#bts space au

[chimcess]

⮞ Chapter Five: Captain Disco's Last Stand Pairing: Jungkook x Reader Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon, Boss!Yoongi, Commander!Jimin, Astronaut!Jimin, Doctor!Hoseok, Astronaut!Hoseok Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 16k+ Summary: When a deep space transporter crash-lands on a barren planet illuminated by three relentless suns, survival becomes the only priority for the stranded passengers, including resourceful pilot Y/N Y/L/N, mystic Namjoon Kim, lawman Taemin Lee, and enigmatic convict Jungkook Jeon. As they scour the hostile terrain for supplies and a way to escape, Y/N uncovers a terrifying truth: every 22 years, the planet is plunged into total darkness during an eclipse, awakening swarms of ravenous, flesh-eating creatures. Forced into a fragile alliance, the survivors must face not only the deadly predators but also their own mistrust and secrets. For Y/N, the growing tension with Jungkook—both a threat and a reluctant ally—raises the stakes even higher, as the battle to escape becomes one for survival against the darkness both around them and within themselves. Warnings: Strong Language, Blood, Trauma, Graphic Injury scenes, Jaded Characters, Smart Character Choices, This is all angst and action and that's pretty much it, Reader is a bad ass, Survivor Woman is back baby, gardening, terraforming, some mental health issues, survivor's guilt, lots of talking to herself, and recording it, because she'll lose her mind otherwise, fixing things, intergalatical politics, new characters, depression, body image issues, scars, hate for Disco music, morally grey people, will this make us look bad as an organization?, questionable character choices as well, strong female characters are everywhere, cynical humor, bad science language, honestly all of this has probably had the worst science and basis ever, I researched a lot I promise, let me know if I missed anything... A/N: This was so much fun to write. Give me some good lore and characters and I'll eat that shit up. Sorry for the lack of good romance so far, but hopefully you guys will think the wait was worth it.

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Aguerra Prime hung in the void like a mirage—too beautiful to trust. From orbit, it looked almost like Earth on a particularly clear day: swirls of deep ocean green wrapped in cloud-white, kissed by sunlit blues that shimmered as the planet slowly turned. But the illusion unraveled the moment you touched ground. The air had weight to it, a faint chemical tang that clung to the back of your throat, even after filtration. The oceans stretched endlessly across the surface, glistening with promise, but anyone with half a brain knew better than to get too close. The water was alive and teemed with native microbes and corrosive compounds that could dissolve human skin in minutes. Rainfall could be fatal without proper shielding. Even the soil, rich and dark in places, had to be treated before anything could grow.

Still, people adapted. They always did. Within a few short decades, colonies had pushed back against the wild terrain. Engineers built water purification towers along the cliffs. Bio-domes and coral crete cities rose along the coastal ridges, each one a careful balance of technology and caution. Life took root—hard-earned, and always on the edge—but it took root all the same. They called it New Oslo, this particular stretch of civilization: a sleek, functional city curved against the curve of a jagged coastline, looking out toward a horizon that always seemed a little too still.

And it was here, on the outskirts, that the cemetery lay.

Jemas National Cemetery sat on a plateau just above the mist-line, where the sea was visible only as a silver suggestion beyond the hills. The wind moved constantly, sweeping over rows of white stone markers in gentle, unhurried waves. The markers were all the same shape—rectangular, unadorned except for names and ranks and dates—but each one told a story that someone, somewhere, still carried.

The sky that morning was a low sheet of gray, the kind of cloud cover that blurred the light and made everything feel quieter. The ground was damp from a night of cold rain, and the air had that heavy stillness that comes after weather—when nature pauses to catch its breath.

A small crowd had gathered. No more than thirty people stood near the front rows, dressed in dark coats and muted colors, hands tucked into pockets or clasped together in front of them. No one spoke. Even the children, if there were any, kept quiet. It wasn’t the kind of silence that demanded reverence—it was the kind that happened naturally, when grief was fresh and shared.

At the center, just beneath the main flagpole where the banner of the New Oslo Coalition fluttered at half-mast, a wooden podium had been set up.

Yoongi stepped up to it with a practiced stillness. He didn’t glance at his notes—didn’t need to. His eyes moved over the crowd, not looking for anyone in particular, but acknowledging each of them all the same. He took special care not to lock eyes with her uncle, or anyone else on that side of the field.

“She was twenty-nine,” he began. His voice was clear but soft, carrying without force. “Bright. Focused. Asked too many questions. Always wanted to know why before she said yes. The kind of mind you build missions around.”

Some people nodded. Someone near the back exhaled sharply but didn’t speak.

“Y/N was one of our best crewmates. When the Hunter-Gratzner was greenlit, she was one of the first to volunteer. Not because she wanted the recognition—but because she believed in the work. In exploration. In reaching farther.”

He paused, the wind nudging the edges of his coat.

“When the ship went down on M6-117,” he said, “we lost more than a vessel. We lost a crew. We lost civilians. We lost her. And no speech will ever make that okay. It shouldn’t. This isn’t closure. It’s a marker—a place to say we remember.”

Behind him, the flag caught the wind again, the fabric snapping softly.

“But we continue,” he said. “New Oslo grows. The program moves forward. And we carry them with us. Not just in memory, but in mission. In the work we keep doing, because it still matters. Because they believed it did.”

He looked down for a moment, then stepped away without another word.

There was no music. No twenty-one gun salute. Just the sound of the wind moving through the grass, and the occasional shuffle of feet as the mourners broke apart slowly, each of them retreating at their own pace. Some walked past the headstone and placed small tokens—stones, flowers, folded notes—on the cold white marble. Others stood for a moment longer, eyes closed, lips moving in silent conversation with someone who was no longer there.

And then, gradually, the crowd thinned, until only the marker remained, fresh in the ground, surrounded by the soft hush of wind.

The Gabril Space Center was a monument to ambition—New Oslo’s gleaming centerpiece. All glass and chrome, it stood out against the overcast sky like something conjured, too sleek for a world still fighting to call itself home. Inside, the vast atrium echoed with quiet movement: engineers pacing between briefings, analysts buried in screens, the ever-present hum of filtered air and low voices carrying through the open space.

Mateo Gomez moved with purpose, his steps measured across the polished black floor. The heels of his boots tapped softly, the sound swallowed quickly by the high ceilings. Security nodded as he passed, not out of obligation, but recognition. He was someone here. Not at the top—but close enough to knock on the door.

To his left, a news feed looped silently across a wall screen. The headline crawled in red across the bottom: President Speaks at Hunter-Gratzner Memorial. Above it, the feed cut between slow-motion clips—Y/N laughing as she tumbled weightlessly through a shuttle bay, sunlight catching in her hair, then Yoongi shaking hands with the president in front of a somber crowd. Mateo didn’t look twice. The footage had been everywhere for days. You couldn’t walk a corridor without catching her face, mid-laugh, frozen in time. Grief, he was realizing, had become ambient noise in this building. No one talked about it directly, but it was in the way people walked, in the silence that lingered between conversations, in the exhaustion behind their eyes.

Yoongi’s office was at the end of the administrative wing—glass walls, high windows, and a sweeping view of the southern launch pads. The sky beyond was dull and featureless, just layers of gray pressing down over the concrete runways. He was alone when Mateo entered, seated with his back half-turned, watching the muted broadcast play across the mounted screen behind his desk.

Mateo stepped inside without ceremony and held out a slim folder.

“I thought the speech was good,” he said.

Yoongi didn’t turn right away. His hand reached back, taking the folder without looking. He flipped it open, scanning quickly.

“I need authorization for satellite time,” Mateo added.

Yoongi’s voice came without hesitation. “Not happening.”

Mateo’s jaw tensed. He wasn’t surprised, but that didn’t make it easier. “We’re funded for five Nexus missions. I can get Parliament behind a sixth—if we make Y/N’s recovery part of it.”

Yoongi turned a page, barely reacting. “No.”

“We’re getting hammered out there,” Mateo said, stepping forward. “Protests at the gates. Parliament’s dragging their feet on the new appropriations package. The Starfire crew’s threatening to walk unless they get better answers from us, and Cruz—Valencia Cruz—is done playing nice. She’s been fielding calls from half the Intercolonial press.”

“We don’t need a PR stunt,” Yoongi said, still not looking up. “We need results. Nexus II is targeting the Sundermere Basin. We’ve picked up energy signatures—unexplained. Possibly artificial. That’s where the focus is.”

“We can do both,” Mateo said. “Two objectives, one launch. All I’m asking for is eyes on the crash site. A few hours of satellite sweep. It won’t interfere.”

Yoongi finally looked up, pinning him with a sharp glance. “It’s not about interference.”

“Then what?”

Yoongi leaned back slowly in his chair, arms folded across his chest. He didn’t speak right away.

“If we so much as point a satellite at that wreck,” he said finally, “we’re rolling the dice on a media firestorm. If the images get out—and they always do—and if she’s... visible? Intact, partially intact, anything remotely identifiable? That’s headline footage from here to Earth. And we lose control of the story the second that happens.”

Mateo didn’t flinch.

His voice dropped to something low and steady, but the heat behind it was unmistakable. “So that’s it? We just look the other way? Let her rot on a dead planet because it's easier for NOSA’s public relations team?”

Yoongi’s response came hard, like a reflex. “She’s not rotting, Mateo.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, gaze sharp but tired. “You know the sand on M6-117 acts like a thermal buffer. Once she’s under, the surface temperature plummets. Radiation drops. Wind scours the top layer clean. She’s probably preserved better than anything we’ve ever brought back in a sample container. But that’s not the point.”

He rubbed a hand over his face, exhaling through his nose.

“If someone gets footage—anything, even grainy—of what’s left of her... charred, exposed, half-eaten—do you understand what happens next? That becomes the image. Not her work, not her dedication. That.” He tapped the desk once, firm. “And then it won’t just be about Y/N anymore. They’ll turn on us. They’ll ask why we greenlit a civilian-led mission without making sure access to Shields wasn’t shut off sooner. Why the automated course correction failed. Why NOSA sent their golden girl into what’s now being called an ‘unmapped danger zone’ by half the media outlets out of EarthGov.”

He stood abruptly and walked to the window, voice flattening as he looked out.

“They’re already lining up hearings in the Science Oversight Committee. NOSA’s funding is getting picked apart by three subcommittees. The EU bloc wants our Sundermere data classified until they’ve ‘evaluated its economic potential,’ which is code for: 'we want a piece of it.’”

Mateo’s mouth tightened. He’d heard some of that too—leaks coming from the Earth-side delegation, whisper campaigns starting in defense circles. Even the South American Consortium, which usually stood by NOSA, had gone quiet.

Yoongi kept going. “We release one image of that crash site, and the narrative shifts. It stops being about science. It becomes a political mess. Parliament will freeze funding. The Americans will yank their comms array support. And don’t think for a second the Lunar Coalition won’t swoop in to take the Sundermere Basin off our hands.”

He turned back, face lined with the weight of too many choices. “We don’t just lose Y/N. We lose everything.”

Mateo didn’t speak for a long time. His jaw was tight, his breath uneven like he was trying to wrestle something down inside himself before it came out the wrong way.

Finally, he said, quietly, “She was everything.”

Yoongi didn’t respond. He stared out past the desk, past the room, past everything. Mateo kept going, his voice lower now. The heat had drained out of it, leaving something heavier—guilt, maybe, or shame.

“She wasn’t just a solid astronaut. She was the astronaut. Everyone wanted her on their crew. She stayed late to double-check other people’s numbers because she didn’t want anyone getting hurt. When the Gratzner protocols started falling apart mid-flight during test flights, she didn’t panic—she rewrote them in real time, while the rest of the crew was trying not to pass out from pressure drops.”

He shook his head once, eyes distant. “She was the best botanist we had. Not just because she could ID a plant by sight—on three different planets—but because she remembered every soil variant, every gas pocket, every light-cycle condition that might screw up a grow. And then on top of that, she took flight training so she could back up a pilot in an emergency. Who does that?”

Yoongi said nothing, his jaw working like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get it out.

Mateo watched him. “She respected you. You trained her. You went to bat for her when she got passed over the first time. And when the Gratzner crew got shuffled last-minute, she didn’t hesitate—she switched assignments with you. So you could stay back and stabilize Nexus scheduling. She did that for you.”

Yoongi’s shoulders tensed slightly, barely perceptible—but it was there. Outside the office windows, the fog hadn’t lifted. It moved in slow currents over the landing field, softening the harsh outlines of the launch towers. Launch Pad 4 stood at the far end, silent, skeletal, waiting.

Mateo’s voice dropped further, now close to a whisper.

“She’s still up there. No body. No grave. No closure. Just a name on a rotating wall display and a headline that gets smaller every week. People walk past that screen like it’s just background noise. Like she’s already fading out.”

Mateo let out a quiet breath and gave a small, lopsided smile—one of those half-formed expressions that came with memory.

“You remember French Fry?”

Yoongi blinked, caught off guard. He turned slightly, eyes narrowing in thought. “The support drone? The one Dr. Nguyen built to assist with nutritional diagnostics?”

Mateo nodded. “Yeah. The one that kept trying to back itself into the convection oven.”

Yoongi let out a low, almost reluctant chuckle. “Right. Quinn said it was fitting. Said she named it after Y/N because it was brave and always in the wrong place.”

Mateo smiled a little wider. “She wrote that letter to engineering—pretending to be French Fry’s lawyer. Filed a fake complaint against the entire culinary systems team. ‘Negligent appliance zoning resulting in repeated suicide attempts.’ She even cited precedent. You laughed so hard you snorted coffee all over your tablet.”

Yoongi looked down and gave a small shake of his head. “I made her rewrite it three times. Just so we’d have copies.”

A flicker of something softened his face—nostalgia, grief, maybe both—but it faded almost as quickly as it appeared.

“She’s not forgotten,” he said, voice tight at the edges.

Mateo studied him. “Then stop acting like she is.”

Yoongi turned back to the window, arms folded tightly over his chest. The fog outside had thickened, curling around the perimeter lights like smoke. The towers stood still and sharp in the distance, black shapes against a washed-out sky.

Yoongi’s shoulders shifted—barely—but Mateo caught it. He knew the signs. Something had landed.

“She was my friend too,” Yoongi said, finally. His voice was quiet, but there was no doubt in it. “I watched her go from a kid who couldn’t even lock her pressure collar without double-checking the diagram, to a mission lead who had half the command wing checking their math twice because she was just that fast. That sharp.”

He paused, looking down at the floor like the memory was playing out there in front of him.

“She wasn’t just ahead of the curve. She was right. Consistently. The scary kind of right, where people stop arguing even when she’s the youngest one in the room. Not because they’re giving up—but because they know she already figured it out.”

He looked up again, met Mateo’s eyes—really met them—for the first time in a long while.

“And yeah,” he said. “I owe her. I didn’t ask her to take my place. I told everyone I was going, locked the schedule myself. But she knew. She always knew when I was lying, even when I thought I wasn’t.”

He let out a dry breath, more exhale than laugh.

“Somehow, she talked that stone-faced bastard Osei into signing off on the reassignment behind my back. I didn’t even know until I found the note in my locker. All it said was, ‘I trust my crew more than you trust yours. I’ve got this. You’ve got work to do here.’”

A flicker of something passed across his face—pride, maybe, or just the hollow ache of being known too well by someone who was now gone.

“That was her,” Yoongi said, voice quieter. “Always a step ahead. Always taking the harder hit if it meant sparing the rest of us.”

Mateo started to say something, but Yoongi held up a hand—not to cut him off, but just to finish his thought.

“I’m not being cold,” Yoongi said. “I’m being realistic.”

He exhaled, rubbing his palms together like he was trying to keep them from shaking. “Nexus II is barely holding. EarthGov’s budget committee is sharpening knives. Half the Parliament’s ready to gut interplanetary funding if it means buying more leverage back home. We’ve got maybe one window left. One shot at Sundermere before the politics close in.”

He gestured toward the fog-draped launch field outside, where the towers sat dark and skeletal.

“That crater isn’t like the rest of the planet. Wind systems don’t match surrounding patterns. The thermal shifts, the power readings—we’ve never seen anything like it. Eastern ridge is lighting up magnetically. We’re seeing what could be frozen permafrost below the crust—something wet down there. And the biosigns from the last probe? If those weren’t just sensor ghosts, we could be sitting on proof of subsurface life.”

He turned back to Mateo, the weight in his voice unmistakable now. “You know what that means. Terraforming viability. Real colonization. Not domes. Not provisional crews hoping the bioraptors don’t punch through the fences at night. Actual reclamation.”

He looked tired. Not the kind of tired that came from long nights, but the kind that came from too many decisions like this one. “We can’t afford to screw this up. We lose this shot, and M6-117 goes dark. For good. No follow-up. No second wave. Just another failed world buried under bureaucracy.”

Mateo didn’t move. He didn’t argue. He just spoke, calm and deliberate.

“I’m not asking you to risk the mission, Min.”

He stepped closer, closing the gap between them—not confrontational, just steady.

“I’m asking you to write her in. Quietly. Secondary objective, folded into the atmospheric sweep. No flags. No fanfare. Just one pass over the Gratzner wreck. If we get nothing? Fine. But if we see anything—something clear, something dignified—then maybe we give her family more than a looping photo and a footnote in the archives.”

He let the silence hang for a beat, then added, gently, “We’re not chasing ghosts. We’re just trying to finish the story. Close the chapter that never got an ending.”

Yoongi sat back down slowly. The motion looked deliberate, like every joint had to agree to move.

He tapped the armrest once, then stilled.

The quiet that followed wasn’t tense. It was thick. Heavy with memory. The kind of silence that only came after too many years spent carrying too many names.

Mateo didn’t press. He’d known Yoongi long enough to understand his rhythms. He didn’t rush decisions. He let them settle. Let the silence test their weight.

Outside, the fog pressed harder against the windows, thick and unrelenting. The field lights cut through it in faint, useless beams—small cones of visibility swallowed by the gray. The launch towers sat still in the distance, silhouettes fading at the edges like ghosts.

Inside, the soft flicker of the memorial screen lit up the far corner of Yoongi’s office. The same reel, still looping.

Y/N drifted across the frame, weightless, laughing—caught mid-spin inside the Gratzner’s jump bay. Her hair floated around her like silk in water, her limbs relaxed, fluid, untethered. She looked effortless. At ease. Like she belonged up there. Like space had always been hers.

For a second, Mateo forgot where he was. She didn’t look like someone they’d lost. She didn’t look like a name carved into polished stone. She looked like the version of her that used to barrel into early-morning briefings, still half-wired on caffeine and a new theory about bioreactive algae in thin atmospheres. Tablet in one hand, no fewer than four open windows of data stacked across it. Half the time, she was already arguing the point before anyone else had sat down.

She never waited to be asked. She never needed permission.

She just moved—with purpose, with momentum—and dared the rest of the room to catch up.

Then the image on the screen blinked away.

Her official portrait replaced it: eyes forward, hair pulled back, lips in a neutral line. The uniform was crisp. The Coalition flag blurred in the background like a watercolor made of shadow.

Remembering the Crew of the Hunter-Gratzner.

Mateo stared at it. The screen. The text. The way it tried to tidy her into something easy to mourn.

It felt false. Not a lie—but not the whole truth either. Too polished. Too clean.

He could still hear her voice, and not in a nostalgic, far-off way. It was clear. Immediate. Frustrated and full of fire.

He imagined if it had been Jimin Park left on that wreck, or Armin Zimmermann. Y/N wouldn’t be standing in an office, tiptoeing around politics. She’d already be halfway down to satellite ops with a backdoor login and a hard case full of signal boosters.

She’d have that look—mischievous, sure, but dangerous too. Like she knew exactly how many rules she was about to break, and had already decided they weren’t worth following.

And she’d smile, that crooked, knowing smile, just before she said it:

“Fuck bureaucracy.”

Mateo exhaled a breath that was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. He didn’t mean to smile, but it came anyway. It was small, worn at the edges, but it was real.

Because that was her. All of her.

And the truth was, she wouldn’t have just gone after the data—she’d have dragged him along with her, even if it meant putting both their jobs on the line. And he would’ve gone. Without hesitation.

Because she would’ve done the same for him.

And that, Mateo thought, was the point. That was why this mattered.

Behind him, the silence stretched a few seconds longer—until Yoongi finally spoke.

His voice was quiet. A little rough. But steady.

“Go for it.”

Mateo turned, not sure he’d heard him right.

Yoongi didn’t look away from the window, but he nodded once.

“Have April Borne take a look. She’s smart. Discreet. Doesn’t scare easy.”

He paused.

“Get the orbital pass scheduled. Quietly. If there’s a clean window, I want her running the image enhancement—no chatter, no metadata tags. I want to know what condition Y/N’s in before we even think about next steps.”

Mateo nodded. Slowly. He didn’t say thank you. That wasn’t how they worked.

Yoongi leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath, the kind that had been sitting in his chest for hours. Maybe days.

Mateo turned toward the door, ready to move. But he stopped just before stepping out, his hand hovering near the panel.

“Min,” he said quietly, glancing over his shoulder, “this doesn’t change anything about Sundermere. We do the work. We follow through.”

Yoongi looked up, met his eyes.

“I know,” he said. “But we don’t leave her behind if we don’t have to.”

Mateo gave a small nod, then walked out.

Behind him, the door slid shut with a soft hiss. The memorial reel began again—Y/N caught mid-laugh.

April Borne leaned back in her chair, the tension in her shoulders barely easing as she stretched. It was late—closer to early morning, really—but the satellite ops floor was still lit, still humming with quiet, steady life. The room was mostly empty now. Just her, two unmanned desks, and the soft thrum of servers overhead.

She turned her attention back to her screen.

A new work order had come in. That wasn’t unusual. NOSA’s satellite grid ran constant, and last-minute data requests came through all the time—environmental sweeps, storm modeling, orbital drift corrections. But this one was flagged priority access, and the requestor name gave her pause.

Gomez, Mateo.

Her brows pulled together.

It wasn’t that unusual to see an exec’s name on a late pull—especially someone with Mateo’s clearance—but something about it felt… off. Not wrong, exactly. Just heavier than usual.

She scanned the attached coordinates.

Virelia Planitia.

April Borne leaned forward, eyes steady on the screen as she keyed in the coordinates. She spoke the name aloud without thinking—softly, to herself.

“Virelia Planitia.”

Her voice barely rose above the background hum of the satellite control center. The name settled uneasily in her chest. It tugged at something. Familiar, but not quite present. Like a dream half-remembered or the tail end of a story you weren’t supposed to hear.

She frowned, tapped a few commands into the interface, and dragged the scan window to cover the last ten hours. High-res sweep. Shadow filters on. Wind distortion compensation running. She hit ‘execute’ and waited.

The feed loaded slowly—one frame at a time, each one rendered from hundreds of kilometers above the surface. The first image came into view.

April straightened a little in her seat.

The terrain was flat, dry, and empty. That harsh, burnt-red shade she’d come to associate with M6-117. At first glance, it looked like a thousand other scans she'd run. But then the structure emerged—off-center, slanted slightly, one edge half-swallowed by windblown grit.

She leaned in.

The main habitat shell was still there. Warped, battered, but intact. One of the secondary units had collapsed entirely—just a heap of buckled alloy. The solar arrays were bent at sharp angles. Two were missing. The comms rig looked fried—its base blackened and skeletal.

But even from this distance, something about it looked wrong.

April’s fingers hovered over the keyboard as she stared.

And then it clicked.

She knew this place.

Not personally, but in the way everyone at NOSA knew it—through internal reports, redacted footage, and that cautious silence that always settled in when the Gratzner was mentioned. The crash site. Y/N’s mission. The one they stopped talking about once the press coverage turned invasive.

Why the hell was Gomez pulling visuals on it now?

She adjusted the contrast, enhanced the light angles, and let the AI sharpen through the wind smear. More images filtered in. No movement. No heat signatures. No visible wreckage outside of what she’d already seen.

And no body.

No gear. No emergency markers. No personal effects scattered on the sand. Just the cold outline of a structure long abandoned.

April checked the coordinates again. Ran a depth overlay. The sand patterns showed recent shift, but nothing major. A few centimeters of coverage at most. Enough to bury light debris, maybe, but not a person. Not if they were still out in the open.

She felt a slow chill settle in her chest. There was nothing here.

No proof of life.

But also… no proof of death.

She saved the clearest frames, tagged the metadata, then paused—hovering over the folder name before clicking ‘Secure Archive.’ Just clean, time-stamped data. No notes. No assumptions.

Then something stopped her.

April blinked. Sat back slightly. Let the frame reload.

She rewound the sweep by ten seconds, held her breath, and froze the feed at the right angle. One image, high-altitude, but clear enough. She zoomed in—slowly, carefully—until the detail sharpened.

Solar panels?

She frowned. That wasn’t unusual by itself, not on a planet littered with old equipment and failed expeditions. But these… they were intact. Fully mounted. Angled just right to catch the light. And clean.

Not just visible through the dust—clean. Polished. Reflective.

Her stomach tightened. That didn’t track.

M6-117 was one of the worst environments NOSA had ever sent people into. The storms didn’t come in seasons; they came constantly. Fine red grit moved like static electricity, clinging to everything. Even low-orbit observation satellites picked it up as visual noise. Nothing stayed clean there.

But these panels—wherever they came from—weren’t just clean. They were in good condition. Better than good. Better than possible.

She leaned in again, squinting at the feed.

No scorch marks. No structural collapse. No wind shear damage. No burn-off. And most of all, no way in hell they should be anywhere near the Gratzner wreck.

The geology teams had placed their equipment miles to the west, near the old settlement edge. These were nowhere near that. These were close—too close—to the coordinates of the crash site.

She checked the registry again. No update. No new deployments logged. No ops schedules submitted. No teams down there. Nothing on file.

Her hand hovered over the mouse. The air felt suddenly too thick in her lungs.

It didn’t make sense.

Not unless…

A cold sensation moved across the back of her neck. Not fear, exactly. But a kind of awareness. The sharp-edged kind that told you, with absolute certainty, that you’d just stumbled into something no one meant for you to see.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

The words left her before she’d even registered saying them.

Her hand went for the phone. She knocked it off the cradle in her hurry, caught it before it hit the floor, then slammed it back onto the desk and jabbed in the code for internal routing. Her fingers felt clumsy. Cold.

The line clicked.

“Security,” came the voice on the other end, flat and bored.

“April Borne,” she said quickly, her breath not quite under control. “Satellite Control. I need Dr. Mateo Gomez’s emergency contact. Right now.”

There was a pause. The kind where someone checks credentials before pushing the big red button.

“Yes,” she snapped, “him. It’s urgent.”

As the operator responded, April barely heard the words. Her eyes were still locked on the image. On those panels. On the sunlight reflecting off metal that should’ve been buried beneath half a meter of dust by now.

She didn’t know what she was seeing.

But it wasn’t nothing.

And whatever it was… it hadn’t happened by accident.

The line crackled once, then went quiet.

April stared at the monitor as the call transferred. Her knee bounced beneath the desk. She didn’t even realize she was doing it.

There was a pause—three rings, four—then a tired voice answered, low and groggy.

“This is Gomez.”

April straightened in her seat automatically. “Uh—Dr. Gomez? This is April Borne, I’m in Satellite Control. Sorry. I know it’s late.”

There was a beat of silence. She could hear the shift in his breathing, that sudden tension that hits when someone wakes up mid-sentence and knows something’s wrong before you say it.

“You’re calling from SatCon?” he asked, voice already sharpening. “What’s happened?”

April swallowed. “You… you requested a sweep over Virelia Planitia. I pulled the footage. I was just running it through standard filters, but something came up.”

He was fully awake now. She could hear movement—sheets, maybe. The dull thud of feet hitting the floor.

“What kind of something?”

She hesitated—not because she didn’t know how to explain it, but because part of her still wasn’t sure she believed what she’d seen. “There’s solar paneling near the crash site. New-looking. Clean. Fully intact. Reflective enough to bounce a glare off the satellite lens. That’s not standard equipment for that zone. I double-checked against our infrastructure maps—there’s nothing logged for that sector, and the geology team didn’t build that close to the wreck.”

“Any activity?” he asked. “Movement? Heat signatures?”

“No. Everything looks dead. But the panels are positioned perfectly. They’ve been adjusted. Recently. They’re too clean for anything natural to explain it.”

The line went quiet again for half a beat.

Then: “You didn’t tag the data?”

“No. Just stored three clean frames to a secure archive. No labels. No flags.”

“Good,” Mateo said. “Stay there. I’m going to call the director. We’ll loop you back in once we’ve figured out next steps.”

He hung up before she could respond.

Mateo was already halfway into a clean shirt, one hand pressing his phone to his ear as he paced across the narrow strip of carpet in his quarters.

Yoongi picked up on the second ring.

“It’s me,” Mateo said. “Wake up. We’ve got movement at the Gratzner site.”

There was a pause on the other end. A sigh, maybe. But not confusion. Not disbelief. Just that heavy exhale Yoongi gave when he knew a night was about to get longer.

“I’m listening,” Yoongi said.

“She caught something on the last sweep—clean solar arrays, set up near the wreck. They’re in active orientation and fully intact. Way too clean to be left over from the crash.”

There was a short silence, then: “You sure it’s not leftover equipment from geology?”

“Already checked. Placement’s wrong. Too close. And it doesn’t line up with the last terrain integrity scans. She’s good, too—didn’t tag the frames. Kept it quiet.”

Yoongi was quiet for another second.

Then: “Loop her in. I want a direct line. No chatter. No routing through the board.”

“I’m already on it.”

Mateo hung up, grabbed his tablet, and keyed in the SatCon line again.

April answered on the first ring, breath caught somewhere between relief and panic.

“Dr. Gomez?”

“April. I just got off with the director. You’re cleared to send the frames. Full-resolution, no compression. Direct to me, then back it up on an external drive—don’t touch the servers again until I give you the go. Understood?”

“Understood,” she said quickly.

“I know this is probably not what you expected when you signed on,” he added, voice a touch softer now. “But you handled this the right way. We don’t get a lot of clean threads in situations like this. You just gave us one.”

There was a pause on her end. “Do you think she’s still alive out there?”

Mateo didn’t answer immediately.

“I don’t know,” he said finally.

Thirty minutes later, Mateo Gomez stood in the center of NOSA’s mission control floor, surrounded by quiet urgency. The room was dim but alive—screens flickering, feeds updating in real-time, the soft clicks of keyboards like rainfall on glass. A satellite image of M6-117 glowed across the central display, the barren red landscape stretching outward around a single, unmistakable structure: the Hunter-Gratzner’s crash site.

Alice Saxe, Director of Media Relations, stood just behind him, arms folded, heels echoing as she paced.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” she muttered. “Please. Tell me I’m looking at an old sweep or some kind of glitch.”

Mateo didn’t respond right away. He just turned back toward the monitor, pointing.

“Panels have been cleaned. Adjusted for sunlight. This isn’t weather. You know that.”

“Dust storms on M6-117 don't clean—they scour,” Alice said. “If the wind had hit those arrays, they'd be torn to shreds or buried. Not gleaming.”

Yoongi Min stepped closer, still in his travel jacket, his face unreadable. He hadn’t spoken since entering the room, but his silence was the kind that pulled everyone’s attention without asking for it.

“How certain are we?” he asked finally, voice low and steady.

“Ninety-nine percent,” Mateo said. “We cross-checked the coordinates. The battery Y/N removed from the Gratzner on Sol 17 was logged dead, but this panel—this entire array—has been relocated and is drawing ambient current.”

Yoongi stared at the display wall, eyes locked on the satellite footage. His jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak. Not yet.

Mateo stepped forward and tapped the screen again, bringing up the enhanced overlay. “Look at this,” he said. “This isn’t erosion. This is structure modification. The H-G’s been partially disassembled. You can see where the supports were moved. That’s not decay. That’s work.”

Alice, standing just behind them, stopped pacing. Her heels had been a steady rhythm of tension, but now she went still.

“Someone’s there,” she said, voice quiet.

“Or was,” Mateo replied. “But whatever this is—it’s recent. That site’s not dead. It’s active. Or it was, at least, in the last seventy-two hours.”

Yoongi’s brow furrowed. “That old cargo hull from New Mecca—the one that dropped signal last year. Could she have found it?”

“We thought about that,” Mateo said. “And maybe she did. But if she’s using it, it’s not for communication. There’s no distress signal, no coded pulse, nothing on open channels. Our guess? She stripped it for power. Kept what she needed to survive and stayed dark. She’s rationing.”

Yoongi’s mouth opened slightly—he was about to say something—but Alice beat him to it.

“If she’s alive,” she said, stepping forward, her voice low but urgent, “if Y/N is actually alive out there, someone on Nexus II needs to know. Her cousin’s on that ship, Yoongi. You know that.”

Yoongi turned to her, his tone calm, but threaded with steel. “We’re not telling them.”

Alice stared at him, eyebrows raised. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead serious,” he said. “We keep this contained.”

“For how long?” she asked, incredulous. “Until she runs out of food? Until someone leaks the satellite footage and the public gets there first?”

“They’re eight months out from New Mecca,” Yoongi said. “Ten from reentry. We hit them with this now—with this? We don’t know what that does to the crew. To him.”

“They already buried her,” Mateo said quietly from across the room. “Held a private vigil in the observation deck. And now we’re going to rip that away from them—with no rescue window? No extraction plan?”

He looked up, meeting Alice’s eyes. “Jimin Park’s been holding that crew together since day one. He’s not just her friend, Alice. Her uncle adopted him after she brought him home. They’re practically siblings at this point. You think he won’t try to reroute the mission himself?”

Alice looked between the two men, then back at the screen where the crash site stood frozen in grainy satellite stills. Her arms slowly folded across her chest.

“So we just let them believe she’s dead? Again.”

Mateo didn’t answer, but his silence said enough. Yoongi took a breath.

“We hold the line,” he said. “Until we know she’s stable. Until we know this isn’t a glitch. A mistake. Or worse—something we can’t fix.”

This time, Alice didn’t argue. Not because she agreed, but because the logic—cold and cruel as it was—held.

She rubbed at her temple and nodded once. “Parliament’s going to eat us alive. I spoke to Oversight this morning. Image data clears internal review in twenty-three hours. Once it does, it’s public record.”

“Then we get ahead of it,” Yoongi said. “We don’t let this leak through the back door. We put out a statement. Brief, clear, controlled.”

Alice looked at him flatly. “Right. Something like: ‘Dear people of Aguerra, you know that young pilot we gave a state funeral? Turns out she’s alive and living on protein paste in a desert crater. Oops. Love, New Oslo.’”

Mateo didn’t laugh. Neither did Yoongi.

The tension in the room didn’t allow it.

Mateo’s eyes were fixed on the satellite feed again. The structure sat quietly in the frame, unchanged and unmoving—just a tiny silhouette against endless red. A single, skeletal lifeline in an ocean of dust.

“This wasn’t supposed to be possible,” he murmured. “We reviewed every survival scenario. Every thermal failure point. Ration shelf-life. Physical trauma after impact. We mapped it all. And still…”

Still, she was alive.

Yoongi moved toward the chair by the wall, where he’d dropped his jacket earlier, and slid his arms into the sleeves.

“I’m going to Helion Five.”

Mateo looked over, confused. “Why?”

“She has family there,” Yoongi said. “Her aunt and uncle emailed me last night saying they were going to see them. They’re hosting a memorial tomorrow—small, just close relatives. They don’t know what we found. I’m not letting them hear about this from a newsfeed. When they get back here they need to be prepared to face the news.”

Alice’s tone softened. “If she’s alive, they’ll be relieved.”

Yoongi paused at the doorway. His voice was lower now, almost flat. “Relief depends on what we find next. All we’ve got are images—no movement, no signal, no confirmation. If she is alive, then we’ve got six weeks of rations left to work with. Maybe less. And that’s not accounting for muscle atrophy, radiation, psych strain. A year in M6-117’s gravity at surface level... even if she’s standing, she’s not strong.”

Nobody responded.

The weight of it pressed into the room.

The monitors kept humming. Soft alerts blinked on screen—routine, irrelevant. And yet the atmosphere felt anything but ordinary.

Mateo finally broke the silence. His voice wasn’t loud, but there was something in it—something fragile and steady at the same time.

“Can you even imagine what she’s been through?” he asked. “What it’s like waking up to that sky every day. Knowing no one’s coming. Hearing your own breathing and nothing else. Watching the light change and wondering if that’s your last sunrise.”

Alice didn’t respond. She just stared at the image, arms still crossed. Her jaw was clenched tight.

Yoongi followed Mateo’s gaze back to the screen. He didn’t speak right away. When he finally did, his voice was quieter than either of them had ever heard it.

“She thinks we gave up,” he said. “She thinks everyone walked away.”

He didn’t look at them when he said it. He just stared at the image—at the wreck, the clean panels, the threadbare hope they’d uncovered far too late.

“And she’s probably right.”

No one corrected him.

No one even moved.

The planet’s surface shimmered through the thick, dust-streaked viewport like a mirage, a fluid illusion of red and gold under the hard light of three suns. M6-117 had never just been a planet—it was a crucible. A punishing, relentless force that didn’t care about the limits of human endurance. It didn’t roar. It didn’t lash out. It just endured, and made you suffer for trying to do the same.

The wind outside never really stopped. It howled sometimes, hummed at others, but it was always there—scraping sand against the Hab walls like claws against a coffin lid.

Inside, things weren’t much better.

The air recyclers wheezed rhythmically in the corner, fighting a losing battle against the heat and the grit. Everything smelled faintly of copper, sweat, and the unmistakable tang of fried wiring. Every square inch of the Hab was claimed by something—wires, taped-together filters, stripped-down equipment, makeshift solar controllers, and the skeletal remains of old repairs that had failed just long enough ago for her to stop cursing them daily.

And cutting through all of it, like some absurd joke the universe refused to stop telling, was Vicki Sue Robinson.

“Turn the Beat Around” blared cheerfully from the corner speaker. The volume had long since stopped being adjustable—another casualty of the power surge two weeks ago. The computer, apparently, had decided that disco was essential for morale.

Y/N sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by the chaos. Dirt smudged her cheeks and collarbone. Her jumpsuit, once standard-issue and crisp, had been patched so many times it looked like a quilt. Her hair was pulled back into a crooked, low bun, strands slicked to her forehead with sweat. She was pale beneath the grime, hollow-eyed and hollow-cheeked, but awake. Alert. Still breathing.

The camera was on, its tiny red light a familiar companion. She looked directly into it, her face unreadable for a long moment.

Then she spoke.

"I'm gonna die up here."

The words were delivered flatly—no drama, no fear. Just fact. A statement she'd repeated enough times to wear smooth.

She paused, then gestured vaguely toward the speaker, where the disco beat continued its unforgiving march.

“…if I have to listen to any more goddamn disco.”

Her voice cracked slightly, and for a second it was hard to tell if she was about to laugh or lose it. She went with sarcasm.

“Jesus, Captain Marshall,” she muttered, leaning back against the wall and closing her eyes briefly. “You couldn’t have packed one playlist from this century? It’s like being trapped inside a time capsule designed by someone’s dad during a midlife crisis.”

She opened her eyes again and tilted her head toward the camera. Her mouth curled into something that could’ve been a smile, if not for how tired her eyes looked.

“I’m not turning the beat around,” she said dryly. “Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

The music played on, oblivious to her suffering. And for a while, she let it. Just sat there, letting the thumping bass fill the silence she no longer had the energy to fight.

Her gaze drifted around the Hab. The exposed wiring. The jury-rigged cooling coils. The last two nutrient packs, stashed carefully in a corner and rationed down to sips and guesses. Everything here was improvised, fragile, a monument to survival one piece of duct tape away from collapse.

Her tone shifted when she looked back at the camera again. Softer now.

“You know,” she said, brushing a dirty hand across her forehead, “I used to hate noise. Back on Helion Five, I thought silence was peace. I'd take long walks just to get away from everything. Loved the stillness—the wind across the glass domes, the sound of my own footsteps. It felt clean. Safe.”

She exhaled through her nose. It wasn’t a laugh exactly, but something close.

“Now I’d give anything for a little chaos. A toddler screaming at the top of their lungs. Some teenager blasting synthpop out of a cracked speaker on the transit line. My Aunt Rose laughing way too loud at one of Uncle Sean’s awful cooking puns. Jimin calling me just to argue about who’s faster in a sim run. I’d take any of it.”

Her eyes glistened slightly, but she didn’t blink. She wasn’t going to cry. Not today. Not yet.

“But no,” she added with a half-hearted shrug. “Instead, I get this. Captain Disco’s Last Stand.”

She waved toward the speaker, now cycling into another painfully upbeat track. It might’ve been Bee Gees. She honestly couldn’t tell anymore. It all blurred together.

“Thanks for that, Cap,” she said, voice cracking just enough to be heard.

For a while, she didn’t move.

Y/N just sat there, her arms draped loosely over her knees, fingers slack, her body sagging under the weight of heat and fatigue. The music played on in the background, cheerful and relentless, as if completely unaware it was serenading a graveyard.

Her face hovered somewhere between disbelief and resignation—eyelids heavy, mouth drawn tight, eyes glassy but dry. Like she couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scream, and had settled instead on stillness.

Eventually, she exhaled through her nose. A slow, weary breath. The kind that didn’t relieve anything but bought her one more second of not falling apart.

She straightened a little, not with purpose, but out of habit. Pushed her shoulders back. Wiped at her face with the back of one dirty sleeve. Sniffed. Brushed a clump of red dust off her jumpsuit—pointless, really, but it made her feel slightly more like a person.

Still not crying.

“Anyway,” she murmured, her voice rough but steady. She cleared her throat. “Guess I should get back to it.”

She glanced to the small diagnostics tablet lying on the crate beside her. One of the few pieces of equipment still fully functional, thanks to two days of rewiring and one desperate bargain with a soldering gun.

“Filters are holding at sixty-three percent. And the east panel’s… yeah, losing charge again. It dips below thirty, I lose the A/C circuit. Which means no airflow. And considering it’s been climbing ten degrees at dusk every cycle—”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t need to.

She looked up at the camera again, her gaze settling on it like she was seeing through it, not just into it.

For once, she wasn’t performing. She wasn’t trying to document for science, or for protocol, or even for the off chance some bureaucrat in a clean uniform might review the footage someday. She was talking like the way people do in the dark, to themselves, when they need to say something out loud just to believe it.

“I know no one’s watching this live. Not anymore. I stopped pinging outgoing signals after the relay failed on Sol 117. Probably should’ve done it sooner. No point wasting power on a message no one’s receiving.”

Her voice caught, just a little, but she pushed through it.

“I know it’s all getting logged somewhere. Maybe. If the system hasn’t corrupted yet. Maybe it’s already lost. Maybe this is just talking into the void.”

She shrugged faintly, the gesture brittle.

“But if you’re watching this someday... if you’re here, and you found this place—first off, congrats. You made it farther than anyone ever expected.”

She hesitated. Her gaze drifted toward the speaker again, where the music was cycling into another track—something fast, with horns, absurdly upbeat.

“And second... turn the music off. Please.” Her smile was thin, cracked at the corners. “Do that one thing for me.”

She didn’t laugh. It was too dry for that. But something about the absurdity, about the sheer persistence of disco as a background to slow starvation, made her eyes crease with irony.

“Seriously,” she said. “You survive a crash. A storm. A breach. You figure out how to repurpose three dead batteries and a solar sled with two legs and a dream. And your reward? Is nonstop seventies dance hits and a broken coffee machine. Just... poetic.”

The camera light continued to blink, silent and impassive.

Y/N leaned forward slightly, fingers brushing the panel beside the lens. Her expression didn’t shift much, but her eyes lingered.

“I don’t want to die here,” she said finally, her voice low. Steady. “But if I do... just let it mean something. Let it matter. Not in the reports. Not in the mission logs. Just... to someone.”

She hovered there a moment longer. Like part of her still thought maybe—maybe—someone was out there watching. That someone might say something back.

No voice answered.

She reached out and tapped the switch.

The camera blinked off.

The silence that followed felt heavier than it should have. Not total, not complete—disco still played, faint and fuzzy through the corner speaker. But it no longer had anything to talk over.

Outside, the wind moved across the open plain, dry and sharp, dragging the planet’s endless red dust in slow waves across the wreckage.

Inside, Y/N pulled herself to her feet with a small grunt. She cracked her neck, wiped her palms on her thighs, and moved toward the power grid diagnostics. Her fingers worked on autopilot, adjusting output thresholds, checking the panel logs, splicing a broken wire.

The work was hard. The air was thin. The gravity pulled harder every day.

But she did it anyway, because surviving wasn’t something you did all at once. It was something you did a little at a time.

And that was exactly what she did.

Y/N sat hunched over the workstation, elbows braced, head bowed, the soft mechanical hum of the Hab wrapping around her like a half-remembered song. It was the kind of ambient noise you stopped noticing after the first few days—until it changed. And then, you couldn’t unnotice it. Every now and then, a subtle click or muted groan would echo through the walls. Nothing critical, according to the diagnostics, just thermal shifts or aging components settling in their housings. Still, every sound tightened her chest for half a second, her eyes darting upward, ears straining. Alone out here, you learned to take every anomaly personally.

Outside the small viewport, M6-117 lay still and inhospitable. Just more of the same: a rust-colored expanse, baked flat and cracked like old pottery, broken only by distant ridgelines that shimmered faintly in the perpetual twilight. The sun didn’t really set on this planet—it dimmed, sulked low, and hovered just below the edge of the horizon in a long, bruised dusk. The sky was always the color of dried blood.

She rubbed the side of her head, trying to ease the throb pulsing just behind her right eye. The recycled air was running too dry again. She could taste it—metallic, sand-scrubbed, stale. The CO₂ scrubber was overdue for recalibration, but she didn’t have the right calibration beacon anymore. It had corroded, probably during the last atmospheric pressure swing. So instead, she rationed deeper breaths and kept going.

On the desk before her, a battered old map lay flat beneath two metal clips. She'd found it weeks ago, buried in the remains of a modular crate in the collapsed outpost 11.3 kilometers south. Miraculously intact. The paper was faded and fragile—yellowed along the folds, edges torn like old lace—but the lines were still there, hand-drawn in black ink: contour lines, elevation notations, faint topographic notes in a steady, meticulous script. Whoever made it had cared. Had known this land in a way she still couldn’t.

Her fingertip traced a route from her current position—just north of the crater shelf—toward the ridge to the east. The terrain didn’t look too bad on paper. But out here, paper didn’t always mean much. The ground was deceptive. Soil crusts looked solid until they weren’t. The wind could strip visibility to nothing in seconds.

Her other hand flipped open the small, leather-bound notebook she carried with her everywhere. The pages were crammed with field data: raw numbers, scribbled gear checks, half-legible sketches of terrain and stars, and messy calculations that had been corrected and overwritten a dozen times. It looked more like the workings of a mind unspooling than a logbook. Her handwriting, once neat and looping, had degraded into tight, utilitarian scratches.

She found a blank page and murmured under her breath, “Let’s try this again.”

The sound of her own voice startled her a little. It had been hours—maybe a day—since she’d spoken aloud. It was easier not to. Words hung around in empty rooms too long when no one was there to catch them.

“If I head east,” she said, pencil moving across the page, “should reach the base of the ridge in seven hours. Eight if the dust is soft again. Nine if I hit another sink pocket. Oxygen reserves—”

She did the math aloud, letting the numbers ground her.

“One tank, plus a quarter from the spare. No margin for a second night, not without overclocking the cooler again. Battery’s still inconsistent. Can’t trust the sled.”

She paused, glancing at the solar charging sled leaning half-dismantled against the wall. It had started losing efficiency after a microburst sandstorm two weeks ago, and she hadn’t yet figured out whether the issue was solar array degradation or a faulty power regulator. She’d tried bypassing the controller last night, but the patchwork wiring sparked too easily.

She scratched out a quick packing list on the edge of the page: oxygen tank, regulator, ration pouches, the repaired water canister, signal flares, analog compass, a pair of makeshift coolant bands she’d fashioned out of gel packs and copper wiring, and—if she could get it working—the sled.

Planning helped. It gave the hours shape, gave her something to press her thoughts into. Numbers didn’t lie. They didn’t shift when you weren’t looking, or twist on you like memory did. If the numbers worked, you had a chance. If not, you didn’t. Simple as that.

She leaned back, rubbing at the back of her neck. The collar of her undersuit itched with salt and static from the Hab’s dry air. She hadn't bothered to look in the mirror above the tiny sink station in days. She knew what she'd see—skin dulled by stress and recycled air, hair matted and wild, eyes too bright from too little sleep. Vanity was the first thing this planet had taken from her. She didn’t miss it.

Her gaze drifted back to the map. Near the bottom, half-obscured by age and sun-bleached discoloration, a name had been scrawled in faded ink: Rexlin Crest.

She whispered it out loud, just to hear it. “Rexlin Crest.”

It sounded like something out of an old explorer’s journal. Solid. Permanent. Like it had been here long before she arrived and would remain long after she was gone.

Her thumb brushed the paper’s brittle corner.

“Whoever you were,” she said softly, to the unseen hand that had drawn the lines before her, “you got to know this place. Maybe even beat it, for a while.”

