says darkly, tilting your head up to look deep into his eyes.

His fingers prod at your lips and your mouth falls open as his hand delves inside. “Tongue out.” He whispers hoarsely, cursing once again when you roll your tongue out. Somehow incredibly obedient.

“You're gonna be a good girl for me, Doll?” He asks, bringing the tip of his cock to your lips. You nod cautiously, feeling yourself descend into a state of mind you'd never been at before. You feel so pliant with his hand still on your cheek as he guides his cock into your mouth. You feel completely reckless. Someone like you who spends her time studying and worrying. Right now you were made to feel completely empty.

“That's it-” he coos, looking so utterly pained as his cock slides against your tongue, “That's my Doll,” he thrusts in and out of your mouth and you just sit there. Quite literally a doll. You let him use you, feeling more useful now than you've ever felt in all your years of living. There is beauty in submission that has a wet spot forming along your panties. You writhe as he begins to fuck your throat, drawing out a moan from him in the process.

“Shit- you're such a good girl-” there's fire in his eyes as he thrusts in and out. His hands move to the back of your head, forcing you down deeper on his cock. The sounds of your struggle -the gagging- it has his cocm twitching in your mouth

“Fuck-” he grunts, breathing so heavily as you begin to writhe in your seat, needing air.

“I knew you were special, Doll- I knew you were so far beyond self preservation- it borders pathetic” the saltiness of his precum trickle down your throat and you attempt to stomp your feet as your cries vibrate around his cock.

“Look at your hips moving baby,” he says, “You like this as much as I do. You're on my side. Even if you think you aren't.” Your hips are circling as if you're searching for friction along the chair as he groans. “Tell me you're on my side.”

He pulls your mouth off his cock and you breathe in deeply. You're coughing as droplets of spit run down your mouth. Spit and tears. Your face shows it all.

Your voice is hoarse. “I'm on your-”

“F-Fuck- I'm gonna cum-" He brings his cock back to your lips, “All over that pretty fucking face- fuck,” your tears fall as he strokes cock, emptying cock over you face. You keep your eyes shut, letting the sound of his pleasure-filled groans shoot straight to your puffy clit.

“I'm not letting you go,” his thumb moves over the cum coating your face. He moves his thumb past your lips, letting the cum seep into your mouth. Saltiness and need.

He needed you.

“You're not?” You ask petulantly, sucking on his thumb like you've regressed right before him.

“I'm not.” He confirms, “My little winner.”

#squid game #squid game x reader #squid game smut #salesman x reader #salesman smut #the salesman #the salesman x reader #the salesman squid game #the salesman smut #the salesman fanfic #gong yoo x reader #gong yoo

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castieltrash1 · 1 year ago

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soft domming officer K WHO SAID THAT????? i did. sorry.

switch!officer k x gn human!reader; smut, established relationship, handjob, slight orgasm denial/edging, me adding too many world-building details ♡

It’s always cold -- perpetually raining, in fact -- and the makeshift Moebius complex heaters are notoriously shoddy, but it’s the warmth of your touch, its stark contrast to the biting chill of K’s apartment, that makes him shiver. He can feel something hot brewing inside him as your fingers bypass the hem of his shirt, intent on taking it off even though he’s just put it on. Most of the time he doesn’t bother redressing at all after his shower, but work had been tiring and he knew he didn’t have the energy to take care of you the way he normally enjoyed doing.

“Sweetheart,” K murmurs, his calloused hand grabbing your wrist. Your eyes flicker to meet his, and where he expects disappointment, he finds gentle understanding instead. “I’m sorry,” he breathes, jaw tensing a bit as a wave of guilt washes over him.

“Can I help you relax?” you ask, not moving but not pulling away either. “I was just gonna focus on you, that’s all.” It’s an odd statement, one K has to replay in his head a few times before it makes sense. He’s not entirely sure what being on this side of the equation entails. He, and all the other replicants, were built to service in one way or another, and the idea of a human actively pleasing him feels wrong. Suspicion gnaws at his gut and he almost tears himself away from you entirely.

“Please, K?” Your soft words are paired with a gentle kiss to the scruffy part under his ear, and he remembers the first time you told him he was more to you than just a Nexus-9 model. He was real, in all the ways that mattered. To you, at least.

He finally nods, swallowing heavily when, instead of resuming your path up his stomach, your fingertips breach the waistband of his pants. Your other hand busies itself undoing the button and zipper at the front, and K can feel your smile against him when you notice he’s already half hard. It never takes long for him to get aroused, and by the time you wrap your fingers around him, he’s pulsing against your palm.

Part of a moan escapes his mouth before K bites down on his bottom lip, stifling the unexpected sound. He only lets go when you lean in, his eyes fluttering shut as you draw your tongue over the fresh indents in his rosy skin. For a split second, K’s glad you can’t see the flush steadily spreading across his cheeks, but the thought becomes a distant memory when the sweet taste of you hits him, and he reaches up to grab your jaw and move you closer. At first, you eagerly match his movements, tilting your head to ease the glide of your lips against his, but then you’re pulling back, and K’s groan of disappointment is far from quiet.

“Shh.” His brows furrow and all he can do is stare at the swollen and glossy state of your mouth, which he imagines somewhat mirrors his own. He faintly wonders if the disheveled sight of him pleases you the way yours does him. It must, since soon you’re lowering your head and letting a line of spit drip until it connects to his cock, gathering on the tip before gravity pulls it down the rest of his shaft. K’s breath hitches at the sensation, body stilling as your hand resumes its earlier motion with half the friction. “Better?” you murmur, making sure to twist your wrist a little with each stroke.

Besides a shuddering exhale, K remains quiet, immediately pulling you back into a kiss. You’d planned on talking him through this with some reassuring praise, but he doesn’t let you inch away for anything more than a quick inhale, barely remembering your need to breathe with the eagerness he has to feel your mouth on his. You do your best to blindly please him, squeezing the base of his cock and rolling your palm against the tip with every few strokes, but the rest of your touches are languid and met with slow rocks of K’s hips.

He knows sex doesn’t have to mean anything, not every time, at least, but in moments like these, he understands why some call it a connection. A fusing of bodies and souls. For once, he’s not sure where imitation ends and real begins.

Your rhythm steadies and you increase your pace little by little, working K closer to the edge. You’ve watched and felt him cum enough times to recognize when he’s close and, with his fingertips digging into the back of your neck and his cock twitching in your hand, it’s no surprise when he pulls away to shakily tell you. “Gonna cum,” K grunts, and you brush his nose with yours, slowing your movements until they halt completely.

“Hold it,” you breathe, fingers wrapped around the thickest part of him. While you expect a verbal objection or groan of disapproval, K doesn’t speak or move, with silent obedience underlying both. He waits for what feels like minutes but is only seconds before your fingers drag back up his spit-slick skin. “There you go, baby,” you soothe, feeling him immediately thrust needily into your open palm. “Let it out, it’s okay.”

You barely reach the head of his cock before he cums with a soft moan, dripping over the back of your palm in thick white pulses. His orgasm sears over his body and he clings even more desperately to you as you ease him through it, kissing the side of his face and slowing the motion of your hand until it ceases entirely. Even then, you don’t pull back just yet, humming softly to yourself as K catches his breath, the splotchy color in his face evening out.

“Better?” you repeat, and K doesn’t need to open his eyes to see the smug smile on your face.

“Much.”

gosling sleepover sunday

#officer k x reader #blade runner 2049 smut #officer k smut #officer k #ryan gosling #blade runner 2049 #t: writing #mutuals: f1nalboys #answered

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lordprettyflackotara · 9 months ago

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till dawn || eyeless jack || part three

SMUT. MINORS DNI. 18+. TW: LOTS OF PLOT, being chased teehee scary, unrealistic demon sex bc be so honest w yourself that’s why you’re here, breeding kink, bondage/choking kink. there will be one more part, a finale to this lil series :’) i think for my next series for the creeps im gonna go with either jeff or masky, haven’t decided yet. ANYWAYS, enjoy!!

the finale to till dawn is here

You could feel your heart pounding in your chest, threatening to burst through your rib cage.

The sound of crunching leafs echoed behind you, one set of footsteps in particular on your heels. Eerie laughter filled your ears as you threw one foot in front of the other, desperate to get away.

You had decided to follow Jack once he left your house. It wasn’t a logical thing to do, knowing that from what Jack talked about other beings like him existed. You knew Jack was a one of one and so were the others he told you stories about. He promised to introduce you to them someday, but not today.

Curiosity got a hold of your better judgment, causing you to slowly trail behind him. Curiosity was about to kill the cat. You could feel your lungs burning, a whooshing sound flying past your ear. You gasped as a rusty axe had been thrown into the tree beside your head. It had nearly nipped you, your ear millimeters from the blade.

What you didn’t realize, was that the moment you walked into these predators territory, you’d become the prey.

Jack knew you had followed him. He was fine with you doing so. Up until now, he had assumed the Supernatural borders prevented any human from entering. As an animalistic growl escaped his throat, weaving through the trees, he realized he had never been more wrong.

Toby was close behind you, Jack could hear his mouth twitching with pride as he got closer to you. Your presence had alerted every creep within a five mile radius, none of them aware of who you were. It was Jacks job to stop them from getting to you, ignoring the loud drum of your heartbeat. Thankfully Jack was the fastest, his killing style driven by animalistic primal hunger. He was gaining distance on Toby, reaching one hand out and grabbing him by his hair.

You forced yourself to not look back, to not question the sudden silence of your purser. Typically you thought of yourself to be a decent runner, now realizing track in high school could’ve never prepared you for a situation like this. Once all you heard was silence, you allowed yourself to slow down. Panting, you leaned against the sharp forest bark of one of the trees. Everything around you looked the exact same, like a never ending loop.

It was official. You were lost.

The sound of rushing water intrigued you, your eyes darting in each direction to find the source. Despite the eerie feeling of being alone in such a dark forest, you felt like multiple sets of eyes were watching you. Stalking you. Hunting you. The moonlight dimly lit the forest floor, your feet carrying you in what you believed to be the direction of the river. You had been camping before, the sounds of bugs or owls having previously been a comfort.

But here, in this forest, there were neither of those things. You trudged towards the river, a large river bank coming into view. The water was harsh as it crashed against the rocks below it. Murkiness and darkness prevented you from seeing the bottom of the river, unaware of how deep it was. Or from seeing what creatures lurked below.

Jack was close to catching up with you, his focus on Jeff and Jane as they slowly closed in on you. Jane was nimble, using her small frame and agility to swing through the trees. As Jack watched them both close in on you, it occurred to him neither of them realized the other was present. If the situation wasn’t so dire of your safety he’d watch in amusement just to see what happened next. Jeff went for the kill first, Jacks body flying forward to stop him. But Jane had beat him to it.

The loud crashing sound behind you caused you to jump, instantly turning around. A man and woman, whom you could almost think to be siblings, were visibly fighting in front of you. “What the fuck Jane? Can you not see i’m doing something here?” The man growled. Unsettling crimson blood dripped down the carvings on the side of his face. His cheeks were mutilated beyond belief, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull.

Fight or flight was not crossing your mind, your body frozen in fear. “I found her long before you did dipshit,” Jane snarled. Knives occupied both of their hands, her unsettling, soulless black abyss for eyes glancing at you. “She’s a cute one, I can see why you wanted the kill. Sadly she’s mine Jeffrey, all mine,” She smirked. Jack went to intervene, the overwhelming sound of two more heartbeats stopping him. Shit, Masky and Hoody. Surely Slender had sent the proxies to check on the situation, Toby beating them due to his speed.

Jack felt conflicted, trying to rationalize what to do. If he intervened Jeff and Jane now, he would have to take both of them on as well as the proxies. His gaze landed on the two pale killers, both of them still bickering. But, if he managed to stop the proxies fast enough, he could come back and retrieve you. The proxies wouldn’t be hard to find, their heartbeats and smell practically giving Jack a map. He felt awful leaving you, the petrified look of horror written across your face as you watched the fight in front of you.

As the sound of the proxies grew closer, Jack turned around, chasing after the sound of pounding hearts.

“You always do this! I find a good kill and here comes Jane!” Jeff argued. Jane rolled her eyes. “It’s not my fault we have the same type,” She debated. Slowly you tried to back away, hoping they’d be so involved in their debate they’d forget about your presence. “You’re such a bitch, always copying me and my shit, find another hobby will ya?”Jeff spat harshly.You swallowed as you kept your eyes on them, trying to figure out if you could out run them.

Snap.

Both sets of eyes landed on you, your blood running cold. You could feel the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, everything in you screaming to run. Their eyes contained a certain unnatural hunger, the kind that would only be satisfied by watching you bleed. “You know, the more I think about it, maybe we can call it even just this once, since it’s a special occasion,” Jeff said softly, glancing at Jane. As his eyes moved you noticed that he didn’t blink, his never ending gaze shifting back and forth. His eye sockets were hollow, your mind struggling to make sense of his rancid appearance. He had no eyelids?

“Maybe we should, how often do humans stumble through our forest like this?” Jane replied, chuckling. The two had seemed to come to a decision, moving in unison. They seemed to be patiently waiting for a chase, waiting for you to run. As you turned your back you heard an animalistic growl, one that you could only assume came from one of the pale killers.

What you didn’t realize, was that Jack was ready to rip Jeff apart limb by limb. The two pale killers were blindsided, Jane gasping as she fell to the ground. The demon had Jeff pinned to the ground, snarling above him. It was forbidden to kill another creep, especially on Slender’s grounds. “EJ what-” Jeff began babbling, the animalistic snarl from Jacks throat silencing him. Jane scoffed as she stood up, brushing off her dress.

“If you wanted the kill yourself there’s no sense in being so dramatic, just say so,” She quipped. Jacks gaze stranded from Jeff, settling on Jane as she fully regained her confidence. Jack was never one to hurt a lady, so instead he came up with a different solution. Standing up fully he picked her up, harshly gripping her arms as he tossed her into the nearby river.

You could hear her screams of despair as you continued running into the forest. Whipping your head around to look behind you, for the first time since you had entered the land of terror no one was following you. Your legs burned, your mind spinning. You felt dizzy, your vision beginning to be clouded with stars. The only thing you had on you was your phone. Shakily you took it out of your pocket, thumbing in the password.

Who would you even call? Jack didn’t have a phone, you had no service. You sighed, blankly scrolling between the apps you couldn’t use. Your eyes widened as your screen went black. Did it die? On seventy nine percent? You tilted your head to the side as a camera came into focus, a young blonde man with black and red eyes staring back at you. “Oh wow, hello there gorgeous! EJ sure does know how to pick em huh?” He asked. His pointy ears twitched. That was the final straw. You tossed your phone onto the ground, stomping on it with your boot. The glass shattered, your once prized possession now garbage.

Tilting your head back you let out a pained sigh. How long was it before these maniacs caught up with you? Looking around you found a decent stick. In comparison to the knives and axes the others were equipped with it would be nothing, but you’d go down fighting.

Snap.

You quickly turned around, gripping your stick tightly. Wincing as the wood cut the palm of your hand, you braced yourself. Swallowing, you tried to find the noises creator. A gush of wind breezed past you from a different direction, your eyes darting to your left. What if they were all circling you? Like a pack of wolves? What if this was in the end?

In the dull moonlight you were able to make out a tall figure, your fight or flight kicking in. Hastily you rose your stick, slamming it down on the shadow in front of you. A large hand grabbed your stick, snapping it half, before sending you on the ground. Your collision with the ground knocked the air out of your lungs, your back hitting the dirt below. Instinctively you began thrashing, a strong set of hands pinning you down.

“Hey, hey, HEY, calm down! Look at me!” Jacks voice was firm, filled with worry. Were you going insane? Seeing Jeff was definitely enough to make someone do so. He didn’t want you to end up like Nina. You blinked a few times, Jacks mask long discarded. Blood dripped down his nose, staining his upper lip. A gash sliced across his cheek, the same crimson paint dripping down his gray skin. “Jack?” You panted.

Your heart was beating a mile a minute, Jacks attention temporarily preoccupied as you attempted to catch your breath. His mind returned to normal the moment you began rambling.

“Holy shit there was a guy with an axe who sounded literally like a ticking time bomb and then this like mutilated albino couple wanted to kill me as well and then this dwarf-”

Jack gripped your shoulders, shaking you.

“Why would you come here? Do you understand how difficult it is for me to protect you here?” He panted. His body was becoming tired. Sprinting across Slender forest and fighting off all of his friends was exhausting, even for him. Your eyes were widened as his hands gripped you harder unintentionally. “You single handedly alerted every monster in the goddamn area that there was fresh meat on the market,” Jack continued. You winced in pain as his grip tightened.

“Jack, you’re hurting me.”

His eye sockets widened, the demon releasing you. He stayed on top of you, the two of you blankly staring at one another. “You’re bleeding,” Jack commented. The deeper he inhaled the stronger the scent became, electric cravings crawling across his skin. You didn’t have a chance to tell him where it was coming from, the demon grabbing your wrist to examine your palm.

The blood wasn’t bad, a small stream dripping down the precious little lines of your palm. To think that when he wanted to, he could hunt down whoever he wanted. That truly, you belonged to him. No matter the danger that he created or that others around you did, he was able to restrain himself. To protect you. The scent of your blood made his stomach flip, his body flooding with desire. Your legs shifted under him, your body becoming warmer as he touched you.

Your voice was low, a desperate whisper, “Jack…”

The worry that clouded Jacks mind was washed away by the sound of your soft voice. The only sound that could calm him down and make him feel at ease,was the enchanting sound of you saying his name. You yanked his hoodie, desperately bringing his lips to yours. Your blood soaked into the clothing, a groan escaping Jacks throat.

The delicious sound of your heart beginning to race flooded his ears, his hips slowly grinding on yours. You whimpered, pawing at his hoodie to bring him impossibly closer. Your lips melted against his, submitting to his rougher desperate kisses. His large hands slithered up your shirt, squeezing and kneading at your breast. You groaned into his mouth, the demon trying to be careful as to not nip you with his teeth.

“Here?” You panted, whimpering as he pushed up your bra. Jack kissed down the side of your neck gently, the throbbing pulse of your throat almost too much for him to handle. “I’ll make it quick love, I just need to let everyone in a five mile radius know who you belong to,” Jack huffed, bringing your right nipple into his mouth. You felt his multiple tongues attack the bud, his name spilling from your lips. With a pop he released your nipple, kissing down your stomach.

“How long until they come looking for us again?” You asked nervously, Jacks nimble fingers quickly unbuttoning and sliding down your jeans. He looked up at the sky. “I’d say till dawn,” He guessed. You giggled as he repositioned himself between your legs, your jeans shoved down to your ankles. “Guess you better hurry up then,” You say. His slender fingers began teasingly rubbing your slick through your panties, the thin cloth drenched.

“Let’s make sure you can take me first you troublemaker,” Jack teased, grinning at the sound of you moaning for him. He slid two of his slender fingers in front of you, your walls squeezing him as he curled them inside of you. Desperately you bucked your hips upwards, throwing your head back as he hit your g spot. “All that running made you awfully sensitive, huh?” Jack joked, relishing in the sight of you grabbing at his wrist, the one that was connected to the hand inside of you.

“Jack, fuck, please,” You whined. Jacks eye sockets widened.

He hesitated, “Please what?”

Your cheeks flushed red with embarrassment, the humiliation of him making you say what you needed settling in. “Please fuck me,” You pleaded, your voice cracking. Jacks hands were quick to work on his belt, the sound of the metal clinking sending a chill down your spine. You bit your lip as you eyed the leather, Jack noticing. A devilish sadistic thought entered his mind, his lips curling upwards.

“You want to try something new?” Jack asked, slightly guessing. You nodded, meeting his gaze. You vocalized a plea, Jack quick to flip you over. Your bare knees hit the dirt of the forest, the smell of the earth flooding your nostrils. Instinctively you went to arch your back, Jack stopping you by yanking you back by your shirt. “You might want to stay on all fours,” He purred in your ear, kissing your earlobe. He wrapped his belt around your neck, holding the metal buckle in his hand.

It cut off a decent portion of your airway, a groan escaping your lips at the sensation of being choked. “You’re into bondage now? Such a whore for me,” Jack chuckled darkly, stroking his cock. He rubbed his tip up and down your folds, trying to lubricate his cock as best as possible. Despite how drenched you got every time he was around, you always struggled to accommodate his size. And every single time it sent Jack into a frenzy, determination to make it fit ensuing.

