#but with all the physical pain and trying to exist I didn’t notice

[aquaticmercy]

Symptom of Life

Sequel to My Own Soul's Warning

Summary : Bucky introduces Sam to his secret wife, who is still getting used to being in a human body.

Pairing : Bucky Barnes x reader (she/her) 

Warnings/tags : Blood, violence, death, trauma, mentions of ED, SA, insecurities, sleep disorders. Slight caffeine addiction (reader loves coffee but feel free to exchange it for any caffeinated drink). Maybe a bit angsty? I know the tags look bad but ultimately it’s fluffy. (Let me know if I've missed anything)

Word count : 9k oops

Note : This fic is a sequel to My Own Soul’s Warning. Reader was the Spirit of Suffering, a former immortal entity who shows herself to people in extreme physical and emotional suffering to help ease the pain. I also really really enjoy the idea of Bucky having a secret wife. Title is inspired by the Willow song of the same name. Enjoy!

Bucky couldn’t seem to keep his hands off you, his fingers skimming along your arms, your shoulders, drifting down to hold your hand, as if touching you was the only way to convince himself you were real. 

When he noticed the crimson footprints smudged into his carpet, he froze, his eyes darting down to your bare, bloodied feet. 

“Oh my god, what happened to you?” He stared at the raw cuts, the bruised flesh, the delicate lines of red seeping out, soaking into the fabric. The reality of you being human—really, fully human—sank in. 

For the first time, you weren’t ethereal and distant. For the first time, your human form wasn’t bound to borrowed time. You were fragile, stuck in this world like he was, prone to physical injury like he was.

Your eyes flicked to his, and with a naive curiosity, you asked, “Are feet… supposed to feel sharp?” 

Was that the word people used to describe this uneasy physical feeling? 

“Oh, sweetheart, no.” His mouth fell open, a breathless laugh escaping him. He couldn't help himself— even like this you were… adorable. “Let me take care of you. Come here.” He guided you to the couch, his touch gentle, brows furrowed. Moving through the drawers in his kitchen, he found his first aid kit, and crouched in front of you.

You watched, fascinated, as he opened the kit, pulling out antiseptic and gauze with practised hands, his fingers shivering as they brushed over your skin. He took your foot in his lap, so carefully as if he feared you might break. 

You winced at the sting of the antiseptic, staring down as he dabbed gently. Each time he caught a flinch or a sharp inhale, he murmured, “Sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll be gentle.” 

After a moment of silence, he asked, “Where did you walk from?”

You tilted your head, trying to remember the journey. You remembered reading a sign!

“I showed up in the woods near Westview… I think.” 

His hands froze on your foot, his chin snapping up. “Westview? You’re telling me that you walked from a Jersey suburb all the way to Brooklyn… barefoot? In nothing but—” His eyes drifted down to the thin fabric you were wearing, the slightest hint of a smirk tugging at his mouth. “—a… what, a sheet?”

“Yes? Is that not normal?” Your lips quirked, the corners of your mouth twitching with a laugh. “People did give me strange looks.”

He stared at you, a flicker of disbelief crossing his face. All this time, you’d been wandering the earth as the Spirit of Suffering, witnessing every dark corner of human existence—yet you didn’t understand human norms? 

But then he realised— that you were exactly that: an entity bound to suffering, burdened with witnessing the worst parts of humanity. You’d been drawn to agony, grief, and loss. You have probably never seen a human just… be. 

Before Bucky, you’d never known what it meant to feel the gentler things: kindness, joy, the sweetness of an ordinary moment. 

The beauty in simply being alive. 

He couldn’t help but chuckle, shaking his head as he pulled off his Henley, handing it to you. “Here. Wear this. Just… don’t move.”

You took the clothes from him, the warmth of the fabric seeping into your skin as you pulled them on. Every movement felt new and strange.

The Henley was soft, and you savoured the scent that clung to it—something clean and faintly cedar-y, just like the woods you had appeared in. 

It felt like a shield against the strange chill of your mortal skin.

Bucky settled beside you, draping a blanket over both of you. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Tell me everything.”

In the warm quiet of Bucky’s apartment that now felt vast, you let the truth spill from your lips. 

You told him of Rio Vidal, of calling Death herself, of the eternity you had given away in the blink of an eye— that you will now die as he would— that your infinite existence in search of a pain has come to an end— that you were made from the same flesh and blood that he was. 

As you spoke, you watched the way his eyes reflected the glow of the warm lamplight.

Perhaps it would always be this way with you— he would always have questions he couldn’t ask, that had answers he couldn’t possibly understand.

But did that really matter? The soul that had wondered all the living realms, the soul that had been the Spirit of Suffering— the mercy in all his nightmares, was now human. 

You, his one true love that he was certain he couldn’t truly grasp, had shown up at his doorstep, truly alive for the first time. Not a phantom. Not a ghost. Not anymore.

Wasn’t this what he had been asking of you?

A new struggle dawned on his face— hope, disbelief, and finally a guilt that consumed his heart, sinking deeper and deeper until he could no longer tell where he started and it began.

He stayed silent, but his hand lifted, hesitating before his metal arm reached for your cheeks. His touch was gentle, careful, like he was trying to memorise the warmth of your skin, as if he had gotten too used to you leaving in the morning. “You did this…,” he said, voice rough. He didn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t finish it.

You did this for me.

You nodded, feeling the press of tears you hadn’t realised were waiting for release. “For you,” you whispered. “But I chose this myself.”

His face twisted. Your declaration hurt, yet he held on tighter. His human fingers sliding up to your wrists, pressing into the pulse. His eyes closed, his breath uneven. “I don’t deserve this,” he murmured, voice breaking.

You reached for his jaw, guiding him to look at you. “If anyone does,” you said, brushing your thumb over his cheekbone. “It’s you.”

A gentle wave of calm radiated from you, easing his worries, allowing just enough peace to slip past his defences.

You spoke with a finality that left no room for doubt— a certainty that felt ancient, a knowledge too vast to be contained within the human mind it now occupied. You had seen humanity's darkest sorrows, touched the edges of its deepest pain. Coming from you, he knew your words were absolute.

He chuckled, a low, sweet sound that sounded like music to your ears.  His fingers left your pulse and covered your hand on his face.

“You’re really here,” he whispered with a childlike wonder, nuzzling into your palm.

When you had a borrowed human form, every second felt strained, as if each breath drained you. But now, with a mortal mind to match your human body, everything felt effortless, natural. For the first time, you could feel the roughness of Bucky's stubble against your skin without the weight of eternity anchoring you.

“I am,” you said, your voice trembling, getting used to the fragile elasticity of a human vocal cord. You could feel the steady, comforting warmth of his body, his heartbeat a drumbeat against your hand on his chest.

The textures around you seemed sharper, more alive than ever before. The clarity was blinding—the rough edge of the cuts on his skin against your fingertips, the dampness of tears on his cheek. Each breath, each subtle movement of his chest under your hand, felt like a true miracle— and you’ve witnessed many miracles.

He pulled you into him then, wrapping his arms around you, utterly anchored in this mortal world. His face pressed against your hair, and you could feel the warmth of his breath against your skin, the gentle brush of his lips against your forehead. In that moment, everything felt amplified—the softness of his embrace, the steady rhythm of his heart against your own, the way his fingers traced slow patterns on your back, almost as if he were afraid you’d slip away again.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, still in disbelief.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you replied. You felt his hand slide up to cradle the back of your head, his touch gentle, protective. 

—

That night, he taught you how to sleep. For eons, you'd drifted through darkness, untouched by the need for rest. You’ve watched over tormented souls throughout the night—those who woke in terror, those steeped in frustration of sleepless nights. Bucky had even been one of them.

You knew the kind of exhaustion that left people broken— but the gentle surrender of sleep, that brought refreshment and peace—that had always been beyond your reach.

So when he suggested you try it, the idea felt foreign, even decadent. That night, lying next to him, your heart thundered as the strange sensation of needing sleep washed over you, especially after the long walk that brought you to him.

As you yawned, Bucky stifled a laugh, kissing your forehead. “The adrenaline is running out,” he said. 

Tiredness was as foreign as it was unsettling. He wrapped his arms around you. He whispered to you, his voice a grounding hum. The rise and fall of his chest was a tether, an anchor in this unfamiliar stillness, until, gradually, you sank into the quiet oblivion.

When you awoke, Bucky’s morning voice rang softly as he took in the wonder and surprise on your face. 

“You get used to it,” he chuckled, his hand brushing through your rumpled hair. “Believe me, not every morning feels that amazing.” 

But you couldn’t imagine ever feeling anything but awe at this—waking up warm and whole again, cocooned in his arms.

— 

That morning, Bucky handed you a bowl of cereal, and you stared at it like a riddle you’d never known needed solving. 

When you were immortal, you had only ever seen food through the lives of those who struggled with it, those who either deprived themselves or sought comfort in excess, using eating to ease their pain. So when Bucky suggested you should try eating yourself, you approached it with hesitation.

But he was patient, his eyes warm as he showed you how to hold the spoon, how to bring it to your mouth for that first tentative bite. The sweetness, the cold milk—it all flooded your senses at once, and then came the emptiness after chewing and swallowing. You laughed, amazed at how something so small could be so enchanting.

—

Then, it came for you to clean yourself. 

You’d witnessed scenes like this countless times before— bathtubs filled with still, unmoving water. Often, the people you watched over leaned in ceramic bathrooms in silence, crying in solitude. Showers where people stood for hours, letting the water drown their pain. You’d seen water become a place of grief, of release, of places where bodies were found by a grieving family.

But this was different. 

You gingerly stepped in the bath, watching Bucky’s face to make sure you were doing it right, but he was only smiling. He cupped some water and tossed it at you with a splash, chuckling as you jumped, surprised. The warmth felt good, and so did the way he looked at you: relaxed and teasing, no weight or judgement in his gaze.

“You’ve gotta get your hair wet too,” he said, lifting a bubble-filled hand and laughing as he blew them playfully in your direction. The bubbles floated like tiny stars before popping against your skin, and you found yourself reaching for them, a small laugh escaping your lips. You didn’t know you could laugh like this, a sound so unburdened by the infinite years you endured alone.

Soon, you started enjoying the unfamiliar joy of being simply clean.

—

One morning, he handed you a toothbrush, squeezing a minty gel onto it. 

He guided your hand gently, helping you get the feel of it. The rush of cool mint, the slight sting of the paste—it was all strangely invigorating. It was a ritual he assured you would become second nature. 

Mortals are so fragile! What do you mean if they don’t do this every day, a vital part of their body will fall off? You thought to yourself, before remembering that you are now one of them, too. 

Each morning after that, you stood side by side in the bathroom, brushing together, and he’d watch you in the mirror, amused as you perfected the routine.

—

And now: clothes. At first, you wore whatever Bucky gave you—a worn sweater, one of his old shirts. But he soon insisted on taking you out to find your own, bringing you to a clothing store where he watched as you picked through the racks, feeling the fabrics, the textures that you haven't before.

When you were immortal, you witnessed the way mirrors could deepen the wounds of mortal insecurities. Now, you found yourself grappling with those same emotions —one that you had never possessed before. 

When you put on a tight shirt in the changing room, you weren’t prepared for the way your own reflection made you hesitate. You looked at your body and wondered why it didn’t curve the same as the mannequins outside, or why your form wasn’t the same as the figures plastered on billboards. 

“Do I look wrong?” you asked Bucky, frowning at your reflection. He didn’t hesitate, stepping closer to you. “Of course not,” he said. “You’re beautiful, doll.”

As you learned to process human insecurity, you also learned to laugh as you twirled in front of the mirror in clothes that were truly yours. 

Still, even with your part of the closet now stocked up, he would catch you lounging in his day-old shirts from time to time.

—

Days passed with more tiny, mundane marvels. He gave you a phone to keep him updated on your whereabouts. And with that he also gave you a pair of blue light glasses, holding them carefully as he helped you slide them on. 

“These’ll help,” he explained, brushing a finger over the bridge of your nose. Your eyes, so used to eternity, ached with the sharp glow of phone screens and computers.

Bucky didn’t really need them— super soldier serum and all. But you? Now, you were so devastatingly human that you crinkled your nose and rubbed your eyes when you were reading some old Latin text (which was a practically dead language) on his tablet for too long. 

“Screens are terrible for your eyes,” he said. And he was right, until these glasses softened the glare. You found yourself squinting less at the blue-tinged world they showed you.

You kept them in a case wherever you went.

— 

Bucky taught you how to use the subway, standing close behind you, his hand resting lightly on your back as you learned to read the maps, to listen for the names of stops. Once, you were too preoccupied with talking to each other that you ended up far from home, but he just laughed. When he noticed you were getting tired before you could even make your way home, he bought you both a cup of coffee. He then showed you how to retrace your steps, until you found your way back together.

Well, the coffee was a mistake. The smell alone was fascinating—rich, bitter, and warm. You took a sip, and the taste flooded your senses.

it tasted so… deep.

You felt the faint bite of bitterness softened by milk and sugar, an intensity of flavour you'd never known. 

The jolt of caffeine made you feel vibrantly alive, so much so that when you almost got home, you insisted on going to a nearby cafe and ordering another one yourself, unable to resist. And another one. And another one. And… another one.

When night fell, though, you laid awake, heart racing. Bucky chuckled as you fidgeted beside him, amused as you tried to get comfortable in his arms. "You might want to go easy on the coffee next time, doll," he said, stroking your hair as you tossed and turned, learning the dangers of caffeine a little too late. 

—

Then, there was the music.

One evening, Bucky sat beside you, scrolling through his records as you closed your eyes and let the sound spill into your eardrums. He played everything he could think of—classical, jazz, heavy rock, music from both his era and this one. You found yourself drawn to the soulful, mournful melodies, the songs heavy with longing. When you shared this with him, he chuckled softly, saying “old habits die hard,” and you had to laugh. 

You didn’t have the heart to tell him that when you were drifting through the centuries, you listened as artists— Beethoven, Louis Armstrong, Janis Joplin, Lorna Wu— pouring their own pain into their music. You had stood beside them once, a witness to their pain.

—

Even laundry became an adventure. He watched as you stood in front of the washing machine, staring at it like it was some complicated puzzle. “Trust me,” he grinned, showing you how to measure the detergent. He watched as you concentrated, biting your lip as you turned the dial and pressed the start button. The hum of the machine, the warmth of freshly dried clothes—all of it enchanted you, and Bucky could hardly believe he had the chance to witness this, to be here for each discovery.

—

You were learning, too, about the cold. 

One evening, the two of you wandered out under a sky swirling with frost and snowflakes. As the chill settled into your skin, you shivered—a sharp, biting sensation that was alien. You couldn’t suppress a gasp, startled by the vulnerability of this mortal form. Bucky noticed instantly, and without a word, he slipped off his jacket and draped it around your shoulders.

Then he drew you close. His arms wrapped around you, his own warmth seeping into your body. The sensation was strange—this human closeness, this press of one being against another. 

It was foreign, yet it was soothing. 

He felt a barrier against the cold, and for the first time, you understood what it meant to feel safe.

—

Bucky even helped you pick a name. You’d never had one before, not really. Names were for mortals, for fleeting things. But now that you were one, you needed it. 

You spent hours together, turning names over like stones, tasting each one, letting the syllables sit on your tongue until something fit. The moment it did, you saw the change in Bucky’s face. Like you’d both found something you didn’t know you were looking for. It was the sound of it, your name, clicking into place, bridging a gap you didn’t realise was there until it closed.

Then he asked what last name you wanted. 

"I figured it would just be Barnes," you said, shrugging as if it was no big deal.

But it was, to Bucky. Last names were such a specific social sentiment to him, and here you were, assuming it as if it was second nature.

"Do you want it to be?" he asked, sheepishly shy. He wanted you to understand that he was offering you something precious, something more than just a name.

You said "yes," and you meant it. 

You had a last name now—his name. The thought twisted in your chest, both strange and achingly right. 

He made it real, pulling strings the way he could. He handed you the papers, a freshly printed birth certificate, and an ID. 

“It’s official,” he said, tucking them into your hand with a smile that was so warm it almost burned— a smile that felt like the heavens crafted it just for you.

—

Not long after, Bucky asked if you’d marry him. 

You were both in his apartment, on the balcony after dinner when he knelt down on one knee. He held out a sapphire and diamond ring, the stone the colour of a sky just before the storm breaks— just a couple of shades shy of his eyes. 

He asked if you wanted to do it tomorrow. No waiting, no grand spectacle—just the two of you, the wedding bands already prepared, sitting on his side of the night stand.

But he didn’t want to rush you. “Please say no if you want to,” he reassured, worried he might scare you off.

You’d been human only a few months, still getting used to your skin, to the sound of a heartbeat in your ears. 

But you’d known him for nearly a century. You’ve met him in brief, flickering moments back when you were still a spirit, drifting across the world, pulled by the invisible threads of suffering. It had been years since you started manifesting a physical form he could touch, nearly two years since he first showed you what a wonder it was to be kissed by him. 

So he just had to ask. 

He’d waited so long already. Time felt thin to him since it came to his attention that he almost died— and he didn’t want to waste another second. He wasn’t sure how a former Spirit of Suffering would react to a marriage proposal, so when you said yes, his relief was tangible in every fibre of the universe around him. 

—

The courthouse was quiet. There was no grand vision of romance here, and yet, as you stood beside Bucky, you felt love swell like never before, heart beating out of your ribcage. 

You had watched marriages unfold for millennia, seen the concept evolve from a practical contract to a declaration of love. You had been sceptical, even baffled. Why did mortals need to bind their love with laws and vows? It seemed so restrictive, so doomed to cause pain. 

And you had seen so much pain come from marriage.

You’d answered the call of those trapped in loveless unions, those whose hearts were shattered by betrayal, those left hollow by the death of a beloved. You had soothed countless souls in the aftermath of love gone wrong.

But here, in this sunlit room, you understood why they did it. Why they risked so much for a chance to promise something unbreakable, even though they knew how fragile it really was. 

You, who had only ever observed human beings from the edges of their lives, were now standing at the centre of your own. Hand in hand with Bucky, you made a promise not because you had to, but because you wanted to, with a conviction that felt as new and startling as your human heartbeat.

He looked at you with a kindness he rarely let anyone else see. For the first time, the idea of marriage didn’t feel like a cage— it felt like freedom.

