#but they have both left such a lasting impact in me that it shook me to my core when i took a bite of that ice cream

[thoughts-and-clouds]

im so sorry. my childhood made ur memory rotten. i always think of u with a bitter mouth. but today u tasted like innocent joy. i forgot why u were bitter in the first place. i dont think i will ever taste joy like that again. i missed that. please forgive me. i miss u.

[fastandcarlos]

Unexpected Pregnancy : ̗̀➛ Charles LeClerc

summary: your heart sinks as the positive sign appears, terrified to tell charles your unexpected news

Everything felt as if it was crashing down around as your eyes landed on the positive mark in front of you. Immediately your mind thought of Charles, your stomach dropping as reality very quickly set in for you. 

A baby was the last thing that the two of you needed with how busy you were. Most weeks you were barely in the same country, your careers were in two completely different spots, and how you were ever going to be able to come together and raise a child was a question you couldn’t even begin to answer. 

You couldn’t help but worry about how Charles would react, terrified of what might come your way. Your heart raced as you heard him walking through the apartment, knowing you were about to deliver either the best news of his life, or the worst news. 

A gentle knock at the door pulled you away from your thoughts, Charles calling through to see if you were alright. He didn’t know what was going on, but as time continued to pass, he couldn’t help but worry that something was going on with you. 

“I’m just coming,” you sighed, placing the test into your back pocket before walking out, taking a hold of Charles’ hand and leading him over to the sofa. 

“What’s going on? What’s with the rush love?” Charles questioned, barely able to keep up with you as you hurriedly sat him down, deciding to sit with a little bit of distance between you both. 

It took you a moment to find your composure, unsure of the right thing to say or do. However when Charles rested his hand against your shoulder, you finally looked up and across at him. 

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, watching as Charles’ brows knitted together, eyes narrowing in on you in confusion as to what was going on. 

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for, you’ve not done anything to hurt me, have you?” 

The silence that followed was worrying for Charles, beginning to fret. He couldn’t think of any reason for you to say sorry, frightened that something had happened though that he knew nothing about. 

“Talk to me, we can sort whatever the problem is,” Charles encouraged, his eyes desperately searching for yours in an attempt to reassure you. 

The confidence you originally had to tell Charles had well and truly disappeared, fighting with yourself as to whether you were doing the right thing anymore or not. 

You were unaware of the affects you were having on Charles either, his heart racing as he overthought everything. It was clear to him whatever was going on had had a huge impact on you, desperate to help try and fix whatever it was that was troubling you. 

“Love, I promise me you could tell me absolutely anything and we’d be able to get through it,” Charles calmly spoke, shuffling along the sofa that he was sat right beside you. “It could be the worst thing in the world, but I’m sure that we can work it out.” 

Your head shook back at Charles, “it’s not as easy as that Charles, I don’t know whether you’d even want to be with me after I tell you this.” 

“What?” He chuckled, “whatever it is, I’m still going to want to be with you.” 

Your free hand reached back, taking the test out and placing it on the table in front of you. “I’m pregnant Charles, we’re going to have a baby,” you muttered. 

“A baby?” Charles replied, his voice sounding full of enthusiasm. “Please don’t tell me you’ve been sat there thinking that I’ll leave you because you’re pregnant.” 

It was the complete opposite reaction from the one you were expecting, glancing to your left and seeing a wide smile on Charles’ face. He reached forwards and picked up the test, making sure that he got a good look at the positive mark for himself. 

“Why would you ever think I’d be upset about this?” Charles asked you, chuckling away to himself. “You know how much I want to have children with you.” 

“But it’s so much earlier than we wanted to,” you reminded him, “and we’re both so busy, you’re racing around the world, there’s so many things to think about Charles.” 

“I know, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do it.” 

“You think we can?” You quizzed, almost sounding doubtful as to how you would make it work. “I’m worried Charles, I don’t want this to end up getting in the way of your career.” 

Admittedly, you might be settling down together sooner than Charles imagined, but Charles was confident you could make it work. He’d planned how a family would work out so many times in his head, thinking about all possible scenarios so when the time came, he was on it. 

“I get that it’s a bit scary suddenly finding this out, but we can do it,” Charles told you, squeezing against your hand. “I’m not mad, I’m excited, it’s going to be difficult, but we’ve never exactly made life easy for ourselves, have we? We’re used to doing things the tricky way.” 

“I don’t want to end up doing all of this alone though Charles, when you’re at work.” 

His head shook, refusing to let you panic about such a thing. “You’re my priority from now on, you’re having my baby after all.  I’m going to be here for you every second of the way, whether I’m here or on the other side of the world, I will always find a way to make sure I’m here for you.” 

It wasn’t just words of reassurance from Charles, you knew him well enough to know how much he meant it too. He didn’t care who he upset, he always did what he needed to do, and that was especially the case now that he knew that you were having his baby too. 

“I think I’m just in shock, I never imagined this happening so suddenly.” 

Charles nodded in agreement with you, it was a shock for him too, but he was sure that you would be able to do it once the shock had subsided. 

“Whenever you’re worrying or scared, I want you to tell me,” Charles smiled, pressing a kiss against the top of your head. “The last thing that you should be doing is going through this alone.” 

“I promise I’ll talk to you,” you replied, resting your head down against Charles’ shoulder. “I’m sorry I made you panic a little about what was going on. I just couldn’t find the words, and I was terrified as to how you’d react about it too.” 

Charles’ arm wrapped around your frame, “I get it, I’d be exactly the same. I’m just glad that you weren’t about to break up with me.” 

“I don’t think I’d ever be stupid enough to break up with you, even if I had the worst news in the world. I’d have to be out of my mind.” 

Charles chuckled as you spoke, “well, you know what they say about pregnant women and hormones, who knows what you’re going to be capable of over the next nine months.” 

“You sound scared to live with a pregnant woman.” 

“Oh, I am absolutely terrified!” 

˗ˏˋ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ! ´ˎ˗

[i-loved-silly]

WOLVERINE x READER x DEADPOOL — fuckup twinsies

dp&w spoilers!!

So I had a silly idea. Sorry if it’s out of character, I haven’t written for canon characters in a fat while but these two are stuck in my head. Enjoy :3

POV: you’re a dimension hopper : sent to the Void as a punishment for doing your thing. Damnit

Dust. Sand. Desert. That was all you knew ever since you were banished here. The place you were basically forced to call home—funnily enough, (actually it’s rather sad) you had forgotten what your real home was. A large, and I mean LARGE amount of timeline touching and dimension hopping does that to you.

By spending years of visiting dimensions and maybe messing a couple things up, you damaged your own timeline. Simply because you wanted to take Mr Captain America’s shield back to your home dimension. What can you say, a little artifact doesn’t hurt, right?

Except it did.

Now you’re stuck here, and honestly? It’s fine. You had nothing to return to anyway. At least you thought. TVA explained it that way, anyways. Everything was fine. You spent your years here surviving and avoiding Cassandra Nova by making your own little underground hobbit hole. How cute.

Everything was the same everyday—you hid out, occasionally left to find food and materials, came back to safety. Until one day you heard something while out scavenging—almost like distant yells? From above you??—You looked up and was shocked to see two figures falling out of the sky and barreling straight for you.

"OOMF --" You were thrown onto the sand on your back, you swore you felt a couple bones break...or something. All your belongings in your little ripped backpack went flying around you and the others stabbed into your back. Then there was the weight on top of you. A muscular , red, and talkative weight.

"Owww, oh fuck, that hurt. I hit bones. I just hit someon--oh." Deadpool groaned, snapping his elbows back into place to get a good look at you. He blinked. "Well lookey here, who the hell are you? Wait, did i kill them?" He gasped as he saw your pained scowl.

Wade frantically shook you by the shoulders. Getting hit by something from that high should have killed you. You coughed, ugh...your whole body hurt. You don’t remember if you gave yourself overpowered abilities before hopping into this dimension…or the last one. Was it during the time you went to the Loki-verse? Season one, episode five? Nah.

"Get off of them," Logan grunted, dusting himself off from his spot a few feet away. Hey, at least you weren’t hit by both of them. "See what you did, you fucking idiot? Get away from them."

"Woah, okay! First of all, it's not like I wanted to crash into someone like a wrecking ball, got it? I am not Miley. But look, they're fine!" He shook you by the shoulder again and you spat out a bit of blood.

"Guhh..." You groaned, rolling over. Yep, your bones were definetly crushed.

"We're not here to poke around, Wade. We're on a mission." Logan glanced at your beat up form wearily--oh well, if you weren't dead by now you'll be fine.

"Fine," Wade let go of you, letting your body flop back onto the sand with another "thud" on impact. "Oops, Im sooo sorry. I-..oh come on! Don't you have at least a little bit of a curious tickle? They can help us." He whined, gesturing to you and to Logan.

"They're a stranger, bub. Just...leave em there." He hesitated, then grunted and turned the other way.

You groaned in pain again--seems like they're your only lines--and sat up on your elbows. Your head was pounding and suddenly it was too bright outside. "W-wait..I’m fine..just let me.." You pressed your palm against your forehead.

Wade leaned down in front of you, placing his hands on his knees. "Oh, you're alive. Good. Why are you here, little buddy?"

You tried laughing nervously but a cough interrupted you. Right, there was sand in your lungs. "I uh...couple years ago I touched a timeline I shouldn't have. More like, a lot of timelines. Kinda-sorta fucked up."

Wade let out a loud gasp and placed his hands on the sides of his face, then made a giddy noise. "Eek! Fuck up twinsies! You heard that, Logan? We aren't the only dimensional fuck ups!" He was oddly enthusiastic, the scruffy guy in the distance wasn't so much.

Actually now that you think about it, he seemed a bit enraged. Just a bit. “Who the hell is we?”

"Who are you again?" You muttered, grunting as you worked on standing up. Wade extended a hand and you took it, before you could thank him—he quite literally yanked you up by the arm like a fucking ragdoll. You hit his chest and your eyes widdened.

"How the heck do you not know me? I mean you probably don’t know him, that sexy beast of a man is Logan, professionally Wolverine. Not a very good one though. Anyway, I'm Wade Wilson, but you can call me Wade. Or Deadpool. Or the Merc with a Mouth. Or the Chimichanga Bandit. Or—"

"Wade, shut the fuck up."

Wait.

“Wait, you’re Deadpool and Wolverine? Like the real ones?”

PART 2

[putellasawfc]

exposed !

jen beattie x arsenal!reader

( a/n: omgggg this has been in the works FOREVER, before jen announced leaving arsenal which i am still not over tbh. but it’s finally here! especially dedicated to @mccabeswife since she requested it ! i hope you enjoy ! )

-

another media day at the arsenal training grounds meant a lot of bored footballers sat around waiting for their turn in front of the camera, the current youtube video being filmed was for three pairs only, another one of those ‘guess what the person is saying whilst you wear sound cancelling headphones’ videos that people went crazy over. the lucky girls who had been paired together for said video had been chosen at random, and you had ended up with leah with frida, manu with katie and viv with lotte which meant the rest of you were trying to entertain yourselves elsewhere.

which wasn’t really an issue when you were all shoved into a recreational room with an assortment of snacks, gossip and phones in hand. beth, the self proclaimed quidnunc of the group had been sat in between you and alessia for the last ten minutes, and had yet to stop telling you about the ongoing drama in the west ham team that she had found out about at an event over the weekend. you paid attention for as long as you could, sharing looks with alessia as you both struggled to keep up with the fast paced ramblings coming from the yorkshire woman but beth was none the wiser.

you felt a dip in the sofa to the left of you, the last bit of space being occupied by someone who threw an arm around your shoulder and when you got a whiff of the familiar perfume she sprayed on every morning, you knew exactly who it was.

you turned your head and smiled at the culprit, jen sat sporting her usual messy bun on top of her head and cheeky smile on her face. she pulled you further into her side and gently squeezed your upper arm, “she still talking your ear off?”

you huffed a laugh at that, looking to see if beth had heard but she was still too busy ranting and raving, now focusing her attention on alessia since you were now occupied elsewhere, poor girl.

“something like that.” you hummed, snuggling up to your taller girlfriend who was happy to let you lean on her. “you finished your influencer activities?” you teased, referring to the number of tiktok’s she had forced some of the girls to take part in since they all arrived.

“aye, i get a lot of love and appreciation from the fans for providing them with five star, behind the scenes content i’ll have you know.” she told you, “but yeah. letting steph take over for now, think she’s really getting into those football murder mystery filters.”

you glanced over to where she nodded towards, indeed seeing steph with her phone in her hand obviously recording herself, with kyra and vic sat either side of her laughing at the story that was unfolding on the filter.

“what happens when she steals your tiktok crown?” you asked with a sly smirk, knowing the older woman would have a meltdown if steph’s content starting getting more love than hers.

“don’t jinx it.” she shoved you lightly, “i’d have to post something outrageous to get me my title back. know i have some mugshots of you deep in my camera roll, i’m sure they’d come in handy.”

“you wouldn’t!” you gasped, sitting up slightly in your seat and the scottish woman laughed at your reaction.

you knew she had accumulated a hefty amount of embarrassing pictures of you over the year that you’d been together, ranging from you asleep with your mouth open to you pulling the ugliest faces whilst you awaited the impact of the ball to hit you during games.

“then you better hope steph gets bored quickly.” she shrugged.

you playfully rolled your eyes at that, finally relaxing back down beside her, grabbing ahold of her hand that was hanging over your shoulder, interlocking your fingers as you did.

“you’re so mean to me, sometimes i don’t know why i agreed to be your girlfriend.” you shook your head as if you were disappointed with yourself, trying your best to hold back the smile that was itching to come out.

that didn’t last long though, as only a moment later the defender jumped up from her spot on the sofa and leaned most of her body weight on you, her hands flew to grab either side of your face so she could get a good view of it as she began to lather every inch of your skin in kisses, her lips not leaving one patch of your face untouched. your squealed and thrashed wildly beneath her, your shoulder knocking into beth’s who finally halted in her gossiping at the interruption.

she kept going, stopping for a second to grin at your flushed state. “you fancied me too much to say no to being my girlfriend you goon.” and with that she continued her loving attack on you.

you wriggled around, laughing as you fought for breath and attempted to push her from you but she wasn’t budging.

“jen! stop, i can’t breathe.” you shrieked between giggles, hands gripping at her red jumper, “you’re right! you’re right, please let me go!”

finally deciding you’d had enough, jen let go of you and you caught your breath as you sagged against beth with a hand on your chest. “you could’ve killed me then, i hope you know.”

“so dramatic you are.” she tutted, pulling gently on your arm so that you were sat upright once again. “now gimme a proper one.”

you grinned, and gladly leaned in towards your girlfriend, giving her exactly what she wanted as your lips met halfway and you sunk into the display of affection almost immediately, your lips moving together in unison before you felt a harsh nudge in your side.

you yelped and pulled back, glaring at beth who only looked proud of what she’d done.

“not in front of the children please.”

-

the next day you arrived back at the training grounds, this time with a full day of practice ahead of you rather than a day in front of the cameras which you were very much looking forward to. media day was always fun, especially when you were partnered up with the right person and yesterday you were lucky enough to have gotten cloe as your pal for the day, so you had no complaints.

but you were excited to get back to doing what you loved, especially with an important match ahead of you. you wanted to get your head in the game and make sure you were one hundred percent ready to face the opposing team on sunday.

everything was normal for all of five minutes, you walked in and greeted some of the staff lingering near the entrance before you headed off to the changing rooms so you could change into your training kit, but before you even had chance to push the door open, a body came barrelling into yours, making you stumble on your feet and your arm fly out to steady yourself against the wall.

you looked to the person with furrowed brows, your jaw dropped in shock at the scare you’d just gotten. “christ steph, what’s up with you?”

she looked worried, as her hands gripped onto both of your arms and the aussie looked behind her where leah and lia were approaching, with much calmer demeanours. “i have to tell you something before you find out from someone else, but you have to promise you won’t be mad at me.”

you eyed her warily, your head cocking to the side before you looked over to the two other girls with narrowed eyes. “what is it?”

“no! you have to promise first.”

you rolled your eyes at that, beginning to panic a little as your mind ran wild with possibilities of what information steph could be withholding from you.

“fine, i promise. now tell me.” you told her, not really meaning it, you just needed her to spill the beans before you tired yourself out from overthinking.

“i kind of, may have, accidentally posted a tiktok that had you and jen kissing in the background of it.” she winced, waiting a beat to carry on. “but i promise it was a genuine mistake! if i had known it was in there i would’ve never, ever posted it i know you guys didn’t want your relationship to be public yet, and i am so sorry please don’t be mad at me.”

“what?”

a stupid question, most definitely but it was the only thing that you could manage to say at this moment in time. you didn’t know how to feel or what to say as you processed the information just given to you by steph who was still watching you carefully, as if she was awaiting some kind of wild outburst.

an array of different emotions passed through you simultaneously, you were annoyed at steph for outing your relationship on a platform that spread content like wildfire. no doubt screenshots and recordings of the tiktok had already been shared to the likes of twitter and instagram, posts made that couldn’t be taken back now. how could steph have let that happen? why did she not spot it before she pressed post?

you were also panicking. did jen know? would she be annoyed? would this change things between you? you’d both agreed when you first began dating, after months of mutual pining, that when you got together you would keep your relationship as private as you could, for as long as you could.

something that was unfortunately common amongst women’s football, was how invasive some fans could be in the players lives. you had seen how they could overstep boundaries and pry too deep into stuff they didn’t need to know about many times, which would then jump to them spreading their opinions without a care about who was on the other side of their sometimes vicious comments. you’d been witness to it ruining some of your friends relationships, and you didn’t want that to happen to you and jen. jen who you loved, who loved you back, jen who you could see yourself marrying one day in the future. so you had come to the smart, unanimous decision to keep it hush for as long as you could. but now, it was out there.

“does jen know?” you asked next, deciding that was the priority for you right now.

steph shook her head, “no. i was gonna tell her but she’s been talking to jonas since she got in.”

jen had set off an hour prior to you, with fans sometimes lingering outside the training grounds in hopes of getting a photo with some of you before you came in, you didn’t want to risk them seeing you and jen showing up together a few times too many and start to put two and two together, so more often than not you took separate cars and showed up at different times.

you nodded at that, and took in a deep breathe as you tried to think of what to do next. seeing as it was already out, there was no way you’d be able to backtrack or deny that you were in a relationship with jen, so the only real option you had left was to come clean to the fans about it all. you just weren’t sure how to.

“are you still my friend?” you were brought back into the present by steph’s quiet voice, her eyes were still scanning you warily and you probably would’ve laughed at how silly she sounded if you weren’t the person on the other end.

“course i’m still your mate steph.” you told her, and the blonde visibly deflated in front of you. “just wish you had the common sense to check what’s going on in your tiktok’s before you posted them.”

you were half joking, half serious. but when steph tutted and shoved you playfully, you didn’t have the heart to be upset with her anymore. it’s not as if she had posted it on purpose, and with how she reacted when she approached you, you were sure she’d been beating herself up over it since she’d realised what she’d done.

“see! told you she wouldn’t be mad, got yourself all worked up over nothing.” leah spoke up, and then you remembered her and lia were still lingering in the back.

“yeah well, i wouldn’t have blamed her if she was.” steph said, and you pulled the aussie in for a side hug.

“it’s okay steph, just gotta find jen now and spill the beans.”

-

it was only twenty minutes later when jen joined you all in the changing rooms, already clad in her arsenal training kit and with her water bottle in hand, she spotted you almost instantly and her face brightened when she realised you had arrived whilst she’d been busy.

“when did you get here?” she asked, pulling you into a hug which you gladly reciprocated.

“not too long ago.” you told her, rubbing your hands up and down her back. “got something i need to tell you though.”

she pulled back a little at that, looking down at you with a raised brow. “should i be worried?”

you shrugged, “i mean, it’s not anything to panic about but … i don’t know if you’re going to like it.”

you nodded your head towards the door, gesturing to the empty hallway on the other side where you could both have the conversation privately with nobody there to eavesdrop. jen nodded in agreement, retracting from your embrace and pulling on your hand to tug you in the direction you had just motioned towards.

now standing in the vacant corridor, you leaned your back against the grey wall and watched jen as she stood in front of you with her hands on her hips as she waited for you to speak, which you did after a sigh.

“steph practically ambushed me this morning, she um, did something stupid.” you began, scratching your head as you thought about how to put what happened into words. “you know all those tiktoks she was messing around with yesterday?”

you waited for jen to nod, which she did a second later so then you continued. “well she posted some of them and in one of them, it has you and i kissing in it, in the background. and it’s definitely too late for us to do anything about it.”

you stood with baited breath, similar to how steph had been when she was breaking the news to you, all of a sudden wishing you had the power to read minds as jen’s poker face came out in full force, the brunette not hinting to how she was feeling at all. at least she wasn’t tugging at her loose strands of hair, or biting at her nails, two big tell tale signs that she was stressing which you’d picked up over the months you’d spent together, which was a small win you were willing to take.

“well i guess the secrets out then.” jen shrugged, her hands remaining on her hips as you looked at her slightly puzzled.

“you’re not bothered?” you asked, half expecting a bigger reaction from the woman who was always so careful with how you interacted in public.