He glanced up at the sky, the sun rising very faintly in the distance. “We don’t have very long, be a good girl and take it,” Jack snarled, shoving himself inside of you. You felt your body being split in two, his spare hand snaking down to your clit. He rubbed circles around the sensitive bud, trying to relax your body as much as possible. “You wanna be good for me don’t you slut? Relax for me,” He huffed, bottoming out inside of you. You were tense, grabbing handfuls of leafs and dirt.

He could feel you spasm around him as you struggled to accommodate to his size, whimpering as your vision became hazy. After what felt like forever to Jack, he could feel your body relax. “There we go, such a good girl for me aren’t you?” Jack purred in satisfaction. He pulled back his hips, taking himself out of you. He then brought himself back inside, pleased to hear the sound of you letting out a choked out moan. He continued to swirl around your clit, his thrust becoming faster.

You felt light headed as the leather pressed against your throat, choking on the sinful noises that echoed through out the forest. “Fuck, if I had known letting you into Slender’s forest would’ve gotten you so hot and bothered, I would’ve done it a long time ago,” Jack panted, his cock abusing your g spot. You were seeing stars, each thrust sending you into orbit. “Taking me so well, just like a good mate should,” He growled. His grip on the belt tightened, your airway temporarily cut off.

His thrust became more animalistic, the gears in his head turning. The savage and primal instinct washed over him, his coherent thoughts now vanished. Instead they were replaced with one thought and one thought only:

Breed breed breed.

“Fuck, you’re going to look so pretty with my cum leaking from that pretty cunt of yours,” Jack snarled. He released the belt, the leather flying forward and onto the ground. His large hands instead grabbed your waist, squeezing the flesh so harshly you swore you’d have bruise in the shape of his fingers. “Jack, fucking shit,” You moaned, his thrust merciless and brutal. He showed no sign of stopping, no sign of slowing. You could feel a familiar knot form in your stomach, one that Jack had made more times than you could count.

“I can feel you getting close for me. Need you to cum for me, need to fill you,” Jack huffed, holding back his own orgasm. Your back arched as you fell further forward, the side of your face pressed against the dirt. The sun was beginning to rise, your thighs trembling. “Jack I-,” You mewled, your orgasm washing over you like a ton of bricks. Jack couldn’t resist himself, fucking you through your orgasm. His hips began to stutter, the demon screwing his eyes shut as he came deep inside of you.

Dazed, you continued to hold your ass up in the air as Jack pulled out of you. The sight of his cum seeping out of your cunt was divine. With two fingers he scooped up the dripping cum, pushing it back inside of you, ignoring your whimpers. Gently he guided you onto his lap, wiping the dirt off of your face with his thumb. The sun began rising, the beams of sunlight dancing in between the trees as they hit the forest floor.

Jack could hear your heart rate begin to turn to normal as you inhaled deeper breaths. “Cmon, gotta get you dressed before the others get back from their hunt,” Jack murmured encouraging, readjusting your bra to fit you correctly. Still in a daze, you leaned your head against Jacks shoulder, allowing him to redress you. A small breeze blew past the two of you, the faint smell of blood hitting Jacks nose. He was sure the other creeps would be back any moment now, their kills fresh blood still staining their skin and clothes.

Quickly he dressed himself, scooping you into his arms. You had never been picked up bridal style before, instinctively you nuzzled your head against Jacks chest. Making sure you both had everything, Jack quickly looked around, noticing your shattered phone. He began walking towards the mansion, taking note you were beginning to drift off.

“Yeah, I think it’s time you met Ben. He owes you a new phone anyways.”

#eyeless jack x y/n #eyeless jack x you #eyeless jack smut #eyeless jack x reader #jeff the killer x eyeless jack #eyeless jack x jeff the killer #eyeless jack #creepypasta x y/n #creepypasta x female reader #creepypasta x you #creepypasta lemon #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta smut #creepypasta

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greenandsorrow · 7 months ago

Text

Enter the Gosling universe...

Ken

Oneshots

Ken x salon!Barbie/ sfw (🦋)

Multi chap

"Boytoy" - Ken x fem!human!reader/ smut

Officer K

Oneshots

Dreaming of neon snow. - K x Joi/ nsfw (@/goosemas)

Multi chap

After Dark - K x fem!reader/ nsfw, smutty

Others

Oneshots

"You should learn to knock first..." - Colt Seavers x curvy!fem!reader/ smut

The thunderstorm. - Sierra Six x implied!fem!reader/ fluff, comfort SOON

general masterlist

how to support me: click here

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sailorrlino · 11 months ago

Text

Rodeo | lmh (m)

𓆩⟡𓆪 Pairing: hitman!Minho x arms dealer! F. reader

𓆩⟡𓆪 Summary: Minho’s relationship with you is like a good weapon - uncomplicated, refined, and trustworthy. He likes it that way. When you appear on his target list, his relationship with you becomes quite the opposite - complicated, rough, and unreliable.

𓆩⟡𓆪 Word Count: 18,249

𓆩⟡𓆪 Genre: Cyberpunk | Smut | Angst | Peers to Something

𓆩⟡𓆪 Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

𓆩⟡𓆪 Warnings: Violence, world building, murder, discussion of murder, depictions of blood and fight sequences, brief mentions of drugs, depictions of wounds and treating them with syringes if you don’t like needles, explicit language, depiction of an anxiety attack, angst and self-doubt, Minho being an idiot, gun fights and scenes with weapons, some vague terms and references specific to the world building, sexually explicit content featuring oral (f. receiving), vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, cum eating, bodily fluids, and mentions of spit in several places. I think that covers everything, for the most part.

𓆩⟡𓆪 A/N: This is what happens when writers just write what they're inspired for. After almost two months of being unable to write, I got this random idea and I just went with it and took advantage of the moment and... genuinely had so much fun writing this. It got so much longer and more complex than I meant to, but I hope you enjoy.

𓆩⟡𓆪 A/N 2: This work is heavily inspired by Fallout 4, Blade Runner, Altered Carbon and the lovely song Rodeo by WayV. I imagine Rodeo playing during the shootout scene at the bar. Additionally, a fun fact: I use the nato alphabet to communicate Minho's targets and reader's target in this spells out 'reader' in the nato alphabet :)

𓆩⟡𓆪 Posted: Sunday, March 3 2024

𓆩⟡𓆪 Disclaimer: All members of Stray Kids are faces and name claims for this story. This is entirely a work of fiction and by no means is meant to be a projection, judgment or representation of real-life people. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios.

| Masterlist | Ask | Tag List Request Form | Song Inspiration

Any work is good work.

Minho isn’t so sure that his father would say that as he crouches down next to the body on the living room floor. His thigh muscles protest, aching and tight from hours of sitting crouched across the street in the chill of a high-rise building waiting for his prey to enter this very building.

Neon light bleeds through the foggy window behind him. The room is awash in watery pink as he pulls out his scanner with one hand and leans forward with the other, pressing his gloved fingers to the man's chin to push his head to the side. It rolls easily, giving a fleshy sound that might make someone squeamish as the man’s cheek hits the floor.

Any work is good work, Minho thinks as he scans the man's non-existent pulse with his watch. He sees the blue ring of the biochip flash beneath cooling flesh, his watch flashing green with a soft buzz. The man’s entire life flashes on the screen - full name, date of birth, ID number, blood type, and place of work. Everything about him casts a sickly green glow on Minho’s sharp face.

Tapping a few buttons on the watch face, he waits, holding his wrist near his mouth as the sound of a dial tone chimes once. It’s silent in the apartment, though he can hear the hum of airborne traffic a few blocks off as the roar of adrenaline winds down.

“Receiving,” a male voice answers. Minho doesn’t know who it is - he just knows he’s one of any of the Delegators who work for Collect Co.

“Collection request number alpha-echo-tango-delta complete, served by Collector 102598.”

“Collected alpha-echo-tango-delta confirmed. Please place a beacon before you leave. All credits for this Collection have been transferred to your account. Please wait five to seven business days before funds are available for use. Your next collection is in four hours, seven minutes, and eight United Seconds.”

The line goes dead. The glow of the watch makes him squint before he can lower his brightness, scrolling to his bank account. He sees the credits added with a transaction pending. When he was a kid, the number glowing at the bottom of the screen to indicate his balance might have excited him. Now, it’s just a number on a screen that confirms the power won’t go out at his apartment and that he won’t go hungry.

Minho’s knees crack as he stands. He groans and leans backward, pressing his hands into the small of his back. A series of cracks slither up his spine, making his eyes roll back as he shuts them for a moment and shivers.

He’s so goddamn sore.

Leaving the body on the carpet of the living area, he goes over to pick up the handgun resting on the counter. The energy weapon glows at his touch, syncing with his interface briefly before he holsters it inside his jacket.

While he is technically within the law to eliminate targets for Collect Co., Minho finds that most people find it unsettling when Collectors walk around with weapons. He hasn’t given much thought to what people think about him, but it certainly causes a lot less trouble when he looks like an average businessman going to and from work instead of a licensed killer.

The gun isn’t technically legal, either. He would probably get away with it if a United Enforcer stopped him. The hitmen of the privately funded but government-sanctioned Collect Co., do not technically outrank the government’s militia, but no one with a badge is going to tell a Collector no. Not if they can help it, anyway.

Tossing a beacon on the counter for the cleanup crew to track to the apartment and get rid of the body and clean, Minho heads outside into the rain. He ducks his head down against it, water sliding off the slicker jacket he hugs a little tighter. He feels warmth kick in and his mouth twitches at the sign of the heating system in the body armor on his chest is doing its job. A nifty little upgrade from you, he knows.

At the thought of you, Minho turns north toward the speed train, remembering that he needs an adjustment on his armor that is out of sync with his watch, and JumpPacks. He already used the last one about five hours ago and he feels the numbness of exhaustion buzzing at his edges, a warning sign that if he doesn’t get a jump or sleep he’s going to pass out.

Whichever comes first.

Smears of color splash across the wet sidewalk as he jogs down the steps to the train. It smells wet and foul, making him tuck his chin to his chest as he rushes to the fast-closing door of the train. He steps over the threshold just as the doors clang shut, the hissing of an airlock barely finishing before it launches forward.

He tenses to avoid being pitched forward into one of the standing railings. As the train rocks, the fluorescents above nearly blinding him, he finds a seat toward the back of an empty car. This late at night, there are only two other people in sight, both of them curled heaps of clothes on a seat, fast asleep.

Sleep tugs at him the moment Minho sits down. He has a twenty-minute ride to North Ward Three, dropping his head against the back of the seat and closing his eyes.

The light still hums behind his closed lids, making a splash of colors. There’s no sound save for the whine of the magnetic rail beneath his feet and the occasional mechanical creek as the vehicle sways.

He melts into the seat a little, limbs loose. Fuck he needs a JumpPack. The last forty-eight hours awake are wearing him thin at the edges, stretching him like fabric over a surface far too wide. The forty-eight-hour mark is when he starts to decline, and as soon as he starts to creep toward seventy, he knows it’ll get messy.

Minho is a lot of things, but he is ultimately human. The JumpPack can help him push beyond shaky hands, imagining things that aren’t there and the foggy thinking, but they won’t keep him sharp forever.

As if proving his point, Minho hangs somewhere between awake and asleep, suspended in a dreamy space where he can still feel the rocking of the train but doesn’t feel the ache in his limbs or the pressure growing behind his eyes.

He flinches when the chime echoes above him at the next stop, eyes flying wide for a moment as his gaze sweeps the train car, his hand on the inside of his jacket where he grips the handle of a very nice knife.

No one enters the car. It’s just him and the other two sleeping people - he isn’t sure they’re even alive, really - and he relaxes, cursing at himself. This time when he drifts, he does so with a little more awareness, hand tucked warm against his chest and wrapped firmly around the blade.

It’s a unique little knife, snug in the sheath that’s buckled to the leather harness under his jacket. The handle is firm and made from non-conductive material that fits his exact grip from the meticulous measurements you took of his hand. You crafted the blade from a metal alloy you’d been playing around with and lined it with a highly conductive silver alloy you’d perfected.

When the button on the end of the handle is pressed, 5,000 volts of lethal electricity pulses through the sliver, finishing off a victim if he manages to fuck up a killing blow. It’s saved his life a few times in situations like now when he’s exhausted and his guard is blurry, or when someone has decided to make him the target for robbery.

A lot of your little gadgets have saved his life. You like to remind him every time he visits you. He doesn’t mind, though. You’re an easy enough arms dealer - easier than anyone else in the city, really. You don’t ask the kind of questions that he doesn’t want to answer, and you’re always two steps ahead of him. Even your prices are fair, which he used to find suspicious.

But Changbin and Jisung both swear by your tech and your business, and Minho is just happy that he doesn’t have to worry about you trying to give him a shitty deal or fuck him over.

The Collection industry is made for fucking over. He knows the system can be fucked with, especially the closer to the top you get.

Almost everyone tries to fuck Minho over. More than once he’s shown up as a Collection Request. He doesn’t know if it’s the system trying to clean up after itself or someone pulling strings to get him out of their way. It’s probably both, but every time it happens, he’s managed to evade it.

A Reverse Collection, those in his industry call it. In a way, it’s sort of like a pop quiz. He gets attacked or shot at, and if he wins, he passes the test and reverses the Collection, earning him more time without any coworkers trying to murder him. The Delegators don’t seem to care which Collector murders the other, and he’s never suffered for coming out on top.

Any work is good work.

Minho snorts at the thought, feeling the deep twinge in his extremities as he rouses himself, the train coming to his stop.

Rain sluices the streets in North Ward Three. Here, the streets are busier with an assault of people, smells, and sounds. LED umbrellas float along like jellyfish as people walk from pleasure house to food stand to fight arena. The hologram advertisements and neon signs are louder here, inescapable.

“The United Republic stands for justice, equality, prosperity and freedom, bought by the noble sacrifice of the United Church. Join us today-” Minho presses the ad blocker on his watch.

Immediately the holograms vanish and there’s just the neon watercolor reflecting off the umbrellas as he walks down the stairs of Neon Rodeo, the orange lights making his eyes throb as he reaches the door manned by two guards.

They know him immediately but they scan the biochip in his neck anyway. When they’re pleased, they step aside and the door slides automatically, the base vibrating his ribcage as he steps into the dingy light, hesitating to let his eyes adjust.

True to the name, there is neon fucking everywhere. The servers are dressed in chaps with LED lights and glittering tassels, their cowboy hats flashing smiling faces on top of their head. The neon here is low-grade and covered in layers of dust, giving the air a dusky, burning sort of glow as he walks around tables.

Eyes follow him as he goes. The regulars are familiar with him, tipping their head in greeting though he doesn’t do more than watch them from the corner of his eyes. The servers all slow-smile at him, teeth too white and too glittering. He finds them more unsettling than attractive, and he quickens his step to the unmarked door at the back where Hyunjin sits on a stool.

Hyunjin is perhaps the most unsettling thing in the Neon Rodeo. His eyes are a strange grey, looking at Minho as he approaches. There is a predatory gaze in Hyunjin’s eyes that never fades, a sort of knowing in them that Minho can’t shake. Minho knows Hyunjin is entirely human, but every time he approaches the man, Minho is suddenly unsure.

Nightcrawler.

Minho has heard the whispers about Hyunjin. He believes them, too. Everything about Hyunjin is like a carefully balanced blade, ready to tip in either direction. His senses are honed to perfection and he has a habit of both blending in and standing out depending on his mood.

And he can kill. Minho has seen the lethal man in action a single time when someone tried to push past him into the Builder’s sanctuary. Hyunjin had been so fast that even Minho had a hard time keeping up, struck by how efficiently and quickly the former assassin moved.

Unnatural. Everything about him is uncanny, which is in line with everything Minho has heard about the underground sect of killers. What Minho does is legally sanctioned murder. The Nightcrawlers do something far more sinister, their skills going beyond the natural desire for order in the United Republic.

Agents of disorder and chaos. That’s what some say. Minho isn’t sure where his opinion lands on the spectrum, but he gives them a healthy distance and respect either way.

Even the way Hyunjin sits on the barstool is unnatural, one foot kicked up on the bar between his legs, the other stretched out in front of him as he leans forward, his hand on the front lip of the seat.

“Hello, Cowboy,” Hyunjin greets, voice deep and smooth.

His hair is blonde today, slicked back out of his face, the ends touching his shoulders. He’s dressed in a black button-up with a cow print pattern across the shoulders and white, beaded tassels outlining the pattern. His dark pants are tight and he makes no effort to hide the gun on his waist or the knife handle peeking out the top of his cowboy boot.

“I don’t like when you call me that.”

Hyunjin’s smile makes the hair on Minho’s arms stand on end. “I know, but I like it.”

The guard makes no move to let Minho in and he tries not to show he’s irritated. By the way the grin spreads on Hyunjin’s face, Minho can safely assume he isn’t doing a great job. “Is the Builder in or not?”

“Who is to say?”

“Just tell her I’m here.”

“If she’s in, she already knows.” Hyunjin nods toward an empty stool at the bar. “You can wait, Cowboy.”

Gritting his teeth, Minho turns on his heel to sit on the stool a few feet away. Hyunjin’s uncanny eyes follow him, never leaving him once. Minho ignores him in favor of asking for water at the bar, the headache pressing behind his eyes growing more intense with the loud music and the choking smell of cigars.

When the water comes back, it’s warm without ice. He glares at the bartender who has already moved on to paying customers. The water is tepid and a little sour, making him cringe. He’s pretty sure it came from the faucet, but he sips on it anyway, eying the grimy fingerprints on the glass.

A cowgirl slides up next to him, her pink vest pulled tight across her chest, showing sweat-slick skin. She smells like vanilla, the scent overpowering as she leans in, lacquered lips grinning.

“Don’t,” Minho grunts, sipping the water. “Not interested.”

“But you’re so pretty.”

A severe reprimand dies on his tongue as Hyunjin appears like a wraith, leaning in close to murmur, “Builder is ready for you, Cowboy.”

The cowgirl cowers away from the Nightcrawler, pressing up against the counter and fleeing as soon as he slinks away. If Hyunjin is offended, he doesn’t show it. He slips back onto the stool with that same eager lean, watching Minho through narrowed eyes as the Collector gets up and walks briskly to the now-open door.

Minho doesn’t turn around when the door shuts behind him, immediately cutting off all sound. The door leads to a step of steps, mirrored walls on either side with glowing orange light strips above them. He climbs the stairs as quickly as he can, his head swimming a little as he gets to the top.

The entire second floor is a massive, open-concept workshop. Tables covered with papers and instruments are placed in a chaotic maze, glowing screens with slow-spinning schematics and drawings giving the space a clinical, blue light. Workbenches with user interfaces hum along the corners of the room. Closed metal doors and offices stretch down a hall toward the pack, all under high-tech padlocks and surely protected with some sort of weapon system, if Minho had to guess.

Amid the organized chaos is you. The Builder.

Minho hates calling you that. He thinks it’s a little ridiculous of a title, but it suits you. There is nothing in this room you haven’t built and no weapon on his person that was not carefully crafted by you. He hesitates to watch you, standing at the edge of your luminescent domain as you lean over something, a small welding tool in your hand.

“Do you need a formal invitation, Cowboy?”

He doesn’t mind the name from you. He tells himself that it’s because, despite his predisposition to not liking people, he doesn’t dislike you. You’re easy to deal with, sort of like the weapons you make. You make his life functional and you’re to the point. He admires that, and he’s willing to take a little bit of prodding and joking from you as a trade-off.

Wordlessly, he floats toward you. You don’t look up to greet him, but you kick your foot out and hook the toe of your boot underneath the leg of a stool to pull it out for him to sit on. He can smell a hint of jasmine and amber wafting from where you sit, making him clench his jaw as he fights a shiver.

“I don’t have long,” he says, forgoing the seat. “Just need JumpPacks and wanted to drop off my armor. It’s having trouble connecting with the interface of the watch. I hit it pretty hard last night and I think I damaged the receiver.”

That gets your attention, drawing your sharp gaze up to him. But instead of dropping your eyes to his chest where the flexible armor stretches across his chest, you zero in on Minho’s face.

Your silence is uncomfortable, but he remains unmoving, willing himself to stay in place under your calculating gaze. You lean forward, eyes drinking him in, examining him the way you would a schematic for a weapon or a complicated piece of data.

Minho busies himself with looking at you in return. There’s a crease growing deeper in your brow and your pretty mouth - he doesn’t remember when he started thinking it was pretty - begins to dip, displeased at something you find in his face.

“When is the last time you slept?”