You repeated the officiant’s words, meaning every single thing that came out of your mouth. Bucky’s eyes never left yours, as though he was anchoring himself to you, just as you had once anchored yourself to the sorrows of the world. 

“Do you take James Buchanan Barnes…” The words were ordinary, mundane. Yet when you whispered “I do,” it felt heavenly.

It wasn’t a promise for eternity—it was a promise for a single, fleeting lifetime. And that, you realised, made it all the more precious.

When he slipped the ring onto your finger, his hands were steady. It was a marker, not of ownership but of choice. It was his way of saying that he chose you, above all else, and that you chose him, despite everything you had seen and known.

The officiant gave a quiet, “You may kiss,” but you hardly heard it before Bucky’s lips met yours. His lips were soft, filled with a devotion that overwhelmed you. So you clung to him for comfort, as if this brief moment could stretch into the forever you once knew.

He called you “my wife” from then on, with a kind of reverence you weren’t used to. And you, in turn, you grew quite fond of calling him “my husband.”

—

Over the next few months, Bucky watched as you gradually found your place among humans, learning to live in the world you’d once only observed. 

Tasks that had seemed simple from a distance became little puzzles, requiring patience and a quiet acceptance of limits— that you couldn’t just will something to go away anymore. Bucky would often catch sight of you across the room, fumbling slightly with things you were learning for the first time— jars, doors, and locks. Learning how to cook. Learning how to use a blender. Learning how to adjust the temperature when the heater was on.

Still, that kindness you’d carried as a spirit had followed you here, perhaps even amplified by vulnerability. He noticed it in the way you approached others, how you listened when someone spoke of their troubles. 

Bucky marvelled at it, at you, amazed that this once-immortal spirit was now seeking to make sense of a body that tired and a world that didn’t stop moving.

One day, you decided to give your time to those who might need you most—signing up to volunteer at an animal shelter, a soup kitchen, a rehab centre, and a retirement home all at once. But soon enough, you came face to face with the very real limits of humanity. You no longer had infinite time or energy, and it pained you to accept that you couldn’t be everywhere at once. 

You had to let go of some of your commitments, a necessary choice that broke your heart.

Sometimes, people would glance at you with a flicker of recognition, sensing that they’d seen you before. And you remembered every single one of them. But you would simply smile, saying nothing as they’d pass by. 

From time to time, Bucky wondered if some hint of your old self remained in this new body. After all, you had crossed ages and realms. Something like that doesn’t just… disappear, right?

He’d notice it in the smallest ways, subtle moments that defy simple explanation. After a hard mission, when tension knotted every muscle in his shoulders, you'd step into the room, and everything seemed to shift. The pain would gently subside. His breathing would calm ever so slightly.

Or there were times he’d experience some small hurt—a papercut flipping through a book, or an ache on his side where Sam had kicked him hard during sparring. You’d look at him with concern, and the sting would fade.

Or maybe it’s the fact that ever since you’ve been sleeping next to him, his nightmares seemed quieter—sometimes even absent altogether. It was something he had almost forgotten was possible, that kind of sleep, deep and dreamless, the kind that let him wake up feeling like he’d left some of the pain behind.

He never directly asked if this was deliberate, if you could still pull on the threads of suffering. But he suspected you could, suspected that some remnant of your gift remained, woven so deeply into you that even a human body couldn’t strip it away completely.

Maybe you didn’t even notice it yourself; after all, you had spent lifetimes seeking suffering to mend. Easing pain had once been your nature, your very essence. And now, even bound by flesh, there was a grace about you, a sense that some hidden part of you still looked out for hurt souls.

—

You were still learning what it meant to feel human emotions fully, to experience anger, frustration, to process the sharp stab of indignation that came with disrespect. 

So when some guy on the street cat called you, yelling something crude and graphic— an unfamiliar feeling surged in your chest. It wasn’t just anger—it was outrage, a visceral feeling that burned in a way you’d never experienced before— one that even hurt your guts.

Because you knew where this could go, you’ve witnessed it— you remembered every person you’d consoled, the countless humans you’d held in their pain after they had been touched against their will, violated, used. You recalled the sorrow, the anguish, the sense that they’ve lost themselves in the process, lost a piece of their soul to their abuser. You’ve seen it all— little girls hiding in the closet, little boys having to pretend because they thought they were less because of it, people who flinched at the sheer mention of their abuser. More often than not— it started like this. 

With a “harmless” comment.

So now, faced with this man’s ugly words, you realised you could feel the anger on their behalf—and it was overwhelming.

As you fixed your gaze on the cat caller, his smirk faded. His expression twisted, almost as if something was clawing at him from the inside. He clutched at his chest, his face paling as tears began to stream down his face. He didn’t know why he was crying, didn’t understand the flood of pain, of fear, of regret that washed over him, consuming him in a way he’d never known. He was overwhelmed, bent by a will he couldn’t see but could feel pressing down on him like a ton of bricks.

And then, from somewhere behind you, you heard Bucky’s voice, low and steady. “I know he’s a dickhead, but… he’s not worth it.” His words were soft but urgent, a knife breaking through your haze of anger.

You turned to look at him, confused, and only then did you realise what you’d done. The cat caller was still crying, crumpling under a pain you hadn’t consciously intended to inflict. 

You hadn’t known that you could cause suffering. Your whole existence had been spent easing it, helping others bear their burdens, guiding them toward healing. 

But now, feeling human anger, you’d somehow unleashed pain on someone else.

Bucky was watching you, his gaze both gentle and concerned, trying to gauge what you were feeling. 

He’d suspected that some of your powers might remain, but neither of you had known for sure, not until now. 

This… this was different. 

You took a deep breath, and suddenly, the man stopped crying, shaken and confused. The surge of anger receded, leaving you to grapple with a side of yourself you didn’t realise existed.

After telling the cat caller to “get the fuck away from my wife” Bucky stepped closer to you, his hand reaching out to touch your arm.

You were kind, too kind for your own good. Even though he had deserved it, you still had to face the guilt of hurting a soul for the first time in eternity.

“You didn’t know,” he said quietly.

This new side of you— perhaps the manifestation of your powers in the presence of vulnerable mortal emotions— was unsettling. You’d been a source of mercy, of solace— and yet, you realised, that compassion had come with an understanding of pain so deep it could— when fuelled by human anger— turn against others.

—

The day Bucky asked Sam if he wanted to meet you was as ordinary as any other. The two were sitting in a small diner, plates of food between them, the hum of a radio in the background. Sam had just finished telling a story about why his wingpack needed servicing again when Bucky dropped the bombshell.

“So,” Bucky said, poking at the remnants of his fries. “You want to meet my wife?”

Sam froze, his fork halfway to his mouth, expression drained. “Your what?” he asked, as if Bucky had just admitted to robbing a bank or killing a puppy.

“My wife,” Bucky repeated, casually taking another bite of his burger. 

Sam lowered his fork slowly, eyes narrowing. “You have a wife?”

“Yes,” Bucky nodded. He took the ring looped around a chain by his neck from under his shirt to show him, “Do you think I’m that unlovable?”

“When did this happen?”

“A couple of months ago.”

“And I’m only just hearing about it?”

Bucky shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

Sam stared at him, his jaw slightly slack from the nuke of an information he just dropped. “Complicated?” he repeated incredulously. “Bucky, you’re not allowed to drop a bomb like ‘I have a wife’ and follow it up with ‘it’s complicated.’ What does that even mean? I didn’t even know you were dating. I didn’t even know you liked people!”

Bucky snorted, crossing his arm. “I like people.”

“Since when?”

“Since I married one.”

“Okay, I need answers.” Sam sat back in the booth, arms over his chest. “Where did you meet her? How long has this been going on? And—oh, here’s a big one—why wasn’t I invited to the wedding?”

“It wasn’t a big wedding.” Bucky sipped his soda calmly, clearly enjoying baffling Sam more than he let on. “Just us in the courthouse.”

“That’s not the point! I’m your friend.” Sam threw his hands up.  “When you meet someone, you tell your friends, you invite them to the wedding. You don’t just—what—elope and then ambush me over lunch like it’s a mission briefing!”

Bucky’s smile grew wider, almost sheepish now. “You done?” he asked, and Sam glared at him.

“No, I’m not done. I have so many questions.” Sam squinted at him suspiciously. “Who is she? Is she in witness protection? A spy? What?”

Bucky shook his head. “No, she’s just… still getting used to being human.”

There was a long pause as Sam stared at him, his expression a perfect mix of disbelief and confusion. Then, with slow deliberation, he leaned forward. “Okay,” he said carefully. “So which one is she? Alien, android, or wizard?”

Bucky groaned, leaning back in his seat. “Not this again.”

“Yes, this again!” Sam said, pointing a finger at him. “You don’t think that sounds exactly like one of the big three? Alien. Android. Wizard. Take your pick.”

“She’s none of them,” Bucky insisted, though his tone wavered slightly. He frowned, thinking about the things he’d seen you do—how you could still soothe pain without realising it, how your anger had once manifested as a wave of pure suffering. That did seem a bit magical. A small doubt crept into his mind. “At least… I don’t think she is.”

“Don’t think?” Sam repeated, eyebrows shooting up. “You don’t even know?”

“Shhh,” Bucky said, noticing how Sam was getting louder and louder. People have started turning their heads, “you’re making a scene.”

“I’m allowed to make a— wait what are you writing down?”

Bucky pulled a small notebook out of his jacket pocket. He flipped to a blank page and scribbled something down. Sam leaned over the table, trying to see what he’d written.

‘Ask if wizard,’ he had written in today’s to-do list, along with ‘buy flowers’ and ‘pick up garlic.’ 

Sam read the list, looking back at Bucky with a mix of amusement and exasperation. “Seriously?”

Bucky shrugged, tucking the notebook away. “Gotta be thorough.”

“I don’t even know where to start.” Sam rubbed his temples. “You’ve been happier lately—I’ll give you that—but now I’m wondering if it’s because you’re in love or if your wizard wife is casting some kind of love spell on you.”

“She’s not,” Bucky said flatly. “And she’s probably not a wizard.”

“This is insane.” Sam rubbed his temple, feeling a bad headache incoming, shaking his head. “You still haven’t told me why I wasn’t invited to this magical mystery courthouse wedding.”

Bucky’s expression softened slightly, the teasing edge in his voice giving way to something more serious. “Because it’s complicated. She’s… different. She’s been through a lot. I didn’t want to overwhelm her.”

Sam blinked, taken aback by the sudden sincerity in Bucky’s voice. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “But you could’ve at least told me, man. You know I would’ve been cool about it. I’d wanna help! Picked out a suit. Give you a pep talk when you’re nervous.”

Bucky laughed. “So you would’ve been my best man?”

“Absolutely,” Sam said. “Come on! I love weddings! I would’ve danced with all the wizard aunties.”

“There were no aunties.”

“Whatever.”

They both laughed, the tension easing slightly. Sam leaned back in his chair, still shaking his head. “So when do I get to meet Mrs. Barnes?”

“Soon,” Bucky said, his grin widening. “You’re gonna like her.”

“I’d better,” Sam muttered, reaching for his drink. “Because if she does turn out to be a wizard and didn’t tell you, I’m gonna kick her magical ass.”

Bucky laughed— a genuine, deep laugh that Sam hadn’t heard in a long time. It was good to see him like this, happy and relaxed. And despite all the weirdness, Sam couldn’t help but feel curious about the woman who had managed to do the impossible—make Bucky Barnes smile so effortlessly.

—

Bucky leaned back into the couch, his arm draped lazily along the backrest as he watched you squint at your laptop. You were completely engrossed in an old Sumerian text, occasionally pausing to scroll or mutter something in an ancient language under your breath.

“Are you a wizard?” he asked suddenly, his tone teasing but curious.

You glanced up, tilting your head like you were considering it. 

“No,” you finally replied, closing the laptop halfway. “If anything, I’m closer to being a witch.”

Bucky shifted closer, resting his chin in his hand as he studied you. “What’s the difference?” 

“Witches are born with magic,” you explained, tucking your feet underneath you. “It’s part of who they are. Wizards—or to use the more accurate term, sorcerers—have to learn sorcery.” 

Bucky pulled out his little notebook from his pocket, flipping it open. You leaned over, watching as he crossed out the last word in ‘ask if wizard’ and wrote ‘witch’ instead. He then carefully added a little tick next to it. 

You laughed, resting your head against his shoulder. “Are you taking notes on me?”

“Of course,” he said, tone completely serious. “Gotta keep track of all the weird, magic wife stuff.”

You swatted his arm, but the fondness in your touch was unmistakable.

Bucky grinned, leaning back to nudge you gently with his shoulder. “How was the text? Did you crack the code?”

“Oh, it wasn’t hard,” you said with a dismissive wave— you had gotten used to all the languages ever spoken. After all, you’ve had to comfort people in their native tongue. “Humans are so funny, losing languages they invented.” You shook your head, chuckling softly.

Bucky’s laugh rumbled in his chest, “Yeah, well, we’re good at forgetting stuff.”

You gave him a knowing look but said nothing, only tucking your legs more comfortably against his. 

“How was lunch with Sam?” you asked, your voice soft as you reached for his metal hand.

“Great,” Bucky said, his thumb brushing over the back of your hand absentmindedly. “Still on for meeting him tomorrow?”

You hesitated for a beat, your eyes flicking to your joined hands. “Mmhmm,” you said finally, though your voice was quieter. “I’ve met him before, you know.”

Bucky’s brow furrowed. “You have?”

You nodded, shifting to face him more fully. “Back when I was immortal. I’ve met most of your friends, actually,” you paused, giving him a wry smile, “most of your superhero friends. No offence, but you’re a tragic bunch.”

“Yeah, sounds about right.” Bucky laughed, his hand squeezing yours. “Do you think he’ll recognize you?”

“I’m not sure,” you admitted, a shy nervousness glinting in your eyes.

—

It was a bright, crisp morning when you and Bucky met up with Sam at a small café on a bustling street corner. The moment felt odd, like a page from someone else's story, but when you stepped into it, it became yours.

Bucky introduced you to Sam, his voice firm as he said the human name you had chosen. It still felt new, like the boots Bucky bought for you that were just beginning to wear in.

But the way Bucky said it, with certainty, made it feel like it had always been yours. 

The three of you chose a table outside, the sunlight catching the glint of Bucky’s vibranium arm as he pulled out a chair for you. A simple gesture, but one that made Sam immediately raise an eyebrow.

“I thought he stopped being a gentleman after the 40s,” Sam quipped as he sat down with a teasing smile. “What happened to you, man?”

Before Bucky could answer, you slid into the chair with a small, knowing smile. “He married me,” you said, the lightness in your tone making Sam chuckle.

“Damn right I did.” Bucky settled into his own chair, leaning back with a smirk that made his steel-blue eyes crinkle. Sam laughed, sipping his coffee.

“The infamous Mrs. Barnes. Took him long enough to introduce us. Thought he was hiding you on purpose.”

“Don’t make me regret this,” Bucky muttered under his breath, but there was no heat in his words—just a gruff affection.

Sam ignored him, leaning forward with interest. “So, how long’s it been?”

“Three months tomorrow,” you said easily, holding up your left hand where your gold ring caught the sunlight. Bucky’s matching band gleamed on his human hand, today at least. He was always swapping it between his fingers, sometimes wearing it on a chain around his neck— still unsure if he wanted to wear it traditionally on his metal arm or on his human one because it felt closer.

“How’s the old man holding up?” Sam’s grin widened, blissfully unaware of just how long you’ve roamed this earth. “Any second thoughts yet?”

You tilted your head, only pretending to consider it. “He’s got his quirks…” you began, earning a dramatic groan from Bucky, “…but I think I’ll keep him.”

“Quirks?” Bucky asked, narrowing his eyes with mock offence, “what quirks?”

“How much time do I have to list them all off, my love?” You smiled. Bucky's heart warmed with pride— of how quickly and naturally you mastered human sarcasm, as if it was second nature.

“I like her already,” Sam said, laughing as he pat Bucky on the shoulder.

Bucky huffed, rolling his eyes, but the twitch of his lips gave him away. “Glad my suffering is so entertaining for you.”

Sam’s gaze shifted back to you, sharper now, though still friendly. For a moment, something flickered in his expression, something you couldn’t quite name—like he was trying to figure you out, to match you against a bigger puzzle piece. 

—

It wasn’t until later, after you stood up to grab a second cup of coffee, that Sam’s laughter faltered mid-sentence.

Bucky had teased, “Careful on how many cups you have today, doll, or you’ll be up all night,” and you’d waved him off with a grin as you headed inside. The moment felt lighthearted, ordinary—until it wasn’t.

Sam’s words slowed, and his easy grin faded as his stare turned distant. He frowned, like he was reaching for a memory that refused to fully surface. The breeze played with the edges of the tablecloth, tousling the air around him with an uncanny calmness. When you came back into view, walking toward the table, the sunlight catching in your hair and clothes, something clicked.

He knew you.

The realisation gripped him with a bone-deep certainty. His fingers tightened around the coffee cup as fragments of a memory—fragile, but vivid — manifested his mind. 

He’d been waiting for some revelation, like maybe you were from a different planet— but this recognition… it can’t be… right?

“Sam?” you asked softly, sitting back down. “Are you okay?”

He blinked, shaking his head to clear it, but the weight in his expression didn’t lift. “It’s nothing,” he said quickly, too quickly. “Just thought of something stupid.”

Bucky glanced at him, his superhuman hearing clearly picking up how he was shifting in his seat. But before he could say anything, you reached out and laid a hand on Sam’s arm. Your touch was light, grounding.

“It’s not stupid,” you said gently. “Go ahead.”

Sam hesitated, his lips working as he tried to find the words. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, almost reluctant. “I feel like I know you. From somewhere.” He frowned, searching your face. “But that’s crazy.”

You exchanged a glance with Bucky, a knowing look: he remembers. 

Sam’s sharp eyes caught the look, and his suspicions resurfaced.

“Or is it?” he pressed.

Taking a slow breath, you folded your hands in your lap. “I think you do know me,” you admitted, your voice steady but quiet. “But not like this.”

Sam tilted his head, his confusion evident. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

His gaze searched yours, and then it hit him like a punch to the chest. His breath caught. “Wait,” he murmured, his voice almost breaking. “Bakhmala? The Khalid Khandil mission…” He paused, swallowing hard as his throat worked against the restraints memory. “When Riley died. I remember—” His words faltered. 