“i mean, it’s not great is it?” she asked, “but honestly, a part of me is kind of glad its out there now. i love our little bubble, not having to deal with people we don’t even know deciding whether we’re a good fit or not and all that stuff. but at least now, we don’t have to stress over the littlest things everytime we go out together.”

you listened to the points she made, nodding along with pursed lips in agreement with what she was saying. one of the most annoying things about have a relationship that wasn’t public, was having to be on guard everytime you both wanted to spend time with eachother out of the house, leading to the two of you just ending up having most of your date nights at home instead, not having the energy to make sure there were no prying eyes wherever you went.

“and we don’t have to watch what we post on social media. no more making sure our stories don’t give away that we’re at the same place, or triple checking that none of our stuff’s in the background.” she added on, and your lips quirked up in amusement at the amount of times you’d had to quickly delete a story or instagram post when you realised there was a beattie shirt in the background, or anything else that gave away who you were with.

“so this is kind of like a blessing in disguise?”

she grinned, “yeah something like that. but don’t tell steph i said anything, she’ll be gloating for weeks.”

you laughed at that, finally being able to relax properly for the first time since steph had practically jumped you whilst you were on your way to get changed. jen approached you, clearing the few steps that kept her away from you and pulling you into her warm embrace, pressing a kiss to your forehead as she did. “at least now we don’t have to do any big, relationship reveal post. you know how much i’ve been dreading that.”

you hummed, “think we should get steph to do a big post for us? i’m sure her drafts are stacked with videos of us.”

“we can ask. but not yet, wanna pretend i’m really mad at her for a bit so i can bribe her into pampering me for a bit.”

you scoffed at that, giving the scottish woman a faux disgusted look. “you’re evil beattie.”

“you love me.”

[taexual]

sleepwalking ● 21 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, suggestive themes, FLUFF!!, angst, SLOW BURN

words: 16.4k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 21 ► love me 'til my heart stops, hit me like a freight truck

You didn’t have the courage to knock on Jungkook’s door when you woke up the next morning. Your mind had sobered enough to recall stumbling into his room after accidentally trying to pick his lock, and you did not want to remember anything else. The rest of the night was blurry anyway, but you deduced easily enough that Jungkook was the reason you woke up smothered under the warm covers.

You wanted to stay in your room for as long as possible, but your headache was so severe that, if divided between people, it could have knocked out a small village for two days. You needed water. Most unfortunately, the hotel had no room service, so you had to find your way out of bed.

The world had finally stopped twirling around you, but that wasn’t a big improvement because other things bothered you now, like the carpet texture under your feet. Or the light that burned your eyes. Or your satin dress, which had felt comfortable last night but scratched you all over this morning.

Lacking the energy to change, you drew the curtains to block out the late morning sunlight and threw on a robe. Then you hesitated in the middle of the room, trying to place your belongings. You thought you remembered having a jacket on yesterday, but as you scanned your room, you couldn’t see it anywhere.

To make matters worse, when you left your room and the door shut behind you with a loud click, you were forced to pause and strain your muscles to stay upright. Every sound felt amplified like a megaphone had been taped directly to your brain.

You took a deep breath and turned the corner towards the stairwell. Your morning got a little brighter just then—you saw Luna cross the corridor, looking almost exactly how you felt. Taehyung was at her side, pushing a water bottle into her exhausted hand as he led her back to their room. He noticed you and immediately shook his head in disapproval, first at you and then at his girlfriend (not for the first time, judging from Luna’s defeated sigh).

Just as you were about to speak up in your defence, you smacked right into something solid and recoiled in surprise.

Jungkook nearly dropped his phone from the impact. He grabbed the railing of the stairs for support and turned around.

“Shit—hi,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you out of bed so early.”

The feeling was, obviously, mutual as your reluctant mind needed a moment to understand what was happening.

“What are you—why are you just standing here?” you asked, rubbing your forehead with your fingers. You had hit the clasp of his necklace when you walked into him, and the sharp pain began to pirouette around your head again.

“I was on my way downstairs for breakfast,” he said, a hint of amusement threading his every word as he observed your attempts to make sense of your surroundings. “But I wanted to text you first, so I’d know what to bring you.”

“It—thank you,” you replied, softer. Your thoughts had knotted into a jumbled, incomprehensible mess as images of Taehyung and Luna flashed through your mind again. “But I can go down. I think.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. He remembered you saying that last night, right before he’d half-carried you to your room. “Walking isn’t your strong suit when you’re drunk.”

You took a sharp breath. The mention of alcohol seemed to cause an unpleasant swirl in your already upset stomach.

You wondered briefly how noticeable your sudden nausea was, because Jungkook put his phone away and reached for you. You realised right then that you hadn’t even glanced in the mirror before you left your room. You could only imagine the state of last night’s makeup on your face right now.

“It’s clearly not my strong suit now either,” you said. “Sorry I nearly pushed you down the stairs just now.”

“It’s okay,” he said, snickering. One of his hands hovered over your arm in case you were planning to topple over. “Are you sure you should have drunk that much last night, though?”

“Of course I shouldn’t have,” you said, shielding your eyes with a weary hand as curious rays of sunlight filtered through the small windows by the stairs. “But what’s done is done. I think I’ve already embarrassed myself enough by breaking into your room last night, so that’s my punishment. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jungkook said. He took a small step to the left to provide you with a shadow from the sunlight. “You didn’t do anything I haven’t seen before.”

You groaned. “That somehow makes it worse. But serves me right, I guess. I even lost my jacket.”

“You—” his laughter cut him off. You groaned again, only adding to his amusement. “Different shoes and no jacket. Sounds like quite the night.”

You wanted to shake your head but did not dare move it. Instead, you leaned against the wall, seeking additional steadiness that your stiff legs could not provide. Your ankles felt stretched out and twisted around, and the rigid hotel slippers did not help.

“Get something to eat,” Jungkook suggested, noticing your struggle to hold yourself up. “You’ll feel better.”

You closed your eyes. Your stomach was already churning precariously; you weren’t ready to eat yet.

“No, I just need water and I’ll be perfect,” you said. “I’m going—”

“I can bring it to you,” he offered promptly.

“I’ll walk,” you asserted. Then, realising that you were declining his kind intentions and he deserved an explanation, you cleared your throat and gestured around vaguely. “I brought this upon myself, you know? So…”

“So, you should punish yourself for having fun?” he questioned skeptically.

You shrugged. You did feel responsible for your splitting headache. But you also hoped that walking around would help ease your frozen muscles, which was, perhaps, a result of sleeping like a log all night. Although all that drinking and dancing probably added to the pain, too.

“Could you check on Maggie for me, though?” you asked, holding onto the railing nearby to keep your balance because the wall was not enough. The more you blinked, the more your body yearned to recline. “I’ve seen Luna, so I know she’s alive, but I haven’t heard from Mags.”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” he said, pivoting around you. He was evidently prepared to fulfil your request immediately.

You stopped him by placing an unsteady hand on his arm.

“I haven’t forgotten that we—we need to talk,” you said. “And our film.”

Jungkook turned around again. Despite the uncertainty that seemed to boil in his stomach at that thought, he liked hearing this – we need to talk. Our film. He thought he would have liked hearing about you peeling potatoes and parallel parking between two trucks together.

“Oh.” He looked at the small window in the stairwell; the stained glass was thick, but the sunlight behind it was too persistent. “Well—we don’t have to talk or watch anything today. You should—”

“No, no, we will,” you insisted. You said this with no additional pain on your face, and Jungkook took it as a positive sign. “Let me just grab some water, and—”

“I’d prefer it if you got some proper rest first, actually,” he said as you pushed yourself off the wall and paused to catch your breath after the exertion. “I can tell you’re not feeling well.”

You huffed again. Really, an average crow—one of those cawing in the trees outside the hotel—could have recognised that you weren’t feeling well. You wondered if you had enough energy to pretend otherwise.

“I’m—well, I’ll take something for my headache when I get back to my room,” you said. “And, if you wouldn’t mind, I could use a quick nap. And then we—”

“I’ll get us some snacks,” he decided, “so you can come straight to my room after you wake up.”

You managed a grateful smile. “Okay. That sounds perfect.”

He smiled back, and for a minute, the two of you lingered in the warm silence, watching each other as your silhouettes merged into one in the hazy sunlight. Once the realisation dawned that you were just standing here, staring at each other and grinning, the two of you erupted into bashful chuckles and looked away.

A new, unexpected feeling joined the heaviness in your stomach, replacing some of your nausea with a sensation oddly reminiscent of bliss.

“I’m off, then,” Jungkook said, waving his hand towards the corridor. “I’ll check if Maggie’s okay.”

“Thank you,” you said, “I’ll see you later.”

And it really was much later.

When you returned to your room with a water bottle, Jungkook texted you to confirm that Maggie was alive and well, albeit dying of thirst, which he helped her out with. Apparently, she also had your jacket.

Relieved that some of your concerns had already been put to rest, you finished your water, took some ibuprofen, and returned to bed.

And when you woke up, you were understandably startled to discover you had slept for over five hours.

You opened the curtains to get a better idea of the time, but the overcast sky made the hour seem even later than it really was. So you tried another approach and went to the bathroom to wash up, get rid of the pillow creases on your face, and fully wake yourself up.

By the time you knocked on Jungkook’s door, it was almost seven in the evening. You arrived armed with your laptop and dressed in appropriate film night attire: dark joggers and a hoodie. But so much time had passed since your encounter in the stairwell that you wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d found something better to do instead.

Actually, you realised while you waited for the door to open—or not to open—that two weeks ago, Jungkook would have probably gone out with Sid to avoid spending this time alone. But now he opened the door for you, smiling as if you had just made plans and he hadn’t been waiting for you for hours.

“Hey,” he greeted, stepping aside to let you in. “I was just about to check on you.”

“I think I went into a bit of a coma for a while there. Sorry,” you said, walking inside. “And, of course, I’ve got a headache again now because I’ve been asleep for so long. Should we go for something to eat, and maybe—”

You stopped abruptly when you noticed the snacks strewn across his bed—a mound of chocolate-coated dragées, an unnecessarily large fortress of chocolate-chip cookie boxes, and an entire trove of crisps and popcorn. It took you a minute to comprehend it all, and then another minute to come up with a possible explanation as to how he could have got all this; there were no grocery shops within five kilometres of the hotel.

Jungkook closed the door and followed your gaze to his bed.

“Oh,” he said, not responding to your unasked questions. “Maybe it’d be better if you had a proper meal—”

“Are you kidding?” You jumped on the bed with an energy you did not realise you had and reached for one of the brown bags of chocolates, nearly dropping your laptop in excitement. “We’re eating this, and absolutely nothing else.”

Jungkook knew you liked chocolate the most, but he did not want to brag about the three taxis he had to take to eight different shops to get it for you. To be fair, he had not expected your favourite brand to be so hard to find, but he was determined. He would have found the factory and made the chocolate himself if he had to.

“It’s probably not the best choice for breakfast, though,” he said, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his sweatpants. “Even if it’s, uh, seven in the evening.”

You waved away his concerns, your mouth already full of sweets. Smiling, Jungkook sat down on the other side of the bed and pulled out a box of gummy bears that you had overlooked while trying to take in the abundance of snacks.

“So, uh, how did last night go?” he asked as he meticulously picked out the red bears and accidentally scattered the yellow and green ones on the bed.

“You know how it went,” you said. “You probably know more than I do, actually. The last thing I remember is Maggie swiping someone’s feather boa off their neck.”

“Oh, so that—” He stopped picking the gummy bears from the sheets. “Y-you had a feather in your earring when you got back. I was—honestly, I was a little worried that the three of you had robbed a zoo and tried to bring back a peacock or something.”

You snorted. “We might have tried. Did you check my bag for any stray lizards?”

“You didn’t have a bag when you got back.”

You stopped chewing and turned to him. “I—I didn’t have my bag with me?”

Jungkook paused, too. He wasn’t in the right frame of mind to analyse what items you had with you when you showed up on his doorstep last night.

“You had your key,” he said slowly. “And—well, that was it. Are you sure you had your bag with you when you left?”

You tried to piece your fragmented memories together, but your mind struggled to reconstruct the precise sequence of events. You remembered having an umbrella because it had been raining. You also remembered sitting in your bathroom for what felt like half a minute but must have been longer because Luna and Maggie looked a little distraught when they found you there.

You set the candy aside.

“I might have—yeah, I might have left it at the hotel,” you said, realising. “After I talked to my mum.”

Jungkook finished chewing his handful of gummy bears in silence. Each calculated bite seemed to propel him toward a precipice from which there was no return. He hadn’t expected the two of you to get to this point so quickly, even if he was glad you did.

“And how—how’d that go?” he asked.

“Well, it—I mean, we talked,” you said, settling against the headboard of his bed. “She, um—I-I don’t know what I expected her to say, to be honest. I asked her to tell me about her relationship with my dad, and she—well, she certainly did.”

Jungkook took a moment to study the expression on your face, searching for something that he could point out to keep you talking.

“But, uh, you wish she’d said something different?” he ventured when you offered no further explanation.

A measured breath preceded your response. You wanted to explain but finding words proved almost as difficult as confronting your mum about this yesterday.

“I guess I wish it would have made more sense to me,” you finally started. “I had some time to think, and—well, I disagree with almost every single reason my mum had for getting back together with him. But I’ve realised that there’s probably nothing that either of my parents could say that would change my mind. I’m disappointed and angry, and I think I’ve felt this way for a while. I’ve tried not to feel that because it just seemed childish and immature—but I am angry. And that’s fine.”

You lapsed into a silence that Jungkook did not want to disturb. He could tell this was a pause, not a complete stop, and he was too nervous to speak anyway. He was afraid of the parallel between your parents and the two of you—especially in light of everything that Sid was currently sending to his phone.

“I-I mean,” you resumed and Jungkook made an effort to focus on the sound of your voice and not his thoughts, “the way my mum looked at her relationship—honestly, I do think she has a lot of courage. But she, um—she also has—her attitude just seemed a bit reckless. I don’t know. I guess I might never understand why she thought that getting back together with him once wouldn’t already be enough, but that’s—that was her choice. She explained it to me in a way that made sense to her, and I’m grateful she did. But sh-she seems to have blocked out everything that happened after each of their break-ups. She said she was now at peace because she had always listened to her heart. And I’m happy for her, really. But, well, I’m not at peace. This back-and-forth... it brought our whole family nothing but misery, and that does not seem fair to me, or to my brother.”

Jungkook did not think he would ever hear you realise the things he had realised long ago. You had always been so determined to help your mum heal that you’d closed your eyes on your own pain. But it was there. Feelings did not go away just because you wished them to; he knew this well.

And he felt relieved, he realised. No matter what else happened tonight, at least you finally accepted that you had a right to feel wronged.

“Is that why you feel angry?” he asked.

“It... well, mostly, yes,” you said. “Because on top of everything else, this significantly affected how I view my own relationships. I wanted my parents to be happy together. But they just weren’t. And I ended up convincing myself that their unhappiness was universal and inevitable. That anyone who tried to get back together again was bound to fail again. I wanted them to defy these odds, and when they didn’t, I thought no one ever would.”

He toyed with the gummy bear package, and only looked at you for no longer than two seconds.

“But that’s not true,” he said, his voice quiet, tentative.

“It’s not,” you agreed. “I get it now. I may not understand my mum’s choices, but that’s because I didn’t live her life. And that’s exactly it. That’s what helped me come to terms with it all. I got it. My parents’ relationship is not a rule. If anything, it’s an exception.”

Something was glistening on the very edges of his pupils when your eyes met. It struck you that he had been waiting for you to come to this realisation.

“Just because it didn’t work out for them,” you said, looking down, “doesn’t mean it won’t work out for us. That’s, um—that is the main thing, I think.”

Jungkook swallowed. It seemed to him that there were many things to say in response, and he could not find one that he needed. He sort of felt as if he were navigating a field of landmines only visible to himself—but instead of avoiding them, he deliberately tried to step on one. He needed the explosion. He needed you to say something more. But he didn’t know how to get you to say it.

“It’s—that’s good,” he eventually said, because it was all he could manage.

You weighed your next words as your headache doubled and receded in anxious, intensifying waves.

“I’m—I just want you to know that this is still the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” you said. “Which makes me incredibly fortunate on the one hand, because, well, this is nothing. Right? But also it—well, I’m just scared. I don’t think that’s going to go away. I don’t think things will suddenly be better because we decide so. I think it’s going to be something we’ll have to work through.”

“That’s fine, though,” he said right away, and a tired weight heaved itself off your chest and rolled down, relieving an immense pressure inside you. Just like that. “I just want to try again with you. But better this time.”

Your teeth dug into the corner of your lip. You wanted that, too, but you didn’t think labelling it like this was right.

“Trying again,” you said, “implies that, um, we’ve stopped doing something, and now we’re doing it again.”

He gave you a puzzled look. “Right.”

“I—I’m not sure if we ever stopped.”

He took a shaky breath, uncertain if he ever released it or if it would remain trapped somewhere deep inside his throat.

“My mum… uh, she also told me about the songs,” you said and Jungkook looked up as though his conversations with your mum surprised him, too. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

This was precisely why, Jungkook thought, turning away. Because you could not look at him when you talked about the songs he wrote about you, and he couldn’t look at you, either.

Rubbing the side of his nose, he said, “your mum, uh—she warned me that you might get physically violent.”

There was a sheepish grin tugging at his lips; he was joking.

Still, you shook your head. “But I mean when we were—when we started talking again. Not just at the bar in Oslo. Or at the hotel in Manchester.”

He coughed, feeling the sparkles in his lungs as they caught fire. You remembered, then—not just the two songs, but where you were, and what you were doing when he told you about them.

“Did you want me to tell you about the rest of them?” he asked, finally looking up. “You looked about ready to leap out of the nearest window when I brought it up.”

“I—okay, you’re probably right,” you conceded. “But, uh, my mum mentioned a new song you’re working on.”

Jungkook expected that to happen, but his stomach still churned anxiously as he smoothed the bedding with his palm. “Hmm.”

“Can I hear it?” you asked.

He brought his hand to the back of his neck. “Are you sure you want to?”

“Yes.”

He looked at you again, searching for a stronger confirmation in your eyes—and finding it there. He slowly rose from the bed and pulled out his phone from his pocket.

“It’s—I think it’s the most personal song I’ve ever written,” he said, and you held your breath. “Your mum warned me about it, which she’s never done before. Usually, she just gives me permission to release the song and sometimes offers a compliment.”

“She didn’t like it this time?” you asked while he unlocked his phone.

“No, she said she liked it a lot,” he replied, placing his phone on the bed. The screen displayed various voice notes: some with gibberish titles, others numbered. The newest one was labelled, PUDDLE_FINAL11. “But she also said that this is a song I should run by you first.”

You crossed your legs on the bed and hesitated awkwardly for a second—unsure if you could really listen to the song and sit still. Then, you leaned back against the headboard and closed your eyes.

“Let me hear it.”

Jungkook watched you get comfortable and bit his lip. He knew this was what you did when you were nervous or excited—crossing your legs on the couch when the film you two were watching got to the most interesting part; crossing them on the chair in the library when you were studying for final exams, crossing them on the passenger seat in his car when you were on road trips, playing Guess The Song (he always won, which he took great pride in).

“This is, um, the song that I told you I was writing in Oslo,” he said. Your heart was racing just like it had back then. “It’s what the band and I are working on right now. Yoongi, uh—he’s the one who’s working through the tone and the instruments, and—well, that stuff. I’m just kind of there to sing and look pretty.”

You opened your eyes again to give him a look. “You wrote the lyrics.”

“I—yeah, okay. And I wrote the lyrics.” He took a deep breath. “This is—it’s still a demo, though, so—you know. Keep an open mind.”

You froze as soon as he pressed “play” on the voice note. This appeared to be the eleventh version of the song, as indicated by the number at the end of the title.

The recording began with soft, but quick guitar chords. The song was not slow-paced and seemed much more postcore than the band’s usual music. Even though his guitar was the only instrument accompanying his hesitant but clear voice, you could easily imagine an overlay of drums and bass.

How I run when my phone lights up with a text /

My friends all know, “is that your ex?” /

They said I bet you want her, bet you love her, bet you can’t forget /

I don’t remember why I lied, why I agreed, why I made the bet

You turned to look at Jungkook, your eyes filled with graphic surprise, but he was staring at his phone, his lower lip trapped between his teeth. He was tugging on it so forcefully that his lip ring strained against his skin.

The music shifted into a rhythmic bridge—Jungkook had stopped strumming and began to tap the body of the guitar instead, mimicking the beat of Hoseok’s drums.

This feels like a disease I suffer /

Might break just thinking of her /

Can’t breathe, cannot recover /

I love her, I fucking love her

“The chorus is next, and—” Jungkook cut in over the music, “—it’s very simple, but it’s not done yet. It should still sound better with Yoongi’s guitar, and all the rest.”

Immediately, he returned to his own guitar in the recording, the chords rapid and eager as he sang—his voice louder, more forced, emanating from deep within his diaphragm as the song reached the chorus:

I can’t look you in the eyes /

When all I say are these stupid lies /

The memories of when you were mine /

Are playing in my tired mind /

Scared to fail, so I’d rather get high /

Yeah, but I have to stand up and try

The song slowed for the exit of the chorus and Jungkook sang it to complete silence:

And this is nothing fucking new, /

I’ve always been in love with you

You sucked in a breath and closed your eyes again. If your heart hadn’t been pounding so intensely, you might have been able to envision what the musical break that followed after the chorus would sound like once it was accompanied by Taehyung’s bass.