“Are you psychoanalyzing me?” You level a stare at him and he feels his mouth twitch. Minho thinks besides the occasional joke from Jisung - which he defines as Jisung accidentally hurting himself - you might be the only person who makes him want to smile. “Fifty-two hours, eighteen minutes and forty United Seconds.”

“No to the JumpPack,” you say finally. “Sleep.”

“I have another target in three hours, twenty-eight minutes and fifteen United Seconds.”

“Down the hall and second door on the right. Sleep for two hours. It won’t kill you.” He opens his mouth to protest you cut him off, “I’ll be done by the time you’re up. Take off your armor.”

His hands open and close. You’ve never declined a JumpPack before. You’ve definitely never offered sleep before. He stands buoyed by his confusion before he reluctantly sheds the jacket. It crinkles in the silence as he shucks it from his shoulder and neatly folds it, placing it on the stool you had intended for him to sit on.

Next, he sheds the holster, his gun, and a few knives clanking as he does. You seem amused by the amount of weapons he’s managed to shove in the leather straps and he shrugs a little at your arched brow.

Minho’s shirt is more armor than a shirt. It’s made from highly coveted synthetic material with hard but flexible geometric pieces stitched in that sync with his watch to turn on a light energy shield, pulse when there’s an energy weapon aimed at him, and generally keep anyone from being able to stab him. You’ve also added little things like warming sensors and anti-theft.

Delicately, Minho peels off the shirt. He marvels as it moves, surprised at the give and flex of the material every time. He hands it over and you snatch it, tossing it on your work counter as if it’s not the most expensive piece of technology he owns.

Immediately he’s covered in goosebumps. Your studio is bitter cold and you always wear sweaters and jackets with sleeves pulled over your hands. You’re dressed as such now, the too-long sleeves on your arms pooling over your hands as he stands there, trying not to shiver.

You pay no mind to his armor, instead standing up and twisting your mouth in a frown as your gaze skirts his chest and stomach. For a second he feels self-conscious, which he thinks is a little ridiculous as he glances down his chest. He realizes there is bruising blooming across him, spider webbing across to show when the armor unsynced and he took a few hard punches.

Minho holds his breath when you lift your hands, as though you’re going to brush the tips of your fingers over each wound. Your hands are smaller than his and far more delicate, nimble fingers reminding him of artists. His mother was an artist. Her slim hands and careful brushstrokes are one of the few things he remembers about her.

That, and that she chose to leave him.

Minho finds himself so hypnotized by your hands that your voice startles him when you say, “Three hours, twenty-seven minutes and five seconds, Cowboy.”

You drop your hands and step away. He nods and sheds his watch as well, handing it over. “Alright.”

With heavy footsteps, he follows the directions to the appointed room. He’s a little off balance, his hip catching the corner of a table as he goes. He curses loudly, hands shooting to his hip where pain blooms from the jab. Your laughter trills behind him and he scowls over his shoulder at you, but you’re unfolding his armored shirt.

Muttering under his breath, he goes to the hall to the second door on the right. He’s never been in the hall before, but there are several doors lining each side. He carefully tries the handle, glancing up at the ceiling where a camera stares at him.

The handle gives under his hand easily and he swings the door open to what looks like a very small and well-kept medical room. He raises his brows as he steps in and closes the door behind him. There’s no lock on the door, his finger brushing across the handle to find one. He thinks about grabbing the chair tucked into the desk and sticking it under the handle, but the thought evaporates as quickly as it forms.

He’s not in danger here.

Slowly, he trods to the cot. It’s a standard size with a thin mattress and scratchy blankets. Carefully, he sits down and immediately his body sighs. Minho’s eyelids flutter as he sags for a second, shoulders rolling inward as he curves in on himself, exhaustion pressing in.

He needs to take off his boots, but his arms feel heavy. He promises himself that he’ll do it in five more minutes before he gives up and lays down on his side, kicking his feet up boots and all onto the cot. The room is cool so he reaches for the blankets, uncaring that they scrape against his bumps and bruises.

The last fifty-some-odd hours begin to press in on Minho, a physical force that squeezes everything out of him until he’s fading fast into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

A gentle knock pulls Minho from a heavy sleep. He feels the dregs of it like a weighted shadow he can’t shake off, groaning and blinking at the ceiling a few times. His limbs feel heavier than ever and his neck cracks as he rolls it to the side to look at the room he’s in.

He suddenly remembers where he is, flinching a little as he sits up, movements jerky with nervousness. The room is still dark and cool, the itchy blanket falling to the floor as he sits and stares toward the door where there’s another knock.

“Come in,” he rasps, voice deep and rough with sleep.

A crack of light appears in the doorway as you slip in. You’ve got your arms full of stuff, using your elbow to smack the touchpad near the door. Dark orange light fills the room, gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt his vision but bright enough to see that the stuff you’ve brought in is food and several bottles of water and some sort of blue liquid.

Minho eyes all of it warily, straightening as you stand in front of him, holding it out. He doesn’t move to take it and your mouth presses in a flat, firm line. “I know Collectors don’t have to be smart, but I do assume you know how to utilize the main food groups of the pyramid.”

He can smell the jasmine and amber again, soothing. “Why did you bring me food?”

“Because you look like shit, Cowboy. Don’t go losing your mind over a small gesture of goodwill.”

Chagrined, he snatches the items from your hand. He immediately realizes that there are energy bars, protein bars, and packs of gel that will replenish immediate levels of hormones and vitamins. He eyes you curiously as he sets the pile on the bed next to him, ripping a foil back open with his teeth.

You cross the room to lean against the medical table in the corner, crossing your arms over your chest. When he doesn’t eat right away, you raise your brows, waiting. He pops the end of a gel back in his mouth and squeezes, immediately tasting blueberry and lemonade. It’s not half bad, making him hum in fascination.

That gets a grin from you, his mouth twitching at the corner again as he works the gel in his mouth to break it apart.

“Fixed your armor. How hard did you knock the watch?” His guilty expression tells all and you scowl. “It’s made with durast carbonate. It’s pretty shockproof.”

“Didn’t mean to. Some guy’s goons jumped me when I was calling in the Collection. It um… took a bullet.”

“How did they get the jump on you, hmm?” He stares. “Were you tired?”

Instead of answering, he tosses the empty gel back on the bed and picks up a protein bar. He looks at it, squinting his eyes in the dim light. It’s peanut butter flavored, which he enjoys. He rips it open with his teeth and tears into it, realizing just how hungry he is.

Minho has no idea when his last meal was. He thinks you know his line of thinking, but you don’t say anything more. You’ve already gotten your barbs in and you don’t intend to poke until he’s truly annoyed or embarrassed, which he appreciates.

Without another word, you push off the desk and head to the door, slipping back through to leave him alone while he chews absently.

Alone, Minho realizes the importance of accepting food from you without second-guessing it. He slows his chewing, contemplating about that.

Minho’s relationship with you is like a good weapon - uncomplicated, refined, and trustworthy. Your tech has never failed him, you’ve always been reliable for a fast turnaround time or understanding of what he’s asking for, and you’ve never sold information about him.

Ever. He had tried to buy information from you on himself through multiple channels and pseudonyms just to see if you would, but he’d been met with steely silence each time.

He eats with a little more enthusiasm as he realizes he does trust you. You’re as steadfast as the guns you build, and there is a confidence in that that he can at least resonate with.

Examining the contents of the blue liquid, he realizes it’s electrolytes and mineral compounds. As he takes long gulps, he realizes he feels infinitely better already, senses sharp, aches a little less terrible, and his headache is gone entirely. He’s not at a hundred percent, but he’s a hell of a lot better than if he had waited around for his next Collection.

When he finishes, he crumbles the trash together and tosses it into the incinerator. He hears the fire hiss as it destroys the waste and sends the fumes somewhere to be turned into energy.

In the main part of your lab, Minho spots you. He hesitates in the hall for a moment, watching you play with his watch. Movement in the corner of the room makes him tense up, hand going to the knife in his boot. He realizes it’s just Jeongin sliding across the room on a rolling chair, pushing away from his computer to examine what you’re doing.

Minho only relaxes marginally. He’s still getting used to seeing your apprentice in your workspace, and though the youth is excitable and intelligent, Minho refuses to let Jeongin near any of his builds. The trust he’s established with you over the last three years does not extend to apprentices he’s only known for a few months, no matter how much you trust them.

You trust the Nightcrawler too, and Minho cannot fathom why.

As though sensing you on the edge of the room, you turn and look at him over your shoulder. The corner of your mouth lifts up and you beckon him eagerly before hunching over whatever you’re working on again. He strolls over, crossing his arms over his chest to lean against your worktable on the other side of you, eyeing Jeongin on your other side.

“Hello, Collector. How are you today?” Jeongin asks politely, giving Minho a smile that touches his eyes.

Minho says nothing. You elbow him sharply in the ribs and he coughs, clutching his stomach as he mumbles, “Fine, you?”

“Doing great, thanks! This piece of tech is a marvel.”

“My watch?”

It is his watch. A green light flashes on the underside of the face, the bio scanner that connects with the one with his neck to monitor his nervous system. You push the watch toward him and he carefully picks it up, brushing his thumb across the cool, glass screen.

An interface lights up again. He can’t figure out what’s so special until you gesture for him to put it on. It fits nicely, the perfect size. As he slides it into place and looks at the watch face, a diagram of thin body armor comes up, spinning. Except it looks different than the diagram that he’s used to, giving you a questioning look. You point to the corner of the room at a mannequin.

He walks over to it, cocking his head to the side as he stops in front of it. It’s far different from the armored shirt he wears. The contraption is equal parts ribcage and the thorax of a spider. The material looks like leather but feels hard to the touch like metal.

Skirting his fingers to the hem, he bends the bottom of the shirt, watching as it flexes easily. It makes no sense to him how something could be so hard and flex immediately. If he were to guess, whatever the cloth is made from is a newer technology than he has access to. Perhaps more bio-engineered spider web.

Minho’s fingers skirt inside of it, brushing across a strange, prickling fabric. It doesn’t hurt, but he brushes his fingers back and forth, rubbing the material between his fingers. It’s abrasive, but he can’t imagine what it is.

Blue flashes on the diagram on the watch. He pauses and presses his fingers to the needle-thin fabric. The watch flashes again and lines of color light up on the diagram, showing his nervous system in different, complex colors. He raises his brows. It’s far more sophisticated than what he came in with.

“The needles,” he calls, not taking his eyes off the contraption. “Do they connect with me?”

“Yes. When you put it on, it syncs with your biochemistry.” You get up and walk toward him. “You won’t even feel them. They’re the smallest on the market right now, and incredibly accurate. They use them in military armor to report back live health reports and status during enfighting. They’re more accurate than the sensors lined in your last one.”

“What’s the point, though?”

You reach out and tap the watch. He watches curiously as a series of icons pop up, each a different color. “Inside of this,” you instruct, tapping the hard shell, “Is a series of chemical compounds. When you have on the armor underneath your shirt, you can tap to inject what you need. The needles don’t push deep, but they’re high-grade enough to break the barrier needed to disperse the compounds.”

Minho looks up at you, silent. You don’t notice his trepidation, carrying on as you go into salesperson mode, explaining everything. “Blue is elektrolytes,” you instruct, pointing to it. “Green is a chemical compound of cortisol and adrenaline. Yellow is endorphins and an incredibly high-dose painkiller.”

“And purple?”

“Jump,” you deadpan. “But a compounded version Jeongin and I have worked on that lasts longer with less damaging effect. You should be able to sleep easier after using it. And you won’t need several JumpPacks a day to keep going. I can give you refills too, since it’s non-addictive.”

Minho stares. “What?”

“What part didn’t you get?”

“This is for me?” You scowl but he immediately notices the way you divert your eyes. You glance up at the ceiling, shifting from foot to food. “This is worth a million United Credits at least. I can’t afford it.”

“Do you see a price tag?”

“You can’t give me this for free.”

“Of course I can. It’s just a prototype, so if it accidentally malfunctions and sends all injection options to your body at once and kills you, well…” You shrug. “At least you didn’t pay me. Consider yourself a test subject. I’ve never integrated the needle network into armor before. I don’t have the builds the military uses, just intel. I had to do it from scratch, so it might not work. Your current armor doesn’t protect you from plasma. This does.”

Minho doesn’t buy your bullshit for two seconds. He knows you wouldn’t give him this if it would risk killing him. For all your jesting and affectation, Minho has learned how to read you pretty well, and the way you blow him off and scoff tells him everything he needs to know.

It is a favor and a gift, and a new sort of olive branch that he is unsure how to accept or take from you. Taking this gift worth more than his entire salary complicates things.

Did you make this specifically for him? He’s not sure. But the fact that he wants the answer to be yes is worse than anything else he can think of.

Minho has peers. You’re a peer. Always have been. Anything else would complicate the simplicity of the relationship, and Minho immediately steps back and removes the watch. You watch him with razor-sharp intelligence, drinking him in as he holds out the watch to you.

“The one I have is sufficient enough, Builder.”

You snatch the watch from him, pivoting on your heel and walking with a ramrod-straight spine back to the table. For a second he thinks you’re going to kick him out but then you take a breath and melt into a smile, though a little sharp at the edges and not reaching your eyes.

“Fixed the connection. I also reinforced it again. Give me a moment to sync to your old armor.”

Old armor. As if the new one is still his. His stomach flips and he grimaces.

The affectation in your voice makes Minho uncomfortable. He doesn’t move, watching you tap viciously against the screen on your work desk. Jeongin spins a pen in his hand, glancing between the two of you nervously. When he notices Minho glaring at him, he grins awkwardly and pushes his chair behind one of the clear screens, his face distorted by blue lettering and diagram.

Wordlessly, you hand him the watch and turn away when he takes it. You say nothing else, moving on to a different project as Minho delicately picks up the shirt. He slides it over, feeling the warmth seep into his cool skin. He meticulously pulls the hardness with weapons on, followed by his jacket.

Fully dressed, he waits for you to say something. He doesn’t know what he expects - or wants - you to say. But he pauses anyway, eyes on your bent shape. His gaze flits to your hands, delicate fingers typing wildly, tense as you wait for him to leave.

It feels like a stone has sunk to the bottom of Minho’s stomach. He doesn’t move for a few minutes, torn between walking out and preparing for his next Collection and staying to… what? He doesn’t know. He has no idea what to say or do, but he feels the palpable shift in your mood.

So Minho chooses the easiest option. He nods to himself and heads toward the exit. You don’t spare him a second glance but he certainly looks at you out of the corner of his eye. Your jaw is clenched and you tap with a ferocity that thinks might shatter your desktop interface.

As soon as the door opens, Minho is drowning in thumping base and synth again. Hyunjin leans on the stool, this time with his back against the wall and his glittering eyes focused on Minho. Though the former Nightcrawler wasn’t in the room, Minho has a sneaking suspicion that Hyunjin knows everything that happens in the Builder’s workshop.

Hyunjin’s smirk is all-knowing and Minho storms by him, hating him for it.

Rain no longer falls from a dark sky. Opaque, charcoal skies stretch above him, lines of moving air traffic creating layers of latticework. Looking at the watch - which shows his normal armor once more - tells him it's in the early morning hours now.

The streets are not as busy as the night before. There are still glaring advertisements and he spots a group of cloaked United Church members walking around to accept alms and recruit, but the energy is muted outside of the clubs and pleasure houses.

Morning commuters fill the speed train tunnels. United Travel Agents lurk in the crowd, watchful eyes on anyone causing trouble or trying to double up on the scanners as travelers pass through, machines charging their United Credits as they go.

Minho falls into the dull buzz of morning travel. Glancing at his watch, he knows he has enough time to go home and change. He likes to receive his calls while he’s at home anyway. He tries not to replay the last conversation between the two of you. The offer you’d made him. The meaning behind it, whatever it may be.

It’s nearly impossible, but he manages. Especially once he gets into his apartment, sinking into the routine of showering, changing, and sliding back into his clothes like a second skin. As soon as he reties his boots, his watch begins to ring.

“Receiving,” he answers, straightening up.

“Collection echo-tango-foxtrot-bravo has been assigned to Collector 102598. You have five United Hours to complete your Collection.”

“Collection accepted.”

The line goes dead. Minho slides his weapons into their holsters, then pulls on his rain jacket. It always rains in the city, like God is weeping for what he has become.

Any work is good work.

Minho leaves the apartment to take another life.

The water runs red in Minho’s shower. He stares it for a while, hot water rushing down his neck, shoulders and back in rivulets. It turns pink the longer he stares, the wound on his leg bleeding less and less.

The irony is not lost on him that if he had accepted your gift, he might not have taken a gnarly hunting knife to the thigh. He was lucky that it was an energy weapon, the blade cauterizing the wound immediately. He’d had to pick the wound back open to flush out the dead, burned skin and pour burning antiseptic on it.

Shifting, Minho examines the wound. Pain blooms in his thigh as he turns, making him suck in a sharp hiss. The wound is to the bone. He knows he’s lucky it was not a well-made weapon, the ion pulse too weak to sever his limb. Still, it’s a deep wound and it would surely fuck him up if he didn’t have the next twenty-four hours to himself.

If the knife had been one of yours…

A pulse of frustration echoes through him. He presses his closed fist to the old tile of the shower wall, feeling the dissonance between the scalding water and cool tile steady him. His knuckles are sore from the last Collection - which had gone wrong in every way possible - and he’s brutally aware of just how much everything hurts.

Yet the ache isn’t what bothers him. His Collection target getting the jump on him from inside intel isn’t what bothers him. Minho has had that happen enough times that he no longer feels surprised when a Collection knows he’s coming.

What fucking bothers him is the ripple effect of his rejection of your offer made.

Minho shuts off the water and steps out the water carefully. He can barely put weight on the leg, gritting his teeth as he grabs a towel and hobbles out of the bathroom, the steam billowing out into the tiny apartment and dissipating.

Blue neon lights from the shop across the way burn in his window. He hardly needs to turn the lights on in his own home to see in the dark, the ever-present glow of blue guiding the way.

Carefully, he sits on his bed. Another pulse of pain from the wound makes him shiver and take several deep, steadying breaths. He peels back the towel at the waist, revealing a single, thick thigh with a horrible cut right in the meat of it.

“Fuck,” he whispers. Walking around has made it bleed again, scarlet trickling toward the towel.

Trying not to disturb the wound, he reaches for the medical kit under the bed. The metal is cool to the touch as he flips the latches, rummaging around the bandages, antiseptics, and gels until he finds what he’s looking for.

Minho takes the single, long syringe and uncaps it with his teeth, spitting the cap on the floor somewhere. He flicks his hand a few times, holding it up to make sure there are no bubbles in the vial. Holding his wound carefully with one hand and with the syringe in the other, he inserts the needle deep into the flesh, the sting minor compared to the throbbing ache the cut itself emanates.

The compound burns as he injects himself. He clenches his teeth, pushing down on the plunger with steady pressure. He can already feel the numbness spreading in his leg as the local anesthesia takes root. He knows he’ll be itching when it wears off, the tiny nanobots working to stitch the muscle and tissue back together already making his skin crawl.

DeepStitch is an expensive thing to have. He pulls the syringe out carefully, glancing at the medical kit. It only came with one, meaning he was going to have to replace the vile. Medical compounds made for healing abnormal wounds cost a fortune, especially the type with micro-technology to assist the process.

Tossing out the empty syringe, Mingo lays on his bed, uncaring if he’s damp and in a towel. The numbness in his thigh spreads, making him shiver. He tries not to think about the fact that there are thousands of microscopic bots working on internally stitching his muscles an tendons as quickly as they can before the blood in his body deteriorates them.

The medical advancement of this world is beyond Minho, but he’s grateful for it as he drifts in a half-sleep. He finds it harder to sleep after using JumpPacks, his body unable to adjust from the constant state of false energy and adrenaline.

It makes him think about your stupid fucking offer again. A piece of armor that could sync with him and balance his hormones and chemical compounds at the tap of a wrist. Something that high caliber for a low-level contract killer was beyond him.

There was crazy, and then there was that.

Minho wonders if you’ve been charging him fairly, suddenly. He’s always thought the weapons and tech you provide him with were good prices. They were well-made but always within his budget, albeit he stopped looking at what you were billing him a long time ago. Now that he knows you’re willing to offer something that he’d only find on a United Praetor in the military, he wonders if you’ve been cutting him deals.

He’s never asked the others. Changbin and Jisung seem friendly with you, enough to make Minho wary about asking them questions. Though they’re the closest things that Minho has to friends, he doesn’t trust them whenever it comes to you.