The table seemed to still, the sounds of the bustling street fading into the background like a muffled echo. You could feel the weight of his grief in the space between his words.  

It was the day Riley fell from the sky.  

The memory rushed back. Riley spiralling down, his parachute shredded, Sam diving after him with everything he had—but it wasn’t enough. He couldn’t reach him in time. He couldn’t stop the impact.  

Riley took his last breath.  

Right in front of his eyes.  

Sam could still feel the crushing helplessness, the raw, unbearable desperation of watching it happen, all while being powerless to change it. In the haze of grief and adrenaline, he remembered something else—someone else. A presence, just at the edges of his vision.  

You.  

You were there, a ripple of calm in the chaos. He hadn’t understood it at the time, thought he might have imagined you.

But now, sitting in a cafe, he met your eyes again. Now, the same calm rippled over him. It was quiet, steady, and unshakable—just like it had been back then, when he needed it most. 

His eyes narrowed. “You were there?”

Your chest tightened, the pain of that moment still echoing in your now human heart. You nodded, your voice almost trembling. “I’m so sorry, Sam.”

Sam exhaled sharply, leaning back in his chair as if the confession had knocked the wind out of him. He ran a hand down his face, his expression torn between disbelief and a reluctant kind of understanding. “I thought I imagined you,” he muttered, his voice low, frayed at the edges. “Thought I was losing it.”

“Most people think I’m not real,” you said gently, leaning forward slightly, as though closing the space between you could soften the blow. “But…I’ve always been there. I was the Spirit of Suffering. My purpose was to comfort those in pain.”

Sam’s gaze lifted to yours, trying to reconcile your existence with the impossible truth you had just revealed. 

A decade ago, he would’ve called bullshit on this. But since then, he learned that weirder things have been true.

For a long moment, he said nothing. 

Then he turned to Bucky, his eyebrows raised, “So when you said she was ‘getting used to being human,’ this is what you meant?”

“Yeah,” he said simply.

Sam let out a long breath, dragging a hand across his collarbones. Then, after a beat, he gestured between the two of you. “Okay, so Spirit of suffering. Got it. But how in the hell did you end up with this guy?” He jabbed a thumb at Bucky, his tone hovering somewhere between bewildered and amused, trying to move on from the pain.

You couldn’t help but smile, the fondness in your expression unmistakable. The question deserved an honest answer. 

You leaned back in your chair, drawing a deep breath. “I wandered the world for eons in search of sorrow to ease,” you began, “But when I found Bucky…he was different.”

Sam’s eyebrows lifted slightly, but he said nothing, letting you continue.

You hesitated, the memories threatening to overwhelm you, but you pressed on. “I saw everything they did to him— Most people would’ve crumbled under a fraction of it. I’ve seen people turn bitter, angry, and evil. He should have broken. By every measure, he should have. But he didn’t.”

Sam blinked, his expression a mix of shock and…—understanding, maybe. “So you’re telling me James Buchanan Barnes caught the attention of an ancient entity?”

“Basically,” you said with a grin.

“No big deal,” Sam shook his head slowly, disbelief colouring his tone. “Just another Tuesday night for Bucky.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. 

“And then what?” He continued, “You just…introduced yourself one day?”

Your smile turned wistful as you shook your head. “About three years ago, I started borrowing time in a physical form. It took a lot of energy, but I’d meet him at night. We’d talk, sometimes for hours. That’s how we fell in love.”

“Wait,” Sam’s sharp eyes darted to Bucky, narrowing. “Is that why you always bailed on movie nights? You were sneaking off to hang out with your spirit girlfriend?”

Bucky’s smirk deepened as he leaned back, his arms crossing over his chest. “Wouldn’t you?”

Sam opened his mouth to retort but paused, considering it. After a moment, he nodded grudgingly. “Fair enough. Continue.”

You chuckled softly, but the humour faded as the memory of Bucky’s near-death surfaced. 

Your hand found his under the table, your fingers curling around his. “A few months ago, Bucky was dying. I—I couldn’t let him go. So I did the only thing I could. I sacrificed my immortality to save his life. It meant giving up everything I was, but it also meant I could finally be with him. As an equal. As a human.”

Sam blinked, visibly processing this. “You gave up eternity?”

“For him?” You smiled softly, glancing at Bucky. “In a heartbeat.”

Sam leaned back, his hands thrown up in mock surrender. “Damn. I’m impressed.”

“And then,” Bucky said, his voice softer now, as he squeezed your hand, “we got married.”

Sam stared at the two of you, his expression shifting from amusement to something more earnest. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table. “I’ve seen some weird stuff— but this?” He shook his head. “This takes the cake. This is even weirder than the talking raccoon.”

You chuckled softly, the warmth in your chest spreading. 

Slowly Sam’s expression shifted, the easy humour in his eyes replaced by something deeper. His voice dropped, steady but careful.

Whatever was on his mind, he had to say it now, before the moment passed.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, his tone filled with sincerity that left no room for doubt. “For what you did… when Riley…” He hesitated, the name lingering like a fragile thread. “I didn’t understand it then, and I’m not sure I ever will. But thank you anyway.”

Your throat tightened, but you managed a soft, reassuring smile. “You’re stronger than you realise,” you said. “I just gave you a little push.”

Sam sat back in his chair. For so long, he'd carried the weight of that day, replaying it in his mind, searching for what he could’ve done differently. But now, hearing your words, he felt something change. It wasn’t erasure—Riley’s loss would always be a deep scar to him—but it was like you’d given him permission to stop digging, stop obsessing.

You’d seen so much, and yet you were there, barely seen but steady, offering a calm he’d mistaken for his own strength. 

Maybe it was.

Maybe the solace you gave him back then had become part of him.

For the first time, the memory didn’t feel so jagged. It was still painful, but now it held a bittersweet comfort. Riley’s name didn’t stick in his throat as much as it used to.

Sam let out a long breath.

“You were there,” he said again, quieter this time. “Maybe that’s why I’m still here too.”

—

You ended up talking more, understanding why Bucky liked Sam so much.

You told him how you’d recently started delving into human literature— works you’d never had the chance to indulge in before. Of course, indulging was a foreign concept to you, a novelty that you were still figuring out.  

You also told him about your newfound love for coffee, though your excitement was dampened when you mentioned heading back for a third cup and being met with Bucky’s firm, no-nonsense suggestion: “Decaf this time.”  

You sighed dramatically, “It just doesn’t taste the same.”  

Sam raised an eyebrow, intrigued.

Bucky’s arms crossed with the hint of affection. “The first time she tried coffee, she had like six cups in a day. She jittered for hours and didn’t sleep at all. It was like watching an electric squirrel.”  

Sam laughed.

When you returned with your begrudgingly decaf coffee, Sam greeted you with a wide grin, shaking his head. “Can’t believe you’re married to a spirit wizard.”  

“She’s not a wizard,” Bucky corrected, his voice tinged with mock irritation. “We hashed this out last night. She’s more like a witch.”  

“Okay, okay,” Sam’s grin widened, clearly enjoying himself. “Better update your notebook, then.”  

You laughed, unable to resist teasing. “Oh, he has. First thing he did. He’s obsessed. Have you seen the pie charts in that thing?”

Sam’s booming laugh filled the air. “Oh, yeah. The graphs for the mission? Priceless.”

You nodded enthusiastically. “He also has pros and cons lists for everything. Everything.”

Sam turned to Bucky with mock solemnity. “You made a pros and cons list for taking a witch wife, too?”

“Actually, no.” Bucky didn’t miss a beat, his voice steady and sure. “Marrying her is the one decision I didn’t need a list for.”

Before you could react, Bucky leaned down and pressed a chaste kiss on your lips, quick but meaningful.

“Ugh,” Sam groaned dramatically, throwing his head back. “Love. Disgusting.”

The three of you shared another round of laughter, and for a moment the looming shadow of your collective pasts had been forgotten.

Bucky had been your first and only love, but now, with Sam, you were forming your first friendship. As you watched Sam tease Bucky, a warmth bloomed in your chest. 

Was this what family felt like? What friendship meant? 

As an immortal, you had only ever seen the broken pieces: the pain of abusive parents, the weight of generational trauma, children gone too soon, friends betrayed, lives shattered. You’d seen grief consume people—just as it had consumed Sam when he lost Riley. But now, as a mortal, you were beginning to piece together the other side of it. 

For the first time, you understood why people sought connection, why they clung to each other through joy and heartbreak. This was it—  the beauty of pain, a symptom of life.

-End.

Additional stories with Spirit!reader are coming! lmk if you wanna be tagged in those!

[fallencelsetial]

……..oh……

…….huh………

[azrielhours]

Hey rags! I was thinking about the fact that Azriel isn’t unhappy but he is lonely, i would love to read something written by you were Azriel is just extremely happy when he finds his mate and they’re both laying naked on bed and he is just thinking about how lonely he was and he didn’t even notice until now. Maybe he kept having lovers to try and fill that loneliness inside him but it didn’t work, it’s just with his mate he feels loved

Love Letter

wc: 500

Laying with Azriel was one of the best parts of being with him.

Sex aside, passion and loud loving, explicit testimonies—

The quiet peace of being with him was unparalleled. You sighed, snuggling closer, breathing him in deeply. Relishing his naked glory pressing heat into your skin. Pressing safety onto it. In it, as you so often felt strumming down the bond.

He stroked your back. This was routine after lovemaking, and it was just as good as the erotic high.

You open your body to him, your heart, and now the bond.

A sensation of bittersweetness flowing through it had you cracking an eye open.

He continued to stroke your back, gazing absently, still at the ceiling.

The feeling persisted. A tang of ancient ache hummed through your chest cavity.

You frowned. “Az?”

He looked down at you.

“You okay?”

His brows rose slightly. “Yes, my love. Why?”

You bit your lip. The feeling had halted, but whatever had prompted it…

“I—uh, could feel—” This was new, the transmission of soul, and yet—“Um, the bond, baby,” you finished quietly. “Is… everything okay?” Had you done something wrong?

“Oh,” he breathed. He searched your eyes as you waited apprehensively. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your temple. “I was just, uh—” he broke your gaze, seeking courage beyond the vulnerability in your eyes that threatened his resolve greater than even an open mating bond did his honesty.

A deep breath. “I was just… remembering,” he spoke softly. Swallowing. “How it felt before all this. Before I got to have you.”

Oh. “How did it feel?”

Azriel met your gaze again. “I’d been so lost. Just… existing. Waiting.” Seeking. He didn’t want to think about how he sought it with his whole being—a mate. How he drained himself onto females, old and new lovers, strangers, chasing physical intimacy like empty promises, trying to fill the soul-deep void. Failing over and over. He took another steadying breath. “I’ve always known I craved a mate, but having you now, I guess I—just never truly understood how alone I’d been.” Save for now, with the abundance of you filling him, utterly overflowing. Waking him up.

Your heart broke. He felt that too, resuming stroking your back, pulling you tighter. Reassuring you in the wake of his confession.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered.

He huffed a laugh. “What for?”

You shrugged. “For… I don’t know. Taking this long to find you.”

He laughed again, kissing you. “Finding you in the end is worth all of it.”

Your throat closed with emotion. Another silently conveyed love letter sent to his sternum. He wrapped his other arm around you. You buried your face in his neck, knowing no words would sufficiently convey what your heart was already whispering to his. I love you. I’m here to stay. I would take all the pain away if I could. You’re mine and I am yours. Azriel. Azriel. Azriel.

His heart sang in answer, filling you with such ferocious love it soothed any pain on his behalf. He exhaled, this time in contentment, declaring again, “You’re worth it all, my love.”

[morning-star-joy]

bloodshed, crimson clover

Pairing: Joel x Doctor F!Reader

Summary: You run a small practice in the Boston QZ, willing to treat anybody who needs it. After an encounter where you save the life of Joel Miller, you form an unlikely friendship with one of the most notorious, feared men in the QZ, a reputation you didn't realize existed until you come face to face with it yourself.

Warnings: Angst. Slow build. Mutual pining & tension (unresolved). Ambiguous ending. Game!Joel. Canon-typical violence. Reader captured with mentioned physical harm, Feral Joel with descriptions of torture/murder. Vague descriptions of injury treatments (bullet wound with cauterization, cleaning glass/debris from cuts, burn wound). Reader from California & Joel calls her Cali, Reader calls Joel Texas.

Wordcount: 12.1k

A/N: I've had this idea for a while, started it and it sat in drafts, and suddenly I was hit with inspiration again this past week. Also ty @cupofjoel for letting me scream about them to you and all your support, ily!!

In his own ways, Joel Miller was a complete gentleman.

A distinctly Southern one, with a show of selective manners from his upbringing before the world went to hell, paired with a charming ruggedness that pulled your attention to him from the very first time he stumbled through your little clinic’s doors.

You were one of the few legitimately licensed Pre-Outbreak medical professionals left in the QZ, and accepted each and every sick and injured person into your tiny practice. It took a long time and care to get a place out of the view of FEDRA’s ever-looming gaze, but even then you risked the possibility of having a target painted on your back if you treated the “wrong” person.

Somebody always owed somebody else within those tall steel walls surrounding the poor semblances of a society that, in your opinion, should have been left in the dust with the rest of the world. In not discerning who you patched up, you put yourself in danger of getting on the wrong side of someone distinctly more powerful, more violent than you.

But through your diligent work over the years, you’d gained enough of a clientele for your hidden practice to remain largely untouched. There were a few instances with graffiti, but even that wasn’t too terrible—immature Fireflies pissed off that you hadn’t accepted their offer to join them, most likely new recruits trying to earn their place in the rebel ranks.

So when the rickety old doors banged open hard enough to nearly tear them off the top hinge one night, you were up on your feet and running to assist the large body that almost fell to the floor with the momentum of how they had burst in.

There was not an ounce of anxiety in your body other than the familiar adrenaline of assess the damage, stop the bleeding, prevent infection and keep them alive as you wrapped your arms around their waist, using all your strength to pull them up and direct them to one of the two old clinic beds in the dingy old room that you sanitized as best you could between patients.

That was the first thing you noticed about Joel Miller, even though you didn’t know him by name or even face yet—he was heavy. Solid muscle underneath blood-stained fabric that you began to pull away from his torso, hardly paying attention to the low timbre of his pained grunts when the cloth stuck gruesomely to the gunshot wound you finally saw once you got the shirt off.

There were no questions in your mind other than how deep was it, was there an exit wound, did it hit anything vital, not caring how he had gotten it, who had given it to him, or why they had as you paced to your instruments, only taking a moment to make sure they were clean before pulling on a pair of gloves you were running dangerously low on, hoping that they wouldn’t get too blood-soaked in the process of keeping this man alive.

Yes, you would do all you could to save him—but you still knew in the back of your mind that two pairs of gloves spent on him would risk no gloves and losing somebody else further down the line.

It wasn’t a thought you wasted the time to entertain now as you quickly got to work. There was nothing to numb the pain of the man who laid back on the clinic bed, teeth gritted and half-delirious from blood loss, not even bothering to try and say anything to you while you saved his life.

You weren’t offended. In some odd way, it was a breath of fresh air.

Most, if not all patients you treated with this kind of wound, were usually tripping over fast anxiety-fueled words trying to explain to you how they had gotten into this situation. You supposed they were hoping you wouldn’t turn them in for whatever they most likely weren’t supposed to be doing, not knowing that the only thing you truly cared about anymore was keeping as many people as you could alive in this godforsaken dystopia.

This man though, he stayed silent. Not trying to assure you of his goodwill, whether he truly had any or not. He only stared up at the dilapidated ceiling, jaw practically wired shut, maybe to keep in the low grunts and groans that rumbled from his chest, exposed from where you had to remove his denim shirt to treat the wound on his torso.

Unfortunately, you did end up having to switch to a new pair of gloves, the bleeding slowing but stubbornly refusing to stop completely. You were reaching for more of your quickly dwindling supply of gauze to keep pressing against the wound when you heard his voice clearly for the first time.

“Cauterize it.”

You looked back at him with your hand outstretched halfway to the gauze, eyes widening at the simple command that fell from the man’s chapped lips in a low drawl that rasped with pain and dehydration.

Blinking, you looked from his face that was still directed towards the ceiling down towards the wound, a frown pulling onto your lips as you glanced back towards him and began to protest, “I don’t—”

“Cauterize. It.” He repeated firmly, jaw still clenched with the words hissed out through gritted teeth.

You stiffened, not particularly enjoying being ordered to make a medical choice in your own clinic, but then his eyes met yours, filled with an intense determination that had your hand pulling back slightly from its path towards a longer process that would've hopefully let the wound heal naturally.

Then there was a slight shift in the unfathomable depth of that gaze, a fracture in walls even more impenetrable than the ones that had surrounded you for almost half a decade, and his cracked lips parted, tongue darting out to wet them in a desperate attempt for hydration before he gave a quiet murmur of, “Please.”

There was the first hint of those selective manners, emphasized with an underlying sense of unspeakable eagerness, and your face set into your own determination, nodding as you set about preparing for a practice that wasn’t your favorite, but was sometimes necessary.

Maybe this man couldn’t afford the time it would take to stop the bleeding completely, sew it up and let the wound heal on its own. Maybe there was something out there, somebody out to get him.

Or somebody he had to protect, to get home to.

That last thought is what urged you not stop even when the man grabbed the edge of the bed in a large hand, fingers curling so tight around it that you marveled if the rickety old metal would actually break under the strength of that grip. It's what spurred you to keep going even through the sharp shouts of pain muffled around the clean, rolled up washcloth you had gotten him to bite down on through the procedure.

Once the wound was forcibly closed by the red-hot metal of your sterile knife the best you could manage, you found your eyes drawn back to the man’s face, tracing the strength of his features as they relaxed a fraction from relief once the onslaught of pain from the procedure finished.

When you began the process of disinfecting the closed wound, his face had grown so blank that you worried he was on the verge of passing out, but he surprised you by placing his palms flat against the bed, pushing himself up with a loud grunt the moment you were done treating him.

“Sir—”

Any protests towards his movements you were about to make were cut short as he swung his feet over the side of the bed, placing his boots on the ground, heavy-footed and nearly collapsing when he pushed himself up and strode forward anyway, powering through the weakness you would much prefer he would sit in before trying to leave.