Before you could try to calm yourself, however, Jungkook began the second verse on the recording:

How I miss you and this feeling is all that inspires /

How this pain shifts, grows, how it turns into fires /

It will burn when I write, when I think, when I sing /

Flames will turn to ashes, turn to words, turn to ink

Right as the chorus started again—his voice growing more passionate as he lost himself in the song—Jungkook cleared his throat and commented over the recording, “I wrote that part in Oslo. While—after I asked you to come meet me at the bar.”

You nodded—or thought you nodded; all movement felt surreal right now—and listened in silence.

“The refrain,” Jungkook spoke again as the second chorus ended and the music began to speed up, “is my favourite part. It’s kind of pop-punk, largely inspired by blink-182, but it’s also just… it’s a way to get it all out.”

As soon as he finished talking, you heard the refrain on the recording—his words were rushed, the music barely catching up.

Biffy Clyro at a wedding, but we dance on separate floors /

Hotel bathrooms and champagne, we’re hiding there with open doors /

Years ago before I saw you, I was lost without a cause /

You changed my life from the first time that our paths had crossed /

I knew about you way before, I didn’t think this through /

I walked up to you after class, because our meeting’s overdue /

Years later we’re in Paris, I looked around and knew – /

It was always you, it was always you, it was always you

You focused on the screen of his phone as the song played and you did not dare to move—not even when the final chorus finished, and he reached over to stop the recording.

He asked, “what did you think?” and you realised that your mind was as silent as this room once the song ended.

You felt lost in the echoing recesses of your mind. There were so many things in your head and at the same time, there weren’t any at all. Because everything—from the first time he introduced himself to you after class, to Chloé and Kihyun’s wedding in Paris, to the bet he’d made with Sid and Jude—had just been said.

“I… think you are insane,” you said, glancing at him. “And also incredibly talented to manage to put all of that into a—into one song.”

“Yeah?” A satisfied grin was playing on his lips and you couldn’t take your eyes off it. “Did you like it?”

You shook your head, because this was too feeble—like. Sitting on his bed in this room, you doubted if you had ever simply liked anything when it came to Jungkook. Every emotion you felt for him had always been so much more intense and infinitely deeper.

“It’s—fuck, it’s a great song,” you said, tapping your palm against the bed. Jungkook recognised the beat and felt his heart soar. The whole room seemed to brighten, not at all threatened by the darkness outside the window. “It sounded good. The rhythm—it’s really good. I can see it becoming a crowd favourite.”

“Thanks,” he said but did not relent. In all the crowds in the world, he was going to search for you. “But what did you think?”

Watching him watch you, you said awkwardly, “I liked your voice.”

He laughed, finding the real compliment in your flustered expression and your struggle to answer his question directly.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll take it.”

“Was this the song you played for Yoongi and Namjoon that time?” you asked, so you could avoid giving feedback about the way he captured your whole life in his lyrics, and now your heartbeat matched the rhythm of the song. “W-when Yoongi came to talk to me, worried about you?”

Jungkook still nursed a bitterness about Yoongi’s initial reaction to the song and pursed his lips.

“Yeah, um—at the time, I only had the second verse,” he said. “That’s probably why he was concerned.”

“Well,” you dropped a pillow onto your lap, “it doesn’t sound like a heartbreak anthem.”

He snorted. “I hope not.”

You did not say anything else for a while.

You were not in control of anything that was happening inside of you right now, so this was the best you could offer. A big part of your brain was preoccupied with keeping you seated on your side of the bed instead of reaching—lunging­—for him, and an even bigger part was still processing the song he had just played. This left you with very little strength to be eloquent.

You liked the song. You liked his voice. You were worried the fire inside your chest would do irreparable damage to your heart. You wondered what went on in your mum’s head when she heard it.

“I can’t believe you sent that to my mum, though,” you voiced your latest thought. “The whole thing?”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug because getting feedback from your mum had become a regular practice. He had continued to reach out to her even after you started to manage Rated Riot.

“With the curses and everything?” you asked, your nose scrunched.

He laughed again. You looked so beautiful like this, analysing his lyrics in your head. He didn’t know what to do with himself.

“She knows I curse,” he said. “She’s read most of my lyrics. Also, I am twenty-six.”

“Still,” you muttered. “There’s so much—you, um—you mention the bet in the song.”

His expression grew serious.

“Yeah. One of the first times I texted your mum, I…” he paused here, tracing his fingers lightly over his eyelids. “Well, actually, I was drunk, so I mostly remember this from the screenshots I took. I asked her if I could write a song that would bring you back to me. I was really—well, drunk and, you know. Sentimental. And she said—and I actually remember this part, because, somehow, no one else thought to say this to me—she said that I could, but I had to be honest in my lyrics.”

He fell silent, but it didn’t feel like an invitation for you to respond.

Looking up at you after a minute, Jungkook continued, “every song I wrote about you was honest. I meant every single word in every single verse. And I was hoping one of them would bring you back.”

It began as a faint buzzing in your chest and escalated into a gentle whisper, then erupted into a loud scream, filled with all the longing that’s been there all this time—mostly dormant, but restless. This longing wasn’t buried under mundane, daily tasks, it just existed right there in your chest, pushing sharply into your heart every time you thought you forgot, thought you moved on.

Every time you looked at him, every time you remembered him, every time you fell asleep, the longing was there, and it was growing, always growing—even more rapidly now that you and Jungkook began to spend more time together. By now, it had grown far larger than your chest could hold. And it was screaming.

“I’m—I don’t—I’m not sure I was ever really gone,” you confessed. “I think I... I actually called my mum with a decision already made. And I just needed her to say it was going to be okay. Because, you know. She’s my mum.”

There it was—the explosion he’d been waiting for. He could see the clouds in the distance but he hadn’t felt the impact yet.

“W-what’s your decision?” he asked.

“I want to try,” you said. “If you—if you’d—”

“I swear to God,” he interjected, his voice gaining volume as his heart rate gained speed. “If you're going to ask me if I want to be with you, I’m not sure I’ll make it.”

A smile flickered across your features, but you clutched the bedsheets underneath you tighter to control your expression.

“Let’s give this a chance,” Jungkook said, echoing everything that your heart demanded from you. “I know you’re scared of what this could mean for your job, and—”

“No,” you cut him off. “That—what happens with my job, happens. That feels—it feels like something we can figure out. But I want to try, and that’s what’s scary. Because this isn’t something we can solve, we either work out or we don’t. And I’m scared I won’t always be able to overcome my fear that we might not work. I’m scared I’ll still try to run away from everything.”

“I’ll find you,” he said, and your heart threatened to stop. “I’ll always find you.”

“You shouldn’t have to, though,” you protested weakly. “That’s not fair.”

“My love,” he said, sliding closer to you on the bed. You felt very light-headed. “Anything’s fair to me when it comes to you. Stay and let me make you happy.”

It was remarkable how his hotel bed managed to fit both of you and all that you’d carried inside you for all these years.

You shook your head.

“I’m happy,” you said. “This is right where I’ve always wanted to be. I’m not going anywhere.”

Jungkook looked at you, and he felt like he was nineteen again, watching you from across the campus quad. Thoughts of how to approach you—how to talk to you; how to look at you—were running rampant in his overstimulated mind. He had just left Sociology class where he’d doodled and daydreamed about you the whole time and now that he had a chance to talk to you, his legs had turned to stone.

He knew you liked Hayao Miyazaki, and he thought, alright, he would lead with that. And then in a frantic attempt to explain his determined stride towards you with a murderous expression on his face, he had ended up introducing himself as Neighbour Totoro.

Your smile in response should have been plastered on billboards; and was, on billboards, actually—all over the canyons of his mind. All he could do after that was just stammer about seeing you around campus, noticing that you shared a few classes together, finding it really cute when you dozed off during your professor’s philosophical rants, and wishing very much that the earth would open up and swallow him whole because what the fuck was he saying to you right now—and you’d smiled again. And the stones in his legs had melted.

You gave him your phone number and invited him to a party that someone on your floor was throwing that Friday. And you’d said, “I think it’d be really cool if you came,” but all that he could hear had been the violent pounding in his chest.

His heart pounded just as intensely now.

“Yeah?” he asked you, breathless and half-drunk as the rest of his hotel room drowned in your eyes.

He thought he could feel the earth move. He thought he could will it to stop, to pause for just a split second until you replied and he could—

“Yeah.”

He had arrived at that party back then, and you had found him right away. You’d spent the whole night talking until he finally mustered up the courage to ask you to hang out alone sometime. Maybe watch a film and have dinner? And you’d said yes.

You’d said yes seven years ago, and now you were here – saying yes, again.

Jungkook reached for you so quickly that you barely noticed the smile on his face, let alone the one on yours. His hands were soft on your cheek as he leaned in, pressing his lips to yours in a clumsy kiss—but your mouths needed less than a second to find a familiar rhythm.

His tongue met yours, and he tasted like the memory of every time you’d kissed him before and a promise of every time you’d kiss him in the future. He tasted like everything you’ve ever wanted and everything you thought you’d lost.

“Did you know,” he whispered, his words punctuated by heavy breaths and your lips smacking against each other, “that I dreamt about you—on the night before you showed up at the company—as our manager—?”

You pulled back slightly to be able to look at him, your lips parted in a surprised smile. “No. What did you dream about?”

“This, actually,” he said, kissing you once more and frowning when you pulled back again, waiting for him to explain. “Except neither one of us pulled away.” He paused here, looking at you very meaningfully. You pressed another kiss to his lips and he grinned, continuing finally, “I hadn’t dreamt of you in months, and I woke up from a text message in the middle of kissing you in that dream. I was obviously pissed. I looked at the text, and it was from Yoongi. He was saying, ‘we’re meeting our manager today, don’t be late’ or something like that. And I remembered debating just going back to sleep. But I forced myself out of bed, thinking that this manager better be worth it.”

Your smile was absurd. “Was she?”

He nodded, tracing his fingers down your neck to your collarbones, and bringing goosebumps to the surface of your skin.

“She was,” he said.

“You didn’t say one word to me throughout that whole meeting, though,” you pointed out.

Jungkook shrugged.

“I hadn’t seen you in two years,” he said. “I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I would tell you how long I’d been waiting for you.”

You did not feel yourself respond with a defeated, breathless, “oh,” but Jungkook smiled when he heard it.

“Yeah,” he said, leaning in. “Hardly professional.”

“Mmhm—” your hum drowned in his kiss. “Hardly.”

There was something artificially sweet on his tongue when you kissed him back—likely from the gummy bears—and it made your hands instinctively reach for his shirt, pulling him closer. He wondered if you noticed the way his heart rate quickened at that; he found your need for him exhilarating.

You kissed him harder and remembered all your stolen kisses throughout this tour. This did not feel anything like it.

This kiss was not hurried—not until the five minutes you’ve allotted yourselves were up. It wasn’t secret—not until you had to leave your hotel room in Amsterdam. It wasn’t pretend—not until you had to admit to yourselves that you weren’t and could not be friends. And it wasn’t a dream, either—not until one of you had to wake up and realise that this had just been your subconsciousness, refusing to let go. To move on.

The kiss was slow. It was not rushed, and not hidden. It was true, and it was real.

Your heart finally returned home.

Then, Jungkook slowly pulled away, his pupils dilated and filled with something distracting that lingered on his mind.

“You didn’t say anything to me, either,” he said slowly. “When we started to work together, I mean.”

“I know,” you replied, letting go of him. It did not feel fair to touch him when he said that, but Jungkook felt lost for a moment after you pulled back your hands. “I wasn’t sure if I should.”

“Hmm.” He needed to find the string attached to the words he’d kept inside, and he needed to pull them out, but he could only do that by looking away. “I, uh—I get that now, but back then, I felt very, um—well, left-out, I guess. For lack of a better word. You talked to everyone else but me.”

You were struck by the immediacy and the clarity of these memories: how you’d made a deliberate effort not to talk to him unless it was necessary, because that was the only way you could stay professional. In hindsight, that should have probably been a hint. If you had to go to such lengths to avoid someone in order to remain professional, it likely meant you weren’t truly professional, just pretending to be.

“I know,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s—well, I could have said something, too,” Jungkook said. “But after a while, it seemed to me like we’d silently agreed to just ignore our relationship, so it didn’t feel right to bring it up again. I didn’t want to make things awkward.”

Your smile broke through the sombre atmosphere in the room. You couldn’t listen to this without pointing out his reactions to you in those first few days. Jungkook had been very loud about doubting your authority.

“You used to complain about me all the time in the beginning,” you reminded him. “You said you wouldn’t take orders from a kid.”

He grinned, remembering, too.

“Well, I had to say that,” he defended, a glint of mischief in his eye. Age had been his favourite argument against working with you. “How else could I hide that I still had feelings for you?

You looked away—he expected this, and his smile grew wider. You thought you had him there. But he knew that in all the years you’ve known each other, you could not find a moment where he didn’t love you. He couldn’t find one himself.

“Maggie told me you were the one who told her we had dated,” you said then.

Jungkook did not immediately remember. “I did?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed. “We were all drinking together, and you—”

“Oh, yeah,” he cut in, nodding. He recalled Maggie responding to him as though he’d told her he was an escaped convict. “In the parking lot. I don’t think she believed me at first, actually. I was very good at acting unbothered.”

You arched an eyebrow. “She said she came to check on you because Hoseok noticed that you seemed bothered.”

Jungkook clicked his tongue. “Well, Hoseok notices these things. It doesn’t count.”

You grinned, shaking your head.

Jungkook, meanwhile, remembered something else now that you’d mentioned Maggie. It was something he’d held close to his heart for years, and he was hesitant to bring it up now. He knew it was probably not real, but he held onto the ignorant hope that it might be.

“Did you… tell anyone on the staff?” he asked.

“Hm? About us?” you clarified.

He nodded.

“Just the band,” you said.

“Oh.” He held his breath as he considered how to explain this, and how to brace himself for your response. “Because, um—well, apparently, Maggie spoke to Jin after I talked to her. And then Jin talked to Jimin. And Jimin told me that he thought I just had a crush on you.”

“A year ago?” you clarified, a little uneasy about the timeline.

The girls had tried to reassure you last night that you and Jungkook were really not that obvious—but perhaps the truth was that you had wasted all these years just like you feared.

You put unnecessary strain on your heart because you’d convinced yourself that this was how things were meant to be. You’d convinced yourself that Jungkook really did not love you anymore. And when you realised that maybe he still did, you’d convinced yourself that second chances did not work, and it was better to suffer through the initial break-up for years rather than attempt to try again.

“Yeah.” Jungkook swallowed, getting to his point. “And, um—a while after that, Namjoon said he thought you might have a crush on me.”

You blinked, feeling your heart leap into a thrilled dance, each beat a self-assured I told you so.

“Namjoon said that?” you asked weakly.

“Yeah,” he said, keeping his eyes on you. “We were both drunk, trying to work on a song, and not doing so well. I was upset about something that day, so I thought he was just saying that to comfort me. Cheer me up. He said he noticed you staring at me during our meeting earlier that day. He said he thought it was meaningful. Said you didn’t seem to just be dozing off.”

I told you so—

I told you so—

I told you—

You remembered that meeting.

You remembered looking away from Jungkook and meeting Namjoon’s raised eyebrows. You hadn’t realised you’d been staring. But he had.

Right now, in the hotel room, you did not say anything, but Jungkook felt the bubble of hope swell in his chest, straining as it threatened to explode.

It was true, then.

You had been watching him during that meeting. So much so that it led Namjoon—a very smart, but arguably the most oblivious man in the country—to notice that something was going on.

You cleared your throat. “Did he—uh, did he know about—”

“He knew I was writing about you,” Jungkook replied. “The second he yelled at me and told me to stop writing about abstract feelings and start writing from my own chest, I pulled out three different songs for him. He always knew.”

“Hmm.”

A moment of silence followed, allowing the two of you to simmer in the sounds coming from your chests.

You thought you were trying very hard to ignore him and focus on your job, and you did, really. Especially when you first started to work together. But gradually, the less you talked about your relationship to each other, the more your suppressed feelings made themselves known: it was the way you always happened to stand next to each other at the label events. It was the way Jungkook was the only one who remembered where your office was in the labyrinth of corridors at the company building. It was the way you looked at him when you talked to him. It was the way he teased you at every chance he got.

“So, the roadies thought you were dating Namjoon,” Jungkook concluded, “while Jimin thought I liked you, and Namjoon thought you liked me.”

“Yeah. Apparently, we’re all twelve,” you said. “I love how that’s ongoing, too. We’re still a very hot topic.”

Jungkook chuckled, seemingly as entertained about this as Seokjin had been when he mentioned the bets the staff had going about the two of you.

“I know,” he said, trying to restrain his reaction for your sake. “But it—it’s just us. You know? We’re the only ones who really know about us. You and me. And about fifty people on this tour with us, but that’s—well, who cares?”

“Yeah,” you said with a shrug of your shoulders. “Not a big deal.”

He heard the sarcasm in your tone, but he still grinned. “Yeah.”

You looked down and brought your hands over your sweatpants, and his smile faded. He seemed to react to your next words before you even said them.

“I’ll have to, um—I’ll have to talk to the label about us,” you said. “I’ll have to tell them.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Another silence stole away any remaining words. Jungkook wondered if the two of you were really as powerful as he’d imagined. He wondered if you had the authority to decide what you’d do.

“What do you think they’ll say?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you replied. There was a calmness in your voice that he wasn’t expecting. “We’ll see.”

“Should I—should I talk to them with you?” he suggested—and realised right away that this would not work.

“Probably not,” you replied gently. “It’ll feel a little like we’re talking to our parents. And not, you know, our employers.”

“Right.”

You glanced at him and realised that he appeared more worried than you felt. You thought that perhaps this was how it was between you two: one of you panicked while the other stayed level-headed to provide reassurance.

“It’ll be fine,” you said. “We got so far, right?”

“Yeah,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. “But, I mean, what if they say this can’t happen?”

“Well, then we break up, of course.”

He gave you a long, questioning look. “I’m serious.”

“I am, too,” you replied, not serious at all.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, now you want to joke about it. Okay.”

You laughed, and immediately made him smile, too. Leaning into him—almost reflexively—you placed a hand on his chest and gently pulled him down onto the bed until the two of you were lying face-to-face. Finally, he laughed, too.

The truth was, you felt nervous as well. But some innate balance required you to look on the bright side when he couldn’t. Surely, if you overcame yourselves, you could overcome external hurdles, too.

“I’m not joking,” you said. “It’ll be fine. We, um—we know our issues now. I think we can figure out what we should do no matter what happens. We’ve grown.”

Jungkook looked at you for a minute, then finally exhaled and reached out to touch your cheek.

“Alright,” he said, the tips of his fingers careful as they traced over the side of your jaw. “We have. We used to never talk to each other.”

“Yeah, that had always been the core problem with us,” you agreed, leaning into his touch and singlehandedly stopping his heart for a dangerous minute.

The two of you found it very easy to point out your flaws now—like teachers marking all the issues in a student’s essay: lack of communication, toxic friendships, parental trauma.

“None of that now?” Jungkook asked.

“None of that now,” you agreed, closing your eyes.

You felt him scoot closer to you on the bed as his palm replaced the tips of his fingers on your cheek.

“I’m not going to shut up about how much I love you, though,” he whispered.

You looked at him again, and your smile stretched from one corner of his hotel room to the other.

“I’ll take that over silence,” you said.

He responded with a shuddered breath and moved closer. His lips found yours blindly, but effortlessly. His kiss was soft, slow, and lingering because now you had all the time in the world and he was determined to savour every moment.

Pulling back slightly, he brought his nose to yours, and the air you exhaled as you chuckled softly made him close his eyes again. He kissed your cheek and the corner of your lips and the edge of your jaw, and somewhere along the way, he realised that he had wanted to say something else but now he forgot all about it. He kissed your lips once more instead. Then twice more—until you were smiling too much for the kiss to feel like anything other than a gentle peck.

He settled back on the bed next to you. He was so close that you could barely look at him without your eyes going out of focus. And he was beautiful like this—his hair falling in loose, messy curls around his face, his eyes alive with an energy so powerful that you could not look away from him once your gazes met. His lips were parted as he breathed steadily, running his tongue over his lower lip.

You watched each other just like you had earlier in the corridor, with the tips of your fingers locked onto each other’s skin as though transferring electricity from one heart to the other, and back again.

“I’m sorry I did not want to talk about our relationship,” you finally admitted, your voice a timid whisper. “I thought the safe choice would be to speak to you one-on-one as little as possible. And after a few months, it became easier to be in the same room with you without my hands shaking, and my heart—well, anyway. I didn’t want to ruin what little stability we had with each other. Even though for a long time—maybe even the whole time, I don’t know anymore—we were there, in the back of my mind.”

He exhaled. “We could have talked about us before.”

“We should have talked about us before,” you corrected.

“Right.” He rolled onto his back. “Instead, I drank three bars into bankruptcy in those first few months after you started working with us.”

He remembered Sid’s messages as soon as he said this, and for a brief, irrational moment, he waited for you to stand up and leave the room. Instead, he was startled when he saw you smile out of the corner of his eye.

“I know,” you said softly. “I was asked to pay off your debt at one of them.”

He turned to face you, his eyes wide. “No—w-were you really?”