Jisung already thinks it’s sweet that Minho is nice to you, and he hates that. Even if it’s true.

Time fades away as Minho circles his conversation with you over and over again. He examines every moment of it. When he can surmise nothing else of the interaction but you offering an olive branch of friendship, something a step beyond peers, he goes back to all of his other interactions.

He remembers almost every one of them.

Minho’s memory is fine-tuned. It has to be in his line of work. But the memories of you are particularly sharp. He’s able to recall the way you always poke fun at him to the exact line of his tolerance, the way you always know how to get in a good jibe without actually pissing him off. The way that you let Jisung and Changbin have it in front of him for his benefit, especially after they’ve irritated him, like you’re giving him a gift or saying I’m on your team.

Thoughts of you ultimately lead to other things like the way your eyes reflect the blue light of your many screens. Or the way you always smell like jasmine and amber. The way you pull your sleeves over your hands in sweater paws because it’s bitter cold in your studio to avoid explosions and corrosion of items. The way the nickname Cowboy runs so smooth off your tongue, making his toes curl.

Minho’s fingers twitch when he thinks about brushing the backs of his knuckles against your soft skin. He’s thought about it before and immediately cringed at the fantasy. Now, between exhaustion clinging to him and the numb limb, he doesn’t jerk away at the idea.

He finally falls asleep thinking of you and what it would be like to accept that olive branch.

The ringing of Minho’s watch wrenches him from sleep. He sits up straight in bed, gasping and hand shooting toward the nightstand where there’s a draw with one of his guns. He realizes that his wrist is vibrating and when he looks at the screen, he sighs with equal parts tension and regret as he realizes it’s work calling.

Fuck. He slept for almost twenty hours straight.

Clearing his throat, he answers. “Receiving.”

“Collection romeo-echo-alpha-delta-echo-romeo has been assigned to Collector 102598. You have five United Hours to complete your Collection.”

Information flashes on Minho’s watch and he feels the world disappear from underneath his feet. Your name, age, permanent place of residency address, and anything the government has both legally and illegally obtained flashes before him. He’s never even seen your full name before and there it is, glowing on his watch as he stares at the information.

It feels obscene to know any of this. He flicks his wrist, turning off the display. He doesn’t want to see any of it, doesn’t want to see when you were born, doesn’t want to see what ward you pay taxes in, doesn’t want to know your criminal history.

Minho’s ears are ringing. The Delegator does not confirm that Minho has heard or received the assigned target for Collection. Minho stares at the wall, his vision blurring at the edges as the name - your name - echoes in his mind over and over again. He hears it at the same rhythm as his pounding heart, pumping blood through his system as his watch flashes a high heart rate warning.

Your name. Your full government name and ID number. He’s only ever known your first name, but you’ve always been Builder to him anyway. Minho can’t remember if he’s ever said your name, and suddenly he wants to. He wants to know what it sounds like shaped by his mouth, what it tastes like on his tongue. Wants to say it so many different ways, laughing, smirking, sighing–

Three years and he can’t believe he’s never so much as said your name, and now that very name is on his list to kill.

Indecision roots his feet to the spot. This isn’t like a Reverse Collection where other hitmen try to kill him and he can get away with killing them instead, clearing his name for a little longer. This is a direct and finite order to eliminate you. There is no alternative to this Collection.

Irreversible.

Running his hands through his hair, he looks around his apartment. It looks unlived-in and completely impersonal. Just like the impersonal way he calls you Builder, as though not using your fucking name makes it more sterile. As if it keeps you further away from earning his trust.

Which you have earned. Implicitly. Minho can think of no one else he would let take care of him. That he would sleep or eat in the presence of. That he trusts not to kill him in his sleep while he’s unarmed.

Now he’s supposed to murder you?

Bile turns in his stomach. He hears the ticking of the clock on the wall. Every second inches closer to the decision he has to make.

Will he or won’t he?

Minho grabs his gun from the nightstand and walks toward the door.

He’s only a few steps toward it when he realizes he’s not dressed or prepared for whatever he is about to do - what is he about to do? He has no idea. All he knows is that he is dazed and his hands are starting to shake and his heart rate is climbing, his watch flashing a warning.

The room begins to tilt as his breathing comes out in haggard breaths. He stumbles a little bit, the blood pumping through him roaring in his ears. He belatedly realizes he’s having a panic attack, blindly trying to get back to his bed where he can sit.

What does one do during a panic attack? He has no idea, he’s never had one. He thinks of the last time he saw someone panic and immediately bends over to put his head between his knees, gulping air through his nose and out through his mouth.

What was it that Jisung said about panic?

It’s hard to remember. He thinks maybe there was counting involved, so he breathes in for seven seconds and then out for seven seconds. Does it again. And again.

Slowly, the world swims back into focus. He can feel the twinge in his thigh as he comes down from the momentary lapse of panic and judgment. When he trusts that he’s not going to vomit on his bare feet, he slowly sits upright, looking around the neon-blue room.

Quiet blankets the apartment. The world outside is faint. He can hear the clock on the wall as the minute hand moves, each marking the passing of a United Second. With a deep breath, he moves.

There are no thoughts as he goes. His mind is a single list of action items, marketing them off as he goes. Get dressed. Check his weapons. Arm himself to the teeth with things you’ve made him. Message Jisung a cryptic, one-word text that only the other Collector will understand. Arm a bomb. Leave.

It’s clinical.

Minho had always understood with absolute clarity the reality of his line of work. He’s always had a failsafe - or a killswitch, so to speak. From the first day of work, Minho’s only purpose was to kill until he died. He was always meant to die. And he tells himself that the single, little safe space he has in the world he started saving for… well. If you ever needed it.

Any work is good work.

Clouds hold in their rain. The night feels ominous. Minho glances up at the choked clouds, wondering what they’re up to. The Ministry of Weather controls the atmosphere in some parts of the city. Minho does not travel in those parts of the city - those assassinations are beyond the abilities of a Collector and reserved for Nightcrawlers.

Paranoia is imminent, but Minho tries not to look over his shoulder every five seconds. The mysterious nature of Collect Co. is still something he doesn’t understand, so it’s difficult to unravel the nature of his assignment. Without a doubt, whoever placed Minho as the Collector knows you supply his weapons.

That simple fact branches out into multiple possibilities. Perhaps the person who wants you gone simply thinks Minho is the best person for the job because he’s in your tentative circle of trust and a familiar enough face to slip through you’re defenses. Or perhaps the problem is him and they know he won’t complete the Collection, earning a job termination and his name showing up on the Collection list.

Either way, it’s on purpose. Of that, he knows for sure.

From his years working for Collect Co., there are only a few things that Minho is sure about. Delegators do exactly what their title suggests - they delegate kills. Callers are a tier above Delegators, calling the shots working the network of requests that come in for contracted kills. Legals do all of the paperwork and research before agreeing to a contract, and at the very top of the chain is the Floorman.

Beyond that, Minho has no concept of the hierarchy or who is hiring Collect Co. for jobs. There are obvious manipulations to the system and it’s impossible to work objectively within a private company that works with but not for the government, and Minho has little doubt that the financial benefactors are who really control assignments.

Which leads him back to the root of the question: why you? Is Minho the problem, or do you have enemies so large that they hold sway in Collect Co. He doesn’t consider that your deeds are nefarious enough to warrant a hit. What you do is illegal but you sell to the military, too.

So it begs the question: is it you or him who they really want gone?

Maybe it’s even a combination.

Still, he attempts not to seem paranoid. It’s easier than it should be, Minho’s mind so singularly focused on getting to you as he takes the train and traves to North Ward Three that he doesn’t have time to look around every corner or see if he’s being followed. There are other ways of keeping tabs on him, anyway.

The rain still holds as Minho gets off the speed train and ducks into the street. He keeps to the sides, activating his ad blocker as he’s immediately slammed by a screaming neon world. His gaze and gait must be sharper than he realizes, because people veer away from him, his energy repelling them.

From the corner of his eye, he notes Watchers - people responsible for keeping an eye on what’s going on in the street for their employer - take note of him. Some melt into the doorway of their workplace, and others call for runners.

Trouble. Minho looks like trouble and he can sense the shift as they catch wind of him.

The Watchers are no threat to him. Their entire purpose is to close the doors and pull back when they catch a sense of danger in the air. They’ll stay out of his way and won’t engage with him unless he threatens their clubs and shops.

Minho has little intention of doing that. He wants to make this as painless as possible.

Neon Rodeo burns like a dying sun. The orange falls over him as he jogs down the steps and lets the guards scan him. If they notice anything is off, they say and do nothing. Neon Rodeo is perhaps the only business without a Watcher, and it’s only because no one would dare interrupt the business with the Nightcrawler inside.

Synth rattles Minho from the ground up as he steps inside. The cowboy hats and their little smiling faces float like phantoms in the night. He only has a singular goal and he looks at no one else as he heads towards the back, sidestepping sweaty bodies and perfumed hair.

It’s full tonight, the weekend crowd packing the bar from corner to corner. It’s no matter. He cuts his way to the back where Hyunjin sits on a stool. Today, Hyunjin’s hair is blood red and his eyes are sharp, unnatural green. For a moment, Minho thinks of a chameleon before Hyunjin kicks a leg out and blocks the hall leading to the door.

“Your patronage has been terminated, Cowboy.”

Minho’s heart flips. Are you that angry with him? He drinks in Hyunjin’s dress and slowly his anxiety turns to understanding. Hyunjin is dressed in all black today. His shirt is armored and in place of pants with tassels are tactical trousers with pockets and weapons strapped to his thighs.

An assessment of the Nightcrawler tells Minho that there are weapons he doesn’t see. There’s a plasma pistol on his hip, a bandolier of small knives strapped across his chest, knives in his boot, and another plasma pistol on this calf.

Hyunjin’s fingers drum against his thigh as he watches Minho with those unsettling eyes. “Want to try, Cowboy?”

“I need to speak with her.”

“No.”

“I’m not-” Minho grits his teeth. “I’m not Collecting.”

“Didn’t say you were.”

Hyunjin knows. He doesn’t know how the Nightcrawler knows you’re a Collection on Minho’s list, but it’s clear in the way Hyunjin leers.

“Look, you can go in with me. Let me get her to safety.”

“And what do you think safety is, Cowboy? Even if you’re not lying, they’ll come after you too.”

“Listne, Nightcrawler-”

Hyunjin grins. It’s unnerving, and there isn’t much that unnerves Minho. “No, you listen. I tolerate you because I am ordered to. Now, I don’t have to. My only orders were to say no and to not harm you.” He leans back and spreads his hands and shrugs. The neon lights catch his blood red hair. “I’m always within my right to make a judgment call.”

“I’d never hurt her.”

“You’re not friends, last I checked.” Hyunjin cocks his head to the side. “You don’t have friends, right? That’s why you reject acts of faith?”

“What do you know of acts of faith, Nightcrawler?”

“You’d be surprised, Collector.”

Hyunjin is unmoving. Minho’s fingers twitch and Hyunjin’s eyes follow the movement. For a second, Minho wonders if he could beat his adversary to the draw. They could do it like an old fashioned movie, the bar the perfect setting for it. Hyunjin is totally unmoving and relaxed, not moving his hand toward his weapons.

He’s that confident in beating me.

United Seconds are ticking by. Every minute Minho doesn’t make his collection is time lost. He licks his lips ready to mount another argument when Hyunjin’s eyes flicker and look over Minho’s shoulders. His eyes narrow a fraction as they dart back to Minho.

“Here’s an act of faith. Let’s see what you do this time.”

The energy in the bar shifts. He feels the tremor go through the air and the hair on the back of his neck stands on end. Minho turns his head to the side, not enough to fully look back over his shoulder but enough to see the group of Collectors disperse in the crowd.

Both, Minho realizes. The Collection had been for them both, and it was a good excuse to get them in the same place. He grits his teeth as he realizes how predictable he is. They might have come even if he didn’t arrive, but they might have sent a smaller force.

Glancing at Hyunjin, Minho watches as the Nightcrawler does nothing. He waits for Minho, raising his brows and smirking.

Act of faith.

Normally, Minho doesn't believe in public acts of violence. Collectors are mostly prohibited from killing in public or endangering the lives of United Republic Citizens unless entirely unavoidable.

Now, though, he causes a scene and pulls his gun, swiveling around and leveling it at the nearest Collector he has a clean line of sight on. He feels the hum of the weapon and the click of the safety as he squeezes the trigger, the pulse of the weapon barely perceptible as it fires.

Plasma weapons are bright when they fire. It’s nearly blinding in the dark as he shoots, screams shattering the bar as the world turns into pops of energy and sizzling air. He ducks down as someone shoots at him, instincts kicking in as he grabs the leg of a table and yanks it toward him.

Behind him, Hyunjin lets out a manic laugh and stands from the stool. He drops a small device next to Minho, drawing his attention for a second. Minho watches as it expands with a shimmer of translucent energy - a shield. He looks at the Nightcrawler who crouches with him, grinning as he peers over the table and shields with his green eyes.

“There are eight. They’re just going to pin us here and shoot at us like fish in a barrel.”

“Is there a way through that door?”

“Sure there is. If they want to melt it down, I’m sure they have plasma blades, judging from the look of their very nice weapons. They can’t blow it without leveling the street.”

“Does she have a way out the back?”

“No, then I would have two doors to watch.”

A spray of metal and plasma ricochets off the shield that has molded to the shape of the table. Hyunjin gestures as if to showcase his point and Minho grits his teeth. Peeking around the table, he can see patrons hiding under tables and covering their heads. Collectors stand spread out, fanning the entrance and blocking the way, but they don’t come any closer.

They want to make the Collection, but they don’t want to face a Collector and a Nightcrawler together.

“Aren’t you some sort of unmatched assassin, Nightcrawler?” Minho asks, checking the mag on his plasma gun. “Can you just take them all out? That should be light work for you.”

“I’m good at not being seen, Cowboy. I’m not inhuman.”

“Oh good, so you’re actually useless when visible?”

Hyunjin’s face darkens. “You’d be surprised how often you don’t see me.”

The threat isn’t lost on Minho but it doesn’t have time to sink into its full effect as bullets rain down on them. They cringe together to ensure they’re behind the shield, which whines under the plasma assault and flickers. Minho thinks it will hold, but it’s only as wide as the table it molds to and the table isn’t very large.

Hyunjin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a grenade. Minho grabs it, looking at him with wild eyes. Hyunjin pulls his hand away. “It’s a flash grenade,” he snaps. “I’m not going to kill everyone.” He pauses and smirks. “I don’t do that anymore.”

“That’s hardly less settling.”

“You know,” Hyunjin muses, pulling the ring from the grenad. Green light pulses on it slowly, counting down until it starts to release blinding white flashes. “One day you and I are going to have a talk about why you think your profession is so much different than mine.”

“One is legal, for starters.”

Hyunjin lobs the grenade. “Right, so what you’re doing right now? This is legal?”

Minho is spared from having to answer as the world explodes in white. He and Hyunjin move at the same time, letting the memory of where the Collectors stand as they close their eyes and shoot. Minho’s shot blind thousands of times and it usually pays off.

It does for the most part now, the pair of them dropping Collectors as they shoot. The white light fades and there’s only a single Collector left standing by the door, his gun aimed at Minho. He swivels to shoot, but a bullet hits the Collector in the shoulder, twisting him backward from impact as he squeezes the trigger of his gun.

The shot catches Minho in the shoulder, knocking him back a step. He curses but keeps his weapon trained on the fallen Collector until he hears high-pitched screaming. It stops his heart, the sound of the Collector’s voice reaching a level of madness that echoes even after he gargles and goes silent.

Minho looks at Hyunjin with an accusatory glare but Hyunjin juts his thumb behind him in answer, pointing to where you stand at the door with a heavy pistol in your and. Minho blinks a few times in surprise.

“I think the nano-tips work, Jeongin.” You glance over your shoulder where the younger boy stands on the stairs behind you, armed to the teeth. “Remind me to write that down.”

Silence stretches in Neon Rodeo, save the soft quivering crying and sparking sign that’s been shot over the bar. From the corner of his eye, Minho sees it flash between Rodeo and Odeo over and over again, bouncing between the two words as the ‘R’ tries to fight for its life.

Then there’s you.

You stare at him with a guarded expression, drinking him in. Your gaze lingers on his arm, reminding him that it does in fact burn where the plasma bullet graze his shoulder. Next to him, Hyunjin shifts. The Nightcrawler barely moves forward, sliding part of his body between Minho and where you stand in the doorway to your studio, Hyunjin’s hand resting on top of his gun.

“You gonna kill me, Cowboy?” Your voice wavers when you ask. By the twitch in your lip, Minho can tell you’re upset that it does.

“No. I want to help.” Hyunjin snorts and Minho is reminded of his earlier question. What do you think safety is? “Consider it an act of faith,” Minho offers and Hyunjin’s snickering turns to curiosity. “I’ve rejected yours in the past. Let me off you the only one I have.”

No one moves. Minho slowly lifts his wrist toward Hyunjin, displaying the information. The Nightcrawler looks it over and raises his brows, looking back at Minho. “What strange turn of events, Minho.”

It’s the first time Hyunjin has ever used his name. He says nothing as the Nightcrawler heads over to you, murmuring quietly. Your face is inscrutable as you nod and look over your shoulder, saying something to Jeongin. He nods fiercely, face set in determination that makes Minho’s mouth twitch a little.

The three of them join Minho wordlessly as he turns on his heels and heads up the stares. Hyunjin’s watch flashes and lets them know that the United Enforcers are three minutes out and they need to get where they’re going.

You take the lead then, hurrying out the door but not out into the street, ducking into a noodle shop three doors down from Neon Rodeo. You shout in United New Mandarin at the woman behind the counter, shocking him - not that Minho knows anything about you at all - and the woman waves you off.

Through the shop and into the stock room you lead everyone, hoping over bags of flower and starch until you reach a table that you climb up on and pull a vent from a ceiling. It’s far too large to be a normal vent, and his questions are answered when he realizes it leads to a small garage that faces the next street over.

Once into the garage, Hyunjin takes the lead out into the street, weapon up. Minho brings up the rear, falling into a defensive unit as you go. Jeongin walks closely behind Hyunjin, his steps a little clumsy but his head on a swivel.

Good, Minho thinks. Jeongin is alert.

“Decided not to kill me?” you whisper as you skirt out into the street and hug the building face.

Minho can barely hear you over the fabric you’ve pulled up over your face. He blinks and thinks to do the same, pulling the hood up on his jacket and sliding up a black gaitor over the lower half of his face.

“I was never going to kill you.”

“Hard to tell with you.”

“I… don’t have an argument.”

And he doesn’t. He realizes that he’s kept you at arm's length despite your best attempts to spark some sort of friendship. What reason could he do that other than sparing himself if he had to kill you one day? It makes the most logical sense.

“I thought we were friends.” That makes him pause. You notice a few steps ahead of him that he’s stopped, looking at you. “We stopped being just business acquaintances over a year ago, Collector. My normal clients don’t get to test my new hardware or request as many JumpPacks as you do on the house.”

“They’re on the house?”

“Of course they are!” you snap at him. “Do you not look at your billing, Collector? How do you know I’m not overcharging you?”

“I stopped looking once I trusted you weren’t robbing me.”

“See, that’s a funny word coming from you. Trust.”

A whistle catches Minho’s attention. You both turn to see that Hyunjin and Jeongin are nearly three-blocks away at the entrance of a nondescript shop. Color floods Minho’s face when he realizes the pair of you had stopped walking to have your argument and he curses himself as you start moving again.

“I do trust you.” You say nothing to his comment. “I’m sorry I didn’t accept the armor.”

“It wasn’t about rejecting the armor, Collector.” The world Collector sounds dirty in your mouth. He suddenly wants to hear you call him Cowboy again. “It was about rejecting me when I thought we were already friends. I was wrong.”

Hyunjin leads them down into an alleyway that is void of anything besides dumpsters and murky puddles. The smell turns Minho’s stomach but he resists the urge to gag as Hyunjin bends down to pull up a sewer grate. He flashes his flashlight inside and nods before jumping down and vanishing. There’s a light splash as he lands and calls up for Jeongin.

Minho crouches close to you as Jeongjin adjusts to follow Hyunjin down.

“You weren’t,” he says as Jeongin jumps. You turn to look at him, confused. “Wrong. You weren’t wrong.”

You look him up and down, hesitating. Hyunjin calls your name and you turn away from Minho, checking your legs and arms to make sure your pockets are zipped. Minho watches as you jump. He realizes his holding his breath until he hears your feet splash.