She imagined someone else sitting here, maybe in the very same fold-out chair. Same hum of the air system. Same relentless sun through the viewport. Were they alone, too? Did they make it back? Or had the sandstorms swallowed them whole?

“I wish you’d left instructions,” she added, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

She leaned forward and began jotting again—exposure zones, possible shelter along the ridge, estimated elevation gain, minimum safe battery levels. It was half engineering, half superstition. But it filled the hours. And hours were the only thing left she could control.

Outside, the dimming sky dipped another half shade. Inside, the Hab’s shadows lengthened, stretching like tired limbs across the metal floor. This was always the hardest part of the day—the shift between false day and false night, when the silence didn’t just fill the room, but seemed to press against it.

She drew in a deep breath, held it, then slowly exhaled. One more note, small, in the bottom corner of the map:

Leave before the light shifts.

She closed the notebook carefully, fingertips lingering on the weathered cover. Then she folded the map along its deep creases, treating it like something sacred, and laid it down next to her gear. The fabric of the Hab rustled faintly as she moved. The cooling unit kicked into a new cycle behind her with a tired groan.

She stood, joints stiff, shoulders tight. Reached for her toolkit. Time to check the panel. The ridge wasn’t going anywhere—but if she wanted a shot at reaching it, she had to be ready when the light changed.

Outside, the landscape remained as it always was—still, brutal, and indifferent. M6-117 stretched outward in all directions like the surface of an open wound, cracked and scorched beneath the punishing glare of three pale suns. No clouds. No movement. Just an endless sprawl of rust-colored dust, broken occasionally by fractured stone or the bleached bones of abandoned equipment. The air shimmered faintly at the horizon where heat rose in silent waves, distorting the already-barren view into something dreamlike and unstable.

There was no wind today. Just heat. Dead heat—the kind that didn’t blow or shift or give you something to brace against. It simply was, sitting on the world like a weight, pressing down into your chest until breathing felt like work. The kind of heat that crawled under your skin and stayed there, baking you slowly from the inside out.

She stepped out into it anyway, ducking around the side of the habitat module with practiced caution. Her boots crunched over sun-baked soil, each step kicking up a faint puff of red dust that drifted lazily before settling again. Even that small motion was enough to start sweat rolling down her back, sticking her shirt to her spine. Her limbs felt heavy. Gravity here wasn’t much higher than Earth’s, just enough to matter. Enough to remind her that everything—every task, every movement, every breath—took a little more than it used to.

She made her way toward the east solar panel, squinting against the glare as she approached. It wasn’t broken—if it had been, she’d already be dead—but it was underperforming. Again. Dust built up too quickly. Static charge in the atmosphere made it cling like ash. She brushed it away with slow, circular strokes of a microfiber rag, then crouched to check the diagnostic panel. Her fingers hesitated a moment above the interface before she keyed in the recalibration code. The converter was still lagging on transfer rates. Not much. But enough to matter over time. Everything out here was a slow bleed—energy, oxygen, patience.

When she was done, she stood slowly, wiping the sweat from her brow with the crook of her arm. Her sleeves were crusted with salt. She paused for a moment, letting her eyes sweep the horizon. Still no movement. Still no sound, except for the occasional creak of thermal expansion from the Hab behind her. M6-117 wasn’t hostile, exactly. It didn’t try to kill you. That would imply intent. The truth was worse—it simply didn’t care. You could live, die, scream into the dust until your voice broke. The planet would stay exactly as it was. Unchanged. Unbothered.

Back inside, she sealed the hatch and let the air cycle through the filters. Not that it helped much. The interior of the Hab was hot and stale, thick with the scent of sun-baked plastics, dried sweat, and decaying soil packs long past viability. She shrugged off her jacket and dropped it over the back of the chair before sinking into it, the old cushion wheezing faintly under her weight. Her body ached in that deep, marrow-level way that came from living on a world that didn’t want her.

The map was still open on the desk, just where she’d left it. Paper warped slightly from the ambient humidity, corners curling upward like they were trying to peel away from the surface. Her gaze drifted across the hand-drawn contours, finally settling on a single label: Sundermere Basin.

A crater. Large. Deep. Possibly ancient. It was one of the few locations flagged for potential hydrological activity back before the surveys were abandoned. Some even believed it once held standing water—maybe briefly, maybe seasonally. She didn’t know. No one ever finished the scans. Budget cuts, changing priorities. Then silence.

She leaned back, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes, trying to push away the growing pressure behind them. It didn’t help. Nothing helped anymore. She rolled her head, neck cracking, and turned slowly toward the small camera perched above the workstation. The red light was still on, but she had no way of knowing if it meant anything—if the logs were storing, if the system was even linked to a satellite that still functioned. If the storage drive had corrupted two weeks ago, she could be speaking into a void.

Didn’t matter. Speaking helped.

She cleared her throat, voice rough and low from disuse. “Alright,” she said. “Time to start thinking long-term.”

She looked back at the map, her finger tracing slowly across the crumpled surface to a point just past the eastern ridge. Her touch was deliberate, like she needed the tactile sensation to make it real.

“Next NOSA pass is Helion Nexus. It’s scheduled to run a survey arc through this sector on its way to Taurus One.” She tapped the crater. “This is the basin. It’s thirty-two hundred kilometers away. Give or take.”

The number hung there. It wasn’t just a measurement. It was a judgment. A reminder of the scale of her isolation. Of the odds.

“Presupply missions are already underway,” she continued. “Which means a Sandcat unit should be there by now. Sitting tight. Synthesizing fuel. That’s the pattern—establish the route, prep the surface, load the caches before the main ship swings through. If it all goes well, they’ll start feasibility studies for a permanent outpost.”

She went quiet for a moment, eyes fixed on the crater.

“That’s my shot.”

Her voice dropped.

“If I can get there��if I can leave a signal, something visible, big enough to catch on orbital imaging... maybe they’ll realize someone’s still alive down here. Maybe they’ll come back.”

Her finger hovered above the basin on the map—just a moment longer—then pulled back. No decision was ever final out here, not until you started walking. She rolled her shoulder with a quiet wince and pushed up from the desk, joints stiff from hours of stillness.

In the far corner of the Hab, under a tarp stiff with dust, Speculor 1 lay half-buried in red grit. Its frame had caved slightly on one side after the last seismic tremor—a subtle one, barely noticeable at the time, but enough to shift the drone’s weight off its stabilizers. Now it sagged like a carcass, picked over and hollow. She’d stripped it weeks ago for parts—rotor assembly, drive stabilizer, the nav panel wiring—but she’d left the battery.

Because batteries were a pain in the ass to pull, and she hadn’t needed it. Until now.

She crouched beside it, letting her knees pop. Her legs protested the bend. The casing had expanded from heat cycles, and the bolts had gone stiff with corrosion. She ran her hand along the edge, feeling for weak points. The metal was hot, even in shadow, and rough with pitted oxidation. She grabbed the wrench from her belt, tested a bolt. It didn’t move.

“Of course,” she muttered.

She braced her foot against the frame and pulled. The bolt twitched—maybe a millimeter—but didn’t give. She exhaled, lips tight, and tried again.

It took her almost forty minutes. Not because the work was complicated, but because her hands kept slipping, blisters reopening under old calluses. Sweat dripped into her eyes, stung her skin, soaked the back of her shirt until the fabric clung like wet gauze. She didn’t yell. Didn’t swear loudly. Just let out the occasional breathy grunt of frustration. Anger took too much energy, and there was no one here to hear it.

When the battery finally came free, it did so with a groan of metal and a jolt that nearly knocked her off balance. She sat back on her heels, panting, the heavy unit cradled in her arms. Still warm from residual charge. Intact. She turned it gently, checking the leads.

Not ideal. But salvageable.

She stayed there for a minute, elbows resting on her knees, catching her breath. Her hands trembled slightly from exertion. Not fear—just tired nerves and low electrolytes. The battery was heavier than she remembered. Or maybe she was just weaker than she wanted to admit.

She looked over at Speculor 2—the only other drone with wheels still turning. It sat near the maintenance bench, hooked up to a cracked solar panel, the whole machine leaning slightly to the left like it had given up on holding itself level. But it powered on. Most days.

“Where the hell am I gonna fit this?” she muttered, dragging the battery toward it.

The movement kicked up a cloud of red dust that clung to her pants and got into the creases of her skin, even through the fabric. She coughed once, throat dry, and wiped her face with the inside of her sleeve. The battery landed with a dull thud beside the chassis of Speculor 2. She’d figure out the wiring tomorrow.

By the time the third sun dropped below the horizon, the sky had cooled from a harsh white to a dull bronze, then to gray. But the heat didn’t leave. Not really. It just shifted, pressing in lower, heavier. Like the planet was exhaling slowly, watching to see what she’d do next.

Inside, the Hab was quiet—only the low hum of the systems cycling and the faint rasp of dust against the outer hull. She sat again at the workstation, flipping a stained towel over her shoulders before leaning into the console. Her skin was raw from salt and grit. Her back ached. Her eyes burned.

She pressed record on the feed. The red light blinked to life. It was muscle memory now, not protocol. She hadn’t logged a formal report in days. Maybe longer. She didn’t even know if the feed was transmitting. Could be filling corrupted drive space, could be echoing out into dead silence.

Didn’t matter. Talking helped.

“Alright,” she said. Her voice came out scratchy, lower than usual. She cleared her throat, tried again. “Time for a reality check.”

She pointed to the map, where the basin was still circled in smudged graphite.

“Problem A: both Speculors were built for short-range runs. Recon missions. Surface scouting. Thirty-five kilometers max before recharge. Maybe thirty-seven if the slope’s good and the wind isn’t punching me in the teeth.”

She raised one finger.

“Problem B.” Another finger. “The basin’s just over thirty-two hundred klicks away. That’s... fifty days, give or take, assuming nothing breaks and I don’t drop dead in the middle of nowhere. I’ll be living in the Speculor. Eating, sleeping, breathing in something the size of a food truck. Life support in that thing is a joke. Maybe twelve hours of clean air if I run it lean. One day if I’m lucky.”

She paused, then gave a dry laugh. It barely registered in the room.

“Problem C...” She held up a third finger. “If I don’t re-establish contact with NOSA, none of this matters. I could hike all the way there, build the biggest damn signal tower on the planet, and no one will even know to look. They’ll fly right past. Too high. Too fast. And I’ll be just another piece of debris down here.”

She dropped her hand, rubbing her eyes. Her vision swam briefly—fatigue or dehydration or both. The light from the screen painted the side of her face in a sterile blue glow. It made her skin look thinner than it used to.

“So,” she said finally. “Overwhelming odds. Minimal gear. Rations running low. Life support at half-capacity. No comms. No backup. And I’ve got one ride held together with salvaged screws and electrical tape.”

She stared at the screen. Her reflection hovered faintly there—sunburned, sharp-jawed, eyes sunken from sleep deprivation. Hair tied back in a rough knot, wild at the edges. She didn’t look like a hero. She looked like someone surviving one day at a time.

She smiled—barely—and it cracked her lip.

“I’m gonna have to figure this out,” she said, voice quiet now. “No one’s coming to save me. So I’m gonna have to save myself.”

She hesitated, then nodded once to herself.

“Let’s hope Helion Prime’s tuition wasn’t a waste.”

She reached forward and ended the feed. The screen went black. The silence filled the room again—settling in the corners, humming through the walls. Out here, even silence had weight.

The next day unfolded in fragments—sweat-slicked hours, bruised knuckles, half-coherent muttering. A blur of motion stitched together by urgency and the dull ache of too little sleep. She moved on autopilot, her thoughts always two steps behind her hands, like her brain was being dragged along by the sheer momentum of necessity.

The first sun hadn’t fully cleared the jagged horizon when she was already outside, kneeling beside Speculor-2. The rover's shadow stretched long across the cracked dirt of Virelia Planitia, thin and sharp in the early light. Her fingers were stiff from the cold night, trembling faintly as she tightened the final brace holding the new power core in place.

The rig was a mess. A Frankenstein hybrid of salvaged components and wishful thinking. The battery from Speculor-1—ripped from its corroded chassis the day before—had taken nearly all her strength to move. She’d hoisted it onto the frame with gritted teeth and every ounce of leverage she could muster, her arms shaking from the effort. The thing wasn't designed for this kind of integration. It sat like a tumor on the side of the rover, cables sprawling out like veins, half of them stripped and re-soldered under poor lighting with tools that had started to wear down months ago.

She’d fashioned a harness to hold it in place—carbonfiber strapping from the remains of a collapsible cargo rack, lengths of shock cord cut from an old deployable tent, and a few tension hooks she’d yanked from her spare EVA gear. It wasn’t pretty. The whole thing groaned and flexed when the rover shifted even slightly, like it resented being alive.

“Stay put,” she muttered, adjusting one of the final tension straps. Her voice was hoarse, not from emotion, just disuse and dust. “Seriously, just... stay.”

She pressed a knee to the rover’s side to brace herself as she pulled the strap tight, fingers slipping against grit-caked metal. The battery shifted again. She swore under her breath, louder this time, a raw edge sneaking into her tone.

The wind was picking up—dry, abrasive, and sharp at the edges. It rolled across the plain without mercy, lifting trails of dust that swirled around her boots and vanished before they went far. The air here had no moisture, no softness. It scoured.

By late afternoon, her knuckles were scraped raw, and the sun had climbed to its punishing apex—one of three that would cross overhead before the sky dimmed. Heat radiated off the rover in shimmering waves. Her shirt clung to her back, soaked through, and her lips were cracked from breathing through her mouth too long. But she kept going. Adjust. Recheck. Re-secure.

When she finally cinched the last strap into place, the sun had already begun its slow descent toward the western ridge, and the second sun’s orange glare had started to stretch the shadows thin again. Her fingers twitched with fatigue as she stepped back, watching the way the harness held. The load sagged a little on the left side. One of the bolts bowed slightly under pressure.

Not ideal. Not even close. But it was holding.

“For now,” she murmured.

She reached out and patted the side of the rover—more instinct than comfort—and let her hand drop to her thigh with a sigh. “Ugly little bastard. But you better run.”

The cabin was hot when she climbed in. Heat trapped inside all day had turned the interior into an oven. She sank into the pilot seat, the worn padding creaking beneath her, and braced her forearm on the side console as she powered it up. There was a long, silent beat where nothing happened—then the interface flickered to life, dim and uneven. The main screen coughed out a few lines of static before stabilizing. A soft mechanical hum kicked in. The motors weren’t exactly happy, but they were responding.

“Come on,” she whispered, coaxing the throttle forward.

Speculor-2 jerked like it had been startled awake, lurching forward with a sudden, uneven groan. The wheels rolled—then caught, then rolled again. One of the rear stabilizers squealed in protest. The entire chassis shuddered under the added weight of the rigged battery. But it moved.

It moved.

She clenched the steering grip, steadying the throttle as the rover crept forward across the flat plain, carving a slow path through the red dust. Every jolt sent a new symphony of rattles through the hull—loose bolts, worn bearings, stress fractures singing in metallic protest. She listened closely, eyes narrowed, memorizing each sound. Anything unfamiliar could be a warning.

But the battery held. The patched-in solar array, still streaked with fine dust despite two cleanings, managed to feed just enough power to keep the system balanced. The charge monitor bounced around like it couldn’t make up its mind, but it didn’t dip below the red.

No grace. No stability. But forward was forward.

A thin smile ghosted across her lips. Not triumph—there was nothing glorious about barely functioning equipment and jury-rigged systems—but it was momentum. And in a place like this, that was as good as hope.

Later that evening, after she'd parked the Speculor under its tarp and run another systems check just to be sure, Y/N walked the half-kilometer out to the crash site.

The wreckage had settled into the dirt like it belonged there now—like the planet had accepted it as part of the terrain. The ship’s hull, once white, was sun-bleached to a dull bone color, panels curled back like torn paper. Most of it had been stripped, either by her own hands or the wind. Scorch marks painted the ground around it, long since faded into rust-stained soil.

She didn’t go there often anymore. Not because it was dangerous. Just because it meant something—and meaning was heavier to carry than tools.

Still, some days, when the horizon felt too wide and the Hab walls too close, she came out here. Not to mourn. Just to remember what it felt like to have been someone else.

She sat on a slanted piece of hull that still had a little give under her weight. The heat from the metal bled through her pants. Her boots scraped at the dirt, and for a while she just watched the sky deepen from orange to a bruised violet, then finally into that strange navy-black that came before the second and third suns disappeared completely.

Once it was dim enough, she pulled the laptop from her pack and propped it against the bent edge of the hull. The screen flickered to life—slowly, with a faint whine from the boot-up cycle. She'd almost cried the first time she got it running again, weeks ago. Maybe she had. It had been dead weight until she repaired the charge ports, using copper wire and a tweezed fragment of circuit board from a defunct comms unit.

The power came from a cluster of solar panels she’d scavenged from the abandoned settlement ten kilometers south. Hauling them back had taken three full days. Fixing them had taken ten more. Half the cells were cracked or warped, the regulators burned out, the housing warped from heat exposure. She wasn't even sure how she’d managed to make it work. Some of it had been trial-and-error. A lot of cursing. A few sparks. But it held charge now, enough to trickle into the battery bank and bring dead things back to life.

Like this.

She tapped through a few folders, fingers moving carefully over the half-working keyboard, until she found the show she'd been watching in scattered fragments—Star Trek: Voyager. She pressed play.

The familiar theme filled the air through tinny speakers, the orchestral swell strange against the wind-hiss of M6-117. The sound wasn’t great, but it was enough. She leaned back against the wreckage, pulling her knees up, and watched Captain Janeway lead her crew toward another impossible decision.

“Try commanding a starship on four hours of sleep and a protein bar, lady,” Y/N muttered, half-amused. Her voice cracked dryly at the edges, and she swallowed, reaching into her pack.

Dinner was half a ration pack—lukewarm reconstituted noodles and synthetic soy crumble that smelled vaguely like salt and old rubber. The texture was off, as always. Too soft in places, too dry in others, like someone had tried to guess what food was supposed to feel like and missed by a few critical steps. She forced herself to take slow, mechanical bites, chewing each one longer than she needed to.

Her stomach wasn’t making this easy anymore. It had started pushing back over the last few weeks—tighter, more volatile. There were mornings when even water sat wrong, heavy like ballast. She didn't have a fever, and the diagnostics hadn't flagged anything catastrophic. But she could feel the change. Fewer calories going in. Less energy coming out.

She could see it in her body now, too. The way her suit gaped slightly at the hips, where the seal used to be snug. The hollowness in her face when she caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the corner of a screen. Not thin in the graceful, movie-star way. Just diminished. Like something carved down over time.

She set the food aside, half-finished, and pulled up her shirt, squinting down at her side in the low light. The scar was still there—prominent and angry-looking even now, though the skin had flattened some. It curved beneath her ribcage, a long, uneven slash she’d stitched herself in a feverish haze after a jagged piece of support strut caught her during the initial crash. It wasn’t pretty. The lines weren’t straight. The knots were uneven. But it had held. No infection. No rupture. The skin had taken to itself again.

She ran two fingers over the edge of it. The flesh was still tender in the cold, the nerves tingling oddly when she pressed too hard.

“That’s healing,” she said to no one, voice low and scratchy. “Kind of.”

She let the shirt fall back down and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, palms running slowly through what was left of her hair.

It wasn’t much.

She’d tried to salvage it in the early days after the explosion. Most of her eyebrows had vanished in the flash. So had a palm-sized patch of scalp near the crown of her head, and the smell of burning hair had haunted the Hab for weeks after. She’d used her utility scissors to cut away the worst of it—everything charred or melted or singed down to the root. What remained was jagged, uneven, and brutally short. It didn’t lie flat. It didn’t style. It just existed. A mess of stubborn strands over pink skin, some of which she wasn’t sure would ever grow back.

She hated it. She looked like a scarecrow.

She scratched absently at her thigh, grimacing as coarse body hair caught against her nails.

“What genius decided razors were against regs?” she muttered, mostly out of habit.

Her legs were a thicket now. Her arms too. Every inch of her seemed to have sprouted an extra layer of insulation in protest of her hygiene situation. She felt like a mossy rock.

She sighed, rubbing her eyes. “I’m one inch away from full Sasquatch.”

It made her think of Aunt Rose, who used to offer to wax her legs in the kitchen while they watched cooking shows. And Uncle Sean, who’d just laugh and ruffle her hair and say, “Body hair’s normal, French Fry. You want to look like a seal, that’s your business, but you don’t have to.”

They were good to her. Always had been. Steady. Quietly dependable in the way that mattered.

She hadn’t thought about them much in the first month. There’d been no room for it—every second had been triage, assessment, raw survival. But now that the routine had calcified into something functional, their faces came back more often. Sometimes sharp. Sometimes like shadows through frosted glass. She wondered what they thought. If they still hoped. Or if she was just a ghost to them now—an old photograph with a candle beside it.

She picked up the food pack again, poked at the congealed noodles, then sealed it up and shoved it back into the storage bin. Her appetite had already checked out.

The episode of Voyager finished in the background. She didn’t look up as the credits rolled. She just sat there in the fading light, the glow from her laptop screen painting faint blue lines across the jagged piece of ship hull she’d made into a bench.

Above her, the stars were starting to break through the dark, scattering wide across the planet’s quiet sky. Most of them were unfamiliar, sharp and small and cold. But one or two... maybe. Maybe they were part of the same sky she used to look at from her aunt’s back porch, drinking tea with her feet up on the rail, the dogs barking at shadows.

She hadn’t cried in weeks. Maybe longer. There came a point where your body conserved water the same way it conserved power. You just stopped trying to let anything out unless it was essential.

But she felt the ache behind her ribs anyway. The shape of a feeling too big to hold and too vague to name.

Eventually, she shut the laptop, packed it carefully back into its sleeve, and stood. Her knees cracked as she straightened, and her lower back screamed in quiet protest. She adjusted the scarf around her head—not out of vanity, just to keep the dust from settling in the still-healing patches—and started the slow walk back to the Hab.

Each step left a deep print in the soil behind her, but the wind would smooth those out by morning. Nothing lasted out here. Not even footprints.

Inside the Hab, it was quiet—the kind of quiet that wasn’t really silence but the low, constant hum of life support systems doing their best to impersonate normalcy. Fans cycled air through tired filters. The waste processor made a dull clicking sound every thirty seconds. Somewhere behind the walls, a motor groaned softly as it adjusted temperature output for the night. It was familiar, if not exactly comforting.

Y/N moved slowly, her boots whispering across the metal floor. The overhead lights were set to 20%—just enough to see by, not enough to strain the system. Her muscles ached with that heavy, systemic fatigue that never fully left anymore. It lived in her bones now. She paused to stretch her lower back before settling into the chair at the workstation.

The console screen flickered to life under her fingers, casting a cool blue light across her face. The reflection that looked back at her from the glass was... hard to recognize. Her cheeks were hollowed out, skin raw in places from sun exposure. The bridge of her nose and both temples had started peeling again, the result of another week spent outside under UV levels that would’ve made Earth’s OSHA teams scream. The synthetic lotion in the medkit was nearly gone. She was rationing that, too.

She leaned back in the chair, staring at the blinking red light on the camera.

Routine. Just another status update. She told herself it mattered. Maybe not to anyone watching—if anyone was watching—but to her. Keeping the habit meant something. It created shape in the otherwise formless days.

She adjusted her posture, cleared her throat, and pressed the record button.

For a few seconds, she didn’t speak. She just sat there, fingers laced in her lap, jaw tight. Then, quietly, she muttered, “You’re still talking to yourself, Fry. Not exactly the behavior of someone thriving.”

Her mouth curved, almost involuntarily—a crooked smile that looked more like memory than mirth. It didn’t last long.

She exhaled slowly and glanced down at the table, collecting her thoughts before bringing her gaze back up to the camera.

“Status update. Night 87. I think.” Her voice was hoarse, dry at the edges, but steady. “I’ve managed to extend the Speculor-2 battery duration by about 65 percent by wiring in the power cell from Speculor-1. It wasn’t clean. None of the mounts matched, the leads were corroded, and the charge regulator had to be… mostly invented. But it’s holding.”

She paused, running the back of her hand across her mouth, then winced when it scraped against cracked lips.

“Downside is the thermal exchange. Running the internal cooler now drains half the extra power I gained. Every cycle.” She looked away, toward the corner where the cooler’s fan ticked unevenly. “If I use it, the system runs hot but safe. If I don’t… the cabin gets hot enough to start soft-cooking me by hour thirteen.”

A beat passed.

“I mean, it's not an immediate problem. I won’t roast in my sleep or anything. But it’s going to get ugly if we’re dealing with consecutive heat days and I’m trying to recharge at the same time.”

Her tone had flattened, practical now. She was just stating facts. That’s what this had become—an endless balancing act of systems management, each choice eroding something else.

“Speculor-1’s gone,” she added, more softly. “I stripped the last viable parts this morning. I left the frame propped against the comms array, like a monument to engineering failure.”

She gave a weak snort, then coughed again, one hand bracing against the table as she waited for the tightness in her chest to ease. Her breathing had been getting shallower. Not dangerously so, just... noticeable.

She reached for her water ration without thinking but stopped halfway, hand hovering over the canister.

Too soon.

She let it drop back to her lap.

“Saving that for tomorrow. If the panels charge well enough overnight, I’ll allow myself a full sip. Maybe even warm it. Celebration-style.”

Her lips twisted in something like a smile, but it never reached her eyes.

She sat still for a long time after the log ended, her hands folded loosely in her lap, eyes unfocused. The hum of the Hab filled the silence around her—a low, rhythmic pulse of recycled air, processor clicks, the faint ticking of heat exchange coils trying to keep everything within the margins of survivability. Background noise, constant and impersonal, like the slow breathing of a machine too tired to do much else.

There was always grit on her skin now. A fine layer of dust that got into everything no matter how careful she was. It settled into the folds of her elbows, clung behind her ears, made her scalp itch even under the scarf. She’d stopped trying to scrub it off completely—there wasn’t enough water for that kind of luxury. She just managed it. Like everything else.

She leaned forward, elbows on the edge of the desk, and stared into the dead console screen. Her own faint reflection looked back—blurred, colorless, a sketch of a face half-swallowed by the glass.

And, not for the log, not for the record, just quietly, like saying it aloud made it feel more real, she said, “I miss hot water.”

She closed her eyes briefly, picturing it—steam rising from a shower stall, the sting of water too hot on cold skin, the way your shoulders drop when it hits just right.

“And cold fruit,” she added, her voice barely more than a breath. “Like, right-out-of-the-fridge cold. Cherries. Grapes. That sound they make when you bite down.”

Her throat tightened for a moment, unexpected.

“And I miss showers where your skin doesn’t come off with the towel,” she finished, trying to laugh but not quite making it. It came out as a rough sound, not bitter exactly, just dry.

There was a long pause. Then, quieter still:

“I miss people who answer back.”

She let that hang there. Not dramatic. Just true.

Her hand hovered over the stop button, thumb resting against the worn edge of the key. She hesitated, then pressed it.

The little red light blinked out, and the screen dimmed.

For a moment, she stayed where she was. The seat creaked as she shifted her weight, the movement small and deliberate, like even gravity had become something to negotiate. Finally, she pushed back from the workstation and stood, careful not to knock into the table or clip her hip against the nearby crate. Everything in the Hab had its place. Every inch was accounted for. You learned quickly not to waste space—or motion.

She made her way toward the back, her steps slow, the floor groaning faintly under her boots. The cot was wedged between the emergency stores and the last of the sealed rations. The mattress was thin, uneven, and smelled faintly of rubber and something sour she couldn’t identify anymore. But it was where she slept. Where she rested, anyway.

Sleep was a loose term these days. There were hours when her body shut down, yes, but real sleep—the kind that left you rested, unaware of time passing—that had become rare. Now it was more like dipping in and out of a shallow tide. Just enough to stop the worst of the fraying.

She sat on the edge of the cot and pulled off her boots with slow, practiced movements. Her socks were stiff with sweat and dust. She peeled them away and flexed her toes, wincing as the skin pulled against cracked patches along her heels.

When she finally lay back, it was with a low groan, her spine clicking against the pad as she shifted to find the least uncomfortable position. One arm rested across her stomach, her fingers drifting automatically to the line of the scar that curved beneath her ribs. The skin there was firm but raised, the texture different from the rest of her. She rubbed it absently with her thumb.

Another part of her patched together with whatever was on hand.

She stared up at the ceiling, where she’d memorized the path of every exposed wire and panel line weeks ago. Her eyes traced them now, one by one, like a bedtime ritual. It gave her something to follow. Something that stayed the same when everything else was falling apart.

Outside, the wind started to pick up, a soft scrape of dust brushing against the outer shell of the Hab. It sounded like fingertips across the hull. Like something just barely there.

She didn’t close her eyes for a long time.

When she finally did, it wasn’t sleep that took her—at least not at first. Just stillness. Just a pause between one breath and the next.

And eventually—after five hours of turning, thinking, listening—her body gave in.

And she slept. 

The next morning, she drove.

The speculor's suspension jolted her in waves, the frame creaking with each dip and shift across the uneven terrain. The windscreen was streaked with red dust and micro-abrasions that caught the light, scattering it in soft bursts of glare that made her squint. She blinked behind scratched goggles, trying to keep her eyes on the faint path she’d plotted three days earlier.

The red plains of Virelia stretched out in all directions, an endless, cracked expanse of oxidized clay and powdered iron. Everything was sun-bleached and raw. The land had a scabbed-over look, like it had once been wounded, and then just… never healed. Every kilometer looked like the last. Monotony baked under three suns, broken only by the slow crawl of the rover and the faint, rhythmic thrum of its motor.

Speculor-2 groaned and bucked over a rocky patch. One of the stabilizers complained—a metal-on-metal screech that made her wince—but the system recovered. She tapped the console gently, like soothing a skittish animal.

“Easy,” she said, voice raspy with dust and disuse. “One piece at a time.”

The only other sounds were the distant pop of heat-stressed metal and the occasional whisper of wind dragging itself across the dry ground. It wasn’t silence, not quite. Just the kind of quiet that made every small noise feel bigger.

She’d been driving since before first light, watching the stars fade out one by one until the sky turned that strange pale gold that passed for morning here. Now, sometime before local noon, with the second sun beginning to crest, she spotted something.

A flicker. A flash of color on the ridge ahead.

She blinked and sat forward, eyes narrowing. At first, she thought it might be a trick of the light. A lens flare. But the shape held as she got closer—sharp-edged and irregular against the clean lines of the hill. Not natural.

She stopped the rover at the base of the rise, letting the engine idle as she stepped out, boots landing in the soft dirt with a puff of dust. Her knees cracked when she stretched. Every joint in her body reminded her how little rest she’d had, how little fuel she’d been feeding it. She ignored it.

The shovel came off the gear mount with a soft click, slung over one shoulder like second nature. The climb wasn’t far, maybe twenty meters of loose gravel and packed sand, but by the time she reached the top her thighs were burning, her breath coming in short, dry pulls.

There it was.

A flag.

Faded almost to gray, the edges torn and flapping weakly in the breeze. It was anchored into a low mound of hardened earth. Not part of any official outpost, at least not one she recognized. But unmistakably human. Fabric didn’t just appear out here.

Her chest tightened—not in fear, but something adjacent. Something closer to proof. She hadn’t seen a sign of another person in over three weeks. Not since she left the crater rim and started moving inland. She knelt beside the mound and reached into the pouch on her belt, pulling out the small, battered cam recorder and clicking it on.

“Recording,” she said, more for the log than for herself.

The camera’s indicator light blinked green, steady.

She turned the lens to face her, sweat glistening on her brow, dust streaked across her scarf and cheeks.

“Good news,” she said, voice rough but lightened with something close to wry humor. “I may have found a solution to the cabin heat issue. It’ll require mild radiation exposure, one highly questionable engineering decision, and—if I’m remembering my protocols correctly—a violation of at least six interagency regulations.”

She turned the camera toward the flag and the mound it was planted in. Just below the surface, partially embedded in the soil, was a weather-sealed data tag.

She wiped it clean.

RTG: DO NOT EXHUME.

Her smile faded a little. That part wasn’t a surprise. She’d guessed it before she even climbed the hill.

Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. An old-style power source. Still warm. Still dangerous. Still working.

“I know, I know,” she muttered under her breath as she gripped the shovel with both hands. “‘Don’t dig up the big box of plutonium, Frenchie.’”

She hadn’t thought about that line in years.

It had come from her old heat systems instructor back during training, a no-nonsense ex-NASA engineer with a voice like gravel and no patience for theatrics. The man had stood at the front of the lecture hall with one hand on a scorched titanium shell and told the entire room, “You crack one of these open, you don’t get second chances. So unless you want your great-grandkids glowing in the dark, you leave it buried. Say it with me: Don’t. Dig. Up. The. Box.”

They’d laughed at the time.

Now, crouched on this godforsaken hill under a sun that never quite knew how to set, she wasn’t laughing.

She drove the blade of the shovel into the ground. The soil fought her. Hard-packed, sun-baked—more like concrete than dirt. She worked in a rhythm, short and precise, trying not to waste energy. But even with the right technique, it was brutal.

The first strike jarred up her arms. By the third, her shoulders burned. By the fifth, her elbows throbbed like she’d been lifting freight by hand. She ignored it. Kept digging. Sweat trickled down her spine beneath the base layer of her suit, pooling in the small of her back, sticky and irritating. Her hands ached inside the gloves. She was breathing hard now, each pull of air dry and metallic in her throat.

On the seventh strike, she heard it.

A dull, unmistakable thunk.

Her body stilled, shovel frozen in place. She crouched quickly, heart pounding in her ears, and set the tool aside. Carefully, deliberately, she brushed away the remaining dirt with both hands. The loose grit clung to her gloves, sticking in layers, but eventually a smooth surface came into view.

There it was.

Compact. Cylindrical. Still intact.

The casing of the RTG was streaked with heat scoring, but otherwise unblemished—no cracks, no corrosion, no obvious compromise. It looked almost new, like it had just been placed there yesterday instead of god knows how many years ago. The outer shell had a faint metallic sheen, broken only by tiny vents and the faint lettering along one edge, still visible through the dust.

It looked like the nose of a missile. Sleek. Purposeful. Designed for function, not comfort.

She crouched beside it, one hand resting on her knee, the other hovering inches from the surface. Her chest rose and fell in steady, shallow breaths. She didn’t touch it.

“RTGs,” she said quietly, more to herself than the camera now tucked into her chest rig, “are great for spacecraft. Reliable power, no moving parts. Efficient thermal conversion. And if they stay sealed, they’ll run for decades.”

She paused.

“But if they crack…”

She didn’t need to say the rest.

There was a reason they buried these things when missions went sideways. A reason they marked them with durable warning tags and logged the coordinates in deep-storage government databases.

Radiation leaks. Long-term exposure risk. Inhalation vectors. Cancer clusters. Soil contamination that lasts longer than recorded history.

She sat back on her heels, just looking at it.

“That’s probably why they marked it,” she murmured. “So some other unlucky asshole wouldn’t stumble across it and decide it looked useful.”

A short, dry laugh escaped her lips. It was closer to a cough than anything resembling amusement.

“So naturally,” she said, shaking her head, “here I am.”

She took a long breath, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. The silence stretched. The wind picked up slightly, just enough to stir the edges of the flag still fluttering weakly behind her.

“As long as I don’t break it,” she started to say, but then stopped herself. Her expression twisted. She looked down at the generator again.

She shook her head, muttering, “I was about to say, ‘everything will be fine.’ Jesus.”

The words sounded ridiculous even to her.

Fine had left the conversation weeks ago.

With one last breath, she leaned in, testing the RTG’s weight with both hands. It didn’t budge at first. The casing was half-set in packed dirt and clay, and whatever mounting system had once held it had partially fused with the soil. She braced her boots, adjusted her stance, and heaved.

It shifted—slightly.

Then more.

She worked at it in short bursts, alternating between shoveling out more earth and trying to lever the generator upward without putting too much strain on the shell. Every motion was deliberate, her eyes flicking constantly to the casing for signs of damage—any hairline crack, any hiss of escaping gas. Nothing. Just the soft scrape of metal against dirt and the strain of her own breath echoing inside her helmet.

When the RTG finally came loose from the earth, it shifted without warning.

She stumbled backward, almost losing her grip as the full weight of it landed in her arms. Forty kilos, maybe more. Compact, deceptively heavy—built that way on purpose. Layers of shielding, composite housing, enough thermal insulation to keep the core from turning a useful tool into a long-term death sentence.

Her boots slid slightly in the loose grit at the top of the hill. She bent her knees, catching the shift just in time, and steadied herself with a soft grunt. The muscles in her arms screamed in protest. Her lower back joined the chorus a few seconds later. She sucked in a breath and readjusted her grip, fingers aching through the gloves.

She didn’t say anything. Didn’t curse. Didn’t make a joke.

There wasn’t enough energy for that anymore.

Step by step, she started the descent.

The hill was steeper than she’d thought. Not a lot, but enough. The weight threw off her balance, every movement a negotiation between gravity and her own diminishing stamina. Her boots punched into the clay with each step, dust puffing up around her knees. The sun—two of the three now overhead—glared down with white intensity, stripping shadows, bleaching the world into dull, washed-out tones. The third sun was still climbing, pale and distant, but it would join the others soon enough.

Her breath rasped in her throat, shallow and fast. The heat inside the suit was building. Sweat pooled in the bend of her elbows, the back of her neck. Her cooling band had long since given up trying to regulate anything. She could feel the flush in her cheeks, the dizziness sitting just behind her eyes.

Don’t drop it.

She kept repeating that in her head.

Don’t drop it. Don’t trip. Don’t set it down too hard. Don’t jostle it. Don’t crack the casing. Don’t end your life in the middle of nowhere with your name on a future cautionary PowerPoint slide.

By the time she reached the base of the hill, her legs felt like rebar. Her hands were shaking. She staggered the last few meters to the rover and let the RTG down as gently as her body would allow, placing it on the reinforced cradle she’d rigged earlier—originally designed to hold water tanks, now hastily reinforced with struts, clamps, and a frankly insulting amount of duct tape.

She took a knee, head down, catching her breath. Her chest heaved. Her arms hung limp at her sides. A strand of hair, wet with sweat, stuck to her mouth and she blew it away, eyes closed.

When she finally climbed back into the driver’s seat, the heat inside the cabin hit her like a wall. She groaned softly and pushed the door closed behind her, sealing the oven shut.

The temperature inside was pushing into the red. The insulation helped, but not enough. Her shirt was gone—discarded somewhere on the rear bench an hour ago. Her undersuit clung to her in damp patches, soaked through. Her hair was plastered to her head in stringy clumps. Every breath she took tasted like metal, stale air, and dust. Her ribs ached from carrying the weight. Her hands were trembling again.

She sat behind the controls for a long moment, staring ahead through the sun-drenched windshield. The landscape beyond wavered in the heat—red plains shimmering, horizon pulsing faintly like the planet itself was breathing.

Her expression didn’t change.

Then, finally, she reached up and wiped her brow, flicking sweat off her fingers with a motion that was more ritual than relief.

“I’m still hot as hell,” she said, voice rough, barely louder than a whisper. “And yes… technically, I’m warmer now because I’ve just strapped a decaying radioactive isotope to my power cradle.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the cargo bay, at the shadowed outline of the RTG now secured in place.

“But honestly?” she said, facing forward again. “I’ve got bigger problems.”

She leaned toward the dashboard, opened the glovebox, and pulled out a small black data stick—Captain Marshall’s personal drive. The one she’d told herself she wouldn’t touch. Not unless things got really bad. Not unless she needed something—anything—to take the edge off the silence.

She slotted it into the console port with a faint click.

“I’ve gone through every file,” she muttered. “Scans. Reports. Debrief footage. Personal logs.”

She scrolled quickly, flicking past folder after folder.

“And this…”

She tapped on a music folder. Her brow furrowed.

“…is officially the least disco song he owns.”

She pressed play.

A moment later, the opening beats of Hot Stuff by Donna Summer burst through the cabin speakers—bright, bouncing, unapologetically alive.

She didn’t smile. Didn’t laugh. Her expression didn’t move at all. She just put both hands on the controls and started the rover forward, the electric whine of the motors joining the steady thump of bass.

Outside, the Hab shrank behind her, its white frame slowly swallowed by heat shimmer and distance, until it was just another shape in the desert.

The camera on the dash was still rolling, recording without commentary.

It caught her face, lit in flickering fragments—sunlight, dust, and 1979 optimism bouncing off the console.

She didn’t say another word.

She just kept going.

The satellite images scrolled slowly across the wide display at the front of the press room—high-resolution feeds pulled from a string of polar-orbiting relays. On screen, M6-117 stretched out in every direction, a vast red wasteland under three pale suns. In the middle of that emptiness, one small machine—Speculor-2—crawled forward, dragging a faint trail through the brittle dust behind it. The vehicle looked impossibly small. Fragile, even. But it moved with purpose.

In the rows of press seating, reporters leaned forward in their chairs. Some were scribbling notes, others just watching—expressions caught somewhere between fascination and dread. The silence was tense, broken only by the occasional click of a camera shutter or the low hum of tablet microphones still recording.

“Where exactly is she going?” someone finally asked—a woman near the front, eyes sharp behind rectangular glasses. Her voice carried the brittle edge of disbelief. “She’s… alone. That’s not protocol.”

Up on the small stage, Mateo sat behind a long table, facing the media. His posture was tight, both hands clasped together like he was bracing for impact. His suit, once crisp, now bore the signs of long nights—creases at the cuffs, tie knotted slightly off-center, dark shadows under his eyes. Behind him, a small display showed the current rover position and its trajectory plotted across the planet’s digital terrain.

Alice stood just off to the side, arms folded across a slim tablet, her stare fixed on Mateo with a kind of practiced intensity. He could feel her watching—waiting to jump in if he veered too far off-message.

Mateo cleared his throat. “We believe she’s conducting a series of long-range mobility tests,” he said. “She’s been extending the duration of each excursion, likely to assess rover endurance under load. We think she’s preparing for something longer.”

“To what end?” another reporter asked. “Why leave the habitat at all, if it’s functioning?”

Mateo exhaled slowly. “To re-establish contact. That’s our current assessment. We believe she’s aiming for the Helion Nexus pre-supply site—roughly 3,000 kilometers from her current location. That location would’ve had a reinforced communications relay. If she found the right maps in the nearby settlement... it makes sense.”

A pause followed. Then: “She’d risk her life to send a message?” The voice came from a CNN correspondent in the front row, skeptical and direct.

Mateo nodded. “That’s the problem she’s facing. She’s entirely alone. No signal. No uplink. From her perspective, we’re gone. Making contact isn’t just important—it might be the only way she survives.”

“But what would you tell her—if you could?” another reporter asked. “Keep going?”

Mateo hesitated, eyes flicking to Alice. She didn’t say anything. Just held his gaze for a moment. His voice was quieter when he answered.

“If we could talk to her, we’d tell her to stay put. We’d tell her help is coming. She just has to hold on.”

He paused again. Then added, “We’re doing everything in our power to bring her home alive.”

The room murmured. Pens scratched across paper. Someone whispered into a phone. Alice’s jaw clenched.

As soon as the cameras cut and the lights shifted, she was already moving—her heels sharp on the tile as she caught up with Venkat in the corridor outside the press room. Her voice was low, fast, and tight.

“Don’t say ‘bring her home alive,’” she hissed, eyes darting toward the passing cameras. “You’re reminding the world that she might die. That’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do.”

Venkat didn’t even slow down. “You think people forgot?”

“I think they didn’t need it underlined,” she snapped. “You asked me for notes, and I’m giving them to you. Mateo was… fine. ‘Meh,’ if I’m being honest. And yes, I am trying to make the world forget that there’s a very real chance Y/N Y/L/N is going to die alone on a dead rock. That’s my job.”

Venkat gave her a sideways glance. “A lot of conviction for a PR position.”

Alice rolled her eyes. “I’ve got two ex-husbands, both of whom I’m still paying alimony to, and neither of whom could hold down a job if it were duct-taped to their chests. Conviction is all I’ve got right now.”

“Hard to believe you walked away from either of them,” Venkat offered lightly.

She cut him a look sharp enough to leave a mark. “I left both of them. Don’t test me.”

They walked into the executive briefing room together. The mood inside was quiet but strained. Several department heads had already gathered—some flipping through reports, others just sitting, staring at the large monitor on the wall that still showed Y/N’s rover inching across the Martian plain.

Yoongi looked up from the head of the table as they entered. His face was unreadable, his posture relaxed but not at ease. He tapped a stylus against the table once, then again.

“Don’t say ‘bring her home alive,’” he said, voice dry. “Not helpful.”

Mateo dropped into the seat beside him with a sigh. “I know, I know. But I’m not a news anchor. You shove a mic in my face and expect precision, you’re gonna get a few stumbles.”

“No more Mateo on television,” Alice said from the doorway, making a quick note on her tablet. “Duly noted.”

Mateo opened his mouth to protest, but whatever he was about to say vanished when April entered, flanked by a junior aide and carrying a stack of printed briefings, slightly curled at the edges. She moved fast, a little out of breath, and started distributing the documents down the table.

“She’s seventy-six kilometers out,” Yoongi said, already flipping through the first page. “Tell me that’s a typo.”

April shook her head. “No, sir. It’s accurate. She drove out from the Hab in a straight line for almost two hours. Then stopped for an EVA—likely a battery change or cooling swap—and then kept going.”

“Seventy-six kilometers?” Creed said from the back of the room, chuckling. “Are we doing a father-daughter update now? Where’s the SatCon lead?”

“She is the lead,” Mateo replied, sharper than necessary. “April’s the one who found the first visual confirmation Y/N was alive. She’s running point on this.”

Alice shot Creed a glare that could've stripped paint.

“Just asking,” Creed muttered, holding up a hand.

Yoongi didn’t look up. “April. Is this another systems test?”

April hesitated, flipping through her own notes. “Possibly. But if something goes wrong that far out… she won’t make it back.”

The room went quiet.

Yoongi rubbed his eyes, jaw tight. “Did she load the Depressurizer? Or the Reclaimer?”

April shook her head slowly. “We… didn’t see that. Not in the window we had.”

Yoongi’s head snapped up. “What do you mean, you didn’t see it?”

“There’s a recurring satellite gap,” she explained quickly. “Every forty-one hours, we lose visual for seventeen minutes. It’s orbital. We’re adjusting for it, but that’s what we had.”

“Unacceptable,” Yoongi said flatly. “I want that gap down to four minutes. Less, if possible. Use every tool we have. Trajectory, relay orbit, blindspot hopping—whatever it takes.”

April blinked, surprised. “Uh—yes, sir. I’ll—yeah. I’ll get it done.”

Yoongi flipped another page in the brief, the paper whispering under his fingers. The room was quiet—oppressively so. The only background noise came from the low hum of the ceiling projector and the occasional creak of someone shifting in their chair.

Across the table, Alice stared at her notes but wasn’t reading them. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, her pen unmoving above the page. No one had spoken in over a minute.

On the wall, the satellite feed continued its slow, deliberate loop—Speculor-2 creeping across the surface of M6-117, a single tire track the only sign it had ever passed through.

Yoongi leaned back slightly in his chair, arms folded, eyes still fixed on the screen. He didn’t speak right away. When he did, his voice was quiet, almost conversational.

“Let’s assume she didn’t load the Depressurizer or the Reclaimer.”

A beat passed.

“She’s not headed to Helion Nexus yet. But she’s thinking about it. She knows that’s the only place with a shot at communication. Probably found the old nav data in the settlement ruins. She’s working up to it. Probing range. Testing reliability.”

He turned toward the far end of the table.

“Marco, what’s the earliest we could land a presupply package at the Nexus site?”

Marco Moneaux looked up slowly. The Jet Propulsion Lab director looked like hell—collar unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, eyes glassy from lack of sleep and too much caffeine. He ran a hand through his graying hair before answering.

“With current planetary alignment, launch windows are limited,” he said, voice raw. “Best-case, we’re looking at two years. That’s if everything goes right and we start building now. And construction alone would take at least twelve months.”

“Six,” Yoongi said, flatly.

Marco blinked. “That’s not how orbital mechanics work.”

“Six,” Yoongi repeated. “You’re going to tell me that’s impossible, and then I’m going to give you a stirring speech about the ingenuity of JPL and how lucky we are to have the best minds in the solar system. And then you’ll sit down with your team and start doing the math.”

Marco let out a slow breath, the kind that came from years of losing arguments that turned out to be winnable after all. “The overtime budget’s going to be a bloodbath.”

“I’ll find the money,” Yoongi said. “We just need the schedule.”

Across the room, Creed shifted, his arms crossed, jaw set tight. His usual smirk was gone.

“It’s time to tell the crew,” he said.

Mateo looked up sharply. “We agreed—”

“No,” Creed cut in. “You agreed. You talked, Alice nodded, and I didn’t have time to get a word in. But I’m telling you now: this is bullshit. One of them has a sister out there, and she’s alive and fighting, and they don’t know. That’s a hell of a thing to ask a crew to live with.”