“Yeah,” you said. “Sid called and gave me an ultimatum: either I came to pay for your bill or the bar owner was going to call the police on you.”

Jungkook had to really concentrate to remember anything, and he quickly felt embarrassed that he even tried. He could not remember his own name, that was how drunk he would get in those days. He couldn’t bring them back to his memory now, no matter how much he tried.

“Where was Sid, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” you replied. “Probably tripping on something in a random hotel. He never called me if he was still with you.”

Jungkook swallowed, his thoughts racing.

“Well, I mean—shit,” he said. “How much do I owe you?”

“You don’t,” you replied. “I came to the bar and told the owner your name was Isidore Mercer-Hastings, and that they should contact the police to settle the bill for whatever you drank that night.”

Jungkook raised his eyebrows. He thought he lacked Sid’s perpetual sneer to pass as someone from a conglomerate family.

“They believed it?” he asked.

“Well, they didn’t know who you were,” you said. “And it was resolved very quietly after that. I doubt the bar owner even managed to write a report after he mentioned the name at the station.”

“Someone in Sid’s family must have handled it,” Jungkook speculated. You thought so as well. “Sid never said anything.”

“I don’t think he expected me to fight back, actually,” you said. “In any case, I paid the price. After that, he started leaving you in all kinds of shitholes for me to find a lot more frequently.”

Jungkook realised that a ball had formed in his throat.

“I-I didn’t even notice it,” he admitted. “He—he had me by the throat, and I thought he just wanted to hang out with me.”

You didn’t want the topic to shift to Sid, but it felt inevitable. He was the additional burden on your relationship, he always had been.

“And he’s in London now,” you said, sighing.

Jungkook exhaled, too. “Yeah.”

“What are we going to do?”

He looked at you for only a moment, but his eyes were filled with an unexpected alarm.

“I’m—well, nothing?” he said. “I don’t know.”

“But—I mean, he has to be here for you, right?” you questioned.

Jungkook’s phone weighed heavily in his pocket.

“He probably is,” he said.

“So, he stalked you all the way to London,” you noted. “I think we should start considering the possibility of you getting a restraining order against him, or—”

Jungkook whipped his head to face you. “Isn’t that—uh, a bit dramatic?”

Frowning, you propped yourself up on your elbows and turned to him. “He is stalking you, Jungkook.”

He looked away and brought his finger over the bedsheets. If Sid had sent him only that one video, perhaps Jungkook could have handled it quietly. But Sid had kept them coming.

And Jungkook had already tried it before: this method of not telling you and hoping to find a way out of a predicament that he’d allowed Sid to put him in. It hadn’t been successful. He had no intention of trying it again.

“To be honest,” he said, sitting up, “that is not the only thing he is doing.”

Your stomach clenched with something it had come to know very well over the past few days – pure dread.

“What do you mean?” you asked.

“He, um—he’s sending me things.”

“Oh, God.” You turned away from him, groaning. “Don’t tell me he’s sending you the body parts of people he’s stalked before.”

“N-no, that—no,” Jungkook said and then paused to snicker at the thought. “He’s just—he’s sending me videos.”

You did not feel relieved. The way he said it made it sound like it was not just videos. It sounded like it might as well have been severed limbs.

“What videos?” you asked reluctantly.

He hesitated before answering, hoping—almost irrationally—that he would find a way to summarise the videos for you in a way that would diminish their significance. But he was worried he’d make it worse instead. He didn’t want to casually mention them or act like it was not a big deal, only to hear your negative response. You’d think he was still incapable of realising what he was doing, you’d think he hadn’t changed—and he had. He was sure he had. But his hands were shaking as he tugged on the bedsheets and refused to look at you.

“Of—of me,” he finally admitted. “Of us hanging out together before this tour.”

“Oh.”

He did not like the thickness of the silence around you. He didn’t want this to turn into yet another problem. And it wasn’t—it was a continuous problem that he’d willingly brought on this tour.

Jungkook couldn’t stop blaming himself for everything he did with Sid, and now he was convinced that his guilt wouldn’t even make a difference. He’d tell you about this, and the videos would be too much, and he would not be enough.

You’d warned him you were afraid; he didn’t want to add more doubts to what already seemed like a hesitant decision. Of course, he believed in your relationship too much to think that you were willing to try again just for his benefit. He believed you wanted this, too. But he was also rational enough to understand that you couldn’t just wish for your relationship to work out this time, and it simply would. You had to work on that. And he was sure that these videos would hinder the progress you’ve already made.

He decided he didn’t want to talk to you about this as though he needed your help solving this issue. He wanted to tell you about it with a solution already in his mind.

“T-they’re not good,” he added. “But I—”

“Why is he sending them to you?” you interrupted.

He paused, rearranging his thoughts. He wondered if you were intentionally avoiding asking him to show you the videos, or if you did not want to see them. He was not sure which option he preferred.

“He’s, um, threatening to show them to you,” he said.

“Unless you do what?”

“Unless—” He paused again. “I—I don’t know, actually. I don’t think he wants me to do anything. He’s just taunting me. I tried to block the number, but I assume he has multiple disposable SIM cards or something because I keep—well, different unknown numbers keep sending me videos from the same… situations.”

You looked away, absentmindedly patting the pillows on the bed.

You were certain that Sid had a goal in mind, he just hadn’t told Jungkook about it yet.

“Well, what’s in those videos?” you asked.

Jungkook shut his eyes. He was sure of it now—he would have preferred it if you hadn’t asked about the contents of the videos, after all.

“We’re—we’re drunk in all of them,” he said, his tongue catching on the dryness of his mouth. “Just doing dumb shit. Shit that I thought I left in the past. I know I left it in the past, I’m just—but with Sid pulling it all out now, it feels like—it feels like I’m still there.”

You frowned, puzzled.

“But you’re not still there,” you pointed out.

“I’m not,” Jungkook said, but his voice sounded distant. “But it—you were always the one who made sure that Sid and I didn’t damage the band’s reputation, or—well, anything else. I’m sorry about that, by the way. I-I don’t want you to think that all that you’ve done was in vain, and I don’t want you to think I’m still the same—I know I’m not—but it feels like—”

“Jungkook,” you said, cutting him off by placing your hand on his shoulder.

His distress reminded you of the night he told you that Sid was in Manchester with you. He was breathing heavily, barely able to choose his words. He thought, clearly, that you were going to blame him for this. He thought he’d let you down.

“Show me,” you asked.

And he showed you—because he knew he had to. He took a deep breath, sat down next to you, and played the videos for you, starting from the very first one.

But like he had yesterday, he cut the video off just as his hands reached out for his dance partner and he wrapped one of his legs around their ankles.

“Wait,” you raised your eyes to Jungkook’s restless gaze, “what happens next?”

“I, um—” he paused, attempted to inhale, and forgot all his words.

He thought he showed you enough. He thought showing you the rest of the video was going to be bad. He hadn’t considered how bad it would be if he had to recap it himself.

“I flip this person on their back,” he said, forcing himself to continue. He was going to tell you everything, even if he had to rip his heart out to do it. “We, uh—we make out. Or try to. It’s, uh—it’s definitely too much. But we’re drunk. Then a security guard comes to tell us we can’t do that here. I then declare that we’re getting married, so he can, respectfully, get fucked. And all of us get escorted out of the club.”

“Ah,” you said. “You must have been really wasted.”

Your voice sounded disconnected somehow—like you hadn’t fully grasped that he was the person in the video.

Or, he thought in a brief moment of lightness, maybe you had grasped it, but it made no difference because it’s been so long.

But Jungkook couldn’t hold onto this hopeful thought for too long. He felt he deserved stronger adjectives.

“Is this it?” you asked after a moment. His phone screen had gone dark after he hadn’t pressed on anything else. “Is that all he—”

“No,” he said. “That’s, um—that’s only the first one he sent.”

Then he played you the three newest videos—the ones he’d just received earlier today after he turned his phone back on.

All the videos were from days that he could scarcely remember. Sid had filmed him dancing, arguing, screaming, engaging in other activities that would earn a community label if the video got publicised, and drinking. Alcohol was featured heavily in all the videos.

You maintained a neutral expression through the first few clips but finally frowned when you watched the third one. In it, Jungkook was having a heated argument with someone outside what appeared to be a nightclub—the only indication was a bright neon sign behind the two figures on the screen.

Jungkook was visibly agitated in the video, hurling all curses known to mankind—and some only known to animalkind—at a red-faced man whom you did not recognise. The man remained silent, swaying slightly on his feet, frowning more and more with each passing second.

You attempted to remember this moment, trying to place the street where the video was taken—you thought Sid had asked you to pick up Jungkook from somewhere around here. But as you watched it, you could not remember Jungkook harassing a seemingly random person. And then you realised that this likely wasn’t a random person, and Jungkook wasn’t the one harassing him.

Turning your head to look at him, you were surprised to see the resolute defeat on Jungkook’s face. He appeared to be waiting to be sentenced.

“He cut the video,” you said, looking back at his phone, “to make you look intentionally aggressive. This guy—he approached you at the bar, didn’t he?”

Jungkook only hummed. It took him another minute to relax his muscles so he could speak—by that time, the video had already ended, and he snickered bitterly.

“Yeah. He used a few pretty slurs, so I told him we should take it outside,” he said. “Right after the video ended, he actually threw a vodka bottle at my head. It didn’t hit me, but we got into a—a fight, and I cut myself on a shard. No stitches, but, um, it bled like a bitch.”

“Fuck, that’s—I-I remember you bleeding,” you said, looking away. You’d wrapped your scarf on his hand when you found him behind that club, on the street from the video, sometime later. He’d refused a hospital and you had not slept the whole night after you dropped him off at his house. “What was Sid doing while that was happening?”

“Well, he watched,” Jungkook said, locking his phone. “He watched and filmed, and now he’s trying to make it seem like I picked that fight.”

You quieted. The videos had made it very clear that Sid was crafting a narrative about Jungkook—to make him look like an ungrateful, aggressive, alcoholic womaniser. Clearly, he was creating Jungkook’s fictional image after himself, and you would have pointed out the irony if you weren’t so annoyed.

“I know it’s my fault,” Jungkook added. “I shouldn’t have allowed him to get under my skin like that, but—”

“How long ago was this?” you interjected.

“I—it—a while,” he said, worried that this was the wrong answer. “I can’t remember.”

“Were you in Rated Riot?” you asked, hoping to determine a more specific timeline, because understanding when the videos were taken might help you figure out what Sid wanted. But you also just wanted to keep asking Jungkook for technical details to keep him out of his own head.

“I think so,” Jungkook said. “Because—I’m trying to figure out why Sid chose to send me these specific videos since I’m sure he has a lot of other great ones, you know what I mean? So, why these?”

“Why?”

“I think it’s because he called you to come pick me up at the end of these nights,” he said with an unsettling hollowness behind his eyes. “And you—well, I don’t remember, but according to what Sid told me later, you never asked what we were doing. You just pulled me out of these situations… and brought me home. A-and now he wants to show you that—he wants you to know what we were doing. What I was doing.”

“Okay,” you said. “But it—it’s been ages.”

He seemed taken aback by the ease in your voice, and his surprise was crushing. You realised he was expecting you not to talk to him again now that you’ve seen the videos.

To Jungkook, that would have made sense.

For years, his self-worth depended on how he was perceived and whether he lived up to expectations. And he balanced between wanting to live up to very different expectations from very different people: Sid, on the one hand. You and his grandmother, on the other.

That was why he didn’t tell his grandmother that he was friends with Sid. It was why he didn’t tell you about all his failed attempts at making your relationship special. It was why he refused to admit to Sid that he still loved you.

And, ultimately, it was why he did not want to reminisce about the nights in Sid’s videos. Nights when he knew he was making mistakes, but he needed to escape from his thoughts too much to care.

Jungkook realised all that. He understood. But there was nothing he could do with the voices, screaming at him in his head. They were telling him that his friends had all turned to reasons why you broke up that first time. He turned them into those reasons. And now those reasons were right here, on his phone.

“I know. But I just—it feels like this is something I can’t run away from,” he said. “It feels like Sid is telling me that this is who I really am. That I’ll always fuck up in the end, and that I’ll die trying—and failing—to be someone better.”

You were shaking your head, and Jungkook shook his, too, to counter your refusal to agree with him.

“No, look, I think that Sid means to use this to, well, to humiliate us,” he insisted. “Or—or just you. Like, ‘see what he was doing? And you still took care of him.’ So you would—you would realise what I’m—what kind of person—and you would change your mind about me—and about—about this. And then...”

He could not find the end of his sentence, but you knew what this was. Jungkook excelled in most things, but he had a throbbing Achilles’ heel – it was his fear of disappointing the people who mattered most to him.

The first time you learned this about him was at his twenty-first birthday party. Minjun, already very drunk, had decided to make a toast and told everyone a story about when he and Jungkook were fourteen. Among all of Jungkook’s friends, Minjun was the only one who’d actually been to his house, and on that day, they were riding bicycles around Jungkook’s front yard with Jungkook and his cousins. Jungkook wanted to perform a trick and he wanted Minjun to record it to brag to Sid later. But as soon as he lifted the front wheel off the ground, he ended up in his grandmother’s azaleas.

The story at the birthday party ended there, with everyone politely laughing and clapping, but Jungkook gave you the rest of it later.

Apparently, his grandmother had warned him about the flowers in advance; she told him not to bike there. And he had. He’d done what she told him not to do. Really, it was because he wanted to outdo Sid, so this could have been another thing that Sid had ruined—but Jungkook couldn’t even get to that part. He was already defeated by the sheer force of his guilt for letting his grandmother down. He was devastated.

He said she hadn’t even yelled at him after she saw how grief-stricken he was. But he still replanted the whole garden and watered the shrubs every day.

And as you listened to Minjun’s story at that birthday party, you realised that even then, almost a decade later, Jungkook flinched every time his friend mentioned azaleas. And he would keep flinching, as you would see in years to come, whenever his grandmother would bring up her garden.

Jungkook never forgot his mistakes, and they all weighed heavily on him. He could only escape them when he was surrounded by people, their voices drowning out his own.

He thought no one knew—he took a paradoxical solace in the belief that only he and the voices in his head knew about what went on inside him—but you’ve seen it over the years.

“No—but these things don’t make you a terrible person,” you said. It didn’t feel like enough, but the thoughts in your head were fast and frail—you could not find one to settle on.

Still, Jungkook looked stunned.

“I—they don’t?” he asked—with a genuine confusion that broke your heart.

“Jungkook,” you said, the edges of your voice desperate.

“No, I—I know,” he said, averting his gaze. “I know. But—really, this is my fault. I did that. I went out with him. It’s—”

“Your fault was staying with Sid for so long,” you interrupted. “That’s your only fault. But realising what was wrong with these people that you surrounded yourself with—that—that’s not wrong. That’s good. You’ve come a long way from the days in those videos.”

He heard you. But a sudden memory still resurfaced in his head: Taehyung had talked to him in the hotel corridor in Amsterdam. He had accused him of fooling around with you and reminded him that your relationship affected the whole band. Jungkook had told him he was serious. He wasn’t fooling around.

He’d meant it—but the bet had been ongoing. However much he wished it not to be, it was fucking ongoing.

And now Jungkook was all the more aware of the thin line between your decision to try this again with him, and the absolute recklessness of this choice. Had he come a long way? Was he different? Or was he really just running away from who he really was?

It would affect the whole band, Taehyung had said.

If he wasn’t good enough for you, he would ruin everything.

“But look how long it took me,” he said with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t—I can’t erase all the shit I did just because I suddenly decided to be a different person.”

“You can’t erase it,” you said, the conviction in your voice rivalling his anxiety, “but you can learn and move on from it.”

He shook his head again. “How can I do that when Sid won’t let me move on?”

“You can do it by accepting these videos as lessons,” you said. “But leaving everything in them in the past. You can do it by not letting Sid get to you anymore. I mean, you’re already doing it. You showed me the videos, which was what Sid threatened you with. You took away everything he was holding against you. You’re doing okay, Jungkook.”

He looked down and swallowed.

He wanted to believe he was okay so much. But there were so many weights on his chest and he could not shake them off. He could not escape them. He could not even pretend they were not there.

This was the reason, he knew, why he dreaded being alone and inevitably recalling every single time in his life when he could have been better, but wasn’t. When he could have been more, but chose not to. When he could have chosen you, but didn’t.

He longed for you in a way that he hadn’t longed for anything in his life before—so much that it hurt to think and his whole body felt grey and tense—but he’d already let you down. He’d let himself down.

“I hurt you,” he said after a minute, covering his face with his hands. “And, fuck, I don’t—I’m not saying this to guilt-trip you into forgiving and forgetting everything. I’m just fucking—I’m so fucked up. I love you more than anything in my life, but I-I can’t spend a single minute by myself without thinking about how fucking fucked up I am. And I’ve done so much stupid fucking shit. I don’t want it to hurt you any more than it already fucking has. And I know you’re the last person who should be comforting me about this. I’m just—I can’t get over those—”

You wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pressed your chest against his, forcing him to still in your embrace and finally stop speaking.

After a breathless minute, he finally inhaled and you felt him lower his hands from his face and tentatively slide them around your waist, his grip tightening as he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered. It was still his fear talking, you could feel it pressing against your chest as you pulled him closer until you couldn’t breathe, either. “I don’t think I can ever be enough for—”

“You’re you, Jungkook,” you cut him off. “That’s enough for me.”

He let out a shaky breath and closed his eyes; you felt his lashes flutter against the side of your neck.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

You shook your head against his shoulder. “I love you.”

He held you and breathed you in for an amount of time that no clock could not keep up with, but it still felt insufficient. And when you pulled back slightly to look at him, he pressed his lips to yours in a kiss that expressed everything that words could not.

“Thank you,” he added. “For everything.”

You kissed him back—not to say you’re welcome, or no problem. You kissed him to tell him that you had finally made a choice. You were here. And you were staying.

He understood all of it as his lips pressed to yours, as your tongues touched and your breaths mixed together, as his hands settled around your waist as if they’d never been elsewhere. But you sensed his nervous heartbeat against your chest, even though he tried to fight against it.

“Promise me,” he whispered against your lips, “that you’ll tell me if I let you down again.”

Gently—but swiftly—you pulled away.

“I’ll tell you right now,” you said, the firmness in your tone contrasting with the tenderness of your touch as you held a hand to his chest and another one on the side of his face. “You let me down when you put yourself down. We make mistakes, we own up to them, we learn from them. We try too hard, we don’t always succeed, but we get through it together. That’s what we do. And we talk to each other about it all.”

The second you stopped speaking, he pulled you to himself with enough force to knock your breath out of your lungs. You rested your head against his, your heart pounding to the beat of his pulse.

“We’re very co-dependent,” he whispered and the tension in your chest finally eased at his light tone.

“Yes,” you stated. “It’s how we are.”

He snickered and lingered some more in your arms. You rested your hands on his back, rubbing gentle circles and steadily calming down his mind, his heart, and the entirety of his tired soul.

“Maggie, um—she took a picture of us in Amsterdam,” you said. “Did you know?”

He furrowed his eyebrows but allowed you to pull away as he thought about this.

“Wh—oh, in the bathtub?” he asked.

“Yeah. You’ve seen it?”

“Yeah, she sent it to me a while ago,” he said. And, overwhelmed by the honesty of the moment, he added, “it’s beautiful.”

That wasn’t a secret—he’d named his newest song after the moment you’d shared in that bathroom—but he still questioned if he should have said this right now. He could imagine your shock about the picture—that was why he chose not to show it to you when Maggie sent it to him.

But your expression remained gentle, almost pleased.

“Yeah, I liked it, too,” you said. “Well, after I got over the fact that we left the fucking door open.”

He chuckled softly, the sound straining against the cuts and bruises in his chest.

“But anyway, my point is, focus on things like that,” you continued. “That’s who you are. You’re not a video from fuck knows how long ago. Sid doesn’t own you, and he does not control you.”

Jungkook swallowed and lowered his gaze. He nodded his head a few times, but you still started to feel uneasy—was this enough? Or was Sid’s presence in his head still heavier than yours?

You looked around for a distraction, and quickly found one, partially hidden under a stack of cookies.

“We had a film to watch,” you said, pulling your laptop out and accidentally knocking down some of the candy towers he had built on the bed.

Jungkook glanced up and caught a bag of chocolates right before it hit him on the arm. “Oh—w-we had. But how’s your head?”

You had completely forgotten it existed at all, which certainly alleviated your headache. The pure adrenaline from being so close to him probably contributed, too.

“It’s good,” you said, opening your laptop and turning around to adjust the pillows on the bed for more comfort. “I’m great.”

“I still think you should get proper food,” he said, and it struck you that this pattern of worrying, comforting, and taking care of each other in turns was truly a regular occurrence between the two of you.

“I’m fine,” you said. “We’ve got chocolate and more cookies than we should be allowed to eat. I want to live out my nine-year-old fantasy and my dentist’s worst nightmare.”

He smiled at that, but still hesitated. “Okay, but—well, maybe you would rather sleep?”

“I—alright.” You pushed your laptop aside and crossed your arms over your chest. “Now it’s starting to sound like you don’t want to watch this with me.”

“I do,” he said, coming to sit across from you so he could push the laptop back towards you. “I’m just—”

“I’m fine,” you repeated. “I want to be here.”