Quickly, he scrambles to the grate, pulling the top with him. Looking through the hole, he sees the orange light of glowsticks as you and Jeongin crack and shake them, lighting up the tunnel in a very small ring of light. Hyunjin has turned off his flashlight and looks up at Minho, gesturing for him to hurry.

Minho holsters his weapon and jumps down, bending at the knee as he lands to absorb the fall. His boots splash loudly in the tunnel, echoing for a few seconds. His shoulder wound aches as he straightens up. Hyunjin is already lifting Jeongin up to pull the great back over the hole. The scrape of metal on the concrete sounds much louder in the watery tunnel, making Minho cringe.

Looking both ways, he sees the sewer is less of a sewer and more of a tunnel. The cloth pulled over his face does little to keep out the rancid smell, and he winces when he sees fat, black rats scattering on the edges of the orange light.

Something touches his arm and he jerks, hand going to his gun. You lean back and apologize, holding out a glowstick. He relaxes and takes it, fingers brushing yours as he does. He instantly gets a chill down his spine, though his fingers are warm where they brushed yours.

Minho clears his throat and holds the glowstick up, looking around the tunnel. He can hear the faint echoes of dripping water and every movement of the group feels loud in the pressing silence of the dark.

“What is this?” he asks, looking at you.

It’s Hyunjin who answers, “Nightcrawler shit. You’re welcome.”

“Should we expect any of your former coworkers, then?”

“They’re not so bad.” Hyunjin unholsters his weapon as he begins walking south down the tunnel, throwing Minho a sharp grin. “It’s the Darklings I worry about.”

You fall into step behind Hyunjin immediately, ducking your head to murmur something to him as you go. The glow of your light gets farther away as Minho stands staring at Hyunjin, unsure if he’s serious or not.

Jeongin steps up next to Minho. “He was joking about Darklings, right? The People Underneath are a myth?”

“Have you ever heard Hyunjin tell a joke?”

Minho leaves Jeongin thinking about it before the younger rushes to keep up with him, feet splashing wildly.

Whether Hyunjin was joking about the Darklings or not, they don’t run into anything except rats and roaches in the underground tunnels. Minho finds himself itching to ask the Nightcrawler questions and demand where they’re going, but he doesn’t,

An act of faith.

It was an act of faith when Minho showed Hyunjin the safehouse on his watch. It was one of the few things that Minho protected more fiercely than his life, and he was hoping that when Hyunjin saw the coordinates, title of ownership, and Minho’s information, he’d gain a little trust.

Minho had been right. Hyunjin, though still sharp at the edges, has become unnervingly benign with Minho, addressing him by his name. It’s not much to most, but he knows among killers it’s a huge step. One that means a little more trust, if not at least peers.

You remain quiet for the most part. Your eyes stray toward Minho often and when he catches you looking, you don’t look away. Your gaze is hesitant and questioning, as though you’re trying to figure him out like one of the schematics on your screens.

Biting into a protein bar, he quickens his pace to fall into step with you. “What will you do with your lab?”

Your lips twitch. “Chemical fire. There’s a stop-line in the frame of the building so it should be controlled. I promised not to burn down Neon Rodeo when I established my office there.”

“Who owns that place, anyway?”

“Bangchan.” The name sounds familiar. “Reformed Nightcrawler.”

“You keep unusual company.”

“Better than none.”

That gets a little bit of a laugh from him. You smile when he does and he swears it’s brighter than the glowsticks you carry. “I deserved that one. I’m working on it, alright.”

“How do Jisung and Changbin deal with you?”

“The same way I deal with them.” You hum, nodding in understanding. For a few minutes, it’s just wet steps echoing in the tunnels. “What made you decide to come with me? I assume you have your own fallback plans.”

“I do, but I don’t know. I wanted to accept your olive branch.” You look at him. “I wanted to trust you.”

He nods. His gut twists a little at that, both anxious and pleased. He’d been right about offering an act of faith in return for the one he scorned. Now, he just has to keep you alive, which he grows more confident in doing.

“Where are we going?”

He looks up at you. “Hyunjin didn’t tell you?”

“No, just said to trust you.” Minho’s brows shoot up and you snort. “I know. Whatever you showed him convinced him.”

“It’s a safe house on Isla de Suenos.” You look up at him sharply and he gives a soft grin. “My mother belonged to a very well-off family. I’m not supposed to exist, and she had to decide at a young age whether or not I was worth throwing away her family and their power. A single safehouse purchased with offshore accounts and through a network of money-changing and bought secrecy is the only thing she could give me.”

“She didn’t choose you?” He shakes his head. You think about that for a second and he lets the words sink in, waiting for the pity, which he hates. Instead, you hum. “No wonder you don’t choose people either.”

Your candor is a relief. You don’t tell him sorry or try to comfort him. You accept this as a fact of life, a normalcy that a mother would choose wealth and power over a child. “There are no records tying us together, but the title of the house is under what my name would have been if she’d taken me. Lee. My family name would be Lee.”

“What is it now?”

“I don’t have one. My father was servant-class. We don’t have family names.”

“He worked for your mother’s family?” Minho nods. “Lee. I like it. Will you keep it?”

“Maybe. It’s who I have to be, now.”

“No longer the Collector?” He shakes his head. “Good. Perhaps I like you more as just Lee Minho.”

Minho bites back a grin.

By the time they get to the surface again, they’re just outside of the city-proper on the northeast shore. Here, the night is bitter cold as the salty air blasts off the ocean, dark waves rushing and receding against the shoreline.

They take a brief break once their topside, Minho gasping deep breaths of fresh air in as he gulps down water. Now that they can see without the glowsticks, they toss them into the trash and breathe in silence.

Carefully, Minho peers at the wound on his shoulder. It’s caterized from the heat of the plasma, but the burn hurts something vicious. He has no medical supplies on him, and he examines the chawed flesh with mild concern.

Seeing the injury, you get up wordleslly from the rock where you sit and come over. Your hand digs in one of your pockets and you produce a packet of burn gel and antiseptic, wordlessly gesturing to the wound. He nods and you offer a tentative grin before ripping the antiseptic open with your teeth, spitting the crinkling material on the ground.

With steady hands, you squeeze out the translucent gel on the tips of your fingers and peel the damaged parts of Minho’s shirt away from the flesh. He sucks in a breath when you apply the cool gel to the wound, the stinging of the antibiotic catching him off guard. You shoot him an apologetic wince before continuing to press it lightly into the burned flesh.

You smell like jasmine and amber. Minho breathes it in deep, a soothing scent mixed with the salty air of the seat just a few yards away. His eyes flutter shut as your fingers work his shoulder, deft and skilled like an artist.

“My mom liked to paint,” Minho says automatically, unsure where the comment comes from. “That’s one of the few things I know about her. She had artists hands. You have hands like hers. Graceful.”

“Hmm, I wouldn’t say I’m an artist but I do draw designs for weapons a lot.”

“It’s a kind of art.”

“I suppose it is.”

Your closeness makes Minho dizzy. Instead of chasing you away in the past, he lets you linger and spread the burn gel on his shoulder. He doesn’t open his eyes, letting the sound of the ocean and the press of your steady fingers lull him into a moment of relaxation.

He can almost pretend you both haven’t thrown your life away to head to some house he’s never been to with little to no plan but to arrive there alive.

“Does it hurt?” he shakes his head at your question. You voice is soft and raspy, rising the hairs on the back of his neck. You’re so close he can feel the heat radiating from you, making him lean in on instinct, seeking the warmth. “If you let me give you better armor, plasma won’t hurt you.”

Minho’s eyes flutter open. “You brought it with you?”

“Of course I did.” Your face is inches from his, eyelashes fanning your bright, glittering eyes as you look up at him. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Hyunjin’s voice shatters the moment before Minho can respond. “Hello, yes, the child and I are still here.”

“I’m not a child!”

“The child and I need to leave, however. Seungmin and Felix are waiting to escort us. I believe your friend left transportation for you, Minho.”

You whirl around. “You’re leaving? What do you mean you’re leaving?”

“I have some Nightcrawling to do with Bangchan and Seungmin. I’m taking the child to stay with Swan.”

Minho has no idea who Swan is. He sees the uncertainty color your face as you regard your guard - your friend. “You would do that? Take him to stay with her?”

“Of course. Swan likes strays.”

“I am right here,” Jeongin reminds everyone, crossing his arms over his chest. “And I’m not a child.”

Hyunjin grins at him. It’s real and not a leer, something that Minho doesn’t think he’s ever seen. Hyunjin grabs Jeongin by the shoulder, pulling him along before flicking his poison-green eyes toward Minho and you. “Enjoy your evening. I’ll be around, Minho.”

“Wait!” you bolt over to them, catching everyone by surprise as you throw your arms around the two of them and squeeze. The smile on Hyunjin’s face is so soft that Minho has to look away, equal parts something like jealousy and feeling like he’s intruding. “Here.”

You divest several items from your pockets, shoving them into their hands. Medical gels, a few gadgets, and a little Scorpion figurine that you shove into Hyunjin’s hands. He raises a single brow in amusement but you say nothing to the Nightcrawler, rushing back to stand at Minho’s side.

Hyunjin and Jeongin lift their hand in waves to Minho before turning and heading down the beach at a slow pace, their feet sinking into the sand. Cold wind whips at Minho as he stands watching with you silent by his side, waiting.

Without a word, he turns and beckons you, heading up the rocky coast before heading back down precariously to a tiny cove with a boat buoyed between the rocks. It’s hardly a safe-looking boat and he realizes it probably wouldn’t have carried them all, but it’s something.

Minho climbs into the boat carefully before helping you step down into it. The rocking water throws you off balance and he steadies you, hands tight on your waist. You mutter an apology but he doesn’t let go until he’s sure you’re okay, eyes searching.

A moment of tension passes, his fingers pressed into the fabric of your hips, your closeness overpowering the sea air again. You clear your throat and it passes. Minho lets you go as he finds the key and plugs it in to turn on the engine.

You busy yourself with untying ropes, your steps unsteady as the vessel moves unpredictably beneath your feet. Once you manage to get rid of all the lines, he begins to navigate out the cove backward, turning the wheel violently from side to side as he fights the tide.

Thankfully with every swell that pushes the boat into the cove, it drags it back out. It takes about three swells before the craft is pulled into the ocean proper and he throws the throttle in reverse, water rooster tailing for a moment as he does.

You join him at the helm and stand close as he turns it around and drives. Wind rips at his jacket, blowing back the hood. He’s thankful for the face cover fighting the icy wind, squinting as he drives in the late hours of the night across a rippling black ocean.

The water gets rough as he turns to the east, glancing at the coordinates on his watch every once in a while. Your hand shoots out to grab his forearm on a particularly violent dip. He curses, pain radiating from his shoulder as you do. You immediately shout an apology and let go, but Minho snakes an arm around your waist, pulling you tight.

For a second, you stiffen, looking up at him uncertain. He remains steadfast in his hold, willing his heart to slowdown as he drives, determined to keep you from falling off the boat and into the water before you can even make it to the safehouse.

You relax into him after a second, pressing closer and letting him hold on as you go. He relaxes when you accept his help, breathing out a slow breath that he didn’t know he was holding.

It takes almost forty five minutes, but the dark shadow of Isla de Suenos materializes in the night. The city is a spec of light on the misty horizon as the waves begin to slow down until he can let down on the throttle, bringing the boat to a troll instead of a plane.

The collection of islands that surround the massive, man-made mountain in the middle of the seat are all only about seven acres in size and are privately owned. The level of exclusivity is something Minho is incredibly unfamiliar with, and he gets nervous as they approach the barely visible shield surrounding the collection of islands.

“Minho, there’s a-”

“It’ll let us through.” He squeezes your waist on instinct, hoping it’s true. As the boat passes, he holds his breath. He feels the biochip in his neck flicker and then they’re through the shield. The water is falt calm on the other side of the energy wall, tapping gently against the hull. “It’s biometric.”

“And you were sure that was going to work?”

“Mostly.”

“Mostly is not a great attitude in the invention field, Minho.”

It takes a second, but he realizes you’re calling him by his name and not Cowboy. He likes the sound of it on your tongue, though he doesn’t mind the diminutive.

Even in still waters, he doesn’t remove his arm around your waist, the protective instinct still high as he steers the boat according to his watch. Islands with lights hidden behind thick jungle and rockface slide past them.

The beacon on his watch flashes and he turns the boat, trolling to a long, empty dock ahead of them. The island is no different from the rest, covered in sprawling jungle and foliage that look monstrous in the ominous night.

Quickly, you tie off the boat and disembark. Your steps on the dock feel loud in the quiet night, the two of you hurrying along and up the shore until you hit the stone stairway that leads through the trees. Though he isn’t holding you close to him anymore, you still keep yourself pressed close, the back of your hands brushing as you begin the climb up the island.

Minho has no idea what the house looks like. He only knows that it’s coded to his biochip and that it’s always been there if he needs it. He doesn’t know if it’s stocked or if the electricity is on, or if it’s been raided and taken over. He doesn’t even know if there are codes to get access.

It is the most unprepared he has ever been.

A large estate springs up among the trees. The entire building is constructed on a platform with foliage and trees brushing along the foundations. It’s made up of windows and metal framing, the windows dark and hiding whatever exists within.

It is exquisit. Minho has never seen an estate or a luxury home before in person, but he knows that’s what this is. The thought seems a little silly as he leads you toward the modular home, steps quiet as he glances around. He cannot imagine that anyone but he and his could enter the grounds, but he’s still on edge.

At the door, there’s a single bioscanner. He leans his neck toward it, letting it flash over his biochip. The scanner turns green and he hears the hiss of an airlock. Glancing at you and shrugging, he tries the handle and pulls the door open toward him.

Inside, the air is cool. He steps in first, hand on his gun as he looks around the interior. It’s sparkling clean and decorated with dark wood furniture and greenery. He takes a few steps inside, flinching when automatic lights come on and cast a warm, gold glow in the house.

“You’ve been living as a fucking Collector when this existed the entire time?” you deadpan from the door.

No kidding, he thinks, turning to look at the multi-story wonder that is the home. It’s three levels of tropical opulence, making his head spin at all of the possibilities.

“I didn’t know what was here, honestly.” He turns to look at you and nods. You step inside and pull the door shut, tapping the screen beside it. The locks click in place again and with another tap, he sees the windows darken to privacy mode. “I assumed she didn’t leave me something grand.”

“It’s a good start on an apology. She’s still a bitch for leaving you and I think you should let me fight her.”

A ripple of fondness goes through him and he smiles at you, uncontrolled and large. You shoot a shy one back before looking away at the wonder of the home.

Unlike him, you seem to relax immediately, kicking your shoes off to wander around the house. He follows suit after a moment of hesitation, peeling the cover off of his face and kicking of his shoes. He leaves his holster open on his weapons, hands hovering near them as he follows you.

The house is extravagent. Smaller than he originally thought, with only three bedrooms and two bathrooms, but the spaces for each are massive and sprawling with greenery. It feels like the jungle is a part of the house - and he realizes it is, at least in the atrium. There’s a large pool and something that looks like a hot spring behind the house, hidden from the world by think palms and palmetto.

Each room is richly designed and cleaned, as though it has been kept for him all this time. He’ll have to worry about that at some point, unsure who has kept the house in such a presentable state while it’s existed.

After you’ve fed your curiosity, you drift to one of the rooms with a private bathroom. He takes the room across from you, feet dragging as the exhaustion hits him. His limbs feel heavy and peeling off his shirt with the injure arm makes him curse and hiss. He doesn’t bother looking in the mirror, knowing the old bruises from a few days ago are still there.

Steam fills the bathroom. He’s a little put out when he realizes that the stone shower has a wall of glass to reveal the jungle on the other side, but he realizes there’s no one to watch him. He shakes the uneasiness and steps under the scalding water, moaning as he closes his eyes and lets it run down him.

A screen with a dozen or more settings sits in the rockface of the shower, but he doesn’t know how to use them. He hits another button hoping for what is more water pressure and instead gets a heavenly waft of eucalyptus. He leaves the settings alone, settling for tranquility over scrubbing himself.

Minho doesn’t know how long he stays in the shower. His fingers prune and the crust and blood eventually peel away. He spends a short amount of time scrubbing his own skin, eager to get out of the shower and check on you.

Now that he has you, a new sort of stream of conscious has made itself permanent, always wondering where you are and if you’re okay.

Steam clouds the bathroom as he steps out, wrapping a towel around his waist. Water clings to him as he ruffles his wet hair, strolling out into the bedroom. He walks toward the table by the door, rifling through his things looking for medical gel.

A knock draws his attention and you open the door a crack, making a sound of surprise when you don’t expect to see him standing right in front of you. Your eyes dip down to where the towel is on his waist and back up, immediately opting to look at the ceiling.

Minho’s lips pressed into a firm line, trying to eat the smirk threatening to take over.

“Sorry, I assumed you were still in the shower. I - um - brought more gel for your shoulder.”

He steps away from the door, leaving drips of water as he does. “Come on in.”

“Are you sure?”

He shrugs and then winces, the burn pulling taught as he does. You enter immediately, shutting the door behind you and ripping the top off the packet as you do, eyes focused on the wound. You’ve got your fingers slathered in gel and pressing to his shoulder before you realize the forwardness, pausing to glance up at him.

Now, Minho does smirk. “I’m at your mercy.”

“Sorry. I know it’s hurting you and…”

“You don’t want me to hurt,” he fills in, remembering your words from earlier.

You nod and chew your bottom lip as you work. He studies you closely. He doesn’t know if it’s his acceptance that you’re more than just someone he buys weapons from, the exhaustion or the little sliver of feeling he’s always pretended wasn’t there, but Minho suddenly feels a little bolder.

A little braver.

“I never had a chance to thank you.”

“For what?” You throw the antiseptic on the table and rip open the burn gel. “Anything. Everything. I don’t think I’ve ever said thank you.”

“There’s a lot of things you haven’t said.”

“So let me.” You dart a look at him, nervous. When you don’t interrupt he continues, “You were right. We stopped being industry peers a long time ago, and I’ve purposefully ignored multiple favors from you to keep the illusion that simple relationships meant I couldn’t be hurt. Or hurt others.”

“And now?”

“I realize it was silly.”

“Hmm. At least you admit your faults, Cowboy.”

He smiles. You finish applying the gel, but you don’t move away from him. You linger, looking up through silky lashes at him. Your face takes on a dreamy look, mouth parted a little and he feels heat coil in his stomach at that look.

“Why’d you offer me that armor?”

“I was afraid of how often you were working. I knew you were getting hurt and I wanted to help. Why’d you reject it?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

There’s a long pause. Your gaze drops to his mouth. You’re only a few inches away, the ghost of your breath against his neck. “What if I want you to?”

Minho needs no other permission. It’s like a dam giving way, the past few days able to wedge their way in and open him up to let the rawness spill out of him. He surges forward, catching your mouth against his as he does so, hands shooting to your waist.

You don’t push him away. Worse, you melt into him like it’s natural, hands skating up his arms and around the back of his neck to pull him in closer to you. Your mouth is warm and minty and addicting, scattering his thoughts to the stars as your lips move against his.

Heat is trapped between your bodies. He feels like he’s burning up from the inside, squeezing your hips as his tongue brushes against your bottom lip. You open up for him easily, like you were always made to and he groans.

Every time he has ever held back from you fuels him forward. He presses into you, turning you to push you on the mattress. You go willingly, opening your legs to let him slot between them. He leaves over you, mouth hungry. Devouring. Ravenous.

You gasp between kisses, nails grazing down his flexing arms. He wants to fucking drown in you as he bites the edge of your jaw, tasting the soap on your skin. You smell like jasmine and amber, though now he can smell the eucalyptus too, driving him insane.

You.

The one thing he’s let himself trust. The one person he’s let in, even when he didn’t want to admit it. The one person he wants to have more than anything else.

Greedy hands scrape up his chest. Your fingers are warm and searching as he nips the tender flesh of your neck, tongue laving over the bite to soothe it. The sounds dripping from your mouth are so pretty, driving him inside as he traces his desire with tongue and teeth.

The fabric of your shirt scrapes against his skin, itchy and in the way. His hands pull at the hem and he hesitates, looking down at you through a heavy-lidded gaze and panting. You not frantically, hands pulling at his to guide the shirt upwards and off, revealing warm skin.

Minho wants to taste every part of you. You create art with your schematics and your weapons, but you are art. He worships you with tongue and teeth, hands brushing up your stomach to cup your chest. His tongue pulls a languid moan from you as he flicks it over the peak of your nipple.