“Sir, I really don’t think—”

But he was shaking his head towards your attempts to get him to rest, fingers fumbling with the buttons of where blood was beginning to dry on the faded denim of his shirt, managing to get it most the way fastened back up as he took increasingly more steady steps towards the door.

What flabbergasted you the most, though, was the way he turned his head back towards you, gaze meeting yours for the second time as he muttered a gruff, “Thank you.”

The second show of those bizarre Southern gentlemanly manners, and you still didn’t have a name for him yet.

And then he was gone.

Time passed, and you allowed the mysterious man with the dark gaze and deep drawl to fade into a memory.

Like with all your patients, you spared just enough thought in the days following his treatment to hope he was alive, even though you knew that any hope to ever get confirmation of survival was fruitless. There was no way to know how much longer somebody survived if you managed to save them.

Other than making that wish of wellbeing for yet another soul, you moved on with your life.

So when the door opened one afternoon weeks later, in much worse wear now than it ever had been from the time that patient had charged through it, you were surprised to see the very same man who was the cause of it standing in your doorway when you looked up.

When you saw him, you paused halfway in rising from your squeaky old rolling stool, remembering his face even from the way his head was turned to the side, observing how the top of the door was nearly coming off its rusty hinges before turning to find you.

With a nod, he stepped further into the room, surprising you with how carefully he shut the door behind him, a direct juxtaposition to his whirlwind entrance and exit when you had treated his gunshot wound.

“Doctor,” he greeted in that same low drawl—Southern, maybe Texas, you thought somewhere in the back of your mind—as you finally rose fully from your seat, returning his nod and automatically moving towards your sparse supplies.

“Take a seat,” you said more kindly than firmly over your shoulder, not in a haste to stop him from bleeding out on your floors this time as he seemed to be relatively fine.

“Sorry?”

You paused, glancing from one of the few pairs of gloves that remained back over your shoulder to see the man staring at you with a slight furrow in his brow, a pinch of confusion on an already severe face that pronounced deep lines of age.

He didn’t seem that old—in fact, you guessed he was perhaps around your age. But then, you supposed you were both old considering the world you had survived in, and even so, there was a haunted look to the man’s intensity that spoke of his longer years, one you weren’t even sure he knew that he exuded as his presence seemed to take up the entire room and all your attention.

“Your wound,” you answered simply, gesturing towards where you remembered the gunshot you had treated to be on his torso, and he followed your gaze to look down at himself, the deep lines on his forehead relaxing a bit when you clarified, “You’re here to have it checked on, no?”

“Uh—no,” he replied, giving a slight shake of his head, his head lifting so his eyes could meet yours again. “‘M healing just fine, ma’am.”

There were the manners you had recognized the first time, more distinct this time, and they drew you a step closer towards the man, your body turning away from your small tray of supplies to face him fully for the first time.

“Oh,” you said softly, head tilting as your own brows furrowed, confused as to what had brought him back to your clinic when he had seemed so desperate to get in, get treated as quickly as possible, and get out the last time. “What brings you back, then?”

There was another flicker of something across his face, some emotion you couldn’t name before he shifted the backpack you just now realized he was wearing off of one shoulder. It slipped to his side, where he balanced it on his hip, drawing your attention to how his broad chest and large arms narrowed down to his waist as he began to rifle through it, the quick flare of some feeling in your stomach shifting to trepidation at his actions.

Oddly enough, you didn’t get blaring warning signals of danger from this man. And besides, if he was trying to rob or kill you, he was going about it in a very odd way.

“Here.” His voice was gruff as he pulled something out of his pack, and you blinked rapidly, eyes widening at the same moment your jaw dropped at the sight of what he was holding out to you.

Supplies.

Medical supplies.

Gloves and bandages and—

“Jesus Christ, is that a stethoscope?” you gasped out, reaching forward to take the items before you could stop yourself, too thrilled by the notion of getting your hands on a crucial medical tool that had eluded you for years.

“That it would be,” the man replied, but you weren’t looking at him anymore, instead unrolling the worn leather pouch to see that there was, indeed, a stethoscope inside—one that had seen better days but, oh, the ways you were going to be able to properly diagnose more patients now because of this was—

You finally paused, back stiffening as you looked back up at the stranger who had so easily handed something this precious to you, a sense of unease finally curling uncomfortably in your gut as you took a step back.

“What do you want?” you asked quietly, uncertain as to the terms of whatever arrangement was happening, even as you were now holding the items close to your chest after rolling the stethoscope back up. Unwilling to give them back, even as you were suddenly daunted by the prospect of what he might want in exchange.

He watched you shift, eyes dropping to where you were nearly hugging the supplies to yourself now, and for a moment you worried he was about to try and take them back before his lips parted and he surprised you yet again by mumbling, “To thank you.”

You blinked, taken aback by the shockingly simple sentiment. The desire to repay kindness with more kindness, despite the kind of world you both lived in.

Despite the fact that just one glance at this man—with his hard muscles and intimidating presence, the grim set of his face and the way his muscles tensed not just with the anticipation of something going wrong at any moment, but almost an eagerness that it would happen, that there would be an outlet for that tension ready to snap—would give one the impression that there wasn’t an ounce of kindness in his body.

“That’s…it?” you ask slowly, still wary, hardly able to believe that there were no strings attached. You weren’t a pessimist, but being an optimist wasn’t exactly an option either, not anymore.

But he just nodded, shifting back on the balls of his feet, hands raising with palms turned out towards you, as if to show he had nothing to take, nothing else to give other than this.

“I repay my debts, ma’am,” he uttered with a deadly seriousness in that low drawl, and this time you definitely settled on Texas as being the origin of such a smooth accent.

“Oh,” you said softly, nodding at the explanation, because now this made more sense. Kindness was a rarity, nearly nonexistent, and it wasn’t what he was showing here.

All he wanted was to repay a debt, one that you weren’t even aware existed.

Though you certainly weren’t one to complain when this was the payment. 

Clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest, you reel at how saving this man from an untimely death may have just saved even more lives down the line.

You’re opening your mouth to thank him for his own thanks, but then he’s gone once again, leaving the same way he came in, with more tempered control and less chaotic storm than the first time.

You still don’t have a name.

You settle on calling him Texas.

Not that you say it to his face, or that you even see his face.

More time passes now than those few weeks in between your first two meetings with the Southern stranger. One month goes by, then two, and you once again resign him to the confines of your memories, even though the image of him is much more adamant on breaking out since the second visit.

Second and last, you reminded yourself as you disposed of a used pair of gloves after seeing off a patient, seeing his face flash in your mind’s eye as the cause of why you were able to save this life. Why you could save yet another life after this.

And it wasn’t just the gloves, but everything he had given you. There was still quite a bit of the stash left, as you were used to knowing how to make supplies last for as long as possible, dividing them and deducing who needed what the most as you saw to patients throughout your days.

You were thankful for him. Even if this was his way of settling a debt, washing his hands of you and moving on with his life, you still felt immense gratitude. 

You also felt unbearable curiosity.

Every now and then, you found yourself wondering how he had gotten the supplies, and that much at that. Surely by no legal means, and none of your business at all, but you still couldn't help but wonder.

And so with the gunshot wound he had first stumbled into your life with, you tried to paint a picture of Texas in your head.

When your hands were idle, you created stories in your mind of the life he’d led that brought him from home—or where you imagined his home to be, if you were even remotely correct in dubbing him Texas—to here. 

It was an embarrassing pastime, really, and you had no business entertaining anything more than a passing thought of gratitude about him. But still, you imagined.

Sometimes that imagination was of an exciting life for him, one of travel to far places that you never got to go, pretending that this was a man who had lived through better times and had many tales to tell of them. Tales to tell you, if you were being particularly delusional.

Other times, you pictured him with a life much more humble. Born and raised in the Lone Star State, probably proud to be. A family man who yelled at football, loved barbeques and beers with buddies, working a simple 9-5 until the world went to shit.

You liked that imaginary version of him. You liked thinking that Texas wasn’t too different from you, just trying to get by in the old world and the new.

So used to him staying inside of your mind, you were surprised the next time you actually saw him again.

In hindsight, you supposed you shouldn’t have been. With the scars you had seen just on his torso when you were treating his gunshot wound, you doubted this man lived an easy life now, no matter what it had been before.

It was late, well into curfew hours, but your tiny apartment was just a few streets away from your humble clinic, and you knew the best methods to get back and forth without being seen. You liked to stay as late as you could most nights, just in case somebody needed tending to at the odd hours when nobody else would be able to help.

Your eyes were growing heavy, a few persistent yawns you failed to fight off your body’s way of letting you know you were definitely pushing it, but you held on for a little longer.

And you’d be forever grateful you did, when he was the one needing tending to that night.

The loud, metallic creak of those loose hinges pulled your attention up from where you were staring absentmindedly at your small desk, and you were jumping from your stool the moment you saw him.

There was no stumbling this time, but you saw the streaks of red well, cuts across his face and arms, worn flannel shredded around the skin embedded with glass that glinted in the low, fluorescent light of your lamp that lit up the confined quarters.

“Sit,” you were saying before anything else, and you swore you heard a quiet chuckle under a pained breath as Texas moved to sink down onto a clinic bed.

“Good evening to you too,” he mumbled, and you glanced up at the unexpected humor, unsure if it was for your expense or benefit.

Nevertheless, your eyes narrowed slightly, and his mouth snapped shut then. He settled back as you pulled your tray with you, a neat array of the dwindling supplies from what he had given you waiting underneath your fingertips before you pulled on some gloves and began.

Much like the first time, the ruined shirt was removed so you could work, but the lack of the looming threat of immediate death and ample time to wonder about the man between his visits left you now with eyes that wanted to wander. 

You hoped Texas couldn’t see each time your gaze flickered across his broad chest in the low light of the lamp, observing the way it illuminated his scarred skin before quickly moving your careful attention back to picking glass and debris from the series of cuts across his body, doing your best to stop more scars from finding a home there.

“Gotta stop meeting me like this, Texas,” you find the words slipping from your lips as you focused on your work, your mind not even catching up to what you had said, too focused on your work until he spoke.

“Texas?”

You pause, feeling a surge of embarrassment at what you let slip, only used to him existing inside your thoughts and not in front of you, warm flesh beneath your hands, the heat of him radiating even through the latex gloves. 

Your fingers flexed from where you were bracing yourself against the center of his chest, swallowing thickly when you suddenly noticed the steady beat of his heart underneath your palm. You refocused your attention on picking another shard of broken glass from just below his collarbone, trying to gather your thoughts enough for a somewhat reasonable answer.

“I just—” You bit your cheek, struggling with what to say, a sigh held deep in your lungs before you exhaled it slowly and mumbled, “You are from Texas, aren’t you?”

Your gaze shifted up to his neck, gently cleaning the dirt from a scrape there, your new focus of attention leaving you with a perfect view of the twitch of his lips from the corner of your eye.

“Guilty.” You can feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he mumbles the word, and you quickly lift your hand from it, not realizing that your touch had lingered there even when you had moved away from that area of his body. “Just surprised you picked up on it, s’all.”

A little smile turned up on your lips; part pleased that you had gotten it right, part embarrassed that you had even thought of it, thought of him, that much.

Quiet fell between you and Texas for a while, as you made sure the cuts on his neck were clean before finally moving up to his face.

Your eyes met with his for the first time since he had sat down that night, and it was also the first time you noticed their color.

All that time he had plagued your mind, and you realized you hadn’t even really seen the color of his eyes. You had settled on brown, but sitting closer now, you saw the green surrounding the warmer color, creating a stunning hazel that was all you could see for a moment before your gaze snapped away, the heat of embarrassment filling you again as you pulled your focus back to his cuts.

You hesitated then, one hand hovering in the air before gently gripping his chin between a thumb and forefinger, tilting his face to different angles as you treated it, a remarkably easy task when he hardly winced with each piece of glass removed, seemingly unbothered by the pain.

Once again, you were sucked into the familiarity of the focus that came with your work, and it was Texas that broke it this time, your brain taking a moment to register what he had said.

“California.”

You paused, tweezers hovering over his cheekbone, eyes meeting that hazel again to see he was watching you, and you wondered just how long he had been doing so—the whole time? Why did you hope he was?

“How’d you know?”

Texas shrugged one shoulder, and you once again forced your attention back to your work, trying to ignore the weight of his gaze on your face now that you knew it was there.

“Lucky guess,” he said in that low timbre, and you laughed softly, shaking your head as you pulled the last shard of glass from a cut above his eyebrow, eyes lingering on a scar near his temple before dropping the glass into your tin of medical waste, full of all the once painful remnants of whatever had brought him back to you tonight.

You felt like an awful person, being glad that it had brought him back to you.

Once all the cuts were properly taken care of, you leaned back with a sigh, snapping the gloves off your hands and dropping them into the rest of the medical waste. By some old habit, you patted Texas on the knee before standing, wheeling your tray away with you as you declared him free to go once again.

“It was the accent,” he says, and you pause, looking back over your shoulder as he pushes himself to his feet, and you’re reminded once again of how big the man is when he’s not sitting still while you treat him. “Your accent gave it away. Sure as hell don’t sound East Coast.”

Another laugh left your lips, curling up into a smile as you shake your head and look back towards your remaining medical supplies. Dangerously low again after tonight, but in this moment now, you found yourself not caring just yet.

“Guilty,” you repeated his own affirmation from earlier, and one glance back showed the corner of his lips turning up into a small smirk that had much larger consequences on your heart, racing now at the sight of amusement on his stoic face before you quickly looked away again.

“Long way from home, Cali,” he says slowly, and your heart skips a goddamn beat now at that drawled nickname, as if he wasn’t doing enough already. 

“Same as you, huh?” you try to sound casual as you kept your gaze focused on shifting through your supplies, reorganizing them just to keep your mind busy, even as it marveled at how he hadn’t left already,

“Not nearly as much as you.” 

At the continued conversation, you finally turn, seeing him bent over at the waist and rifling through the beat-up backpack full of duct-taped holes that he had brought in with him.

You see the gun tucked into the back of the waistband of his jeans then, a sight that wasn’t surprising given the injuries he’d come to you with, but your brows still furrow, mind continuing to create different stories to solve the mystery of him before he straightens up and turns back to you. 

He holds out a bundle of bandages and gloves to you, and you try to hold back your excitement at the offering as much as you can, as thrilled by the promise they offered for your work as you were by the idea that he’d already had the supplies ready this time.

The idea that he’d been holding onto them for you.

Delusional, an inner voice chides you, but you smile down at the supplies anyway, rubbing a thumb across the box of gloves and sighing quietly as your mind brings forth a time long gone where you never would have thought twice about the availability of what was once such a common thing.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” you say slowly, pondering how you had recognized his accent, attributed him to a long gone place, as he did you. “How even after all this time, we still remember those little things about a world that doesn’t exist anymore.”

He’s not looking at you anymore when you glance back up. The stoicism you had come to associate with him from just a few meetings was back, and you get the sense you had taken the rare offer of a conversation too far.

You thank him for the supplies, and he nods almost absentmindedly, seemingly half paying attention to you before he moves back towards the door, and you turn back to begin to organize your new supplies, eager to restock your workspace.

The only thing that stops you is—

“What’s your name, Cali?”

Your head lifts, body half-turning around to stare at him in shock. 

Nobody has asked for your name in years. 

It’s been so long since you’ve said it out loud that the syllables assigned to you at birth feel foreign in your mouth. It taunts you with a time long past, like a bad taste you have to spit out, and when you do, he repeats it back.

The way he says it is…different. He sounds it out just the same as you, but it sounds less wrong leaving his lips. He says it slowly, as if tasting each letter on his tongue, memorizing it before giving a nod and turning to leave.

“Wait.”

He does. 

For some reason, he stops when you tell him to, facing the door that he himself was the sole cause of its state hanging off its hinges, something he stares purposefully at when you ask for his own name.

Texas doesn’t look back as his voice wraps around the sounds of his own name, distaste similar to yours when you gave him your own dripping from his mouth as it curves around his syllables.

You start to say it back. The name, his name, Joel leaving your lips quietly, but he’s already back out the door before you can even sound out the M of his last name.

It leaves your lips anyway, his name echoing alone in your clinic, clutching the medical supplies tight to your chest.

Somewhere buried deep in your thoughts, you ponder over the idea that, just from the sheer intensity that radiated from the man the few times you had met him, Joel Miller memorizing somebody’s name feels like irrefutable danger, like you’re in for a very short life span. It’s a feeling you ignore, an instinct you try to forget about as you recall no hostility in his eyes, the hazel sharp as shrapnel you once cleaned from his body with none of the lethality when he repeated your name back to you.

Somewhere, buried even deeper, your heart races instead at the thought that he intends to say it again.

Joel leaves, but he always comes back. 

It’s never a social call. The world’s gone to shit; you don’t have the time, and you’re sure Joel doesn’t have the patience.

He shows up in your doorway when he’s injured, and leaves you with enough medical supplies to keep you going until the next time he comes along. At its core, it's a business transaction. He’s just continuing to repay a debt to you so he doesn’t owe you anything. There’s nothing fundamentally personal about it.

That doesn’t stop you from looking forward to those visits. You never know when Joel’s going to show up next, and it does more than keep you on your toes; it holds you in anticipation, keeping those daydreams in the forefront in your mind rather than the back whenever you have time to yourself now.

Because each time he comes through, he leaves you with another snapshot of himself. Another glimpse into the lives he lived once and lives now—usually the former rather than the latter, much to your surprise.

You hold every reveal of the aloof man close; purely off-hand, inconsequential things, like a love for going to the movies now rendered nonexistent, or the time he and his brother rode motorcycles cross country. Those things don’t matter anymore, but you like hearing about them. You like knowing those things about him, fitting the real pieces of him in with your imaginary ones to solve a puzzle that only existed inside your head. It fuels your imagination, spurs on your delusion.

You’re not actually sure if he realizes how much you know about him at this point, while simultaneously knowing nearly nothing about him at all. The important things, like why he keeps showing up with all those injuries, remain unknown.

Joel brings it up, just once, off-hand as you’re wrapping up his shoulder in a spot where you could tell a bullet had grazed him.

“You don’t ask.”

Your hands had paused, eyes lifting from your work to his face, glancing over his side profile before his head turned and he was looking down at you from inches away.

He was waiting for an answer, but your mind was having trouble keeping up with what he had even said, too startled by the swirling of brown and green in his eyes when they were right there. A color as warm and solid as the earth beneath your feet, grounding you to him, pulling you in with that same undeniable magnetism he had first stumbled into your life with.