“Her cousin needs to stay focused,” Mateo said carefully. “They all do. They’re still in descent planning. We tell them now, it’ll fracture everything.”

“They’re not robots,” Creed said, voice rising just slightly. “They’re not going to fold if we’re honest with them.”

“We’re not there yet,” Yoongi said, quiet but firm. “We tell them when we have something real. A trajectory. A payload manifest. A launch date. Until then, it’s just a burden.”

Creed leaned back in his chair, arms still folded. He didn’t look satisfied, but he didn’t argue again. Not yet.

At the head of the table, Yoongi turned back to Marco. “Six months.”

Marco gave a slow, resigned nod. “We’ll do our best.”

Yoongi didn’t look away. “Y/N dies if you don’t.”

No one spoke after that.

The Hab had started to feel more like a jungle than a research station.

Potatoes grew in every corner now—lined in shallow bins, sprouting from hacked-together troughs, wedged into plastic storage drawers with holes drilled in the sides for airflow. They clung to the walls in hanging bags of soil and insulation wrap, their leaves stretched greedily toward the panels of grow lights overhead. A dozen different containers buzzed with tiny pumps and improvised irrigation systems, everything patched together with old tubing, leftover fasteners, and a prayer.

It smelled like damp earth and warm plastic. Not unpleasant. Just persistent. Like the place had stopped pretending to be sterile.

Y/N knelt in the middle of the chaos, a serrated knife in one gloved hand, gently pulling a plant from its bin. She worked slowly, methodically, fingers careful not to damage the roots. Once it was free, she used the blade to slice through the clumped soil, separating the plant’s young potatoes from the main stem. Some were no bigger than a thumb. Others had grown fat and knobby, streaked with red dust and tangled with hair-thin roots.

She set the largest ones aside and began cutting the rest into seed pieces, each chunk still bearing one or two pale eyes. They’d go back into the soil in a few hours, restarted for another cycle.

She moved with practiced rhythm—precise, calm, almost ritualistic. These plants were the only reason she was still alive. There wasn’t room for mistakes anymore.

Across the room, the camera sat perched on its usual shelf, its red indicator light blinking patiently. She’d left it on standby for the last few days, waiting for something worth recording.

Wiping the back of her hand across her cheek, leaving a streak of dirt behind, Y/N stood, walked to the table, and hit the record button.

She perched on the edge of the workbench, still holding one of the potatoes in her hand. It was lumpy, coated in clingy soil, but she turned it slowly for the camera like it was something rare. Something fragile.

“It’s been about eighty sols since I started this mess,” she said. Her voice was steady but low, worn around the edges like fabric left out in the sun too long. “These guys were the first thing I planted once I stabilized the water filtration. They weren’t supposed to work this well.”

She gestured toward the rows of bins and hanging planters.

“I’ve got over four hundred healthy potato plants now. Not bad for emergency rations, right?”

A small, tired smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“The smaller ones go back into the soil,” she continued, holding up one of the cut seed pieces. “The bigger ones? That’s dinner. Or breakfast. Or lunch. Depends on when I remember to eat.”

She held up the full potato again, this time more like a toast. “Locally grown. All-natural. Organic, Hexundecian potatoes. Can’t say that every day.”

She let the potato drop gently onto the pile beside her, her expression sobering.

“But…”

Her voice trailed off, the weight behind the word doing most of the work. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands clasped loosely in front of her.

“None of this matters,” she said finally, “if I can’t make contact with NOSA.”

The sentence landed like a dropped tool—loud in the quiet room.

She stared at the lens for another beat, then clicked the feed off.

Turning back to the table, she swept the dirt aside with her forearm and unfurled one of the maps she’d been revisiting every day for the last week. The surface was creased and frayed, the ink faded in places, but the terrain lines were still visible, along with the handwritten notations she’d scrawled in the margins over the last few weeks.

The map wasn’t paper. It was synthetic weave, coated in resin. Durable. Meant to last.

She spread it out like a gambler laying down cards in the final round of a bad hand. She'd traced this same route twenty times. Calculated elevation gains. Wind direction. Potential shelter zones. Solar charge patterns.

None of it added up.

“Come on,” she muttered, fingers tapping the edge of the map. “There’s something I’m missing.”

She scanned the familiar routes, her eyes jumping between landmarks—Sundermere Basin, Ridgefall Bluff, the old survey trench near Solvent Crater. Her handwriting wove through the terrain like a nervous heartbeat.

And then she saw it.

Two small words, printed in faded ink near the bottom corner: Thessala Planitia.

She froze.

Her eyes locked onto the name, her whole body still for a moment as if afraid she might break the spell by breathing too loud. Then, slowly, she leaned in, her hand brushing across the label like she needed to confirm it was real.

“Thessala Planitia…”

The name echoed in her head.

Buried in one of the briefing files—early mission studies, pre-expansion data. There’d been a fallback relay planned there. A testbed for the old drone network. If anything was still intact…

She straightened, dragging the map closer, scanning the terrain for possible access routes. The soil there had been flat. Storms had hit it, sure, but the area was geologically stable. The signal loss might’ve just been a relay failure.

Her breath caught.

“I know what I’m gonna do,” she whispered, her voice sharper now—not confident, but charged with urgency.

She pushed off the table and grabbed the nearest notepad, sketching out a quick overlay. Her fingers moved fast, scrawling numbers, plotting arcs, connecting points across solar window charts and terrain profiles.

The plan wasn’t clean. It wasn’t safe. And it sure as hell wasn’t official.

But it was something.

And that was more than she’d had an hour ago.

She moved across the Hab in a blur, checking charge levels, opening storage crates, reviewing consumables. Her hands were shaking, but her movements were quick, practiced. The kind of urgency born from too many days of waiting for a sign and finally, finally getting one.

In the corner, the camera blinked back on, recording her again.

She didn’t notice.

She was already halfway to the rover.

April leaned forward over her console, elbows digging into the edge of the desk, her eyes fixed on the satellite feed streaming across her screen. A soft pulse of red sand flickered in the top corner—M6-117’s weather signature. Below it, the rover moved.

A tiny dot on a huge, empty map.

Speculor-2 crept along the surface like it was tracing the memory of a path no one else could see. The feed lagged every few frames—just enough to remind her how far out the signal had to travel. But the movement was steady. Deliberate. She watched it update, frame by frame.

“She’s moving again,” April called over her shoulder, her voice tight. Not alarmed. Just tense, like a violin string pulled one notch too far.

Mateo was already halfway across the floor by the time the words finished leaving her mouth. He didn’t bother with the usual preamble—just leaned over her shoulder, squinting at the data. His tie was askew again, and there was a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. Sleep clearly hadn’t made the cut last night.

“Where the hell is she going?” he muttered, dragging a knuckle along the edge of the screen as if that would help clarify things. “She hasn’t deviated from her heading in almost two weeks. No course changes, no sign of instability… And now she just shifts south?”

April tapped in a few quick commands, the camera feed adjusting. The map zoomed out, giving them a wider view of the rover’s path—long, straight, precise. Until now.

“Maybe she’s rerouting around something,” April offered. “An obstruction, maybe? Subsurface instability?”

Mateo shook his head, eyes narrowing. “Out there? That whole stretch is Virelia Planitia. It’s flat as hell. No rock ridges, no sand traps, no canyon shelves. We scouted it top to bottom back in the ‘42 survey.”

He fell quiet mid-thought, his brow furrowing. Something flickered behind his eyes.

Then—without a word—he straightened.

“I need a map,” he said suddenly, already turning toward the door.

“What?” April stood quickly. “Wait—what kind of map?”

“A big one,” he called over his shoulder. “Topographical. Uncropped. Now.”

April followed, catching up as they exited the SatCon control room and made a sharp turn down the hallway. They pushed through the breakroom doors, startling a junior technician in the middle of stirring instant coffee. He blinked as they barreled past him.

On the wall behind the vending machines hung a poster-sized map of M6-117—glossy, tourist-style, with color-coded regions and labeled basins. A leftover from a team-building event. No one took it seriously.

Until now.

Mateo strode straight to it, yanked it off the hooks in one sharp motion, and laid it flat across the nearest table. The tech made a protesting noise behind them.

“I’ll replace it,” Mateo said distractedly. “Promise.”

He pulled a pen from his pocket—a half-dried Sharpie with a frayed tip—and clicked it with one hand while holding the map with the other.

April was already beside him. “Hab’s at thirty-one point two north, twenty-eight point five west.”

Mateo made a small black X on the map with a practiced flick. Then he traced a line with the side of the pen, dragging it along the same route they’d seen on the satellite feed—first the original heading, then the sudden veer south.

He paused. His hand stopped.

The pen hovered just above a name printed in small, faded text.

Thessala Planitia.

His expression changed.

He looked down at it for a moment, then stepped back from the table like it had spoken to him.

“I know where she’s going,” he said, and now there was a flicker of life in his voice—sharp, focused, like adrenaline had finally replaced exhaustion.

April leaned in, frowning. “Why there? It’s barely mentioned in the archives. Wasn’t that one of the early relay fields?”

Mateo was already walking again, muttering to himself.

“She found something,” he said. “Or she remembered something we forgot.”

“Mateo,” April called after him, “where are you going?”

“To requisition a vessel,” he said without looking back.

“Requisition a what?” she blinked.

But he was gone, disappearing through the far doors.

April stayed behind, staring down at the map on the table. The line he’d drawn still shimmered faintly with fresh ink, curving down toward the unexplored southern edge of the old communication corridor. For a moment, she just stood there, trying to piece it together.

Behind her, the technician finally spoke, still holding his coffee cup like he didn’t know whether to drink it or set it down.

“Who was he talking to?”

April didn’t look away from the map.

“I honestly don’t think he knows,” she said.

The suns were relentless.

All three of them hung high in the sky, casting the landscape in a harsh, overlapping glare that bleached the colors from everything and made the horizon shimmer like liquid glass. Heat rolled off the planet’s surface in thick, invisible waves, distorting the air above the red-gold earth. M6-117 didn’t just radiate warmth—it seethed with it, pulsing beneath the cracked crust like something alive and indifferent.

Speculor-2 crested a ridge slowly, its patched-together suspension groaning in protest with every dip and jolt. The frame rattled, bolts ticking against their housings, panels humming with vibration. A warning light flickered on the console and died again—just long enough to remind her that nothing in this machine was built to last this long, or go this far, under this kind of heat.

Y/N kept both hands tight on the wheel, thumbs hooked around the inner grips. Her fingers were sunburned despite the gloves she wore inside the cabin—dry, peeling, red at the knuckles from weeks of constant exposure. The inside of her suit felt like a second skin now, stiff with dried sweat and dust. Every movement was deliberate. Careful. Muscle memory guided more than thought at this point.

She squinted through the scratched visor of her helmet, adjusting the glare shield with a flick of her wrist. The hill dropped steeply in front of her, and beyond it—partially buried in the sand—something metallic caught the sunlight.

A glint. Small. Angular. Manmade.

Her breath caught, just for a second.

She eased off the brake and nudged the accelerator, coaxing the rover down the slope. Loose gravel crunched beneath the tires, kicking up fine red dust that clung to the undercarriage like ash. The descent wasn’t smooth, but the rover held. She kept her eyes locked on the object ahead, refusing to blink, as if it might vanish if she looked away.

A glint in the sand didn’t mean anything. Not necessarily. The desert was full of wreckage. Half-buried relay towers, crumpled drones, abandoned survey rigs—all slowly dissolving into the landscape. Most of them were long dead. A few had power cells that could be salvaged. None had been what she needed.

But this one—this thing—was different. It had shape. Intent. Angles that didn’t come from natural erosion or careless debris drops.

Her pulse thudded in her throat as she approached.

If it was what she thought it was—if the signal booster inside was even half-functional—then maybe, just maybe, she could finally reach someone. Send a ping. Even a basic carrier wave. Something.

And if it wasn’t…

Then she would’ve spent the last three sols pushing this machine farther than its power specs could tolerate, rationing food she barely had, gambling what was left of her energy reserves on a hope stitched together from half-legible maps and half-forgotten notes.

The rover bumped to a stop at the base of the hill, its shadow long and flickering on the cracked ground. She sat still for a second, one hand resting against the center of the wheel, her other already reaching for the suit’s outer seals.

She didn’t let herself think about what came next. Not yet.

She just sat there, the heat pressing in from every side, watching the metal shape glint quietly in the sand.

Then, slowly, she opened the hatch.

Mateo pushed through the double glass doors of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory facility on Aguerra Prime, his steps quick and clipped, boots echoing off the polished tile floor. The lobby was sleek—steel beams arched overhead in clean, geometric symmetry, and the walls glowed faintly with soft-panel lighting that pulsed in rhythm with the environmental systems. The air smelled like ionized metal and coffee. People moved with purpose, heads bowed over tablets, quiet conversations unfolding in pockets of motion.

Marco Moneaux was already waiting near the reception hub, leaning slightly against a rail, one foot bouncing with contained urgency. His white lab coat was creased around the elbows, and his badge hung slightly askew from his lanyard. When he spotted Mateo, he straightened immediately, crossing the floor in three brisk steps.

“Mateo,” he said, extending a hand. His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in hours—or had been speaking for far too many.

Mateo took it firmly, giving a nod instead of wasting breath on greetings. Both men knew the situation was too tight for small talk.

They fell into step without instruction, heading down a wide hallway flanked by tall windows. Outside, the manicured edges of the campus gave way to open, sloping fields. Beyond that, rows of solar arrays shimmered under Aguerra’s twin moons. Herds of deer grazed in the distance—engineered wildlife released to test the long-term viability of the terraformed perimeter.

Neither man looked out the windows.

Inside, they passed knots of engineers and research assistants moving between labs—some glancing up briefly, most too focused on the screens or equipment in their hands to notice the urgency that trailed them like heat.

As they turned a corner, Mateo asked the question that had been eating at him since he left orbit.

“What are the odds Y/N can get it working again?”

Marco didn’t answer right away. He exhaled through his nose, scrubbing a hand through his graying hair as they walked.

“Hard to say,” he admitted finally. “We lost reliable telemetry in ’97. Battery degradation, most likely. Last signal showed grid instability in the comms array. And it took a beating during the eclipse event. Radiation, dust storms. You remember—that wiped out the prototype colony near Terminus Ridge.”

Mateo nodded. “Barely.”

Marco glanced sideways at him. “Just for the record, it lasted three times longer than any of our best-case simulations. Not that I’m defensive.”

Mateo gave a dry, humorless smirk. “Nobody’s pointing fingers, Marco. If Y/N found it and it still has a frame to stand on, that’s a win. I just need everything you’ve got. Every record. Every system map. And I want to talk to everyone who was working the array back then.”

“They’re already here,” Marco said, tapping the badge on his wrist. “As soon as we got confirmation of the rover’s course change, I put out the call. Took some favors, but we pulled a few out of retirement. Not all of them are thrilled to be back.”

“Doesn’t matter if they’re thrilled,” Mateo muttered. “They’re here.”

Marco didn’t argue.

They reached a reinforced service door at the end of the corridor. It slid open with a hiss, revealing the garage—more a hybrid workshop and restoration bay than a storage area. Industrial lights hung low from the ceiling. Tables were littered with open toolkits, diagnostic gear, spare parts. A team of engineers in cleanroom gear moved among the equipment, focused and tight-lipped.

In the center of the room, covered by a heavy fire-retardant sheet, stood something massive.

Mateo slowed as he approached.

“This the replica?” he asked, eyeing the draped silhouette. The outline was unmistakable—angled, precise, deeply familiar.

Marco nodded once. “Built from the original schematics. All internal systems match phase one spec. Obviously we couldn’t rebuild the quantum banks without violating half a dozen containment laws, but we ran full diagnostic simulations on the rest. Guidance. Thermal. Comms. Power draw. It all holds.”

He stepped forward and pulled the cover back in one motion, revealing the spacecraft beneath.

Prometheus.

It gleamed under the harsh lights, a mosaic of matte plating, reinforced glass, and composite shielding. Its two primary sections—the large lander and the smaller Pioneer-class speculor—were connected by an exposed conduit spine that had once bristled with telemetry dishes and stabilizers.

The moment the sheet hit the ground, the room seemed to go quieter.

Mateo stepped closer, his expression unreadable. For a long time, he just looked. Not at the tech, or the wiring, or the damage estimates. He looked at the shape of the thing. The idea behind it.

Prometheus wasn’t just a machine. It was a symbol—of intent, of failure, of hope held a little too long in too many hands.

He exhaled, the weight in his chest shifting as he reached out and let his fingers brush the cold edge of the hull.

“Prometheus,” he said, almost under his breath. The name sat heavy between them.

Marco didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

Around them, the engineers watched silently. No one moved to interrupt.

Mateo stepped back, his mind already running again—calculating transmission lag, estimating power loads, cross-referencing timestamps from the satellite data.

“She’s betting everything on this,” he said. “And I think she’s right to.”

Marco gave a slight nod. “Then so are we.”

Mateo turned to him, jaw set.

“Get your people ready. I want diagnostics running on every subsystem we can simulate by the hour. If there’s even a flicker of life left in that array—if there’s anything Y/N can wake up—we’re going to meet her halfway.”

The sand on M6-117 wasn’t like sand on Aguerra Prime. It didn’t shift or drift like ocean-dunes or kick up in satisfying clouds when you stepped through it. It behaved more like talcum powder laced with metal filings—dry, clingy, corrosive. It coated everything. Her boots were already buried up to the ankles, the fine red dust swallowing the seams and grinding into the joints like it was trying to unmake her gear piece by piece.

Y/N stood still for a moment, catching her breath, feeling the wind rasp against her suit. It wasn’t a howl, not like Earth storms. It was subtler—more like static moving across bare skin. Just enough pressure to sting, just enough to remind her that if she stood still too long, she’d vanish beneath it.

The grit had worked its way into the folds of her gloves. Her hands were dark with oil and dust, the fabric ground smooth in places from overuse. Every finger flex sent a tug of pain down her forearms. Muscle fatigue had long since crossed the threshold of discomfort and settled into something quieter—something meaner. Constant, background. A presence she’d stopped trying to fight days ago.

The rover, Speculor-2, sat parked near the base of the rise—its chassis darkened by days of exposure, its rear wheels half-embedded in a shallow depression. It hadn’t been able to handle the slope. Even with reinforced tread plates and the bolted-on stabilizers she’d installed from salvaged struts, the incline was too sharp, the gravel too loose. It had choked out a few meters from the base before sliding back down in a slow, deliberate shrug of failure.

So she went the rest of the way on foot.

The shovel clanked dully against rock as she hauled it behind her. It dragged a long, narrow trench through the red powder—like a second shadow. She was too tired to carry it properly. It didn’t matter. She just needed it there.

The object she’d seen from the ridge—barely more than a glint through the glare of the triple suns—had pulled her in like gravity. At first, she thought it was another old relay node or maybe one of the early colony drop-capsules, the kind that had scattered debris across the southern hemisphere during the first failed expansion push. There were plenty of those. Too many, honestly. Ghosts of optimism gone stale.

But as she dug, the shape began to shift.

Not a cylinder. No external dish arrays. Not a capsule either. The angles were wrong—too square, too deliberate. Her breath caught when her shovel struck something beneath the dust: a sharp clang, metal on metal, followed by a hollow thunk that seemed to echo in the silence far louder than it should have.

She froze, hands tightening on the shaft.

Then she dropped to her knees and started clearing it by hand, pushing sand aside in fast, desperate sweeps. Her gloves caught on the edges of heat-scarred plating. The metal was warm to the touch, even through insulation. A low panel came into view, then a section of grating, a stabilizer fin warped out of alignment. The hull was charred in places, a mosaic of soot and impact scoring.

And then—partially hidden beneath a layer of red grime and sun-bleached streaks—she saw it. The outline of a nameplate. The letters were too faded to read clearly, most of them worn smooth by wind and time. But the shape, the placement, the size—she didn’t need to read it.

She knew.

“Please,” she murmured, voice cracking through the filtered mic. Her lips were dry. She didn’t notice. “Please let this be it.”

She sat back in the dust, resting her hands on her thighs, heart thudding hard enough to shake her vision. A sharp exhale left her lungs like a pressure valve had opened. She didn’t smile. Not yet. But she didn’t cry either, and that felt like progress.

The shape of the lander was mostly intact beneath the sand. Time had tried to bury it, but it hadn’t finished the job. She traced a line down the edge of the hull, checking for structural faults—any sign that it might collapse the moment she tried to move it.

So far, it looked solid. Scarred, yes. But solid.

She stood, her joints protesting. Everything ached. Her back. Her legs. Even her ribs. She pulled the tether rig from her back harness—a bundle of couplers, salvaged webbing, and what remained of Speculor-1’s rear axle assembly. It was barely a system, but it was hers. It had worked before. It would have to work again.

She dug around the base of the lander, loosening the packed soil just enough to wedge in the rig’s anchors. Sweat dripped down her spine beneath the inner lining of her suit. She ignored it. Her fingers worked quickly but carefully, avoiding the weakest points of the frame. One wrong move could shear the tether. Or worse—destabilize the whole thing and trap it again, just out of reach.

When the last hook snapped into place, she gave the line a slow, deliberate pull. It groaned. Everything groaned these days.

But it held.

She exhaled.

The second sun was just beginning to dip, its wide arc casting long shadows across the ridge behind her. The third—smaller, colder—peeked over the distant horizon, turning the dust into glinting embers. Her suit’s internal temperature had spiked past safe thresholds at least an hour ago, and her visor had started fogging despite the airflow unit. She’d wiped it clear three times already. Her gloves left streaks across the inside of the glass.

She climbed into the rover one limb at a time, slow and deliberate, like someone recovering from surgery. Her muscles didn’t respond so much as comply, reluctant and stiff from exertion and exposure. Her gloves trembled slightly as she gripped the hatch rail, shoulders aching beneath the strain of low oxygen and long hours in thin gravity.

No sudden movements. No unnecessary ones, either.

There were rules for exhaustion like this. You moved like everything was made of glass. Because if you dropped yourself now—if you fell, if you slipped, if you overextended—you might not get back up.

Inside the cockpit, the air smelled like hot plastic and sweat. Her breath fogged the inner edge of her visor for the fourth time that hour. She twisted her head slightly to wipe it with the back of her glove, but the smudge only smeared. Visibility was good enough. It would have to be.

The rover’s engine groaned to life on the third ignition cycle. It coughed, stuttered, then caught—a low, wheezing hum beneath her boots. She exhaled shakily. Part relief. Part preparation.

Her hand moved to the throttle.

As she eased it forward, she felt the slack in the tether vanish—then tension. The custom rig stretched and flexed, cables pulling taut with an audible snap. For a second, nothing happened. Just the sound of the engine and the wind scratching at the hull like dry fingers.

Then the rover lurched, tires clawing at loose sand. The rear axle let out a groan like a dying animal.

Behind her, the lander moved.

Not much—just a few centimeters—but she saw the shadow shift in her rearview, saw the line of red sand behind her deepen as the metal hull began to drag through it. A gouge formed, long and deliberate, the weight of the spacecraft carving its own slow scar into the Martian plain.

It followed her like a reluctant pet. Heavy. Damaged. But willing.

She didn’t look back. Not yet. She couldn’t afford to see how far there was to go.

Her eyes stayed on the way forward—on the faded twin tracks she'd made on the way up, etched into the dust with the same dogged desperation that had brought her here in the first place. They weren’t perfect lines. They wobbled, meandered slightly, climbed and dropped with the terrain. But they were hers.

And they led home.

She pressed her gloved palm against the control panel. The warmth of the rover’s systems buzzed faintly through the material, a small pulse of life she clung to like a heartbeat. Her own pulse echoed back—too fast, too shallow. Her suit pinged her vitals. She muted the alert.

The suns were shifting overhead. The largest of the three had already begun to dip low, casting wide, ochre shadows across the plain. The second sun lingered higher, still burning cold white through the thinning sky. The smallest—the one that barely deserved to be called a sun—hung at the edge of the atmosphere like a memory.

She didn’t sleep that night. She didn’t log any journal entries, didn’t record a status update, didn’t talk to the onboard assistant. There wasn’t anything left to say. Not yet.

She just drove.

One hand on the wheel. The other bracing the tether release, just in case.

The land was mostly flat, but the surface shifted more than it looked. The rover bucked now and then, hitting shallow ridges or spots where the ground gave under the weight of two machines. Each time the suspension rocked, she reached up to steady the makeshift coupling. It creaked. She listened closely for the sound of failure.

When the power dipped below twenty percent, she stopped. Set the panels out. Killed every nonessential system—cabin lights, redundant sensors, everything except the nav core and the battery buffer. Then she climbed out, boots crunching over grit, and walked the length of the tether.

The rig was holding. Barely. The rear axle—originally not meant to support any load at all—was beginning to warp under the repeated strain. A hairline fracture had formed near the secondary bolt plate. She tightened what she could. Reinforced with spare composite tape. It would get her to the ridge. After that, she’d be on hope and inertia.

Back in the cockpit, she stared at the charge percentage while chewing a protein tab she couldn’t taste. Every tick upward felt like watching rain fill a cup—too slow, too fragile. She closed her eyes. Let her breathing slow. Didn’t fall asleep, but drifted somewhere soft and blank, just long enough to make the next stretch survivable.

When the panels hit 31%, she powered up and moved again.

The last five kilometers were the worst.

The terrain turned patchy—intermittent shelf rock and shallow drainage troughs that the rover’s nav AI kept flagging as hazards. She ignored the warnings. Manually overrode the terrain bias. This far in, the rover trusted her more than it trusted itself. She appreciated that. But only barely.

The Hab finally came into view after a slow crest over the last ridge—a pale dome against rust-red nothing, distant and still and strange. It looked smaller than she remembered. Fragile. Like someone had left a plastic toy in the middle of a battlefield.

She exhaled.

Behind her, the lander rattled as it shifted slightly, the tow rig flexing under a final jolt. It was still there. Still dragging its way home like the last survivor of a war.

By the time the Hab came into view—just a pale, sunburned dome on the horizon—the rover was running hot. The dash had been lit with a persistent yellow warning for the last twenty minutes: Thermal Load Approaching Limit – Power Efficiency Reduced. Not critical. Not yet. But close enough that the hum of the cabin fan had taken on a wheeze, and the heat exchanger sounded like it was breathing through a straw.

She guided the rover up the final slope with the same deliberate care she’d used for every kilometer since dragging the lander loose. The rig held, barely. A shudder ran through the chassis each time the terrain shifted beneath the load. She could feel it in the pedals, in the wheel, in her wrists.

At the perimeter, she stopped. Just outside the airlock’s sensor field, far enough to keep the lander’s mass from triggering the external motion alerts. The rover hissed softly as it idled, then fell quiet as she powered down.

Engine. Vents. Cabin systems.

Silence.

Not the peaceful kind. The kind that screamed in your ears after too many hours of mechanical noise. A silence that made her feel like the air itself was pressing inward. Heavy. Expectant.

She didn’t move. Not at first. Her hands stayed on the wheel, knuckles pale where the gloves stretched over them. Her visor was fogged again—smudged from the inside where she’d wiped it too many times. She stared through the distortion at the blur of the Hab’s outline, heart thudding a little too fast in her chest.

Everything in her body was buzzing: overworked muscles, caffeine-depleted nerves, the dull throb in her knees from sitting too long and the low-level dehydration she hadn’t had time to address. Her fingers tingled. Not from cold. From the sheer effort of not falling apart.

Eventually, she forced herself to move.

She braced a hand on the seat frame and pushed up. Her knees didn’t want to cooperate. They locked, then gave in stages, like gears trying to find their teeth. She stepped out into the heat with a grunt, boots landing in the loose sand with a dry crunch. The air hit her like opening an oven door.

The sun was high—well, one of them was. The second hung lower, casting odd twin shadows across the ridge. The third hadn’t risen yet. It would soon.

She turned, slowly, to look at what she’d dragged home.

The lander sat half-sunk in the dust behind the rover, its hull streaked with soot and oxidized grime. Decades of wind had scraped the paint to near-nothing. The serial markings were mostly gone. Its panels were warped, its undercarriage twisted from the pull of the terrain. But it was intact. Whole, in the way things that shouldn’t still exist sometimes are.

She stepped closer and rested one gloved hand against the side of the frame. The metal was hot through the suit, radiating heat back at her like it still remembered the stars it once launched through.

It was real. It was here.

She stood like that for a moment—long enough for her breathing to even out, long enough for the noise in her mind to slow. She didn’t cry. She was too dry for that. But there was something in her chest that uncoiled a little, just enough to make room for relief.

Then she turned, eyes narrowing against the light, and headed for the Hab.

The outer airlock hissed as she stepped inside. Cooling systems kicked in, the rapid shift from Martian heat to artificial climate control leaving a faint sheen of condensation on the inside of her visor. She stripped out of the suit by habit—one latch at a time, slow, steady—and hung it on the pressurized rack. Her undershirt clung to her spine. Her hair was matted. Skin cracked at the corners of her mouth.

She didn’t stop to wash. Not yet.

Instead, she grabbed the roll-out solar blankets from storage—folded, dust-sealed, stored under a bench where no one had expected them to ever be used—and carried them back out through the lock.

Outside again, she worked quickly. The sun had shifted and the temperature was climbing. She moved in a circle around the lander, unfurling the metallic sheets like a protective cocoon. They were reflective on one side, dull on the other—meant to deflect excess thermal load and redirect radiant heat away from sensitive equipment.

Here, they would buy her time. Time before the old machine started cooking from the inside.

She staked them down using stripped rebar, hammering the rods into the soil with the butt of her shovel. Dust clung to her sweat, turned sticky at her collar, itched under her sleeves. Her arms burned from the repetitive motion. Her breathing was shallow again.

But she didn’t stop until the job was done.

Then—and only then—did she step back, strip off her gloves, and sit down hard in the dirt beside the rover. She tipped her head back, eyes closed behind squinting lids. Her lungs filled with hot, dry air. Her limbs felt too heavy to move. Her heart beat slow and hard in her chest.

The real work hadn’t started yet.

She’d have to inspect the RTG housing. Set up containment protocols. Verify the generator’s thermal output, make sure it hadn’t been compromised during burial or the tow. If she ruptured it, there wouldn’t be time to run.

She’d need shielding. Power routing. Cabling. Isolation foam. Diagnostics.

She’d need her hands to stop shaking.

But for now, for just a few minutes, she sat in the red sand beside the machine she had unearthed from half a lifetime of dust, and listened to the wind roll across the plains of M6-117.

Taglist: @fancypeacepersona @ssbb-22 @mar-lo-pap @sathom013 @kimyishin @ttanniett @sweetvoidstuff @keiarajm @sathom013 @miniesjams32

[mrsvante]

Stolen Orbit

pairing: jungkook x reader

genre: yandere au, dark horror, sci fi

summary: you were meant for eradication with the rest of your planet—erased without a trace, just another speck in the galaxy's endless purge. but jeongguk saw you. fragile, insignificant... human. and something his kind had long forgotten stirred in him. instead of erasing your existence, he took you, stole you from extinction and made you his. now you live in a celestial cage, adored and possessed by something not quite capable of love, but desperate to keep you. he doesn't understand your fear, your resistance, but he craves your surrender all the more because of it. and if it takes breaking you to make you his completely... he will.

warnings: slow burn, mass extermination, alien jungkook forced captivity/proximity, psychological manipulation, stockholm syndrome, dubcon, smut, ritualistic copulation

word count: 7,805

The Forever

It happens too fast.

Or maybe… not fast enough.

You don’t plan it.

You don’t think.

You simply run.

The opportunity presents itself like a gift from gods long since abandoned. A subtle error, a flicker in Jeongguk’s routine.

You both rise from your shared meal, or what passes for meals aboard this ship of whispered threats and suffocating tenderness, and for once, he doesn’t immediately shepherd you back toward the sleeping chamber.

Instead, his attention flickers toward the far wall, speaking softly in a language you still do not understand, giving brief commands to the ship’s interface.

You move before logic can catch up.

Your bare feet slap against the cool, pliant floor as you dart past him, weaving through the open doorway just as it begins to ripple closed.

He doesn’t shout.

He doesn’t chase.

Not immediately.

But you feel his gaze snap to you, heavy and sharp as a blade pressed to the back of your neck.

A low sound follows, not a roar or a curse, but something worse.

Amused. Displeased. Intrigued.

You don’t look back.

You can’t.

You sprint down the corridor, lungs burning, pulse roaring in your ears as the ship becomes a blur of seamless walls and softly glowing paths.

You have no plan.

There is no escape, you know this, every part of you knows this.

But still… you run.

Because something primal and furious still lives inside you, something untouched by his hands, his whispers, his unbearable tenderness.

Something human.

—

You don’t realize how far you’ve gone until the hall begins to change.

The sterile white smoothness gives way to darker hues. Soft matte blacks and deep blues that drink in the ambient light. The air shifts too, warmer, faintly perfumed with something that makes your head swim.

Your frantic steps slow.

Confusion tempers panic.

You’ve entered a different part of the ship. Instinctively you know this space isn’t meant for you.

The hall spills into a vast open chamber.

At first, you falter, confused by what you’re seeing, and then your breath catches painfully in your throat.

This… is his. His quarters.

It couldn’t be more different from your confined room.

Where your space is neutral, clinical, designed for compliance and simplicity, this is… lavish.

Dark, seductive textures fill the room. Draped fabrics that ripple faintly despite the still air. Walls that hum with deep sapphire light, pulsing softly like a heartbeat slowed to slumber.

And at the far end, dominating everything, is a window. You stumble toward it before you realize you’re even moving. It stretches from floor to ceiling, impossibly clear, revealing endless, horrifying, beautiful space.

Stars burn quietly beyond, infinite and cold, scattered like spilled diamonds across the ink of the void.

Nebulae drift in slow spirals, glowing faintly like ghost lanterns hung in darkness.

There is no horizon.

No anchor.

You are untethered.

Insignificant.

It is the most beautiful thing you have ever seen.

And it makes you want to weep.

But you don’t.

Instead, you turn, and your breath catches again as your gaze lands on the bed.

Massive.

Far larger than necessary. Nestled in dark fabrics that gleam faintly in the soft glow. The sheets shimmer subtly, changing hues as though alive. Deep purples, smoky silvers, midnight blues.

A place meant to hold something precious.

Or trap something unwilling.

Your stomach twists sharply.

But what steals your breath completely is beyond the bed.

A garden.

Or something like it.

Alien flora grows behind a translucent partition. Glowing softly, leaves curling lazily as though breathing. Vines drip with luminescent petals, strange fruits pulse faintly like tiny beating hearts. The air is rich and heavy with fragrance, sweet and intoxicating.

You move toward it, hand lifting, unable to resist the strange compulsion to touch.

But before your fingers meet the glass, the temperature shifts.

The room grows colder.

Not literally.

Energetically.

Like being plunged into deep water.

A shadow falls over you, and you don’t need to turn to know. You feel him behind you, close, silent, and very displeased.

His voice breaks the heavy air, low and dangerously quiet.

“You ran.”

You close your eyes, throat tight. Your fingers curl slowly into a fist, hovering just short of the alien plant. “You’re not my keeper,” you whisper bitterly.

Silence stretches taut between you, vibrating with tension.

And then, movement.

His hand slides over yours, pale, long fingers curling delicately around your knuckles, pulling them away from the glass with infuriating gentleness.

His other arm slides around your waist, tugging you back against the solid wall of his chest.

You feel him exhale, slow and controlled, his breath ghosting over the curve of your throat.

“You do not understand.”

His lips brush the edge of your ear, a caress disguised as a reprimand.

“This is not defiance.” His voice darkens slightly, tightening with restrained frustration. “This is denial of what already is, little star.”

You tense, shivering slightly beneath his hold, but he only draws you tighter, guiding you slowly away from the garden and toward the enormous bed.

His hands never leave you. They mold and coax, turning your resistance into something pliant and unwillingly receptive.

“I am not angered,” he murmurs as he sits on the edge of the bed, pulling you easily between his knees. “You misunderstand.”

His eyes glow softly in the darkness,pale, sharp, but impossibly tender in their intensity.

“I am… disappointed.”

The words hit harder than threats. He says them softly, but they slice clean through you.

“I allow you freedom within reason,” he continues quietly, hands stroking your sides, soothing and punishing at once. “But you abuse it. You flee. You risk harm. This… displeases me, deeply.”

You clench your jaw, but the defiance feels hollow now.

Especially as his touch becomes softer, more insistent, sliding up your arms, down your back, curling possessively at your waist.

“And now,” he whispers, voice thick and dark with promise, “I must correct this.”

Your stomach flips violently, but he doesn’t strike. Does not raise his voice. Instead, he shifts, drawing you down with him until you are pressed fully against the bed, against him.

Pinned by nothing but his body and the oppressive weight of his gaze.

“You will not leave my quarters,” he murmurs, words sealing like chains around your wrists.

“You will not sleep apart from me. You will not run again.”

His lips brush your temple softly, terrifyingly gentle.

“You will remain where you belong.”

You try to twist away, you have to, even if only for pride, but his arms tighten, and his mouth finds the curve of your throat.

A soft, open mouthed kiss.

Not hungry.

Not violent.

Claiming.

Your pulse skitters wildly.

“Stop—”

“You do not wish me to,” he says calmly, his lips moving against your skin. “Your body no longer fears me. Only your mind fights.”

He shifts again, sliding you fully beneath him, his weight caging you without urgency. He watches you, eyes glowing faintly, face inches from yours, utterly calm as you tremble beneath him.

“You will stay,” he murmurs again, softer this time.

Not a threat.

Not a command.

A promise.

And something in the finality of it breaks the last fragile thread inside you. You close your eyes tightly, not in surrender, but in desperate resignation.

You do not want to yield, but you already have. Because when he leans down and presses his lips gently, adoringly to your brow, sealing the moment, sealing you.

You don’t push him away.

—

Days pass, or perhaps cycles. Time does not exist in this place the way it once did. There is no sun to rise, no moon to wax and wane.

No ticking clock to count down minutes and hours.

Only Jeongguk.

And you.

And the quiet, suffocating intimacy that has grown between you like ivy, curling slowly around your throat until it becomes easier to stop pulling.

You sleep in his quarters now.

Not by choice.

Not exactly.

At first, it was punishment.

You ran.

You defied.

You disappointed him.

And so he locked you here.

Not with chains or harsh restraints, no, Jeongguk has never needed such crude methods. He uses himself, his presence, his warmth. His voice in the dark, murmuring softly until the silence feels unbearable without it.

At first, you hated every moment.

You lay stiff in his enormous bed, refusing to face him as he wrapped himself around you each night like a living shroud.

But over time… something changed.

Not in him.

In you.

You grew used to the weight of his arm slung heavy across your waist. Used to the steady, soothing hum of his heartbeat against your back. Used to the soft rasp of his voice, speaking words in his language you could not understand but somehow knew were meant for you alone.

What you hate most…

What makes your stomach twist with guilt and confusion…

Is how much easier everything became when you stopped resisting.

—

He rewards you, of course, Jeongguk is not cruel. Not in the ways that would be easier to despise.

He is patient.

Measured.

Dangerously tender.

When you eat without argument, he sits beside you quietly, watching with faint approval gleaming in his luminous eyes.

When you speak to him, simple words, mundane thoughts, nothing of consequence, he listens as though you are unraveling the very fabric of existence.

When you no longer flinch from his touch, he becomes bolder. Fingers brushing lightly along your arms when you sit together. Knuckles ghosting beneath your jaw as he tucks stray hair behind your ear. His hand resting possessively on your thigh as you eat, unmoving, warm and heavy and there.

And at night…

At night, his hands become gentle chains.

They stroke down your spine as you drift toward sleep, curling at your hips, pulling you against the hard, unrelenting comfort of his body. He murmurs softly then, words you cannot translate but no longer fear.

They lull you.

Cradle you.

Somewhere in the dark, something in you gives. You no longer stay awake plotting, no longer pull away, no longer pretend you hate it.

Because the truth is cruel in its simplicity.

You don’t want the cold, hard ache of solitude anymore.

You want warmth.

You want softness.

You want… him.

And Jeongguk knows this.

Oh, he knows.

He doesn’t gloat, does not push. He simply waits, watching patiently as you unravel slowly, inevitably, beneath his endless, unwavering attention.

—

It’s during one of these quiet nights that the shift truly happens. The ship has dimmed to mimic dusk, casting his quarters in soft twilight. You sit together on the wide bed, your legs folded beneath you, Jeongguk lounging beside you like some dark, predatory god.

His hair spills across his bare shoulders, strands shimmering faintly in the low light.

He wears no robes now, only thin, dark fabric that clings softly to the lines of his body, leaving very little to the imagination.

You talk, nothing about Earth. Not about escape, or pain or loss. About nothing and everything. You ask questions you never thought you would.

What does his species eat?

Do they sleep?

Do they dream?

Does he feel loneliness?

What did he think when he first saw you, trembling and furious, caged in his ship like something caught in amber?

He answers softly, thoughtfully.

Not coldly.

Not cruelly.

He tells you he does not dream, but he wonders what it would be like to dream of you. He tells you he does not feel loneliness, but he aches when you look at him as though you do not see him. He tells you that when he first saw you—glowing, furious, refusing death—he felt something break in him that had never mended.

You say nothing to that.

You can’t.

Not when your chest tightens painfully and your throat feels too tight to speak. Not when his words slip beneath your skin like silk and root in the softest, most vulnerable parts of you.

Not when you realize you no longer want to argue.

Silence falls, not uncomfortable, but heavy with something unspoken. His hand rests lightly on your ankle, thumb stroking idly over the bone.

You should pull away.

You don’t.

Instead…you reach. You don’t think about it, your body moves on instinct, craving something you refuse to name. Your fingers brush his wrist softly.

A simple touch. Barely anything at all.

But to Jeongguk, it’s everything. He stills instantly, as though afraid to frighten you. His eyes burn softly, shifting to pale rose and molten silver, glowing faintly in the dark.

“You seek me,” he murmurs, wonder and hunger twining in his voice like threads of silk.

You don’t respond.

You can’t.

Your throat is too tight, your mind too full, but you don’t pull away.

Your fingers curl lightly around his wrist, a tether, a silent plea, a confession you don’t yet have the courage to speak aloud.

His breath catches, you feel it against your palm, soft and in awe. And then, slowly, he shifts closer. His forehead rests lightly against yours, and his voice slides into your mind like a whisper in a dream.

“You are becoming mine,” he breathes, so soft and so full of quiet satisfaction that it makes your chest ache.

“Fully. Finally.”

You close your eyes.

And this time, you do not argue.

Because beneath the fear, beneath the shame, beneath the fragile threads of your resistance…you want.

And wanting is far more dangerous than surrender.

::::::::::::

You knew you shouldn’t have done it.

Even as your bare feet carried you soundlessly through Jeongguk’s darkened quarters, the pulse in your throat hammering wildly, you knew this was foolish.

A fantasy.

An echo of who you used to be.

But somewhere deep down, beneath the soft weight of his endless touches and whispered promises, beneath the reluctant ease you’d begun to feel wrapped in his presence, a spark still remained.

And tonight, that spark burned hot.

You needed to run.

You needed to prove to yourself that he hadn’t hollowed you out completely.

So when he left for only a moment, speaking to the ship, or perhaps another Kaereth vessel, you slipped free.

It didn’t matter that there was nowhere to go.

It didn’t matter that the ship would not let you off.

It only mattered that you could.

So you did.

You ran.

Through softly glowing corridors, past shifting walls that whispered in languages you didn’t understand.

You didn’t make it far.

You never even heard him approach.

But suddenly his presence was there. Behind you, around you. Suffocating and cold.

Your breath caught as the floor beneath your feet pulsed faintly, alive, alerting its master. And then his voice, smooth and sharp as polished steel, sliced through the silence.

“You disappoint me again.”

You freeze, terror and shame colliding painfully in your chest.

Slowly he stepped into view. Jeongguk was radiant in his displeasure.

His dark hair hung loose, shimmering faintly with the ship’s subtle light. His robes are absent now, only thin layers of deep, clinging fabric draped across his powerful body.

His eyes glowed low and cold, pale silver and deep indigo, swirling softly like storm clouds ready to break.

You stepped back instinctively.

But he only followed, slowly, deliberately, until your back hit the cool, seamless wall.

“You still do not understand,” he murmured, voice dangerously quiet. “You still believe you possess will.”

You tried to speak, to beg or explain, but he silenced you with a single gesture.

The wall shifted behind you suddenly, hands of soft, malleable material winding around your wrists, pinning them above your head effortlessly.

You gasped, struggling, but it was useless. The ship responded to him, not you.

Jeongguk stepped closer, until his body pressed flush to yours. Warm and impossibly solid, his presence eclipsing every frantic thought in your head.

“You do not leave,” he whispered darkly, leaning close so his mouth brushed your ear.

“You do not flee.”

His hand slid down slowly, tracing your throat, your collarbone. Lower, until his palm cupped the heat between your thighs.

You stiffened violently, horror and shame crashing through you.

“N-No—” you gasped, writhing helplessly.

But he only hummed softly, pressing his lips to your jaw, his breath scorching.

“Your mouth says no,” he murmured.

“But your body…”

His fingers slid beneath the thin fabric of your shift, stroking through slickness you hadn’t even realized was there.

You choked on a sob—humiliated, furious, and aching.

“See,” he breathed, sounding deeply pleased.

“You hate me. But you crave me.”

You shook your head wildly, tears burning your eyes.

“That’s not true! I—I don’t want—”

But he silenced you again, this time with his mouth. His lips slanted over yours, soft and consuming, his tongue sliding past your lips as though tasting every last shard of your defiance.

You fought.

You twisted and whimpered and tried to hold on to the last threads of your hatred.

But his fingers never stopped moving. Slow, deep strokes. Unforgiving and tender, drawing the heat from you like a cruel promise. Your body trembled violently, shame scorching through you as pleasure tangled with humiliation in a suffocating knot.

You hated this, hated…him.

But your hips arched helplessly into his hand as your thighs shook. Your breath broke apart in desperate, needy gasps.

And Jeongguk knew, of course, he knew.

He pulled back just enough to watch you, eyes glowing like molten silver as he worked you mercilessly toward ruin.

“You are close,” he murmured, voice velvet and vicious all at once.

“Fighting still. How sweet. How foolish.”

You whimpered, high and frantic, as your orgasm crashed over you with terrifying force. You came hard, gasping, sobbing, and writhing helplessly against his palm as he milked every desperate spasm from your ruined body.

But he didn’t stop, even as tears streaked down your face.

Even as you weakly begged, voice breaking, words dissolving into soft, shattered sounds.

“J-Jeongguk— please— I can’t—”

“Yes,” he murmured darkly, removing his hand only long enough to tear your shift aside, baring you completely.

“You can. You will.”

“Yes,” he repeated simply, voice soft as silk and twice as binding. He lifted you effortlessly, spreading your thighs wide as though you weighed nothing at all in his arms. His glowing eyes devoured the sight of your trembling, naked form.

“You will take me now, my little star,” he whispered, impossibly tender, yet with an unmovable certainty that settled deep beneath your ribs.

“You will keep me inside you until you understand. Until you stop running… even in your thoughts.”

You sobbed helplessly, overwhelmed and trembling, as he pressed himself against your dripping heat.

And then, you felt him.

His cock—massive, foreign, and stunning in a terrible, breathtaking way—pushed forward with slow, patient cruelty. Bioluminescent veins shimmered faintly in the dim light, casting soft glows in intricate, elegant patterns across his flushed skin.

Ridges along the shaft shifted and flexed subtly, swirling upward in almost ceremonial tattoos that gleamed like runes, etched into his very being.

The head of it was darker than the rest. Flushed a deeper violet, slick with pearlescent lust that sparkled faintly, streaked through with thin, glowing veins of soft blue and white, like liquid lightning captured in crystal.

He pressed the head against your entrance, and you felt it throb, warm and alive in a way that stole your breath.

“This is what you run from?” Jeongguk murmured, his voice unexpectedly soft, as though you were an incomprehensible thing.

“This is not punishment, little one. Not truly. This is how I teach you. How I make you understand.”

You whimpered, hips arching involuntarily as his cock began to stretch you slowly open, each ridge catching deliciously against sensitive nerves that made your vision blur. The invasion was devastatingly thorough—deeper, thicker, more filling than any human man could ever hope to be.

“You will feel me here,” Jeongguk whispered, his lips ghosting over your cheek as he thrust deeper still, “long after this moment fades. You will feel me when you dream. When you wake. When you touch yourself, wishing you hated me still.”

You sobbed, body caught between devastation and unbearable need.

And he kissed your tears away—tenderly. Worshipfully.

“Let go,” he coaxed softly, rolling his hips with unhurried cruelty. “Cease your fighting, sweet treasure. Let me in.”

You cracked.

Your body shuddered violently as the ridges and heated, glowing veins massaged every trembling part of you. Forcing desperate cries from your lips. When his cock bottomed out inside of you, the pressure was indescribable. Filling. Claiming.

And then as his hips snapped forward and he began to fuck you properly, dragging the swollen ridges along your tender walls, his hunger flooded you in slow pulses.

It was warm.