Fuck.

He’s greedy, sucking gentle on your pert bud, ensuring to scrap his teeth along the sensitive flesh. You writhe underneath him, unable to remain still. His other hand works you too, tweaking your stiff peak as he trails spit-slick kisses across your chest to wrap his lips around that nipple too.

Minho looks up at you through his lashes. You’re a rendering of pleasure, head pressing into the bed, chest pushed up, a sheen of sweat on your collarbones and neck. It drives him wild, cock throbbing heavily as he trails his mouth toward, fingers pulling your pants as he goes.

Your fingers twist in the sheets. Everything he does affects you and he’s drunk on it, heart thudding in his chest as he drops down to his knees. His towel falls and the cool air makes him shiver. He feels the sticky tip of his cock brush against his leg but he ignores the ache between his thighs, fixing his eyes on what’s between yours instead.

Pretty and wet, all for him. For him. He gets to have you. But he doesn’t yet, making you wait and feel the personal hell it’s been for him to pretend he wasn’t yours as he kisses up your thighs, licking warm skin and digging his teeth in.

“Minho,” you half gasp, half wine. He smiles against your knee, giving it a gentle peck. “Please.”

“Yeah?” he switches legs, biting your calf. “Want it that bad?”

“Need it.”

He brings a hand up to your dripping cunt, dragging a curled knuckle through your wetness. You let out a keen and he grins against your leg even more, hypnotized by the way your petty little hole clenches at the contact.

Minho drags it out. Plays with you, dragging that knuckle slow-soft through your folds, avoiding your clit. You let out a sound that’s almost a sob and he chuckles, bringing his hand up to suck at the stickiness on his finger.

“Hmm. Sweet.”

“Bet it’s better from the source,” you shoot back, trying to make a jab and failing with how weak your voice is.

“True,” he agrees, leaning forward.

Your taste blooms on his tongue as he licks up your center, slow and patient. He savors the taste, humming as he does. You buck under his mouth and he grips your thighs, pulling you open. You’re warm and wet and perfect, and he listens to your breath hitch as he licks you slowly, making sure to circle around your clit each time.

One of your hands shoots to his hair. He doesn’t mind as you pull. The sting feels good and spurs him on, eating you out properly. He loves the sounds you make for him, loves the way your thighs twitch as he sucks your click into his mouth, tongue flicking over it.

It’s wet and messy and just the way he likes it, slick dripping down his chin as he presses himself in further, desperate to fuck you into sanity with just his mouth.

He doesn’t have a problem doing it. You buck against his face and he lets you, holding his tongue flat for you to grind against. Your fingers in his hair have him in a vice grip and he moans, a steady stream of mhmmm dripping sweet from his mouth into your heat.

“Fuck,” you gasp. “Fuck fuck fuck.”

“Come on,” he mouths against you. “Take what you want, baby.”

The endearment slips from him more natural than anything he’s ever done. His fingers squeeze your thighs as you undulate against him, his entire attention fixated on you as the begin to shake. Your hand twists in his hair and he groans, equal parts pain and pleasure as you come apart.

He hums in satisfaction, keeping his mouth working on you, drinking you in as you continue to tremble. The power trip that comes with seeing you come is unmatched, lighting a fire in him as he licks you to oversensitivity.

“Minho,” you beg, voice squeaking. He grins, kissing your cunt before he mouths his way back up to you, capturing your mouth with his. You’re eager to taste yourself, tongue licking at him more than anything, smearing your slick on his lips. He feels his eyes roll back. You’re going to kill him. “More.”

Minho would conquer the world and call it yours if you wanted him to. There’s nothing he wouldn’t give you. Pretending otherwise was the great folly of man, he realizes, as he shuffles you up the bed and climbs between your legs, standing up on his knees.

You watch him, pupils blown and fucked out as he heaves. He can hardly catch his breath as he reaches down to take his cock in his hand, pumping leisurely as he watches you. The way you look at him like you’ll consume him whole makes him shiver. He wants you to. Want you to burn him up until there’s nothing left.

Leaning down, he drops his cock out of his hand in favor of sliding a hand between you’re legs. You’re a mess of spit and cum, making the glide easy as he slips a finger into your heat to work you open. Your head falls to the side, giving him access to suck at your jawline as he fucks you open with his finger, adding a second when he knows you can take it.

Your hips roll up to meet his thrusts as he scissors his fingers open, pressing against your warm walls to push the stretch further. You’re putty in his hands but he’s a mess in yours, too. He’s shaking by the time he slips his hand from between your legs to press the crown of his cock at your entrance, hesitating.

Minho looks up at you. He already knows there’s no going back for him, three years of his own stubborn delusions robbing him of what could have been. But he asks, anyway. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve been sure for a long time. It was you who needed convincing.”

“What a stuipd man I am.”

“Yes,” you agree. “But mine.”

That drives him wild. Simple words and yet the very action of you claiming him erodes the last bit of resistance. He pushes into you and goes slow with a considerable amount of effort, shaking and panting as he tries to keep it together.

You’re warm and tight and twitches of pleasure ripple through him from cock to stomach. Minho swears he comes alive for the first time as he seats himself in your cunt to the hilt, barely able to catch his breath as he ducks down to press his mouth against yours.

It’s not delicate, but it isn’t the same ferocity as earlier. It’s something else that lingers between madness and relief. He only begins to move when he feels your hips wiggle. He smiles into the kiss, retracting his hips before surging forward again.

Delirious. That is the only word that comes to mind as he starts to fuck you slow and deep. Your mouths bump together but you’re both breathing raggedly, shaking together. Your hands card through his hair, soothing and soft. His lashes flutter as he drops his head further. You press your lips against his forehead as he picks up the pace, letting your hands worship him as he fucks you.

How could he ever think he was sparing you from him? How could he ever make the mistake that if he kept on the fringes, you wouldn’t leave him ruined like this? It seems unimaginative now. Like something that was always meant to happen.

No wonder Collect Co. knew he would go running to you like a dog when they assigned you to him. Everyone else could admit it except him, an egregious error on his part.

But Minho has you now. Gasping his name and moving in his arms. Rolling your hips to meet his, your cunt clenching on his cock as he fucks you harder. He wants to dig into you and never let go. Wants to sink in to the very core and live there.

“Mine,” you growl as though you can read his thoughts. “Even though you tried not to be. You are mine, Lee Minho.”

When you say his full name like that, voicing the boy who could have been and now who is, he starts to come apart. His pace quickens as he chases your second release, holding you tight to him as he feels you clench longer and longer around him until you’re sobbing his name and spilling down his shaft.

Minho all but growls your name as he comes. Never again will you be Builder. You’re his. First and last name his to say. The acknowledgment almost makes him cry as he slows his thrusts, gasping for air as he tosses his head back, heat escaping between the two of you.

Finally, he stops fucking you, hands linked with yours as he leans up to catch his breath. He’s still seated in you, feeling the cum drip between where your ass is pressed against his thighs. He doesn’t care, feeling the sweat and the water from his shoulder drip down his back.

His arm burns where he’s used it. He’d been unaware of the pain while lost in you, but he feels it now, throbbing. He doesn’t care. He’d do it again a thousand times.

Slowly, he unravels from you. Your hands don’t let him go far, pulling him down next to you to roll toward. He smiles, tired and dreamy at the edges as he lets you. The bed is soft against his balmy skin, the cool air helping calm him down.

Finally, both of you can breathe. He knows that he needs to shower again, but he doesn’t want to get up. He wants to keep you near. Now that he’s all in, he wants to stay all in.

“We should call this place the Jungle Rodeo.” He cracks an eye open at you to realize you’re hiding a grin as you look up at him. “You know, since we can’t go back to Neon Rodeo.”

“What is it with you and rodeos?”

“You find Cowboys at the rodeo.”

“Oh?”

“And you’re here… so… it’s a rodeo.”

He blinks at you. “Your intellect is astounding.”

You laugh and it’s like taking a JumpPack straight to his bloodstream, a rush of energy and euphoria driving him upward and toward you. He smothers you with kisses, driving by the need to taste you again. You let him, giggling.

“What do you say then, hmm?” he growls, nipping your bottom lip. “Want to go for another ride?”

“That joke was terrible.”

“You know what they say. When at the rodeo.”

You laugh again and Minho is a goner once more, just like he was the first day he met you at Neon Rodeo.

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@stayceebs97 @skzswife @bettybeako

#lee know smut #lee minho x reader #lee minho smut #lino smut #lee minho x you #lee know fic #stray kids smut #stray kids fanfic #lee know fanfic #lee know x reader #lee know x you

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punkshort · 1 year ago

Text

Chapter warnings: graphic depictions of violence, death, language

Chapter Twelve

Pairing: Joel x F!Reader, pre-outbreak and post outbreak

AU (the only thing I kept was the outbreak, Joel, and Tommy's characters. Joel's backstory is different, and the way he finds Jackson is different. I may include Ellie one day, I just haven't planned that far)

Fic Summary: You worked for Joel and Tommy a few months before the outbreak. The outbreak happens, and you and Joel get stuck traveling the country and keeping each other safe. Neither of you spoke about the feelings you had for one another pre-outbreak, and in a post-apocalyptic world, it seems like survival should be your only focus. But feelings can't be ignored forever.

Fic tags: Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI), Smut, Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use, Age Difference (Reader is 10 years younger than Joel), slow burn, mutual pining, angst, trauma, SA referencing later but I will put a big warning on those chapters

February 2004

Des Moines, IA

You gripped your knife tightly in your fist, the blade pointed towards the ground as you crouched silently forward, choosing your steps very carefully. About 5 feet away from the runner, you stupidly stepped on a piece of glass you didn't notice embedded on the thin carpet. The runner whipped around with a scream, lunging towards you snapping its teeth in the air. You sidestepped it at the last minute, kicking and making it fall face first onto the ground. You jumped on its back and jammed your knife deep into its skull, blood dripping down to absorb into the floor as you panted heavily.

"What the hell was that?!" Joel yelled, whipping the back door open. You felt the cold blast of air hit you, even from all the way across the restaurant. You tugged on your knife, removing it from the runner's head and wiped it on the back of its shirt before putting the knife back on your hip.

"There was one left, must've missed it," you called back to him, brushing yourself off and walking towards the back of the room.

"Shit, I swore I got 'em all. You good?" He said, looking you over with his flashlight as you approached. You held up your hand to your eyes to block the beam of light.

"Yeah, I'm fine, I fucked up," you said, lowering your hand when he aimed his light down, satisfied you were not harmed. "I stepped on some glass, had to get creative. You think we can stay here the night? I think these cushions come off the booths. Not sure we can find any extra blankets here, though."

"We can put on layers, we've been through worse," Joel said, already yanking on some of the booth cushions, pulling a few out on the floor to sleep on.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom, then check the kitchen. I'll be right back," you dropped your pack on the ground and strolled off towards the women’s room in the corner. Once you were done, you stared at yourself in the mirror over the bathroom sink, shocked to see how different you looked. You hadn't seen a mirror in several weeks. Your face looked more hollow, you definitely had lost some weight. You pulled your hair out of the ponytail you typically kept, realizing that it was the longest you’ve seen it since you were little. You tried running your fingers through it to manage it a bit, but it seemed hopeless. You gathered your hair back behind your head and slid the hair-tie over it once again.

You didn't find much left in the restaurant kitchen, which was a huge disappointment. You were running low on food, having walked through thick forests and then open prairies for the past two weeks, not coming across any shelters to raid. Joel had purposely redirected you to this city in the hopes of restocking your food supplies and taking a short break from sleeping in the freezing cold wilderness. Luckily, your bow and arrows proved very useful, and kept the two of you fed when you had barely anything else to survive. Joel had never used a bow before yours, so you had taught him the basics from what you could remember. He seemed to have a knack for survival. He caught on very quickly and soon became better with it than you.

You sighed as you opened the last cupboard door, finding it just as empty as the rest. You were about to close it when a colorful wrapper caught your eye, shoved all the way in the back behind some pots. You reached your arm in as far as it could go, your fingertips barely grazing the item before you managed to pull it forward a smidge and grab it. You could have cried you were so happy with what you found.

“Joel!” you called out as you walked back into the dining room, heading towards the small lit up area he made for the two of you and your sleeping bag already rolled out on your cushion. “You’ll never believe what I found!”

He turned around from adjusting his own sleeping bag. He immediately spotted the jar in your hand and groaned. “Peanut butter!” he exclaimed with relief, “Fuck yes.” He sat down on his cushion to dig out the spoons from your packs. You both ate in silence, enjoying eating something other than rabbit or squirrel for the first time in weeks. You still had some provisions in your packs that lasted you about a week after you left Chicago, but as you traveled more out west, the options became limited, and the weather slowed you down significantly, causing you to eat through a lot of your food. You had become dependent on the wildlife for sustenance, and you got lucky, but it was getting old.

Joel had been kind enough to bury your parents before you moved on. He didn’t want you to have to help carry their bodies, so he had to make do with burying them where they were killed. He found a broken shovel about half a mile down the road in an abandoned mechanic’s shop, and it took him the rest of the day, but he made sure they were taken care of. He even found some large rocks to mark their graves. He was worried about you for a long time after that. You were distant and didn’t speak much. He didn't know what to do, other than giving you space and time to process your grief, while taking on as many of the responsibilities he could to keep you both alive. He insisted on being the one to hunt as often as possible. He sought out as many safe places indoors to set up camp as he could, even if it meant wasting half the day’s sunlight, he would sacrifice it so you would be more comfortable. He stayed in those places a day or two longer than he wanted, just so you could possibly sleep a little more soundly. It hardly mattered anyway: he wasn’t convinced he would ever find Tommy, or even if he was still alive. There didn’t seem to be much rush to your journey anymore, but it gave you something to fight for, so he kept pushing forward.

Then, one day, he did something to make you laugh. He couldn't even remember what it was, but hearing the sound made him desperate to make you do it again. So, the next day, he tried telling you a shitty joke, and you laughed again. Every time he heard it, he felt his chest loosen and his breathing eased. You seemed like yourself again, but he could tell the deaths of your parents changed you. You became more hardened, more focused, and angrier at the world around you. He noticed the way you took down infected with such ferocity, such disdain. It used to bother you, but now you could kill one without blinking an eye. He knew it was foolish to expect your innocence to remain intact, but every night he still wished he could somehow shield you from it all.

Somewhat full, you laid down on your cushion and wrapped yourself in your sleeping bag, exhaling softly and closing your eyes. Joel gazed at you a little longer than he should have before he leaned over to turn the lanterns off. Tomorrow, he knew you would have to venture back out into the cold and find some more food. He had hoped this restaurant would have had more than enough, but someone before him must have thought the same thing. He turned his head to glance over at you again in the darkness, listening to your steady breathing. He still ached for you, desperately. He hoped he didn't read the signals wrong that morning in your bedroom - there was no way he could have - but the more time that passed, the more unsure of himself he became. He was so close. So close to tasting you again, holding you in his arms, protecting you from the evil surrounding you.

He stared up at the ceiling and focused on falling asleep. He needed to be alert and well rested so you could finally find some food and get back on the road.

The two of you were walking down the street the next morning after having eaten the rest of the peanut butter and not much else. This part of town seemed to be abandoned by people, but you did come across a few infected. Most of the time, you heard them clamoring about in a closed up building you passed, but a few did cross your path that you had to take down. Joel had a theory that the infected slowed down in the colder months, that maybe they went dormant, or it was just harder for them to move. Whatever the reason, he seemed to be right. Even when you did come across one, they seemed a lot slower, making your job much easier.

As you made your way towards the end of the road, the houses and trees cleared and you could see further ahead, smiling when you saw a familiar logo. You turned to Joel, who seemed to notice it, too.

"I don't think I've ever been so excited to see a Walmart before," you said, smiling in his direction. He chuckled, shaking his head.

"It's a big store, we gotta be real careful. Ain't no way we can clear the whole place by ourselves," he told you as you entered the parking lot. "Gotta stay close together and be silent. No guns. Let's just stick to the grocery section, take what we need, and get the hell out." You nodded, looking at the building as you approached it from the outside, trying to listen for any noise coming from within. Joel put his hand out on your arm to stop you, making you twist around and giving him a confused look.

"I mean it," he said, looking serious. "Could be a whole hoard in there. And it'll be dark. It's risky."

"I know, I'll be careful, I promise," you gave him a look just as serious to prove you were paying attention. His eyes shifted back and forth between yours before nodding his head in the direction of the store.

You both stepped quietly inside the store through the broken sliding door, clicking on your flashlights and looking at your surroundings before making a move. Your attention went up to the signs hanging above the aisles, spotting the grocery section was straight ahead past the cash registers. The two of you crept forward, careful not to step on anything that would give away your position. You walked through the bakery, surrounded by moldy bread. So far, the place seemed quiet, but that didn't necessarily mean it was empty.

The store was reasonably picked over but there were a few things left on the shelves you could use. You packed your bag with rice, chicken broth, a few cans of dented soup, and a jar of pasta sauce. For the sake of being extra quiet, you motioned with your finger for Joel to step forward, and you stretched to whisper in his ear.

"We should check out the stock room," you said quietly, your breath tickling his neck. It wasn't the sexiest thing anyone had ever said to him, but that didn't matter. He nodded and suppressed the urge to shudder. He picked up his bag and led you to the end of the aisle, looking both ways before leading you to the swinging doors on the wall. Joel held out a hand for you to stay put while he pushed the door open a crack, sweeping his flashlight across the room. It had aisles, just like the store, but it wasn't as neatly organized. Once he confirmed it was safe, you both entered, scanning the shelves to pinpoint where the groceries were stocked. Your flashlight landed on a corner of the room where you recognized boxes of crackers and cans of vegetables. You nudged him with your elbow, and you both made your way over, checking down every aisle before advancing.

Your jaw dropped at the amount of food that was left. Someone had the same idea as you, it wasn't fully stocked, but it was much more well stocked than the shelves out front. You hurriedly packed your bags with as many useful items as you could carry. You were so hungry, but you had to resist the urge to rip into anything right then and there, afraid the noise of a wrapper would possibly draw attention.

You were just finishing up when Joel wandered towards the end of the aisle, his flashlight settling on something shiny the next aisle over. He squinted and bent down to get a closer look through the shelves. By the time he realized he was looking at blood pooling around a dead clicker, it was too late. A pair of arms reached out behind him, yanking him backwards. A hand covered his mouth and an arm squeezed around his neck, making his vision go fuzzy. His eyes shot over to you in a panic. You were still crouching over your backpacks, facing away from him, and zipping them closed. He brought his hands up and laced them together before driving his elbow behind him, hitting the man right in the diaphragm. The grip on his throat instantly loosened and the man doubled over coughing. You whipped around now, your knife already in your hand. You watched as Joel brought his knee up to the man's face twice, blood bursting from his mouth and nose, staining Joel's pants. Joel drove his knife into the man's eye, his body twitching before slumping on the floor at his feet.

Joel looked up just in time to see you dodging the knife of a second man, kicking him in the groin before shoving your knife between his ribs. He ran down the aisle to you, hearing the man's raspy breaths as blood filled his lungs. You pulled your knife out and stabbed him again, this time closer to the heart. The raspy breathing stopped, and his body relaxed against the linoleum floor. Joel sighed in relief, slowing his pace, his heart pounding.

Then he felt something hard hit the back of his head, causing him to fall forward, his vision narrowing as he fought the urge to pass out. Joel felt the heavy boot of his attacker sticking to his back as he tried to push himself up, but his head was swimming, and he couldn't find the strength. He collapsed back on the floor with a grunt, blinking his eyes frantically trying to clear his vision. He was struggling to breathe with the weight of the man's foot pressed on his back, and once again raised himself up to try and roll over when the pressure on his back was suddenly gone. He gasped for breath, pulling himself into a seated position and shaking his head wildly, his vision finally clearing.

You had tackled and pinned Joel's attacker on the ground, sitting on his chest as you struggled with his knife between the two of you, the blade pointed downwards towards his throat as you gritted your teeth and pushed down with everything you had. His feet kicked wildly underneath you, trying to roll you off, but you weren't budging, your eyes burning into his as the blade scratched at his throat. Joel stumbled to his feet, still dizzy, as he struggled to make his way towards you. With a loud grunt, you put all your weight onto the hilt of the knife, lifting off his chest and finally piercing through his skin until you could feel the tip of the knife make contact with the linoleum. He laid underneath you gurgling as blood poured from his neck, his eyes wild with fear. You panted heavily, letting your muscles relax after the strenuous fight. With your weight off his chest, the man was able to grab a second knife you hadn't noticed from his belt and stabbed frantically at your side, which you tried to swat away before his arm grew weak and he stopped breathing.