Hearing that made him happy—the jump-off-buildings kind of happy, where he was glad to have you here or else he really would’ve had no way to keep it all inside himself—but he seemed to still wait for something. The air in the room was still thick with everything that you’d talked about tonight.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “We don’t have to do this—after everything.”

“I want to do this,” you said. And then, responding to the doubts he chose not to voice, you added, “I want to do everything with you.”

He watched as you leaned over your laptop to set up the film across the bed from him. He hadn’t realised he could feel so suffocated from the butterflies in his chest—his stomach could no longer contain them—and he was worried about opening his mouth in case they would try to escape. They’d fill this whole room with their fluttering wings, and the two of you would simply not fit.

“I love you,” he breathed out.

You raised your head and smiled at him—easily, effortlessly. Like you’ve done countless times before.

“I love you, too,” you said.

There wasn’t a building tall enough, he decided. Your voice resonated in his pulse and as long as his heart kept beating, he would always land on the ground perfectly safe.

“Alright,” you said, interrupting his very productive Staring and Smiling. “Let’s watch the film.”

“Alright.”

He returned to his side of the bed and managed to settle on the very edge of it. He watched the paused screen of your laptop and twiddled his thumbs. It took him half a minute to notice you were watching him.

“What?” he asked then.

“You’re comfortable?” you questioned. “Your grandma is going to be disappointed if you tell her that you watched the film but couldn’t even see the screen.”

He looked away. “To be fair, my grandma would be disappointed if she found out I had you in my room and I was across the bed from you.”

You tried everything to suppress your smile, but it crept onto your face in blatant defiance and chose to stay there.

“Well, what’s stopping you from coming closer?” you asked.

“My heart, I think. It might really stop this time.”

You laughed, and he was forced to acknowledge that he did not need to be right next to you for his heart to stop. All it took was this.

He wasn’t sure if he was ever going to recover from the fact that he could finally do this again—sit on the bed with you, watch films together, listen to you laugh, kiss you, tell you he loved you and hear that you loved him, too. And no one could text him and wake him up from this dream.

“Come here,” you said, raising your arm over the pillows to make space for him by your side.

He was beaming. Neither Sid, nor any voice inside his head could ever taint this moment or take it away from him.

Jungkook scooted closer to you, seemingly determined to make you regret your invitation. He immediately draped a hand over your waist and a leg over yours, his body warm, his touch inescapable. You started the film on your laptop, but doubted, suddenly, if you’d be able to watch anything with him so close.

One of your hands had come to rest on the back of his head, gently teasing the strands of his hair as he lied on his side next to you, almost half of his body thrown over yours. His fingers toyed with the edges of your hoodie, and he kept humming an unrecognisable tune under his breath. You weren’t sure if he even realised it, because every time you glanced at him, especially during your favourite parts of the film, he was diligently watching the screen. The only times he looked up at you was if you stopped playing with his hair.

Then, once the film ended about an hour and a half later, Jungkook pulled back a little to be able to see you in his dark room.

If not for the tapping of his leg against yours, he would have looked like an ancient sculpture with the contours of his face illuminated by the glow of your laptop screen. It felt exceptional, somehow, to be able to witness him like this, and you came to the same realisation as you had in Stockholm while walking down empty streets at night with him, and in Amsterdam, when he lied on the hotel bed next to you. You realised how effortlessly poetic he looked. How otherworldly.

And you realised you loved him far more than words could describe.

Suddenly, his phone buzzed.

His expression darkened, but he did not move to check who’d texted. He was determined to stay in the dream he was having.

Within seconds, before either of you could say half of a word about the film you’d just watched, his phone buzzed three more times.

Finally, he exhaled. He did not need to look at his phone; you both knew it was Sid.

“I told Minjun about this earlier today,” Jungkook said, reaching over to grab the device from the other side of the bed. “He thinks I should ignore him, but I’m not sure if that’ll work. I, um—I had hoped Sid would forget about the bet and just leave me in peace, but he saw how bothered I was, and that brought him joy. He never forgets anything that brings him joy. And this is something else that—”

“Reply to him,” you said.

“I—hmm?” He blinked. “What?”

You shrugged your shoulders. He appeared even more perplexed by your apparent nonchalance.

“He’s clearly anticipating it,” you explained. “Text him that I’ve already seen those videos. Add a heart.”

Jungkook was not sure what to make of this. Last night, you had tried to stop him from doing the very thing you were now suggesting.

But then he looked down at his phone in his hands—several new notifications about video attachments from unknown numbers were on his screen—and he thought he understood what had changed. He could see how your responses to Sid had been building up to this point. The bet was just one of many instances, a small drop in an endless ocean of shit that Sid came up with and encouraged. All of it had brought you and Jungkook to this moment: with the videos on his phone looming over him.

Sid may not have been the sole cause, but he had reinforced Jungkook’s already prominent reliance on external validation and his subsequent isolation anxiety. He even played a significant role in exacerbating these issues. Jungkook was aware of it, even if he couldn’t help it. And you were aware of it, too.

While he wasn’t sure how deep inside of his mind you could see, Jungkook looked at the determination in your eyes, and he understood. You were on his side, and after everything you’d talked about tonight, you were angry.

He considered your suggestion again.

“Won’t that antagonise him further?” he asked cautiously.

“Sure it will,” you replied simply. “But what else can he do?”

“I’m not sure I want to find out.”

“Well, he wants you to react,” you said. “He’ll continue to spam you with everything he has in his gallery unless you show him that he’s got nothing to win. You said he’s taunting you, he’s threatening to show me the videos. Well, I’ve seen them. He can’t do anything about that now.”

The more Jungkook thought about this, the more his heart rate increased.

“But then,” he said because he’s known Sid for most of his life, “he’ll find a different way to get under my skin.”

You shook your head. You were convinced that the only reason why Sid got so far, why he had such a tight grip on Jungkook’s thoughts, was because Jungkook allowed it.

“He won’t have that much power,” you said, “if you won’t give it to him.”

Jungkook was still hesitant—his habit of blindly following Sid’s lead was very hard to kill—but he unlocked his phone.

“Alright,” he said. “But—okay, I guess he might not believe me if I tell him you already saw the videos. So, what if I—”

“I’ll text him.”

His stomach sank in horror.

“You—no,” he disagreed, panicking as he got up on his knees on the bed. “No, no—w-we don’t even know these numbers he’s using.”

“I don’t need them,” you said, taking out your phone. “We know it’s Sid. We’ll strip him of all his courage by exposing the anonymity he believes he has.”

Jungkook watched you in helpless awe—as though you were doing something truly impressive rather than simply sending a text message. He leaned in closer to be able to get a better view of your phone screen as you selected Sid’s contact (saved as “ASS #1” on your phone—with Jude following as “ASS #2,” of course), and typed: “I already know about the videos, thank you for thinking of me 🖤”

Then, you put your phone away and turned to Jungkook. He was still biting his lip, evidently doubting and regretting at least half of his life.

“There’s a second part, you know,” you said.

“Hm?” He glanced at the black screen of your laptop. “Of the film?”

“Mhmm. He’s escaping from LA this time. Do you want to watch it?”

Jungkook felt a little dizzy. This was over, then. You sent the text, and that was it.

He was forced to accept that even though he had cut his ties with Sid, he could still feel the phantom grips of Sid’s collar around his neck. He wasn’t sure if he would have believed in himself enough to send one text and be done with it. He needed a deeper provocation—like Sid’s descriptions of you before he punched him—or someone actively supporting him all through it—like Minjun and Taehyung, when he gave his Katana up.

And you, he thought. He was thinking of you during all those times.

“I—well, yeah,” he said finally. “Let’s watch it.”

You nodded and returned to your laptop to prepare the second film. You had your back turned to him, so he could not see the slight tremor in your hands. You did not enjoy texting Sid, but he was using you to get back at Jungkook, and you were tired of sitting down and taking it.

“Do you think,” Jungkook said, leaning back against the pillows, “I should get an anaconda tattooed on my stomach?”

Your relief was so strong that you didn’t even realise you had started to laugh. Kurt Russell’s character had a very prominent shirtless scene in the film, and you had been waiting for Jungkook to mention it.

“That was a cobra,” you said. “And no.”

“I think it—wait, why not?” He leaned forward to look at you, offence prominent on his face. “It looked cool on Snake.”

“You’re not cool enough to pull it off,” you replied. He raised his eyebrows, and you shook your head to hide your smile and to emphasise your point. “It just wouldn’t work.”

He nodded slowly, his lips twisted ironically. “Oh, I see, okay. So, what would work for me, then?”

“Maybe a cute little rabbit.”

“A rabb—oh, sure.” Crossing his arms over his chest and pouting, he looked very much like the tattoo you were imagining. “Go ahead and mock me.”

You squinted your eyes. “A rabbit with a lip ring?”

“Mhmm.” He tilted his chin up. “I will get a cobra tattoo out of spite now.”

Snickering, you hit the spacebar on your keyboard and started the film.

“Let’s watch the second part before you decide rabbit or cobra,” you said.

“I’ve already deci—”

Your phone vibrated on the bed, cutting him off. A familiar anxious shiver ran down your spine.

You glanced at him, and just as before, the two of you quickly came to the same conclusion, and the radiant smiles on your faces suddenly clouded again.

Breathing a little heavier, you paused the film after less than a minute and picked up your phone.

There was a new text message from Sid. He had sent you a link to what appeared to be an Instagram post. His message underneath it read, “Okay :) and do you know about this? x”

You had a feeling what was coming even before you clicked the link; your subconsciousness had made the connection before it should have realistically been possible.

The link directed you to Sid’s profile and the picture he’d posted four minutes ago: it was the black-and-white bathtub shot that Maggie had shown you at the bar last night. Sid had captioned it, “so happy for you!”

Jungkook cursed softly on the bed behind you.

You were not sure if you were breathing.

“Fuck,” Jungkook said again. “He—he must have got it from my phone. Maggie—she sent me the picture, and Sid—”

“This piece of fucking shit,” you swore. Your hold on your phone remained firm, despite the device shaking in your frustrated hands. “He’s definitely not just taunting you, he’s targeting us both.”

The Rated Riot fans knew who Sid was, they saw the picture. Jungkook glanced at your screen once more as you clicked on the likes. They were pouring in too quickly, and the total number—which Sid had not made private, of course—could not refresh in time.

Neither you, nor Jungkook said anything. Neither of you drew any obvious conclusions. Simply watching as the image spread online was already enough.

People said a picture was worth a thousand words, and you wondered about the value of this particular one.

You hadn’t even talked to the label; you’d barely talked to each other about your relationship. How would this look for you? What would you do?

“This is what he wants, then?” you asked, staring at your phone. The usernames on the screen blurred together. “For us to break up? He’s that miserable?”

Jungkook felt a knot straining in his stomach, and he could not respond.

“And why do it like this?” you questioned further. “What the fuck is wrong with him, aside from the obvious? What does he gain from any of this?”

Jungkook thought he knew what it was. He could feel it that night when he handed Sid the keys to the Katana. But he hoped—he really fucking hoped—that Sid would get over it. He got his way, after all.

“He won the bet,” Jungkook said, “but I did not lose anything. He can’t stand the thought that I’m—h-he needs me to know that I’m not better than him.”

You groaned. “Fuck—fuck him. Fuck his immature shit, and his fucking ego. Whatever it is that he wants, he’s not going to get it. He’s already done enough.”

You got up from the bed, and Jungkook watched you move around his room with a quiet purpose that he could not decipher.

“What…” he cleared his throat, “do you mean?”

“I don’t know yet,” you said, and your pacing increased. “But we’ll figure it out. He’s not getting his fucking way.”

Jungkook felt a little foolish as he asked, “you’re not mad?”

You stopped in the middle of the room and looked at the uncertain arch of his brows, the slight pull of his lips. You wondered if you would have had it in you not to strangle Sid if he was in the room with you right now. Really, Jungkook wouldn’t even have to do anything. Maybe dig a hole later.

“At you?” you asked, returning to the bed. “Why would I be mad at you? I—I’m angry in general. But I think Sid would have found some kind of a picture of us and posted it anyway. At least we managed to get on his nerves a little first.”

You sat down beside him, and he ran his fingers through his hair, half-nodding, half-shaking his head.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” he decided. “We might have, uh, actually pushed him into doing this without thinking it through. He didn’t even tag us in the picture, right? And I mean, I know it’s us, but we’re completely in the dark, and—”

He stopped talking when you abruptly jumped up, scrambling to unlock your phone again.

“W-what is it?” he asked, alarmed once more.

You returned to Sid’s profile, clicked on the picture, and refreshed the post.

He hadn’t tagged you.

Jungkook was easily recognisable in the picture if you expected to see him there. However, it was likely that besides Maggie and Luna—who already knew it was you because Maggie had said so—no one else could identify the other person in the bathtub.

“Shit, you’re right,” you said, your heart speeding in your chest. “He didn’t tag us. If I hadn’t texted him, he might have posted the picture later, after thinking it through better, and—but he hadn’t. Fuck, this is—we can fix this. I—oh, we will fix this, and I’ll fucking make sure this is the last game he plays with us.”

Right away, just from the tone of your voice alone, Jungkook knew that Sid had lost. He’d lost and he didn’t even know it yet.

You hadn’t broken up. You were together—seemingly even more together now than you were hours ago, when you’d first entered his room.

Finally, Jungkook exhaled in staggering relief.

The two of you had already won.

chapter title credits: normandie, “blood in the water”

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[dxwnstxr]

Electrifying

Fandom: Genshin impact

Characters: scaramouche x fem!reader

Genre: smut

Warnings: creme pie, name calling, degrading, praising, clit playing, fingering, pounding, spanking, comforting during sex, breeding, praise kink, nipple play, breast sucking, sub! reader, dom! scaramouche, crying during sex, aftercare but not shown

A/n: I have a Xiao smut draft just sitting in my drafts. This might be the cringiest thing I've written....

His fingers dug into your sides as scaramouche's abdomen slapped against your rear. You bit down on the closet pillow to you, gripping it tightly. Scara quickly pulled out and slapped your ass hard. Leaving a reddened mark.

"Ride me, slut"

His harsh words made you sulk. You always loved scaramouche, but you wished he'd be a bit more nice during sex. Scara sat down, his back pressing against the headboard of the bed. Hoisting yourself over his lap, you sank yourself back onto his length. Feeling him stretch you back open resulted in gripping scaramouche's shoulders. Hard enough to leave marks.

"I-it hurts"

You'd whimper out. Your forehead resting itself on his shoulder, hiding your face from his view.

"You'll be fine. You just need a kick start"

Scara would reply, bucking his hips up into you. A high-pitched moan left your soft lips.

"S-scara s-stop"

He didn't seem to care, continuously rutting his hips into yours. Though they soon came to a halt when he felt water droplets drip down his shoulder.

"Y/n?"

He whispered into your ear. He stopped his movements and let you relax. Gently, sliding his hand up and down your back, he took his other hand and moved your hair to the side. Placing soft, delicate kisses to the crook of your neck, he waited for you.

"Can I see your face, pretty?"

Sniffling once, you slowly lifted your head up. Your nose close to his as he was now able to see your tear stained cheeks and watery eyes.

"I'm sorry hun"

He spoke lovingly, cupping your cheek.

"Do you wanna stop?"

After a few seconds, you shook your head 'no'. Scara then placed a delicate kiss to your cheek and leaned back.

"Then go at your pace pretty girl"

He didn't move a muscle. He wanted you to only di what you were comfortable with. Slowly but surely, you started to rock your hips. Earning a grunt from scara. Leaning forward, scara took one of your nipple into his mouth. He ran his tongue over the peek, sucking it in between his teeth. Letting go with a pop, he made open kisses all around your wet peek.

"That's it, just like that beautiful"

You finally got into it, grinding your hips into his at a faster pace than before. You never usually lasted long whenever you both did it. And scara made sure you were always to one to cum first. So it was no surprise to him when he felt you clamp down on him.

"You going to cum on my cock pretty lady? C'mon, now, use your words"

He grunted, leaving harsh marks on your collar bone.

"I-im g-gonna.. a-ahh"

Scara brought his slender fingers down to your swollen clit, drawing a circular motion onto the bud.

"Be a good girl and cum for me"

He whispered into your ear. Tightening around his girth, you came on his length. Not long after you, scara's hands quickly made their way to your ass as he thrusted himself into you again. He thrusted his cum inside you, filling you to the brim. Pushing you backward, your back hit the coldness of your both's mattress. Scara gently pulled out of you and watched as his cum followed, dripping from your cunt.

Taking two fingers, he scooped the mixture of your and his release and pushed it back into your stimulated hole. He thrusted his fingers deep into you, making sure you didn't loose a drop.

"Don't waste any pretty girl, or I'll just have to fill you up again."

[vir-bellanaris]

Veilguard Finale Drabble (Solavellan)

Because I think it's good (for my mental health) but a missed opportunity to not have a romanced Lavellan react to the bad ending for Solas.

Lavellan paced back and forth back and forth, her feet wearing down the ruined stone within the dark corridor. Her nails were already bitten down to the quick, so she chewed her lips bloody instead. She only paused to listen, the sounds of fighting in the chamber beyond had ebbed, straining she could hear angry voices muffled by the thick obsidian walls.

She paused, her mind a war of indecision, her heart pounding in her throat. She couldn't leave him. Solas needed her. She could feel it dragging through her gut like long claws of dread.

Her feet moved almost of their own accord forward, gathering pace when she saw blue light shining beyond the grand doors left ajar.

They were atop the dais, the torn Veil shimmering and gossamer behind them.

She saw him.

His visage broken and bloodied. His hands bound by the energies emanating from the Veil, twisting tighter even as he struggled.

Rook held the real lyrium dagger.

"No!" Lavellan's cry was choked in her tight throat, panic and horror paralyzing her for two crucial heartbeats.

Then she began to run.

Her legs burned as she clambered up the seemingly endless stairs, toward the one thing that mattered. Despite all the bitterness, loneliness, and heartbreak, he had always mattered.

Rook sliced the dagger across Solas' palm. "Now the Veil is once again tied to the life force of an ancient elven god."

The words were muffled, the meaning barely registering.

"No!!" Lavellan's voice broke free, her eyes wide and starting, full of hot tears as she pushed Rook aside.

Solas' angry expression alighted on her, taking her in. His features twisted, anger transforming into shock, then terror, before settling on broken grief.

Lavellan sobbed, her fingers scrabbling uselessly against the magical binds around his wrists. "No, no, no!" She grabbed desperately at him as the Veil drew him backwards, away from her.

"Vhenan." Solas' voice was so achingly familiar, trying to soothe her even now, though his low cadence was fringed with a darker emotion.

Lavellan followed after him, grasping his arms and pulling against the inexorable draw of the Veil.

"Let me go, vhenan."

"No! I won't!" The brightest burst of emotion she had felt in ten years rocked through her body, the remnants of the anchor responding, flickering sparks of green energy lighting up the veins of her shoulder and neck. "I will not allow this!" She focused her will upon the torn Veil, commanding it to close, to release her heart.

"You must." Solas was bound still, unable to move so much as an inch closer, though he tried with every fiber of his being to close the distance to her.

Lavellan's efforts slowed the pull to a stop, both of them knew it had bought them only moments. She cupped his face, tracing a shaking touch over his haggard features.

Tears fell freely from his eyes, hot upon her fingers.

Solas shook his head. "I am sorry."

"Tell me how to save you." She whispered, drawing herself up onto her toes so she could nuzzle gently against his face.

"I have been bested. You will not share this fate." Solas drew upon the remainder of his magical energies, fighting the bonds of the Veil for a moment more.

He did not heed the pain that tore at his spirit, bending forward just enough to brush his bloodied lips against her mouth.

Then he sagged, his body ripped from her grasp, landing with heavy impact against the swirling primordial lights of the Veil.

His gaze did not leave her, even as he was slowly drawn in.

She ran for him, screaming his name, reaching for him. For all her efforts even she, once so adept at manipulating the Veil, could do nothing.

In that last moment, she saw a faint and sad smile touch his lips as he locked eyes with her.

His mouth opened, the last part of him to be swallowed up. His words echoed in the now empty air like wisps on the wind.

"Ar lath ma, vhenan."

[forthelostones]

𝚙𝚝.𝚎𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 ; 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚎𝚢𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 ─── ⋆

⟡⋆˙୨ᥫ᭡. 𝚗𝚞𝚛𝚜𝚎 𝚊𝚞 - 𝚌𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚎𝚐𝚎!𝚊𝚋𝚋𝚢 𝚡 𝚏𝚎𝚖!𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚛ᥫ᭡.୧⋆˙⟡

synopsis: abby was a woman whose presence was becoming deeply irresistible to you. in your final year of nursing school, you toil with the idea of pursuing her — ruin what you have or enjoy what’s in front of you?

warnings. 18+ (mdni); sub!abby, domsub!abby, sexual themes, jealousy, fluff, nickname: dummy, and modern au - pre-established relation.

an: guys. this has been such a crazy ride, thanks for the support on both of my stories. it means so much to me. sorry for the wait... lets get it.

CLICK HERE.

(no y/n)

Abby watched from the row behind you, observing how you chewed on the end of that neon #2 pencil. She could tell by the bobbing of your leg that you were nervous and stuck on a specific question. It was the same during studying — chew, bob, sigh. Almost on cue, a frustrated sigh left your throat. She knew it was her fault that this was happening.