So warm, like molten silk spreading through your core. Your abdomen tightened and tingled, the heat melting upwards, radiating outward like a drugged haze wrapping itself around your very soul. You sobbed brokenly as your womb clenched in greedy spasms, as though your entire body craved more.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Jeongguk whispered, awe thick in his voice now, tender and dark. “You feel me marking you. Taking root inside you.”

You couldn’t speak.

Too lost to the intense, shimmering pleasure that made your head spin. His cum drugged you, thick and electric and numbing all at once—like a lover’s cruel gift, locking you in ecstasy you hadn’t consented to but couldn’t possibly refuse.

“You will never forget this,” he murmured, slowing his pace only to grind deeply, forcing another shocked moan from your swollen lips.

“Even if you try. You will dream of the way your body melts when I fill you. You will remember how your womb warms and welcomes me. Forever.”

You gasped, locking up as another orgasm ripped through you violently—intensified, devastating, addictive.

“Yes,” Jeongguk groaned harshly, hips jerking forward one final time as he came deep inside you—hot and endless and thick, filling every desperate part of you with searing, possessive heat.

You shattered with him, writhing helplessly as your body drank down his essence greedily. So much that you swore you could feel the warmth blooming deep inside, hugging your uterus like a numbing heat pad pressed from within.

When it was over, when you collapsed against him, boneless and shaking, he kissed you.

Soft. Gentle. Almost heartbreakingly sweet.

“You will never run again,” Jeongguk whispered against your lips, cupping your jaw delicately even as his cock stayed buried inside you, keeping every last drop where it belonged.

And the way your arms weakly clung to his shoulders, seeking more, needing more, aching for more, made it clear…

You wouldn’t.

Not anymore.

—

You sleep deeply that night, for the first time since the sky cracked open and swallowed your world whole, you dream.

It is not of Earth. Not of family or freedom or loss.

You dream of him.

Of heat.

Of skin.

Of being filled so completely that even in sleep, your body aches in quiet, humming pleasure.

When you wake, it lingers.

The ache.

The need.

You shift beneath the dark, silken sheets, thighs pressing together instinctively as your body clenches softly around absence. You whimper without meaning to, soft and pathetic, the sound falling heavy into the dim, warm air.

He is already there.

Of course he is.

You are not sure if Jeongguk ever truly sleeps. Or if he simply waits, quietly vigilant, watching you slip deeper and deeper into his.

He watches you now, lounging against the massive headboard, hair spilling in waves down his broad bare chest, eyes glowing faintly in the low light.

Hungry.

Softly.

Patiently.

As though he knows, as though he feels what your body is quietly, shamefully begging for.

Your cheeks burn, but you do not look away.

You can’t.

He tilts his head slightly, dark amusement flickering faintly across his beautiful, inhuman features. “You ache,” he says softly, his voice sliding through the air like silk across bare skin.

You swallow tightly, fingers clenching the sheets.

“You—you made me—”

“Yes,” he interrupts smoothly, a faint smirk curling his lips. “I made you feel. I made you beg. I made you mine.”

Your throat tightens. Because you want to deny it. You want to cling to the last fragile shreds of dignity still hidden deep beneath your skin.

But you are so empty.

And he is so full.

Full of patience.

Full of heat.

Full of devastating knowledge about every inch of your trembling, traitorous body.

“Come here,” he murmurs.

You hesitate, not out of defiance, but out of terror of how much you want to. But your body decides for you as you crawl across the wide expanse of the bed slowly, soft gasps leaving your lips as cool air kisses your sensitized skin.

Every movement feels obscene.

Desperate.

Shameless.

By the time you reach him, your hands press against his thighs, broad, hard, and warm. And you can’t help the needy way your nails dig in slightly.

He hums low, pleased, fingers threading gently through your hair. “So eager now,” he murmurs, fond and filthy at once. “So pliant. Do you remember when you hated this?”

You glare up at him weakly, but the heat pooling between your legs betrays you.

“I still do,” you whisper hoarsely.

Jeongguk smiles, slow and devastatingly fond. “No, little star,” he breathes, tugging you gently forward until you straddle his lap, flushed and panting and already dizzy with need.

“You only hate that you love it now.”

His hands slide up your sides slowly, but firm enough to make you tremble. Thumbs brushing over your aching nipples, and you arch helplessly, a soft cry slipping past your lips.

“You crave this,” he whispers, voice dipping lower, turning molten and wicked.

“You crave me.”

You shake your head weakly but he only chuckles, leaning in to drag his tongue slowly along the curve of your throat.

“Your body says otherwise,” he murmurs against your skin, the words vibrating deep into your bones. “You are soaked, my sweet treasure,” he continues, switching now to his alien tongue.

The words ripple through your mind. Dark, erotic, incomprehensible yet intimate, sliding into your subconscious like smoke. You moan softly, the strange cadence of his language making your stomach flutter violently.

“You want me to fill you again,” he purrs, switching back seamlessly. “You want me deep, here.”

His fingers slide between your thighs, finding you dripping and already clenching desperately. You sob softly, biting your lip hard enough to hurt as he teases and toys with your cunt, stroking softly but refusing to push inside.

“Jeongguk—please.”

He groans softly, eyes burning now, pale silver and violent rose swirling madly as he watches you fall apart.

“Beg properly,” he demands softly, his voice suddenly sharp with command. “Tell me exactly what you want.”

Shame wars with need, but it is no contest. Your hips roll helplessly against his fingers, and when he pulls back slightly, you nearly sob in frustration.

“Please—please fuck me—”

“More.”

“Please, I need you inside me, need you to fill me, need to feel you— Jeongguk—”

He growls, deep and dark, before flipping you effortlessly onto your back, spreading your thighs wide with firm, unrelenting hands.

“So sweet,” he murmurs, lowering himself between your legs. “So open. So desperate. This is what I have wanted, what you were always meant for.”

You can only whimper in response as his mouth covers you. Hot, wet, and merciless. He devours you greedily, tongue stroking and swirling, teeth scraping softly in ways that make you writhe and gasp and cry out helplessly.

“Perfect,” he murmurs against your slick heat. “My perfect, pliant treasure.”

You come once, then twice. So hard and fast you can’t even form words, only sobs and gasps and broken sounds of yes, yes, please, more.

And Jeongguk gives you more.

He pushes inside you while you are still shaking, filling you in one slow, brutal thrust that steals every ounce of air from your lungs. “Mine,” he growls, hips snapping forward, dragging soft, wet sounds from where your bodies meet.

“Say it. Say you are mine.”

You choke on your own moans, but you say it, scream it.

“Yours, yours—fuck—I’m yours!”

His thrusts become frantic, deep and devastating, pushing you higher, further, faster than you thought possible. You sob and cling to him, nails raking his back, thighs locking tight around his waist as he drives you both toward madness.

“Never leaving,” he hisses, biting softly at your throat. “Never without me again. You are home now.”

You nod wildly, barely able to think past the relentless pleasure.

“Yes—yes—Jeongguk please—don’t stop—”

He doesn’t.

He fucks you through every orgasm, through every broken cry, through every whispered admission of how badly you need him. When he finally spills inside you, he kisses you softly, sweet and adoringly even as his cock pulses deep within your spent, ruined body.

“Mine,” he whispers again, softer now.

Forever.

You fall asleep against his chest, trembling and full, and do not dream of escape. You only dream of his touch.

And for the first time…

That does not terrify you at all.

::::::::::::

You don’t remember when the fight truly left you. It didn’t crack and shatter all at once — no.

It eroded.

Slowly.

Softly.

Like waves kissing the edges of a jagged stone until only smoothness remains. You woke one cycle and realized you had stopped counting how long you had been aboard the ship.

Stopped wondering if anyone would come.

Stopped missing the ache of gravity and sky and home.

Because your world had become him.

And Jeongguk, he made it easy to forget. He is always near. Not hovering, not threatening.

Present.

Everywhere.

Always.

When you wake, he is there. Smoothing his palm gently over your bare hip as he murmurs soft things in his language, coaxing you from sleep with kisses and slow, lazy touches.

When you eat, he is there. Sitting across from you, observing your every reaction as the ship’s interface morphs alien sustenance into facsimiles of the foods you once loved.

He listens when you sigh about fresh strawberries.

He watches when your eyes glaze longingly at the memory of soft, buttered bread.

He remembers.

And then, quietly and with no fanfare, he provides. The next meal, there it is. Not exact, not quite right. But close enough to make your chest ache and tears sting your eyes as you chew slowly, overwhelmed by the gesture.

Jeongguk watches it all.

Always watching.

Satisfied.

As though fulfilling you, piece by piece, is what gives him purpose.

And perhaps… it is.

—

He shows you the ship, not all at once, but slowly, over many gentle, winding cycles.

You no longer wear the thin shifts he first gave you. He drapes you in flowing fabrics now, soft and weightless, clinging lovingly to your skin in pale, luminous colors.

You are beautiful in them.

He tells you so often, in whispers and kisses and soft growls as he presses you into the walls, the floors, his mouth hot and hungry on your throat.

He leads you through chambers you could never have imagined. Sectors where bioluminescent plants twist and bloom in gravity defying spirals. Pools of softly glowing liquid, warm and soothing to the touch, that you wade into with sighs of contentment. A conservatory where alien birds flicker between translucent trees, their songs harmonizing eerily with the ship’s ambient hum.

But your favorite place is the garden.

His garden.

You are allowed there freely now, naked sometimes, or dressed in the soft, flowing robes he favors on you. You walk barefoot on strange, sponge soft moss, fingers brushing along vines heavy with fragrant blossoms.

And Jeongguk always follows, watchful.

His eyes track you with quiet worship, glowing softly as you lose yourself in the alien beauty of his world. He likes when you forget to fear him. He likes when you hum softly to yourself, or tilt your face toward the artificial sun he created just for you in the center of the atrium. When you smile faintly, unaware of him watching.

Those are the moments he always takes you.

—

You lose track of how many times he has taken you, because there are no longer clear lines. There is no fucking and lovemaking—there is only him, and how he worships you.

He fucks you into the bed, into the walls, against the glass overlooking endless space.

He makes love to you in the garden, slow and molten and devastating, whispering filthy alien phrases that make you clench and writhe and sob his name. He devours you in the pools, pulling orgasms from you lazily as though drinking from a fountain he intends to drain dry.

It is endless.

It is overwhelming.

It is addictive.

Some nights, you come so many times you fall asleep between his thighs, lips sore, body aching sweetly, utterly ruined.

Other nights, he takes hours simply to make you ache. Touching, kissing, murmuring, until you’re begging and trembling, leaking and desperate in his arms.

“You are never empty,” he whispers often, mouth hot against your throat as he thrusts deep and slow, filling you until your belly feels heavy with him.

“You are never without me.”

You nod when he says this.

Because it is true.

His touch clings to your skin long after he pulls away. His cum warms and coats your thighs when you sleep. His mouth, his hands, his voice. They weave through your every waking thought, soft chains you have long since stopped tugging against.

There is no reality anymore.

Not outside of him.

Not outside of his ship.

Not outside of this.

You belong to him.

Not just because he claimed you.

Not because he broke you.

But because you want to.

And when he holds you close in the endless quiet of space, whispering promises of eternity, of worlds he will show you, of forever at his side, you believe him.

And worse…you hope for it.

—

You do not know how much time has passed since your surrender began. You do not count cycles anymore. You do not mark meals. You do not dream of Earth.

You only exist in soft, endless now.

In the warmth of his arms. In the steady hum of the ship. In the way he touches you, not like a possession anymore, but like you are part of him.

And perhaps you are.

He whispers things sometimes when he thinks you are asleep. Soft words in his native tongue. Caresses so gentle they feel like prayers pressed against your skin.

He tells you of stars you will visit. Of galaxies only Kaereth royalty have walked.

Of eternity.

He speaks of eternity often now.

Not as threat.

Not as warning.

As promise.

—

It begins without announcement, no sharp change in routine, no cold demand. Only Jeongguk, cradling you softly against his chest as you lay tangled together on the bed, voice low and uncharacteristically hesitant.

“It is time.”

You stir slowly, heavy with sleep and satiation. “Time for what?” you murmur, voice rough and thick with drowsy contentment.

His lips brush against your temple.

“For what should have always been, my little star,” he says gently. “For forever.”

You blink slowly, confusion weaving through the pleasant haze in your mind. His arms tighten slightly.

“The ritual,” he murmurs, almost shyly now. “Kaereth do not simply claim. They bind. When a mate is chosen… there must be permanence. Ceremony. Union.”

You tense slightly, instinct pulling at old fears, but he soothes you immediately, his touch soft and endlessly patient.

“You do not have to fear,” he promises, kissing along your cheek with unbearable tenderness. “The Kaereth binding ritual is not violent. It is tender.”

“You are already mine. This is only affirmation.”

You swallow thickly, heart pounding strangely in your chest. Part of you wants to refuse. Part of you wants to cling to the last fragment of your own name, your own shape.

But that part… is so small now.

So soft.

So tired.

And when you meet his eyes,glowing pale and molten silver, heated and brimming with unspeakable longing, you nod.

You whisper, “Yes.”

And his entire being shudders with pleasure.

::::::::::::

You don’t dress for the ritual, Jeongguk forbids it. “Skin to skin,” he murmurs, his voice carrying the weight of law as he guides you through the glowing veins of the ship. “No barriers. No pretenses. We meet now as we were always meant to. Unmade and remade in the raw truth of one another.”

The chamber he brings you to does not belong to any realm you know. It is dark, endless, humming with a resonance too ancient for words.

The floor gleams faintly beneath your bare feet, liquid starlight swirling like whispers from a thousand forgotten worlds.

The walls pulse in rhythm, steady, solemn, alive, as though the ship itself holds its breath, bearing witness to what is to come.

Jeongguk draws you backward into his embrace, his hands firm as they curve over your body, memorizing each rise and fall like sacred scripture. “You must offer yourself freely,” he murmurs, his lips ghosting over the tender shell of your ear, his voice as soft and unrelenting as a vow.

“Desire must be the altar. Willingness the flame. Speak it—not only to me, but to the vessel that carries us between stars. Let the void itself know your yearning.”

Your breath catches, but the words rise from your soul with aching clarity.

“I want this.”

At once, the chamber responds.

The air thickens, lush and heavy as though unseen deities lean close, eager and enraptured.

The floor brightens beneath you, starlight reaching, cradling, adoring. Jeongguk turns you slowly, adoration carved into every movement, as though you are the holiest of offerings.

He lifts you easily, effortlessly, as if gravity itself bends in submission to the rite unfolding between you.

He carries you to the heart of the radiant expanse, laying you down as though to place you before celestial judges, his touch a prayer unto itself. When he speaks again, his voice is no longer mortal.

“This is consecration,” he intones, sliding between your thighs, his every movement graceful and deliberate, dictated by some divine choreography.

“Not of chains. Not of suffering. But of convergence.”

He presses forward, entering you in one unhurried, devastating thrust, filling you so completely it feels as though your soul fragments and rejoins in the same breath.

“Bound in breath,” he whispers, lips brushing yours like the gentlest psalm. “Bound in pulse. Bound in the quietude where existence fades and only we remain.”

His hips move slowly, each thrust purposeful, each withdrawal a supplication. Every motion speaks of patience, of worship, of eternity folding gently around the fragile wonder of now.

“Bound in rapture,” he breathes, as your body arches and tears burn behind your eyes. “In pleasure deeper than flesh. In surrender beyond fear. In the marrow of longing made manifest.”

Your hands clutch at him, desperate and trembling, as emotion and sensation braid together, unspooling you at the seams. He continues, his words pouring over you like sacred oil.

“You are mine,” he declares softly, but with a gravity that feels immutable. “Not owned. Not caged. But chosen. Desired beyond logic. Worshipped beyond measure.”

He thrusts deeper still, and the stars themselves seem to keen softly in resonance. “You will never know emptiness again,” he vows, voice tight with holy hunger.

“My essence will fill you, until the very stars inscribe your name beside mine. Until the void itself kneels before our union.”

You cry out, broken open, undone, yet remade in the furnace of his worship. “Please,” you whisper, though no prayer seems enough.

His rhythm grows, still tender yet laced now with relentless fervor. The predator made priest, the lover made eternal.

“Say it,” Jeongguk commands, his voice edged with divine demand. “Seal the oath. Let the cosmos hear and etch it into its bones.”

You shatter, your orgasm consuming you wholly. A tidal wave of surrender crashing through body and spirit alike.

“Forever,” you sob, raw and radiant with belief. “Forever, Jeongguk. Forever.”

His growl follows, deep and resonant, alien than man, more celestial than alien as he empties himself within you. His essence sealing the covenant in ways far beyond comprehension.

The room erupts in light, no longer just glowing, but singing.

A song of union.

A hymn of completion.

Jeongguk clutches you tightly, his lips frantic against your sweat slick skin as he whispers benedictions between each kiss. “You are bound now,” he whispers fiercely, voice a litany of devotion and awe.

“Your soul, entwined with mine until suns collapse and the void forgets how to hunger. The end of being itself will tremble before the truth of us.”

And as you cling to him, spent, filled, irrevocably his, you feel it. The absence of Earth. The fading echo of your past self.

There is only now.

Only Jeongguk.

Only eternity.

And you do not fear the endless night that stretches before you.

You crave it.

You welcome it.

You belong to it.

—

Time has long since stopped meaning anything to you. Cycles became months, months became years. And years…you no longer know. Nor do you care. Because eternity, as Jeongguk once promised, is not a cold, empty void.

It is warm.

Soft.

Endless.

It lives in the quiet hum of the ship, atuned now to your presence, responding to your touch, your voice, your desires.

It lives in the alien worlds that bloom before your eyes. Stars and planets unknown to your old, forgotten Earth self, offered to you like flowers pressed between the pages of a lover’s letter.

It lives in Jeongguk.

Always, Jeongguk.

—

You are no longer the woman who clawed and scratched and screamed for freedom. She faded quietly, slipped from her skin the night you bound yourself to him.

The night he made you his forever.

Now…you are more, you are his Consort.

The ship’s systems recognize your presence before any other. Doors ripple open in welcome. Lights dim or brighten in response to your moods. The living flora bends subtly toward you when you pass, as though paying silent tribute to their queen.

“My Consort will dine with me.”

Jeongguk only ever calls you by your title now when addressing the ship or his crew.

“My Consort desires warmth in the garden.”

“My Consort wishes to see the stars from the obsidian chamber.”

And when you are alone…

When you lay beneath him, wrapped in endless sheets and marked from endless nights of his mouth and hands and cock dragging moans from your lips until you are wrecked and sobbing.

He does not call you Consort.

He calls you everything.

“My treasure.”

“My star.”

“My forever.”

—

You have visited worlds now.

Jeongguk keeps you close, always within arm’s reach when you step from the ship. Alien beings kneel or bow or lower their gazes when they see you.

Not because they fear you, but because they know.

You are his.

And through him, powerful beyond measure.

You remember the first diplomatic council Jeongguk brought you to. The air was thick with esteem as beings of every shape and color turned to face the Kaereth leader who ruled this corner of the galaxy. And at his side, on a throne grown from living obsidian, veins of silver and violet pulsing gently through the arms and back, sat you.

Draped in silk spun from creatures that floated gently in the upper atmosphere of worlds you could not name.

Jewels from stars that had long since collapsed woven into strands and hung delicately from your throat. Jeongguk did not speak first.

He merely tilted his head slightly and every being turned to face you.

“Speak, Consort,” he murmured then, his fingers curling lazily around yours, his voice full of quiet pride and unrelenting devotion.

“What pleases you?”

That was all it took.

Your desires became law that day.

And ever since.

—

But your favorite moments are still the quiet ones. The ones where his titles and the ship and alien worlds fall away. When you are nothing but soft skin and softer sighs. When he worships you with his mouth, drawing orgasms from you as though sustaining himself on them.

When he fills you slowly, murmuring in his language, still dark, still filthy, but now tinged with awe and quiet desperation.

“I will never tire of this,” he whispers often as he pushes deep, rolling his hips slowly to press against the spot that makes your breath stutter and your thighs shake.

“I will never stop. Not until you are full of me, every cycle, every hour, forever.”

And you?

You only clutch him tighter. You only moan his name. Because somewhere along the way, you stopped resisting pleasure. You stopped resisting him. And now, there is only hunger.

Ravenous, endless hunger.

Not just for sex, though that is constant and devastating. Not just for his body, though it is the only thing that feels real some days.

But for him.

For his voice, soft and low when he whispers your name against your throat. For his hands, rough and gentle as they map the shape of you over and over again. For his devotion, that terrifying, beautiful thing that never wavers.

You are addicted to it.

Addicted to him.

And you never want to stop.

—

Even now, as you lay in the garden he built just for you, its vines curling protectively overhead, Jeongguk’s head resting contently between your thighs as he lazily drags his tongue over your overstimulated cunt, coaxing yet another orgasm from your trembling body.

You think of Earth.

Not wistfully.

Not longingly.

But distantly.

Like a dream you woke from long ago.

Blurry and irrelevant.

You moan softly, fingers curling tightly in his soft hair as he groans against you, the vibration sparking more pleasure that threatens to unravel you completely.

He lifts his head slightly, eyes glowing pale silver and pink in the soft bioluminescence, and smiles.

Soft.

Devastated.

Endlessly in love.

“You will never leave me,” he whispers, worshipful and certain. “You belong here. With me. Always.”

You whimper, too far gone to speak, but you nod. Because it’s true. You have not just been claimed.

You have chosen.

And when he slides up your body slowly, covering you with his weight and kissing you deeply, his cock slipping easily back inside you with a low, content sigh, You cling to him like salvation.

You are his.

His Consort.

His forever.

His everything.

And as you fall apart beneath him again, body and soul already shattered and rebuilt countless times in his arms.

You know you will never, ever want anything else again.

one | masterlist

[ldysmfrst]

American Mate - (4)

First Case of Alpha Space

Paring: Hybrid!BTS Ot7 x Plus-sized Human FemReader

Status: Ongoing series

Chapter number: 4 of unknown

Word count for Chapter: 4,731

Work count for Story: 17,363

Genre: Hybrid Playmate Au inspired by works created by @yoongiofmine

A little about the author: I am a mother of two beautiful children. One of which is special needs, and on 3/28, they lost 75% of their vision. I have had to take time off work to accommodate many MANY doctor appointments. I started a Ko-fi if you feel the heart to donate towards helping with the medical costs of appointments, medication, and modifications to the house, which insurance doesn't cover.

Warnings: (I am not good at this, but I will try. Let me know if I missed anything!!) NOT BETA READ!! This story will have a bit of angst, fluff, smut, f/m, m/m, and m/f/m. This chapter does have Injury, Anxiety, Panic attacks, comfort, Alpha Space, and Cultural differences.

BTS HYBRID ANIMAL TYPES: Seokjin - Roan Ferret, Yoongi - Black Jaguar, Hoseok - Marten, Namjoon - Alaskan Timber Wolf, Jimin - Red Panda, Taehyung - White Southwest African Tiger, Jungkook - Flemish Giant Rabbit

AMERICAN MATE MASTER LIST / LDYSMFRST MASTER LIST

Is it really that big of a deal that you got hurt? My god, you were 35 already. You have never lived a sheltered life. You have had your fair share of broken bones, twisted ankles, scrapes, and bruises. 

You are always going on adventures, riding horses, and climbing things you probably should not be climbing. Most of the external scars you bear are associated with stories that are good conversation starters when you feel like showing them. 

Things would be difficult for a while because you are undeniably right-handed. You have a few days of sick time saved up that you can use to start with. Hopefully, this will help you gain some compliance from your wayward left hand. 

Work, however, is going to be the hard part. Luckily, your work is typically done on electronics, meaning nothing has to be handwritten. Even if you tried to write left-handed, no one could read it. You would bet money doctors had better handwriting skills than your left hand did in its pinky. Dictation software to save the day!

Hearing Derek’s voice broke you out of your thoughts regarding your near future. Watching him act cautiously while interacting with the other hybrid was interesting. There is clearly a difference in how he acts with Yoongi than with Evie.

Giggling to yourself at the mention of being a mate with Derek gains the attention of both. Shaking your head, you explain, “Oh, sorry. The thought of being a mate, much less to Derek, was amusing, I guess.” 

You missed the slight frown that briefly graced both men’s faces. Derek thought you were implying he wasn’t mate-material, and Yoongi thought you believed you were not worthy of being a mate.

“Thanks, Y/n. I let you know that I am a catch despite being a Beta. Besides, this isn’t about me right now. We need to get the leadership involved with what to do moving forward. Are you okay if we bring in the others?”

“Yes, please. I need to speak with Director Johnson, fill out an incident report… um or dictate an incident report, and then get to a doctor,” you agree. Attempting to stand up, you are blocked by the golden-yellow eyes that have not stopped watching your every move.

“Mr. Min, I need to get some things done and take care of my wrist,” you say with a hint of confusion because you know he knows that you need medical attention, but he isn’t letting you.

Yoongi’s eyes narrow, and a soft growl pours through the room, causing your eyes to widen. You look over your shoulder at Derek with a ‘what-the-F-did-I-do’ expression, only to be met with a smirk.

“Y/n, I don’t think you understand what is going on. You haven’t dealt with a situation like this before. You may love hybrids, but you still have limited interactions with our culture and this dynamic.” Walking backward toward the door, Derek continues, “With the state of mind that Mr. Min is in, it might be best if a packmate of his explains.”

Derek opens the break room door to face Hoseok, Taehyung, Namjoon, and Jungkook, all staring. “Oh, Hi there.”

Then, as if someone had turned the mute off, they all started talking simultaneously. 

“Is Yoongi-hyung dropped yet?”

“그 사람 괜찮아요?”

“Why does she still smell hurt?”

“Wait, wait, wait, please,” Derek puts his hands up, motioning to stop. "I do not know Korean, for one, and for two, Mr. Min has gone into full nonverbal Alpha Space, and I am not sure he will be coming out of it anytime soon. However, one of you should go in to handle the situation, and Y/n needs to talk with Director Johnson.”

At the mention of the director, a low growl came from Taehyung, causing Derek to take a step back and lower his eyes in an automatic response to a displeased Alpha.

The scent of calming leather gently flows over the group at the door as Namjoon steps forward. His mind is still reeling a million miles a second with you being their mate and you being injured. To top it off, Yoongi is on a deep level of Alpha Space.

“Sorry about that. I can come in, but the director is busy at the moment. He is dealing with the Playmates, your corporate office, and Manager Sejin,” apologizes Namjoon as he enters the room.

He follows Derek to where his packmate and Y/n are situated at a table. Taehyung and Jungkook follow quickly, sneaking in before the door closes all the way. They both kneel respectfully behind Yoongi. Their Alphas recognize that Yoongi is currently in charge of you, and it would be unwise to display anything that could be considered a threat by approaching you too quickly.

They both need to be close to you, and their instincts to be with their newly discovered but injured mate drive their actions. Looking you over for injuries, their eyes resting on your wrist with furrowed brows and set jaws. Taehyung’s eyes change to crystal blue as his tail flickers almost in time with Yoongi’s as he slips into Alpha Space. 

“Namjoon-hyung, Miss Y/n is hurt. She needs a hospital, I think,” Jungkook says, his ears standing straight up on his head, one-pointedly focused on you and the other twitching between his Prime Alpha and the door. 

“It is not that big of an issue, Mr. Jeon, Mr. Min, and Mr. Kim.” Looking up from the trio in front of you and addressing the Prime Alpha, “Sir, I have specific protocols to follow due to company procedure. I must talk with the Director.” 

A growl from one of the men in front of you freezes your words, unsure of what you did to cause their reactions. Internally, you groan because it seems all you get from them are growls as if you vex them more than humanly possible. 

“Miss Y/n, we have already talked to Director Johnson,” Namjoon says with a look of distaste. 

“He has been informed that you are now under the care of Bangtan Pack following hybrid customs,” Namjoon says. "It would be wise to refrain from talking about him at the moment; he did not leave a good impression with the pack.”

Your brows scrunch in confusion, making the hybrids want to coo at your cute face. Clearing his throat (aka his mind), Namjoon continues, “We have more pressing matters to attend to besides paperwork.” 

“You are injured, and we have to get you to a doctor. Manager Sejin is currently contacting one of our personal physicians that we normally use while on tour to have you treated.”

“What? Why would I use your doctor? I can just go to the local clinic,” you quick question. Your scent spikes almost like a heavy perfume with anxiety with the flashbacks of your nightmare. 

“Please, I have taken up much of your time, and caused enough problems as it is. I can take care of myself. I don’t want to be a bother,” you plead.

At your words, you are surrounded by multiple growls and watched by now golden-yellow, crystal blue, and smokey gray eyes. Scooting back in the chair as if the quarter inch gained would save you, you nervously ask, “Derek, what did I do?”

“Y/n, you really don’t get it do you? For as smart as you are, sometimes you can be oblivious,” Derek scoffs teasingly. Smiling, he shakes his head, stepping back from the group and heading towards the door. “Mr. Kim, as Prime Alpha, you might want to explain what is happening and what she should be expecting. Mind you, she has been fiercely independent for the last 15 years of her life.”

“I wish you the best with her. It won’t be easy, trust me, I know. Good luck,” says Derek as he bows slightly to Namjoon once he reaches the break room door.

Looking at you again, this time with a smile filled with adoration for his best friend and what he thinks your future may hold, Derek says, “Relax and have fun.” Then he turns and leaves the room. 

As Derek leaves the room, he smiles at the remaining pack guarding the door. “Mr. Kim, Mr. Jung, and Mr. Park, I think your human does not understand what is happening.”

“Our human? So, you know?” Seokjin questions with wide, cautious eyes.

Derek looks over his shoulder at the closed break room door. His mind conjures up all the ways this could go sideways, but he focuses on all the ways this could be the best thing for you.

“At first, I thought it was just a typical Alpha reaction with him being the cause of Y/n getting injured, but his care and gentleness seemed to come from somewhere deeper. Add on the fact that your other two are fighting Alpha Space. It would be hard to miss,” says the fox hybrid with a softness.

“The other two?” someone asks.

Shaking his head, Derek looks back at the remaining three, saying, “Yes, the younger Mr. Kim and Mr. Jeon’s Alphas surfaced just before I left. Your Prime Alpha is going to try to sort things out, but he may need some back up.”

“Meanwhile, I am going to find our boss and see what needs to be done before you all run away with her,” comments Derek, leaving the pack to mull over the new information.

“Tae has never been one to control his Alpha well when one of us is hurt. I am not surprised if he slipped once near her. Kook always runs on instinct too, so it makes sense he slipped as well,” Seokjin contemplates. 

“Should we stay out here? Miss Y/n’s pack member said it would be better to go in and help Namjoon? Three of us in Alpha space with an injured mate is not going to be easy,” Hoseok adds. 

Nibbling on his lower lip, Jimin thinks of ways to handle the situation. Even though he is one of the younger packmates, keeping the pack calm is his gift. 

He just doesn’t know how to handle you yet, especially since you don’t know what you mean to the pack.

“Good, at least three of you are here, and I assume the rest have made their way into the room with Miss Y/n,” Manager Sejin says while walking up to the group. “I have spoken with Big Hit, the Director at Playmate Service Incorporated, and Dr. Blackwell. Everyone is onboard and the doctor is ready to go.”

“Relax and have fun? What does he mean by that?” You mumble as you glare at the now-closed door that one of your best friends just shut. 

He willingly left you with four Alpha male idols. 

Three of them are kneeling on the floor with non-human eyes, and the Prime Alpha, looking around the room like the way to explain what's happening is painted on the walls.

Taking a breath, you say, “Mr. Kim, Prime Alpha… Sir. Derek is right. I have no actual experience with Alphas. I can tell that there must be some kind of instinctual drive going on, and there are trigger words or actions.”

“I don’t want to cause any more trouble than I already have. What do I do to make it easier for your pack?” you question.

At your words, the kneeling Alphas gave a multitude of pleasant chirps because you may not consciously know what to do but you are still acting like a baby mate. You looked at the three of them, a little confused. They seemingly smiled and made almost the same sound as when you said that.

Okay, so they can growl and chirp. Your curiosity spikes when you think of what other animal-like sounds they can make as hybrids.

Drawing your attention back to him, Namjoon finds the words to explain what is happening, “Miss Y/n, you have done so much to help the Bangtan Pack feel welcome today.”

With a gentle smile, he continues, “So please relax, you have not caused any trouble, and we highly doubt that you will.” 

He thought, ‘At least, not in the way you seem to be thinking.’

“Alpha’s run with a higher level of instinct than your Beta pack member. As an Alpha, Yoongi-hyung instinctually feels responsible for your injury. In order to calm that instinct, a few things will most likely need to happen.” Watching you sit up with interest, he continues, “First things first, he and his Alpha need to get at least your injury treated.”

“He has to be the one to take me to get it treated?” You start to ramble with concern, “I can’t have him go with me to the clinic! There are fans and sasaengs and the media! What about your schedule? You always hear about the tight schedules Idols have and you have already spent all afternoon here over this.”

You start panicking about the hordes of people you hear about following the band around. God, the amount of bad publicity would come from catching you and THE Suga of BTS at a clinic. You can’t imagine what nonsense they would come up with?

Your scent goes into an even heavier version; it takes on an almost alcoholic aspect. The kneeling Alphas instinctually send out calming pheromones while moving closer. 

Yoongi’s tail, still wrapped around your ankle, tightens while he gently rubs the back of your injured hand, which he is cradling protectively. He wiggles forward an inch or two to ensure you realize he is still there and isn’t going anywhere.

Taehyung starts to purr softly but loud enough for you to at least hear it. His mates have always found ease in their emotions and pain with his purring, so he hopes the sound will comfort you similarly.

Jungkook, running on instinct alone, scoots up to your left side, nudges his head under your left hand, and rests on your leg. Touch and cuddling are strong hybrid traits that naturally bring peace to most, and being a bunny hybrid, Jungkook loves to share his cuddles more than the others.

The feeling of Jungkook’s head on your leg snaps you out of your thoughts and brings you back into the room. You hold still as you start to recognize similar comforting behaviors the Alphas are doing with those that Evie always does, allowing you to take a deep breath.

“Sorry. I was raised to take care of myself and not impose on others,” you softly say.

“Miss Y/n, you are not imposing. Again, Yoongi-hyung ran into you while rushing out of the room, and it's his responsibility to make amends. Actually, as a bonded pack, it is our responsibility, too,” explains Namjoon.

“The pack? Like all of you? Is this why they are all like this, with their eyes and stuff?” you question with a scrunched face.

Absent-mindedly, you run your fingers through Jungkook’s hair, softly scratching his scalp, soothing not only yourself but also the youngest Alpha. 

A soft chuckle escapes Namjoon as he watches your instinctual interactions with the youngest mate. He answers, “Yes, that is the best way to explain the eyes and stuff, as you put it.”

“Jungkook-ah and Taehyung-ah will find it easier to leave their Alpha Space since they are not the ones responsible for the injury but trying to be supportive to both of you,” informs the Prime Alpha as you nod in understanding, which he thinks is you not really understanding but just going along with it.

Hearing a knock on the door, he calls, “Who is it?”

“Namjoon-ssi, it's Manager Sejin. I have some updates and a few questions. Can I enter?” a voice calls as the door opens slightly to reveal it’s him. 

At Namjoon's nod, he enters. The door remains open as the scents in the room are constricting in their density. He is followed by the rest of the pack, who take up guarding now from inside. With the mixed emotions in the scent-filled room, the Alphas worry that it will reach other hybrids who will come to investigate.

“Did you contact everyone?” asks Namjoon.

“Big Hit and the Corporate Director are on the same page and will follow the hybrid protocol, but details must be discussed once Miss Y/n has met with the doctor,” Manager Sejin reports to the Prime Alpha.

Moving to look at you, he continues, “I contacted Dr. Blackwell, thinking you may be more comfortable with a female doctor. We have her on retainer to work with some of the female back up dancers on the tour as well as the pack.” 

He glances at the boys surrounding you closely, noting the change in their eyes; his scent changes with curiosity. He raises an eyebrow, looking at Namjoon. With a subtle nod, he confirms that something more is happening but does not move to explain.

Looking back at you, he gently smiles, “With the situation at hand, it may be best to limit other males around you until everyone is out of Alpha space. They tend to get territorial. Dr. Blackwell is on standby, ready to assess and treat you once we know where you will be.”

You look at the manager like he is missing something, or maybe you are as you question, “Why wouldn’t she just come here, or I go to her?”

“Miss Y/n, Dr. Blackwell is a traveling physician. She doesn’t have a permanent office to use but she is well respected in both the human and hybrid communities.”

“Oh, I see. Well, umm…” you look at Namjoon and ask, “What option would be best for your pack?”

Namjoon’s chest puffs slightly at your show of respect to him as the Pack Prime Alpha despite the situation and your pain level. “Not to make you uncomfortable, Miss Y/n, but I think meeting Dr. Blackwell at our Airbnb would be best,” he answers.

You take a moment to think, your hand pulsing with pain now that the adrenaline is starting to wear off. They cannot all fit in your flat. Heck, it's barely big enough for you, Evie, and Derek to hang out in; plus, it's a mess after you tore through your closet to find the right clothes for today.

If the growls were any indication, they didn’t seem to like being at PMS. Instinctually, even Derek and Evie prefer being in their dens when one of the three of you is hurt or sick. Making your decision, you look at the manager and then Namjoon. “Okay. If it is best for the pack, I will go with you to the Airbnb to see Dr. Blackwell.” 

It’s almost as if a weight is lifted out of the room, allowing the pack to take a breath. 

“Alphas Yoon, Kook, and Tae. Can you give Miss Y/n some room? We have to take her to the pack house to see a doctor,” Namjoon says with a firm voice, gaining smiles from the men kneeling on the floor. 

Jungkook stands, quickly moving and curling into the Prime Alpha, his eyes returning to their natural color. Namjoon rubs his back, scenting him lightly to show his pride in the youngest Alpha’s actions to help soothe the baby mate.

Taehyung rocks back on his heels but remains close to you as his purring stops. His body is more relaxed, but his eyes are still crystal blue, shifting between Yoongi and you in wait.

After watching the two younger Alphas move around, your attention turns to the black jaguar kneeling with expectant, questioning eyes. He still cradles your hand as if it were his most precious possession, and his tail hasn’t moved from its coil around your ankle.

You tentatively ask, “Mr. Min, if I promise that you can stay with me, will you let me go get my things, and then you can take me to your pack house?”

Yoongi’s face lights up with a gummy smile as he nods. Your breath hitches at the sight. How can the devastatingly rogue-like handsome rapper look so adorable?

He stands up, his tail unwrapping from your leg. He softly takes both of your hands while he assists you in standing. You smile and mumble a small thanks as you step forward to leave but pause, turning to Namjoon.

“Prime Alpha, do you think I can talk with Derek briefly to let him know what is happening? This way, he can talk to the direc… Boss. Talk to the boss and let him know that I am leaving for the day?” you ask, but your voice is firm as if you were telling the Prime Alpha what needs to happen without blatantly taking control of the situation.

“Yes, talking to him will be fine. He has been established as part of your familial pack and won’t be considered a threat to the pack if he comes around you now,” Namjoon answers, moving out of your way and motioning for the rest to let you pass.

Bowing slightly, “Thank you, Prime Alpha.”

Making it to your desk is apparently more complicated than one would think. 

Yoongi won’t leave your right side, while Taehyung won’t leave your left. Both act like it's code red, and someone is trying to assassinate you. Then, the rest of BTS trails behind like some kind of posse. 

You keep your head down to avoid any strange looks or glares from whomever you pass. To your relief, you find Derek waiting at your desk with his head resting on his palms and a mischievous smile. 

“I see you are taking things in stride,” glancing at your plethora of bodyguards. “Did the Prime Alpha explain everything to you?”

Speaking up from the back of the group, Namjoon answers for you: “She is aware that we are responsible for her at this time, and she will be treated by our doctor at our temporary pack house.”

You don’t miss Derek's look of concern as he tilts his head with curiosity at Namjoon. “I see, of course. You are just responsible for getting her treated. Hybrid customs and all.”

“Derek, can you please let the big boss know that I will be leaving with Bangtan Pack to seek medical care and once I have more updates, I will let you both know?” 

Glancing at Yoongi and still seeing his lovely golden-yellow eyes, you try to ignore the slight flutter in your stomach, “I don’t think it would be good for me to talk with him myself right now.”

Derek nods in response, “Manager Sejin has already given the boss a rough time frame for the near future. I suppose his managing skills came in handy. Don’t worry about us here, we will get a temp while you heal.”

Standing up, Derek passes you your purse, which Taehyung takes. You try to grab it again, but only to have a black and white tail wrap around your arm and bring it back down to your side.

“No carry. Keep safe.” Taehyung almost grunts out in a deeper-than-deep voice, which short-circuits your brain. You knew he was the deep voice of the group, but that was not his singing voice.

Glancing at Derek out of the side of your eye, you see him briefly nod and smile encouragingly while he whispers, “It’s an Alpha Space thing. Best acknowledge his help.”

“Umm… Th-tha-hank you, Alpha,” you stammer out, willing the heat creeping up your neck to stop as your words pull a boxy grin from the Tiger hybrid.

“I think that is it,” you announce to nobody in particular. You smile awkwardly at Derek as he seemingly takes you in like he has never seen you before.

“Y/n, you have been through so much. Not just today but in your life. You have always been the one to take the blame for others, working harder or longer than anyone else and caring for those who never return the favor,” he says, his eyes glance at the men surrounding you as he sees nods of understanding and looks of concern from them.

As a soft smile blooms on his face, he holds onto your good hand, “Take time for yourself and let this pack of Alphas take care of you. You deserve it more than anyone else I know.”

He pulls you into a hug. You briefly stiffen, waiting for the growling and pulling to start, but to your surprise, it doesn't. Relaxing into his hug, you take his words to heart.

A soft whisper in your ear: “You know you will always have Evie and me as your family pack, but right now, be open to the pack around you. " With one last squeeze, Derek steps back and returns to your desk. "Now, shoo! Off you go. The boss said I’ll get to man the front desk for now.”

With a nod, you wave goodbye and face the hybrids behind you. After not finding Manager Sejin and a few others missing, your eyes settle automatically on Namjoon. With a slight frown, you wait for a clue as to what to do next.

“Manager Sejin went down to get the cars. Seokjin-hyung, Hoseok-hyung, and Jimin-ah also went down because we won’t all fit in the elevator,” reassures Namjoon.

“Oh,” you feel a slight tightening in your chest after realizing you didn’t even notice they had gone.

“Miss Y/n, let's take you to get looked at,” Jungkook says while inching towards the office doors. His Alpha wanting to get you away from the hallway that leads to the offices where he knows the Playmates who hurt you are being kept.

You follow the bunny and wolf hybrid while still sandwiched between the tiger and jaguar hybrids. Walking through the halls, you gain some attention from the people you pass. You’re a mere human surrounded by some of the hottest Idols in the world right now. So why wouldn’t they?

Not willing to look up, you keep your eyes cast down to the feet in front of you as you try to avoid what you are a gazillion percent sure are looks of disgust and hate toward you. Normally, you can walk the halls without drawing attention unless Reina is around. While Reina made sure everyone noticed you in a negative way, you fail to notice the glaring looks of the Alphas surrounding you, which has silenced most of the current gossiping.

Once the elevator doors open, the tiger lets out a low growl. Glancing up, you see two fellow PMS employees quickly scamper out of the elevator and down the hall. Well, that is another embarrassing incident that you will have to deal with when you return to work.

Namjoon and Jungkook take the back corners. Looking at the men by your sides, they motion for you into the elevator next. However, when you go to stand in another corner, you are quickly ushered back into the middle with Yoongi and Taehyung in front of you. 

The tense energy calms down as the doors close. The threats in the hallway, the Playmate enemies, and the bumbling director are no longer a concern. The four Alphas relax now that they are the only ones to surround you and are taking care of you. 

Even if your trust in them starts with an injury, they know this is their chance to show you what it means to be taken care of, acknowledged as precious, and loved endlessly by the seven of them. 

As the elevator doors part, you're immediately greeted by the remaining packmates waiting for you, smiles warm and welcoming. They're surrounded by more men in black, whom you assume are bodyguards. The sheer amount of people outside the elevator is a bit intimidating.

Turning to look at you, Yoongi speaks for the first time since he entered Alpha Space, “Take home. Keep safe.”

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[jungshookz]

smitten: jungkook's date is tonight but y/n's more stressed about it than he is

➺ pairing; jeon jungkook x reader

➺ genre; smitten!miniseries!! bff!kook & smitten!y/n!! university!au!! honk honk humour!! the boo hoo angsty wattpad-energy fic of your dreams!! unrequited love!! so much pining!! it hurts so bad but that's what makes it so good!! yoongi should really mind his own business!!

➺ wordcount; 6.5k

➺ summary; jungkook's dream date with ji-eun is tonight and y/n's going to do everything in her power to make sure everything goes perfectly.

➺ what to expect; "we've been planning and preparing for this date for the past week, jungkook. i'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that things go according to plan. your date is going to be perfect.”

➺ currently spinning on the record player; i wish [one direction]

➺ smitten: part one [the almost confession]; part two [the incriminating note]

»»————- ♥ ————-««

“pepperoni to garlic knot- pepperoni to garlic knot- come in- are you there?" 

the sound of the walkie talkie crackling to life makes you perk up and you reach behind to pull it out from your back pocket, pressing down on the side button with your thumb before bringing it up to your mouth

“garlic knot to pepperoni- i'm here." you bite back a grin at the silly nicknames jungkook insisted on using before speaking up again, "the last of the fairy lights have been strung up, by the way! over." 

“oh, sick!" jungkook gasps lightly, "okay, i need you to come down and help me because i've been trying to tie this tie for the last, like, half an hour and at this point i’m just going to have to wave a white flag and surrender. over.” 

"roger that. i'm coming down." you tuck the walkie talkie into your pocket again before letting out a sigh and looking around the rooftop setup with your hands on your hips 

you must admit it looks really good (as it should, because you've literally been setting everything up since this morning and it's about 5:30pm now)

the bubble tent's been blown up and you made it all comfy and cozy inside with fluffed up pillows and soft throw blankets 

you strung the fairy lights up on the clotheslines and you made sure to use fresh batteries for them so that they'll last all night 

and the little round table that jungkook and ji-eun will be eating dinner at was a little wobbly but that problem was easily fixed with some blu-tak 

the happy smile on your face twitches slightly when the realization that you spent the entire day setting up a date that you're not even a part of hits you

"…oh, you silly girl.” you can't help but snort as you shake your head and turn around to head towards the rooftop door so you can go to jungkook’s apartment, "you silly, silly girl-" 

all of this time

all of this effort

all of this everything for a boy you like who you know for sure doesn't like you back because if he liked you back he wouldn’t have asked someone else out

what exactly do you think the end result is here?

what exactly do you think you're gaining out of this?

literally nothing!!!!

so why are you doing all of this??

"because i'm a big ol' simp with no backbone, apparently-" you mutter under your breath as you open the door to jungkook's apartment, forcing the frown off your face and replacing it with an easygoing smile 

you may be a simp with no backbone but…

well, no

that’s it. there’s nothing else to say. 

"y/n? that you?" 

"yeah! sorry, probably should’ve knocked or something- also, not to toot my own horn or anything, but i did a fantastic job with the decorations! i could be a party planner or something if this whole school thing doesn’t work out-” you kick the door shut behind you before looking around for jungkook, "where are you?" 

"gimme a sec! i'm, like- i'm almost done, just wait-" 

you plop down on the couch and tilt your head back to look up at the ceiling before letting out another quiet sigh 

this is why you need to be constantly busy doing things, because if you get even a moment of peace, you start to think and think and think and you hate being alone with your thoughts because your brain starts to mock you and berate you and say things like hey, y/n? you have a paper due at midnight tonight that you're only halfway done with but instead you're prioritizing being a wingwoman to a boy who's head over heels in love with someone else-

"okay, hi!" you jolt in surprise at the sound of jungkook's voice from behind you and you're about to turn around when suddenly he speaks up again, "hold on! close your eyes until i tell you to open them."

"what? why?" you frown as you settle back against the couch again and shut your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest, “i already know what you’re going to wear, i’m the one that picked the outfit for you anyway-”

"i know, but surprises are fun-" you hear the shuffling of material and you resist the urge to turn around immediately as your impatience grows, "okay, i think that looks fine. turn around!" 

"i really don't know why you had to prepare me to see you in-" you twist your upper half around so you can finally look at jungkook and almost immediately you feel your heart skip a beat at the sight 

the crisp white button-up tucked into a pair of slacks are a stark contrast to the outfits you're so used to seeing jungkook in because most of the time he's drowning in a sweatshirt that's ten sizes too big for him and some slouchy cargo pants and a pair of chunky black stompers

but this? this is…

oh, wow.

"so?" jungkook's being uncharacteristically shy with you as he averts his gaze and reaches down to fiddle with one of the buttons on his shirt, "how… do i look?" 