Joel's arms wrapped around you and lifted you off the dead man, turning you around to look at you closer with his flashlight. Your face was splattered with blood, your hair wild, covered with sweat and still gasping for air. He aimed his flashlight lower and noticed a big red circle of blood staining the side of your t-shirt. His breath caught in his throat and the adrenaline sharpened his vision as he lifted your shirt up gingerly. You winced when the fabric peeled away from your skin, not realizing you had been hurt until that moment.

"Oh, fuck," Joel whispered and his breathing picked up as he glanced around for something to stop the bleeding. You had been stabbed along your ribs and down your side. He couldn't tell how deep the wound was in the dark, but it was enough to cause you to bleed heavily. He grabbed a used rag from his jeans pocket, pressing on your wound firmly, making you cry out in pain. He wrapped your hands over the rag and instructed you to press as hard as you could. He ran back to grab your packs, slinging both backpacks, the rifle and the bow over his shoulder. When you saw him trying to pull everything onto his back, you held your hand out to him.

"Give me my pack," you rasped. He shook his head, still trying to find a way to carry it all. "Give it to me!" you raised your voice in a harsh whisper now, giving him a look that meant were serious. He relented, gently putting the straps over your shoulders, then pulling out a new rag to wedge between your side wound and the strap of your backpack.

You leaned on Joel as he led you out of the back room, pausing briefly to make sure there weren’t any others, then headed back towards the front door. It began snowing while you were inside, and the wind was picking up, making it difficult to see. He looked around, desperately trying to find a safe place to take you.

Across the street he could make out a strip mall, and one of the buildings looked like it was a dentist's office. It was a long walk across the big parking lot, but he moved as fast as he could while you leaned on him for support. He propped you up against the building to catch your breath as he used his knife to work the lock of the office open.

"Stay here," he instructed. You nodded weakly; your eyes half closed. He pushed the door open and checked to make sure the small office was empty of threats before taking you inside. He helped you sit down in one of the exam chairs, pushing it back so it reclined. You stared up at the ceiling and at the lamp dangling over your face. Joel pushed the curtains open in the room and looked down at the wound on your ribs, noticing the amount of blood increased due to the walk across the street: it was now trailing down past your hips and nearly touching your mid-thigh. He took the soiled rag from your hand and replaced it with a fresh one while he went to work ripping open drawers and cabinets. He finally found a needle and thread and a stack of stainless-steel bowls. He set the needle aside and picked up some of the bowls.

"You keep pressin' as hard as you can, you hear me?" he said, and you nodded as you draped your other arm across your eyes. "I gotta go out and get some snow, I'll be back in a minute. You holler if you need anythin'."

Joel stepped out the door with the bowls in his hand, glancing around to make sure no one had followed you. He scooped up snow into the bowls, grateful it had begun to storm since it would hide your tracks and keep any raiders away.

He came back into the room and saw you had nearly bled through another rag. He set a couple bowls aside to melt into drinkable water and took a handful from another, pressing it against your wound. You hissed at the contact, but after a minute the numbness from the cold made your muscles relax.

Joel dug around in his pack to find some rubbing alcohol he had taken from your apartment months ago. He found another clean rag to drench the alcohol in and removed the snow from your side.

“I ain’t gonna lie to you, this is gonna hurt. You need to hold onto somethin’?” he asked you, trying to hide the tremor in his hand. You shook your head, turning your face away from him and gripped the arm of the chair anyway. He pressed the alcohol-soaked rag onto the stab wound, finally cleaning some of the blood away to get a better look at what he was dealing with. You groaned and your body tensed, but you remained as still as possible while he cleaned you up. He could see a stab wound between two of your ribs. It didn’t look very deep, but it was wide. He made his way down your side, cleaning the blood up as he went with the snow and then the rag, refreshing it with alcohol when he needed to. There was a longer gash down the length of your side, maybe about five inches long. It was wide, but it was shallow. There were a few other scratches as well, but those would be fine to heal on their own. He gauged the main problem would be the wound between your ribs, and the long gash.

He turned around to prep the needle, filling a bowl with some rubbing alcohol and pulled out more rags. Turning back to you, he was startled to find you looking at him. He swallowed, bringing the needle and black thread towards you.

“Are you ready?” he asked you, and you nodded steadily, but he could see the fear in your eyes. He laid a hand on top of one of yours reassuringly. “I got this, I got you,” he said. You turned away from him then, staring at the wall opposite you as you braced for the pain. The first few times he pierced you with the needle hurt the most, then as you got used to the pain and knew what to expect, it got a little easier to handle. He took his time with the stab wound, he wanted to make sure he didn’t have to redo that later, then let you have a break before starting on the long gash. He told you it would only need a few stitches, just where the wound was the widest so it wouldn’t scar too badly. That part ended up hurting the most since it was closer to the bones of your ribs and there was less fat to cushion the pain.

Once the stitches were done, he rinsed everything with the rubbing alcohol from the bowl, his hands and needle included. He made a mental note to keep that needle in his pack in case one of you got hurt again.

“You hungry?” Joel asked you, and you nodded eagerly but then winced at the pain the movement caused. He dug around in his pack for some of the food you had grabbed from Walmart and set you up with a few things to eat, then went to explore the rest of the office in hopes of finding some medicine. He got lucky in the dentist’s actual office, finding a few bottles of antibiotics and some pain killers in his desk drawer. He made sure you took two antibiotics with your food before finding something to eat for himself. He sat hunched over against the wall in the room, looking down at his food and avoiding eye contact. You adjusted yourself in the chair so you could look at him and let out a whimper when the movement was too much. He shot up to help you, but you waved him off.

“What’s going on?” you asked him directly, staring him down. He looked up at you, his eyes filled with grief and anger.

“This was my fault,” he said bluntly, a clipped tone to his voice. “I wasn’t payin’ attention, I should’ve seen that guy comin’, and it got you hurt. If somethin’ worse woulda happened, I never would’ve forgiven myself,” his voice broke at the end of his sentence, looking away from you so you couldn’t see the emotion in his eyes.

"It wasn't your fault. We got jumped, don't beat yourself up about it. Please," you told him, trying to catch his eye again but failing. "Joel?" you said, but he turned away, rubbing his hands up and down his face like he always does when he's frustrated. "Joel!" you called out again, this time more firmly. He stilled, and slowly turned to face you, dropping his hands to his sides.

"Us or them," you said, staring intently at him, desperately trying to communicate the words you couldn't say.

He let out a shaky sigh, and nodded, breaking eye contact with you and gazed out the window at the snow fall. "Shoulda been me," he said quietly.

"Yeah, well," you grunted as you struggled to sit up in the chair, "I'm glad it wasn't because I couldn't carry all our stuff and you out of there," he turned his head to look back at you, then giving him a smirk, added, "I would've left you for dead."

His lips twitched as he tried to hold back his grin at your joke, not ready to forgive himself yet. He cleared his throat and leaned over to sling your backpacks over his shoulders.

"The dentist had a couch in his office. C'mon, grab my shoulder, lean on me," he said, bending forward so you could get yourself into a standing position. It took a few tries; the pain was worse than you had expected now that you were moving. You slowly ambled down the hall with Joel, and he got you stretched out on the couch before he unzipped your sleeping bag and rested it on top of you like a blanket.

He rolled his own sleeping bag out on the floor next to you, grateful the couch came with two pillows. It had been a long time since either of you slept on one. It was still daylight out, but the blizzard made it darker outside. Joel let you rest while he went around the office to see if there was anything else of use now that he wasn't so frantic. He had completely missed the small break room towards the back of the building. He found some unopened bottles of water, snacks, a couple cans of soup and crackers. He spread all the usable food out on the table but brought the crackers back with him to check on you. You were still laying stiffly on the couch and staring at a stock photo of a beach on the wall, looking uncomfortable.

"Are you in pain? I got some pills from the drawer," Joel dug out the bottle and read the warning label. "They sound pretty strong." You shook your head, not wanting to dull your senses in case of another attack, but now that the stiffness was setting in, the pain was getting worse. You glanced out the window, seeing the storm outside. Deciding it was unlikely anyone would be out in the snow and find you, you changed your mind and stuck your hand out to him. He dropped two pills into your hand and gave you a water bottle.

"Here, have a little somethin’ more to eat with those, don't need you gettin' sick," he said, offering the crackers in your direction. You took the sleeve from him and munched on one slowly as you waited for the pills to kick in. Joel walked around to the desk and collapsed into the leather chair, kicking his feet up on the desktop and mindlessly flipped through open patient charts left on the desk. You shoved another cracker in your mouth and watched the snow coming down outside. You sat up a little more on the couch. The movement made you feel dizzy from the pills, but you hardly felt a thing at your side when you moved. Your eyes drifted lazily to Joel’s broad figure sitting behind the wooden desk. It brought back memories you hadn’t thought about in months. Memories of a different time, when you would sit on the other side of his desk all flustered and nervous.

He looked up and caught you staring at him. “What?” he asked, a bemused expression on his face. You shook your head but couldn’t stop the stupid smile from spreading across your face. Goddamn pills.

“Nothing, it’s just funny…” you started, trailing off and then giggled, causing Joel to raise his eyebrows and grin.

“Those pills must be workin’, huh?” he asked, his grin widening. You nodded, stifling your giggles and took a deep breath.

“I was just thinking, everyone used to be so scared of you in the office, they would warn me to steer clear of you, that you had a horrible temper. And look at us now,” you let out another giggle before continuing. “What the hell happened?”

He smiled at you again and tipped his head back on the top of the leather chair to look up towards the ceiling, remembering life the way it was before.

“Yeah, I was an asshole, wasn’t I?” he said, making you laugh harder now, then you clutched your side with a small wince. “Hey, take it easy, you might not feel anythin’ but you can still pop a stitch.” You quieted your laughter now, knowing he was right, and chewed the inside of your cheek thoughtfully, reminiscing about those days just 6 short months ago. Joel rolled his head to the side to look at you. “I didn’t scare you, though,” he said quietly, not sure why he was encouraging you while you were in this state.

You glanced back at him and shook your head, then held up one finger. “Only once,” you said definitively.

He stared at you and held his breath. He knew exactly what you were referring to: the argument the two of you had that was never brought up again. The day he called you a whore and ruined everything. He was the first to look away, casting his gaze back down on the desk before him. He should have apologized by now, he should have explained himself, but he always found an excuse to avoid it. Today’s excuse was you were too loopy on the pain pills and that conversation needed to happen when you both had a clear head. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers as you waited for him to say something. Anything to take back what he said.

“I think you should get some sleep,” he finally told you, dropping his hand and looking up at you. You knew he was going to avoid talking about it, but you were still disappointed. The pills had really taken effect now as you felt your eyelids grow heavy. You sighed, scooting down to lay flat on the couch and pulling your sleeping bag over you. You closed your eyes but couldn’t resist saying one more thing.

“I would do anything for you,” you whispered before nodding off. Joel’s breath caught in his throat and his eyes fluttered shut as he tried to hold back the tears that unexpectedly sprung to his eyes.

“Me too, sweetheart,” he whispered back, but you were already asleep.

The storm let up after another day, which was just as well since it allowed you more time to heal. Joel didn’t want to stay long at this place, worried that the attackers had a larger group and would come looking for you. Once the snow stopped and you had replenished your backpacks with more rags, first aid, and the food from the break room, you were off at first light. You both realized quickly that you were making terrible time since the snow was knee deep and you were already struggling to stay balanced due to your injury. After a very slow mile, Joel had found a sturdy fallen branch for you that he broke down into a more manageable size, allowing you to use it like a cane in the snow. You had to admit that it made traveling a lot easier, but you were still fighting to hide the throbbing pain at your side. After another hour, Joel agreed to let you rest. He made sure you took your antibiotic and ate some more crackers. Your feet felt numb, even though you had 3 pairs of socks and thick hiking boots.

"Joel," you whined, looking up at him standing guard as he surveyed the thick forest around you. "How much longer are we going to walk? This snow is so deep, and my side is killing me."

"I gotta find us somewhere safe, then we can stay there til you're all healed up and we'll wait out the rest of winter, I promise," he said, looking down at you now and meeting your gaze, "I'm gonna take care of you."

You sighed and regretted complaining almost immediately. You could tell he was still beating himself up over how you got injured and you didn't want to keep reminding him of it. He was shouldering too many responsibilities and you could see the worry and anxiety behind his eyes.

"Alright, let's get moving, I'm good," you said, using your stick to pull yourself back up into a standing position. Joel glanced over you once more to make sure you were, in fact, 'good' like you claimed. Satisfied, he turned and led you through the woods. The trees were thick, mostly pine trees that kept all their needles in the winter. It was good to keep you hidden but it was also bad because it could keep someone else hidden, too.

After another few miles, Joel paused a moment to examine his map. He had a general idea where you were, but he didn’t exactly have a destination in mind. He just figured he would know it when he saw it, and it turned out, he was right.

His head was down examining the map in his hands as he walked through the forest and approaching a clearing. Now he wasn’t sure he knew where you were, since the location on the map still showed greenery up ahead. He was mumbling to himself about getting turned around when you gasped, and his head shot up.

You had stumbled across a small neighborhood of about ten or twelve houses, all surrounded by the lush forest you had just hiked through. He had to blink a few times, feeling like he was looking at an oasis in the desert. As you approached the neighborhood, you passed a sign that read 'Hidden Springs - lots starting at $200,000'.

"Man, they really knew what they were doing when they named this place," you joked as you walked side by side down the abandoned street. The houses were all finished except for three which were partially constructed, forever frozen in time.

"This must be a new neighborhood, that's why it ain't showing up on the map," Joel said excitedly as he spun around to make sure you were still alone. "I haven't seen any tracks or smoke or nothin', this place is off the grid," he turned to smile at you. "We can work with this."

You grinned happily, so relieved to finally have found a place where you could rest for more than a couple nights.

"Well, which house d'you want?" Joel asked, looking at all the houses up and down. They were mostly two-story houses, but there were a couple of small ranch homes interspersed. You spotted one in the middle of the neighborhood on your right-hand side and pointed to it. it was a white two-story house with blue shutters and a red door.

"I've always wanted a wraparound porch," you said. "What do you think?" He couldn't keep the smile off his face, the whole place seemed too good to be true and best of all, you would be happy and safe.

He made his way up the front porch to peer inside the windows. He didn't see any movement, and fortunately it looked like the previous owners had a chance to move in, spotting the fully furnished living room. He had insisted on making you wait outside until he could be certain the place was abandoned before letting you in. The house was beautiful and practically brand new. You drifted from room to room to get a feel for the layout: the stairs and a hallway leading to the kitchen faced you right as you walked in the front door, a living room to your right and a den to your left, and a half bath attached to the hallway. The kitchen had a small mudroom attached, which led to the backyard. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. The master bedroom was the only room that had windows facing the front of the house, so you chose to stay in that room, both of you slipping into the king size bed without even questioning if you should sleep apart.

Chapter Thirteen

Taglist: @chiogarza, @sparklejumpropequeen-777

#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller #joel miller smut #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller fic #joel the last of us #tlou hbo #the last of us hbo #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller series #joel x reader #joel x reader smut #joel miller angst #joel miller fluff #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us game #the way we were joel miller fic

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yo-yo-yeonkai · 1 year ago

Text

THE PERFECT (K)NIGHT - HUENING KAI - NSFW

Kai x fem!reader

Genre: Smut

Warning list: Royalty AU! Knight Kai, Princess Reader, Taehyun as a character, insecure Kai, confident reader, mention of battle, injury, pet names (love, sweetheart), fluff, bro they are so in love it hurts my head, oblivious, praise, slight perv Kai, titty sucking, short handjob and fingering, haven’t proof read

Word count: 5,734

Summary: Kai was a knight, not any old night, he was your knight. He was the best in his regiment, known as the perfect knight. He was what all the other knights wanted to be. Partly because he was close to you, but also because he was incredible. You were a princess, the very thing Kai vowed to protect, Which he thought he did with perfection. Except he couldn’t protect you from himself on that one perfect night.

Authors note: This was not my original work for Kai’s birthday, I wrote this over night as a replacement, and I still hate it. So I am very sorry, I’ll make sure my next piece is better :3

His job was to ensure your safety. However, he was uncertain of whether he executed his duty flawlessly or failed miserably. He kept you away from all potential dangers except for himself.

Perhaps it would have been better if he had held back the night you ushered him to your room, claiming that someone had stolen something from you. He had entered, prepared to catch the thief, only for you to slide the shoulder of your nightgown down, possibly in an attempt to seduce him. "Kai~ it seems I wasn't entirely truthful," you tell him, taking a few gentle steps closer, but he remained still, waiting for an explanation. "You see, something was taken from me... but I don't want it back," you continue, now just a few steps away from Kai. He raises his hand and scratches the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, I don't quite follow. Why do you need my help if you don't want your stolen item back? And why wouldn't you want it back?" He questions you, unsure of what's going on in your head. You giggle and step so close to Kai that your chests press together. "I don't need your help, I just need you to hear the sentence I proposal," you giggle, causing Kai to nod and look down at you, trying to contain himself from making a move on you in the lack of distance between the two of you. "Sir Kai, I hereby find you guilty of stealing from me," you pout as you speak, but it's cute, so adorable that it takes a few seconds for Kai to process the words.

"I apologize, but I don't believe that's accurate, Your Highness. And I'm sure you don't even believe your own accusation," he says, eyebrows knitted together and nose scrunched in confusion. You chuckle at his expression and remind him, "I've told you before, please, call me by my name. I call you Kai, why can't you do the same for me?" You run your hand up his chest, causing him to shudder. He looks down and says, "I'd prefer not to. You know how it turned out last time," with a hint of bitterness in his voice, recalling past events.

"Come on Kai don't be so sour, call me by my name. We've been friends forever, it's only right" you cheer, running through the glowing fields of bright colour and life. Each new dash of colour is a new world for you to draw, to capture the essence of. You simply loved life. The way each flower was hugged by blades of grass, how each tree stood tall with the help of the ground grasping its roots, the way the sun rose with orange hues and went down with pink ones, it was perfect.

It was your favourite place to be, the flower fields. The scent of nature's sweet perfume surrounded you as petals blew behind you, like a trail leading Kai in your direction. He wasn't a bad runner, he's a knight after all, but it didn't mean he wanted to spend his days chasing you. His legs carry him towards you, not letting you stray far away from him, as part of his duty as your knight. "Fine~," he reluctantly agrees, hoping you'll stop running, to make his job more relaxing.

You halt all movement and snap your head in his direction. You wonder if he'd really just agreed, after so many years of using your title, was he really going to say it? Could he really bring himself to break the rules like that? Well, your interest only grew at the thought of your perfect knight breaking the rules for you. "Say it~ say my name~" you chant, walking up to him. As the distance between your faces grows smaller and smaller, he mumbles "(Y/N) I really think it's best we head back to the palace, it's almost time for your evening classes" he reminds you, but most importantly he said exactly what you wanted to hear. "My name sounds so perfect when you say it. Never let me down Kai, always say it" You flushed, the corners of your lips turning up into a bright smile, rushing back towards the palace, trusting that Kai will always use your name.

And so, he never failed to address you by your name in private but always made sure to use your official title in public, particularly in the presence of His Majesty. However, one fated unfortunate mistake changed everything.

Kai was guarding the palace that evening, as the party lived on behind him. He overlooked the perimeter from the balcony carefully, determination to protect the kingdom he loved evident in his stance and gaze, nothing could distract him.

As if the world knew you were his only weakness you suddenly came running to him. "Kaiiii~" you cheered, heels clicking, dress flowing, hair bouncing. You stole his breath, you looked so stunning, a blue elegant ball gown hugging you so perfectly he swore he could see your body through it. Your hair bounced softly at each step you took closer to him, it must be soft. He'd caught himself daydreaming about running his hands through it, and that's when he realized he was being a pervert, so he squeezed his eyes shut in an attempt to cleanse his brain and then gave his attention back to you.

Red-hot embarrassment climbs up his body at his thoughts of you. In an attempt to hide it, he let the smile that was already slipping onto his face turn into a wide grin, surely it looked natural. Fun fact, it did not! He should be concentrating, but now you were here, that had blown out the window. "What is it now?" He teased playfully, knowing you preferred it when he treated you like a friend and not a boss. "I was just coming to say that I wished you could join the party. It's a shame they shoved you out here... normally you'd be by my side. Don't you think that's where you belong?" You questioned, trying to hint at something, but you seemed to forget that Kai was oblivious. You wonder how he even got a job where perceptiveness was required when he couldn't even take a hint.