She knew neither of you studied long enough for you to feel confident on this exam. Well, that’s what she kept trying to convince herself, she was already finishing up the last page. Although her pencil glided on the paper effortlessly, she couldn’t help but be distracted by your indecisiveness on the math equations and multiple-choice questions. The once full eraser had been subsided to pure metal scrapping into the pages.

The time on her watch read ten minutes left until the end of the exam and you were only on page two. Studying had become harder for you with Abby around. It wasn’t only the dating component it was mostly the difference in your skills. Her ability to memorize vocabulary and complete math problems without thinking twice about them made you academically insecure. While you averaged low B’s and high C’s, she had a 4.0 and made it look easy. The clock's ticking distracts you from the problem you are trying to solve. It was one you and Abby worked on multiple times, yet you’re frozen, unsure how to solve it. As everyone flicks their pages to finish, you just … froze. 

“Okay. Pencils down.” Your professor said just moments after you started a new equation. Your jaw dropped slightly and you squeezed your eyes shut. Abby shook her head, not at you specifically, but herself. You had practically moved in and the nights that would typically be spent studying were now used to learn more about each other beyond your friendship. Realistically, Abby understood that those moments would be worth more than a grade in the long run. But a part of her also resented getting this comfortable, ultimately impacting you. The feelings clashed within her. The heat forming inside of you could only be described as embarrassment. Why was it like your brain suddenly lost all power to its systems? It wasn’t unusual for you to skip a few questions but this was completely unlike you. 

You chew on your cuticles and fold the mostly blank pages and pass them down to the front, doing the same for your classmates. Their pages crumbled with computation answers and confidently filled bubbles exposed your shortcomings. You should feel relieved that the test is over but you don’t. A heavy anchor grounded you but you were still floating. Abby met you down in your row where you saw her concealing another A-plus smirk. Once you both exited into the hall Abby’s hand finds the center of your back and she begins to pet it slowly. You shrug her away gently. 

“Don’t.” You sigh. 

Abby knew it would set you off but she did it anyway to show you she sees you. The blonde’s brain was moving at a rapid pace. She so deeply wanted to ask you about the challenging problems and the scenarios on the quiz. Her translucent lashes tapped frantically as she imagined the sheet of paper behind her eyes. 

“I feel good about this one.” She finally says. 

“Good. I really did not do well. It’s — whatever. Right?” 

Abby looks to you and she couldn’t lie and tell you that it’s not just whatever. It’s your future. Both of your futures — together — it was important to Abby that her partner was just as successful as her. 

“You should be happy that you did your best but understand that if you did do as bad as you think, it’s worth asking for a makeup to understand the material.” She suggested. 

You hated when she got like this, rigid. Her posture was straight, her mouth set hard, and no softness found anywhere on her face. The regime her father instilled in her stayed and it was evident in moments like this. 

“Abby, sometimes I really need you to just listen to me and be rational later.” 

A chill followed down her spine following your sharp comment. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t study together anymore.” She muttered.

Part of you wanted that to be a joke but knew it wasn’t. The night before proved itself to be deeply uneventful for the both of you. 

“You’re distracting me.” You groan as you’re reviewing flashcards on Abby’s bed, the first mistake. She was wearing a thin, white tank top and a pair of loose black sweats, untied, on her hips. Her hair was drying from the shower you two just took and so was her body. The outline of her features was accentuated by the water being absorbed by the cotton. She was so casually beautiful and simply yours. The bed shifted behind you, her weight bending the mattress inwards, as she crawled towards you.

“Am I?” She asks, using the tip of her tongue to playfully lick a stripe of slick up towards your lobe. An instant bubble of relief popped inside of you. “Okay. Okay.” 

Abby couldn’t take her eyes away from you. She had seen you in this robe every night now but it was something about how it was gliding with you. As well as your skin's glint from your body oil makes you look regal. You sat at the base of the bed while Abby retreated towards the headboard, leg tucked under her butt. She took off three inches of hair and it looked so fresh, carving out her face perfectly, and highlighting her stiff jawline. “How about we make a deal?” She said brazenly. 

“What?” 

“For each answer I get right you remove something?” 

“Abby,” you chuckle, not denying her advances. 

You thumb the index cards in your hand and turn to tie your eyes with hers. 

“First question, the section is Anatomy and Physio. What best describes endocrine glands?” You ask. 

Abby taps her chin as if she’s searching for the answer. “They secrete chemicals into the blood, growth, metabolism, sexual development and function.” 

She raises her eyebrows and shoots her eyes towards your robe. A deal is a deal so you remove the silk, leaving you in your two-piece pajama set. Abby notices the goosebumps lining the outsides of your shoulders and can’t help but desire to rub them warm. 

“Question number two. Anaerobic respiration can lead to a burning sensation caused by which molecule?” 

“Easy,” she scuffed. “Lactic Acid.”

Her teeth appeared behind her Cheshire grin as your top found its way onto her floor. 

“Good job.” 

Your words made her cunt pulse. 

“The mediastinum is located within which cavity?” You ask. 

Abby’s face fell instantly. The outline of your nipples looked delicious and icy, she needed them in her palms immediately. “Fuck. I don’t know.” 

You lift yourself off the bed and bend right in front of her to retrieve your shirt, Abby’s shadow overcame you and her hips thrust into your ass in one motion. She spins you around to face her, mouths inches away. “Do you think you’re going to actually put that back on?” 

Her index finger traced the outline of your lips with her eyes following. You grip her wrist, halting her movements, “And if I do?” 

Abby gently places the index cards neatly on her bedside table and presses you into the wall behind you. Usually, Abby is submissive but the stalking woman imposed her strength on you, like she’s been wanting to do from the first time she saw you in clinicals. 

“I’ll just rip it off you.” She giggles. 

“Would that be so bad?” You reply, bringing her finger into your mouth, sucking it then adding another. Abby huffed a keen groan as she bent down onto her knees, immediately pressing her mouth into your cunt. She lapped at the fabric separating her from you and didn’t even ask for you to remove them. 

You insisted by beginning to take them off but she tore them off you and hoisting up one leg onto her shoulder following the other one. 

“Abby.” You gasp. 

“I got you, hold onto me.” 

She was flexing her skill by fine-tuning your pussy with her tongue while she slowly hoisted you up towards the ceiling. Not only did you feel as if you were floating, you actually were. She was a show off but you fucking loved it. 

After that, there was no more studying done.

“Do you think we should cut down on the time we're spending together?” You question, as the night replays in your mind. 

Abby’s face scrunched up in immediate disapproval without hesitation at the suggestion. She pulled her bottom lip slightly in her mouth and looked around as if the walls suddenly grew eyes. Abby wanted to tell you no but she knew what had to be done. 

“We can.” She grimaced with a shrug. 

Despite all the time you spent together the girlfriend conversation had yet to come up. She thought about it the most when you were in her presence. She didn’t comprehend how you liked her so much and yet, you refused to make it official. She truly believed that once you ditched Ellie she’d be over the moon, but right now it’s feeling the same and Abby doesn’t do stagnant. 

“Abby, we can still study together, in the library, several feet away from each other.” 

She forced a smile. “Fine. Does this mean you’ll still sleepover?” 

Before your crush on Abby developed you were denying yourself the fact that it was possible. But during this time, before the dating, your grades had been the best when you were alone, and you know for a fact, that it was because of her. You may not be as smart as Abby but you do want to come out on the other end with a degree too. 

“Why don’t we come up with a schedule?” She suggests.  

“That would be perfect.” You said. 

The schedule consisted of dinners at Abby’s during the week, sleepovers on non-clinical days which were Wednesdays and Fridays, and studying every day at the library. Abby liked the organization but her body had gotten so used to you beside her. A week into implementing the new schedule Abby felt an immense amount of anxiety without you around. She didn’t know how to break down the feeling and why it was so persistent. Although you two were next door to each other, text messages still provided a temporary cushion for her sadness, but it wasn’t enough. 

Abby clicked the icon that was the home for your name and called but there was no answer. Dinner was stewing on the stove, and in the middle of mixing a cocktail, Abby called to find out if you could taste what was missing. Another call led to another one and soon Abby was sitting with a candle flickering silently in front of her. Your plate sat untouched and she just picked at the remnants of hers. 

Little did she know you were closed off in your room after studying, panicking. You knew yourself more than you wanted to. The schedule was needed for you to clear your brain on the feelings you had for Abby. With upcoming exams and graduation where would that leave you? She'd move across the world while you were huddled up in your small town's hospital circulation? It was coming in so fast and before you could mix in a girlfriend you had to know what you wanted. The pages of your journal turned soft as you tore your pen through the book. 

A part of you wanted to hear the rapping of her fist against your door, ready to envelop you and reassure you that you would figure it out. She never came and because of that, a piece of you died. Conversations with her have turned short and passive since the last exam. It wasn’t just the exam it was a culmination of multiple things that either of you were ready to talk about. 

Abby put your dinner into a glass container and waited outside your door trying to gain the sense to knock. One of the many nights you spent together gave her a reason to knock instead of sulk in her bed, thinking about all of her shortcomings in the relationship. You were both lying down and Abby lit a candle that night that you bought her. The sweet scent of peaches and cream cut through the bitter smell of her pine products. She loved it. Between the sheets were your naked bodies damp and lazy. Abby had brought a glass of cold ice water and set it on the nightstand beside the candle. You took turns taking sips. 

“Thank you for the water.” You smiled. 

“Don’t mention it,” She nudged you. 

You twist your body onto your stomach and look up to her glimmering, post-sex face. 

“Abby?” 

“Yes, beautiful?” 

“You still make me nervous.” 

She cackles and brings her hand to your cheek and massages away your imperfections. With the roll of her eyes she licks her lips before curating a snarky response. But she quickly realizes you’re being serious. “Why?” 

“I care so much about you and that’s something I haven’t felt before. With anyone.”

A kind pause swells between you both. 

“I care about you too. I don’t want that to make you nervous.” She said. 

“I know you see me differently but I am a little insecure.” 

She leans down and kisses your forehead tenderly without a breath. 

“That’s normal.” 

“But I burrow. I distance myself when I get like that and I don’t want to subject you to that. I don’t want to hurt your feelings again. If I do that, get distant, don’t hesitate to just tell me to get out of my own head. It’s not your fault or your responsibility.” 

Abby’s fist banged on the door with your words echoing in her mind. The thuds startled you out of the sleepy daze you fell under. You shuffle to the door to see the goofy blonde in her pajamas and slippers holding what was supposed to be tonights shared dinner. 

“You didn’t come to dinner,” Her voice was more welcoming than usual. “I was worried. Are you okay?”

Shoving her way past you and nearly tossed the container on the kitchen counter. Without hesitation she opened her arms and you couldn’t help but to run into them. Although she didn’t say anything the affirmation from her presence was enough. 

“All too much in your head again aren’t you?” 

A sob escaped into her chest and she gripped you tighter. These past few days have been a blunder of confusing thoughts. A part of you knew getting together with Abby would make things unclear in your life. But if she was willing to get uncomfortable and support you, you were obligated to do the same to her.

“Abby, I should’ve answered your calls.” You pull away to notice how unswayed she is of your state.

“You should have but that doesn’t matter right now. We need to talk.”

You nod your head shyly and she grips your hand and takes you to your bedroom. Abby pats beside herself to welcome you.

“I’m so scared.” You blurt out.

“Me too,”

Abby was scared for the complete opposite reason. When she was with you it seemed like all the decorative things such as school didn’t matter. She wasn’t familiar with how that felt. To have an identity outside of her accomplishments or care about someone. With you, she could flunk out of nursing school, move back to her home town, and still be satisfied. That scared her — that one person could allow her to have such a paradigm shift.

Hearing Abby say those words made your heart settle.

“I care so much about you. I didn’t think I would, this much. I should’ve known because on orientation when I saw you I thought, ‘I need to know who she is’ and I am grateful for that thought blossoming into my mind.”

You couldn’t muster any other word but her name. She picked up your hands to bring them into her lap. She leaned in to place a soft kiss on your mouth and lingered there with her forehead pressed against yours.

“When you moved next door, I just thought maybe this is the sign I need to do something different. To not let my ambitions lead me but instead my heart. And my heart loves you, Dummy.”

[dawneternal]

And Yesterday You Were Here With Me

you were bigger than the whole sky / you were more than just a short time

✦ Azriel x Reader. Platonic Cassian x Reader, Nesta being a good friend.

✦ this one is a bit vulnerable to share. It's definitely something I wrote to process some of my own grief. (Hopefully it's not disrespectful to post this the day after mother's day) Take care of yourself and don't read if it will trigger you 💛

✦ Warnings: miscarriage, description of miscarriage/blood, grief and loss

✦ Read on AO3

You sit frozen, staring down at the crimson marbling the water in the toilet, struggling to breathe properly.

It was only last night that you had put the pieces together. Your late cycle, nausea, and fatigue. The strange gut feeling that something was off, but not in a bad way. In a new way - a different way. You immediately planned to try and see a healer here in the Day Court while on your mission with Cassian. That way you could return to Night and tell Azriel right away. You could barely sleep, excitement and nervousness filling every inch of your being as you tried to think up a clever or funny way to tell your mate.

And now all of those hopes and plans had crumbled, slipping through your fingers before you could catch them. Now, sitting on the toilet and feeling the cramps crashing through your body, you understood how quickly your heart had filled with love for this little possibility.

Before the full impact of it had even hit you, before you had even left the bathroom, you found yourself wishing you could skip ahead a month or a year. Because once the grief began, you knew it was going to be almost unbearable.

•✦•✦•✦•

You padded toward the door to the room next to yours, shifting your weight from foot to foot as you knocked. The door swung open wide and Cassian appeared. His smile quickly turned to confusion as he registered your bare legs, oversized t-shirt just barely covering your underwear. You had meant to put your shorts back on but they were forgotten on the bathroom floor in your flurry of emotion.

Cassian grasped your arm and pulled you into his room, looking both ways down the hall before he closed it behind him.

"What are you doing?" He asked in bewilderment, whirling around to look at you.

"We have to go right now. I need Azriel." You cursed your wavering voice. You were trying desperately to hold it together. Not to send anything down the bond and worry Azriel.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Cassian's face softened, confusion turning to concern as he inspected you for injury, eyes skimming over your trembling form, the hem of your shirt bunched in your fists.

"I-" You knew he was going to ask but the question broke you anyways. You slid to the floor, lip quivering. The thick carpet was rough against your bare legs.

A sob wracked your body as the grief began, dark churning waves swallowing you whole. There was no stopping it, no turning back. Almost immediately, you felt a questioning tug on the golden thread in your chest.

Cassian crouched beside you, elbows resting on his knees. He didn't speak for a moment, trying to decipher the scene, grimacing at the sorrowful cry you let out.

"Your cycle?" He asked, his voice gravelly. You could tell from the worry in his tone that he already knew the answer but you shook your head anyways. He could smell it. The blood and the loss.

"How long have you...." His voice drifts off, like the rest of the question would only break you further. It probably would.

"Last night," You manage between gasps, tears wetting your face and neck, leaving dark spots on your collar.

"Are you in any pain?" He asks, and you nod again, clutching your lower stomach in answer.

Cassian stands and disappears. You can hear sounds of rummaging, zipping and scraping as you bury your face in your hands. Azriel's questioning pulls are growing closer together and more frantic.

Cassian returns with his pack slung over his shoulder, a pair of his sweatpants in hand. He grabs your shoulders gently and pulls you up. Then he holds out the sweatpants for you to step into, letting you brace yourself on his shoulders. He scoops you up without a word and you let your head fall against his shoulder, tears never ceasing.

•✦•✦•✦•

The House of Wind comes into view and Cassian can make out Azriel, pacing back and forth on the balcony. As soon as you are close enough, his shadows dart toward you in the sky, circling to check for injuries. You're not sure what they'll tell him.

Cassian lands smoothly and you are instantly handed to Azriel, his familiar warmth pulling a fresh wave of tears down your face. His anxious face is looking down at you and can't stand the tenderness, letting your eyes close. He's whispering with Cassian and you can't hear what they're saying inside your bubble of grief. But you feel a wave of sorrow through the bond and you silently thank Cassian for saying the words you couldn't conjure.

Azriel is taking you inside, holding you tightly against him, and you can hear the sound of beating wings as Cassian takes off again.

You hear the thud of Az's boots on the floor, then you're shifting in his arms as he sits cross legged on the couch and pulls you into his lap. You pull your knees to your chest and he wraps his arms around you.

"I'm sorry," you croak, voice hoarse from crying.

"You have nothing to be sorry for," His deep voice rumbles in his chest and the vibrations are comforting. His fingers are running through your hair, soft kisses pressed to your forehead. His other hand rubs your back in soothing circles.

Cassian returns soon with Madja, carrying her bag of supplies. You are looking deliberately anywhere but at their faces, not able to bear any sadness or compassion you might find. Such shame has enveloped you, but you're not even sure what for. You don't have the words for it.

She lets you stay in Azriel's arms as she examines you. Her hands glow with a golden aura as she moves them up and down, then centers them over your lower abdomen. You feel a strange tingling as her magic pulses through you, returning back to her with information about your condition. The room is silent as she works, watching and waiting.

When Madja is done, she runs a tender hand across your forehead, brushing your hair back from your face.

"You were right, dear," She says, her voice is kind but with no pity like you feared, "A miscarriage. An early one, likely about six to eight weeks. They're sadly very common in early pregnancy."

Azriel's hands tighten around you, your gaze too focused on the healer to see the tremble of his bottom lip. But Cassian sees it, and it splits his heart in two. Madja places a few vials on the coffee table and continues,

"Take one of these a day and they'll help with the pain and ward off infection. You'll want to keep in mind that your emotions may be a little high as your hormones even back out. And plan for your next cycle to be extra heavy. I'd like to see you around that time to make sure all is well."

You nod, biting your bottom lip to keep the crying from starting again. You want to ask her about the overwhelming sorrow you feel, if that's normal or not. But she presses a hand to your cheek and gives you a sad smile and you understand that she knows what you're feeling.

"I'm sorry for your loss, my dear," she says, then turns to Azriel and presses her hand to his face in turn, "I know that you don't need my warning, because you're a good man and you'll support her. But don't for a moment let her believe that this was her fault. There was nothing anyone could have done, and now she needs to rest and heal. And you take care of yourself, as well."

You look up at Azriel's face and watch him give a grave nod. He looks down at you, a few tears falling down his face, and you wipe them away as your own begin again.

•✦•✦•✦•

The next few days are spent in your shared room, curled up in the bed. Mourning, crying, sometimes smiling and laughing over daydreams of what could have been. Your beautiful possibility.

Your fear of Azriel's reaction entirely melts away. He grieves with you, tenderly reassures you that you've done nothing wrong. That when the time comes again you'll make a wonderful mother and he'll welcome the new life with you. He begins the habit of calling your lost one your little star. It somehow soothes and sharpens the pain at the same time.

You did not know it was possible to miss something you'd only had for such a short time. To feel such an unbearable amount of love for something you had not even held in your arms. And you knew the love would not go away even though your little star was no longer with you. All of that love would stay in your heart until your last day on earth, and beyond that it would burn in the sky as a glittering star when you were finally reunited with your baby. Someday, you would grow around the grief and your body would learn to hold it with less pain, but until then your very bones would ache with the loss.

•✦•✦•✦•

When you're ready, a handful of your friends gather with you to say goodbye. Feyre, Cassian, and Nesta follow you to the Sidra under the full moon. They were the only ones who knew, yet. In time you'd tell all of them, but it was all too fragile still. You couldn't even think the words without a lump forming in your throat. Rhys knew and had sent his condolences, and you suspected his absence was out of respect to your privacy.

Nesta and Feyre had helped you begin to return to normal, coming over in the morning to braid your hair and make sure you had breakfast. Even though Azriel had never left your side. Slowly, the shock faded away into the dull ache of mourning, the numbness in your body giving way to the aftermath of its loss.

Today, Nesta held your coat out for you and tucked your scarf around your neck. When you slip your hands into your pockets, you find something waiting for you. You pull it out, holding it flat in your palm to examine.

A bracelet. Strands of light pink, light blue, and gold woven together. A tiny golden star charm dangled from it. You look at Nesta with a wobbly chin, eyes glistening, and she smiles, giving your arm a squeeze.

Now, you kneel at the edge of the Sidra, near the mouth of the river pouring into the sea. The moonlight dances on the gently flowing water, stars glimmering as far as the eye could see.

You murmur your prayer and place your lantern in the water, watching the current carry it away to the sea. Azriel sits beside you and pulls you tight against his side, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek. His tears are cold against your skin. You watch the little light drift away toward the horizon, staying until the cold of the ground seeps through your shoes and the lantern has long since disappeared.

Mother hold you, little star. May she greet you with all the love and tenderness I cannot give you, and may she keep you close until I leave this earth and come to meet you. As long as I am breathing, you will not leave my heart for a moment.

[gay-ai-art]

Learning to Swim

Author's note: This is the second full erotica I've ever written. The art is all AI — but the writing is mine. This fantasy came from the first image which struck me and left me asking who the studs were, and what kind of day they'd have together. I hope you enjoy! It’s also available at Nifty — can’t believe I’m contributing after cumtributing as a reader for so long!

--------------------------------------------------------

Arash rubbed his full dark beard against the end of his hairy forearm as he scoped out the Mediterranean beach before him. He had recently arrived in Italy after escaping Iran last year. He had recently turned thirty. And here he was: someone who had always wanted to swim at the beach. It was a bonus that he probably would get to sneak a few glances at other men throughout the day.