His facial hair had gotten longer, dark whiskers of hair framing cracked lips, a split down the top one that you had carefully cleaned earlier. You hadn't even thought twice about it when dabbing it clean, but now you couldn’t see anything else, not until—

“Cali?”

You blinked, head snapping up as your back went ramrod straight, and you quickly turned back to where your hands had frozen mid-bandage.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“About what?” you forced the words from your lips, trying not to think about how they ached to have his own pressed to them, split lip and all molding firmly and then gently against yours—

Oh god, no, what were you thinking?

“About any of it,” Joel grumbled, waving a large hand towards his face with a vague gesture, seeming to think you had just been observing his injuries even with the way you’re now staring at thick fingers, long veins, prominent and begging to be traced—

No! Stop!

“You don’t have a policy of asking your patients questions?” he asked, arching a thick brow down at you, and you curse the way your stomach flips at the sight.

“Believe it or not, I actually have a strong one not to,” you finally answered with his shoulder now wrapped firmly, fingers grazing against the gauze before you pushed your stool away from him, gloves snapping off your hands and ignoring the ache to touch him without them. “You do what you have to in order to survive. My job is to make sure you keep surviving. Not to ask questions.”

Joel hummed, and you felt the weight of his gaze on you up until he handed you a new bundle of supplies and left again.

Sometimes, you wonder if he’s picked up anything about you in turn, the way you’ve locked away every small fragment you've learned of him. You wonder if he even cares to listen during those rare moments where you might let something about yourself, past or present, slip.

You dare to dream that he does.

Foolish. 

You can almost say with certainty that Joel doesn’t realize the things about himself that you’ve picked up on. Like the movies thing—it had been revealed through slurred words at your last-ditch effort to distract him by asking him questions through a particularly painful procedure, and he had rambled in delirium about popcorn and previews for no more than half a minute before promptly passing out beneath your moving hands.

It had caused bubbling panic in the moment, but when the moment had passed and he had awoken with embarrassment about not being able to tolerate the pain, it seemed all recollection of what he had shared had disappeared.

Or maybe he was just embarrassed about that too.

You would surely never admit that the thought of the large, intimidating man even experiencing an emotion as mundane as embarrassment only endeared you to him more.

And the motorcycle trip—well, that hadn’t even been Joel’s choice in revealing.

A few years into gaining your most returning patient—“we have to get your picture on the wall,” you had jested to him about simultaneously having the best (can somehow survive a plethora of injuries) and worst (has a penchant to keep getting them) luck at one point, much to his silent judgment at your attempted joke—he had entered the clinic the same way he did upon that first meeting, and you winced at the way the door banged against the wall in the same place it'd once left a dent during that first visit from him.

A sharp disapproval at treating your humble place of work like this was on the tip of your tongue, before you saw that Joel wasn’t alone, nor was he the one currently injured.

Any questions other than those pertinent for your new patient’s survival were rapidly dismissed from crowding your fast-moving mind, the same way as always. You helped Joel set the man down, hardly even realizing he was talking, that they were both talking, until after you had snapped on your gloves and assessed the burn wound on the back of the man's forearm.

“It worked out, didn’t it?”

“Hardly,” Joel bit back, voice rough with a harsh disapproval bordering on anger, the sound of which made the hairs raise on the back of your neck as you busied yourself getting cool compresses ready. “It was goddamn stupid, is what it was. Nearly got yourself killed.”

“But it worked.”

“Tommy—”

“Lighten up, big brother,” this Tommy said while you checked his pulse and lifted his arm above his chest, and now you understood the energy filling up the entire space of the room.

There was a blood bond between the bickering men, tested by the fraying of nerves and something deeper, some unnamable tension that came from something you didn’t know, maybe wouldn’t even understand. Some after effect of the transition into this world you now lived in, something that was none of your business.

Even then, the way Tommy’s body was constantly shifting and Joel hovering over your shoulder as they kept arguing while you tried to treat the burn is what made you finally snap.

“Hey!”

The clear echo of your voice layered over the argument, and instantly broke it, both men turning down to see your narrowed gaze shifting between the two of them.

“You need to sit still because I’m not fond of breaking burn blisters, and you won’t be either,” you ordered sternly, not wavering under the attention of the man finally focused on you for the first time since coming in, before you whipped around to Joel still hovering behind you. “And you!”

For a moment, you found a bit of humor in the utterly stupefied look on the man’s face that matched that of his brother’s, before you stood from your stool so you were chest to chest with Joel.

“You need to stop breathing down my goddamn neck and let me work,” you said firmly, pointing towards the far wall, the order clear in your eyes without even having to say it at this point.

You knew Joel saw it, and to his credit all you saw was his jaw ticking, a brief flare to his nostrils before he spun on his heel, marching towards the wall to lean against it heavily. His arms crossed across his broad chest while he watched you sit and go back to cooling Tommy’s burn.

Order was regained in your clinic, and you smiled a little to yourself at having established it, before Tommy shifted forward slightly towards you and muttered conspiratorially, but not at all quietly, “No wonder you got even this hardass to like you.”

A tremor briefly overtook your fingers with the shock of the unexpected words before you flexed them, willing your grip to steady before renewing your focus on his burn injury as Joel snarled from his spot you had assigned him against the wall, “Shut the fuck up, Tommy.”

Your gaze snaps up, making sure Joel hadn’t moved, eyes narrowing when you saw he had pushed off the wall just slightly. When he notices your look, he shifts backwards, back hitting the wall again as his glare shifts off to the side, towards the loose hinges on the door now in even worse condition thanks to both Miller brothers.

There’s a chuckle from Tommy, more bristling from Joel, and the illusive taunt of hope wound tight in your chest, but nobody says anything else until you’re sending them off with the rest of your low supply of lotion that would be adequate for burn treatment, along with instructions on how to take care of the now loosely bandaged burn.

Tommy nods, thanking you when Joel snaps at him to show some manners. The younger brother leaves with a pointed look towards your door and an offhand, not unkind comment on getting it fixed, followed up quickly by an offer of doing the work himself to pay back your kindness. 

Not a debt, but kindness, the exact verbiage he used himself in a Southern drawl a bit lighter, more intentionally charming than Joel’s rough allure.

Joel is still irritated, more than you’ve ever seen, but he still nods at you with a mumble of “thanks, Cali,” before following his brother as the younger man is saying “so that’s Cali!”

There's a hard smack to Tommy's shoulder to direct him away, Joel's reprimanding tone saying things you couldn’t hear before they disappear around a corner.

It was then that you decided you liked Tommy.

You like him even more when he stops by a couple weeks later to actually fix the door like he mentioned, filling your head with stories about his older brother you could have only ever dreamed of.

Because of Tommy you have reasons to giggle into your pillow that night at the thought of the two born and raised Texas boys racing across the country on motorcycles, smiling stupidly against the coarse fabric at the image of a younger Joel Miller with wind in his hair and a carefree smile on his face.

You’d only ever seen tiny twitches of those lips into halfway smirks, and so you dreamed of a time where they weren’t chapped from the smog of QZ air or split from punches to the face, but soft and pink and curling up into a real smile.

You dreamed of making him smile again.

Sometimes it takes a while for a visit from Joel.

Weeks turn into months in-between those short moments where you see his face for quick patch-ups and restocks of supplies.

Once there was about a year that passed without so much of a glimpse of him, and you had tried to settle yourself into the likely idea that he may have finally gotten himself hurt so bad he couldn’t even stumble into your clinic, when he proved your hidden, greatest fear wrong by turning up again.

He had limped through the door without a word, letting in a cold burst of snow laden air with him before it shut. A sigh of relief was exhaled from your lips, dry and chapped from the harsh winter months, and you hurried to him, slinging his arm over your shoulder as you helped him through the room to sit.

Peeling the blood caked jeans from his legs with a mumbled apology of the chill permeating your clinic this time of year, you barely got out one word out after of, “You—”

“Gotta stop meeting you like this, I know,” Joel sighed, avoiding your gaze as you settled on your stool with a familiar squeak of the old furniture, pulling on a pair of gloves you had set aside specifically for him months ago, ensuring that you’d have at least one left for him in the hopes that he could still make it back to you in one piece someday.

Even if that meant one less for someone down the line, potentially sacrificing a life for the uncertain possibility of saving somebody else.

It was unlike you.

Selfish, the inner voice of reason chides you again, as it always speaks in his presence.

And as always, you ignore it.

Your eyes flickered up from critically observing the stab wound haphazardly sewn above his knee—his own work, no doubt, and you were surprised at your frustration that he hadn’t come to you instead. You figured it must have not been an option, some reason having kept him from you, but you still fixed him with a hard look that the surly man actually shifted under, wary under the weight of your scrutiny, for whatever that was worth.

Shaking your head, you turned back to set about the process of thoroughly cleaning the wound, checking for any sign of infection and treating his body properly, because somebody had to do it if he wasn’t going to.

It wasn’t like he was reckless. Despite your visits with the man being few and far between—if they could even really be called visits in the first place—you had caught enough of a glimpse of who he was to know he was far from irrational. He wouldn’t have made it this far if he was.

Joel Miller could keep himself alive, of this you had no doubt.

But the repercussions that came with his survival, infection of the body or wounds that went deeper than that of flesh or blood, were things that you learned he merely shouldered as a consequence.

A burden you would lessen, even if all it meant was making sure one wound out of many wouldn’t fester, if he came to you with it.

It wasn’t until this one was treated and redressed, and he was pulling his pants back on while you stared down at the gloves on your hands—a pair that he had given you, that you had saved to save him, now speckled with his blood, a reminder that he was still alive but maybe just barely—and the words you had actually wanted to say when he came in, the ones that you had held back when he interrupted you, echoed through your mind again.

You scared me.

They aren’t spoken, not with words. Instead, your hand pats his knee again after his jeans are zipped up, fingers brushing against where his properly tended wound is now hidden beneath the heavy fabric.

The touch lingers, for just a second, before you’re up and moving away.

To your surprise, Joel follows.

He rifles through his backpack, and you notice a few new holes, more spots where there’s recently applied duct tape. You absentmindedly wonder why he sticks with this one. If he’s able to find and trade other sorts of goods, couldn’t he get a new backpack?

Thanks is given by reflex when he gives you the supplies, even though you know with this trade, you’re even once again. He doesn’t expect your gratitude, maybe doesn’t even want it, but there’s a sure cause for it this time as you shift through the pile to observe the weight of what you felt sitting unassuming at the bottom, but couldn't discern until you saw it.

Gloves.

Not thin latex, but heavy fabric, fitting in the palm of your freezing hand.

Not medical, but practical, even as the promise of warmth had now become a luxury.

Not for patients, but for you.

Joel had gotten this for you.

When you look back up at him, eyes wide with shock, he’s already explaining it away with a dismissive wave of his hand and gruff drawl, “Gotta keep those fingers in proper working condition, right?”

Your brow furrows then, more gratitude trapped inside your mouth as you notice something again that had lingered in your mind since he had shown up that night, something you couldn’t ignore anymore.

That this Joel in front of you now was different.

Joel had never been a beacon of warmth, but he’s never been colder.

He won’t meet your eye, doesn’t even seem bothered by his lack of ability to keep eye contact now. He’s rigid and tense, something pent-up deep inside of him, worse than ever before, and that’s when you know that whatever had happened since you saw him last had taken another piece of whatever he was. Another part of whoever you dreamed about once existing, gone.

“Hey,” you mumble, and he glances back at you, surely seeing the way your brows are knitted above eyes that put your concern on full display, just judging by the way he stiffened.

He waves another dismissive hand, looks away with arms crossed over his chest in a way that you’d seen before. It was like he was physically containing whatever emotions he was experiencing to his own body, holding them in with the flex of his muscles through his beat up winter jacket. A silent show of his strength, trying to protect himself with it, even if it couldn't stop whatever it was he was feeling.

You expect him to leave then, but his weather and time worn boots are glued to the ground, unmoving.

Eventually, he speaks, and the two words with the flat affect shake you to your core.

“Tommy’s gone.”

Fear blankets your body and sets every nerve on fire, pain flashing across your features as Joel sees it and quickly shakes his head, adding simply, nearly without emotion, “Left.”

The daunting grief at the possible death of the younger Miller brother fades, even as an emptiness remains when you softly say, “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fills the space, and tension with it, setting you on edge with Joel in a way you’d never felt with him before.

“Fireflies,” he finally supplies, and you nod, looking down to the winter gloves you still held tight in your grasp, even as you set the rest of your new stock down.

So that was what had happened. The last thread holding the brothers together had snapped, and Tommy had left, taking a part of Joel with him. Maybe the last part of him, of who he had once been.

No wonder the man before you was even more hardened than you had ever seen him before.

“I see,” you whisper, and neither of you says anything more after that.

Not until you look back up at his face, refocus on the familiar features, noticing a few new lines of age in the year that had passed since last seeing him, some white whiskers in the edges of his beard, and—

Your hand is reaching out before you can stop to think, gripping his chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting his face down towards you in a way similar to when you’d treated him in the past.

Maybe by reflex from those moments, he lets you do it, even as the sharp clarity of his hazel eyes meet yours in confusion.

“What’s this?” you ask, fingers hovering over the new red line of scarring across the bridge of his nose, tracing the length of it without touch.

His eyes flash, not with anger, but with an emotion you don’t recognize. He tries to pull away, but your grip tightens, keeping him in place as you wait for an answer.

“Nothin’,” he mumbles, your eyes narrowing at the evasive answer, the way his gaze shifts away.

“Texas, this isn’t—”

Joel’s hand finds yours then, thick fingers wrapping around your smaller ones to pull them away from where you were still holding his chin, and the warmth of his skin seeping into yours hits you with a jolt as you only then realize this was touch.

Skin on skin, the very thing you had been aching for, dreaming of, for years. Those thoughts of him that kept you going on lonely days and cold nights, longing for something you could never have, an impossible reality now on the edge of your fingertips as he enveloped them in a rough palm, in his touch.

Touch.

Touch you had instigated, without the barrier of medical gloves between you. Without the clear lines that defined all you were to each other—doctor and patient, business transactions, a debt repaid again and again. Lines that now blurred when he didn’t drop your hand right away.

Blurring further, obscuring your vision in a rose-tinted blush when his grip tightened, and your breath caught in your throat at the feeling of him holding on to you.

“‘Ts fine,” Joel assures quietly, your fingers finally slipping from his, the clear hazel of those eyes you had spent a year waiting and hoping to see again, not meeting yours even once.

He hasn’t looked at you even once.

Just like that, you snap from a slow motion daze back to true reality. Your fantasies hit the ground hard, leaving you shattered with the empty aches of your heart forever unfulfilled in the dark crevices of your mind.

But even then, you can’t look away. 

Again, you hear the admission aching to be revealed, slipping from the back of your mind to the forefront on waves of anxiety and need that grew larger, more disastrous, crashing through all your thoughts as you watched him looking away, but not leaving.

You scared me.

The words fill your mouth, waiting to be spoken.

But they aren’t.

Even though you wanted to tell him how his absence had filled you with fear, terror that only abates whenever he’s with you until he inevitably leaves again, you don’t dare to say it. Not when he doesn’t even look at you, even though you can’t bring yourself to look away.

The only thing you do say is an assurance that you’d make it home safe when he tells you to before he’s finally gone again.

It’s the first time that you notice that each time he leaves you with a new piece of himself, he takes a piece of you with him.

“You’re scaring my patients, Texas.”

“Good.”

“Joel.”

It’s been like this since Tommy left.

Joel visits you now when he’s nothing less than the perfect picture of health.

At first, he brings you things—the usual, necessary items that keep your unsanctioned practice running. You thank him each time, albeit with puzzled looks when there’s no visible harm on his body, confusion that only furthers when he lingers.

Eventually, he drops by without anything at all. Nothing in hand, sometimes no backpack in tow, but always with that gun tucked into the back of his waistband.

For a while, you think nothing of it. You’re glad that he’s showing his face, that you’re not glancing up with baited breath each time your door creaks open, hoping for just a glimpse of the man to assure you that he was alright.

Joel lets you see often enough now that he’s still in one piece, and for a while, you’re foolish enough to think that it’s purely for the benefit of your peace of mind.

Then one day, when he’s walking out, a patient is walking in—a younger man you’ve seen more than once, treating wounds similar to those that Joel’s had, though not quite as severe.

What is severe is the look Joel instantly shoots at him as they pass by each other, your heart sinking when the injured man scurries towards the available clinic bed while the door shuts.

You try to push it out of your mind, try to ignore the way your patient keeps watching the closed door with baited breath, until he breathes out with certain trepidation, “That’s Joel Miller.”

Pausing in the middle of splinting his broken finger, your brow furrows, glancing up at the nervous scrunching of his face as you reply slowly, “Yes, it is.”

His gaze finally shifts from the door towards you, then back again quickly, like he’s afraid the mentioned man will burst through the moment he’s not looking.

“You—” A gulp, and then the shaky question of, “You know him, don’t you?”

You finish bandaging his injury, gently placing his hand back in his lap and replying honestly, even with your uncertainty lingering at his tone, “Of course I do.”

He doesn’t say anything more until he’s leaving, glancing back at you warily, seeming to struggle over what he wants to say before settling for, “He’s…he’s got a reputation, you know. Lots of folks are scared of that Joel Miller.”

With a nervous wringing of your hands behind your back, and a calm smile on your face, you assure him, “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Of course, you don’t know that Joel’s been waiting.

There’s no way to be aware that he’s been in the alley next to the clinic the entire time you treated your patient, no way to know that he trails the man the moment he leaves the safety of your building.

You’ll never know that the man you treated isn’t so good either. Or that he’s not nearly as bad as Joel.

Somebody always owed somebody else, after all. You knew it well, knew that Joel paid you back for this very reason.

But you didn’t know what happened when you owed him.

Or what happened when he went to collect.

And Joel ensured you were never getting anywhere near it. 

A sentiment made clear with another broken finger for the lackey of a rival smuggler late on a payment that had sought you out for the last time that day, along with a painful promise made that he and his buddies would never step foot in your clinic again.

There was no way for you to know what happened that day, but you noticed the shift afterwards.

The way Joel takes up residence along the wall of your clinic and doesn’t leave when patients come in. How he watches them, the mere weight of his sole attention setting them on edge.