"-handsome." you blurt out, shaking yourself out of your slight daze as you get up from the couch so you can go over to him, "you look- you look very handsome, jungkook. you- yeah, you look very handsome.” you press your lips together, unsure if you should say anything else because you’re not sure where the line is between being a supportive friend or just ogling your friend like he’s a piece of meat 

it's when you find yourself looking down at your own outfit (jeans and a t-shirt and socks with a hole on the right heel) that the little voice in the back of your head reminds you of the reality of the situation: that he's looking very handsome not for you, but for ji-eun, and in this moment you wish there was a way to just shut your brain off to cease all cruel thoughts 

jungkook looks very nice. just focus on one thing at a time. 

“oh my god-“ jungkook's nose immediately scrunches up before he lets out a little laugh, "you're totally hitting on me right now, you weirdo- you look very handsome, jungkook-” he mocks you in a higher voice and you can’t help but feel a little dejected that this is how he reacts to a genuine compliment from you 

if anything, it’s more confirmation you didn’t need that jungkook most definitely doesn’t feel the same way about you  

"well, i-" you stop yourself from walking any closer to him as you feel your entire face flush bright red, "i- well, i’m trying to be supportive here… you look nice, i’m not gonna be an asshole and say you look bad for this date-” you force out a nervous laugh as you reach up to rub the back of your neck, "whatever, you look fine-" 

“thank you, i just- i’m not used to compliments but anyway-” jungkook interrupts you (thankfully, otherwise you definitely would’ve continued to babble and babble and babble) to hold up a black tie, "you need to help me with this." 

"you know, i… i actually don't think you need the tie?" you tilt your head a little as you look over jungkook's outfit, "i think you'll look better without it on, and a tie seems a little too formal for the date- can i-" you shuffle forwards slightly before undoing a couple of buttons on jungkook's shirt and spreading the collar open a little, jungkook raising his head a bit so you can work your magic 

"you really think this looks better?” he asks quietly, and your eyes flicker up to meet his for a brief second before you quickly look back down at your fumbling fingers 

"yea,” you respond, pressing your lips together as you smooth out the collar before taking the tie from his hand, tossing it over your shoulder and stepping back to look at your work, "yeah. that's much better. okay, put the suit jacket on, lemme see the whole look-"

"dude, i've been, like- so nervous all day." jungkook lets out a breath as he pulls the suit jacket up off the back of the couch, "like- okay, obviously ji-eun and i get along really well in real life, but this is the first time we'll be in, like, a romantic setting, you know? like romantic on purpose.“ 

"it'll be fine. i mean, you already got through the hardest bit which was asking her out-" you shrug as you lean against the back of the couch and cross an ankle over the other, "and she said yes, so… obviously you're doing something right. you’re gonna be fine, you just have first date jitters! everyone gets the first date jitters.” 

"i know, but-" he smooths the sleeves of the suit jacket out before looking back over at you, "ah, i don't know. i just feel like i'm gonna screw up somehow, you know?" 

"you won’t,” you shake your head before offering him a smile, "just be yourself! don't put too much pressure on, like- on acting like how you think she wants you to act, you know what i mean? just be yourself. she likes you, jungkook. you're a total catch, so-" you cut yourself off before you wander into the ‘you’re a total catch which is actually the reason why i’m in love with you' portion of your pep-talk as you get up off the couch, "yeah! just- just relax. everything's going to go perfectly tonight. and like i was saying when i first walked in here, not to toot my own horn or anything but the rooftop looks immaculate.”  

“i’m sure it does! i can’t wait to see it-“ jungkook pauses all of a sudden, his eyes widening in realization, "oh, shit!"

you don't even get the chance to ask him what's wrong before he starts to spiral and you blink rapidly at the sudden change in behaviour 

"oh my god.” jungkook slaps his hand against his forehead, “i- fuck, i forgot to pick up the flowers and the- oh my god, i knew i forgot to do something today!" he gawks, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, "shit! shit, shit- damnit, i was gonna pick them up this morning and then i went to the gym and i forgot-" 

“i-" you’re slightly startled at how stressed he is over some flowers and you can’t help but chuckle, “there’s even a little sticky note on the fridge to remind you-”

"i know!” jungkook whines, “i know, i don't know, i guess it just slipped my mind because i've literally been thinking about this date all week-“ he sucks some air in through his teeth before shaking his head, “okay, i guess i can just head over there right now and then come back-”

"woah, woah-" you skid over and press a hand to jungkook's chest to keep him from bolting out the door, “what are you talking about? you can't leave now! it's- it's 5:45- and not to mention, it's literally rush hour so the highways are probably all clogged up right now and- ji-eun's going to be here in half an hour so you'll never make it back in time and your suit's going to get all wrinkled because you'll be all cramped up on the bus-" 

"y/n, the flowers and the teddy bear are two essential parts of the date,” jungkook looks at you with wide eyes, clearly desperate to leave the apartment, “i’m not gonna have anything to give her when she arrives, she can’t show up only for me to be empty handed-”

"hey, relax!” you snap, softening your tone when jungkook’s shoulders droop slightly, “listen, you are not going to leave the apartment because ji-eun is coming and i’m sure she’ll be disappointed if she finds me on the rooftop instead of you. this is what’s going to happen: you’re going to sit here and wait for ji-eun, i’m going to go and pick up the flowers and the teddy bear, and then you can give them to her after the date. it’s going to be fine, you are literally being so dramatic right now-”

"but-" 

"look, i'm sure ji-eun isn't going to throw a tantrum if you don't present her with a bouquet of flowers at the beginning of the date- if she did, that’d be kind of odd but that’s not the point- the point is, it'll be fine. you go on your date, i’ll pick them up." 

"yeah, but-!" 

"kook, i've got it, alright?" you back away from him slowly but you keep your arm extended to make sure he doesn't move, "i'll take care of everything, you know i can handle it- just- i'm gonna go now and then- i'll leave behind the rooftop door as soon as i get them, okay? and i'll text you so that you'll know they're there-" 

"y/n…" jungkook chews on the inside of his cheek anxiously, guilt swirling around in his eyes, "you've already done so much for me, i can't ask you to-"

"we've been planning and preparing for this date for the past week, jungkook. i'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that things go according to plan. your date is going to be perfect.”

“are you sure? i feel bad, i feel like you did so much and-”

“i’m sure, jungkook-" you interrupt him again before turning to grab your jacket off coat rack, “the only thing you have to think about tonight is how you’re going to charm ji-eun — and to be honest, you don’t even need to think about it because all you have to do is be yourself! now sit down and try to relax. and try not to wrinkle your shirt, i spent way too long ironing it earlier."

»»————- ♥ ————-««

your nose crinkles slightly as you look up at the sky, your brows knitting together in concern at the light grey clouds hanging in the air

the forecast did say it would be cloudy today (and it has been cool and cloudy all day) but you’re hoping it doesn’t rain because if it rains that’ll completely ruin the date and jungkook will probably be electrocuted by the fairy lights if he touched them 

of course, jungkook and ji-eun can take cover in that bubble tent if it starts to rain, but hopefully it doesn’t… (why are you so hellbent on making sure this date is going to go smoothly?! you might as well plan their wedding for them as well at this rate.) 

you perk up when you see the bus you’re supposed to take rounding the corner and you fumble in your purse for your bus card, stepping up to the stop eagerly

your phone buzzes in your pocket and you pull it out once you plop yourself down in a seat in the back  

from: jungkook (5:58pm) — Holy shit I’m acc so nervous 

from: jungkook (5:58pm) — What if this goes horribly 

you can’t help but roll your eyes at how panicky jungkook is being because he really has no reason to be nervous 

all he had to do was dress himself and make himself presentable because you were the one who did all the hard work of setting up (to be fair, you insisted on setting up alone because you like things done a certain way and jungkook seemed too jittery to focus) 

to: jungkook (5:58pm) — you’re literally going to be fine

to: jungkook (5:58pm) — it’s going to be fine 

to: jungkook (5:58pm) —  you already know she likes you 

to: jungkook (5:59pm)— just think of this as another one of your hangouts but you guys are dressed more fancy and you’re on a rooftop for some reason LOL 

from: jungkook (5:59pm) — Okay 

from: jungkook (5:59pm) — She says she’s almost here

from: jungkook (5:59pm) — Do you think I should’ve picked her up instead of her meeting me here 

to: jungkook (5:59pm) — …you rented out a rooftop for her i think she’ll survive 

you pause, setting your phone face down on your lap before letting out a yawn and leaning your head against the window

you got up far too early this morning and the gentle rumbling of the bus down the highway is very soothing

google maps said the journey to your stop was about 38 minutes which means you have approximately 35 minutes to take a quick nap and the remaining 3 minutes to wake yourself up so you won’t be too groggy after hopping off the bus 

you’ve worked hard today, so you deserve a little snooze! 

your right eye peels open when your phone buzzes again

from: jungkook (6:04pm) — Omg she’s here early 

from: jungkook (6:04pm) — Okay 

from: jungkook (6:04pm) — Wish me luck and also thank you for everything you are the best 

a smile twitches at the corner of your mouth and you can’t help but think to yourself that yes, i am kind of the best, aren’t i? 

to: jungkook (6:04pm) — yes yes 

to: jungkook (6:04pm) — good luck! 

to: jungkook (6:04pm)— :-) 

another yawn slips past your lips and you tuck your phone into your purse before leaning your head against the window again and shutting your eyes 

an additional benefit to getting some sleep on the bus is so that your brain won’t start to flood with reminders that jungkook doesn’t like you like that and that you are currently sitting on a bus going to get flowers for him to give to another girl- 

okay, that’s enough of that, your teeth grit together slightly and you clear your throat, crossing one leg over the other as you get settled into the stiff, itchy seats, a quick power nap and then the overthinking can begin again. 

»»————- ♥ ————-««

“excuse me-” 

your eyes open immediately at the feeling of someone shaking your shoulder and you sit up straight, clutching your purse tighter to your body as you look up to see the bus driver smiling down at you in mild concern 

“morning!” he jokes, raising an eyebrow before clicking his tongue and nodding towards the opened doors, “end of the line, miss. gonna have to ask you hop off.”

what? 

in your half-asleep state you can’t help but wonder what you’re doing on a bus and where you were meant to be going in the first place… is the date over? are you heading home? 

“end of the-“ your heart plummets to your stomach at the realization that you took more than just a little snooze because you are, in fact, at the end of the line when you were supposed to be at the flower shop and heading back to jungkook’s apartment now, “wait, end of the line?!”

“i’m guessing you missed your stop? happens a lot when people fall asleep on the bus.” 

“i- yes-“ you pull your phone out to check the time (and your heart nearly stops beating when you see that it’s 7:13), “i was supposed to get off at crown street, how far are we from crown street?” 

“not too far-“ the bus driver hums, “about fifteen-“

“minutes?” you get up from the seat, starting to make your way towards the door but still looking at the driver

“blocks.” he sucks some air in through his teeth, “fifteen blocks away. if you walk from here, it’ll probably take you about… twenty-ish minutes or so to get to the crown street stop-”

“twenty-ish minutes, twenty minutes is nothing, i can make it in ten if i sprint-“ you mutter to yourself, pulling your purse up over your shoulder and turning to smile at the bus driver before hopping off, “thank you, sir, enjoy the rest of your night-!” 

it’s only a second later that you find yourself sprinting down the sidewalk, your runners smacking loudly against the concrete as you keep your purse tucked tightly underneath your armpit

unbelievable! something just had to go wrong tonight, didn’t it?

and it certainly doesn’t help that it’s drizzling right now — you don’t even have an umbrella with you! 

“so stupid, shouldn’t have fallen asleep-“ you look up briefly when you hear a rumble of thunder, stopping at the crosswalk and slapping the button multiple times as if it’s going to make the walk sign appear faster, “c’mon, c’mon…”

you jolt when a flash of lightning lights up the sky before suddenly- 

“oh, come ON!” rain suddenly starts to pour down from the sky and you resist the urge to just fall to the ground and completely give up because it seems like the universe is actively trying to tell you that what you’re doing is clownish behaviour and you need to stand up 

of course, because one of your more prominent traits is your innate stubbornness, you pull your purse off your shoulder and raise it above your head as if it’s going to stop you from getting completely soaked 

rainwater starts to flood into your shoes as you jog across the street and the feeling of your socks increasingly getting wet sends a shiver up your spine 

you pull your purse back onto your shoulder and keep it tightly held under your armpit once your arms start to get sore — you’re already completely soaked so using your purse as an umbrella seems pretty redundant at this point 

“don’t know why i didn’t bring a stupid umbrella with me either!” you huff to yourself, wiping your hair away from your face as you cross another street after looking both ways (safety first), “fall asleep on the bus, gets caught in the rain- stupid, stupid-“ you grumble, reaching up to wipe under your eyes and pressing your lips together in frustration at the wet mascara ink staining your fingertips

wonderful 

just wonderful 

and now you probably look demonic as well 

you pick up in pace when you recognize the street the flower shop is on, speeding up even more when you notice someone standing in front of the doors with a set of keys in their hand looking very ready to close up shop for the night 

“woah, woah, wait! wait, please!” you call out and the person immediately stops, looking over at you and then taking a few steps back in what seems to be mild fear, “so sorry, i just need to pick a bouquet up, i know you’re closing but i really need this bouquet- and-“ 

“did you run here?” he asks, looking you up and down as he adjusts his grip on his umbrella, “…you do know it’s raining, right?” 

“yeah, i- woo, give me a second to catch my breath-“ you pant, bending over and putting both hands on your knees, wincing to yourself as your lungs constrict in your chest, “i don’t remember the last time i ran like this, jesus christ- i think i’m going to puke-“ you force yourself to stand up straight again, placing a hand on your hip as you continue to suck in puffs of air, “i need to pick up an order.” 

“oh, wait! you’re the girl who’s in love with her friend, now i remember who you are-“ his eyes light up briefly before the deadpan expression returns to his face, “sorry, champ. we close at 7:30.” 

“it’s 7:29,” you choose to ignore his first comment before holding your phone up to his face and he immediately deflates, “come on, yoongi- it’s yoongi, right? please. give me a break.” 

“i’m just tryna go home-“ 

“please, my friend’s date is tonight and he was supposed to pick up his flowers this morning but then he went to the gym so he forgot even though there was a sticky note on the fridge reminding him to-”

“wait, you’re picking up his flowers for him?!” yoongi asks, eyes widening again before he throws his head back in a laugh, “hah! oh my god, you- you’re actually kidding me, this has to be a joke-“

“i will give you five glowing stars on google reviews if you let me in-“ you pant, wiping strands of wet hair away from your forehead again, squinting slightly because the rainwater has now fully fucked up your vision and yoongi is starting to look like a dark blob, “even though your customer service skills suck because you’re clearly laughing at me and i really thought you’d have the decency to share your umbrella considering the fact that it’s pouring-“

“my customer service skills are fantastic, you should see the way i flirt with all the older ladies who come in-” yoongi jingles his keys in his hands before checking the time on his watch, “they always leave with $15 silk ribbons on their bouquets and a boost in their self-esteem-“

“we’re wasting time here, i’m supposed to be back at my friend’s place like, now-“ 

“alright, fine.” yoongi sighs, shoving the keys back into the lock before clicking his tongue, “but i’m only doing this because i feel like saying no to you is equivalent to, like, leaving a puppy out in the cold or something. or stealing candy from a baby and then shoving the baby off of its high chair. or, like, taking a chainsaw and destroying a nice old lady’s rosebush in front of her for no reason while she’s standing there with a pitcher of iced tea for you-”

“alright, i get it, you pity me, just let me into the store and give me my damn order.” 

“did you really run all the way here?” he asks, opening the door to let you in as he closes his umbrella and shakes the excess water off before shoving it into the holder

“i took the bus but i fell asleep and missed my stop. ended up at the end of the line and i thought running fifteen blocks would be faster than waiting for the next bus.” you breathe out, your shoes squeaking obnoxiously against the marble floors as you step into the shop and leave a generous trail of rainwater behind you 

yoongi deflates slightly at the mess you’re leaving behind you and he quickly reaches out to grab onto your elbow, “do not take another step. i literally mopped up before closing and you’re leaving a trail everywhere.”

“sorry, sorry…” you apologize sheepishly, taking a step back closer to the front door and looking down at the puddle growing around your feet 

you reach up to squeeze some water out of your air, freezing when you realize you’re just squeezing more water onto the ground for yoongi to mop up 

yoongi gives you an unimpressed, blank stare before shaking his head and flicking the lights on, “there is nobody in the world i would ever run in the rain for. hell, there’s nobody i would even ever run for in general.” 

“well, i’m sorry your heart is made out of literal ice and you don’t have the ability to feel love for another human being.” you respond sarcastically, yoongi turning around with raised eyebrows 

“hey, for someone with an icy cold heart, i didn’t have to let you in, i could very well kick you out right now because i already clocked out for the night-”

“okay, sorry, i’m sorry- just- if i could just pick up the order, i’ll get out of your hair, i’m sorry-“ 

“why are you doing this in the first place?” yoongi asks as he gets settled behind the front desk, switching the monitor back on, “also, i promise i’m not stalling because i also want to get out of here as soon as possible, i just need to check what your order number is-“

“because jungkook forgot to pick the order up this morning.” you respond as if it’s the most obvious answer in the entire world (because to you, it kind of is) 

“well, i get that, but you still didn’t answer the question.” yoongi hums, tapping on the keyboard and hitting the enter key obnoxiously 

“sure, i did.” you frown, “i answered your question. i’m here because jungkook forgot to pick up the order this morning. he’s on his date right now and i told him i could pick it up for him. he’s on a date.” 

“with another girl.” yoongi murmurs, propping his chin up on his palm, “you are picking up flowers for jungkook to give to another girl because…” 

“because i’m his friend.” you feel your eye twitch slightly out of a mixture of growing frustration and impatience, “you have that order number yet? i’m on a time crunch here.” 

“…okay, i think all the rainwater must’ve flushed the logic out of your head…” yoongi purses his lips as he gets up from the seat, offering you an overly polite customer service smile, “please wait here while i get your order from the back. i would offer you a glass of cucumber water and an apple rose whatever cinnamon pastry thing but we are technically closed, so you’re just going to have to stand here and wait.” 

“funny.” you raise an eyebrow, about to squeeze some water out of your top before stopping yourself (you’ll wait until yoongi disappears to the back and then you’ll do it) 

you’re picking up flowers for jungkook because you’re his friend

and on top of that, not only are you his friend, you’re a very good friend of his! 

he would do the same for you if the roles were reversed (well, if the roles were reversed, you would’ve never forgotten to pick up the flowers so jungkook would never have to run in the rain to pick them up for you) 

what does yoongi mean by why are you doing this? 

isn’t it obvious??

if anything, he’s the one with no logic in his head if he can’t grasp the simple answer to his simple question

you’re doing this because you’re jungkook’s friend, and this is what friends do when they care about each other 

“okay, one more time- what are you doing right now?” yoongi pops out from the back with a beautifully wrapped bouquet and an adorable little white teddy bear with a pink heart as its nose and you can’t help but pout sweetly at it 

you know you said the teddy bear would be a little much but looking at it now… you want one too! 

“picking up a bouquet and a teddy bear.” you point out, holding your hands out to take them from yoongi 

“picking up a bouquet and a teddy bear for…” 

“for my friend…” you trail off, making grabby hands at him only for him to pull back slightly

“for your friend jungkook because…” 

“why do you care so much about this? you don’t know me and what i do is none of your business, your job right now is to hand me a bouquet and that teddy bear and you’re not doing a super good job if i’m being honest-”

“you’re right, i don’t know you, but i’m nosy as hell and you seem nice even though you’re oblivious as hell- you’re so close to the answer, too! what are you doing right now and why are you doing what you’re doing?” 

“what are you doing right now? and why are you doing what you’re doing right now??” you snap, looking at the little clock sitting on the desk, “i’m running very late, just give me the damn flowers, man-“ 

“alright, fine.” yoongi deflates, handing you the bouquet and the little bear before shaking his head and turning around to grab the mop from the back, “guess you’ll figure out the answer on your own. by the way, let your friend know that if he wants to order another bouquet for you to pick up that we now have an online ordering form so he doesn’t even have to come in store anymore- by the way, i can lend you an umbrella if you didn’t wanna run in the rain again because like i said, our customer service is-” yoongi spins around and immediately clams up when the only indication that you were even here at all are the two dirty shoe marks staining the white marble floor and the puddle of water around them 

he shrugs to himself and clicks his tongue 

oh well 

…you still better give the store a five star review. 

»»————- ♥ ————-««

the journey back to jungkook’s apartment is a little less chaotic than the journey leaving his place, thankfully 

you managed to get to the bus stop right as the bus came, and if anything, you took that as a sign that the universe was now on your side 

it was rewarding you for being such a good friend! 

of course, you still got caught in the thunderstorm jogging back to jungkook’s building from the bus stop (according to the forecast, it’s supposed to rain all night long) and the bouquet is a little soggy and the little bear’s fur is kind of matted now, but you tried your best to keep them dry under your sopping wet jacket, “alright, kook, don’t worry, i’m coming-“ you mutter, going up the stairs two at a time and ignoring the fact that you’re leaving a wet trail behind you 

you can’t help but shiver at the feeling of cold, wet clothes clinging uncomfortably to your body, pausing when you accidentally use the bear as a makeshift towel to dry your face 

“shit, whoops-“ you pull the bear away instantly, relieved to see that you didn’t leave any streaks of makeup on it 

your legs slow down as you reach the steps leading up towards the door to the rooftop, and you pause at the top of the steps when you hear a melodic giggle from outside amongst the rhythmic pitter patter of chubby raindrops splashing against the cement

sucking your bottom lip in between your teeth as you slow your movements as to not make too much noise and ruin the moment, you press yourself against the side of the stairwell and crouch down on your hands and knees, placing the bouquet on the ground by the door and the little bear right next to it 

the only thing to do now is turn back and head home before you catch a cold from staying in your sopping wet clothes, but the sound of jungkook’s laugh makes your ears perk up and soon enough, you find yourself crawling up the additional three steps up so you can peek through the crack between the door and the frame and- 

kissing

almost instantly, your mouth goes dry and you feel a sharp pinch in your chest at the sight of jungkook and ji-eun kissing, their lips seeming to slot together perfectly as ji-eun curls up closer to jungkook and he reaches up to cup the side of her face, the two of them looking nice and warm (and dry) in the bubble tent as raindrops continue to bounce off the top of it 

your eyelids flutter slightly as your brain catches up to what you’re looking at, and just like that, everything hits you like a ton of bricks 

what the fuck am i doing?

you are crouched down in the stairwell like a creep, sopping wet from the heavy rain, still exhausted from sprinting fifteen blocks to get to the stupid flower shop before it closed, staring at the boy you love kissing someone else on a rooftop that you spent all day decorating and setting up  

you look down towards the bouquet and bear, swallowing the lump in your throat as your eyes begin to glaze over because oh my god, what are you doing? 

the bouquet of flowers is not for you 

the cute little bear is not for you 

the bubble tent and the fairy lights and the porcelain plates and fancy cutlery — all of it isn’t for you, it’s for someone else, it’s for ji-eun 

ji-eun is the one that’s kissing jungkook right now, not you 

in fact, it’ll never be you because jungkook doesn’t like you 

you turn around so you can sit on the steps properly, folding your arms over the tops of your knees and propping your chin up on top of them

jungkook does not like you back

you helped him plan this date and you helped him set up the rooftop for his romantic date with ji-eun and you ironed his shirt and you ran in the rain to get the bouquet and the bear not just because you’re a good friend — you did all of this because you are hopelessly, hopelessly in love with jungkook and you would pluck all the stars in the sky for him and put them in a jar if he’d asked 

“oh my god, y/n.” you breathe out, pinching the bridge of your nose as you shake your head in dejection, “what the fuck are you doing?”

you feel that all too familiar prickle in your nose as you get up onto your feet and head down the steps one by one, your heart heavy in your chest as you adjust the strap of your purse over your shoulder 

(and as you stare up at the ceiling when you’re in bed later that night after taking a nice, hot shower and shoving your cold, wet clothes into the hamper, you can’t help but wonder if perhaps you’ll be pining after jungkook for the rest of your life.) 

»»————- ♥ ————-««

from: jungkook (1:08am) — Thanks for getting the flowers and the bear for me you’re a lifesaver 

from: jungkook (1:08am) — Like actually the best

from: jungkook (1:08am) — So grateful to have a friend as good as you 

from: jungkook (1:09am) —The date went really well btw 

from: jungkook (1:09am) — Hope you’re sleeping well :) Will text you tomorrow 

🎙️ tell yoongi to mind his own business or console y/n (talk to my characters!)

📚 why not explore the rest of the library while you're here? (full fics!)

💫 or perhaps you want something shorter to read? (drabbles and mini series like smitten!)

🌟 or something even shorter? (teeny tidbits!)

[bloody-bee-tea]

Reaper!au where Hizashi is a little accident prone, clumsy mess so near deaths aren't anything new for him until he dies for real. Shouta comes to collect him but Hizashi is so shamelessly flirting with him that he gets flustered and sends him back instead only for them to again meet two days later, when Hizashi trips over his shoelaces.

Rinse and repeat.

Hizashi's been not-dying for almost ten years now.

[fruitmins]

Oᵤᵣ Bᵢg Bₐby / BTS OT7

➭genre: little space, age regression, fluff, caregivers bts, little reader, sfw, hurt/comfort, mostly no plot

➭warnings: none

➭note: I have 100 followers?? wtff??? I love you all?? Thank you for the support??🫶🏃‍♀️. updated the masterlist finally

The boys never liked the idea of you having a job in the first place. On top of the possibility of you slipping into little space at work or someone realizing you live with the biggest boy group in the world, they had money. They could pay for all of your expenses anyways.

So why did you get a job? Simply to get out of the house and to have your own hard earned money in your pocket.

It didn’t take long for you to quickly feel bad about all the things they’d get for you big or little. And it didn’t take long for the mansion they moved you into with them to get small.

So here you were, two weeks into your job as a simple barista when you made your first mistake. Someone had ordered a pink drink that was pretty with strawberries and once you saw the sprinkles you slipped.

You hurriedly finished the order the best you could and rushed into the bathroom but to your horror one of your mangers Gigi, had already been in there and was washing her hands.

“What are you doing?” She quickly questioned you. She had always been a hard ass and almost no one liked her. She was picky with everything anyone did and had obvious favorites. “Your not on break, are you?”

Stupidly, your five year old mind told the truth and shook your head no.

“Then get back to work what’s wrong with you.” She said harshly which immediately brought tears to your eyes. She had yelled at you before so her harsh tone usually wouldn’t push you. But it was different when you were little, and she seemed to see that something was wrong.

She glanced at the sprinkles stuck to your sweaty hands, then at your glossy eyes. She raised an eyebrow, “How old are you twelve? Stop acting like a fucking child.” She scolded again taking a step towards you.

“N-No I’m five!” You shouted out of fear and she immediately realized what was happening. Her lips curled into a nasty grin before grabbing your ear and pulling on it as she lead out out the bathroom.

“You’re one of them idiots that think they are kids. Well guess what? Kids have to work too. And if you don’t, I’m deducting your pay.” She whispered into your ear before harshly pushing you towards the cash register where another coworker had took over.

You had no choice but to continue working and every day after that she’d keep a good eye on you. She’d criticize your every move and did things like intentionally throwing sprinkles on the floor and demanding you to sweep them up. She’d try to trigger you on purpose and when you eventually slipped she’d yell and demand you to do the most impossible tasks.

And if you dare tried to get out of it or not do it at all it only made things worse.

You were seriously thinking about quitting altogether, but being a barista soothed you and you liked the people you worked with. Of course there were occasional rude customers but you liked how organized the job was and just liked getting out of the house without it being such a hassle.

But working was starting to effect you mentally (since slipping was a coping mechanism and stress reliever) and was starting to effect you at home with the boys.

You started not to slip at home even though they were your caregivers, you were scared of death of slipping. So in turn, you started distancing yourself from them whenever you happened to slip. And then distancing yourself period.

You’d stay in your room most of the day and when it was time for dinner you have short answers whenever they tired to make conversation.

Even though they themselves were busy, your detaching did not go unnoticed. Neither did the fact that you were never little. The longest you’ve able to stay big was a week, but now it was going on three.

Finally, one day when you were off they sat you down on the couch for a talk.

“Y/N, did we do something?” Namjoon was the first to speak and the heartbreak in his voice caught you off guard.

“What?” You asked confused. That’s when you noticed how hurt they all looked. They weren’t pouting, more like sulking.

“You’ve just been distant lately. Always at work and always tired when you come home..” Hobi stated with a cautious voice as you swallowed a lump of guilt.

You hadn’t told them anything. You didn’t want them dealing with your work problems when they had their own. They had always fixed your problems to begin with, you could handle a bully on your own.

“You must be confusing me with Yoongi.” You spoke in a flat voice. You were trying to play it off as a joke but it didn’t come out right. Still, it amused Jin who let out a chuckle.

“Okay well you also haven’t slipped.” Taehyung spoke in a matter-of-factly tone which quickly made the room quiet and tense.

“I haven’t noticed..” you mumbled it obviously being a lie as you looked down at the couch.

“Really? Or did you just think we wouldn’t notice?” Jungkook corrected you quickly with a bitter tone. The words caught you off guard as you made eye contact with him. He looked sad but worried for you.

“Y/N we aren’t just your caregivers, we’re friends. Tell us what’s wrong?” Yoongi’s usual rough voice turned soft which made you shiver and shift uncomfortably in your seat. You couldn’t slip, not now.

This also didn’t go unnoticed and they suddenly had a new plan using only their eyes to confirm.

“Nothing.” You denied again.

“What’s wrong, angel? Why are you lying to us?” Jimin asked with an intention pleading tone.

Your eyes widen in realization. They were trying to get you to slip. But it far to late now.

“I’m not~” you said again in a more whiny tone as you slouched back on the couch. The warm fuzziness in your stomach was too strong to ignore this time. Especially when Tae started to pull you into his lap and stroke your hair.

The more you tried to fight the urge the more your head started to hurt. Flashbacks on your job clouded your mind as you started to cry. That’s when you broke.

“It’s okay princess.” Jungkook soothed you, using his hand to wipe your tears. “Let’s get you into some fuzzy clothes and a pull up.” He proposed taking you off of Jimin’s lap and into his arms as he headed to your room.

Not wanting to crowd you, the rest of them stayed downstairs while Jungkook whispered sweet things to you as he changed you into a comfortable onesie.

When you were back downstairs Jin had already prepared some small snacks for you along with a juice box.

“Baby, something’s made you distant and sad.” Namjoon stated once he had finished the snack and were sipping on the juice box. “We want to help you, but you have to let us okay?”

You nodded, taking a minute to form your words before speaking. “At work. Boss lady mean.” You whispered which immediately made them frown.

“What does boss lady say?” Tae asked with a worried expression as he held your hand while you were bouncing on Hobi’s lap.

“She say littles are dumb.” Tears formed in your eyes as you thought back at her mean shouting. “She yell and tug when I make messes. She no like littles.”

You could feel Yoongi hold you tighten on your hand when you continued as the boys all shared the same looks at each other. The ‘someone is getting fired’ look.

“Am I dumb?” You asked them when they went silent as your lip quivered.

“Absolutely not!” Jungkook immediately answered. “Boss lady doesn’t know what she’s talking about. You are a gift.” He continued in a strong voice. He was trying not to get to angry in front of you but his blood boiled at the thought of someone saying these things to you.

“Why didn’t you tell us this was happening baby? We would of helped you before it got to bad.” Jimin asked with a frown while he tried to maintain eye contact with you.

“I wanted to fix it myshelf.” You state in a low voice, feeling disappointed.

“It’s okay. You can be independent. It’s just when things get to bad you have to tell us.” Hobi told you softly but in a firm tone to know he was serious and you nodded.

“We’re gonna make sure she never does it again.” Tae reassured you with a head pat but you just frowned. “I can’t work?” You asked.

“You can still work sweetie. We know how much you like earning money and how relaxed you are when you work.” Jin reassured you with a gentle smile.

“It’s however the fuck boss lady is that can’t work anymore.” Yoongi mumbled angrily but it only caused you to smile.

“Swear.” You giggled and pointing as the rest of them glared at Yoongi. You loved when Yoongi swore around you, simply because he wasn’t supposed to. You grinned whenever he got scolded or smacked by Jin. Yoongi just ignored the looks and lightly chuckled, your giggles making him slightly less mad.

Once everything was settled the boys immediately had someone on the phone with your manager and she was fired only three days later.

So you vowed to yourself to tell them if anything was bothering you again.

[joverflowers]

Ultimate Jinmin Fic Recommendation pt 1

Detective/Crime

how i find my way home by cosmiicashes

summary: Jimin has spent years trying not to look at Seokjin, terrified that his feelings will be written on his face, that by looking Jimin will be the one revealed. When their most recent case leads them to an artifact that binds them together, he and Seokjin are forced to confront their feelings and find the artifact before its side effects leave them dead or worse.

Don't Want a Drive by junmoney

summary: Kim Seokjin is part of Seoul's best street racing team. He's comfortable being only second-best to others in his team, until Park Jimin comes to Seoul and puts a dent in their ego.

Eyes on the Prize by burnerphone

summary: It's not that he needs Jimin to be his moral compass or anything like that, it's that Seokjin was about to collapse from trying to keep all the parts of his life separate from one another. Jimin, delicate, pretty, capable Jimin, was more than willing to help.

Of Crystals and Pearls by vminjoongie

summary: As one of the S ranked hunters tasked with killing King, Seoul's most notorious vampire, there is very little Park Jimin doesn’t know, but after having his son Soobin lead him to his boyfriend's boba shop to celebrate the finalization of his adoption, he’s not quite sure what to make of the blood red pearls.

honeypot by twinklearium

summary: Park Jimin pouts, and Seokjin has never killed a target who pouts before. It’s insulting.

Apocalypse/Dystopian

Maybe Today Is The Day My Life Has Meaning by DaydreamNoona

summary: Jimin and Seokjin both have dark secrets that eat away at them, and they have to learn to trust one another to forgive themselves and begin healing.

Strike At Seven by Cxrflow

summary: What can something as minute as love be worth to someone who already owns the world?

the other side of the earth by stickyrum

summary: Jimin believed he was a typical pawn in the bureaucracy of the First Order but found himself trapped in the Minister's office with an insurgent, willingly forfeiting state secrets.

Superhero/ Vigilante

you reel me in by wegonchange

summary: Nurse Jimin has a crush on his neighbor, Jin, but then he finds a masked, injured superhero in his living room and finds himself torn between two men.

nights with you by muhammie

summary: Jimin wishes he didn’t have to face his past.

But being a hero makes you do terrible things, and this is just one of those troublesome things. so he wraps his hoodie tighter around him, some semblance of protection against the harsh cold, and wishes that he had ridden till here in a cab instead.

Space/Sci-Fi

(verb) know; to know by 55cancrie

summary: Do lost memories matter, when it comes to human desire?Park Jimin can run in all the circles he wants—Kim Seokjin will always chase him. When drunken nights become drunken regrets, paid vacations turn into aliens storming your house and, of course, revealing your big fucking secret to your pining ex-husband.

thieves in the night sky, stealing the light by ellievolia

summary: Seokjin & crew get themselves a new job - a jewel heist, one they can only perform on the big gala night where said jewels will be showcased to the aristocratic cream of the crop of the system. The kind of heist that could mean retirement for the crew of the Persona, and lots of nice drinks with little umbrellas in them. The most important job of their lives.

But are those jewels really the loveliest things on display, the night of the heist?

to infinity & beyond by haejungg

summary: Seokjin controls time, and Jimin is just along for the ride.

of black holes & black magic by strawberryvmins

summary: “you’re so fucking dead.”

“me?!” seokjin gasps and jimin shushes him. his voice is quieter when he continues, “this was your idea, for the record. you were the one who insisted we pretend to date!”

“i didn’t think they’d proposition us for sex!”

Guide Me Through Your Galaxy. by symphonic_army

summary: The world ends and Jimin finds out that he only has half a soul, and his boyfriend is not exactly from earth.

Canon Divergence

vitamin sea by orphan_account

summary: now, jimin isn’t a gold digger, but if the gold mine looks like that, then he might reconsider.

Part of Your Slice of Life by starcasticallyyours

summary: Travelling businessman Jin becomes a regular at the diner Jimin works at, developing an impressive reputation amongst the staff for the sheer amount of food he can put away in one go - which includes the pies Jimin bakes himself each morning. With each new flavor Jin samples, the more they get drawn into each other's hearts and lives.

tracksuit hot by mintea

summary: "What if this is my fate now?" Seokjin laments. "Cursed to have a handsome face and a blue tongue?”

Jimin gives him a wry smile. “Honestly, I think you’re even more handsome like this.”

I live (to be close to you) by Screaming_Void

summary: Having survived a life-threatening car accident, Seokjin decides to take the reigns of his life and do what it takes to pursue real happiness.

Taking the leap sure is frightening, but everything is possible with Jimin by his side.

nighttime loving by seokjininheaven

summary: Seokjin and Jimin sleep the days away. Jimin's schedule is backwards. Seokjin is just a vampire.

World Alone by ultjinmin

summary: Jimin has never been in love before, and no one has ever been in love with Jimin. No one can blame him for being just a little bit curious. So when an equally curious stranger wearing a pink cowboy hat and boots shows up at his house in the dead of night, asking him to fall in love in just a week, how could Jimin say no?

Circus/Pirates

madhouse by handseom (jingko)

summary: a lifetime investment in acrobatics has taught seokjin how to land on his feet after a particularly tricky backflip, not how to land a place in one of cirque du soleil’s circus shows.

so here he is, given a chance to hop on board a local low-budget circus with a killer clown, a baby-faced strongman, a dead-eyed ringmaster, a sex-crazed contortionist, a farm animal tamer and quite possibly the love of his life. where the fuck does he sign up?

Green on the Horizon by hobimo

summary: “The rumours don’t do you justice, Kim Seokjin-ssi,” Jimin purrs, "You’re far more than the man they make you out to be.”

Seokjin feels frozen, barely managing to bite out, “Throw him in the brig."

The rest of the room snaps into action, Yoongi jumping up and roughly kicking Jimin away with a boot to the shoulder, and the two pirates gathering Jimin between them and roughly pulling him out of the room.

And still Park Jimin is smirking at him.

Established Relationship

My Dear by IndiraIshra

summary: Seokjin is a married man now. It'll take more than day for it to sink in - but that first day is still so beautiful.

sending my love up at night by hobijaye

summary: Jimin watches Seokjin turn away from him to look beyond his window, beyond the dark of the evening and up to the moon. Following Seokjin's gaze, Jimin's tears finally fall at the sight of what's keeping Seokjin from being entirely his.

The moon- Seokjin's moon- winks down at him.

A Little More Sweetness (with Cherries on Top) by xiujaemin

summary: A peek in the life of a mukbang star.

The Wedding Guests by goodmorningeveryone

summary: “You did! You cheated!” Jin screams. Jimin is trying to shush him, but Jin no longer cares about propriety. He lunges at his husband.

Jimin’s eyes go wide and he rolls backward out from under the tablecloth. Jin gets himself tangled in the fabric, pursuing his husband in a blind rage. When he gets his head out in the open, on his hands and knees, he sees Jimin giggling and weaving his way between tables and chairs.

Only a Small Comma in Our Story by Koofishy

summary: Seokjin is in the military. Jimin misses him tremendously.

All the Zest by uhnxtgood

summary: “I know you Park Jimin, and I know you’re not thinking holy thoughts right now.”

Jimin scowls up at Seokjin on the top rung of the farm ladder, squinting in the sun, “Come down and I’ll show you what I’m thinking.”

so many smiles (begin with you) by stickyrum

summary: Jimin's lease is finally up.

sand-witch by caprikoya

summary: “It’s not what it looks like,” Jimin blurts.

“Well it can’t be what it looks like,” Seokjin responds. “It looks like you’re doing magic.”

“Okay,” Jimin laughs, high and slightly hysterical. “It might be what it looks like!”

my love, my life by asteriafics (orphan_account)

summary: Jimin thinks he and Seokjin are made from the same star. Seokjin just thinks they’re soulmates.

truly, madly, deeply (i love you) by kraj

summary: Seokjin wants his words to be the last, but then he notices something. Jimin's cheeks became pink, and oh, isn't that interesting and wonderful.

"You're so cute," he mutters, kissing Jimin's cheek.

bloom with me by galaxiesjin

summary: Seokjin and Jimin start the day by planting blooming flowers in thier garden and end it by Jimin placing blooming marks on Seokjin's thighs

My Husband's Lunch by loquaciousEscapist

summary: “Boss, Jimin’s smiling at his lunch again!” Taehyung calls across the office.

“For the last time, you don’t need to call me ‘Boss’,” Yoongi says tiredly, pulling up one of his headphones and letting it slap roughly against the side of his head. “And if Jimin-ah wants to smile at his sappy husband lunches, well, that’s his business.”

I'll Be Home Soon by mellzmallow

summary: Seokjin is away for five months for a film shoot in Europe and Jimin misses him terribly. (ft. Jin's adorable Sugar Gliders)

Alt Fictional World

Middling Auspices: The Objectively Horrifying and Often Misleading Prophecies of Kang Seul-gi, Witch by raviolijouster

Summary: “Oh, so now you have a sense of propriety?” Jimin says, tart as he wrestles himself out of Seokjin’s grip and places himself in an aisle seat. Seokjin sprawls out opposite him.

“What? No, I just don’t think we should be using the ‘a-word’ around the…” Seokjin lowers his voice and winks broadly, “‘h-words, if you catch my drift.”

후늬시티, city of otherworldly dreams by monbon

summary: Jimin hits a roadblock in his League Challenge in the form of Kim Seokjin, Laverre City gym leader.

The Waiter by alluric

summary: Park Jimin's life doesn't lack theatrics, especially after he meets Kim Seokjin.

hell and high water by slytherminie

summary: There’s magic in the air, the prickling sensation ever present since Jimin put his feet inside Seokjin’s small cottage, since he appeared at his doorstep with those enchanting blue eyes and a smile over his plump lips, and Seokjin never ignores the signs when they are so blatantly clear. Help is what he will give to Jimin, even if his future doesn’t look promising.

earth and sky, it's you and i. by orphan_account

summary: “I know so. You and I are going to last for a long time.”

building up walls, breaking them down by jnkkgay

summary: two strangers meet in a liminal space, in a liminal time, but sometime during the one night they are allowed together, they stop being strangers. will they find their way back to each other?

Horns, Guppies, Pudding, and Other World Ending Things by glitzenhobi

summary: Suddenly called into Upper Management, Jin is assigned to an extremely classified and dangerous case: The Parks.

The reason?

To stop three children from possibly ending the world. The children being: a tween half demon, a very odd alien, and the most mousy demigod he's ever met.

Maybe the world won't burn?

the beginning of everything by superdairytuna

summary: jimin is charmed by the stranger who offers to take him on an adventure on his tardis.

Royalty/Nobility

opened my heart (found you there) by burlesque

summary: Seokjin was supposed to heal Jimin's heart, not steal it away and make it his own.

Tea & Paper by graciouskoo (moonymiel)

summary: Jimin and Seokjin find 50 year old love letters written between two princes in their boss's belongings. As they read them, they start wondering about his past, about who he might really be, and maybe- just maybe- they start to feel differently about each other as they try to unravel the secrets hidden in the old paper.

[burning-thistles-bt]

star wars is on my mind today and this thought randomly jumped into my head:

luke looks at vader and goes "i can fix him" and does. therefore, it stands to reason, if we star wars'd BT, darkstripe would be a darksider and cherryfur would "i can fix him" out of it and succeed.

no cherryfur would not be a jedi. she WOULD be a crackshot pilot though. you know what it'll be funny if SHE was the han solo character with the super fast ship because han is Some Guy who was shanghaied into the Plot and cherryfur was literally a one-off side character who was suddenly pulled into the Plot.

it fits!

[xoxiu]

my house of stone, your ivy grows - yoongi x reader

chapter one table of contents masterlist

summary: yoongi carried himself with a sense of pride within himself and his belongings. he worked hard to get to where he was- ethically or not, it made him the man he is today. his latest toy, a young college girl from america, will become his magnum opus. he just needs to work out the kinks.

tags/warnings: mafia au, kidnapping, daddy dom!yoongi, smut, autistic!reader, spanking, stockholm syndrome, little!jimin, vminhope, drug mention, namjin, fluff, domestic discipline, age gap

The library was unusually quiet for how busy it was as Kiwo sat in her unofficial designated spot by the tall glass windows. Every day she would sit there, basking in the sun and trying to find some sort of motivation to study or work on assignments. She had chosen her Philosophy major in hopes it would be easy, but those hopes were quickly crushed by the realization that she was required to take Korean lessons. While she was familiar with the language, she still struggled to grasp the proper grammar and structure. She would constantly be thankful that all her classes were in English but felt isolated from her classmates and fellow students due to the language barrier. 

She could almost hear her mother's voice in her head, scolding her for choosing a school out of the country. Kiwo winced as the sharp words re-entered her mind. 

Meanwhile, Jeon Jungkook was sitting a small way away from Kiwo, video chatting with his friend and fellow mafia member Min Yoongi. The two were people watching through Jungkook's back camera on his phone, making up some sort of weird scenario and inferences about the people around them. It was just a way to waste time and have a little fun.

"I bet he cries at the smallest of difficulties," Yoongi remarked, referring to a young man with his head on his laptop keyboard in frustration. 

"Oh, definitely," said Jungkook, "He might be doing just that right now."

"Willing to guess he would beat his girlfriend, too."

"Hyung-" Jungkook's sentence was cut off with a laugh, drawing some attention towards him from his nearby peers. He quickly coughed to cover up his lausaidghter, and returned his attention to his phone.

"Wait, pan back to the left again," Yoongi told Jungkook. Jungkook turned his phone slightly left and waited until Yoongi spoke up with what he wanted to see. 

"Her. Wow," Yoongi softly breathed out. Just a table away sat Kiwo, who was still watching the birds and cars passing by outside. Yoongi had gotten a glimpse of her face when she had turned at the commotion Jungkook made and instantly became intrigued with the young girl. 

"She's just, wow. She can't hear me, right?" Jungkook lightly tapped his earbud, indicating that he was the only one that could hear Yoongi. Yoongi nodded in affirmation and continued to watch the girl. He noted how the sunlight made her brown hair a softer caramel color, and how her pale skin almost sparkled. Her cute puppy eyes made her almost seem like a real-life doll. 

"She definitely has on OnlyFans, hyung," Jungkook said, "I mean, most American girls do."

"If she does, I would subscribe to it," Yoongi only half-joked, "But she seems too classy to have one."

The two were silent, watching Kiwo from the phone screen. After a few minutes, she made eye contact with the camera, and Jungkook made frantic typing gestures with his fingers to not look suspicious. Her gaze eventually went towards her computer screen, but Jungkook still put his phone down, leaving Yoongi with a black screen.

"...Do you have a tracker?" Yoongi timidly asked. He knew the chances of Jungkook having an AirTag on him were slim, but Yoongi held hope that he could somehow come into contact with the mystery girl. Jungkook thought for a minute, before realizing what Yoongi was implying. 

"Hyung, we can't just tag her just because you think she's cute," Jungkook jokingly scolded his elder. "Besides, how would I even do that? Just go up to her and be like 'hey, want this AirTag?'"

Yoongi shook his head, not bothering to reply to Jungkook. He knew it was a long shot, but it has just been way too long since his last relationship. He was starving for love and was willing to do anything to get it. 

Eventually, Jungkook sighed, indicating he was giving up to his hyung. "I can put mine on her," he said. They all had personal trackers on their person, allowing any of the members to see their exact location in case of an emergency. Before Yoongi could respond, Jungkook hung up the call.

He stood up and removed the AirTag from its band on his arm. While sliding it up his sleeve, he walked by Kiwo's table. He stood to the left of her, pretending to just be looking outside. Jungkook looked over at her opened bag hanging on the chair behind her, and stealthily hid the AirTag in one of the inside pockets before walking away. 

Yoongi sat at his computer, staring at the location Jungkook's AirTag was at and waiting for it to move. He couldn't stop thinking about the girl, and how sweet and innocent she looked. Closing his eyes, he desperately tried to remember her face. He soon realized that the memory of what she looked like was fading, and grew upset and anxious. He wanted to see her again badly.

With his eyes still closed, he started to picture what their life together would be like. How she would take care of him after long days out working. Making him and the rest of Bangtan food and making sure they are also well-fed. He smiled at the thought and soon opened his eyes. The location had moved ever so slightly, and Yoongi zoomed in to follow the route the girl was taking. She was quickly navigating the college campus eastward. As he walked, Yoongi quickly realized she was heading toward university dormitories. She must have been rather young, perhaps a first-year student, to be living in a dorm. 

Kiwo eventually made her way to the international student dormitory.

Kiwo dropped her backpack with a heavy sigh as soon as she entered her room. Her roommate, Jasmine, sat at her desk as she read one of her various textbooks. She looked over at Kiwo as she entered.

"Long day?" Jasmine asked, putting away her book. 

"Is it that obvious?" Kiwo asked, plopping down into her bed face down. She felt exhausted after the tedious walk uphill and thinking about the overwhelming dread of her classes. She rolled over in her bed to check her phone and grew sad when she saw there were no notifications.