“Nice trunks, mate,” a voice said behind him. Arash turned and saw a handsome English man around Arash’s age with blonde hair and a hairy chest approaching. His chest hair was dense despite being blonde. And it looked like he was checking Arash out. “I’m Erik,” the Englishman said, winking, his eyes tracing Arash’s hairy, meaty silhouette before seeming to widen when assessing the bulge of fabric hiding Arash’s package between his legs. The Englishman was hard not to stare at. Once you got over the dense forest of hair covering his chest, his hairy forearms and furry muscular legs called out for attention. Not to mention how his stubble perfectly captured the shape of his face as he smiled. 

“Arash,”  Arash answered. “I just got these trunks, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to swim today.” He said — nervous when facing the sea.

“Need help?” Erik said hopefully.

Before long, they were waist-high in the water, with Erik showing Arash how to do the front crawl. Arash would have probably learned more about the doggy paddle had Erik not kept Arash’s attention on his form instead of his form. And they seemed to hit it off right away, learning they liked the same beers and had both been impressed by Rome’s gay bars.

“Thanks for keeping me distracted today,” Erik said playfully. He didn’t add how he had been newly single for a month following a bad break-up.  He was rarely as forward with men as with Arash, but hairy bearded men with heft were his type. His ex was a catty gay twink, and while they have their place, the muscle and fat under Arash’s ample body hair exuded a sense of security. He could imagine resting his head on the curly bear rug covering Arash’s chest or riding those thick thighs while his body took every impact.

Meanwhile, Erik dove into a wave to show off before a stronger-than-expected wave knocked his untied swim shorts off his hips, revealing a densely hairy and perfectly shaped ass. 

Arash had never been so hard so fast. He turned beet-red and told Erik it was fine. Meanwhile, Erik was not especially embarrassed. “Try what I did,” he encouraged, indicating that Arash should stand up and dive into a wave. Arash shook his head, knowing the full mast in his trunks would be evident if he stood up. He tried moving away, but a larger wave knocked him face-first into Erik, his cock impaling the space between his legs — and, as they struggled to get back up, rubbing against Erik’s scrotum. 

Arash started to stammer an apology when Erik had had enough and kissed him. 

Arash froze — before hungrily kissing Erik’s lower lips and rubbing his beard against Erik’s face for maximum effect. His hands traced Erik’s back, and he instinctively pushed his shaft up against Erik’s balls and taint. “God,” Erik groaned. Before Arash lifted Erik and walked deeper into the water. When the water got deep enough, he pulled down his shorts to free his cock, which pushed into the fabric, separating his rod from Erik’s ass.

Erik submitted to every decision Arash made, wiggling his butt so that Arash’s cock tested how strong the fabric covering Erik’s hole was. After 3 minutes of grinding as Arash held him, he nibbled on Arash’s ear and said,  “My room is back there,” gesturing to the cabin a little further down the beach where they could be out of sight enough to preserve the concept of modesty. 

Arash followed him wordlessly, his heart pounding. Before long, he was back down on Erik’s bed as Erik devoured his nipples. Arash had stained his trunks through with pre-cum by this point. He was glad Erik was seemingly on fire for his body. Arash had hidden his attraction to men from those in his life forever, but the confident English otter in front of him and lack of a familiar context meant he did what he never allowed himself to do and followed a man to his bedroom. 

Erik, on the other hand, was properly in heat. He was dumped when his ex accepted a job in America and told him he wasn’t interested in long-distance. He had been crying himself to sleep and unable to masturbate for weeks. 

But his month of latent sexual longing bubbled to the surface. His asshole was vibrating, and a deep feeling in his gut guided him to grind his hips and body into Arash’s powerful, comforting mass. Erik’s mouth was soon around Arash’s cock after he admired it for many long seconds. It was 9 inches long, girthy, and curved upwards. This man was a bottom’s dream, Erik thought. My dream.  Arash’s mast tasted of sea salt, pre-cum, and man sweat. Erik started swallowing his length, and before long, he was on his back while Arash was forcing him to deepthroat, positioning his meat shaft down Erik’s gullet. Erik was incredibly turned on when Arash used him like a tool for the pleasure of his penis. Erik was gasping but also clearly showing restraint, so after 6 minutes of throat expansion, he rubbed his face into Arash’s hairy chest, inhaling and licking before he grabbed the lube. 

“Not yet,” Arash growled, rotating Erik so his ass was in Arash’s face. Arash had always wanted this and now had the joy of rimming for the first time. And as he gripped the hairy meaty cheeks of Erik’s ass, he couldn’t think of a better butt to break his rimming virginity on. This ass was better than Levi Michael’s for crying out loud.

And what Arash lacked in experience, he made up for in watching porn and personal fantasies. His longue delicately circled Erik’s hole, teasing the edge to send jolts of pleasure out of his ass before tongue fucking him. He used his beard to great effect, creating friction with the blonde hairs around Erik’s ass. In minutes Erik was pushing his asshole into Arash’s mouth as his firm butt muscles flexed and rubbed against his beard. “Fuck I need your cock”. He begged, but Arash grinned and made him wait. Finally, Arash paused so he could take a breath.

Erik, needing his hole stuffed, grabbed a condom, looked at Arash, and asked, “Is this okay?”. Arash nodded. Before long, a condom was on, and Erik was slowly lowering himself on Arash’s throbbing Persian pillar. 

Erik slowly sat on top of him, asking for pauses so he could get Arash all the way inside of him.

“Fuck  ​​—  fuck — fuck” Arash said as he felt Erik’s warmth envelope his length. He had always wanted to feel this, but life had never given him the chance. Before long, Erik’s hips were moving the distance, taking in the entire length. This was what his ass was made for. 

“You’re so tight,” Arash told him, grinning, his confidence building up. Erik sat up as Arash’s hips began slamming into him. Quickly adding more lube so his ass could take the width being thrust into him and lubing up his cock. Arash felt a surge of confidence. He instructed Erik on his back and, standing up beside his bed fucked him with the front force of a charging bull. “Take it. Take it,” he nearly yelled while Erik moaned in pleasure.

“Get up,” Arab ordered, pulling his cock out of Erik. He gently pushed Erik over to the mirror. “Watch me enter you,” he growled. He turned Erik sideways so he had to watch Arash’s long, girthy cock slide into his perky furry buttocks. Erik moaned, clenching the edge of the dresser by his mirror while Arash began augering his rod into Erik again and again. “You like being a hole for bigger men, don’t you?” Arash leaned forward and growled into his ears. “And right now, your hole only exists to make my cock feel good.”

“Fuck mate — use me”! Erik gasped in response.

Erik looked at the mirror as Arash filled his hole. He let Arash take control, watching Arash’s powerful brown and bearish form having his way with him.

“Now on your stomach,” Arash breathed in his ear, clambering on top of him and kissing his neck while he drove his hard throbbing pleasure stake into Erik’s hole. Erik angled his hips up, screaming out. “Oh fuck that’s the spot. Oh, Jesus.” 

When Erik wasn’t moaning, he was gasping for breath. He was lucky to have a muscular butt as it was absorbing the shock the Persian bull was ramming into his repeatedly.

Arash kissed Erik’s mouth from behind, giving Erik shivers as Arash’s beard rubbed against his neck and face before their tongues found each other. “Your cock feels so fucking good,” Erik gasped into his mouth, feeling Arash’s beard break out into a grin against his cheeks. 

Soon, Erik was on his back, his legs in Arash’s firm grip as he plunged into Erik. Erik’s hands continued tracing Arash’s chest, his stomach, and the hairy base of his cock. He was so hairy. And his warm heft felt so fucking good.

Arash could only take so much. From what he could tell, Erik had no idea this was his first time fucking, and his full balls were on the verge of hurting while they slapped against his thighs when he stopped trying to hold his orgasm back. 

“Good boy,” Arash purred. “Want my load?” 

“Drain everything into me,” Erik gasped. “I need it — ​​fuck!”. Erik at least held back what he was thinking: Are you single? Can I be your cumdump for the entire time we are here? 

Arash kept thrusting into him, sweat drenching his ample body hair while he fucked Erik with the force of uncorked repression and horniness. Erik was in seventh heaven, his hole stretched and pulled while Arash’s thick penis deeply massaged his prostrate.

They both shared tender gazes as their heavy breathing synchronized.

Arash roared as he came, filling the condom. His hips had the strong involuntary jerks of a powerful orgasm. Erik’s prostrate was electric by that point, and Erik simultaneously shot his load so hard it landed in Arash’s beard as he leaned over Erik, looking into each other’s eyes as they came. 

Arash repositioned but kept his cock in Erik as they relaxed, allowing it to grow soft before removing the fullest condom Erik had seen in his life. They continued talking, realizing they were living in the same region for now and had four days left at the resort. 

“Will I see you again?” Erik asked tentatively. 

“You won’t stop seeing me,” Arash said, growing hard once more and reaching for the lube.

[siremasterlawrence]

Hypno Comedy Tour

Joel McHale is live at comedy club on his On My Own Terms tour like you have never seen before or that is what they are implying with that horrible title for a show that is about or rake in so much money anyway be stomps his feet.Something is shook in me deep down in to my core as I watch him prance around the stage like a massive march he covers the entirety of the space and secretly earns a admirer out of me as I sneak by way out of the arena. I manage to finesse my way with the guards at the entrance digging in to my pocket I dig for the pocket inside of my jacket as I reach out flipping it in to the air and catching it as he releases in to the air with the coin lighting up. Instantly they are both caught up with the colors switching in a definite multitude of ways change the color as they became like a rocket launching in to the sky as it explodes in impact and they are frozen on command.

Taking my time the hours fly by as the guard came to my side offering me a chance to be able to meet Joel as they escort me in to the film with such attention and they follow all of my instructions as command like good loyal soldiers. They swing the door open as I see my guy, my future boi, Joel McHale swinging in his swivel chair as he spun about to face me with that scruffy face of his and a dorky smile that makes me melt and I close the door. Something clicked in my head as he offers me his hand to shake his grip tight with my hand in his, I knew what do shaking it back very vigorously as I use my with guide his concentration distracting him with my left fingers jangling above his ears.I yank his hand pulling it to the side as his drops to his chin heavily, a deep sigh takes over his presence he looks calmer beyond worlds and his appendages falling to the side I grab his arms and legs shake him deeper.

“Talk to me my friend.”

“Yyyeeessss”

“You can hear me extraordinarily loud.”

“Yyyyeeessss…he is aware of”

“Take a deep breath, sink a million times deeper.”

“Release it!”

“Take a drip down last your consciousness “

“Leave it unaware at the count of ten”

“1…2…3…4...5…6…7…8…9…10”

“Where are you ?”

“At the door of my inner mind “

“Take the handle and open the subconscious “

“Surrender to the sweetness of my power “

“Descend down the staircase “

“The hall liting up “

“I am your life “

“I literally am your world “

“You live in it”

“You will address me”

“Yes!”

“As Master”

“Yes Master”

“Master Lawrence “

“Yes! Master Lawrence “

“I am your everything “

“Do not resist”

“Do not fight”

“You love me”

“I love you “

“Feel it”

“Embrace it”

“You love it “

“You care about me”

“Crave me “

“Crave to serve me”

“worship me”

Jumping up for excitement I clap my hands joyfully as I manage to bring down my crush in a roar of power, thrill and desire all sort of manner of things hit my mind as I turn off the lights and switch a small light on the desk. It flashes in his face as I snap my finger as he woke up mindlessly staring ahead of him as I walk around the desk landing both of my hands on the shoulders rubbing them tightly with my grip as he moans in a bit of pleasure.Leaning in my lips press on to his slowly give him a kiss on the cheeks softly, sweetly I am watching his every move fluctuate as he moves around in his seat and apply the pressure a bit as I start slide down his cheek on to him.Kissing down a track down his cheek to his neck biting him as he backs up a bit the top of his head, he sighs so deeply as the power of my touch increases the pleasure and I love to see him squirm like the little bitch he is.

“When I snap my finger you will wake up “

-SNAP-

“Oh man! What time is it?”

“I am your Master”

“Oh Hey! Master Lawrence “

“How do you feel? Are you ok?”

“I love you, you are my everything “

“Excuse me! Say it again”

“Come on Master! It’s obvious to me”

“Do you love me?”

“With all my heart and soul”

“Wow! That is bold”

“It’s perfection!”

“I am madly in love with you “

“Mind, body and soul”

“From here to the moon”

The end

[danisdistant]

sunday - your past sins are meaningless now - part two

[intro blog] | [taglist] | [masterlist] | [table of contents]

»» ──────ஓ๑ ★ ๑ஓ ────── ««

sunday x stellaronhunter!reader

“wow. i actually didn’t think he’d get here in one piece.” silver wolf commented as you brought sunday into the base, who looked at everyone with an unreadable expression.

“yeah… judging by his looks, it doesn’t seem like he would’ve lasted one more day.” firefly looked at him pitifully.

“…what are your motives with me, stellaron hunters?” he asked, glancing around the room with his eyes lingering slightly longer at firefly. “you have me as your hostage. are you going to threaten the family or the ipc in exchange for more goods?”

“uh…” you stared at him dumbfounded before shaking you head. “maybe he’s a bit angry hungry? hey firefly, do we have any leftover takeout in the fridge?” she nodded before giving a brief thumbs up. “i’ll go get it!”

“silver wolf, mind seeing if we have an extra set of clothes that are around his size?” she chuckled in response. “oh yeah, i’ll go look into bladie’s closet.”

once she left the room, only sunday and you stood as he turned around to look at you. he raised an eyebrow. “exactly, what are you planning, [name]?”

you sighed. you weren’t sure if it was in the script or not if there was a specific way to get him to join the group. but if there was one, then kafka should have told you as soon as both you and sunday fled penacony.

“i can get the confusion on why you think you’re a hostage, but i’ll be honest with you. you’re not.”

“…what.” sunday stared at you, dumbfounded.

“i’m back!” firefly exclaimed as she held bags of food inside of them. “we have several leftovers, although i’m not exactly sure on what his preference is.”

silver wolf entered the room laughing more than she usually would. “sunday should try this on. i’m sure bladie would be thrilled to see someone wearing his formal outfit.”

“uh…” you took the clothes from silver wolf as she gave you a thumbs up. “here, bathroom is down the hall on the left.”

sunday was hesitant, but grabbed the extra pair of clothes from your hands, almost appreciating the thought. as he nodded, he quickly walked away and out of view.

“wolfie. you’re going to get our new member killed by blade if he sees sunday wearing that.” you looked at silver wolf dumbfounded as she smirked.

“oh come on, it’ll be hilarious. besides, kafka and blade are out on a mission right now. they won’t be back for a while.”

“well, if you say so..” you mumbled, pointing to the bags on the couch. “by the way, your goodies from penacony are in there. and don’t touch kafka’s bag.”

“sweet!” silver wolf immediately sprinted to the bag, pulling out the latest pretendo swap 2. It was equipped with a penacony featured game, labeled clockmaker impact.

“haha! i’d knew you’d get the good stuff.” she grinned.

“aww, a keychain of clockie!” firefly admired the keychain as you smiled proudly. “i would have gotten more keychains, but some of the hounds were catching up to me. regardless, i’m glad you like it!”

“by the way, are you joining us later?” firefly asked.

“hmm, no.” you shook your head. “i’ll be trying to convince sunday to join us. after all, i know he’s not the kind of person to say yes to something like this..”

“especially after firefly filled me on what happened in penacony.”

»» ──────ஓ๑ ★ ๑ஓ ────── ««

sunday stepped into the shower. luke warm water flowed down from his hair, chest, and legs, before finally hitting the bottom.

he sighed. what exactly was he getting himself into? he should have declined your offer, yet he still left and ran off with you into aeons who knows where in space?

not just that, but he’s not a hostage? or, maybe he is, and you lied when no one else was looking. even then, he didn’t know if he should trust the stellaron hunters even if they did save him from certain death.

nonetheless, despite what he’s done, they’re still showing him kindness, especially you. even firefly, who he knows struggled at penacony, didn’t immediately attack him.

maybe, once he’s finished, he’ll get back to you for more answers to his questions.

»» ──────ஓ๑ ★ ๑ஓ ────── ««

“we are not watching galactic conflict. we already watched it like a bazillion times.” firefly sighed as silver wolf rolled her eyes. “come on, it’s a classic firefly. i’m trying to get you to develop your taste.”

“just don’t watch the avenging men without me.” you said, crossing your arms as firefly nodded.

usually when kafka and blade are out on a mission, and you along with firefly and silver wolf are free, the three of you just hang out like friends would in a sleepover.

although with the new addition of a member, you had to make sure that sunday would try not to escape or something similar, and that he’s introduced properly into a stellaron hunter’s life.

“oh, how about five evenings at the bears? i heard that it’s a great movie. and scary.” firefly quickly shook her head. “no! i told you several times, i’m not going to watch that!!”

“oh, are you finished already?” you turned as soon as you heard footsteps revealing sunday with his new attire. his wings seemed to have extended slightly more, and you can’t help but notice that something was sticking out from the pocket.

“[name], i’d like to speak to you privately if you’d let me.” he said in the same tone he used back at penacony. “…uh, sure??” you turned to silver wolf and firefly to give a small nod that you’d be alright.

“follow me, there’s a spot where they won’t be able to hear us over the movie.” you said, walking back out of the room as sunday quickly followed behind.

»» ──────ஓ๑ ★ ๑ஓ ────── ««

“hck..!”

as soon as sunday deemed that the two of you were far away enough in the hallway, he swiftly shoved you against the wall, causing you to jolt in surprise.

before you could pull out your weapon, sunday pulled out a gun and aimed it straight at your neck. he didn’t push hard enough to be painful, but it the air felt harder to breathe.

it doesn’t help that he’s pushing your body against the wall as well. your arms were immobilized, leaving you eye to eye at sunday’s glare.

“exactly what is your motive, stellaron hunter??” he said sharply as his eyes furrowed. “you say i’m not a hostage, but i will not hesitate to turn you into one to get some answers out of your friends.”

“hah- if you really wanna know that badly, why don’t you get off of me first?” you replied, smirking slightly in response. “i’ll let this slide with the others, but i can’t tell you if you kill me.”

sunday held the gun for almost a whole minute, trying to see what would you do. after seeing no signs of any resistance, he backed off, placing the gun back into his pocket.

“speak.”

“did you steal that gun from the weaponry’s room..?” you pointed out, knowing how picky kafka is with her weapons. “you should be careful with that you know, she’ll be pissed if you scratch it.”

“that’s none of my concern. explain to me why you’ve taken me, or i won’t hesitate to use THEIR power.” he threatened.

“…well then, since you’re asking so politely!” your words came out of your gritted teeth. “you should join us. i mean, join the stellaron hunters.”

“…no.” sunday crossed his arms while you shook your head. “you don’t have to answer immediately, sunday. besides, you don’t know the pros and cons of being one!”

“and i don’t have to listen to you. my answer is no.” he snarled as he placed one of his hands on his pocket. “you’re going to get me back to penacony, and stop with this foolishness.”

“…and i’m going to ignore your threat, and i’m going to check out if there’s any updates from elio.” you paused for a second before adding, “and i’m taking you with me. you know, to show you how things work around here.”

right as sunday pulled out his gun, you quicky shoved him against the wall, effectively stunning him. while his grip was loose, you took the gun before placing it carefully in your pocket.

“come on birdie, it’ll be fun. besides, it’s better than sitting around and rotting.” you said, with sunday frowning. his wings puffed in reaction. “don’t call me that.”

“whatever you say, monday.” you sighed as the two of you began walking, with sunday trailing behind.

[previous] | [next]

»» ──────ஓ๑ ★ ๑ஓ ────── ««

[musings-ofthe-unamused]

Not Mushroom for Love (Genshin Impact)

Pairing: Tighnari x reader

Word Count: 2.6k

A/N: I love Tighnari he's so cute i just wanna AAAAAAHHHHHH

Tighnari was a hard ass. It was for good reason, sure, but it didn't mean that it annoyed you any less. Another thing that annoyed you was how much you wanted to prove yourself to him. Not only did you want to be a worthy forest ranger, but you wanted to be someone worthy of his love. It was frustrating, not only to be in love with your superior, but to also know he'll never see you the same.

Love was never meant to be, when it came to Tighnari. It was like the two of you were polar opposites. He was smart, consistent, and stern. You were aloof, not the brightest, and tended to bend the rules. You honestly had no clue how you fell in love with him. Was it the way his ears twitched when he was reading a book? The way his tail swung happily from side to side when he was talking about something new he learned? Maybe it was the way he pulled his hair back while doing an experiment? Whatever it was, one day you realized you had loved him. And it was terrible . How can someone as stupid as you love someone as incredibly smart as him?

You had failed your promotion exam. It was the fourth time in the row you tried to become a Forest Watcher. Some people were fine with being Rangers their whole life. But not you. You wanted to make everyone proud. Prove them wrong. You weren't just some stupid Ranger that always got in trouble or made mistakes on tests. Yet here you were, sitting with Collei as Tighnari stood in front of both of you with his arms crossed. 

"You got more questions wrong than the last time," Tighnari shook his head. "I thought you were studying?"

You sighed in frustration. "I am! But for some reason, I can't- the material just doesn't stick."