You tell them it’s fine, shoot him a glare that tells him to back off. And maybe it works for a little, but not for long.

You assure yourself that it’s fine. A reputation means nothing, and you know Joel Miller, don’t you? Or you know all that matters. And you know that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Until there is.

You’re gone.

It’s the first time since meeting you that Joel stops by the clinic, and you’re not there.

Well into the morning, and you’re not sitting there at your little makeshift desk. At this time, you should be half-rising from your stool he’s been meaning to find a replacement for just at the sound of the door opening.

You're always ready to spring into action, to save a life or make one better. Like you’ve done for him, time and time again.

It’s also the first time since before Tommy left that the door is swinging off its hinges again, and that’s when Joel knows.

You’re gone.

He doesn’t need to see the ransacked clinic, but he looks anyway. Searches frantically through the overturned furniture, your well-organized stock of supplies now a mess, some missing because he knows how much you have of everything, he silently keeps track along with you so he knows what to pick up when he and Tess go on runs.

There’s a panic settling in his gut, a burning ache crawling its way up his throat, and his hands twitch with the need to do something, to make somebody hurt, make them pay, make them talk to bring you back.

Back to the work that is your pride and joy, the four walls that have been your safety for years, a safety you’ve only ever extended to others, one you offered to him.

Joel needs to bring you back to him.

No time is wasted when he gets back to Tess. She knows you by now, having visited the clinic herself with or without Joel, for injuries or for chats. He’s noticed his partner always smiling after, the two of you forming a kinship that warms what fragments remain of his heart like so little else can.

Tess is taking charge in a way that’s familiar, and Joel is grateful for that. He doesn’t know what he’d do if left to his own devices right now, uncertain who’d wind up dead in the streets if let loose to find you on his own terms.

But he takes solace in knowing that Tess will let him do what he does best when it's time.

And when it is time, when they’ve cornered the last person who’s had your name leave their lips, the bone of their arm shatters underneath a brutal stomp and twist of Joel’s heavy boot after a series of ruthless hits that have left them begging for mercy on the ground.

But it gets them what they need—a location, information on a deal gone south for a specific kind of medicine that these smugglers had a monopoly on, medicine you most likely needed to save one patient, and deemed it a risk worth taking just for that.

Smugglers that Joel had very specifically warned to stay the fuck away from you.

The whimpering man under his boot gets a bullet to the head for not heeding his warning, for taking you from him, and they’re on their way without another word.

Fear burns so hot that it singes his veins, making him move faster, hit harder when they get to the warehouse. Red is all he sees and it’s all he feels, running through his fingers as he pulls triggers and chokes windpipes before twisting, snapping. Blood, hot and metallic, staining his skin in splatters up to his forearms as he moves from one to the next.

Joel has lost too much to make it quick, and the thought of losing you too only adds to his rage, making his preemptive vengeance all the more deadly. He lays waste to them all, sparing not a soul of his brutality. 

His shiv sinks into a neck, and he leaves it there for too long before pulling it out, leaving a streak of evidence of another life he’s stolen across his face as he turns, more than ready for the next one.

Movement catches the corner of his eye, and he’s lifting his gun towards where he sees legs pushing against the ground, a body scuttling away into a corner out of his sight, cowering behind a tower of boxes.

Joel’s finger is already on the trigger before he sees the shoes peeking out behind the cardboard, the tips of well-worn sneakers that he knows well, having seen them turn and move quickly around one tiny room for years.

Relief doesn’t rush to him yet, not until he’s rounded the boxes, not until he really sees you.

There’s an angry purple bruise forming along your jaw, and fury burns hotter, seeping through the edges of sweet relief that you’re okay, although injured.

You whimper, and his heart breaks, reaching out a hand towards you to help you up, to bring you back to him.

At the movement, you press your back against the wall, cowering away even further as your eyes fix onto his face.

Joel’s brow furrows, anger and relief both ebbing away slowly, and he says your name, holding his palm out further for you to take.

You whimper again.

Eyes wide and clouded with fear, lip quivering as you shrink away from the hand that he had stained with blood again and again to find you, to bring you back.

Above where your back is pressed to the wall, there is a line of windows. They offer a view to the first floor of the warehouse, now littered with bodies he had left, a clear trail of evidence of his path of destruction from the moment he had entered the building.

And that’s when Joel realizes you’re afraid of him.

The worst part is, he’s not surprised, not even in the slightest.

On the contrary, he thinks some part of him had been waiting for this. Waiting for you to finally open your eyes and see him for what he is.

Someone like you, who has spent her whole life patching up the kind of wounds he inflicts, who saves lives and gives while all he does is takes and takes, by his own choice or some kind of curse—of course you’re afraid.

Joel’s bloodstained fingers twitch, remembering the softness of your own the one and only time he had held them that cold winter night. His hand hovers in the air halfway to you, yearning to comfort a hand that heals with one that only knows how to kill.

But then you flinch at the twitch of his fingers, having witnessed their deadliness, and he pulls back.

When Tess arrives a moment later, you turn to her, allowing the other woman to pull you to your feet. You lean heavily on her as she helps you leave, takes you back, but not to him.

Because Joel knows now with certainty that it's a distance that was never meant to be closed.

He knows it's for the better.

Weeks turn into months once again.

Joel doesn’t come back.

As time passes, you reflect on the man you’d known, and the one everybody else knew. You compare the image of those half-smirks that you always hoped would turn into a smile to the face splattered with blood as he ruthlessly murdered any man in his path.

You feel like a fool. For more reason than one, but mostly because you knew.

You had seen the signs of just who Joel Miller was from the first time you met him, signs that you had ignored every time they lit up right in front of your face, blaring signals that you replaced with the naïve images you had created in your mind’s eye. Fantasies of a man that may have existed once, long ago, but not anymore.

It wasn’t the killing that bothered you. You knew what people had to do to survive, and you had always known just from his injuries that this was an indisputable truth heavily ingrained in Joel’s life, no matter who you imagined him to be before.

No, it wasn’t the killing that scared you, but the slaughter. 

What you were afraid of was his lack of mercy. His lethality. His intent to make them suffer.

After days of being held at the whims of dangerous men, only to discover that the only man you had come to consider a safe space in years was just as, if not more dangerous than them…

It rattled you.

Changed you.

Left a scar that even you didn’t know how to heal.

In the days that followed, you were glad that Joel kept his distance. You needed time to recover, to process what you had gone through, what you’d seen.

After a few weeks passed, you found yourself staring at the door, waiting once again for him to come back. Waiting to talk to him for once, to say the words that had plagued your mind once again. Even if they had shifted, they still rang true.

You scared me.

Because he did.

Joel Miller himself scared you, and you didn’t want him to.

Because you knew, you knew, that he’d done it for you. He'd done it to save you.

He’d saved you the same way you saved him, in the only way that he knew how.

Maybe it was senseless. Maybe it was wrong, and horrible, and unforgivable.

But he had done it for you.

So you wait for Joel to come back.

Months fade into years; one, and then two, then five and still counting.

Joel Miller never comes back.

At some point, you hear that he’s gone. Left the QZ completely with Tess at his side and never looked back.

You hope that they made it, wherever they were going.

You hope that he doesn’t think of you the way that you think of him. The image of him plaguing your mind every night, broken memories of everything you had memorized about him constantly shifting through your mind, a lonely ache filling in your heart that you knew was your own fault.

He had bloodied his knuckles for you, and you had turned away.

God, you hated yourself for turning away.

You missed him, with every breath, with every moment the door of your clinic opened and you glanced up with the automatic reflex of hoping it was him, even though he was long gone.

You know it's for the better.

Joel is not supposed to be here.

Any form of radio communication is strictly forbidden. He knows this well, knows that if he’s found here, he could be risking everything, even if his brother is married to the woman who keeps Jackson up and running smoothly.

But he’s here anyway, hands trembling with the cold and something else, something that settles deeper into his bones as he holds the microphone in hand.

Waiting.

It’s his second time up here in a week, and though he’d been lucky enough to not be caught the first time, he wasn’t an optimist.

You’re a cynic, a voice echoes in the back of his head, and his eyes flutter shut with the image of you that never seemed to quite leave him, even with the years that have gone by.

But you’re not, his own voice, younger, replies to you in his memories.

I try not to be, you replied honestly, one of your first discussions when you had begun to settle into each other’s presence. Don’t think I could keep doing this if I was.

Joel’s gaze darts down to the small notepad he had brought with him, the pages where he had written one message only to cross it out, rewrite it, and torn pages of it to throw away in frustration.

In front of him was the one left uncrossed, his eyes scanning the words he could only hope had gotten relayed to you, the message he had left for the black market radio specialist in Boston earlier that week.

Found a nice place that could use a doctor, followed by a date and time for a conversation, not wanting to air Jackson’s location without hearing confirmation from you yourself.

Following that sentence, another one, the last thing he had said: they could use you.

And another, crossed out after, the last thing that he would never say: I could use you.

Joel’s head lifts when the static on the old machine clears, a click resounding through the speakers of the radio, and his heart races with the weight of the microphone in his hands.

It’s lifted halfway to his mouth before he hesitates. Your name hangs heavy in his mouth, syllables he had not sounded out in years, but when he finally says it, it feels…natural. Like not a day has passed since the letters of your name were hanging on his lips, the way he always longed for you to be.

There is a pause, long and heavy, and Joel feels his heart sink with every second that passes.

This was stupid. So incredibly stupid. 

The last time he had seen you, there was fear in your eyes. Fear of him, well-placed at that, and surely he had taken up no voluntary thoughts of yours ever since other than your worst nightmares.

Surely you were—

“...Hey there, Texas.”

When your voice crackles to life through the speaker, Joel sighs, a sound filled with relief and a rush of longing he thought his mind had forgotten, but his body—no, his soul—had not.

And then a whisper, softly in return, with a smile on his lips.

“Howdy, Cali.”

taglist: @darkroastjoel @thetriumphantpanda @dinsdjrn @cavillscurls @tightjeansjavi @dissentientss @harriedandharassed @ladyfiery47 (tag won't work!)

[radio-fmm]

Just the two of us

Sanji x gardener!reader

Warnings: none just pure fluff, fem reader in mind but can be read as gn reader, stablished relationship

Word count: 1.1k

Summary: In which your relationship with Sanji is still a secret

୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

“Hello, sunlight”

You looked up to meet Sanjis smile that shone brighter than the sun that beamed behind him.

You sat in the middle of your garden that you had began tending an hour ago, growing the new vegetables you had bought in the last island that the crew had docked at

“Hello handsome~” You returned the smile more than happy for the company, making him flush at your remark

Since you and Sanji had begun dating, you decided to keep it a secret, at least for now. Dealing with teasing and never ending questions from your crew mates at such early stages of the relationship didn’t seem ideal, instead, keeping to yourselves

But it had started to become difficult

You could literally see how much it physically pained Sanji to restrain himself from gushing all over you every time you met his gaze, or when you helped him in the kitchen, or when you thanked him for his amazing food, or when you were just… existing really

Sanji loved you 24/7, 365, and not being able to show it off to his friends was making him insane, and you were not any better either. Not being able to kiss, hug or even talk endearingly to your boyfriend whenever you wanted was tough, settling on stolen glances, sweet brushes and just being together in The Sunny and sharing company at night watches. Which it was nice of course! But it still had a toll on both of you

What you both didn’t know, is that everyone noticed what was happening, they just wanted to see how far you’ll get

I mean who wouldn’t? You’re always together no matter the situation or the setting. When you’re not together you’re looking at each other. Sanji had mastered on inserting you in every topic of conversation, and of course Nami and Robin had noticed how every night like clockwork you’ll leave the women’s quarters only to magically appear when they wake up. The way both of your body language and overall aura shifted whenever the other entered the room was palpable, almost too sweet.

It was unmissable

The cook settles beside you, letting his head fall on top of yours his hand locking with yours as he lets out a heavy sigh, tired of pretending not being head over heels for you. You relish in his touch growing sweet flowers in both of your hands that makes Sanjis heart miss several beats, you had found a way of showing your love through your powers that never seemed to not amaze and smitten him.

“I’ve missed you” he whispers, his eyes closed as he breathes in your beautiful sent and basks in the feeling your bodies touching

“But I’ve been here all day” you giggle, the sound making Sanjis ears perk up hearing his favorite melody

“You know what I mean”

You frown, stealing a glance of the blonde hair that nuzzles in you, it is quite difficult to date in a ship, it feels like you can never have privacy or just time to navigate your relationship, let alone do things without worrying about stares and teases. You loved the strawhats, they were your new found family, but this… you had to work and enjoy on your own time and pace

You sigh before kissing the cooks cheek tenderly, you know better than anyone how passionate he is, you cannot imagine how he must feel to not being able to just be himself like he would wish to around you

“You know I love you, right?” The question baffles the blonde, making him look at you immediately

“Of course dear, don’t I show it enough?” A hint of worry colors his words which makes your heart clench

“You do!” You answer him quickly “I just… know it’s been difficult for you and-“

Everything seemed to fade in the background, not even hearing how were you trying to explain yourself to him.

One of the first things that had made Sanji gravitate towards you quite more often than anyone else in the crew, besides your glowing beauty according to him, was how you cared so deeply. You cared about everyone’s health and happiness, your garden, your dreams, about your place in the crew and, the one most shocking for the cook, him. You were always there for Sanji, through his good and bad no matter what he needed you were there, for a talk, a quiet company, to offer a shoulder to cry or to taste his culinary creations.

You saw something in him that no one else (apart from luffy) did, he always wondered what it may be, even now that you had promised to be by each other’s sides. You were perfect for him, he knew it the moment he saw you, thoughts of you flooding his mind ever since.

Sanji holds your hands that always seemed to move around whenever you were trying to explain something ,which was an antic of yours he loved, he pressed his forehead in yours, breathing stuck in your throat

“You’re too good to me, mon amour”

A shiver ran down your spine at the french words that left his lips, coloring your cheeks all shades of red and pink. His wondering eyes shifting between your eyes and your rose lips that begged to met his. You smile and indulge by kissing him softly, always pouring your heart into every touch, both your heartstrings pulling at each others embrace

He deepens the kiss, long limbs traveling trough your edges and making you almost fall flat on the grass

“Slow down lover boy” you smile breaking the kiss knowing well where this would lead, Sanji looks at you with lost puppy eyes but you were not risking it

You lay down patting the grass yo your side coaxing him to relax with you, he follows your motions but instead of laying down he supports himself on his elbows while looking down at you, caressing your features

Luffys voice echoes through The Sunny while he calls for Sanji, wondering around when he finds Robin and Nami who were peeking at the cute moment between you both in silence

“Have you guys seen Sanji? I’m starving” Luffy cries settling between them

“Shh Luffy they’ll hear you” the navigator protest making Robin giggle

The captain redirects his vision to your garden, smiling ear to ear

“Why are they hiding?” He’s met with silence from both women who to be honest, didn’t really know why

“We should let them handle this at their own time, captain” Robin answers

“They’re so stupid, like we’ll do something bad about it” Nami rolls her eyes playfully while Luffy ponders quietly beside her

“Maybe they don’t want to ruin what they have”

Yeah, we’ll give them time

୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

Oh my it’s been a while since I’ve posted about these two, next one of the series would be about how reader met the strawhats! As always request are open and feel free to correct me, English is not my first language

[hoseoksluna]

CRANBERRIES | jhs ft. jjk

pairing: boyfriend!hobi x berries!oc (feat. ex-boyfriend!jk and... hyeonwol)

genre: heavy smut, angst

word count: 18.4k

summary: the final breaking of the curse hurts, but pain brings fruit.

pinterest board: cranberries / taglist: join

warnings: physical violence, fight, daddy issues, alcohol consumption, smoking, thigh humping, female masturbation, use of a vibrator, squirting, multiple orgasms, oral sex (f. and m. receiving), raw sex, conception, fears of infertility, finger sucking

note: THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE BERRIES SERIES WHAT. i can't breathe, i can't speak. i wrote the moment i woke up and it's now 4pm. ran out of cigs. :( i was so emotional as i was in this world with them and i love them. so much. i'm so excited for you to read this. i had iffy feelings about this series in the beginning, but that has changed. i love every chapter, every detail, every moment. and i think i did a good job. so, enjoy this. i poured my entire heart into this. my issues, personal experiences, everything. it means a lot to me. i love you, guys. i'm happy to give this to you after two long weeks! HAPPY READING.

side note: please, do check out the pinterest board. i'll add pics of every place oc and hobi have been. <3 SPAM MY INBOX. I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS.

The sleep lines are paused shooting stars across his back. The dips and definition pools of refreshment for those dimmed lights and when you cross over the threshold with Hobi right behind you, with his finger hooked over the waistband of your ivory mini skirt, your own fingers gain feeling. Much to your dismay, they remember the sharpness of those lines, the stickiness of his sweat as his body boiled during any weather he slept through. 

He must have been on the brink of awakening, for you didn’t wait long before he answered the door. His gray curtains are pulled in and Jungkook walks over them, invites in the light of the early afternoon. In your peripheral vision, you recognize that the easel, which holds the painting in all its glory, is right there on your left side, and you strain your eyes to remain fixed on his bare back, even as wrong as that is. Hobi’s word of advice regarding thinking twice before you look at the artwork are pink blossoms that begin to grow in your ribs, spreading down to your stomach—because whether you like it or not, the place you find yourself to be in used to be one of absolute safety. 

It used to be your home, once upon a time. 

Cold, cold home that only ever reached tepidity at best. It’s all you ever knew—as the home you grew up in with your parents invariably had the same temperature. The same energy, too, charged with silence, ignorance and very little care that seldom carried love. 

Which brings a certain thought to the front of your head, just as Jungkook is bathed in light, arms extended as if he bore wings. 

He never loved you. 

Because if he did, then his home and the memories that are rushing in would feel the way Hobi feels. 

And like Hobi carried the false beauty in his heart, in his life—in the form of the poetry book—you carried the false perception of safety. If Hobi wasn’t here, if the stability of his antique stature wasn’t a wall doused in rain-kissed humidity that you now feel your body gravitating towards, and even if his finger wasn’t hooked behind your skirt, you wouldn’t feel safe. 

But on the other hand, softness coats Jungkook. Strange, strange softness that you haven’t seen in ages. Since the first days of your relationship, the first dates, the first kisses and touches, for everything you did with Jungkook was different each time, never the same until his life story shared with his childhood best friend ended on bad terms and the guy moved across the sea. It’s what triggered his mental issues that in the long run ended your story with him. 