Her friends back home rarely kept up with her after high school. She would message them first to only get left on read. It felt isolating to be ignored by the people you grew up with while you're far away in a foreign country. Kiwo remembered on graduation day how excited her friends were for her to be going to South Korea, but now it seems they couldn't care less about it nor her. 

Closing her eyes, Kiwo tried hard not to cry. She felt so alone and knew there wasn't much else she could do about it. Eventually, she fell into a deep sleep.

[anxious-dumpling]

Image Board for my fic, 'Sunshine Playcare'! 💛♡

(Green Ver.)

[chimcess]

⮞ Chapter Four: Dark Fury (Part Two) Pairing: Jungkook x Reader Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 16k+ Summary: When a deep space transporter crash-lands on a barren planet illuminated by three relentless suns, survival becomes the only priority for the stranded passengers, including resourceful pilot Y/N Y/L/N, mystic Namjoon Kim, lawman Taemin Lee, and enigmatic convict Jungkook Jeon. As they scour the hostile terrain for supplies and a way to escape, Y/N uncovers a terrifying truth: every 22 years, the planet is plunged into total darkness during an eclipse, awakening swarms of ravenous, flesh-eating creatures. Forced into a fragile alliance, the survivors must face not only the deadly predators but also their own mistrust and secrets. For Y/N, the growing tension with Jungkook—both a threat and a reluctant ally—raises the stakes even higher, as the battle to escape becomes one for survival against the darkness both around them and within themselves. Warnings: Strong Language, Side Character Death, Violence, Blood, Talks About Past Characters Dying, Trauma, Graphic Injury scenes, Jaded Characters, LIGHT Religious Themes (I mean no harm and do not want to offend anyone), Smart Character Choices, This is all angst and action and that's pretty much it, Reader is a bad ass, Survivor Woman is back baby, preforming surgery on one's self, Gardening, terraforming, some mental health issues, survivor's guilt, lots of talking to herself, and recording it, because she'll lose her mind otherwise, bad science language, honestly all of this has probably had the worst science and basis ever, let me know if I missed anything... A/N: So, because Tumblr makes no sense, I'm having to cut this chapter in half because of a text block issue. So, you'll technically be getting two updates at once (even though it's the same chapter). Yay. I love this flatform so much. Thanks for reading!

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The skies above M6-117 were quiet now. Empty, wide, and harsh. The kind of quiet that didn’t mean peace—just the absence of screaming.

The eclipse had ended. The suns had returned, casting a bleached-blue glare across the scorched landscape. The heat came fast, drying blood, baking bones, erasing evidence. The bioraptors had vanished back underground, like the monsters they were—real, but unseen.

The wind hadn’t stopped. It kicked up grit in steady waves, howling across the dunes and cliffs. Thin, high-pitched. Like something still mourning.

In the shadow of a broken rockslide, part of a cave lay half-buried in sand and debris. Inside, it was cooler. Still. The air stank of blood and dust and something darker.

A body lay on the ground, facedown in the red sand.

It twitched.

Then again.

A low, strangled gasp broke the silence. Y/N Y/L/N dragged in a breath like it hurt. Her fingers clawed at the sand, trying to push herself up, but her muscles didn’t answer right away. She blinked, dust clinging to her lashes, and saw only the ground in front of her face.

Her mind spun. Pain screamed at her from every direction. Her ribs were cracked. Something deep in her gut pulsed with fire. But she was alive.

She wasn’t sure how.

She shifted—and the pain in her side became unbearable. She cried out, a rough, animal sound, sharp enough to echo. Her hand pressed instinctively to the source, only to feel the jagged, cold edge of something unnatural jutting from her body.

It was part of a bioraptor. The broken tip of its antenna—long, thin, sharp—embedded just below her ribs.

She stared at it.

Her breathing turned shallow.

She could feel the warm trickle of blood around it. Too much blood.

Her hands trembled as they hovered near the wound.

“Okay,” she whispered. It didn’t sound like her. “Okay… okay…”

She took a breath. Just one. Then wrapped her fingers around the antenna and yanked.

It came free with a wet pop.

The pain dropped her flat again. She couldn’t even scream—her breath caught in her throat like broken glass. For a second, everything went gray at the edges. She fought to stay conscious. One hand pressed into the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Her other hand dug into the sand, anchoring her.

Move. Just move.

She rolled onto her side, breath ragged. Her fingers found the antenna again and, slowly, shakily, she used it like a crutch to pull herself up.

The suns outside were merciless. Light poured through the cracked stone above, stinging her eyes. She squinted, shielding her face as she staggered toward the cave’s opening. Each step was an argument with gravity. Her legs barely held.

But she made it.

Outside, the wind hit her like a slap. Sand scraped at her skin, got into her wounds. Her jumpsuit was torn, crusted with blood and dust. Her lips were cracked. Her throat burned.

She looked out over the desert.

Nothing but dunes. Heat shimmered off the sand in waves. But in the far distance, barely visible, was the broken spine of the Hunter-Gratzner. Half-buried. Still smoldering.

She stared at it like it was a promise. Or a curse.

Then she started walking.

She leaned hard on the antenna, every step like dragging dead weight. Her breath came in low, steady huffs. No room for panic. No energy for hope.

Her mind kept flashing images—pieces that didn’t fit right. Screaming in the dark. Jungkook’s voice, sharp and close. Leo. Namjoon. The ship rising into the sky without her. Or maybe that was just a dream. Maybe it hadn’t made it off the ground.

She didn’t know.

She walked anyway.

At some point, her knees buckled and she hit the sand hard. She stayed there a while, staring at nothing, waiting for her legs to stop shaking. Then she pushed herself back up.

The wreck was closer now.

It took everything she had left.

When she reached the wreck, her legs gave out. No dramatics—just gravity, and her body finally saying enough. She collapsed at the base of the scorched hull, the heat from the metal pressing into her cheek. For a second, she stayed there, breathing shallow and fast, the air burning in her lungs.

She pressed her face to the ship’s skin like it might recognize her. Might remember what she’d given to get back here.

It didn’t.

She dragged herself through the narrow corridor, her hand leaving a smearing trail of blood across the wall. The inside of the ship was hollowed out, quiet in a way that felt too final. Sunlight leaked through bent panels in thin, golden shafts. Dust floated in the beams. Everything else was still.

She found a corner—small, cramped, out of the sun—and dropped there. Her back hit the wall, and she slid down with a grunt, her body one long, dull scream of nerves. The jumpsuit clung to the wound. She peeled it back slowly, trying not to scream when the fabric tore away dried blood.

The wound was worse than she’d let herself believe. Deep. Angry. Still bleeding. She swallowed hard as she probed it with trembling fingers—and felt it. A shard of something still inside her. Bone? Metal? No. She knew exactly what it was: the antenna. A piece of that thing. Still with her.

She almost laughed. She didn’t.

Instead, she grabbed what was left of her belt and tied off a section of fabric over the wound. It was sloppy. Crude. But it was what she had. Her fingers hovered there a moment, pressing, breathing.

Her head dropped back against the wall, her jaw clenched. Every breath came with a spike of pain. And exhaustion… it was creeping in fast. The kind that didn’t ask for permission. The kind that felt like sleep—but leaned closer to surrender.

Memories came in flickers. Not in order. Not clear.

Darkness, wet and full of teeth. The glowworm bottle shaking in her hand. Screams she didn’t know if she’d imagined or made. The taste of her own blood. The moment the antenna had gone in.

But there’d been something else.

Another one of them—bigger, meaner—crashing into the one that had pinned her. Claws raking flesh, jaws tearing. It hadn’t been mercy. Just hunger. A bigger predator taking down the competition. It didn’t come for her. Not then. Just devoured its own.

She didn’t remember crawling to the cave. Didn’t remember sealing the entrance. Just remembered the sound—their claws dragging across the rock, trying to dig her out. The pressure in her ears. Her own heartbeat louder than everything else.

And then, nothing.

Until now.

She blinked the sweat from her eyes and forced herself to move. The med bay wasn’t far. She didn’t think about what would happen if it had already been stripped. She just moved. Every step was calculated, robotic.

The medical kit was still there. Dusty, kicked halfway under a cabinet, but untouched.

She didn’t let herself feel relieved. Just opened it.

Anesthetic. Forceps. Needle. Thread.

Her hands shook too hard to hold anything steady. The syringe took two tries before she got the plunger back. She jammed the needle into the flesh around the wound. Didn’t flinch. Just exhaled, slow and ragged.

The numbing was partial. That was enough.

She picked up the forceps.

For a long time, she didn’t move. Just stared at the open kit. At her own bloodied fingers. At the wound.

Just get it over with.

The forceps slid in.

The pain was savage. She didn’t scream this time—just clenched her teeth so hard her jaw locked. Her body tried to curl in on itself, but she kept going, deeper, until she felt it.

A click of metal against metal.

She yanked.

It came out slick and sharp, the jagged end of the bioraptor’s antenna glinting red in the dim light.

She dropped it to the floor. Let it roll where it wanted.

She had to rest. Just for a second. Just a second.

But the blood kept coming.

She forced herself upright. Threaded the needle with shaking fingers. She didn’t think. Didn’t let her mind go anywhere but forward.

Each stitch was its own nightmare.

When it was done, she slumped again, panting, her skin cold despite the heat. Her hand rested on the bandage, her eyes tracking the slow drip of blood still escaping.

She tilted her head back. Stared up at the ceiling like it might say something useful.

Nothing came.

No voice. No rescue. No answer.

Just her.

She licked her dry lips, voice cracked and flat.

“…Fuck.”

It had been about a week since she’d dragged herself back to the wreck, bloody, broken, and sure she'd die there. Time didn’t work the same on M6-117. There were no nights anymore—just the relentless weight of heat and light from the planet’s three suns, painting everything in bleached gold and bruised shadow. Days blurred. Pain blurred. All of it became one long stretch of surviving.

The wound in her side was still tender, stitched tight by unsteady hands and whatever thread she could scavenge from a torn flight jacket. Every movement tugged at it—sharp reminders that she wasn’t out of danger, just walking beside it now.

But she was moving. That was something.

Her world had shrunk to a routine. A grim, necessary rhythm of searching for water in fractured pipes, picking through twisted metal for anything she could turn into a tool, a weapon, or fuel. And when she wasn’t scavenging, she was listening—really listening. For breathing that wasn’t hers. For claws. For the scratch of something still out there.

The wreck had gone silent after the eclipse ended. No bioraptors. No screaming. Just the groan of stressed metal and her own footsteps echoing off bulkheads.

She'd made a corner of the cryochamber hers. The cryo unit was done for, split open like an overripe fruit, but the space was small, shielded, and out of the way. She’d insulated the floor with old uniforms and a couple ruined blankets. It stank of old coolant and dried blood, but at least it stayed cool when the heat got bad.

The walls still bore remnants of what the ship used to be—old NOSA placards peeling at the edges, blinking panels that flashed error codes in dying green light, and soot trails streaked across the ceiling from the fire suppression system kicking in too late. It was a grave, really. She lived inside a grave. But it was better than nothing.

That morning, she forced herself to explore farther.

Her muscles ached—worse in the mornings, like her body needed convincing to keep trying. She kept her hand on the wall as she moved through the corridor, half for balance, half to feel something solid beneath her fingers.

She found herself at a section they hadn’t touched much before. Starboard storage, mostly sealed during the worst of it. Back when there were others to consider—people who needed her to be strong, fast, efficient. No time for curiosity. Only priorities: food, light, defense.

Now there was only her. And time. Too much of it.

The first door barely gave under her weight—half-crushed, bent inward like it had tried to fold itself shut during the crash. Y/N pressed her shoulder to it, felt the resistance, then forced it open just enough to slip through.

The metal scraped against itself with a harsh groan. She ducked low, her breath catching as the movement tugged at the stitched wound in her side. She winced but kept going, inching through the narrow gap until she was inside.

The air was dry and stale. Hot. It smelled of scorched plastic and oxidized metal, and when she moved, a thin layer of ash and dust rose around her in lazy swirls. Her hand instinctively covered her mouth as she coughed.

The space was wrecked—storage bay maybe, or a utility room. Hard to tell. The walls were blackened with soot, panels popped loose from their bolts. Most of the crates had been crushed flat or ripped open, their contents spilled and warped from heat. Burned rations. Melted circuitry. Garbage.

She kept digging anyway. You couldn’t afford to pass anything up. Every scrap might mean one more hour alive.

Then her hand brushed something solid. Cold. Square-edged.

She froze. Reached again, slower this time. Whatever it was, it was lodged under a twisted shelf. She gave it a hard yank, and it came loose with a pop of static from the surrounding debris.

A camera.

NOSA-issued. Military-grade. Tough build. Matte black casing scuffed and scratched, the sort of thing meant to survive impact, weather, time. Her fingers curled around it like it might vanish. She turned it over, thumb brushing against the ridged power switch.

The screen blinked on with a low whir, grainy at first, then steadier.

The timestamp burned on the corner of the display: the day of the crash.

Her stomach turned. Not from the wound, not this time.

She stared at the date. Blinked. Her thumb hovered near the playback button.

What could possibly be on here? Footage from the wreck? A log? A view of her, maybe, shouting over the storm, trying to keep people alive, trying to outrun the dark.

Or something worse.

She let the camera rest in her lap. Leaned back against the edge of a crate and rubbed her hand across her face. Her skin felt dry and cracked, caked with dirt and dried sweat. The heat in this part of the wreck was worse. Less airflow. Fewer cracks in the hull.

“Right,” she muttered, looking down at the device. “Like any of this would’ve made a difference.”

The camera didn’t reply. Just sat there, screen glowing, lens aimed up like it was waiting. Like it was listening.

She hated that it almost felt alive. Too many days with only your own voice bouncing off the walls, and you started assigning souls to objects.

Still… the idea didn’t leave her. Not all the way. She could use it. Record something. Not a distress call—she wasn’t dumb enough to believe that kind of miracle was coming. But maybe just to talk. Something to anchor her to herself.

She didn’t press record.

Not yet.

Instead, she set it gently on the edge of a crate and stood, steadying herself with one hand. Her legs ached, and the muscles around her wound were starting to throb. She ignored it. There were more rooms to check. More corners of this grave to dig through.

She climbed through a low break in the wall, into another part of the ship—this one better preserved. Still messy. Still broken. But more intact. Storage crates littered the space, some cracked open, some still sealed.

She knelt beside the nearest pile. Pain flared up her side again, sharp and deep. She sucked in a breath and kept going.

Found food packs—sealed. Clean. Enough for maybe another week, if rationed right. A length of rope. A hand torch. Small wins. The kind that could mean everything.

She carried it all back to the cryo chamber in two trips. Set it down carefully on her makeshift bedding. Let herself breathe.

Her eyes drifted back to the camera.

It hadn’t moved. Of course it hadn’t. But it felt like it was waiting. Still. Quiet. Expecting something.

“Maybe later,” she said, mostly to herself.

But even as she turned away, the idea lingered. Not hope. Not exactly.

Just... the need to remember she was still a person. And that maybe, somewhere down the line, someone would want to know what happened here.

Even if it was only the walls.

The camera sputtered awake with a groan, like it resented the effort. The motor’s whine was sluggish, hesitant—like something half-dead remembering how to breathe. The lens jittered before settling, the flicker reminding her of a dying candle—just barely clinging on. It wasn’t a victory, not even close. But after the fire, the impact, and the soul-crushing silence of the days that followed, the damn thing still worked. She didn’t feel triumphant. If anything, it felt like the universe was mocking her.

She leaned into the frame, face streaked with dirt, sweat gleaming under the camera’s dull red light. Her eyes were hollowed by fatigue, lids heavy like sandbags. Hair plastered to her temples in grimy clumps, tangled and wild, a clear message that survival had long since outranked vanity. She squinted at the screen, muttering under her breath as she adjusted the focus. Her fingers, stiff and awkward, moved like they didn’t remember what finesse was.

“Okay,” she said hoarsely, voice cracked like the desert floor outside. She swallowed and tried again, quieter this time. “Okay…”

The timestamp blinked to life: HUNTER GRATZNER – SOL 19 – 06:53. She stared at the numbers, let them sit there, heavy as lead. Nineteen sols. Almost three weeks since the crash. Almost three weeks since everything splintered apart. Somehow it felt like forever and yesterday at the same time.

She leaned back, dragging a hand across her brow and only smearing more dirt across it. “This is… Y/N Y/L/N. Pilot.” Her tone was flat, too drained to bother with formality. She could’ve been filling out a form, not recording what might be her last words. “Logging this… just in case.”

Her voice trailed off into the heat-thick air. The only sound was the low whir of the camera. Then, suddenly, a bitter laugh escaped her—sharp, involuntary. “Just in case I don’t make it.”

Her eyes drifted toward the cramped walls of the survival shelter. They looked closer than before, like they were shrinking inward. She blinked hard, tried to focus. But her thoughts had a way of slipping off-course these days. She blamed the heat. She blamed the silence.

The first week after the crash was a mess of pain and blackout stretches. That damned bone had punctured her side—jagged and deep—and pulling it out nearly knocked her out cold. She’d spent two full days sprawled across the remains of the cockpit, bleeding into the floor, half-conscious and half-delirious. Every movement felt like a death sentence. The bleeding slowed eventually, and she’d tied together enough scraps of uniform to hold herself together.

By day three, she’d clawed her way to what was left of the storage compartments and scavenged a crude medkit. Nothing sterile, nothing proper, but enough to keep the infection at bay. Enough to survive.

Since then, survival had been a matter of cataloging and rationing. What was left? What still worked? Most of the ship was scrap—gutted, burned, twisted beyond recognition—but there were pockets of salvage. A stash of dehydrated meal packs. Some intact water lines, though who knew how long they’d hold. The pressure unit was holding, barely. The oxygen regulator had hairline fractures she hadn’t figured out how to seal yet. Time was running out. Breath by breath.

And the heat. Gods, the heat. The planet didn’t cool. Ever. With three suns in staggered orbit, there was no real night, just a dimming. A pause. She wasn’t sticking around for the next sunset—not when that was a couple of decades away. The constant pressure of it was maddening. Sweat pooled beneath her clothes, dried in salty crusts. Finding a tube of half-used sunscreen in one of the cabins had felt like discovering gold. She'd applied it like it was sacred, smoothing it over her arms and face with a reverence she didn’t even know she had left. For a few moments, she’d felt like a person again.

Now, she stared into the camera, her voice quieter. “Probably won’t make it,” she said, almost like she was sharing a secret with herself. “Not unless I can fix the ship… or find something better.”

Her gaze hardened, locking onto the lens like it was someone to talk to. “It’s oh-six-fifty-three, Sol nineteen. And I’m still here.” She let the words hang, heavy and strange. “Obviously.” It was meant to be sarcasm, but it landed like an empty shell.

She rested her elbows on her knees, her body folding in on itself. “I bet this’ll come as a shock. To NOSA. To… whoever’s watching. Surprise, I guess.” She exhaled slowly, one corner of her mouth twitching in what might have been a smile if there’d been any humor left in her.

“They think I’m dead. All of them. Honestly? So did I.”

Her hand curled into a fist, knuckles pale. Then she held something up—a jagged, bloodstained piece of bone. It caught the light like something sacred and awful. “This tore through me,” she said, eyes locked on it. “Ripped me open like tissue paper. I thought I was done.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I should’ve been done.”

She turned the bone slowly in her hand, studying it like it might tell her something. “But it saved me. Long enough for the bleeding to stop. Long enough to crawl somewhere safe.” She paused, jaw tightening. “Three days. Three godsdamn days. Hiding in a fucking cave. Praying those bioraptors wouldn’t sniff me out.”

She looked toward the viewport, her eyes following the jagged line of the horizon. Nothing but dust and rock and heat as far as she could see—like the planet had been built just to wear people down. No signs of life. No movement. Just stillness and that same bone-dry silence that stretched forever. A place that didn’t give a damn if you lived or died.

Her voice came out barely above a whisper. “Jungkook…”

She paused, swallowing around something thick in her throat. It took effort to keep her voice steady. “If you ever hear this… just know it wasn’t your fault. None of it was. Shit just went sideways.” Her jaw tensed. “You did what you had to. I get it.”

She let the silence sit for a second, then added, softer, “If I’d been in your shoes… I would’ve done the same.”

Her eyes dropped to the floor, and her whole body seemed to cave in on itself, like the weight of everything finally settled on her shoulders. “I’m glad you made it,” she said quietly. “All of you.”

The quiet that followed was thick and suffocating. After a moment, she let out a sharp breath and dragged a hand down her face, like she could wipe off the fatigue. “So yeah,” she muttered, the edge in her voice dulled by exhaustion. “That’s where we’re at.”

She straightened up a little, like it was some kind of formality. “Y/N Y/L/N. Stranded on planet M6-117.” Her eyes scanned the room, as if it still surprised her that this cramped little pod was all she had left. “No comms, because—” She gave a small, humorless laugh. “Well, the ship’s a fireball now. So, there’s that.”

Her hand swept vaguely around the tiny habitat. It trembled a little as she gestured. “Even if I could send a signal, the closest manned mission isn’t anywhere near this quadrant. Not for years. Maybe decades. And I’ve got thirty-one days’ worth of supplies. That’s my clock.”

She took a breath, slower this time. “If the oxygenator dies, that’s it. No backup. I just… stop breathing. If the water reclaimer fails, dehydration’s next. If there’s a breach and this place heats up?” She shook her head slightly. “I’ll cook before I even know what hit me.”

Her voice cracked, barely holding together. “And if none of that happens... I still run out of food.”

Her eyes lingered on the camera lens, but they were distant now, like she wasn’t really seeing it. Like she was already somewhere else in her mind, farther away than the stars.

After a long beat, she reached for the console. Her fingers hovered for a second—then pressed the button.

The screen flickered off, and the silence rushed back in like a wave.

Y/N sat on the makeshift bunk she’d pieced together, her back pressed against the icy metal wall. The chill seeped through her jumpsuit, a sharp contrast to the constant, oppressive heat of M6-117. Her stitches pulled faintly with every shift of her weight, a dull, nagging reminder of how fragile her body had become. Heavy lifting? Out of the question. Even breathing too hard felt like it might tear her apart. Every motion had to be slow, deliberate, calculated—none of which came naturally to her.

Her fingers drummed lightly against the wall in an uneven rhythm, the faint sound filling the silence around her. The days had started to blur together, stretching endlessly into a haze of pain and exhaustion. Minutes felt like hours. Hours felt like days. She had no way to tell how long she’d been sitting there, staring at the opposite wall and letting her thoughts wander like loose debris floating in zero gravity.

The ship was a wreck. It had been from the moment it slammed into the desert, but with every passing day, it seemed to decay further. Panels hung precariously from the ceiling, some blackened and melted from electrical fires. Wires dangled like severed vines, swaying faintly every time she moved or the ship groaned in the wind. Dust—or maybe ash—coated the cracks in the floor, a constant reminder of the violence that had brought her here.

The smell was the worst: a mix of burnt plastic, old sweat, and something metallic that she couldn’t quite place. It clung to her skin, her clothes, the walls. There was no escaping it.

She shifted slightly, wincing as her stitches tugged again. Her fingers fell still, resting limply in her lap, as her thoughts drifted to the others. She hoped they were safe now, wherever they were, but the not knowing gnawed at her.

Jungkook’s face appeared unbidden in her mind, sharp and vivid as though he were standing in front of her. His eyes came first—those strange, unnerving, beautiful eyes. They were like polished silver, catching the light in ways that didn’t seem possible. They’d always made her feel a little unsteady, like he could see through her, into the parts she tried to keep hidden.

Where was he now? Safe on some station, no doubt, his cocky smirk driving everyone around him crazy. The thought made her stomach twist, a mixture of relief and something else she didn’t want to name.

And yet, her mind refused to let him go. She remembered his laugh, low and rough around the edges, and the way his shoulders always seemed too broad for whatever cramped space they were stuck in. She thought about the time he’d leaned close to her after she went back for Captain’s log, blood dried to her knuckles, and licked the blood off her hand like it was nothing.

The memory hit her like a jolt, and she flinched, physically recoiling from the thought. What the hell was wrong with her? Thinking about him like that, here, now, when she didn’t even know if she’d survive the week?

Her jaw tightened, and she shook her head, forcing the memory down into the depths of her mind where it belonged. Jungkook was gone. Namjoon and Leo were gone. And she was here, alone, on a planet no one cared about, clinging to life in the ruins of what used to be a ship.

She ran a hand over her face, exhaling shakily. Forcing her mind away from Jungkook, she thought about Namjoon and Leo instead. Namjoon, steady and calm even when the world was crumbling around them. He’d been the one to keep everyone together after the crash, the one who made everything seem so miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Who hoped and prayed to a God that she openly mocked. Well, look where that got her.

She hoped he’d found some semblance of peace, though she doubted he’d ever let himself rest.

And Leo—sweet, quiet Leo, who’d seemed so afraid and brave all at the same time and had a laugh that could light up a room. She could still hear her humming softly to herself as she worked, could still see the way her hands moved with the boomerang that she’d grown fond of during the short stay here. She deserved safety. She deserved a future.

Y/N could only imagine what the girl faced on these ships that made her pretend to be a boy.

Y/N knew because she had her own stories to tell. It was a shame the two of them never got to bond. She was a good girl, a sweet girl, and needed a home like Jimin had. 

Oh God, Jim… He must think I’m dead.

Her chest ached with the weight of it all. She wanted to believe they’d made it, that the escape shuttle had gotten them somewhere safe. But hope was a dangerous thing out here.

Her gaze drifted to the cracks in the floor again, her fingers tapping absently against her knee. The silence pressed in around her, heavy and suffocating, as her thoughts spiraled in slow, relentless circles.

She wanted to move. To do something—anything—to break the stillness. But her body rebelled against her, reminding her with every ache and throb that she wasn’t ready yet.

"Tomorrow," she muttered, her voice hoarse and thin in the empty room. "Tomorrow, I'll start again."

But tonight, she would sit in her makeshift bunk, staring at the scorched walls, and try not to think about the eyes she couldn’t forget or the faces she might never see again.

The horizon had that strange, muted glow again, the kind that came when only one of the planet’s three suns was awake. It wasn’t exactly dawn—not in the way she remembered it from Helion 5—but it was the closest thing this godforsaken rock could offer. Y/N sat on a flat patch of charred metal outside the remains of the Hunter Gratzner, watching the pale orange light crawl across the jagged landscape. She knew the second sun would start peeking over the horizon soon, and if her mental clock was still reliable, that meant it was about six or seven in the morning back home.

When the third sun joined the party, it’d feel more like late afternoon, and the heat would grow even more unbearable. For now, the air was heavy but tolerable. A small mercy. She stretched her legs out in front of her, boots scuffed and battered, and stared out at the endless expanse of sand and rock. Nothing moved out there, not even a whisper of wind. This planet didn’t do “gentle.” It just existed, glaring down at her with its triple suns, daring her to survive another day.

She sighed and got to her feet, wincing as her muscles protested. The Hunter Gratzner was more like a wreckage with a roof than a proper ship these days, but it was home—for now. She ducked through the hatch and into the cramped quarters, the smell of metal and stale air greeting her like an old, annoying friend.

Her first stop was the toilet. Not glamorous, but necessary. The vacuum system roared to life, sucking the waste away and beginning its overly complicated drying procedure. Y/N stood there, half-listening to the machine whine and hum, her mind wandering. When it finished, she glanced back at the result—a silver bag sealed tight like a little alien gift.

She tilted her head, studying it. An idea started to form, half-baked and ridiculous, but the beginnings of something useful. “Huh,” she muttered under her breath, filing it away for later.

The rest of the morning was dedicated to inventory. Again. It wasn’t exciting, but it was important. She crouched next to the ration packs she’d pulled from the wreckage over the last few days, stacking them into neat, slightly obsessive piles. Most of it was unremarkable—protein bricks, nutrient paste, the kind of stuff that made eating feel more like a chore than a comfort. But one case caught her eye.

“DO NOT OPEN UNTIL SOLVARA,” the label read in bold, almost cheerful letters.

Solvara. Y/N snorted. The odds of her making it to Solvara felt about as likely as the suns setting on this planet anytime soon. Still, she tapped the edge of the case thoughtfully before moving on. Maybe it was worth saving. For morale or whatever.

The hours blurred after that. She worked on autopilot, sorting through supplies, patching what she could, ignoring the gnawing hunger in her stomach. By the time the second sun was high enough to heat the air into its usual suffocating blanket, she found herself sitting in the semi-darkness of the ship, surrounded by stacks of rations and scattered tools. She stared at the walls, at the faint flicker of the broken console, at nothing in particular.

It was the kind of stillness that didn’t feel restful—just hollow. Her thoughts circled back to the same questions, the same numbers. How long could she last? How much water did she really have? What if the pressure machine gave out tomorrow? Or the oxygen pack? There were too many variables, and the math was starting to feel like an enemy she couldn’t outsmart.

Y/N shook her head, forcing herself to sit up straighter. Enough. She needed to do something, anything, to stop the spiral. “Get up,” she muttered to herself. Her voice was rough, dry from dehydration and disuse. “Come on. Move.”

She pushed herself to her feet, scanning the room with purpose now. Her fingers trailed over the scattered wreckage, pausing every so often as she searched for... something. There. Tucked into the corner of a storage compartment. A pencil. It was small and unassuming, the kind of thing that would’ve been forgettable on any other day.

But not today.

She yanked a notecard free from one of the ship’s dusty manuals, the paper slightly yellowed but intact. Back to basics. No screens, no touchpads, no malfunctioning tech—just pencil and paper, like it was the old days.

Y/N sat down at the tiny table bolted to the floor and started writing. The pencil scratched across the card, leaving behind numbers and symbols, equations that didn’t look like much but felt monumental in her mind. Water consumption rates. Oxygen usage. Repair estimates. She wrote it all down, no matter how grim the answers looked.

“Let’s do the math,” she whispered, her voice steady this time. She kept writing.

The camera was rolling again, its tiny red light blinking steadily as Y/N adjusted its angle. She leaned into the frame, her face slightly less tragic than it had been in previous recordings. She’d cleaned up—sort of. The layers of grime and sweat were still there, and her hair, while still tangled, no longer clung to her forehead like a second skin. She looked more human. Barely.

She exhaled slowly, straightened her back, and looked directly at the camera lens. “After arriving in New Mecca,” she began, her voice steady but edged with dry sarcasm, “my crew was only supposed to be awake for thirty-one days before going back into cryosleep. For redundancy, NOSA sent enough food to last for sixty-eight days. For three people.”

She paused, letting the weight of the numbers settle in her mind—and maybe for whoever might watch this someday. “So for just me, that’s three hundred days. Four hundred if I get creative.” Her lips twisted into a tight smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Which means I still have to figure out how to grow food. Here. On a planet where nothing grows.”

Reaching for one of the mission briefs, she held it close to the lens. The bold, official lettering across the top read Co-Pilot, but just above it, in her own handwriting, the word “Botanist” had been scrawled in jagged letters. She tapped the scratched-out title with a finger. “Luckily, I’m the co-pilot for a reason,” she added with mock cheer. “God, I’m so glad I studied botany.”

Her voice turned deadpan, the barest hint of a smirk tugging at her lips. “M6-117 will come to fear my botany powers.” She let the silence hang for a moment before cutting the feed.

The camera’s perspective shifted as Y/N carried it outside, the glare of the twin suns washing the screen in a harsh, blinding white before the auto-filter finally kicked in. Slowly, the barren world beyond the wreckage came into focus. Jagged red sands stretched endlessly in every direction, the dunes rippling like frozen waves. It was beautiful, in a way, but beauty couldn’t hide its cruelty. The planet was desolate, a hostile wasteland that mocked her with its emptiness.

Her boots crunched against the sand as she trudged forward, every step a deliberate effort. The sharp tug of her stitches with each movement was a constant reminder of her limitations, a small but insistent pain that kept her grounded in the reality of her fragile survival.

Tucked securely under her arm was a stack of sealed silver bags, their reflective surfaces gleaming in the oppressive sunlight. Compost material. Every single one of them. It wasn’t glamorous or pleasant, but it was necessary. She’d scrounged every bit of organic waste she could find over the past weeks, hoarding it like treasure. If her plan had even a sliver of hope, she would need it all.

Her destination loomed ahead: the Hab. It wasn’t much to look at—a mismatched structure cobbled together from the remains of the ship. Panels that once carried vital systems now served as patchwork walls. Observation deck glass had been repurposed into crude, dusty windows. Dented cryochamber lids insulated the roof. The entire thing leaned slightly to one side, as though daring the wind to knock it down.

But it wouldn’t. Y/N had made sure of that.

It had taken her weeks of slow, painstaking effort to build the Hab, every minute a struggle against her aching body and the unforgiving heat. Every bolt she’d fastened and panel she’d secured had been an act of stubborn defiance. It wasn’t pretty. It didn’t have to be.

As she stared at the Hab, she couldn't help but remember Koah Nguyen, her old crew mate. She still saw his face in her mind, the way his eyes sparkled when he talked about engineering, his hands always moving in that precise, methodical rhythm. Koah had been the pilot of the Starfire, and an engineer to boot. He’d been a walking encyclopedia of mechanics, someone who could fix anything—from starship engines to the tiny gadgets that never seemed to work quite right on the ship.

When she first met him, Y/N had been a little intimidated by how effortlessly Koah could repair everything. She’d been content to stay in her co-pilot role, figuring her job was keeping the ship flying while he handled the nuts and bolts of it. But Koah had a different idea. “You’re gonna need to know this stuff if you're gonna make it,” he’d told her one night, flashing her that crooked grin of his as he set down a welding torch. “A ship doesn’t fly itself, you know?”

The two of them had spent hours together, over the course of many trips, with Koah showing her the basics of engineering. He’d taught her how to patch a hull, how to recalibrate a plasma vent, how to wire a circuit when it wasn’t quite cooperating. At first, it was just another thing to tick off her list, but soon she found herself enjoying it. The rhythmic process of taking something broken and making it whole had its own kind of satisfaction. Sometimes, after long days of flying, they’d meet up outside of work and work on one of Koah’s welding projects. It wasn’t just about fixing things anymore. It was about creating something, about making beautiful things out of metal scraps and old, discarded parts.

Koah was an artist with metal. He’d often bring out pieces he was working on—small sculptures made of twisted pieces of scrap metal, intricate shapes that, at first glance, seemed like chaotic messes but came together in unexpected ways. Y/N had always admired his ability to see art in something that most people would throw away. They’d spend evenings together in his workshop—sometimes laughing, sometimes in complete silence as they both focused on their projects. He always made her feel like she was part of something bigger than just the ship and the mission.

If she had stayed on the Starfire, she wouldn’t be here now.

She shook her head, trying to push the thoughts away, but they lingered like a stubborn fog. He would’ve found it hilarious, Y/N thought, glancing back at the Hab. She could almost hear his voice teasing her now, the lighthearted tone he’d use when he saw her struggling with the wiring or the metalwork. “Not bad for a botanist,” he’d say, giving her a sarcastic wink, “but you still can’t hold a candle to my welds.”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips. She could practically see him there, grinning, as he passed her a welder’s mask. They’d work on metal together until the stars outside began to dim, the quiet hum of the ship their only company.

Now, the Hab stood as a testament to everything Koah had taught her, and she hated to admit it, but it was comforting in a way. Each metal panel she’d carefully cut and welded into place, each beam she’d reinforced, each crooked corner—was a small victory. She could hear his voice now, an echo in her mind: “You’ve got this, Y/N. Just one piece at a time.”

And she had done it, one painful piece at a time. She had taken scraps and forged something functional from the wreckage, just as Koah would have.

It wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t have to be. The Hab was a survival mechanism, built from the remnants of her past crew, from the skills Koah had shared with her. He’d never have imagined that she’d be here alone, making a home out of the wreckage of her ship, but Y/N could almost hear his voice in her ear: "You always did make the best of things."

Inside, the air offered little relief. The temperature was only marginally cooler, but it was enough to keep her moving. She placed the silver bags onto a counter made from a scavenged section of the hull, then walked to the water reclaimer in the corner. It hummed faintly as it dispensed lukewarm water into a container. Not fresh. Not clean. But drinkable.

She carried the container back to her makeshift kitchen station, where a rudimentary compost bin waited for its next grim addition. The bin was a patchwork creation, much like the Hab itself, built from leftover crates and reinforced with scraps of metal. Its lid hung open, waiting expectantly.

Y/N set the container down and stared at the silver bags. Her stomach twisted in anticipation of what came next. “Okay,” she muttered, more to herself than anything. “You can do this. It’s fine. Everything is fine.”

Her fingers hesitated on the seal of the first bag, but she forced herself to tear it open.

The smell hit her instantly—a wave of rot and decay so pungent it felt like a physical blow. She gagged, stumbling back a step, her hand flying to her mouth. “Oh my God,” she choked out, her voice muffled behind her palm. “What have I done?”

The answer was obvious, but there was no turning back. She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath of what passed for fresh air, and tore open another bag. The stench deepened, an unholy mix of decomposition and an odor she couldn’t identify but knew she’d never forget. She dumped the contents of each bag into the bin, one after another, her hands trembling as she worked.

By the time she finished, her stomach churned, her mouth dry. She leaned heavily on the counter, gasping for air that didn’t reek of death. Her eyes watered, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand, determined not to lose her nerve. The compost bin was full now, its contents a nauseating slurry of organic matter that sloshed slightly as she moved.

She stared at it, her nose wrinkled and her expression grim. This mess—this putrid, rancid soup—was supposed to be the start of her plan. Her first step in growing food on a planet that had never known life.

She let out a heavy sigh, running a hand over her face. “M6-117 will definitely fear my botany powers,” she muttered, her tone dry, almost bitter. She glanced at the camera perched on the counter, its red light still blinking. “Don’t laugh,” she added, pointing at it as though it could respond.

Turning back to the bin, she grabbed a stirring rod and braced herself for the next unpleasant step.

The dirt was dry. Too dry. Each grain of sand seemed to mock her, unyielding, as if the planet itself had conspired to make her struggle just a little bit harder. Y/N scooped it into the container with a small shovel she’d salvaged from the wreckage. Her movements were slow, deliberate, each scoop a reminder of the reality she couldn’t escape. The relentless heat pressed down on her like a weight, suffocating any energy she might have had. She’d been at this for hours, maybe days—it was impossible to tell anymore. The days had blurred together into an endless cycle of exhaustion and tiny victories, and she could no longer tell when one bled into the next.

With each scoop, the shovel hit the ground with a faint clink, like a tiny rebellion against the barren land. It wasn’t much—just a handful of dry dirt, nothing more—but it was all she had to work with. She winced as her wrist twinged from the impact, shaking it out before continuing, her fingers raw from the constant effort. She couldn’t afford to stop. Not yet. Not when she was so close.

The walk back to the Hunter Gratzner was short, but the container felt heavier with each step, its weight dragging at her arms. By the time she reached the airlock, her muscles were burning, her joints screaming in protest. She muttered something under her breath—probably a curse, probably aimed at the planet itself—and trudged through the airlock, her face set in grim determination.

Inside the Hab, she placed the container down in the corner she’d cleared a few days ago. The dirt spilled out in a dry cascade, joining the small pile she’d started. It wasn’t much, but it was something. It had to grow. She needed it to.

Time continued to pass in a blur, but by the time Sol 25 rolled around, the pile of dirt had grown considerably. Y/N stood in the doorway, arms full of another container, her face a mix of exhaustion and determination. The pile of dirt looked almost ridiculous in the center of her Hab, a mountain of Hexundecian soil in the middle of a place that was meant to be her shelter. But it didn’t matter. Ridiculous was better than dead. She wasn’t going to let herself fail.

On Sol 28, the plan began to take shape. Y/N spread the dirt across the Hab’s floor, smoothing it out with her hands, the reddish dust caking beneath her nails as her fingers worked through the dirt. It was tedious work, but it was necessary. The heat made everything feel like it was happening in slow motion, each movement taking more energy than it should. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, not even pausing to think about the pain in her body. Her stitches tugged uncomfortably, but she ignored it. There was no time to slow down.

As she spread the dirt, her gaze flicked toward the compost bin in the corner. The smell that radiated from it had only gotten worse in the past few days, growing stronger and more unbearable. She glared at it for a long moment, nose wrinkling. She had to deal with it. She had no other choice.

“Okay,” she muttered, steeling herself. “Let’s do this.”

Taking a deep breath, she opened the compost bin. The smell hit her immediately—sharp, rancid, and overwhelming. She gagged, instinctively covering her nose with her arm, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Every step she took, every task she completed, was part of the bigger plan. Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the bin and began dumping its contents over the dirt. The mixture of decaying organic matter sloshed out in a wet mess, and her stomach churned. It smelled worse than she’d imagined, like something was rotting inside of her, and her throat burned. She stumbled back, gasping for air, but forced herself to move forward. She couldn’t afford to stop now.

“Oh God,” she wheezed, stumbling back a step. “That’s... that’s horrible.”

But she kept going. She opened bag after bag, each one worse than the last, the smell making her gag and her vision swim. She couldn’t even tell if the foul stench was from the bags or the sour taste in her mouth. When she finally finished, she stood there, breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling in sharp gasps. The pile was an ugly, soupy mess now, but it was a necessary evil. The dirt and compost would have to be the foundation for something greater. She wasn’t sure what that would be yet, but she had to try.

By Sol 31, the Hab had transformed. It wasn’t just the floor anymore; the dirt had spread across every available surface. The countertops were covered, the bunks cleared away and replaced with layers of soil. Even the table was buried beneath a thick layer of dirt. The Hab looked like a mad scientist’s lab, chaotic and strange, but there was no other way. She had to make it work.

Y/N sat cross-legged on the floor, a knife in hand, carefully cutting into a pile of potatoes. She sliced them into neat quarters, making sure each piece had at least two eyes. The process was slow, meticulous, but it was soothing in its own way. It gave her focus, something to ground her mind as her thoughts often spiraled. She placed the potato quarters into neat rows in the soil, pressing them gently into the dirt. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t much. But it was a start. It was the first step in building something that could sustain her.

As she worked, her hand brushed against something small and metallic in the corner of one of the bunks. Curious, she reached down and picked it up. A data stick. She squinted at it, turning it over in her fingers. “Huh,” she muttered to herself. She hadn’t seen one of these in ages.

Plugging it into the computer, she leaned back in the chair, fingers crossed as the contents loaded. A list of files appeared on the screen, and she clicked on the first one. The screen flickered to life, and a cheesy title card filled the frame. It was Star Trek. She couldn’t help but laugh. Of course it was. Shields had loved this show. He’d talk about it for hours during quiet moments in between shifts—rambling on about warp drives and the Prime Directive like they were the truth, his excitement contagious. Y/N had rolled her eyes at the time, dismissing it as childish, a distraction from the mission. But now, as she sat there in the silence of her broken Hab, the sight of the show made her smile.

“Of course,” she murmured, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

It was strange, the little things that could make her smile now. She hadn’t known how much she’d miss these trivialities, these small bits of normalcy.

But then it hit her. The smile faded as the reality settled in. Shields would never watch this show again. He was gone, just like Captain Marshall, just like the rest of the crew. The weight of that truth hit her harder than the barren landscape outside. She swallowed hard, blinking rapidly as she pushed the thought away. There was no room for grief now. She had no time for it.

Instead, she leaned forward, determined, as if making a silent promise to herself.

“Star Trek it is then,” she said quietly, her voice just above a whisper. She would make it her new favorite show. And in doing so, she would keep a piece of them alive.

"The problem is water," Y/N muttered to herself, her voice barely more than a whisper. It came out thin, brittle, like the very air she was dragging into her lungs. It wasn’t the first time she’d voiced this frustration, and it surely wouldn’t be the last. There was always something, wasn’t there? Water. Food. Air. The constant gnawing feeling that the planet itself was conspiring against her, as if Hades resented her every step. Today, though, it was water. That was the issue that was eating away at her with the most urgency.

Her eyes narrowed as she adjusted the straps of her gear, the weight of the shotgun pressing against her chest. The weapon felt reassuring against her ribs with every step—solid, reliable. A reminder that she wasn’t entirely defenseless out here, not yet. It wasn’t much in the face of an unforgiving world, but it was something. She needed to keep moving, keep thinking. Focus. She had to focus.

The walk to the settlement was long—longer than it used to be—and the terrain was uneven, with cracks and ridges that slowed her pace. The air was thick with dust, the ground coated with a fine layer of reddish sand that clung to her boots like an ever-present reminder of the planet’s hostility. Every step left a trail, as if the planet itself wanted to track her every movement. The twin suns hung overhead, relentless, their heat pressing down on her, baking everything in sight. The light was harsh, unforgiving, and it made the shadows look sharper, more dangerous, more alive.

She tried not to think about the cracks in the stone, or what might be lurking within them—whether some predator was watching her from afar, or something worse was silently biding its time. The thought gnawed at her, but she pushed it back. There was nothing to be done for it, not right now.

Her breath came in shallow bursts, steady but strained. Her body was moving almost automatically now, one foot in front of the other, the path she’d been following for what felt like forever etched into her muscle memory. Her stitches tugged at her side with every step, but the discomfort was dull compared to the burning ache in her chest, the weight of the abandonment still heavy there.

When the settlement came into view, Y/N couldn’t help but pause. The place looked even worse than she remembered. It had once been a bustling outpost, a last chance for survival, but now it was a graveyard—metal skeletons, shattered hopes, rusting away under the relentless assault of the Martian elements. There was nothing left here, nothing but the bones of a failed dream. This was the place where Jungkook, Leo, and Namjoon had found the skiff that they used to escape. The same skiff they’d used to leave her behind. She could almost picture them, as if they were still here—Jungkook’s quiet determination, Leo’s nervous energy, Namjoon’s steady faith in something greater than themselves.

They had thought she was dead. Y/N couldn’t blame them for leaving. Not really. The wound she’d sustained—it had been deep, jagged, the kind of wound that should have finished her off. But somehow, she’d survived. She’d dragged herself back from the edge of death, stitched herself back together with the same stubbornness that kept her walking every day. She remembered Jungkook’s face as they left, that final glance filled with hesitation, confusion, guilt. He’d thought she was gone. And for a moment, she almost had been.

Shaking her head, Y/N forced herself to focus. She didn’t have the luxury of self-pity here. Not anymore. Not with survival on the line.

The settlement was eerily silent as she approached, the kind of silence that pressed in on her, thick and suffocating. The only sounds were the faint crunch of her boots against the dirt and the soft hum of the wind that stirred the dust in lazy eddies. Her shotgun felt heavier in her hands now, the weight comforting as she scanned the area. Every instinct in her screamed at her to stay alert. The place had been abandoned for weeks, but that didn’t mean it was safe. This planet had a way of surprising you when you let your guard down.

Y/N moved carefully through the wreckage, her eyes flicking over the scattered debris, looking for anything useful. The first thing she found was a set of blueprints, the faded paper curled and torn but still legible enough to be useful. They had to be. She rolled them up tightly, tucking them into her bag. Something else caught her attention—small, solar-powered gadgets, scattered haphazardly across a broken table. They probably wouldn’t do much, but they could come in handy later, and right now, she couldn’t afford to leave anything behind.

Her fingers brushed over the eclipse dial next. The metal was cold beneath her gloves, smooth and unyielding. She paused for a moment, her heart skipping a beat as memories of that suffocating darkness washed over her—an endless void that had pressed down on her, stealing her breath, her sanity. She hated that dial. It wasn’t just a tool; it was a reminder of that terrible night when everything had gone wrong. A symbol of how close she had come to losing it all. But sentiment didn’t have a place here, not anymore. With a resigned exhale, she grabbed the dial, shoving the memories to the back of her mind.

The next stop was where the skiff had been, the spot where it had been hastily abandoned in the wake of their escape. The sand around the area was still disturbed, the evidence of their flight still visible in the shifting dunes. Y/N scanned the ground, her eyes sharp, looking for anything they might have left behind. She needed anything that could help her survive—anything at all.

Her gaze landed on something distant, something that caught the light in a way that made her heart skip. She moved toward it, her boots crunching softly against the sand, her shotgun still at the ready, even though she knew the chances of something hostile were slim.

It was another sandcat—or rather, what was left of one. The vehicle’s frame was bent and crumpled, its front half caved in like it had been struck by something massive. It wasn’t going anywhere, not in this lifetime. But Y/N didn’t care about that. Her eyes swept over the wreckage, and then—there it was. Beneath the undercarriage of the sandcat, barely visible from where she stood, something caught her eye.

A Hydrazine tank.

Her breath caught in her throat. She knew exactly what this meant. It wasn’t much, not yet, but it was something. Something that could be useful. She crouched down, wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her glove. The heat from the suns was relentless, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. The connections on the tank looked fragile, delicate. This wasn’t a job for brute strength. No, she needed patience, steady hands—things she didn’t exactly have in abundance right now.

“Okay,” she whispered to herself, trying to steady her breathing. “One thing at a time.”

Her fingers were trembling as she reached for the first connector, the metal cool against her skin. She took a slow breath, steadying herself before loosening the first piece, then the second. It wasn’t easy. The tank was heavier than she’d expected, the connections stubborn. Every movement felt like it took more energy than she had. But she kept going. She had to.