"Well, it needs to. It can be a life or death situation when you're out there."

You rubbed your forehead in frustration as he turned his attention to Collei. This happened all the time. You barely were able to learn the material to become a Ranger. It was the field test that had given you your position. It was your ability to act fast in a situation and keep your calm that made you keep your position. You stared down at your test, seeing the big marks of ink that glared at you. Mockingly. As you read over your answers, you realized that you did know all of this. So why did your mind always blank when it came to testing?

"Are you listening?"

You were pulled out of your thoughts and raised your head. "Huh?"

"We need to talk about your rescheduled test."

"I can do it tomorrow."

"No."

"Why not?" You frowned.

Tighnari motioned to Collei who looked uncomfortable. "She needs to rest since she's been having more flare ups recently. I think it would be wise of you to use this extended time to think about your path."

"What about my path?"

"Well," His head tilted to the side. "You have been consistently failing in the tests. You don't seem to take in information like the others. We should consider keeping you as a Ranger instead of trying to become a Forest Watcher."

Collei looked between the both of you. She could tell that things were going to get heated. "Uhm, why don't we discuss this at a later time?"

"But Tighnari, I know what I'm doing!"

"Your test scores say otherwise."

"I know my stuff! Can't I have a field test instead?"

He shook his head. "We have standards that we need to uphold. Knowing things in the moment is good, but you need to be able to know this stuff outside of that as well."

"That doesn't-"

Tighnari said your name sternly. "You know we have rules for a reason."

You stood up. "You just don't trust me."

There was a pause. The two of you stared at each other. It would have been easy to follow what Tighnari was saying. He was smart. He knew what he was doing, saying, and teaching. But there was something inside you that left you feeling frustrated. So you wanted to challenge what he thought of you. 

"I don't trust you to go out there alone."

"That's all I needed to hear."

Collei and Tighnari's calls fell on deaf ears as you left. You weren't stupid. You can be trusted. It was your job as a Forest Ranger. You've been doing this for years, for crying out loud. You clenched and unclenched your fists in anger. The one thing you hated about yourself is that you cried when you got angry. It made you seem even more weak and stupid than you already were. You took slow, deep breaths to keep your cool and your tears inside their ducts. The scent of last night's rain made you calm down, only a small bit. You stomped down the path through the village.

"Wait up!" You turned your head to see Tighnari running after you. Your heart skipped a beat. "Why did you leave?"

You tried to not let your feelings for him let you soften. "I need to go for a walk." 

"Can I come?"

"Why?" You huffed as you continued to walk. "Do you not trust me to even take a walk?"

"No," Tighnari spoke in a matter-of-fact voice. "I don't trust you to go off into the forest on your own. You know, a Forest Ranger is even stronger in pairs or more. Not only that, but if something were to happen, you have someone to have your back."

"Forest Rangers go out on solo patrols all the time."

Tighnari sighed. The two of you were now walking precariously over a fallen log. "That's not what I mean."

"Of course not. What you mean is that I'm too stupid to go out on my own."

He stopped. "Is that what you think?"

You turn towards him. "It's what I know. Don't act like you don't want to get rid of me."

"I don't!"

"Liar!" You point towards his chest. "The disappointment in your eyes whenever you see my test scores, the sigh when we go on patrol, the constant lectures. Admit it!"

"Oh please." He rolled his eyes. "Don't be so dramatic."

"I am nothing but a liability to you!" You poked at him again, slowly making stepping forward. 

"Watch it," Tighnari reached out towards you. "Just calm down."

"Don't touch-"

Your words were cut off as you lost your footing on the log. Tighnari called out your name, trying to catch you. Of course, this was why Tighnari didn't trust you to be out alone. Of course the wood was slick. The rain still didn't dry out. A log as big as that one would take a while to become safe to walk across. But it was too late. You crashed through vines and branches. The wind was knocked out of you as you landed on the hard ground. You desperately gasped, trying to get air back into your lungs. You stared up at the sky, the log you fell off of nothing now looking like a faraway stick.

After gaining back a semblance of normal breathing, your training kicked in. Wiggle your fingers. Check. Wiggle your toes. You winced, your left foot sending a shooting pain all the way up to your lower back. Ok, not good. You raised your arms. Some cuts and scrapes, new bruises forming. That was ok, something you can handle. You slowly, very slowly sat up. Your bones and muscles ached. You turned your neck from side to side. It seemed you had no spinal damage, which was a relief. 

"Oh, archons have mercy."

Your left leg was swollen and twisted in an unnatural angle. Adrenaline pumped through your veins, enough to keep the scathing pain of a broken leg away. You took a deep breath. There was no way you could set it on your own, but the least you could do was move it in its right position. The pain pulsated as you slowly turned your calf, and then your ankle. That was when the pain really started to flare up. Tears streamed down your face as you reached into your pack that was snuggly attached to your waist.

"I'll be ok," You whimpered to yourself as you took out an antiseptic balm and started applying it to your cuts and scrapes. "Just don't focus on the pain. Focus on cleaning the cuts. You've trained for this."

"Are you ok?"

Tighnari had already made his way to you. He kneeled down, his eyes searching your body for any terrible injuries. You started to sob. You felt like a child who had fallen and scraped their knee. Your hands tried to desperately wipe away the tears to no avail. Tighnari's arms wrapped around you, pulling you into a hug. 

"Hey, it's ok! It's ok. I'm here."

You clung to his sweatshirt. "I'm so stupid!"

"Shush, no you're not."

"Yes I am. Just look at me-" You pushed him away and sniffled. "I almost killed myself."

"Well," He looked at your arms. "It seems to me that you did exactly what you were supposed to. Now your wounds won't get infected. Good job, Ranger."

You rolled your eyes. "You're just saying that. I wouldn't be surprised if you want to kick me out after this."

"Why do you keep saying stuff like this?" His voice grew dark as he started to wrap your arms up in bandages. "It's- I just…I can't have you out here!"

"Because I'll just do something stupid-"

"No! I don't want you to die out here! Do you know how scared I was when you fell? I could've prevented that. I wasn't fast enough. I couldn't save you in time, and I failed at what I'm supposed to do as a forest watched. I thought…I thought that if you were to die, it would be my fault. Because I couldn't teach you. I was the one who wasn't good enough." Tighnari's ears lowered, and he hid his gaze. "Let me finish bandaging your arm."

Your eyes widened as you stilled. You couldn't speak. If you were more delusional, you would have thought he sounded like he was in love, more than a teacher and coworker. His hands were gentle as he finished fixing you up. He then sat back on his legs and looked at your leg. His breathing was shaky. You swallowed.

"I- uhm…"

"Are you in pain?"

"I would be lying if I said no."

He scooted forward. He took out a pair of shears and snipped up your pants. The gasp he let out sounded even more painful than your fall. "It's definitely broken."

You let out a weak laugh. "You should've seen it when it was all twisted. That was really bad."

"You moved it all by yourself?"

"I'm strong."

"You know you don't have to be," Tighnari looked around and found two sticks. You grimaced, knowing what was coming. "I'm here. I want you to rely on me."

"But I want to prove to you that I am capable of doing things on my own."

"You don't need to prove anything to me." He positioned the two sticks by your calf, pressing them gently against your skin. He took out a thick looking cloth from his bag. "I'm going to wrap some cloth around the ankle first."

"I do. It's because I want you to see me as an equal. Then, maybe, I can confess my feelings for you."

Tighnari suddenly wrapped the cloth around without warning. You let out a shout and fell onto your back, trying not to writhe in pain. Maybe confessing your feelings while he was trying to attach a splint was not a good idea. He glanced at you, then continued wrapping your ankle. He then moved on to the middle of your calf. You balled up your fist and stuck it in your mouth, closing your eyes. Don't pass out. Don't pass out.

"All done." You opened your eyes and saw Tighnari standing. "Ready to get up?"

Your heart sank as he didn't acknowledge what you said. You sat up. "Yeah, sure."

He grabbed your hand and slowly hoisted you up. You tried not to put pressure on your leg, or think about the extreme amounts of pain you were currently in. After wobbling slightly, you were finally upright.

"Lean on me," Tighnari whispered, his arm wrapping around your waist. "I'll keep you steady."

"Well, let's try getting back."

Tighnari didn't answer. Instead, his free hand reached up to grasp your chin and move your face towards his. The only thing you could think of was how soft his lips were. They tasted of a floral balm that you've seen him put on countless times before. You leaned into him and his grip on your waist tightened. It wasn't long before you were breathless. 

"Are you still in pain?"

You shook your head. "N-no."

"Good. Let's go. I'll make sure to get you back quickly so you can get proper care."

It was silent as the two of you started slowly traversing through the forest. Your lips craved his again. Your heart craved his affection, his love. It was full knowing that he had confirmed his feelings. It didn't seem like him to act like this. But love made people act out of character.

“Do you know when I first fell in love?”

"Hmm?" You glanced at Tighnari who decided to finally break the silence. A blush creeped across your face as you registered the word 'love'. “When?”

“When you became a junior ranger. We were on our first outing as a group. You always had a habit of straying, but seeing your eyes wide with wonder as you asked me every single question you could…how you listened with the utmost attention, the way you complained when I told you to be quiet, how you would recklessly touch something without knowing what it was-“

“Wait. Isn’t that something you hate?”

“I could never hate anything about you. Because it is you. I don’t want you to be different.” He looked off to the side as if this was something he'd kept hidden for a while. "You'd make a great Forest Watcher one day. I care for everyone. I care for you. But I guess love got in the way of me being an actually good teacher. I should have realized that testing just isn't the method for you to learn things. I should've taken a different approach. Because of me, you started to doubt yourself."

"Tighnari…"

"I have strong feelings for you. I want to go about it properly. Relationships are something that are built slowly. And I want to spend all my time with you."

"Are you asking me out?"

You forced out a pained smile. "That's very sweet of you, Head Forest Watcher."

"You sound upset. I also wanted to apologize for how I've been treating you. It wasn't fair."

"I appreciate that…" You trailed off. Ghandarva Village slowly came into view and you sighed. "I only sound upset because I'm in immense pain."

"Oh." Tighnari's ears fluttered. "Right. As soon as we get back, you need to be on bed rest for at least six weeks. After that, we can talk about your promotion."

You leaned your head against his shoulder. "Thank you, Tighnari."

"No complaints?"

"I think I'm going to rely on you a little more."

"I'll always be by your side." 

You smiled to yourself. Just like the forest, there needed to be a balance to everything. Tighnari was there to make sure you had someone to fall back on when you got in trouble. You were there to push Tighnari out of his comfort zone. Previously, you had thought that being opposites meant that you weren't compatible. But you two fit together like pieces of a puzzle. It was meant to be.

[statementlou]

forgive me if this is too serious for an anon ask.. feel free to ignore it..

but this week shook me in ways i didnt see coming. i wasnt a one direction fan growing up.. tbh im still not, i listen to only a few songs. im same age as louis. so, i found one direction through him.

i have great affection for all of the boys though. and even in my short time in fandom, i've always been surprised and saddened by the bullying liam has gotten.. he just always seemed like a good person with really poor communication skills. to understand his point, you had to give him some space and context.

but this year has been a constant worried watch over liam. it was so plain things were desperate.

stan twitter got to me so bad that i left twitter the day louis' tour ended. so i was very peripherally aware of his recent harassment, but i did worry.

and now the unimaginable has happened, i am just at loss. not just in the sense of how to make sense of this loss, but also the complete lack of empathy for him still? even for other boys' fans.?? after they've seen how all of the boys' are hurting?

and just in the bigger picture.. how is this real? what loving god/higher power/whatver has allowed this to be the state of the world? he was so kind, so generous, just a boy. JUST A BOY. just trying to find a place to fit and feel safe. why was he dealt such cruelty? just while he was pursuing something he loved? something he was gifted with? in life and in death?

im just at loss. heartbreak doesnt even begin to cover it.

for me I've felt it was a constant worried watch over Liam for many years now, but other than that, yeah. It's hard to feel hope or faith in the face of so much senseless cruelty and pointless loss; all I can say is I would hope the millions of people who are shocked and saddened by this take away something lasting both about the fact that there are real people on the other side of the computer screen and cruelty has a real impact, and that addiction can afflict anyone. Nothing can make this other than tragic and regrettable forever; but I would love to see the amazing power of fandom mobilized to support programs for addicts and to fight stereotyping and dismissing of people who use drugs in Liam's name. To see people use this as a realization to really understand that it wasn't strange or exceptional that someone talented and worthwhile could succumb to addiction and ultimately die of it, but rather a plague that our society is allowing to run unchecked because of stigma. IDK, maybe I'm just grasping at straws trying to find something remotely positive that could come out of this situation but what else can you do? It's just so sad.

[xjulixred45x]

This is my last drabble request before my games take me, May I please request for a drabble between Platonic Yandere Nanami and Platonic Yandere Higuruma wherein their little Darling is eating by themselves and so those two decide to eat with her and it devolves into Nanami trying to coddle her / threaten Higuruma.

Good luck with your games buddy! Considerate it done!

Platonic Yandere Nanami/Platonic Yandere Higuruma: please eat, Darling

Tension was especially high that day.

It always was, I mean, it was something to expect. Nanami was a very neat and upright man, but also very controlling, especially with his young son (reader), whom he was unwilling to share with anyone due to his own paranoia.

so having to accept such a big adjustment as having (reader) another "father" figure in your life was definitely a difficult thing. It didn't help that both men's personalities were practically opposites and constantly clashed.

Higuruma was also fair, but he had something that Nanami didn't: make room for change and, above all, making the necessary changes to make (reader) happy.

which included undoing several of the strict rules and regulations that Nanami had implemented years ago. Obviously it wasn't easy.

This caused great chaos between both men, as although Nanami was going to *tolerate* Higuruma for (reader)'s sake, he was not willing to acknowledge that his "parenting" methods with them were wrong.

In Nanami's words, "You would only be misleading (reader), you want them to reveal themselves to us."

For a long time everything boiled down to a game of tug of war on the part of both of them for total control over (reader), if Nanami was with (reader) watching television, Higuruma would go and take them out for a walk. If Higuruma and (reader) were arguing about overprotection, Nanami would take (reader's) side.

and so on..

Although the worst was when on one occasion (reader) went too far trying to get away from the two, that they both decided that they would give him individual punishments.

Nanami went with his typical tactics, isolation, (reader) had already gotten used to having not only Nanami but also Higuruma with them, so the punishment was considerably worse than previous times.

and when he finished, (Reader) went to Higuruma for comfort, not knowing that he himself would have an impact.

He threatened to use his dominion on them if they even thought about running away again, almost killing them with fear when they saw the judge's entity... was he really serious? Would he do that to them?

which led to the current situation. Because of the severe joint punishment, now (reader) did not want to eat.

It wasn't that they couldn't, but that they were left in such an intense state of shock that every time they tried to eat they shook like jelly and couldn't even take a bite.

It got to the point that Nanami and Higuruma had to take turns spoon-feeding (reader). Under any other circumstance, Nanami would have enjoyed the moment similar to (reader's) childhood, but seeing how bad they had left (reader) this time...she didn't know how much it was appropriate to enjoy it.

Higuruma was more direct and tried to apologize to (reader) for his rudeness, let them know that he was the one who was wrong for going beyond his limits, not them. but it took quite a while until real change occurred.

During this time, surprisingly Nanami and Higuruma managed to get along better, solely because they had to in order to properly take care of (reader), but at least they weren't throwing daggers at each other anymore.

Although the real question would be when that would change.

and it happened when (reader) finally started eating on their own again.

Nanami and Higuruma were discussing (in low volume) what they were going to bring (reader) to eat now, and they heard someone moving in the kitchen.

When they went to see what was happening, they found (reader) at the table, eating a small snack that apparently they had prepared.

Nanami and Higuruma stood still for a long while before one of them took the first step towards (reader).

Higuruma stood on their left side, putting an arm around them in a half-hug as he softly congratulated them for eating on their own again.

Nanami stood on their right side, discreetly trying to remove Higuruma's arm from around (reader), while also giving soft compliments to them.

a strange duality, but the new reality of (Reader), apparently.

Shares, reblogs and comments are very welcome!

Thanks for the Request ❤️

IM SPEEED (sometimes), it Takes long to make this one and the one of Toji bc i'm now in the night schedule (fk university), but now I'm getting used to it and it's easier for me. I will try to make all the Requests that You all send. Thank You

[noco-alienau]

Stay Back!

writing below the cut!

The house shook as the impact of the fallen object outside rolled throughout the ground. Items of all kinds were knocked off their surfaces, a few of which shattering as they made contact with the floor.

The animals nearby reacted accordingly, a hairless cat sprinting for the only bedroom while a golden labrador began to bark in the direction of the sudden noise. Cody was the first to leave the dining table, kicking aside the mess that had been made and watching nervously as the source of the ruckus had still yet to cease.

It was a ship of some kind, three mechanical limbs protruding from a saucer-like shape with blaring green lights. Whoever the pilot was, they had very little knowledge over how the machine worked. It rocked awkwardly, stumbling over and finally falling still in the flattened grass.

"Noah, stay inside."

"Cody, what's going on?"

"Just get Daisy and stay inside."

Cody grabbed whatever blunt object he could, a baseball bat, racing towards the exit. This wasn't real. It couldn't be happening. Not now.

He hesitated as he approached the front door, a wave of realization washing over him like a cold rain. This - all of this - should have been forgotten years ago. Why had they returned? He had no significance to them, no importance. Why now, years later when he had finally settled down, did his past catch up to him?

Noah had the dogs collar in his grasp, but he hadn't left his spot. The two had seen the same thing. He wasn't sure what to think of. He didn't get the chance to ask again, his partner leaving for the outside. He could only watch.

A hatch on the side of the ship swung open, a mixture of steam and smoke escaping into the air as it did. An odd scent of dust and dirt spilled alongside, as if the area couldn't get any worse. Two passengers stumbled out and over one another, seemingly fighting.

"Is it really that fucking hard to land?" One hissed. "We've been in training for ages! This is why you pay attention, asshole!"

"This was all last second," the other would argue. "If you know so much about ships, why didn't you fly?"

Their bickering seemed to have no end. Cody inched closer to get a better view of who exactly he was to deal with.

They were relatively tall, both donning similar clothing and features. Their skin was a bright shade of blue, they shared a somewhat similar antenna and tail shape. Both pieces of clothing had a set of stripes to specify their color ranking. It was all too recognizable to the brunette before them.

Their argument came to a quick pause once their eyes settled on the human nearby. Cody grew tense as they approached, lifting his weapon and intending to bash their skulls in. The taller of the two aliens caught it in their claws before any contact was made.

"Cody 6827," he spoke, ripping the bat away. "We have been ordered by the king to return you to your home planet. You have information that he needs."

The boy was stunned. "How did you find me?" He blurted out.

"You had been tagged by your caregivers before you had been sent here. We can explain further once you come aboard our ship. You will be given a temporary room within the palace, so long as you comply."

"If you don't," the shorter alien inched closer, "we aren't arriving back empty handed. Best decide if you want to go there in one piece."

"5728, there is no need for threats."

"Cody?" A voice called. "What is all of this?"

Noah kept his distance from the rest. He was unarmed; something that made his partner more anxious than anything.

"Noah, stay back-"

"Step away, newcomer," one of the aliens warned. "He isn't what you believe for him to be."

"Cody, what are you?"

Noah's tone was unreadable. Was it disgust? Fear? He couldn't tell. There was no point in hiding any longer. No facade he put on could hide the world around him.

Cody's form shifted unnaturally. Two long, green antennas emerged from his hair with a matching tail following suit. Green splotches grew on his skin, although it seemed difficult to get far past this stage. The transformation was visibly uncomfortable. He never intended to reveal this again, and having hidden for so long left certain aspects of his appearance irreparable.

Words couldn't save him now. Cody waited for a response. He was met with nothing but a long gaze.

"Noah, I.. I'm sorry, I should have told you sooner-"

"You should have."

"But you would have thought I was crazy! I didn't.. I didn't want to lose you."

"Cody," the brunette gave an agitated sigh, "that summer camp we met at taught me that even the weirdest shit is possible. This wasn't exactly on my list, but.. guess I need to get back to writing it."

Despite everything, Noah came closer in reassurance of his loyalty to his lover. The green alien's ears perked up. He couldn't have asked for a better partner.

"Besides, there were.. signs."

"Signs?"

"Yeah.. remember that time I caught you breaking into the pantry because I tried to cut off your candy-fix for the night?"

"Yeah. Child locks don't work anymore."

"I learned. Anyway, when I found you, your eyes looked off. Later realized they were glowing. Thought it was the flashlight, but no, you're just.. spacey."

It was nice to see Cody's tooth-gap smile, especially now.

"Are you two done?" The shorter alien called out. "It's either you get in or we'll make you!"

"The king isn't one to wait," the other warned.

"He's only going if I can go, too," Noah stated.

There wasn't a lot of time left to waste. No, neither of the earthlings wanted to leave, but it was all or nothing. It seemed the intruders had a similar mindset.

"Get in," they ordered.

Hesitant but less worried, the couple slowly made their way inside the unidentifiable ship. The many blinking lights, screens, and buttons were a tad bit overwhelming, but they had no choice than to adapt.

"Everything will be fine," Cody told himself. He only hoped it wouldn't be a lie.

Noah and Cody are open for questions!

♡writing done by @plushii-gutz !♡🧸