As it seems, Jungkook has been trying to write a sequel that was never meant to exist. 

He bends over his coffee table and it is only now that you notice the clutter of crumpled tissues that he now picks up. Bile scratches your throat as needles prick it because it dawns on you fairly quickly what those issues served him for. A blanket is strewn over the backrest of his leather couch and a singular, flat pillow is propped against the armrest. He slept on it during the night; had a perfect view of the painting right across from him. And if your mind serves you well, he sent that picture in the middle of the night, in which he deliberately showed you that creating the message sexually thrilled him. 

It’s not hard to pinpoint that he fist-fucked himself while looking at the painting. And by the number of tissues that he hides in his palms and throws away in the bin in the kitchen, it’s evident his gratification process took a long, long time. 

You anticipate the bile pouring out of your throat again, but… it never comes. Oddly, it’s second-hand embarrassment that you sense swirling in the cranberry lumps of your bloodstream, its fumes drooping your pink blossoms, your veins thick and ghastly on your wrists. And while you should feel disgusted, for some reason you don’t. 

The discovery added magnitude to the star of his softness, weightiness and substance. It made it more real, bigger. It envelops him, confusing your mind because the only way it allows you to remember him is through the pain he caused you, using the expression of his fury. He broke your heart. Degraded you. Handled you harshly. Threw away your vape. Made you lose the respect you had for him, the worship you carried in the back of your heart. This can’t be the same person, kissed by a good night’s sleep. 

You don’t recognize him and you feel so out of place, standing in the middle of an obscure, amorphous dream that you’re trying to remember. A bizarre, uncanny feeling. You wish to run—as it lessens your form into that milky blue aura of smallness, but not in the way you like. Your body pleads to stand behind Hobi and clutch the back of his shirt in your fists while he steps in and makes order. But the energy around is too light, too gentle for a fight. 

Which is why you’re not sure if it’s a good idea that Hobi should unfurl his plan here. 

Hobi looks down at you as Jungkook answers his phone in the kitchen. You didn’t hear a thing due to the way you were lost in your thoughts and your confusion deepens as you regard the crooked furrow of his brow and the pinpricks of his pupils. Hobi wraps his arm low on your waist, tugging you flush to his side, kissing the plane of your head, lingering there for a second more as he inhales the natural scent of your hair. One you didn’t wash today, for he kept you busy. You fear he can smell your puke on you from earlier, despite the fact you almost sprayed the entirety of your vanilla perfume on yourself that you carry in your purse before you and him left together. You grow insecure, lessening furthermore. 

“Do I stink?” you ask, hushedly, gazing up at him with intention, willing him to answer you truthfully. Hobi smiles down at you, tenderly, pleased with the hint of familiarity and normalcy in the middle of the battlefield. Inhaling your scent and touching you diminished the intensity of the bloodthirst in his eyes and you’re glad for it. You hope that he perceives the elephant in the room and doesn’t strike first, but knowing how smart he is, you trust that he will, if he hasn’t already. 

Hobi doesn’t answer you. His smile falls as briskly as it appeared and his head swivels in the direction of the kitchen, features tight and startling. Your heart ceases its beat for a second before it speeds up, thumping painfully against your ribcage. What did Jungkook say over the phone? You weren’t paying attention. 

He lets go of you and stomps over to the kitchen. His back faces you, bringing your consciousness into present time, shudders with long staccatos of breaths. He’s fuming. Concern crawls up your back, leaving goosebumps in its wake. 

“So, that’s what you do? You traumatize my girlfriend while you have someone else on the side?” Hobi says, brusquely, placing his fists on his hips. “Does she know you paint degrading pictures of your ex in your spare time?” 

A beat of silence. Your breath hitches in your throat.

Your blood freezes over and you don’t know how your legs take you over to Hobi, weak and tingling as they are. You can’t feel anything. Can’t feel your fingers as they hook over his back pocket, your inner child’s deepest wish infiltrating through reality. 

Jungkook worries his bottom lip, his phone still held over his ear, and he exhales, shortly through his nose, dropping his gaze. “I’ll call you back.” 

He throws the phone over the kitchen island, sliding his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants as he so often does, staring Hobi down. 

There’s no doubt she heard it. Hobi said it loud enough. 

Good. 

Good of Hobi to take the ruination by its legs and launch it back at its creator. You change your mind by the shift of the energy, having foolishly forgotten the girl personification of the storm that you saw by Jungkook’s side in the museum. She has no idea how preoccupied he’s been with you, chasing you down ever since he laid his eyes on you after nearly a month. And you pity her. She doesn’t deserve this kind of unfair treatment, no matter the hostility she showed you and the fraction of the same emotion you felt towards her in return. 

Jungkook had it coming, that’s what you’re sure of now—sowing the seeds of his downfall in your orchard. What he didn’t know was that by staying around, hurting not just you, but another vulnerable person at the same time, he would also reap its poisonous growth. You hope his hands are red and burning, pulling out the weeds and poison ivy. 

He leans against the kitchen counter, the muscle of his pierced brow quivering with the onrush of anger. You find it so pathetic that you almost dryly snicker, backed by the continuous, fatherly act of Hobi standing up for you—your antique wall, the architecture of the old, Mediterranean times. 

Strong and unwilling to break under pressure. 

“My personal life is none of your business—”

“And mine is?” Hobi interrupts him, leaning forward due to the influence of his own anger and the sight is horrifying. If you were in Jungkook’s place, you’d be trembling like a sissy. Hobi laughs, scornfully, doing it for you and your heart rejoices. “You stalked my wife, touched her, painted that shitty—”

Wife.

“I didn’t stalk her,” Jungkook says, awfully calmly, as if he were bored, despite the tremor of his pierced brow that divulges the true face of his feelings. “Wife?” He laughs, humorlessly, and you bunch your fists, letting go of your private, personal link to Hobi. Even though you swore you wouldn’t raise them again when facing him, it’s all you want to do now for the way he mocked something so meaningful to you. Raise them and use them until they bruise. 

The concern that hung over your back fades into a discomposure that slices over your skin with a blunt knife. Over and over, maddened by the incessant rampage to cause you pain, incited by his mockery. Won’t let up until blood pours out.  

“Don’t talk over me, I wasn’t finished,” Hobi scolds and your second-hand embarrassment for the opponent doubles, abating your discomposure just like that. 

The knife is lifted in the air, paused. 

Jungkook’s jaw begins to tremble, disliking the easiness to Hobi’s overpowering tendencies, the way his stern words force him to become that aforementioned sissy that you’d be in his place. You think it suits him right. 

“You shamed my—” Hobi points to his heart, like Jungkook did last night when he bared his feelings for you and your throat dries, unbelief peculiarly setting your discomposure free at the rightful turning of tables. “Wife for moving on with her life, for becoming the person she needed to become without you controlling her. Sent her a picture of your dick while you were at it, belittling her, using sex to lure her back to you as if she wasn’t smart, as if she wasn’t mine. You did all that and you think you’re gonna come out of this unscathed? Let your girlfriend see what you’ve done. What, you were going to hide that painting under your bed like a little bitch?” 

It’s Hobi who laughs now, the sound full of that same mockery Jungkook used to inflict pain. You wrap a hand around his arm, coming over to stand side by side with him, sliding your hand down to his, needing it and not being afraid of it. Not to his palm, but over the back of his hand, slipping your fingers through his. And together you clench that singular fist, stronger. 

You thought all your life that you were stupid. Your own Father bashed you for it every chance he had; you, yourself, hated your being for it with all your might. Thought it was the root of the curse over your life, made strong by your bad decisions, bad actions, bad footfalls. Learning that Hobi doesn’t regard you as such cuts that majority of your life away from you. He binds up your wounds, cleaning them. And the fact he put two and two together apropos the meaning of the painting, the reason behind the punishment, using your recitation of the bizarre poem is a kiss to make the boo-boo better. 

You weep, silently. Your love for Hobi trickles out of your tear ducts, doesn’t touch your makeup, doesn’t steal the attention of the two males away from each other. It dips into your ribcage through your chest, sprucing them until they can breathe again and fill your lungs with sweetened, poetic air, with a will to live on, reminding you that you have a future ahead of you that is beautiful and bereft of the curse and all you’ve ever known. 

And you wash that breath, purposefully, over the bare skin of Hobi’s warmth. Remind him, too, as you press your lips over it. He squeezes yours and his united fist, hearing you. 

Lifting your gaze, Jungkook crosses his arms over his chest, devoid of those sleep lines. His biceps bulge, but it does nothing to you. Hobi’s fixing of your dignity, heart and life has taken care of that, all via that sonnet of his that he spat in Jungkook’s face, one that contorts in envy upon seeing your intertwined hand with Hobi’s. He nibbles on his bottom lip, eyes wetting, but the following words he says sting as if his face never wore those softened emotions. And the discomposure returns in the form of a colossal spider on your back. A slimy, heavy, breathing spider. 

You cringe, tensing your muscles, nuzzling your body deeper into Hobi’s arm. It only menaces your vivaciousness, but the fluff on your body stands on end, nonetheless. 

“She came here to look at the painting. I don’t know what you’re doing here,” he mutters, crossing his leg. Double protection. He’s stuck in a peril—feels vulnerable and threatened, just like Hobi said. “She likes being spanked, being punished. That’s why she’s here.” 

It takes two seconds for Hobi to release your hand and slap him like the little bitch he is. A fatherly discipline, that hard swoop of the back of his hand, a new line indenting his carmine face, one belonging to the ring on Hobi’s middle finger. Absolutely humiliating, that act you are a witness to—but you don’t feel a slither of pity for him. The joy from your heart springs to your eyes and you feel yourself blinking unorthodoxly—more briskly, serenely, femininely. 

The spider jumps off your back, afraid of Hobi. You sigh in relief, willing strength into your knees as they signify their giving out on you, boneless as they are. 

And Jungkook is afraid, too, once he recuperates from the hit, straightening, but not facing the king. His mouth rounds as if he were on the verge of crying, and maybe he is. He focuses on stalling the natural flow of his emotions, his pride forbidding him from being weak, even as he’s getting hit like a teenage boy. 

But Hobi makes him look at him. He grabs his face, repeating the motion of last night; squeezing his cheeks until his knuckles turn white, although this time Jungkook doesn’t moan in pain. He scrambles the last of that pride of his, threading it into the stiflement of his reaction. 

“Are you that dumb that you forgot about what I told you that would happen if I heard those words come out of your mouth again?” he seethes in his face. Jungkook sucks in quick breaths, a caged animal, furious. “You degraded her again. You’re asking for it at this point.” He slaps him again, harder this time, still with the back of his hand. Doesn’t give him time to shake it off. Grabs him in the same way. “I’ll let you know that those words you read in that little message? That probably made your dick hard? Those were my words, boy. I came here to break that painting, but I changed my mind. I want your girlfriend to see the work of your hands.” 

Hobi told him the true story while he omitted the detail he could’ve used to inflict further pain on him. He could’ve said that he told you to write that message after he was done fucking your trauma out of you. He could’ve rubbed that in his face and you wouldn’t mind. 

But he didn’t. 

He respects you. Protects your dignity. Doesn’t need to flaunt his private life with you; isn’t insecure to do something like that. And along with joy, he installs something within you that you lacked all your life. 

A respect, a high regard and an expensive love for yourself. 

You stand straighter, all of a sudden. 

Jungkook looks at you. A rawness of pain daubs his even softer eyes, but you recognize that it’s all pretense, a manipulation technique that you see right through. You lift your chin higher, interlocking your hands behind your back. A powerful, feminine stance. His eyes descend to your pride in the middle of your breasts, drench as he mumbles something your way that you can’t comprehend due to the way Hobi squeezes his cheeks harder, that moan of pain slipping through, at last. 

You smile, sensing the end of this chapter. You can see the door to it, wide open, Hobi standing by it, gripping the doorknob. And he shuts it with his following words. 

“Don’t even look at her. It’s over. The little game you’re playing? You lost,” Hobi says and lets him go. Jungkook grumbles, baring his teeth, his hand shaking as he lifts it to his jaw as if to rub away the pain, but he changes his mind at the last minute. Doesn’t want to show his weakness. His hand falls, flaccidly, to the side. Throws Hobi’s way a dirty look that makes you laugh. 

“It’s over,” you intone along, lips stretched in a glinting grin, the crown of your victory. You’re the queen to your king. Jungkook gazes at you with a puppy’s sadness, for a mere second before Hobi pushes his head away from your direction with a poke of his fingers. His inhales are sharp and thunderous and you think he’d be a perfect match to his companion, that is if he were a good guy, deserving of her. 

“Did you even see the painting?” he hushes out, head still turned towards the windows, and the redness on his face inflames in vibrancy, darkening. Why he thinks he needs to keep fighting, in spite of the way Hobi overthrew him, is beyond you. His head slowly swivels back to face you and tears cloud his eyes. It inspires no pity in you, no curiosity to look behind you at the painting. “I made the background an imitation of Monet’s waterlilies. The green ones, the ones you’ve always liked. Does that mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that I still care—” 

“No,” you interrupt him and you bask in it, inhale the power. Your pink blossoms grow in abundance, becoming a collection of beauty and strength that will live on forever, never to wither. “I didn’t look at the painting and I refuse to because I don’t care.” 

You open your mouth to continue, but he outruns you. 

“So, you lied to me? Why are you here, then?” 

The wheels seem to whirr in his brain, at last. 

“My husband and I came here to make one thing clear,” you explain and you flick your eyes to Hobi just in time to catch him smiling at you, fondly, his loving pride bursting through his own pools. “It’s over. You’re not gonna bother me anymore; you’re not gonna text me, call me. In fact—” You pull out your phone out of your front pocket and unlock it, tapping on Jungkook’s contact and blocking him, deleting the number right away. “You can’t anymore.” You smile, satisfied with your decision. “I live a happy life without you and it’s going to stay that way.”

Jungkook’s posture slouches and he wrinkles his brows, mouth agape, downturned. “Husband? What the fuck is this?” 

You only lift your hand in the air, for Hobi to take, dismissing him once and for all. “Let’s go.” 

You take a step back as Hobi rushes to you in a comical, endearing way, a huge smile engraving crinkles by his glimmering, pearlescent eyes. He takes your hand and when you look at Jungkook one last time to say goodbye to him, he whimpers like a wounded animal. 

Your heart constricts, not touched by pity, but by discomfort. It’s time to leave; you don’t want to be here anymore.  

Hobi leads you towards the door and you follow him, but Jungkook’s final words halt your footsteps. Hobi’s too. 

“I can be like him and better when he drops you. Don’t forget that.” 

You frown at him, your mouth pressed in a tight line. “There’s no when to me and you. I never want to see you again. Goodbye, Jungkook.” 

He mewls, the final kick to his bruised body and you leave. 

You leave his life for good. 

The air of the afternoon’s breath is floral. You thought the clouds would’ve smothered the last remains of the summer, but it is still, most strangely, in full bloom. You feel hot in Hobi’s linen shirt and the sun is scorching hot, balmy and paradisiacal on your bare thighs, though you wish you hadn’t worn your Nike’s. Your toes are asking for some sand, for the pecks of sea waves and the entanglement of seaweed around them like tropical adornment of toe rings. 

You met the girl, the personification of storm, behind the door to his apartment. She was about to rack her knuckles on the wood like you did, but Hobi opened the door for her. Her breath hitched in her throat, hard and heavy like the wind during that storm she resembles so much, and you felt bad for her. So much that you told her to leave him, unabashedly and plainly, and didn’t stick around to hear her response. 

But you did hear muffled sounds of vocal violence and you prayed, for the first time in your life, to someone in the sky, who has always been a witness to your curse and never did a thing about it, to guide her to break that painting in two. 

Not for your healing, not at all. But for the curse to be unleashed on him, turned to him and fixed on him.

You’re not ashamed to carry such evil in your heart. You know, full well, that it will dull overtime. Your mother would’ve rebuked you, told you to forgive your enemies and wish them well, but bricking up your heart for him to feel safe is something she would never understand. Because if she did, she wouldn’t share the same home with your Father. And if she did, you would’ve never ended up with a guy like Jungkook that was the raw epitome of him. 

It’s a good thing she’ll never learn of your secret. She never met Jungkook but she looks at his face every day, and you’re not so sure if the idea of introducing Hobi to her is pleasant. You sense the time you find yourself to be in is meant to be a solitary one, spent in a bubble with your husband, and there’s nothing you want more. 

You and Hobi, alone. 

For a little while before a little creature comes along. 

The mountain peak is awaiting—you feel it profoundly in your bones. 

Hobi opens the door to his car for you, places a hand on the edge of his vehicle so you don’t hurt your head as you sit down—like he did on your first date. But he doesn’t close the door and walk over to the driver’s seat. No, he straddles you. Pushes your seat back a little in order for you to have a perfect and comfortable view of him. You sputter out your giggles, felicitously confused by his actions, and when he props his hands by your head, his smile quivering in effort to not laugh along with you, your giggles rise in volume. 

And then his gaze deepens on you, lessening the pitch. Seriousness shrouds the energy, your little giggles ringing, faintly, and you press your thighs together between his legs. 

“I’m not fucking you here,” you whisper, the sound full of humor, your eyes feignedly widened, but Hobi is deep in thought, his imaginary wings furling and unfurling in the spaciousness of his car. 

“How do you feel?” he asks, steeped in that earnest, warm and lightweight solemnity. It feels like home. That question, too. 

You relax, your expression of joy fading into a comfortable silence and you take a moment to focus on what you’re feeling right now. 

A graze of the pink blossoms on the inside of your ribs. Relief, a wave sloshing over them. Freedom, the sunlight that heats up that body of water. Joy—a full rainbow of joy after a century-long rainfall. 

And you tell him. 

“I feel free. Happy. I feel happy, Hobi.” 

He smiles, fondly, that blush rolling over his cheeks like it always does. And you love him, irrevocably. You love him, you love him, you love him. 

He did this, your God. It’s the creation of his clean hands. 

And as he kisses the tip of your nose, you thank him with the same earnestness he brought in. 

And you mean it. You would’ve died, had he not found you. You would’ve died, had you not taken him to that museum. You think about what your life would’ve looked like if you never suggested that place, but your mind stumbles upon a dead end. You can’t—there’s nothingness up ahead. 