"I belong where I am sent (Y/N), you know this," he says, and that's when he hears your little brother gasp in surprise. Your brother rushes up to Kai's legs and pulls on them "Sir Kai, you have failed to address my sister correctly!" He complained, confused as to why a knight would ever break the rules. His Highness had never heard something so absurd... it was certainly a first. Kai flushes and goes to explain, but you quickly pull your brother away and out of sight. Hopefully, you could explain the situation to him and deter him from telling anyone

After two months had passed, he thought he had gotten away with it until he was called into the Throne room. Initially, he assumed it was for a new mission, but he was mistaken. It turned out to be something far different than what he had expected.

"His Majesty" Kai respectfully bows before the king and awaits his words. The king clears his throat and remarks "At least you still know how to address me, Sir Kai". It was then that Kai knew what had happened but decided to feign ignorance. "I apologize for my lack of understanding, but I'm not quite sure what Your Majesty is referring to. I always address people correctly, if I have failed to do so, please let me know of my shortcomings, and I will make sure the same mistake is not made again." Kai declared, so clearly that His Majesty had to think twice about what he was about to say.

"Sir Kai, I believe it was an unintentional error. As an honourable and chivalrous knight, I know you would not have meant it. However, my son overheard you addressing my daughter by her name instead of her title. I don't require an apology, but I do request that you refrain from doing it again. Failure to comply may result in your removal from your role as her knight. Kindly depart without any further conversation," commanded the King, and Kai respectfully bowed before departing.

Fuck!

The word utters through his brain again and again like a treacherous curse, compelling him to get as far away from the palace as he can. Admittedly, he didn't get very far... only to the knight's barracks, but that's probably for the best. His legs carry him in the direction of his room, where he knew Taehyun was resting after getting out of the hospital. Taehyun had been gone for a long time, and Kai was so glad he was back for this moment. He wouldn't be able to face it alone, he needed his friend by his side.

The knight sat there stretching his back out as Kai rushed through the door, closing it with a slam that shook the building. Stripping himself of his equipment he finally felt a bit lighter and collapsed onto the floor, groaning in pure frustration.

Taehyun knew Kai like the back of his hand and quickly clicked on that it was a noise of pain rather than a noise of joy. "Sir Kai?" He teased, patting his bed so Kai would get off the floor and get some rest. When Kai complied, it all came spilling out. "I'm so fucked. I called her Highness by her name, and His Highness overheard and then His Majesty found out. He knows thinks it was an accident, but it wasn't, he threatened to kick me off her service!!!" he groaned, speaking so fast his sentence might as have been one long word. Taehyun had to fight to decode it as Kai threw himself next to him.

The older patted the boy's back gently, in an attempt to calm him down so the next sentence wouldn't sound like nonsense. He chuckled "Where is the problem? I thought you hated being on her service. I thought you wanted to be on the front lines and fight for what the kingdom deserves, freedom. What happened to that?". Kai deadpans the ceiling as if it had just killed his family, but it truly wasn't capable of even breathing, let alone causing such harm. Realizing he's acting daft he groans again, partly at himself this time "I know, and I still want that, but I can't bare it..." he stops, but he doesn't continue, so Taehyun prompts him "Can't bare what?". Kai gasps as the truth finally dawned on him. He realizes why he threw out the rules for you, and why he gave up his original dream. Oh god, this is worse than he thought. Taehyun looks at the boy as tears threaten to slip from his eyes, but what was Taehyun meant to do, he had no clue why Kai started crying.

"Oh, Kai! What's wrong? Please talk to me... I won't tell anyone, you know I don't like the rumours around here anyways" Taehyun tells him, patting Kai's back as he looks up at Tae and sobs. "I- you can't tell anyone" Kai sobs, desperation plastered across his face and Taehyun nods, prompting Kai to continue "I fell in love with her". The confession makes him cry ten times harder and Taehyun holds the innocent male. Loving royalty when you are not feels like a crime, of the worst variety, so he can't imagine how Kai must really feel right now.

At that moment Kai decided he needed to be as far away from you as he could be, so he made a plan. Request a transfer to the front lines in a few months, and whilst he's away his feelings will wear off and he'll be able to do his job normally. When they ask him who will take his job, refer Taehyun because he will understand and needs a break anyway. But most importantly, Taehyun can protect you.

A few months later, Kai put his plan into action. When asked for the reason for his transfer he stated one of his true answers "As much as I do appreciate all the opportunities I get here. I would like to fight on the front lines for a while, it was my dream when I first signed up for the program as a young boy, and with His Majesty's permission I would like to fulfil my dream".

The king didn't even think it was strange, he was just amazed by how courageous Kai was, willingly going onto the front lines, dreaming of fighting for freedom.

When Taehyun found out, he thanked Kai, but he couldn't help the feeling of terror filling his stomach at the thought of Kai's innocence being broken by the sight of the front lines. He was sure Kai would come back a different man, but he'd be here for him when he did.

When Your Highness found out, it was already too late, Kai had gone that morning, and you'd found out in the evening when Taehyun was sent to accompany you on your evening walks. You questioned Taehyun the entire time.

"Your Sir Kai's friend, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am"

"You share a room?"

"Yes"

"Do you know why he left?"

"He got transferred."

"Did he say anything about how difficult I'd be?"

"Sir Kai never spoke about Her Highness".

"What do you mean? Kai never mentioned me?"

"Exactly what I say, Your Highness."

That's when Taehyun knew it. You were either a troublemaker who loved to break rules, or you loved Kai as well. And all because you didn't use his title. Oh, Taehyun you are so perceptive.

"Tell me seriously this time! Why did he leave?"

"I'm 100% serious. He got transferred."

"Where did he get transferred to?"

"The front lines"

"WHAT?!!" You bellowed; horror plastered across your face at the new information. Taehyun knew you'd react like this, and it only confirmed his theory, and even selected the correct option for him.

You were in love with Kai.

"I'm sorry you've only just found out Your Highness, but Sir Kai left to fulfil the original reason he joined the kingdom's military. He dreamed of fighting for freedom." He explained, urging you to continue walking so you do. "I know that. Kai always spoke about it. It was courageous, but now he's done it, I feel sick" you divulged, ignoring that Taehyun shouldn't know of your feelings. "I feel the same way, Your Highness. Though please don't forget that Sir Kai is the best knight in our regiment, and even got suggested for the rank of officer recently. He excels at all his missions and training and is the epitome of the perfect knight. I'm sure Your Highness is aware that his reputation proceeds him." Taehyun explains.

You hum and nod "I am aware. I enjoy keeping up with the achievements of our military and I've seen Kai's name a few times. Along with yours Sir Taehyun. You received an injury in battle that caused you to come off the front lines. That's why you've traded with Kai, no? A week before Kai gets called into the throne room, you come back, and only months later when you are finally ready for action again, Kai disappeared. Why wait so long, to the point you have recovered again?" You interrogated him. Taehyun sighed at your genius and explained "I have no intention of lying to Your Highness, so please hear me out. Sir Kai waited for me to recover so that I could take his position whilst he went to battle. He didn't want you to be appointed some, excuse my language, freak pervert.".

You expressed frustration, "He's clever and cunning, always one step ahead of me. It's alarming that he can maintain a facade in front of me while scheming like this." You quickened your pace as you both arrived at the palace. Taehyun hurried behind you, ensuring you made it to your room before he retired for the night. Unbeknownst to him, you were in a rush because Kai had already left and wouldn't return for some time, but now you knew his plan you could come up with your own plan to bring him back. Taehyun found your behaviour peculiar, but he could suddenly understand why Kai was drawn to you.

Kai came back after 5 months with a gash on his arm, but you were kept in the dark about it. All because your plan... had not worked. When you stormed into the throne room and accused Kai of scheming and explained his plan, your access to his regiment's records was revoked. As a result, you were unable to keep track of Kai's activities during those 5 months.

After recovering in the hospital, Kai returned to the barracks where he spoke with Taehyun about his experience. Taehyun was surprised to find that Kai didn't show any signs of trauma as he had expected. Instead, Kai was brimming with joy and seemed ecstatic.

When questioned, Kai rambled, "Tae, it's just as revolting as you described. It was truly awful and made me feel like throwing up when I arrived. However, as soon as I started fighting, I remembered the reason why I do what I do: to defend those who cannot defend themselves, to rescue families who long for better days, and to keep my loved ones safe. Taehyun, it was disgustingly perfect."

As Kai spoke, Taehyun couldn't help but give him a sceptical look. Kai was undeniably a unique specimen. Despite having stitches on his arm from a sword wound, he was still brimming with enthusiasm for the upcoming fight. Kai was definitely a force to be reckoned with.

Taehyun was instructed to keep Kai's return a secret, and he followed the rules accordingly. Despite the princess's persistent questioning, Taehyun remained tight-lipped, even though he was aware of the truth. How could he not be when every time he returned to the barracks Kai would blabber on about the fight.

When Kai finally graced your presence again it was at an award ceremony and Kai was being awarded for not only climbing to an officer rank, but then a commander rank, oh lord, what had Kai been up to? Then, just to top it off, an award for bravery in the face of battle. You applauded him enthusiastically from the royalties stands, and your father warned you "Stop clapping so enthusiastically for the commander, people will assume things". You didn't stop and your mother laughed, "darling, let her continue to clap! It's okay to be proud of her old knight".

Kai approached the family to offer his respects, but he did not acknowledge your presence. You may feel slighted by his lack of attention, but it is important to understand that Kai has a specific role to fulfil, and it doesn't involve being by your side at the moment. That is why Taehyun is standing next to your chair, protecting you. This is his duty, not Kai's, and Kai has other responsibilities to attend to.

As the award ceremony came to a close and the party began you and Taehyun watched as Kai mingled with many other guests, it was a party no ordinary knight would've ever been able to attend. You tutted at yourself "Commander? What in the world did he do to climb the ranks that much?". Taehyun explained, "You'd be surprised if you saw him in a battle Your Highness, he's a beast, and stupidly brave". You nodded in agreement and went to walk towards him, but Taehyun grabbed your wrist and held you back "I'm sorry your highness, but I'm saying this in your best interest. If you'd like the commander to serve you again, It would be best not to approach him. I can explain outside?" He spoke under his breath, not looking at you. He was pretending he wasn't saying anything at all, his lips barely moved. From his behaviour, you ascertain that you were being watched and Taehyun knew. You walked outside and Taehyun pretended to be confused and followed after you.

"I'm sorry Your Highness, I shouldn't have grabbed you. But you shouldn't approach Kai this evening, at least not in there. His Majesty is watching to see whether you do. I overheard that if you do, Kai won't be taking back his old job, and I'll continue to serve you. I've known you long enough now to know some things about how you feel about Kai, so I am advising you not to if you want to be near him again" he spoke, a matter of fact. You hummed and nodded "Thank you Taehyun. You didn't need to do that, but you did, so thank you. Don't worry about grabbing me, I understand the situation. Is there any way you could instruct Kai to come to the gardens this evening?" Taehyun thinks for a moment and nods "I can do that. But if anyone finds out, I never played a part in this. Is that a deal your Highness?". You nod at Taehyun and smile, you owed this man a lot.

That night, you went to your room and put your plan into action. You changed out of your ball gown and into an evening dress and waited for midnight to approach. Once the clock struck twelve, you slipped out of your window and made your way down to the gardens, after locking your bedroom door so nobody could even check if you were in there. As you were running through the garden you catch sight of his broad silhouette leaning on the pillar of the flowery gazebo. You were unsure how to act after being apart for five months. You approached him from behind, a giddy excitement flourishing inside of you, and tapped his back, giggling, "Guess who~". He spun to you, eyes twinkling like the universe was stored in his gaze. "Your Highness" he greets you, but he doesn't bow, he'd long grown out of that habit when you were in private, that's what had got him in this mess in the first place. You’d think he’d be smarter this time around. You blush a bright red "C- commander" you stutter slightly, and slap a hand over your mouth. You had never, in your life, stuttered. You'd never do something so ridiculous, but Kai's return had made you act in such a silly way.

Kai ushered you into the gazebo "How have you been?" He asks, leaning against the seat as he waits for your response. Answer honestly or lie. "I've been well thank you. I've become top rank In all my classes like I wanted. How about you Commander?" You question, still trying out his new title. He chuckles at your use of it and says "I've been well, I won't talk about the battle with her Highness, it isn't appropriate. My arm is better now though!" He cheers, but your eyebrow shoots up. "Hmm, what happened to your arm?" You pester, eyes flicking to look at his arms but you can't see anything through his shirt, that was maybe a bit too tight on his ever-growing muscles. He smiled "Ah my bad, I assumed you would've known because you keep up to date with the military files. I suppose you missed my one." He chuckles, but there is a sad tinge to it. You shake your head "No, Kai, it's not that I missed your file, I would never do that. I had your regiments files restricted from my access" you explain, accidentally using his name in a rush, but for some reason, Kai felt a weight off his shoulders at the sound of it.

"I'll explain to you then. I got a gash on my arm during battle. I'm lucky it didn't get infected, or go too deep, I needed stitches but it's practically better now" he explains, waving his arm around as if to prove it. You tut "I can't believe you did that, I hope it was worth it. I understand but... It was a shock" You pouted at the mere thought of him running away again. He instantly clicked onto what you meant and didn't respond, it didn't need a response. They stayed there for another hour conversing until they returned to their respective rooms.

Without hesitation, Taehyun immediately implemented his own plan, reinstating Kai to his former job and setting them both on the right path. It seems you make everyone around you forget about the rules because Taehyun couldn't care less for your royal status when he knew you two were both in love with each other. That's how things played out, and despite staying friends until the night in your room, he never uttered your name.

"I know what happened last time Kai~ but it won't happen again~ just say it once for me?" You begged, pouting your lips as you ran your hands up his neck and hooked them around the back of it, hugging yourself to him. He was fighting with himself as your chest squished against his own. 'Don't touch her, don't touch her!' He chants internally, remembering he's just a commander at the end of the day, he had no rank compared to you.

"If I say it, will you tell me what I stole?" He challenged and you hummed in his ear, goosebumps shooting across his skin at the delicate sound against the hot air that fanned across his neck. This was the biggest challenge he'd been put through yet, and it was just a harmless person's presence. Kai should've been stronger than this, he knew he could've been, but you rendered him useless. Kai wouldn't be able to contain himself if this went on much longer.

"(Y/N)" he uttered. You replied with such a sultry voice, he nearly gave in, "Yes Kai?". His hands stammered up towards your hips and hesitated a second on whether to go through with his desires before he decided to retreat. "Can you tell me what I stole?" He requests, voice still successfully stable, though internally, he was stuttering and blubbering. You nodded swiftly, grasping his hands and leading them to your waist like he wanted to.

Then as you leant towards his face, you muttered each word. "You. Stole. My. Heart." and then your lips pressed together. Kai froze for a second, thoughts of how absolutely wrong it is swirling through his head and distorting his view of what was real. But one thought rang louder than the others: if it was so bad, why did it feel so good?

His lips moved against your soft ones, and when he squeezed your hips and a whimper slipped out of your lips and past his, he was gone. He'd lost control of himself.

You giggle as you escape his strong arms and run to lock your bedroom door, making a smirk spread across his face, pulling you towards him. "Kai~" you giggle in surprise as he kisses you harder than before and begins travelling down your neck, leaving a trail of wet kisses. He looks at you in the eye and confesses "I love you." kissing your lips like they were his new addiction, "I love you so fucking much Your Highness." he admits, a kiss in between each word. You groan at him "Don't call me that, or I'll start calling you commander again!". He hums in understanding, "I love you, (Y/N)." You smile and admit, "I love you too, Kai."

Now with a mutual understanding, Your fingers light touch trails along Kai's tight shirt, quickly undoing each button and sliding your hands along his bare skin. He'd never get over how your delicate touch contrasted with the filthy words you let out... no princess is expected to act like this.

He slides the other thin strap off your shoulder and pulls the dress down your body, leaving you in your underwear. Kai never even thought he'd get to see you like this, he didn't even dream of it it was just that far out of reach. but here you were, standing in front of him with your body exposed to his hungry gaze. Everything felt unreal. It simply had to be a dream. You go to slide his top off, but he quickly pulls it back over his scarred arm.

It takes only a second for you to realize what he'd done and why he'd done it, "Kai, you don't need to feel insecure with me. I love you so much. I think you are perfect no matter what. Please let me see you. If you aren't ready, you can keep it on tonight. I won't mind, I want you comfortable." You reassure him, kissing his lips a few times as he thought about it. Whilst your eyes were closed and your lips on his, he pulled the shirt off, hoping you wouldn't even notice, but he was wrong. You pulled away from him and peeked at it, the scar went all along his arm, and your heart ached at the sight, not because it was ugly, but because he'd been in all that pain once upon a time. You leave gentle kisses all along it and whisper, "My strong Kai, my courageous Kai, my Honorable Kai, you are so perfect."

He chuckles and smiles at your words, pushing you back onto your bed and leaning over you. "God, you know just what to say don't you" he teases, going to lean on the arm but realizing he can't so you flip him over. He looks thankful and begins kissing your neck once again as you fumble with his buckle, desperate to undo his trousers and feel him for the first time.

Whilst your attention was elsewhere, he undid your bra and moved your hands so he could pull it off you. After he'd done what he wanted your hands instantly returned to his trousers, hovering over his lap to pull them down his legs. The second your chest was in front of him he grabbed at it, intrigued at how it moved at each touch he made, like a filthy pervert, but you didn't seem to mind, in fact, you seemed to love it. He moves his mouth over one of your tits and licks your nipple, fascinated at how you may react. A soft whine fell from your mouth and he did it again, fingers rolling your other nipple. You reached under Kai's boxers and finally grasped him, pre cum leaking from his tip as you rubbed your thumb over it, groans already falling from his mouth. "Hmm~ yare you that sensitive Kai" you giggle, leaving sloppy kisses on his neck as you pumped your hand up and down him, his pre cum making it easier to glide.

"How can I not be when the woman I love is touching me so well~" he teases and reminds you of his feelings, pulling your panties to the side to see if you were ready for him. His fingers prod into your slit, greeted by a pool of hot desire for him in the form of your slick coating his fingers, and he quickly realizes you have been ready for a while. "Are you ready yet love?" He asks, slipping his fingers into your hole and searching for you to struggle as you respond. "Y-yes! Kai ple-ease!" You stutter, whines interrupting your words. He loves making you stutter because he's the only person that had ever made you stutter and he's proud. proud he can make the princess, a woman who was trained to be so civilised she would never stutter, a stupid mess. He brings your hips forward and lines himself up with your hole. When you are ready he guides you down onto him, being patient as you get used to the feeling, it took everything he had not to brutally fuck into you straight away, the way you gripped his cock was just too heavenly. His hands find purchase on your waist as you begin to bounce causing a moan to slip from both of you.

As he grows more desperate he begins thrusting up into you and pushing you further down on his cock, causing the motion to slap together in the middle, forcing his cock into the sweet spongey bit of you that made you throw your head back and moan his name. "Kai feels -s good!", head falling onto his shoulder as your body grows so tired that you can't even keep yourself up as he uses you. "I know sweetheart- I feel it too-" he grunts, kissing your temple and he thrusting even faster than before. God, your not sure if you love fucking a commander, or hate it. You'll be bruised in the morning let's just say that.

As he fucks you, the best you can do is kiss, lick and bite his neck, using it as a way of keeping your moans in. Pressure builds up in your body and you want to scream but instead, you bite into Kai's shoulder and he seems to understand "Me too love, I'm nearly there" he whines, his pace becoming more frantic as he chases his high. The feeling of his hot seed plastering your walls has your own high crashing down on you and practically sobbing into Kai's shoulder. "Well done my love" he praises, rubbing your back as he lies you both down on your sheets. Kai's stamina training was the only thing keeping him going right now, and you didn't want to imagine how much longer he could go on if he wanted.

It takes you a few minutes but you recover, and by now Kai has you cleaned up, and both of you dressed and laying in bed. Your eyes lock onto his as you smile, "Kai, I love you-" you confess another time, worried you still haven't told him enough. He blushes, shy as if he hadn't just fucked you, "(Y/N), I love you too". A soft giggle fills the room, his following soon after.

Is there a world where a princess and a commander could live happily ever after? I'm not sure... but Kai and (Y/N) we're surely going to find out.

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