With a final grunt of effort, she managed to free the tank from the wreckage, setting it down carefully beside her. She sat back on her heels, breathing hard, the effort of the task still making her pulse race. For a long moment, she just stared at the tank. Her mind raced with the possibilities. It wasn’t the solution to her water problem—not yet.

“I’ve created one hundred and twenty-six square meters of soil,” Y/N said into the camera, her voice steady despite the rivulets of sweat dripping down her temple and disappearing into the grime streaked across her face. Dirt clung stubbornly to her skin, and her hair stuck to her neck in damp, wild tangles. She wasn’t trying to look triumphant—it wasn’t like there was anyone left to see her—but there was a flicker of pride in her voice anyway. “But each cubic meter needs forty liters of water to be farmable. So, I gotta make a lot of water.”

She paused, leaning forward slightly. The faintest twitch of a smile ghosted over her lips, but it didn’t last long. “Fortunately, I know the recipe. Take hydrogen. Add oxygen. Burn.” She held the word, let it hang in the air, her tone dipping into something darker. “Unfortunately… burn.”

Her breath escaped in a long sigh as she leaned back in the chair, turning her head to glance at the chaos behind her. The Hab looked less like a living space and more like the aftermath of an explosion in a junkyard. Piles of salvaged parts cluttered every available surface, jumbled together with tools, wiring, and half-built contraptions. At the center of it all, sitting smugly on her workbench like a prize, was the Hydrazine tank she’d dragged from the wreckage of the sandcat. It gleamed under the weak artificial light, a reminder of just how thin the line was between salvation and annihilation.

“I have hundreds of liters of unused Hydrazine,” she continued, gesturing toward the tank. “If I run the Hydrazine over an iridium catalyst, it’ll separate into N2 and H2…” Her voice trailed off as she stood, picking up the camera and swinging it toward her workbench. “Science time.”

The next few hours were a blur of sweat, ingenuity, and no small amount of duct tape. She started with the basics, piecing together a crude laboratory using whatever she could scavenge. Torn trash bags became the walls of a makeshift tent draped over her workbench, their edges secured with layers of tape. It wasn’t pretty, and it sagged in the middle, but it would do the job—or so she hoped.

“Not bad,” she muttered, stepping back to inspect her work. Her hands were already filthy, her gloves doing little to protect her from the grime that seemed to coat everything in the Hab.

Next, she turned her attention to ventilation. She’d torn an air hose from an old EVA suit earlier, the edges still jagged from where she’d ripped it free in a fit of frustration. Now, she taped it to the top of her makeshift tent, securing it to the ceiling to act as a chimney. “That’ll do,” she murmured under her breath, wiping her brow with her sleeve.

The room was quiet except for the faint hiss of the oxygen tank as she vented it. She leaned in close, sparking the gas with a few frayed wires from a battery pack. The flame that leapt to life was small but bright, and Y/N couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face. “Whoosh,” she whispered, as if narrating the moment for an audience that wasn’t there.

The next step was more delicate. She adjusted her goggles, the scratched lenses fogging slightly as she exhaled. Her hands hovered over the Hydrazine tank, careful and deliberate as she started the flow. The liquid sizzled the moment it hit the iridium catalyst, disappearing in a flash of vapor that shot up the chimney. Her eyes followed the plume, watching as small bursts of flame sputtered out the other end.

“It’s working,” she whispered, her grin widening. Her gaze flicked to the instruments she’d rigged up—a mix of actual equipment and salvaged scraps—monitoring the temperature and flow rate with hawk-like focus. She repeated the process again and again, each cycle of vaporized Hydrazine bringing her one step closer to the water she so desperately needed.

By the time she sat down in front of the camera again, her muscles ached, and her hair clung to her face in damp, sweaty strands. The chaos of her makeshift lab spread out around her like a disaster zone. She wiped her goggles clean with the edge of her shirt, leaving a streak of dirt in their place. “Then I just need to direct the hydrogen into a small area and burn it,” she said, leaning slightly toward the lens. “Luckily, in the history of humanity, nothing bad has ever happened from lighting hydrogen on fire.”

She stared at the camera for a long moment, her expression blank but faintly amused. Then she blinked, shrugged, and continued. “Believe it or not, the real challenge has been finding something that will hold a flame. New Oslo hates fire because of the whole ‘fire makes everyone die in space’ thing. So, everything we brought with us is flame retardant. With one notable exception…” She reached off-camera and pulled a pack into view, unzipping it with practiced ease. “Namjoon Kim’s personal items.”

Her grin turned sharp as she pulled out a small wooden cross, holding it up to the camera and turning it over in her fingers. “Sorry, Mr. Kim,” she said, her tone mock-apologetic. “If you didn’t want me to go through your stuff, you shouldn’t have left me for dead on a desolate planet.”

She reached for the knife strapped to her belt and began shaving thin curls of wood off the cross, each stroke precise and steady. The sound of the blade against the wood filled the room, a rhythmic counterpoint to the hum of the equipment around her. “I figure God won’t mind,” she added, glancing up at the camera with a raised eyebrow. “Considering the situation.”

The knife moved slowly but deliberately, the pile of shavings growing with every careful pass. Y/N’s hands never wavered, her focus razor-sharp. This was survival, messy and dangerous and imperfect. And she’d take it over nothing every time.

Y/N was still at it, even though every muscle in her body begged her to stop. Her arms felt like lead, her shoulders stiff from hours hunched over her workbench. The air in the Hab was thick and stale, clinging to her skin along with the sweat and grime that had become her constant companions. Time blurred here—had it been hours? Days? She didn’t know, and she didn’t care to check. Survival was the only clock that mattered, and it kept ticking, whether she kept up with it or not.

She swiped her forearm across her forehead, smearing a dark streak of grease across her temple. Her hair clung to her damp skin, strands sticking out at odd angles where the heat and her helmet had flattened them earlier. Her lips were dry, cracked from dehydration, and her throat burned with each shallow breath, but none of that mattered. Not yet. Not until this worked.

The steps were second nature by now, her hands moving with the kind of automatic precision that came from repetition rather than confidence. Vent the oxygen. Ignite the torch. Burn the hydrogen. She murmured each step under her breath like a mantra, her voice thin and raspy, barely audible over the quiet hum of the equipment.

Her eyes flicked to the atmospheric analyzer. The numbers blinked back at her, steady and impersonal. She frowned, leaning in closer. Was that reading… higher than usual? It was a tiny discrepancy, just enough to tickle the edges of her exhaustion-fogged mind. She should have stopped. She should have double-checked the setup, recalculated the variables. But she didn’t. The weight of her own fatigue pressed the thought down until it slipped away entirely. It was fine. It had to be fine.

She struck the torch.

The explosion was immediate, a roar of heat and light that sucked the air out of the room. For a single, terrifying moment, Y/N was weightless, her body thrown backward as the force of the blast ripped through the Hab. She slammed into the wall hard, the impact jarring every bone in her body.

Her ears rang with the deafening aftermath, the sharp, high-pitched whine drowning out everything else. She lay crumpled on the floor, her chest heaving as she struggled to pull in air. Her lungs felt tight, her ribs screaming in protest with each shallow inhale. Her head spun, a dull ache blooming at the base of her skull where it had struck the floor.

For a moment, she stayed there, staring up at the ceiling with wide, unfocused eyes. Her brain scrambled to piece together what had just happened, but the only coherent thought she could muster was: I’m alive. Somehow.

She pushed herself upright slowly, her arms trembling with the effort. Every inch of her body ached, and her skin prickled uncomfortably where the heat of the blast had singed her clothes. The edges of her sleeves were blackened, threads curling like burnt paper. Her hair, already a tangled disaster, now sported uneven patches that smelled faintly of burnt keratin.

She groaned, a hoarse, broken sound, and crawled toward the camera, which, miraculously, had stayed intact. It blinked at her like a curious bystander, untouched by the chaos surrounding it.

Y/N collapsed in front of the lens, sitting back heavily against the wall. For a long moment, she said nothing, her chest rising and falling in uneven breaths. Then, finally, she looked up, meeting the camera’s unblinking gaze.

“So,” she began, her voice scratchy and uneven, “yes. I blew myself up.”

Her lips quirked into a weak smile, the expression more wry than amused. She gestured vaguely toward the wreckage behind her. “Best guess? I forgot to account for the excess oxygen I’ve been exhaling when I did my calculations. Because I’m stupid.”

She leaned her head back against the wall, her eyes fluttering shut for a brief moment before she forced them open again. The ringing in her ears hadn’t stopped, but she was getting used to it now, the noise settling into the background like white noise.

“Interesting side note,” she said, her tone conversational, almost detached. “This is how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory was founded. Five guys at Strikeforce Academy were trying to make rocket fuel and nearly burned down their dorm. Rather than expel them, General… East? I want to say East? Anyway, he banished them to Aguerra Prime and told them to keep working.”

She waved a hand lazily, the movement more a suggestion than an actual gesture. “And now we have a space program. See? I pay attention.”

Her gaze drifted back to the camera, her expression softening into something more resigned. “I’m gonna get back to work. As soon as my ears stop ringing.”

She didn’t move. Instead, she stayed where she was, her legs sprawled out in front of her and her shoulders slumped against the wall. The Hab was eerily quiet now, the earlier chaos replaced by a strange, heavy stillness. Smoke hung faintly in the air, curling upward in lazy spirals, and the faint smell of singed metal lingered in her nose.

Y/N let her head fall forward, staring at the ground with unfocused eyes. For a while, she just sat there, her body too tired to move, her mind too drained to think. She wasn’t done—not even close—but for now, she let herself rest.

Y/N was back at it. Her movements were steady, almost methodical now, but there was still a hint of tension in the way her shoulders hunched and her jaw tightened. She checked her math for the fifth time, fingers tapping absently against the edge of the table. The numbers were good. The O₂ levels were where they needed to be. Everything was in place.

She glanced at the camera, raising an eyebrow as if daring it to witness her fail. Then, with a small, humorless smile, she crossed her fingers. “Okay,” she muttered under her breath, wincing as she lit the torch.

Nothing exploded. She exhaled slowly, the tension in her shoulders easing. “Phew.” The Hydrazine started to vent, the faint hiss of the gas escaping into the controlled environment a comforting sound. Controlled chaos—her specialty now.

Hours later, she stepped back from the table, her body aching but her mind alight with hope. She wiped her forehead with her sleeve, smearing sweat and grime into the creases of her skin. Her hands were clammy, slick with sweat that hadn’t been there earlier. Something caught her eye, and she turned toward the walls.

Condensation. Tiny beads of water dotted the smooth surfaces, glinting faintly in the artificial light. She reached out, tracing a droplet with her fingertip, watching as it slid down the wall. It felt surreal, like a rainforest trapped inside the sterile walls of her Hab. She blinked, then turned toward the water reclaimer.

Her hands trembled as she lifted the lid from the tank. It was full. Not just damp, not just a few measly drops, but filled with water. Her breath caught, and then, finally, she smiled. A real, honest-to-God grin that lit up her tired face. She let out a shaky laugh, the sound breaking the heavy quiet of the room.

Over the next few weeks, time became a blur of movement and repetition. Days stretched endlessly under the triple suns of M6-117, each one bleeding into the next as Y/N worked tirelessly. The sun wouldn’t set again for another twenty-five years, not on this planet, but she’d already lived through its terrifying darkness once. She didn’t need a reminder of what the eclipse brought. For now, the constant daylight was her ally, even if the heat and pressure made every task harder.

Inside the Hab, every surface was a testament to her persistence. Soil covered the floors, tables, bunks—anywhere she could make room. Her equipment, rigged together with salvaged parts and duct tape, gave the place a chaotic, mad-scientist vibe. The atmosphere was a strange mix of desperation and ingenuity, every corner filled with evidence of her determination to survive.

Her days followed a relentless cycle. She vented Hydrazine, checked the readouts on her makeshift lab, and collected water from the reclaimer. She spread the precious liquid over the soil, making sure each patch got just enough to stay damp. She ate quickly, barely tasting the nutrient-dense food bricks she rationed so carefully. Then she went back to work.

She slept when her body forced her to, collapsing onto her makeshift bed in the corner of the Hab. Her dreams were restless, filled with flashes of her crew, the skiff disappearing into the sky, the dark shapes that had hunted them during the eclipse. But when she woke, she put the ghosts aside and pulled on her patched-up spacesuit. The air on M6-117 was technically breathable, but the higher pressure and lower oxygen levels made every task feel like running uphill. With the suit, she could work faster, longer, without the constant ache in her chest.

She hauled more dirt inside, her arms burning with effort as she carried the heavy containers. She vented Hydrazine again. She ate, she slept, and she worked.

Days sped by, a blur of movement and monotony, but Y/N never stopped. The pile of soil in the corner grew larger, spreading across the Hab like a living thing. Her hands were constantly dirty now, the dark grime of the soil embedded under her nails, a permanent part of her.

In the quiet moments, when the work slowed, her gaze would drift toward one particular patch of soil in the corner. It was smaller than the rest, a deliberate experiment within the larger chaos. She’d spent extra time on that spot, watering it carefully, checking the light, running her fingers through the dirt like she was coaxing it to life.

And then, one day, it happened.

The first sign was small. A tiny green sprout, barely breaking the surface, its fragile stem trembling as if unsure of its place in the world. Y/N froze when she saw it, her breath catching in her throat. She crouched down and all she could do was stare at her miracle.

[mrsvante]

Stolen Orbit

pairing: jungkook x reader

genre: alien au, yandere jk, dark horror, enemies to lovers,

summary: you were meant for eradication with the rest of your planet—erased without a trace, just another speck in the galaxy's endless purge. but jeongguk saw you. fragile, insignificant... human. and something his kind had long forgotten stirred in him. Instead of erasing your existence, he took you, stole you from extinction and made you his.

now you live in a celestial cage, adored and possessed by something not quite capable of love, but desperate to keep you. he doesn't understand your fear, your resistance, but he craves your surrender all the more because of it. and if it takes breaking you to make you his completely... he will.

warnings: slow burn, mass extermination, alien jungkook forced captivity/proximity, psychological manipulation, stockholm syndrome, dubcon, smut, ritualistic copulation

word count: 5,857

The Beginning

The sky split open the night they came. You didn’t see it at first, no one did.

You brushed your teeth that night. Standing in your tiny bathroom beneath flickering fluorescent lights, humming faintly to music you can’t remember anymore. A song that cut out mid chorus when everything else did.

You paused, frowned, the mirror vibrated faintly, a shiver running across your reflection. Confused, you flicked the light switch. Nothing.

Reach for your phone. Dead.

Outside, the city dimmed as though someone had thrown a heavy blanket over the world. Buildings blinked out, window by window. Cars stalled silently in the streets.

Then came the sirens. Low and unearthly, vibrating deep in your chest rather than ringing in your ears.

You pressed your palms to the vanity, trying to pinpoint the source.

No alarms.

No helicopters.

No dogs barking or people yelling in the distance.

Just… stillness.

Until the sky broke.

You saw it from your window, face pale in the glass as blackness carved itself across the heavens like a wound tearing through flesh.

It didn’t glow or rage, it hummed.

And through that terrible void came beams of sterile white light.

You watched—paralyzed—as they swept through the streets, swallowing people whole. No fire, no blood, they simply ceased.

Your neighbor clutching her husband on the balcony. The delivery boy halfway up the stairs. A child pedaling frantically on his bicycle.

Gone.

Your mouth moved, but no sound came out. By the time your legs remembered how to function, chaos had bloomed outside.

Screams.

Desperate, useless prayers. People running without knowing where safety even existed.

It didn’t matter.

Your chest crushed inward as panic overtook you. You grabbed your phone, screaming into dead silence, dialing numbers that wouldn’t connect.

Your father’s voicemail.

Your sister’s disconnected line.

The beams moved without emotion, erasing everything they touched as easily as wiping chalk from a board. You don’t remember deciding to run. You don’t remember leaving your apartment. You only remember the maintenance tunnels.

You shoved yourself beneath concrete and metal, nails splitting and bleeding as you slammed the hatch shut above you.

And there you stayed.

For minutes.

Hours.

Days.

Time broke.

The silence that followed was not peaceful.

It was dead.

::::::::::::

When you woke, it was worse. Not because you survived. Not even because the world was gone.

But because you weren’t there anymore.

Your eyes opened to sterility. Smooth, seamless walls of faintly glowing white, like pearl carved from bone. No corners or seams. Just endless smoothness in every direction, as though the room itself were grown rather than built.

There were no windows.

No doors.

Only a faint humming, familiar and yet not. Not the gentle whir of an AC or the buzz of old light bulbs. This was deeper, vibrating at a frequency that scraped against the base of your skull. It sounded like something alive.

You sat up too fast, your breath catching painfully in your throat.

The bed beneath you was impossibly soft, molding to your shape like memory foam, but it didn’t feel right. It smelled faintly of something sweet and sterile, like a flower that had never known dirt.

You clutched the sheets tighter to your chest, your head spinning.

“Hello?” you rasped. No answer, just the never ending hum.

You tried again.

“HELLO?”

Your voice echoed strangely, rebounding without substance, as though the room itself were swallowing the sound.

A prickling sensation raced down your spine as you scrambled to your feet. Your legs were weak and shaky, like you hadn’t used them in days. You stumbled toward the nearest wall and pressed your palms flat against it.

It was warm.

Not cold like metal. Not smooth like glass.

Warm, as though the structure around you was some kind of living skin.

You recoiled instinctively.

“What the fuck,” you whispered.

Your chest heaved as you tried to remember.

Where were you?

Where was your family?

Had you died?

The last thing you remembered was hiding. Listening to the world end. And then— nothing. Your stomach twisted violently. Panic set in like lead poisoning, slow but lethal. You began slamming your fists against the wall.

“LET ME OUT!”

“WHERE AM I?!”

Nothing. No doors appeared, no voices responded. But the hum grew louder, though, it didn’t feel or sound angry. Not mechanical.

It sounded oddly interested.

You froze, pressing your back against the bed as a low chime resonated throughout the space. The wall directly across from you rippled, like the surface of a pond disturbed by a stone, and opened.

A doorway formed from nothing, and something stepped through.

At first, you thought he was wrong. Everything about him felt off in ways your mind couldn’t fully process.

Tall—towering—with limbs too graceful and too fluid to be comforting.

Skin pale and luminous, glowing softly from within, threaded with faint iridescence that shifted as he moved. Hair dark and weightless, littered with braids adorned with glimmering otherworldly metals, drifting as though underwater. Framing features too symmetrical, too perfect.

And his eyes.

They were unsettling, solid black at first glance.

But as he drew closer, they shifted—illuminated galaxies of silver, violet, and deep cosmic blues, swirling softly in patterns that hurt to stare at for too long.

You stumbled backward, your legs colliding with the bed as your pulse thundered.

He did not flinch, but instead stepped closer.

Graceful. Effortless.

You couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Every primitive instinct screamed at you to run, but your body betrayed you. He tilted his head as he regarded you.

Not cruelly, not kindly. Curiously.

His voice slid across your mind rather than your ears.

“You are… fragile.”

You flinched, shaking your head as if a bug was caught in your hair. The words felt invasive, sliding into your consciousness without permission.

He stepped closer.

“I am Jeongguk.”

The name thrums with alien cadence, yet tastes almost familiar in your mind. His glowing eyes flicker faintly, as if pleased by your terror.

“You reside aboard Virexum,” he continues calmly. “This vessel collects and preserves what remains after eradication.”

“Eradication?” you whisper, voice hollow.

“Earth was terminated.”

A pause, as if considering how much you can process. “Your species had reached decay. Pollution. War. Rot. The Kaereth do not preserve weakness. We cleanse.”

The words hit harder than any weapon. You shake your head violently, sobbing openly now.

Your father, your sister. They’re…gone?

“No. No, you can’t— you didn’t—”

“It was mercy.”

His voice softens slightly, but not kindly. “Existence without evolution is entropy. The Kaereth do not allow suffering. We end it.”

You can’t breathe.

You drop to your knees, pressing your palms to your face as the horror swells and breaks inside you.

But he does not.

Tears flooded your vision, hot and blinding as your sobs shattered the sterile silence, ugly and helpless.

He watches you the way one might watch a dying star—quietly admiring, deeply fascinated.

When you finally stilled, he crouched before you, his claws retracting as he reached out. You recoiled instinctively, but he only touched your hair, brushing it back from your damp face with a tenderness that felt foreign.

“I did not erase you,” he murmurs.

You flinch, but his hand cradles your face delicately, tipping it up so you have no choice but to meet his gaze.

“You glowed,” he says, softer now. Almost enthralled.

“Amidst destruction, you clung to life. You burned brighter than the dying world around you. You will not suffer,” he said quietly. “You are mine now. You will be kept.”

Kept.

The word echoed as he stood again, gesturing to the room around you. “This is yours. Safe. Nourishing. You will adjust.”

You choked on disbelief.

“Why me?”

He paused.

And for the first time since he arrived, his expression shifted. His eyes darkened. His lips parted just slightly, almost pious.

“Because,” he murmured, as though speaking to himself, “you glowed brightest before death.”

With that, he turned and left, the wall sealing behind him in silence.

Leaving you alone with the hum, and the terrible, hollow truth that you were the last of your kind. And you were his now.

Whatever that meant.

Whatever that would become.

::::::::::::

You don’t remember sleeping, but when your eyes open again, raw and heavy from hours of silent sobbing, the room is dimmer. The walls, once glowing faintly like a moonlit sea, have softened to a deep, low shimmer, as though mimicking the concept of nighttime.

You’re still here.

Still locked in this dreamless nightmare of seamless walls and soundless air.

Still wearing the thin, pale shift you woke up in, neither warm nor cold, but irritating in its neutrality.

Still alone.

Except… you aren’t.

You feel him before you see him. The hum of the room changes. Deepens, sharpens as though the ship itself reacts to his presence.

You sit up slowly, wiping your face, throat dry from hours of ragged breathing.

When the wall ripples open again, it’s almost gentle. Less like a command, and more like the way curtains are drawn back to allow moonlight in.

And there he stands.

Jeongguk.

Alien. Impossibly elegant.

Unfathomably tall, framed in the soft glow as though carved from the bones of dying stars.

You freeze when his eyes meet yours, not because they’re cruel. But because they are intent.

Hungry.

Unblinking.

“You are awake.”

His voice slides across your mind again, as smooth as silk and as cold as space.

You swallow tightly, sitting rigid on the edge of the bed. Your legs are weak, but you fight to keep your spine straight.

“Please,” you whisper hoarsely, the word tasting hollow in your mouth. “Please just tell me what you want from me.”

He pauses.

“I have told you,” he says, moving forward, soundless as shadow. “You are mine. You will be kept. That is what I want.”

His words make your stomach twist violently. You push up from the bed, backing away until your shoulder blades press into the wall behind you.

“You can’t just— keep me!”

Your voice cracks, teetering between hysteria and disbelief.

“I’m not some… some thing you can collect!”

He stops mid step, considering.

His expression doesn’t change and yet, you can feel the weight of his scrutiny press down on you.

“Incorrect,” he says softly, as though correcting a child. “You are precious. Not a ‘thing’. Not to me.”

You open your mouth to argue, to scream, but your breath catches as something changes.

The bioluminescent lines across his body shift subtly. They pulse gently.

You don’t know why, but the sight makes your heart stutter.

Is that emotion?

Before you can question it, he raises one hand.

A low chime echoes through the room, and from the far wall, a smooth panel unfolds. It reveals a strange, device that emits fragrant steam.

Your stomach clenches painfully as your senses recognize what it is before your mind does.

Food.

Or, at least, something meant to replicate it. Soft, pale orbs float in an iridescent broth, giving off a smell not unlike fresh bread and honey.

It should be comforting.

But in this place, nothing feels comforting.

“You have not consumed nourishment in sixteen of your planet’s hours,” Jeongguk says calmly, gesturing toward the offering.

“Your body weakens. This is inefficient.”

You hesitate, eyeing the bowl warily.

“I’m not hungry,” you lie.

His head tilts, faintly reptilian in the gesture, and for the first time, a flicker of something sharper edges into his tone.

“You will eat.”

The words are not barked.

Not threatening.

But absolute.

You stare back at him, shaking slightly.

And when you make no move to comply, he steps forward and takes the bowl himself, walking closer until he is far too near. He crouches, folding gracefully in front of you like a predator settling in for the kill.

But instead of violence, he offers you the bowl directly.

Holding it out, waiting patiently.

“Eat,” he murmurs.

His eyes glow faintly as they fix on your face.

“For me.”

Your lips part helplessly. Something in the way he says it. Quiet, almost intimately, sends your skin crawling and burning at once.

You hate him.

You hate him.

You hate him.

And yet…

Your body obeys. Your fingers tremble as you accept the bowl, lifting one of the pale orbs to your lips.

It tastes… nothing like food.

But it dissolves softly on your tongue, leaving behind warmth that creeps slowly down your throat.

Not unpleasant, not pleasurable. Just… filling.

Sustaining.

You eat in silence, aware of his unwavering gaze as you do. When the bowl empties, he takes it back carefully, setting it aside.

“Better,” he says quietly.

You can’t meet his eyes.

The tears come again without permission, sliding hot and heavy down your face. You curl in on yourself, trying to muffle the broken sounds that escape your throat.

And then… a touch.

Featherlight at first, fingers ghosting against your temple, sliding into your hair.

You tense, but he does not press.

“You fear me.” His words are not questioning. “Good. It is natural. You are fragile.”

Your breath hitches painfully.

His hand slips lower, knuckles grazing your cheek with maddening delicacy.

“But fear will fade,” he continues softly. “In time, you will see. I am not cruel. I am constant. You will not be harmed. You will be… cherished.”

You turn your head away sharply and his fingers slip free, but you feel the weight of his focus intensify.

“You misunderstand your position,” he murmurs. “Earth is gone. You are alone in a universe that has no place for you. No one will come for you. No one can.”

You clench your fists tightly in your lap, the truth cutting deeper than his touch ever could.

“Why me?” you ask, voice breaking. “Why not let me die with the rest?”

He leans in slightly, his presence invading your every sense.

“Because when others knelt and wept… you raged,” he whispers. “You burned. You clung to life with ferocity. That is rare.”

His eyes soften, if such a thing is possible for something so alien.

“I collect what should not exist.” A faint smile, too serene, too knowing. “You are an anomaly. You are mine.”

You bite down hard on your lower lip, forcing back another sob.

“This isn’t cherishing,” you whisper bitterly.

“This is prison.”

He doesn’t flinch. Instead, he rises slowly, towering over you once more. His hands fold neatly behind his back. The perfect image of composed, regal authority.

“No,” he agrees softly. “This is preservation.”

He steps back toward the door, but his voice reaches you again as it ripples open to accept him.

“Rest. I will return when you are calmer.”

A pause.

“And eventually… you will thank me.”

Then he is gone.

And you’re eft in the silence once more—but not alone.

Not really.

Because his scent still lingers. His voice still hums faintly in your mind. And worse, you realize part of you is already listening for his return.

::::::::::::

You don’t see him again for three cycles. You don’t know how you know this. There’s no sun here, no night and day, no ticking clock on sterile walls—but your body remembers.

It remembers the ache of hunger.

The slow unraveling of sanity when left in isolation. The bone deep dread that blooms in the absence of any other voice but your own.

For seventy two hours, maybe more, maybe less, you are alone.

The ship hums softly at all hours, the walls glowing faintly like a slumbering beast. Your room, if you can even call it that, remains locked.

No doors.

No windows.

Just blank, seamless walls and a bed that conforms to your every restless shift.

Food appears twice, delivered silently through a hidden panel in the wall, but you ignore it. You sit curled on the bed, stomach clenching painfully, but you refuse to give in.

Not again, not after last time.

He’d fed you like a child.

Watched you with something sickly tender in his eyes while you cried and ate and fell apart in front of him.

No.

You will not make this easy for him. Your anger is all you have left. The only shield between you and the quiet, desperate terror that creeps in when you allow yourself to feel anything else.

So you don’t eat.

You don’t sleep.

You don’t talk to the empty room, no matter how loud the silence becomes.

You wait.

Because you know he’ll come back, of course he will.

Men like him, things like him, always come back.

And when he does, you are ready.

—

He appears on the fourth cycle.

Not like before, there’s no grand entrance. No rippling doors or ominous hums.

You wake to find him already there, standing at the foot of the bed like a phantom who has always belonged in your nightmares. He watches you in silence, arms folded behind his back, eyes glowing softly in the low light.

You glare at him, lips cracked from dehydration.

He says nothing.

“Fuck you.”

Your voice scrapes like gravel against your raw throat, but it feels good to say.

Good to bite, even if your teeth barely graze.

His head tilts slightly, that same alien gesture that makes your stomach turn.

“You are weakening,” he observes softly, almost clinically. “Your refusal to consume nourishment endangers your cellular structure. This is illogical.”

You laugh, sharp and brittle.

“Good. Let me die, then.”

For the first time, his expression shifts, not dramatically, but his brows knit slightly, his mouth drawing in the faintest sliver.

He doesn’t like that.

“Negative,” he says quietly, stepping closer. “I will not allow termination.”

You push yourself up on shaking arms, baring your teeth in something that feels more animal than human.

“I don’t belong to you. You can’t keep me like this. Feeding me, locking me in this—this cage! I’ll starve before I let you win.”

His eyes narrow faintly, glowing brighter. “You misunderstand,” he murmurs, his voice lowering dangerously.

“This is not a contest,” he moves closer, slow, deliberate steps that make your pulse spike and your limbs tremble. “This is inevitability.”

You scramble off the bed, stumbling backward until your spine hits the wall. His presence consumes the room, filling every atom of available space, as though the ship itself responds to his shifting mood.

He stands before you now, towering and still.

“You may resist,” he allows softly. “You may cry, scream, refuse… for a time.”

His hand rises, not threatening, but steady as his fingers gently, maddeningly, brush your jaw. The touch sends a bolt of revulsion and something more complicated spiraling through you.

“But you will acclimate.”

His voice vibrates softly in your bones, dangerous in its certainty.

You slap his hand away, the sound cracking through the air like gunfire.

For a moment, nothing happens.

He simply stares at you, the tips of his fingers still poised where they had been, motionless, as though stunned.

And then…he withdraws, silently. Without anger or words. Simply steps back, gaze unreadable, and turns for the door.

Panic flashes hot and instant through your chest. “No—” you gasp, confused by your own terror at his sudden departure.

He stops just before the wall seals behind him. For the first time, his voice emerges aloud, not through your mind, but spoken.

Low.

Flat.

Cold.

“You have chosen isolation.”

Then he’s gone, and so is everything else.

The hum of the ship fades, the lights dim to near darkness. The temperature drops, not enough to freeze, but enough to chill your skin, to make your breath puff faintly in the air.

The bed retracts into the wall.

The food panel vanishes.

You are left standing in nothing.

Cold.

Alone.

—

For hours—maybe days—you are abandoned to the hollow, oppressive silence.

Your tears dry.

Your voice fades from hoarseness to nothing. Your legs give out, and you curl on the hard floor, clutching yourself tightly as sleep eludes you in the endless dark.

You hate him.

You hate him.

You hate him.

But when the wall finally ripples open again, soft, warm light spilling through and his tall, silent figure appears in the doorway once more, you sob.

Relief.

Humiliation.

Rage.

You don’t understand which emotion is which anymore.

He crosses the threshold slowly, eyes glowing faintly in gentle shades of blue and pink. Soft, careful, like a predator soothing prey after the kill.

Without speaking, he kneels before you, gathering your shaking body into his arms. You don’t fight him this time.

You can’t.

You’re too cold.

Too broken.

His hand strokes your hair as he murmurs something low in his language, soft syllables that sound like lullabies from a galaxy you will never see.

“I will not harm you,” he whispers, pressing his lips against your temple. “Do not make me hurt you through absence again; I ache.”

Your fingers clutch his robe weakly, sobs muffled against his chest.

“I hate you,” you whisper, but it’s empty.

Weak.

He hums softly.

“I know.”

He pulls you closer, cradling you as though you are delicate and rare, because to him, you are.

“And yet you need me.”

You can’t argue.

Not right now.

Not when his warmth is the only thing that feels real in this endless void of stars and silence.

::::::::::::

You don’t sleep, even when your body begs you to.

Sleep would mean trusting the silence, surrendering.

So you lay awake on the strange, pliant surface that the ship has provided. Not quite a bed, but softer than the floor that left your bones aching and cold during your punishment.

You are still recovering from that.

The ache of isolation.

The terror of being truly, utterly alone.

But more than that��� you are recovering from the humiliation.

Because when he returned, when he found you curled and trembling, teeth chattering and face raw from tears, you clung to him.

You didn’t mean to.

Your body simply reacted, desperate and starved for anything warm and familiar.

Your fingers twisted into the dark folds of his robes, your face pressed into the cool planes of his chest, and you wept like a creature broken open.

And Jeongguk did nothing but hold you.

No words.

No threats.

No cruel satisfaction.

Just stillness.

Just presence.

His hands stroked your back, slow and repetitive, the way you imagine one might soothe a terrified animal.

His head bent low, his breath ghosting against your temple as he whispered words in a language your mind couldn’t translate, soft and melodic, making you feel drunk with the weight of them.

Even now, hours later, his scent still lingers on your skin.

Warm and metallic.

Alien and oddly sweet.

Like lightning woven into silk.

You hate that you find comfort in it now. You hate yourself more than you hate him, but the truth is suffocating in its simplicity.

You needed him.

And he knew it.

—

The door ripples again, seamlessly and without warning. You stiffen instinctively, heart leaping to your throat.

But when Jeongguk steps through, he does not bring the same oppressive energy he had before.

There is no towering, silent menace, or sharp glint of irritation or frustration in his starlit eyes.

Instead…he looks calm, serene, even.

His robes have changed. Still dark, but lighter now. Softer. He wears no armor, or sharp adornments. His hair hangs loose, gleaming faintly in the ship’s low bioluminescence.

He looks… domestic.

If such a word could ever apply to him.

The ship itself seems to respond, the walls brightening subtly, soft, ambient pulses that make the air feel warmer somehow.

More intimate.

Less clinical.

It unnerves you more than his previous coldness.

“Good,” he says quietly, his voice sliding into your consciousness with practiced ease. “You remain.”

You glare at him, but your body betrays you again, relaxing minutely at the familiar cadence of his presence.

“I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I?” you mutter bitterly.

Jeongguk tilts his head slightly, considering.

“No,” he agrees softly. “But you remained nonetheless.”

The phrasing makes something twist painfully low in your stomach. Before you can respond, he approaches, slow, careful steps as though approaching something fragile.

Which, in his eyes, you suppose you are.

He lowers himself gracefully beside you on the bed like surface, close enough that you feel the subtle hum of his energy brushing against your skin.

“I have observed,” he begins, tone thoughtful. “Prolonged isolation causes distress beyond simple physical discomfort in your species.”

You scoff, wrapping your arms around your knees protectively.

“Yeah. That’s called being human.”

He hums softly, as though filing the information away like a precious resource.

“I have no desire to harm you, little star,” he murmurs, and his hand lifts, pausing in the air between you, as if seeking silent permission.

You don’t give it.

But you don’t pull away when his fingers brush lightly across your hair, tucking it back from your face.

His touch is careful.

Maddening.

“I desire only your peace.”

You choke on a bitter laugh.

“Peace? You abducted me, destroyed my planet, locked me in this ship and act like that’s kindness.”

His expression softens, strangely fond despite your venom.

“You misunderstand,” he says gently.

“I did not destroy your planet. I spared you from its fate.”

His fingers trail down, brushing against the curve of your cheek, the line of your jaw, and you shiver despite yourself.

“You were meant to end,” he continues softly, voice almost hypnotic. “But you burned. You raged. You survived.”

His thumb strokes softly against your lower lip, a touch so tender you forget, briefly, how much you despise him.

“You are rare,” he murmurs. “And rare things are not discarded. They are treasured.”

The words settle in your chest like poison wrapped in silk. You should recoil, should slap his hand away, curse him until your throat gives out.

But instead…you close your eyes.

Just for a moment.

Just long enough to feel the soft press of his palm against your cheek, anchoring you in this strange, terrible reality.

He takes your silence as permission.

Of course he does.

“Good,” he breathes, satisfaction humming softly in his voice. “You are learning.”

You force your eyes open, glaring weakly at him.

“Learning what?”

His lips curl faintly, not quite a smile, but something disturbingly close.

“To accept.”

You hate him.

You hate him.

But when he shifts closer, pressing his body flush to yours, wrapping an arm carefully around your shoulders, you don’t pull away.

You are cold.

You are tired.

You are alone.

And he is warm.

He is steady.

He is here.

You rest your head against his shoulder before you can think better of it, disgust warring with relief in your chest.

Jungkook says nothing, but the ship hums softly around you, glowing faintly in shades of rose and gold. Contentment radiating from every surface.

You don’t realize how tightly you’ve curled against him until his mouth brushes the crown of your head.

“You will see soon,” he murmurs, words sinking deep into your bones. “I am not your enemy. I am your only constant.”

You fall asleep before you can argue. And for the first time since Earth fell, you sleep through the cycle without waking to scream.

::::::::::::

You wake to warmth.

Not the clinical, neutral temperature of the ship. That engineered comfort that feels more like a lack of discomfort than real heat but true warmth.

Soft.

Heavy.

Alive.

For a moment, your mind refuses to grasp why.

You are tucked beneath something impossibly smooth and weighty , fabric like liquid silk draped over your body, cocooning you in decadent softness.

And behind you, against the curve of your spine, something solid.

Firm.

Breathing.

A heartbeat thrums, steady and deep, so close it vibrates through your back and into your bones.

Not the ship.

Him.

Jeongguk.

You go rigid before you can think. Your hands clench the sheets, alien and faintly iridescent m, as you strain to control your breathing.

You are being held, no, you are being kept.

His arm is heavy across your waist, claws retracted but still unsettling, his fingers resting just beneath your ribcage with terrifying intimacy. His face is pressed lightly to the crown of your head, long hair brushing against your temple like ghost silk.

For several agonizing seconds, you debate your options.

Pull away.

Wake him.

Escape—if that’s even possible anymore.

But as your heart hammers and your stomach twists, you realize something worse.

You don’t want to move.

Because for the first time in what feels like forever, you are not cold, you are not alone, or terrified of what silence might bring.

You are simply… held.

And that, somehow, feels more dangerous than anything he’s done so far.

He stirs before you can make a decision.

The shift is subtle, the faint tightening of his grip, the softening of his breath, the way the ship’s hum lifts faintly, mirroring the change in atmosphere.

Then his voice slides into your mind, quieter than usual.

Thicker.

“You are awake.”

You flinch slightly, but he does not move away. Instead, he exhales slowly, the sound almost… content.

“You slept well,” he murmurs aloud this time, his voice low and textured, as though speaking in words costs him more effort than using your mind.

“You did not cry.”

Shame burns through you instantly. You twist beneath his arm, trying to put space between your bodies, but his hold tightens slightly.

“No,” he says softly, head dipping lower so that his breath brushes the shell of your ear. “Stay.”

Your heart races painfully.

“Why?” you whisper, hating the smallness in your voice.

His answer is simple.

“Because you do not truly wish to leave.”

You freeze.

He doesn’t say it cruelly.

He doesn’t taunt or mock.

He speaks it as though it is a fact he has long since accepted and is merely waiting for you to do the same.

Before you can respond, he shifts, drawing back just enough to allow you to turn and face him. The sight steals the words from your throat.

Up close, he is devastating.

More than alien.

More than beautiful.

His features are carved from something you do not have words for, too elegant to be called soft, too precise to be human. His silver violet eyes glow faintly in the dimness, framed by dark lashes that cast delicate shadows across high cheekbones.

But it is the way he looks at you that truly leaves you breathless.

Not with desire.

Not with hunger.

With… possession. As though you are the first and only star in his universe.

You turn your face away, pulse hammering.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

He does not obey.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m—”

You falter, teeth sinking into your lower lip.

“Yours,” you finish bitterly.

His hand moves, fingers brushing your jaw, guiding you gently to meet his gaze again.

“You are mine,” he murmurs softly, as though stating something as mundane as the time of day. “You remain only because I desire it. You live because I allow it. You breathe because I have given you this sanctuary.”

The words are cruel in logic, yet his voice is gentle.

You tremble beneath the weight of them, but he only continues, thumb stroking softly against your cheekbone.

“But you do not need to fear that.” He leans closer, voice dropping lower, coaxing you like one would soothe a frightened animal.

“You do not need to fight so hard. You are cared for. Sheltered. Treasured.”

You want to scream. Want to tell him how wrong he is, how suffocating this is.

But your body remembers the days alone in the dark.

The cold.

The ache.

The crushing silence that left you frantic and desperate for any presence at all. And your body, traitorous and desperate, does not want to return to that.

So instead, you say nothing.

You simply let him hold you.

Let his touch stroke soothing patterns against your spine.

Let your eyes slip closed, not because you want him, but because for now… he feels safe.

—

The days that follow blur together.

Jeongguk becomes a near constant presence, no longer leaving for long stretches. He is always near. Quietly watching, quietly touching, quietly existing in every corner of your small world.

Meals are no longer delivered in silence.

Now, he brings them himself, sitting beside you as you eat, observing your reactions with soft fascination, as though memorizing every flicker of expression.

He asks questions, though never demands answers.

“Why do you frown when eating this?”

“Does this flavor please you more?”

“Do you enjoy these colors?”

It’s strange. Stranger still when you find yourself answering.

Not out of obligation or out of fear. But because the emptiness left by silence is worse.

You talk quietly, giving short answers at first, but over time, they grow longer. You explain foods you miss. You describe music, books, seasons. You speak of snow and rain and laughter, and though he listens with alien detachment, he seems oddly enchanted by your words.

“You will show me,” he says one cycle, after you describe autumn leaves falling in lazy spirals.

You blink at him in confusion.

“Earth is gone.”

His head tilts.

“Virexum can make what you desire.”

You do not know whether to be horrified or grateful. But when the next cycle arrives, your room transforms.The walls ripple and shift until soft amber light filters through projected trees.

Illusions of wind rustle leaves that glow faintly gold and crimson.

You laugh, startled and disbelieving.

And Jeongguk…

He smiles.

Not wide.

Not human.

But soft, and faintly victorious.

As though every small inch you offer him, every smile, every word, every sigh, is another chain wound tightly around your wrists.

—

It happens one night as you sit side by side on the bed, eating quietly. Your hands brush when reaching for the same dish and you both freeze.

The contact is brief.

Innocent.

But it lingers. His fingers slide softly over yours, slow and intentional as though mapping the shape of them.

You don’t pull away, pulse racing, your cheeks flush, but still, you let it happen.

Something shifts in his gaze.

It’s not hunger, not cruelty…longing.

The moment stretches and the ship grows impossibly quiet, as though the walls themselves are holding their breath. You’re the one who breaks it, pulling your hand away with a nervous laugh that sounds too loud in the stillness.

Jeongguk says nothing.

But his eyes follow you all the same, glowing softly in the dim amber light.

Watching.

Always watching.

—

That night, as you lay down and let him pull you close, his arms wrapping securely around your body as though sealing you in, you don’t resist.

You let him tuck your head beneath his chin, your hands curl lightly against his chest.

And when he whispers against your hair, voice low and factual, “you are becoming mine.”

You don’t argue.

Because deep down, beneath the remnants of your rage and sorrow, beneath the tangled mess of shame and longing—

You know he is right.

two | masterlist

[derireo-galge]

Drawing Lesson 🐾

| 1,6k | little space | little Yoongi | yoonmin |

Jimin finds a good activity to distract Yoonie from feeling a little blue.

[ Little Yoongi x Caregiver Jimin series ]

Tags: sfw | canonverse | soft yoonmin

🐾

With how attentive he became about everything related to Yoongi lately, even more than before, it was hard not to notice him feeling a little down while he was on a small break from his usual schedule. He is used to being active, always busy with something, and when there was nothing he could self occupy himself with, which was pretty rare, he would become a little anxious. Especially when the never ending process of working on music would slow down or he would get stuck on verse one.

Jimin walked inside the bedroom and found Yoongi laying on the bed with his head hanging off the edge. He started watching him and noticed how his hyung would sometimes get up after being in such position and try to look at everything around him. Probably the rush of blood to his head was giving him black spots or something. Yoongi looked utterly fascinated and his caregiver was going through stages of being surprised, being endeared and being hit with realization that his Yoonie was bored.

Luckily he has prepared for it. He has been waiting for this, having noticed how Yoongi would go deeper into his thoughts, how he would become more quiet. In moments like these Jimin wasn't sure if he should give space or help otherwise, even after so many years of knowing him. He offered quiet support to Yoongi, kept silent company with exquisite drinks and soft music playing. Did stuff around the house so he doesn't have to, not that Yoongi felt like doing it himself anyway. He would do something small for him, subtly offering to eat or to take a nap. For Yoonie he could offer more than that.

Jimin took the package he ordered from art supplies store. He was hoping to interest his little in some drawing. He prepared well, watching some basic tutorials and thought the process through to put Yoonie in the situation of success - he heard that it was important with kids this age and the same should apply to littles too.

- Yoonie, - he called softly.

His hyung was sitting in the bed cross legged and focused on him immediately when he heard Jimin's voice. The younger was holding the package behind his back, making it obvious he was hiding something.

- Jiminie? Oh, are you hiding something?

Yoonie's curious nature couldn't let him stay bored on the bed. He had a new goal now, a new mystery. He put his legs on the floor trying to take a peek behind Jimin's back, unsuccessfully.

- Maybe, - Jimin shrugged playfully.

- Will you show me?

Yoonie's lips slightly jutted out. If Jimin was prepared to do it before, now it was a need. He should never underestimate the power of Yoonpout. It made him want to lay the world to his feet.

- Why don't we sit at the table in the lounge and I'll show you what I have? You can open it yourself too.

One more thing out of dozens of new ones that he noticed was the fact that little Yoongi loved unwrapping things. Doesn't matter what they were: food, par els from online shops, new tools or beauty products. With that quirk of his doing groceries and unloading them all at either of their apartments has become a much longer process, yet not less satisfactory. A single one of Yoongi's smiles was worth a million of inconveniences.

Yoonie comfortably sat on the pillow he slid off the couch onto the floor. He looked at Jimin expectantly and the younger finally revealed the package he has been hiding. It looked rather plain but Yoonie was excited anyway.

- Is this for me?

- Yes. It's for something I thought we could do together today.

Yoonie determingly started working on opening the package. Soon he took the first item out and carefully opened the lid. It it was a set of watercolours, a simple one for kids which Jimin snatched the minute he saw it, having hope the little would like it.

- These are beautiful! But I don't know how to paint with them.

- It's okay, Yoonie, you will see it's easier than they say, - Jimin said reassuringly.

The next item was a set of paper, suitable for that kind of paints. And the third were pen brushes. Brand new, all in a similar blue shade and with a floral design on all of them.

- Let me show you, - Jimin offered, taking one of the pens. - We open it up, fill it with a bit of water and close it. When you squeeze it, some water comes out and it's easy to paint.

Jimin demonstrated the whole process and Yoonie watched with the stars in his eyes. He got very excited to try and the younger chuckled, looking at that happy face. He offered some pictures he saved while researching about the watercolours: all of them were on the beginner level but though they were simple, they looked catchy and bright.

Yoonie chose what he wanted to try and recreate and they both got to work. They went to the bathroom and filled their pen brushes, where the little tested them out immediately. He was fascinated with them and Jimin shared the sentiment. He had artist friends and with years learnt some things about art but these were a discovery for him too. He should describe their experience in the forum.

When they started on their drawings everything was great. Sometimes Yoonie would ask Jimin to choose a colour or ask how he was doing. Jimin praised him and watched how focused his hyung was, working with watercolours so smoothly as if he regularly practiced with them. Jimin assisted him just a tad because Yoonie wanted to do everything himself. When his hair got to his face, Jimin quietly got up and gathered it to tie with a hairband. Yoongi let him without protests, taking it as something essential.

- Jiminie, I don't have purple here, - Yoonie pouted.

- You can mix it yourself! - Jimin said cheerfully.

He showed in on a separate piece of paper and that opened floodgates to new questions. Jimin mixed and demonstrated how most colours would mix beautifully and how some of them weren't as "friendly" together.

- And if I mix these two?

Jimin dipped the brush in blue and then a little in green. He heard a quiet "Oh-h" when in the end he received a wonderful turquoise.

- Wow, it's like the ocean! And these?

Jimin took some of the yolk yellow and a tad of green and got some pretty lime.

- Oh! I love this one so much! What is your favourite?

- I like all colours, - Jimin said, - But yellow is very special to me.

Yoongi nodded knowingly, taking the information in. Jimin watched him carefully, determined to make him feel relaxed and content.

Yoonie worked with newfound knowledge and inspiration, filling the white paper with more colours. It was interesting to him how they all changed when he squeezed the pen brushes and a bigger amount of water made the colours lighter. He followed the picture meticulously, sometimes gasping when something he did was not quite like on the example. But he simply giggled it off and continued with his work, not bothering to consider those tiny mishaps "mistakes". Yoonie was less of a perfectionist than his adult version and that, if Jimin was honest, gave his hyung much more room to breathe.

The boredom was long forgotten and they painted together in a calm and pleasant atmosphere until the elder deemed his work finished. He proudly showcased it and Jimin thought it was very pretty.

- Wow, Yoonie, this is so awesome! - Jimin praised.

His hyung was unfairly good at everything and even now, being in this headspace and using previously unfamiliar tools, he made something beautiful. Jimin had the urge to frame and hang it on the wall, which he will definitely do in the nearest future.

- You did well too, Jiminie! - Yoonie said, looking at Jimin's work.

They cleaned up after themselves, putting the materials away and washing the pen brushes thoroughly. And after he thoroughly washed Yoongi's fingers, tinted in various colourful spots.

Jimin decided to definitely do it again. He loved how they spent this time. Yoongi worked with such a serious attitude yet he painted with a smile on his face. And he wanted to do every single picture Jimin showed him. This could be another of their projects.

After a filling lunch that Jimin quickly put together, Yoonie refused a nap and they moved to the lounge and the elder chose what he wanted to watch. Yet, in less than a quarter of an hour he was fast asleep.

- Told you, it was nap time, - Jimin murmured softly, lovingly, carefully getting the loose locks out of Yoongi's face and gliding his palm over them, smoothing his hair out.

He slept for a while, so long Jimin himself dozed off until he felt stirring where Yoongi's head was on his lap. The elder woke up and the first thing he saw were their paintings they left to fully dry on the table.

- Thank you for this, Jimin-ah, - he rasped, - I loved this a lot today.

Jimin ran his hand through Yoongi's dark hair, tucking some strands behind his ear. Even if he would never get to experience this headspace for himslef, he wanted to learn all the methods and ways of accommodating Yoongi when he was in it. He wanted to learn and explore with him.

- The pleasure was all mine, hyung. How are you feeling?

- Very rested.

He looked rested too. With slightly swollen face and eyes still sleepy, he had a tentative smile on his face.

~end

[lilprincegoo]

to outlast a star by fl_our

jimin/taehyung

Alternate Universe - Space, Light Angst, Banter, Alien fauna, Shuttle Pilot Park Jimin, Resident Naturalist Kim Taehyung, Falling In Love, Time Skips, vmin are disgustingly in love Space Edition

8.4k words

rating: T

There’s a thin layer of dust in his hair and encrusted in the nooks and crannies of his uniform. Russet, the color of the soil beneath their feet. Of aging fox fur. Taehyung supposes he must be covered in it too, what with the hot, dry solstice wind kicking up so much of it on this moon. Supposes it must be in his lungs, tiny red sediments, a miniature sandstorm. It’s not the worst souvenir he’s ever carried off from a mission. [Taehyung takes up a job sketching endangered species all over the galaxy. Jimin flies him steady.]

[sleepyhoon]

✰ pairing. — emo!hs x reader

✰ genre. — early 2000s au, best friend's older brother, childhood friends to lovers, smut, light angst.

✰ word count. — 7k+

✰ warnings. — swearing, family issues, partying, mentions of drinking/drugs, friendship betrayal (?), smut [virginity loss, teasing, fingering, soft dom!hs, "i've waited so long for this" type shit], reader and hs are both 18+, minors dni. very cliche shit. reader doesn’t know much abt sex tbh.

✰ synopsis. — Love notes were slipped into your locker on a daily basis. Variations of messy, boyish handwriting on yellow sticky notes stacked upon themselves by the end of each school day. Every Friday night you were invited out with the promise of, "You'll have fun, just give it a chance."

You could have any guy you wanted, no doubt about it. Yet somehow, the only one you do want is the tattooed, gothic one that lives a few doors down from your best friend.

✰ a/n. revamping this from my bts acc with heeseung this time bc im absolutely obsessed with this couple and need them to exist in every possible universe :P revamping part 2 as we speak and ill post in a few days hehe

✰ perm taglist. @intromortal @aanniikkaa @meetletsinmontauk @lovelyyf @right-person-wrong-time

———

Two monumental events had been etched into your brain for eternity, the first being sneaking out in the middle of the night to meet up with your friends at the community pool. The second is fifteen minutes upon arriving at the pool, seeing your best friend's older brother emerge from the chlorine-scented water as if he were Poseidon and realizing you were utterly infatuated by him.

Lee Chaeryeong isn't blind to this, immediately pulling you away from the crowd to question the longing gaze on your face. "Out of every fucking guy here with us, you're making eyes at my brother? You do know that Heeseung is completely gross, right?" She was so furious, you're surprised no steam was blowing from her ears.

Deny it all you want (and you certainly did within that fifteen-minute interrogation); Heeseung very clearly had a hold on you that lasted many years following that fateful night. He wasn't even your usual type; he wouldn't be caught dead around the guys you're typically drawn to. He had a rebellious side; maybe that's why getting him out of your head was nearly impossible.

Of course, the eternal guilt of falling for your best friend's older, dumbass brother is also difficult to get out of your head.

It can't be helped, really. Anytime you'd visit their home, your eyes would automatically wander through the crack of his doorway as you'd pass by. Whether he was messily cutting his dark hair while blasting Pierce the Veil from his speakers or giving himself a new Stick-and-Poke tattoo as he waited for a CD to finish burning, you long to break away from Chaeryeong for a moment to speak to him. Ask him about his day or if his band had any upcoming gigs. You'd even talk to him about paint drying if it meant you'd get to be in the same space as him.

So it's safe to say you were completely heartbroken when he left for college. Chaeryeong, however, is over the moon. Or so you think.

"… He's your brother, though. You don't think you're gonna miss him at all?" You ask, watching Chaeryeong delicately paint your fingernails a pretty shade of purple.

She shrugs, "I mean… it's definitely gonna be weird not seeing him around the house every day, but he'll still visit sometimes. Maybe."

Deep down, Chaeryeong knows Heeseung won't visit much. He'd been craving freedom and independence from their parents for ages, and moving away for college gave him the perfect opportunity to live as he pleased. They weren't fond of the clothes he wore or the friends he had, and absolutely couldn't bear the music his band makes. They criticized every little thing about him, and he'd finally be getting a break from them.

As you're about to ask Chaeryeong if she's okay, she stands from her bed, screwing the nail polish closed. "I'll be back. I have to let Bam out." Her voice is shaky, and she doesn't look at you as she exits the room.

You take the opportunity to make your way down the hall and to Heeseung's door, which he has conveniently left wide open as he scrolls on his desktop. His knees are pressed against his chest as he's heavily focused on editing his Facebook page. There's a rock song playing lightly from another tab that you can't quite identify; he uses his free hand to gently tap along to the beat of the music.

His room is covered in cardboard boxes, soon to be packed into his parents' minivan and making their way to the University of San Francisco dorms.

Your knuckles tap on his wooden door, your heart fluttering when he turns around, and you realize he's changed the ring on his lip from black to silver.

He nods at you, "What's up?"

"Nothing. I just know you're leaving in the morning, and I wanted to say bye. And wish you good luck, of course." You're not sure why you're so heartbroken. It's not like the two of you were ever a thing. It's not like this would be your last time seeing him. Why were you so upset?

"Cool, thanks." You assume that was his way of indirectly telling you to get out until he reaches into his desk drawer and says, "Catch," before tossing something towards you.

Careful not to mess up your manicure, you easily catch the item, unfolding what appears to be a purple bandanna. "What's this for?" You ask, inspecting the material in your palms.

"To remember me by, duh. Plus, it matches your nails.”

It'd be silly to tell him you genuinely don't need this because there was no way in hell you could ever forget about him. Instead, you clutch the bandana tightly in your fist and make a silent vow to keep it with you at all times; have a piece of him with you at all times.

You thank him and tell him it's nice, but all you can wonder is why he even wants you to remember him in the first place. Maybe you're overthinking. He probably just didn't care for the useless accessory anymore.

When you turn to leave, Heeseung stops you with a gentle call of your name. He turns his head in your direction, tugging his bottom lip between his teeth. "Can I tell you something?"

"Anything." You whisper back, praying you don't sound overly desperate for a more extended interaction with him.

A beat of silence passes, and just as he opens his mouth to respond, Chaeryeong is stomping up the stairs and belting out your name. You gaze away from Heeseung to glance behind you, listening as his sister shouts about doing each other's makeup.

"Never mind, actually. It's not important." Heeseung interrupts, and you physically feel your heart sink to the floor.

You're about to be annoying and pry a response out of him until your eyes dart to his floor, and you see it. What slipped out from his drawer when he tossed the bandana at you.

A condom wrapper. An empty one, at that.

It's embarrassing how quickly your vision becomes glossy, salty tears threatening to release with each passing second. Of course, he's fucking someone. Of course, that person isn't you. Of fucking course.

You shouldn't be surprised; he's probably more into girls with a similar aesthetic. She's probably covered in tattoos and piercings, just like him. She's probably older than you and may even have her own car, unlike you, who still had to catch rides with your parents or older sister.

It's odd, though. You're not entirely naive; you know Heeseung definitely flirts with you here and there, catching his eye when his gaze lingers on you for a second too long. There's a noticeable tension between the two of you that even your parents have teased about. And this whole time, he's been screwing someone else?

Heeseung hangs out with so many girls it'd be useless to even attempt to uncover who this mystery person is. It's none of your business, anyway.

So you leave.

You tell Chaeryeong you'll get grounded if you're home past curfew, and with tear-stained cheeks, you run home.

The following day isn't any easier.

Chaeryeong posted a photo on FaceBook of herself and Heeseung posing together, arms wrapped around each other, with the caption "c u l8r alligator XD". The comments are already flooded with responses wishing Heeseung farewell, some from family members or friends of the siblings.

"Don't 4get abt me!!!!!! >:( "from a girl with red hair catches your eye because it's the only one Heeseung responded to. You can't bring yourself to read his full reply, fingers moving to quickly close the tab after seeing the word 'Never.'

It's probably her, you think to yourself, the one he's sleeping with.

Maybe it's for the best that Heeseung's moving away; it'll give you some time to get over him.

And you most certainly did.

The only time he ever crosses your mind is when Chaeryeong brings him up (which she rarely does) or when you pass by his empty bedroom. Deep down, you know you'll always care for Heeseung on some level, but time away from him was just what you needed. You were too attached to him for no fathomable reason, rejecting any guy interested in you with the premise of being loyal to a guy who didn't even want you. He'd probably been sneaking girls in through his window, with you a few doors down doing magazine quizzes with his sister; blissfully unaware of what was happening down the hall.

You’re better off without him.

That's what you've been telling yourself daily until now. It's the start of summer vacation, and Heeseung's been summoned home to spend it with his family before Chaeryeong (and you) transfer to the University of San Francisco.

Heeseung was hesitant about coming home, as he always is. In constant fear that his parents have some elaborate plan for him to change his major or set him up with someone they deem acceptable, nothing like the girls he hangs around and probably invites back to his dorm.

It took days of convincing until Heeseung finally agreed to come home, under the premise that his parents' intentions were pure and that they simply wanted one last summer together before Chaeryeong moved away for college. They also hoped he'd be able to house-sit and watch over Chaeryeong for a few days as they took their annual anniversary trip to San Diego. That, however, took some bribing and the promise of gas money on their end.

He's not due to arrive until tomorrow morning, and you've convinced yourself there's no reason for you to see him right away. You'd be fine if the next time you saw him was in a few months as you're moving into your dorm. After years of longing, you've finally moved on from him.

Some of you have debated telling Chaeryeong about your past feelings for her brother, but there's no point. It was a one-sided relationship with absolutely zero depth, nothing worth discussing. So when she nudges your side and asks if you're interested in anyone, you reply with a shake of your head.

Chaeryeong has no reaction to this; she can't remember the last time you've been into anyone despite having the entire male population at your school practically throwing themselves at you. "Maybe you'll meet someone tonight."

She's referencing the house party you're going to, which she practically had to drag you out of your room to attend. Parties are different from your scene, especially on a day like today when you were hoping to have a girls' night with Chaeryeong. She had other plans, however.

"Maybe," you respond, sighing as the house you're attending is finally in your viewpoint. "We're not staying long, right? It looks packed."

Cars are parked throughout the street, one house, in particular, being the center of attention with loud music and drunk people decorating the front yard of a suburban-looking home. Chaeryeong looks as ecstatic as ever, looping her arm in yours and picking up her pace. She doesn't respond. It doesn't matter. Her response would've disregarded your concern.

One car catches your eye as you enter the unfamiliar house; it's parked towards the end of the street, and you swear you've been in it before. You're not able to dwell on it for too long, though, because Chaeryeong has to practically yank you through the front door.

Your nerves are at an all-time high. The music is entirely too loud, and there isn't a single sober person in sight. You're not sure how Chaeryeong even found out about this party, but you really wish she would've left you out of it. You'd go now if it were acceptable, but Chaeryeong would've stayed regardless, and you refuse to leave her alone. So, you push your feelings to the side and take her hand as she leads you towards the kitchen.

"Thirsty?" Chaeryeong questions, forcing a red solo cup into your hand.

"Not at all," you respond, sighing as Chaeryeong pours something into your cup.

"It's just ginger ale," she reassures you, "I don't think either of us should get drunk here." For once, she's being reasonable.

Chaeryeong suggests you do a lap around the house in hopes of running into people you may have gone to school with. And to your surprise, a decent amount of your past classmates have decided to attend. You feel more at ease with them around, a bit more comfortable now that you're around recognizable people. Although you initially hesitated to show up, you're glad you did.

"Anybody catch your eye yet? Or are you still breaking hearts?" Your old classmate, Yeoreum, questions.

You shake your head, about to explain that you're not interested in dating right now, until she gestures behind you. "That guy is pretty cute."

You shift on the couch, looking around until you spot who Yeoreum had been gesturing towards. You locate him finally, and she's right; he is cute. He just seems so familiar.

That's when it hits you.

"Oh my God," you whisper, eyes locked on him, and you slowly rise from the couch.

It's Heeseung. And the car you recognized was his. He's here. What is he doing here? He isn't due to be back until tomorrow morning.

You almost don't realize it's him until you spot the mole under his lip. He's grown his hair out and stopped dyeing it, the slew of tattoos that decorated his arm (God, did he start working out, too?) nicely connected, now creating a sleeve, and he's given himself an eyebrow piercing. Your feelings for him come rushing back in full force.

Panicked, you reach for Chaeryeong's hand, but she's nowhere to be found. Careful not to be seen by her brother, you bow your head slightly, passing through a crowd of sweaty bodies until you finally spot her kitty heels. She's leaned against a wall, swirling around her cup while flirting with some guy you'd seen around school a few times.

Creating some much-needed distance between the two, you tug Chaeryeong towards you. "I think I just saw your brother."

"What? No, he won't even be in the city until tomorrow morning."

Frustrated, you quickly search the crowd until your eyes land on him again. You ignore the fact that he's now speaking to some girl with red hair and tattoos scattered across her arm and point in their direction, "Well, then that guy looks just like him."

Chaeryeong squints her eyes in disbelief at the boy in question until the doubt becomes confusion, and the confusion becomes realization. "Oh my God! The fuck is he doing here?" She turns towards you as if you're supposed to have the answer.

"The fuck should I know? You said he wouldn't be here until tomorrow morning!"

"Because that's what he told our parents! How was I supposed to know he was gonna be here? I never would've come if I knew!"

"What are you guys doing here?" A voice you haven't heard in so long interrupts. You don't even want to turn around.

"What are you doing here?" Chaeryeong throws back, and the two stare at each other in angry silence for a moment until Heeseung steps to the side. "Upstairs," he says, nodding towards the staircase.

"But—"

"Go."

Chaeryeong's clearly aggravated but makes her way towards the stairs. You remain in place with your arms crossed, raising a brow in confusion when Heeseung looks at you. "What?"

"You too."

"I'm not—"

"I'm not asking again," he says simply. You convince yourself that you only take his command because you don't feel like fighting. Definitely not because it's interesting to have him boss you around.

Trudging up the stairs behind Chaeryeong, you wait with her in the hallway until Heeseung arrives. "Come on," he says, entering a bathroom and turning the light on. Neither you nor Chaeryeong protest; there really isn't any point.

As soon as the door is shut, Chaeryeong is yelling at the top of her lungs. "What the fuck are you doing here?! You said you wouldn't be back until tomorrow morning! Mom and Dad had to push their trip back just to give you more time to arrive, and you're already fucking here?! The fuck is the matter with you?!"

"I'm not gonna respond if you're gonna be yelling like this." Heeseung says calmly, leaning against the sink, "Let me get my questions out first, then I'll answer any of yours, deal?"

Chaeryeong glances over at you, sitting on the bathtub's edge, and you nod. She returns her attention back to Heeseung, takes a deep breath, then agrees.

"Now, what are you guys doing here?! How'd you even get invited?! And you're drinking?!" The calm demeanor from earlier slips away in a matter of seconds, clearly a hoax just to get Chaeryeong to calm down enough to let him speak.

"It's just ginger ale, and we've barely even had any! We were invited by our friends, okay? We have just as much right to be here as you do."

Heeseung scoffs, clearly unamused. "Right, and I'm assuming Mom and Dad know you're here then, huh?"

Chaeryeong nervously tucks a hair behind her ear. You wonder why you even have to be in here with them. It's not like Heeseung is your brother, anyway.

"We told our parents that we were going to a birthday party at a friend's house." Chaeryeong mumbles, barely able to look Heeseung in the eye.

"And what did they say when they dropped you guys off?"

"They didn't drop us off," you interrupt, "we walked here."

"Well, I wasn't gonna tell him that." Chaeryeong glares at you, it takes every bone in your body to not to laugh at her.

You're so over this. You didn't want to attend this dumb party in the first place, and seeing Heeseung flirting with some girl who could've been his female counterpart was the icing on the cake. It doesn't matter if your feelings for him were gone before tonight; every little emotion you'd felt for him over the years had returned (as if they ever left).

"And how exactly did you two geniuses plan on getting home?"

"Same way we got here."

"Can you please just let me handle this? Jesus Christ…" Chaeryeong shoots another frustrated glare at you, and you can't help but roll your eyes at her. She turns back towards her brother, "Can you answer my questions now?"

Heeseung's eyes anxiously dart around the cramped bathroom, landing on you a few times before he's slowly nodding his head. "Alright, Mom and Dad basically forced me to spend the whole summer here, and I kept asking myself why they were so persistent about it. They finally told me they needed me to watch over you and the house for their stupid trip. I had plans too, you know? That I had to derail for them. My band could've spent this summer touring, making real money, and now we can't. So, they wanna inconvenience me? I'll inconvenience them right back."

"…Inconvenience them by doing what?" Chaeryeong asks the exact question you had.

Heeseung shrugs, "By telling them I'm gonna be arriving a day late, duh."

You and Chaeryeong exchange an awkward glance at one other before silently agreeing not to tease him about it. If this was his badass way of retaliating, who were you to rain on his parade?

"Are you gonna tell anyone you saw us here?" Chaeryeong questions, a noticible tremble in her voice.

"As long as you guys don't tell anyone you saw me."

It's a fair trade, you accept it. You're even more delighted when Heeseung says he's taking the two of you home. Chaeryeong, however, isn't too happy about this, claiming there were so many people she didn't get to speak to, and how'd this be the last time she'd get to see them before moving away for school. You're not sure if Chaeryeong is really good at getting what she wants, or if Heeseung was tired of hearing her complain, but he finally gives in and grants her ten more minutes to socialize before meeting him at his car.

"If you're not at my car in ten minutes, I swear to God I'm calling mom." Heeseung scolds, holding the bathroom door open as the three of you finally exit.

A loud, drunk voice suddenly shouts, "Woah, Heeseung! Two girls at the same time!? You fucking beast!"

"They're my sisters, you fucking pervert!" He shouts back.

You can't even dwell on how disgusting the original comment was, only being able to focus on the fact that Heeseung just referred to you as his sister. As conceited as it may sound, you're not used to rejection or guys putting you in the friend-zone. Whatever little game Heeseung had been playing with you over the years was completely new territory. And right when you think things couldn't possibly get any worse, he calls you his sister.

What the actual fuck.

—

The next ten minutes go by in a blur; Chaeryeong has ditched you for a second time that night to talk to the guy from earlier. When it's finally time to leave, you find her Sat on his lap with her arm hung across his shoulder, laughing at an unfunny pickup line he'd used on her.

"It's time, Chaeryeong," you interrupt, helping her stand.

"Wait, wait, wait," she persists, directing her attention back to the boy, "tomorrow at five, right?"

"And not a second later." He sends her a disgusting wink that makes your skin crawl.

Chaeryeong is so love-struck you're surprised there isn't an arrow lodged in her back. She can barely form a proper sentence, erupting into a fit of giggles every few seconds as you make your way to Heeseung's car. "Wasn't he just gorgeous?"

You shrug, linking arms with her. "He was alright."

Stunned, Chaeryeong gasps at you, "Just alright? He was literally like a Greek God."

"I'm not saying he's unattractive; he's just...not really my type."

"And what is your type, Miss. Never-Has-Been-Interested-In-Anyone?"

Now, there's the question of the hour. You have to word your response very carefully; don't be too obvious about the fact that your ideal type is her older sibling.

"I guess I prefer guys with an edgier look to them, you know? Tattoos, piercings..." Despite your attempt to sound as nonchalant as possible, your heart is beating out of your chest from the mild confession.

Chaeryeong snickers, then playfully groans. "It sounds like you're describing my brother."

Now, you really have to test the waters.

"Since you brought him up, would it be so bad if I did like Heeseung? Hypothetically speaking, of course." You're not sure what prompts you to even ask this. It's not like he's even interested in you; he literally just referred to you as his sister.

A beat of silence passes as Chaeryeong gathers her thoughts, then she says, "No."

"What?"

You've finally reached Heeseung's car at this point, beating him there. You sit atop the trunk, feet hovering above the ground as the cold, nighttime air swirls around you. Chaeryeong shakes her head, "Obviously, it wouldn't be the ideal situation, but I guess I wouldn't mind as long as you talked to me about it first."

"First?" You mimic.

"Like...assuming you'd wanna date him or something. Just so I'm not blindsided, you know?"

This is the last thing you would've expected your impulsive, hotheaded (yet oh-so-loveable) best friend to be reasonable about. Mainly because she lectured you for nearly twenty minutes when she first suspected you had a crush on Heeseung.

You go to respond, but Heeseung, finally arriving at the car, captivates both of your attention. He finishes off his can of Pepsi before crushing the aluminum and tossing it to the ground. "Ready?" He questions.

There's no point in giving him a speech about littering; you're just ready to go home.

He fishes his keys from his pocket and unlocks the car door; Chaeryeong opens the backseat and jumps in before you have the chance, sprawling across the aged leather. "Move over," you nudge her foot with your knee; she pulls away from you.

Heeseung calls your name, "Just sit up front. She's not gonna move."

Now, this is new. You've ridden in the backseat of his car with Chaeryeong more times than you can count; he'd never allow either of you to sit shotgun with him; typical annoying older brother bullshit.

Don't make a big deal out of this, you say to yourself, climbing into the passenger seat of his car.

Chaeryeong and Heeseung bicker the entire ride to their parent's house, partially out of annoyance with each other, but you also get the feeling that neither of them were genuinely ready to leave the party. You're surprised Heeseung even enjoyed parties; he spent most of high school either working, hanging out at skate parks, or practicing with his band in their garage. College must've really changed him, and you're unsure how to feel about it.

Heeseung parks a few houses down from their parent's house and unlocks the doors, "Get out," he says into the backseat.

"Where are you gonna spend the night?" Chaeryeong questions, stretching her arms outward.

"I checked into a motel this morning. I'll be back here tomorrow around noon. And, hey," Heeseung turns around, pointing a finger at his sister. "Don't tell them you saw me."

Mockingly, Chaeryeong points a finger right back at him. "Telling them I saw you would be exposing myself, cock-sucker. Leave me alone." She angrily begins to climb out of the car, annoyed at how little trust Heeseung had in her.

You turn to go, but Heeseung's cold hand on your bicep stops you, "Where you goin'?"

"I'm gonna walk home from here. It's only a few minutes away," you respond.

Heeseung shakes his head, "I'm dropping you off. You haven't moved since I left, right?"

"No, but it's fi—"

"Then your house is on the way to my motel. We're going in the same direction; might as well ride together."

It truly does make more sense to ride together, and rejecting his offer any further surely would raise suspicions. You don't want either of them to believe you'd feel uncomfortable being alone with Heeseung because that couldn't be farther from the truth. You're perplexed about your feelings now, and you don't want to do anything you'd regret just because of the confusion.

"Okay, then." You glance over your shoulder at Chaeryeong, "Will you need any help getting ready for your date tomorrow?"

Suddenly embarrassed, Chaeryeong shushes you, gesturing that Heeseung is literally right next to you and would prefer that he didn't hear about her dating life. Heeseung genuinely couldn't care less and is instead patiently waiting for his sister to get out.

She does finally, and Heeseung resumes his path to your house. He turns the radio on, switching between stations until he stops on one that's playing a song he's familiar with. You drive silently for a few minutes; the only sounds being heard are the distant noises from the car's motor and Heeseung humming along to the radio.

He breaks the silence by saying, "I was surprised to see you back there. You never really seemed like the type to enjoy parties."

You chuckle, "I could say the same for you; I don't remember you attending any in high school."

"That's 'cause house parties weren't my thing," he explains, "I went to raves or parties that would happen at the skate park. I don't really like being at someone else's house for too long; it feels too intimate."

Now that you think of it, skate park parties and raves seem much more like his scene.

"Well, I only went because Chaeryeong was going, and I didn't feel comfortable with her being there alone. Otherwise, I never would've gone." You admit, resting your head against the window.

"Thanks for looking after her, by the way. You're a good friend."

"I'd do anything for her." Your voice is barely a whisper now, getting quieter with every word you say.

Silence passes, and he says, "Did you know your guys' dorm room is gonna be right under ours?"

"Seriously?" You respond, genuinely curious.

"Mmm-hmm. My roommate, Sunghoon, and I are gonna be the worst upstairs neighbors ever." He teases as you roll your eyes. Your mind can't decipher whether this banter is playful & platonic or romantic. Everything Heeseung does confuses you.

"If that's the case, I'll be sure to move to an entirely new building."

"What, so you can have your boyfriend protect you?"

Pause. Boyfriend?

You nearly give yourself whiplash from how hard you spun around to look at Heeseung. "Boyfriend?" You ask.

He shrugs nonchalantly, keeping his eyes on the road. "I just assumed you'd have one by now. Do you?"

There he is again with his mind games. What the fuck was he talking about?

After letting out a very frustrated sigh, you mumble, "No, Heeseung, I do not have a boyfriend."

"Good. Focus on school."

Now he's pissing you off. You wish he'd shut up for the rest of the car ride. "It's nice to see you again, by the way."

Holy shit, you feel like jumping out the window.

"Yeah, great seeing you too. Oh, there's my house. I can walk from here." You make quick work of undoing your seatbelt.

"You sure? I can drop you off at the door."

"No, no. It's best if my parents don't see you so they don't accidentally tell your parents that they saw you." You lie, racking your brain for any excuse imaginable.

He nods, deciding it's best to drop you off a little further from your house. "Then, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"What?" You stop dead in your tracks, one hand clutching the door handle.

"Aren't you coming over tomorrow to help Chaeryeong get ready for her…thing? I'll be back home by then."

He's right; you'd be back in his house, and he'll be there this time. It's no big deal. You'd only be there for an hour (at most) to help her prepare, and then you could go the whole summer without seeing him again.

"Yeah, I'll see you then."

The following day, Chaeryeong is back to her unreasonable self, expecting you to wait at her house for her to return from her date.

"Please? We're just going to get pizza; we won't even be gone that long." She pleads, adding the finishing touches to her makeup.

You'd already spent over an hour helping her prepare, and now she expects you to do nothing but await her return. You know her heart's in the right place; she just wants to be the first to hear all the exhilarating details about her date. Still, a phone call would suffice.

"What am I supposed to do while I wait for you to come back?" You whine.

"Just hang out here! Watch a movie or something!" She suggests, trying her absolutely hardest to sound enthusiastic. Her phone buzzes in her hand before she has the chance to continue, eyes lighting up as they flicker across the bright screen.

Chaeryeong clutches her phone, locks eyes with you, then rushes towards the door. You're faster, though, quickly capturing her wrist before she's barely reached the hallway. "I'm going home."

"No! If you stay here, I'll bring you back pizza, and we can have a girls' night like we were supposed to yesterday! Come on, please?" She begs, pouting her lips.

You go to reply, but the bathroom door swings open, and Heeseung strides out. Just to your luck, he's shirtless; water droplets descend from his hair as he towel-dries it. As he enters his bedroom, he mocks his sister's high-pitched whine, earning a lethal glare and a slew of swears thrown at him.

Perhaps you should stay.

"Fine, but you're lending me your pajamas." You give in, earning an enthusiastic shriek from your best friend.

Chaeryeong wraps you in a brief, yet tight, hug before shouting, "Be back soon!" Then she's rushing down the stairs and out the front door. It's not often that Chaeryeong makes you wait for her return, but you absolutely despise it whenever it does occur. She's never back by the time she promises and gets upset when you try to call and check up on her.

And speaking of calling, you're sure your phone is dead by now. You insisted Chaeryeong bring her's along just in case, so you're left with one option.

Heeseung's door is wide open (as usual) when you go to knock. He's fully clothed now, pairing his black sweatpants with a matching black t-shirt. His hair appears mostly dry now, chaotic as ever, but dry. You don't think he's ever looked this good before.

He's sat on his bed, flipping through the latest copy of Rolling Stone when you arrive. He glances over at you and lets out a dry chuckle.

"What's so funny?" You ask.

"You're dressed like Bella Swan." He responds casually, eyes raking up and down your body.

"Who?"

"From Twilight. You know, that new movie that came out?" He seems genuinely surprised that you don't seem to know anything about this movie, not even the name of (who you suspect to be) the main character.

You lean against the doorframe, "Haven't seen it."

"It's a great movie, seriously. Some friends and I are seeing it in a few days if you and Chaeryeong wanna come." He suggests, flipping another page in the magazine.

You let him know you'll ask Chaeryeong if she's interested before remembering why you came to his room in the first place and ask if you can borrow his phone charger. Heeseung directs you to where it's plugged up by his desk, and you finally have the chance to stroll further into his room. You can't recall the last time you've been in here, but you know it looks much different than before. Many of the band posters that decorated the room were gone, his random trinkets and piles of clothes were gone, and not a single piece of his CD collection was in sight. It felt so lifeless, so unlike him. No wonder he always dreaded returning home; it probably didn't even feel like home to him.

"So," you say, attempting to break the silence, "you're here for the whole summer, huh?"

"Unfortunately." He mumbles, "Gonna try and go by sooner, convince my parents I have to sort out an issue with my dorm or something."

"It's nice to have you back, though." You admit, watching as Heeseung's gaze locks on yours.

"Yeah? It is?" He questions.

You shrug, "Of course. We practically grew up together; it was weird to not see you all the time."

He sits up now, closing the magazine and tossing it on his nightstand. There's something on his mind that he isn't saying; you can tell from the way his brows knit together and how he's anxiously tugging on his lip piercing. "It was weird to be gone," he mumbles and leaves it at that.

"By the way, I'm sorry about last night." He apologizes.

"For what? Calling me your sister?"

He laughs at this, shaking his head. "I didn't mean to do that on purpose, by the way. That guy was just...so weird, I kinda blurted out the first thing that would've made him feel weird for even thinking that."

Oh. That makes sense. You definitely overreacted.

"I meant," he continues, "I'm sorry if the whole boyfriend assumption thing upset you."

"Oh," you dismissively wave a hand at him, "that was nothing."

Heeseung raises a brow at you, "Are you sure? 'Cause you seemed pretty upset afterward, you were practically running out of my car."

There's no point in lying now, considering you weren't even the slightest bit discrete the previous night.

"If I'm being completely honest, I just felt a little awkward. But that's it, I swear." You assure him, moving to lean against the bedside table.

"Awkward about what?"

God, this was so embarrassing. Is he really going to make you humiliate yourself like this?

"Because I've never actually had a boyfriend before."

Heeseung looks genuinely shocked at your confession, eyes nearly bulging out of his head as he examines yours for any sign of deception. "You don't believe me?"

"I'm not sure. I only assumed you had one just based on how crazy guys were about you in high school. Not to mention you're, like, fucking gorgeous."

What?

"I'm what?" You ask, not entirely sure if you heard him correctly.

He repeats himself again, and you make him do it a few more times until he's too embarrassed to say it again. You somehow manage to get back on the topic of never having a boyfriend before when Heeseung asks you another question. "Have you ever...?"

He doesn't need to finish the sentence. You know what he's asking.

You shake your head.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked. It's none of my business." He berates himself, and you assure him it's no big deal and that it shouldn't even be a shocker to him.

After a half hour of talking about whatever comes to mind, you wind up sitting opposite Heeseung on his bed, legs perched up underneath your body as you go back and forth, questioning one another.

"So, when are you gonna admit you had a crush on me?" His voice is barely a whisper.

"I never did." You lie.

"Really? That sucks?"

"Why?"

He shrugs, leaning his back against the headboard. "I just always thought that maybe you and I would've ended up together at some point."

You don't remember who leans in first; it doesn't matter; all that matters is after years of longing, your lips are finally intertwined with his. He must've smoked today; you can taste the nicotine on his breath. But it doesn't matter; you don't make the slightest move to pull away. Neither does he, placing his hands on the small of your back to guide you onto his lap.

Your body is moving on autopilot, limbs moving to do whatever feels right as you silently pray not to ruin the moment. Heeseung can spot your nervousness from a mile away and stop you, "We don't have to do—"

"I want to," you pant, breathless, "I've wanted this for so long."

"Do you trust me?" He asks.

"More than anything."

He kisses you again before adjusting your current position, slowly twisting yourselves until you're lying flat on your back. He moves his lips down towards your neck, leaving a trail of kisses in his path as he settles between your legs.

You reach up to grab a handful of his hair, nearly jumping out of your skin as his delicate fingertips creep up your inner thigh, inching closer and closer until his ghosting over your clothed pussy. "This okay?" He mumbles.

You nod, unable to form a coherent sentence. "Cute," he replies, "you're already so wet." His fingertips stroke your clit through your damp underwear; you don't think to wonder how he managed to get to it so quickly, all thoughts leaving your brain as he makes small circles using his middle and index finger.

"Heeseung…" You moan, pleading for him to do more.

"I know." He assures you, using a single finger to pull your panties to the side, making just enough room for him to slide a finger into your aching cunt. "Am I really your first time?"

You nod again out of fear that a moan would slip from your lips if you even tried to speak. His eyes are locked on yours, studying your expression as he coaxes a finger inside you. You're embarrassed at how quickly your wetness coated his finger, but Heeseung doesn't care. He likes it, makes him feel fucking amazing knowing the effect he had on you.

"Take your shirt off." He says, and you do as told, pulling your top up and off your body and tossing it to the floor; making quick work of undoing your bra before he even has the chance to ask.

His lips are back on your neck instantly, trailing down to your collarbone until he reaches the curve on your breast. He halts his actions momentarily before your pitched nipple is caught between his teeth and your back arching off the bed from how overstimulating everything feels.

You curse under your breath, and Heeseung makes another comment about how cute you are, though you feel far from it. He apologizes by lapping his tongue around your nipple, easing the pain slowly as he inserts a second finger into your cunt.

You can feel his bulge against your thigh, though he doesn't even care about getting himself off. He moves over to your nipple, licking and sucking until it's completely hardened, leaving himself breathless. The two fingers that had been working your cunt had picked up the pace now, and there was an unfamiliar feeling in your gut that you couldn't identify.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…" You groan, legs trembling.

Heeseung is all too familiar with these actions and asks, "You're already close? I've barely done anything to you." He teases, chuckling to himself.

You know he's being lighthearted, but you can't help but feel embarrassed at the tears forming in your eyes from how good everything feels.

Suddenly, he's pulling his fingers out of you, and now you feel like crying for a different reason. You go to protest but stop to watch as he takes his shirt off. If you weren't sure then, it's obvious now he'd started attending the gym.

He makes quick work of tugging his sweatpants down his legs, tossing them into the abyss before reaching into his bedside table and retrieving a condom. "You're okay?"

You nod.

"Use your words."

“I’m okay, Heeseung.”

"You're still okay with this?"

"Yes."

"You sure?"

Jesus fucking Christ, the saint this man is.

"I'm positive." You assure him.

You move to pull down your skirt and underwear, but Heeseung catches your wrist. "Leave them on," he says. There are so many things going on that you choose not to question.

He pulls off his boxers in the meantime, hardened cock slapping against his abdomen with precum leaking from the tip. Though you had nothing to compare it to, Heeseung was obviously slightly larger than average. You shouldn't be surprised; it's always the guys that you'd least expect.

He tears the condom wrapper with his teeth, retrieving the rubber inside before tossing the remains to his floor. Despite being fully erect, he fists his cock a few times before sliding the condom on.

He crawls over you, left arm at the side of his head, while he uses his dick to nudge your panties to the side. "This still okay?"

"I already told you—fuck!" He cuts you off, the tip of his cock slowly making its way inside you. You feel so stretched out from this alone you don't know how you'd manage to fit all of him into you.

Heeseung must be feeling the same, swearing under his breath and commenting about how tight you feel around him. Second by second, he coaxes himself into your pussy until you feel like you could split right open. "Are you all the way in?"

"No, can't take anymore?" He asks, leaning his head down against your ear.

You're embarrassed to admit he's too big to handle on your first time, but it's the truth. You don't want to overextend yourself just to please him and end up hurting yourself.

"You can move, just…not too much. Please."

Heeseung nods, "Whatever you want, angel."

He pulls his hips back and rocks himself back in, being sure to ask if you're okay with his pace. Once you confirm you feel fine and want him to keep going, he continues his movements; his eager hips snapping against yours and his cock hitting your G-spot with each deep stroke. You feel like you're on cloud nine, hands tangled in his hair as he swallows your moans.

That unfamiliar feeling from earlier returns; you feel it through your entire body this time. A moan of his name escaping your lips lets him know you're close. How he can always sense these things is beyond you; it's not worth overthinking.

"Close?" He asks, and you nod frantically.

Heeseung picks up his speed slightly, careful not to overwhelm you, but just enough to reach your climax, until finally, the bundle of nerves in your abdomen snaps, and your back is arching off the mattress as you come around his cock.

He's only a few seconds behind with his orgasm, erupting in a loud grunt when he finally reaches it. The two of you lay in silence for a moment before Heeseung finally pulls out of you and slides the condom off, tying it in a knot and tossing it into his trash bin.

"Are you okay?" He asks for what feels like the millionth time.

"I'm fine." You respond, and it isn't a lie. Physically, you feel terrific; mentally, it was an entirely different story. "Are you?"

"I'm good, I'm good."

As much as you would love to lay naked with Heeseung in his bed for the rest of the night, you know Chaeryeong will be home anytime soon. "I think I'm gonna go wash up."

He nods, crawling under his covers once you stand from his bed, tugging your skirt to its proper length as you search for your remaining clothing. "Oh, it's um…your shirt, it's over there." Heeseung awkwardly gestures towards a pile of clothing by the end of his bed.

Almost as quickly as you shred yourself of them, you snatch your clothing and bundle them up against your chest.

"Listen, I know right now isn't really ideal, but I meant what I said about liking you, and really think we should talk." He says nervously, barely even able to look at you.

You almost want to laugh at how cute he is; instead, you agree to talk to him about it soon. You're about to head out into the hallway when Heeseung reminds you about your charging phone over by his desk.

You retrieve it and scan the area again, ensuring you haven't left anything else behind. When everything seems clear, you stand upright, but your eyes fall toward the trash bin near his window with the discarded condom. You're embarrassed to even look at it until you realize something seems off. It looks…empty.

Now, you're no sex expert, but imagine that if Heeseung had finished, there'd be something to show for it in the condom. Right?

Did he fake his orgasm? Was this another one of his fucked up mind games you'd been subjected to?

You don't know what to think as you step into the bathroom; your emotions are all over the place, and all you really want to do is go home. But you promised Chaeryeong you'd be here when she returns, so you stay.

The next time a Lee sibling asks if you're okay is twenty minutes later when Chaeryeong finally arrives and asks why your eyes are so watery.

"I'm fine." You respond, and you're lying for the first time that night.

[fruitmins]

Oᵤᵣ Bᵢg Bₐby / BTS OT7

➭genre: little space, age regression, fluff, caregivers bts, little reader, sfw, hurt/comfort, mostly no plot

➭warnings: none

➭note: my first request!! i saw this before going to bed and got so excited I stayed up for another hour and a half working on some of it. also purple car has a lot of notes wtff i love all of you

“Y/N angel, I think today’s the day we need to wash blankie.” Jimin calls out to you in a gentle voice when he spots you waddling down the stares with said blanket in hand after your nap.

You’ve had that blanket for months now and it’d only been washed a handful of times. It was getting so bad that the original pink color it came in was now a nasty light brownish color and covered in all types of food stains.

Originally, Minnie Mouse’s face was plastered in a diagonal line. But now, you could barley see her black outline. Not to mention the wrinkle and god awful smell.

At first they thought you were going through one of your phases and would eventually ask for a new blanket that had whatever thing you were fixated on. And of course they’d buy it for you cause you they loved spoiling you. But that’s how it had always been. Stuck on unicorns? You needed a unicorn blanket. Cars? Needed it in a blanket. Even plants (you could thank Namjoon for that phase).

But no. You couldn’t seem to let go of this Minnie Mouse blanket. Literally. You’d take it everywhere with you. Quick grocery trip, the studio, the beach, to another friends house. The boys were actually glad one time you brought it with you to the water park so they could rinse out some of the dirt from the last trip.

But now it was beginning to be a problem. The boys had several talks about it amongst themselves. All begging the question, ‘how do we get it out of her grasp?’ Why was this one thing giving you so much comfort you would fight them for it? For months they had tip toed around the idea, pointing out the blankets flaws in hopes of cloaking you over time to wash it. But somehow you weren’t phased.

The boys had finally decided to put their foot down that day when Taehyung came complaining to them in the morning about how he couldn’t sleep because the blanket was uncomfortable and smelly, but you had insisted on sleeping with it.

Sure it didn’t bother you, but it was starting to get to them. Being idols, Taehyung needed that sleep. But every time they even reached for the blanket you’d flinch before starting to scream and kick, not stopping under any circumstances till it was secure in your arms.

You quickly shook your head at Jimin’s words, eyes already filled with worry. “No. No wash blankie.” You huffed holding it tighter.

“Baby..” Namjoon warned, not liking the word no coming out of your mouth but this seemed to only make you angrier.

“Baby, it’s icky! Wouldn’t it be nice for it to be soft and clean again? Almost as good as new?” Jungkook asked you trying to pass his excitement over to you but you weren’t having it.

“I don’t want it good as new.” Your voice got louder as you argued with him in a mocking manner which only caused him to frown. This could turn bad really quick.

Your words just made the boys more confused but let the comment pass. “Y/N I don’t think this is up for discussion anymore.” Hoseok said sympathetically. He knew this was going to escalate and that you were likely going to cry, which is one of the things he hated seeing.

“Because it’s not.” Yoongi stepped in with a somewhat firm voice. Yoongi was easily one of the scariest when mad but he never let his anger get to far. Still, you knew his potential from small moments when you were big. “Baby the sooner you hand over blankie the sooner you can have it back.” He explained in a calmer voice.

You seemed to realize that this time they wouldn’t back down so easily. “But l love blankie! You can’t have it!” You almost shouted tears already welling up in your eyes as your face turned red.

“Y/N calm down.” Jimin told you firmly. They had tried to be sweet but it was frustrating when you acted like this.

“Baby, we’re sorry. We truly are, but this has to be done.” Jin told you and your eyes widen with fear when he stood up, making his way towards the end of the stairs where you stood.

“No! No! Please! Mean daddies!” You pleaded with tears, walking up the stairs backwards which was also a no-no. The others followed behind Jin, now worried that you’d trip and abruptly told him to stop moving.

Even when Jin stopped following you, you turned your back and run upstairs and to your room, slamming the door shut behind you.

The boys sighed as they stood there in silence. “I hate this.” Yoongi admitted, guilt brewing in his stomach when you started crying and the boys agreed in hums.

“But we can’t put this off anymore or it’ll come back to bite us in the ass. We aren’t getting rid of it.” Jin spoke as if reminding them cause it felt like you were going through the six stages of grief.

“Maybe she doesn’t realize that. We should try to make her understand the situation more.” Namjoon suggest and without another word Taehyung pushed himself between them and up the stairs. Jimin tugged on his arm before he could go further.

“You guys just stay here for a while.” He told them ultimately ignoring their confused and concerned glances before continuing up the stairs and to your room.

Taehyung’s heart broke when he could hear your sobs from outside your door. He couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit guilty that his whining had caused you all of this. They knew it brought you some type of comfort but your attachment was getting unhealthy.

When he knocked on your door, your sobbing stopped but he could hear you shift on your bed. “Go away.” You told whoever was on the other side in a shaky voice.

“It’s Tae Tae. I just wanna talk.” He told you and not giving you another chance to refuse before he slowly opened the door to your room before softly closed it.

You watched him with glossy eyes and short shaky breaths as he made his way to the edge of your bed. He held out his arms for you and you slowly climbed into his lap, clinging onto his shirt for dear life as you two hugged.

He combed through your messy hair and after you had calmed down, he spoke. “Baby, why do you like blankie so much? You were over Minnie Mouse ages ago.” He asked trying to understand your attachment to it.

You sniffled before answering, “Because it protec me. Like at the airport.” You stated and at first Taehyung was just confused until he realized what you meant.

The blanket was a split second decision. You were at the airport with them and had spotted it in a store for a brief second. The boys couldn’t resist saying no to you when your eyes sparkled just describing what it looked like to them.

They couldn’t go out and buy it themselves, there was to much press and it was a baby scandal waiting to happen. So they sent out some staff to go get it and you were over the moon when it was in your hands. It was one of the easiest flights with you ever and you were fast asleep the whole time.

The boys had joked about how magical the blanket was and how it protected them from any bad behavior (mostly talking about you). Hearing that, I guess you took it to heart and vowed to take it everywhere.

The worst part of it all was that it worked.

Whenever you took the blanket anywhere you were on your best behavior and had no mishaps.

“Oh but honey, it doesn’t need to protect you at home. Nothing bad can happen here and if something does that’s what we’re here for.” He explained with a beaming smile, happy that they had gotten somewhere. “You trust us right?”

You nodded hurriedly. Of course you trusted your daddies to protect you. They were super safe and had protected you many times before. And now that you thought about it, nothing had ever happened at home…

“So while we’re protecting you, blankie can get a nice bath.” Hoseok spoke softly, you hadn’t even realized that the rest of them were slowly making their way into the room hearts fluttering when you said you trusted them.

“Bath?” You repeated and he nodded with a reassuring smile. “You know when you get icky after an accident or playing in the mud? Blankie feels icky too.” Jin stated and they watched with anxious eyes as you glanced down at your blanket. You guessed it did look less pink, and you had seen a ketchup stain that felt weird when you laid on it.

“Blankie feels icky?” You asked still nervous and the boys smiled, knowing that they had finally convinced you to crack. They would help you feel safe and the blanket would finally get washed.

“Very.” Jimin answered scrunching his nose. He made a mental note to bring up cleaning your room to get rid of the smell.

“Can I help with the bath?” You asked eyes slowly started to brighten which warmed the boys hearts.

“Absolutely!” Tae grinned.

“Now you can’t get in, but you can help wash.” Yoongi clarified but it didn’t seem to matter to you which made him feel proud of you.

Moments later you waddled off be bed and handed the blanket over to Jin causing them to shower you with praises about how good and brave you were. It made you feel a lot better.

After everyone put on gloves, including you, they all headed to the bathroom and got it ready. You had wanted a lot of bubbles and they didn’t fight you.

“We should have used the washer and dryer.” Jungkook said his arm covering his nose when the smell got worse. He was the one with the most sensitive nose so they put him on snack duty instead.

“And the tub is going to be ruined.” Namjoon pointed out when they had drained the nasty brown water for the third time.

“It’s better than buying a whole new dryer.” Jin scolded them with a huff. Not like they couldn’t afford millions anyways.

“I got pink dye.” Taehyung said when he came rushing in out of breath. He had ran all the way to the store when he had thought of the brilliant idea.

After hours of hard labor and letting everything set you were reunited with your blanket right before going to bed. You had been tucked in, teeth had been brushed, story had been read but they could tell you were still sad about not having it with you.

You let out a loud gasp when Namjoon came in the door with it in hand. It smelt like flowers and it got some of its color back. Not good as new, but you didn’t mind.

“Thank you daddies.” You whispered, yawning when it was in your hands. They looked at you with loving eyes at the adorable sight.

“Thank you for being so brave.” Yoongi said back giving you a soft kiss on the forehead before tucking you in himself. Your daddies always knew how to make you feel safe.