It was meant to happen this way. Along with the pain, the tears, the scars. If it never ached this much, it wouldn’t matter; it wouldn’t have the gravity, the substance, the meaning. It would’ve been plain and it wouldn’t change your life so devastatingly, so beautifully. 

You wouldn’t have wings and neither would he. 

You kiss him right back on that slender nose of his and much to your surprise, he gives his voice over to your heart. 

“I love you,” he confesses, the pearls in his eyes wetting, and he cradles your face. Your heart stops and then beats differently—in a way you never heard it sing before. “Is it too soon to say that?” 

Another surprise comes. A tear trickles down your cheek, a happy, elated, small rivulet that cleanses the last, difficult events that just ended. Down your cheek that stretches and aches, blissfully, as you smile up at him. 

“Is it too soon to say that I love you, too?” 

The song melts into another poetic stanza and Hobi kisses you. But he smiles as well, so the kiss is full of clashing of teeth and sudden hunger to express the fulfillment of that love. You and him try and try again until your lips mold into his and the hard kiss, filled with passion, respect and devotion, splits the curse in two. 

Now the residue, the smithereens only need to be fucked out of you.  

Hobi will do a good job, no doubt. 

“Let’s celebrate.” 

Hobi was eyeing a bottle of soju in a market nearby his house, but settled eventually for a bottle of spirits that he’s now popping open and drinking right from the lip of the tall, glass container. He’s sat on the ground of your bedroom, back propped against your bed, the bottle between his outstretched legs as he watches you strip out of the combination of yours and his clothes. A blackberry vape might be in your hand, the fume curling around the curds of cranberries that your blood still consists of, but a pack of cigarettes lies crooked on your bedding.

You told Hobi you needed something stronger after that happened. And he brushed a wisp of your hair away from your face and said he’d willingly have a cigarette with you as he still felt adrenaline coursing through his smooth bloodstream. Bought a pack of gold Davidoff’s for you, the ones you shared with him that you used to smoke until…

You haven’t voiced your panic, though. Not in the market, not in the car, not right now as you’re standing in front of your closet, searching for a lounging outfit to wear, similarly like Hobi did back at his house a few hours ago. Jungkook forbade you from smoking. Hated the sight of it. Hated it even more when you switched to vapes. And as you recollect his anger whenever he saw you with it, you can’t believe you let him do it. Can’t believe you stopped smoking just to please him. 

And you can’t believe Hobi bought you a pack. With his own money, by his own will. To please you. 

You should be feeling happy right now, but the panic… it stands behind you, the silhouette of Jungkook’s form, waiting for you to take that cigarette between your fingers and place it between your lips, daring you, taunting you, waiting for the right moment to strike, to rebuke, to untether its anger. It’s what keeps you planted on your feet, whisking your eyes up and down along the corner of your closet, where your comfortable clothes are neatly folded. 

You’re afraid to turn around. Afraid to see Jungkook there—

“Come here.” 

Hobi’s voice. Not Jungkook’s. 

“I need to get dressed,” you say, softly, staring down a pink wisp of your sleep shorts. 

You hear the sloshing of alcohol in the bottle. Hobi must be taking another sip. 

“You don’t, really.” 

You laugh through your nose. 

“I don’t want to get pregnant here.” 

Hobi lets out the same sound, making a smile curl on your mouth. “Come here, pup.” 

It’s the gentleness sunk within his intonation that is a force of the same nature that turns your body around. Hobi is staring at you as if he were looking up at an angel—those pearlescent eyes of his bright and swimming, but not prematurely under the influence of the alcohol. They’re swimming with love. 

You used to be an angel. Now you’re you. 

And Jungkook isn’t standing there; Jungkook is gone. 

You walk over to him with ease, the panic dispersing and flying out your wide open window, your rosy curtains guiding it out. You sit on his outstretched thighs and as your bum plops down, you take off his green beanie. Run your fingers through his hair, fluffing them. Cradle his face to your naked bosom as you inhale him, tracing patterns on his scalp. 

Hobi begins to purr and you melt, becoming a liquid form of you, making his hands shine in the ever undying stark sunlight as he wraps his arms around your torso, tightly. 

You’re not going anywhere, the act says. 

This is what deserves to be painted, you muse. 

Listening to him emit that sound, your heart notices the absence of Luna and it craves her, awfully missing her. And the more you receive it through your ears and it settles within the chambers of your softened muscle, you realize that you’re holding her in the form of a human. 

He’s so much like her. You recollect the way he tilted his head into your touch, join it to the memory of how she did it when you petted her head for the first time. And you test him—withdraw to pat his cheek and he does it. Leans into your touch, lingering there as you cup him. 

He’s a God and a kitty. And you love him. 

Hobi reaches for the bottle of vodka. Takes a sip as he locks his gaze with yours. Your hand slackens at the sight, dropping to the crook between his neck and his firm shoulder, and you can’t hold it. Like your limb, your eyes descend to the way his mouth is wrapped around the rim of the bottle, to the bottle of his throat as he swallows and doesn’t make a face. Lift back up to catch a glint bouncing off his wet lips and abruptly, you want a taste of that heady sting of your own. 

He can read you, and fairly well—because he drinks again, but this time he doesn’t swallow. No, he pushes your head to his in one swift, brazen motion. Parts your lips by tugging your chin down with only his thumb while he cups your cheek and, sitting up so he can once again take advantage of the size difference, he pours the pungent liquid beyond the arc of your mouth. Remains there, a breath away. It seems as though he wants to feel you swallow, wants to inhale that sharp scent of the alcohol; wants to sense in his bones that principle of him giving it to you in a profound, private way. 

And you swallow it, fixing your attention on the burn coursing down your throat, softened by his saliva. This—this was your first drink, a safe occurrence, watched over by your Father. The ones you had before in your past life didn’t have a sliver of the magnitude that you feel suffusing your lungs. This is your first life with him. 

“That was so hot.” 

You agree with him, liquid heat pooling low in your core, and you need that cigarette. And his dick impaling you as you take that deep, heavy drag that you haven’t inhaled in months. 

And most peculiarly, there’s no panic, nor fear, as you snatch that pack of cigarettes from your bedding behind his head and look for the little flap that will help you open it. Hobi lifts his hand from your cheek, though, and steals it from you—finding the flap with ease and opening it as if he spent the last decade faithfully smoking. 

Your panties are ruined, just like that. 

Drenched when he pops the butt of the cigarette between his wet lips, rummaging in his pocket for the pink lighter that he got you along with the pack. 

Soaking when he lights it up for you, blows the first smoke into your mouth, pecks you softly, and places the butt between your lips. 

But he doesn’t place his hand back on your face—he keeps his thumb and forefinger on the body of the cigarette, the burning tip facing him, holding it for you as you take a drag. The thick smoke billows around his palm, milky blue in the golden light, and as soon as its heaviness caresses your lungs and you exhale it into the air, he returns the cigarette back to its original place. Puffs it one more time before he lets you have it, coughing a little, blowing the fume onto your bare breasts, lips opened halfway in a tiny circle. The warmth tickles and your body naturally curls forward in reaction, your arms pushing your breasts together. Hobi makes a sound that is a godly synthesis of a coo and a moan, uttered from his weakening grin, eyes gliding over your squished breasts. 

Eyes that never darken when regarding your nakedness; eyes that remain full of that celestial, sea-kissed light. 

Do they have the ocean in heaven? He must know, for he’d been formed by it. 

And you want to be stuffed full in it. 

Hobi must like the sight he sees because he takes a finger and drives it down the right side of your body. From your clavicle, down to your breast, your stiffened nipple that he stops at, pinching it, heightening the pressure until you squeak, the pool bursting in your core. At that sound, he continues on his path down your stomach and you let him feel the contraction of your muscles there as your body reacts to his touch. He ends his venture at the waistband of your panties and he tugs it towards himself, peeking inside. 

“Someone’s wet,” he comments and you cough, embarrassingly, caught off guard, as you take a drag of your cigarette, not expecting him to say that. Hobi smirks and the growing moistness on that fabric becomes uncomfortable. He rubs your back, helping your lungs to quiet down, the waistband snapping back making you jump—and incredibly horny. 

He steals the lung burner and you love it, your obsession with it construed by his apparent need to smoke in this heavily sexually-charged situation. You wonder if he’s holding himself back from breeding you right here and there. 

He could, if you wanted him to do it here—all things are settled, after all. But you don’t. You don’t want to reach the peak in your bedroom, where Jungkook has been so many times. 

You want it to happen at a place, where his footfalls never ventured. 

“Someone’s wet from watching their man smoke,” you flirt, looking at him through your lashes, hips instinctually drawing closer to his crotch and beginning their dance. Back and forth, the rhythm of the sea. 

“Don’t do that or I’ll fuck you,” he threatens, flicking his eyes to the rising peak of the cigarette ash and he bores them into yours with a challenge. “Be a good pup and get me an ashtray, please.” 

Please? 

Yes, Daddy. 

Ashtray? No. 

That would mean going to the kitchen and flipping it upside down in search of it. You stand up to your feet, your wetness flowing down your inner thighs with the movement, and you fetch the empty glass from your bedside table, lonesome and dust-scattered. You can’t really remember the last time you put it there. 

Sitting back down, you straddle his thigh as you hold the glass for him to flick the ash there. And once he does, you start to move back to your original position, but he stops you. 

“Stay here,” he says, enveloping an arm around your waist. “Ride it. Make a mess for me.” 

You don’t hesitate to do so, your body begs you for a release, weakened yet enlivened by his command. But the question of why he doesn’t want to fuck you bothers you and you decide to voice it out, willfully. Unafraid, safe, comfortable. 

You roll your hips forward on his thigh, which he flexes for you. The curves of his toned muscles hit the right spot and you throw your head back, using his throat for support, mewling little sounds that make him bite his lip, abandon his cigarette, let it fall into the cup that he forces away from your grip and sets it down. The smoke still billows out, twirling around your form, magnificently. 

“Why don’t you wanna fuck me?” 

Hobi sucks in a breath, leaning his head back against the mattress, hands following the movement of your hips. Drunk not on the alcohol, but on you. 

“Because I’ve been nonstop fucking you and I don’t want your little pussy to be sore,” he says, truthfully, adding vigor to your dance with his words, even if he doesn’t realize it. “Which is why I want you to use me like this when you need me.” He breathes, raggedly, and you’re dazed. “And because—” He fists the front of your panties, squeezing the fabric between your folds, stimulating your clit with the pressure. “The next time I fuck you, we’re making a baby.” You cry out, your pleasure heightened, and, meeting your thrust, he slides the knuckles of his fingers down to your clit, letting you ride them, letting himself feel the swollenness, softness and wetness of your flesh. He moans along with you—the feeling divine. “You said you didn’t want it here. Tell me where.” 

You can’t. Your orgasm quickens as do your grinding motions and you can’t see, you can’t speak, you squeeze your eyes shut—

“No, pup.” He stretches the fabric towards himself, essentially moving his hand away, and pushing your stomach back, your hips rolled forward, pussy throbbing and dripping in the air. You pant, gripping his hair at the crown of his head, eyes flung open, yet lidded. Terribly, terribly lidded. Sultry, dreamy, mesmeric. Despite the fact he ripped your orgasm away. “You don’t come unless you tell me where.” 

He holds you in place, immobilizing you. You try to grind on him again, but to no avail. You expect him to click his tongue at your brattiness, but he doesn’t. 

He does something else entirely. 

“Take your time. I know. That was really intense.”

It’s a stark contrast to the restraint he has you in—your slowly sobering brain makes a note of that, only to dip back into the stupefying pool of your arousal. 

And you whine, electrified by the pleasure that comes from all directions, that pushes forcibly against your neediness, heightening it. 

You can’t take your time. You can’t tell him right now. You need to come. 

“I can’t, Hobi.” Your breath shudders. “I can’t—”

“Breathe,” he rasps and you can see the way your neediness affects him, his chest heaving with almost identical staccatos, as though he was zapped with the delight he gets from it. His pupils are so dilated as his eyes melt into yours, a black pearl, but still enveloped by light. Cheeks flushed, mouth wet. The scent of patchouli, cigarettes and vodka, the remote corner of heaven. 

You try to breathe, fluidly, as you take it in and Hobi helps you. Breathes with you, steadies the cadence of your recuperation. Doesn’t stop until he’s assured that your lungs are calm. And as a reward, he lets your panties slap back against your pussy, coaxing a moan out of you. 

Doesn’t remove his hand from your hip, though. 

A quid pro quo. 

All right. 

“I don’t want to get pregnant here. Not in Seoul, not in Korea,” you start, your lungs in a perfect rhythm. Hobi’s eyes enlarge as he listens, fingers spreading over your bum, just holding you there, squeezing the flesh every once in a while. The gesture soothes you, blesses you with tenderness that helps you continue with your words. “I want you to take me overseas, where I’ve never been.” 

He hums, nodding, thinking for a mere moment, his eyes distracted on your belly button. And when he lifts them, he smiles. “Any particular place in mind?” 

The country slips off your tongue, naturally, on its own, and you think that’s the one. Your heart spoke it, so it must be the place. You haven’t given much thought prior to it, just knew you didn’t want to conceive a child on this soil that remembers nothing but your pain and anguish. You held this within the chambers of your heart before you met Hobi—and way before you met Jungkook. And you figure that in the process it acknowledged itself with Hobi, studied his face, learned the ins and outs of his heart in such a short time, it riddled out the place, where the curse is meant to be broken in. 

Once and for all. 

“Turkey.” 

You’ve seen the videos. Seen the dramas. The pictures. It met you and kept meeting you throughout your life, but you never gave much meaning to it. And now you perceive why. 

You reckon that’s how life works. And it feels nice—to get to know life, to get to know its mercifulness. 

“That’s a beautiful place, pup,” he whispers, taking his hands off of your body and cradling your face, pulling you closer and kissing you, lingering there for two, three, four seconds more. Your heart jumps, delighted to be validated, and you feel like weeping happily. 

“You’ve been there before?” you ask, the wetness of your eyes gracing it with a glint that very seldom finds your usually saddened pools. 

This is it. 

This is it. 

“I’ve had business meetings with Turkish companies that do their job well. Good people, good atmosphere.” Hobi smiles, reminiscing on something private and his cheeks warm. 

You wish, intimately, that he would tell you everything. 

“Will you tell me about them when we get there?” 

Hobi nods, pecking your chin. “Yes, and then I’ll fill you up.” 

You grin as he lingers there beneath you, eyes so bright and big, becoming crinkly at the corners once he reciprocates the grin. He kisses the front column of your next, tasting the layer of sweat that has enveloped it during your oh so evident neediness and you dip your head in your pool of arousal all over again—as soon as he withdraws and slaps your thigh, signaling you to hump his thigh. 

You can’t wait to get knocked up. Hope time passes quickly, transforms into a substance that lifts you up and carries you all the way to Turkey, mercifully, kindly. 

It’s this notion that you focus on as your hips begin to roll forwards and backwards on his thigh, but this time, as Hobi watches you with intention, he pulls your drenched panties to your side, his hand coming over to your bum and doing the same thing there, so the fabric doesn’t get in the way. 

You kiss him for it, hungrily, licking over his tongue, and he moans into your mouth, the sound traveling down your body until it roots in your clit, where it spreads and drums a hymn for your feminine titillation. 

And the feeling is divine—the sparks of pleasure that shoot up your core while your bare pussy rubs against the fabric of his pants, darkening it ever so quickly with your wetness. The feeling that he enjoys it, even more so when he voices it out. 

“This is what it does to me,” he murmurs so terribly close to your puffed lips, grasping your hand and leading it to the place between his outstretched legs that he speaks of. He presses it against his painfully hard imprint and your fingers automatically wrap around it as much as they can, as if they recognize it’s their own toy. “To see you get turned on like this. To watch you use me because of it. I’m crazy for you—”

His phone rings in his pocket and your heart stops—as do your motions. 

And you fear, rottenly, that it’s Jungkook who’s calling him. That he somehow found his number and is back at it again, clutching the curse like a sword in his hand. Ready to ruin, ready to devastate. 

The feeling paralyzes you enough that it dries up your pool of arousal and you can’t blink, you can’t breathe, you can’t move. Your mouth parts, but no breaths come out. 

At the sliver of freedom and joy—

“Jung Hoseok speaking,” Hobi answers the phone, the device slender and way bigger than his monumental hand, gazing into your eyes. Unblinking, too. 

He listens to the other side spilling information in and once you catch his mouth flattening, those dimples gouging something unpleasant onto the smooth surface above his top lip and the brightness in his eyes dimming ever so slightly, the cranberries of your blood crumble, uncomfortably, beneath the skin of your forearms. 

You pull your hand away from his crotch, slipping out of his grasp. He stops you before you get up on your feet, holding your strayed hand as he listens some more. 

It can’t be Jungkook. 

Hobi wouldn’t listen to a word he said and that phone would’ve long been flung across the room, if it were him. 

You sigh a breath of relief, your body relaxing and slouching. You run a hand through your hair, gripping it at the back of your head to will some feeling into your muscles—as there’s nothing to fear. 

It’s over. 

It’s fucking over. 

No ruination. No devastation. No impending curse about to absorb your life. 

Nothing. 

“I understand what you’re saying and I appreciate your work and thought, but allow me to remind you that it’s Sunday and I don’t work on Sundays, neither do my employees—”

Oh, the big bad boss. 

The person on the other side interrupts him and Hobi scrunches his brows, mouth parting at the disrespect. Then, a smirk crawls over his mouth and he rolls his eyes, directing that smile towards you as the brightness in his eyes blossoms back. Playfully, he rolls his eyes again now that he knows he’s got your attention—and silently, he mimics the words the other person is saying, mocking them. 

You laugh, softly, your relief expanding in you and shifting you back into your comfort zone. Hobi’s eyes widen and, using his intertwined hand with yours, he presses his index finger to his lips to signal to you to be quiet. 

And he shouldn’t have done that. 

He refreshes your pool. 

And he seems to be aware of it by the way his countenance grows serious. It does something to you—the way he’s listening, working essentially, while being attentive to your feelings and state of mind. It’s attractive, the splitting of his attention. And you don’t have to rock your hips first—he encourages you to do it by curtly nodding his head at your hips, untwining from your hand and guiding your pelvis to dance again. 

Not for him. 

For you. 

And the pleasure is much bigger this time around. 

You can’t stifle your noises. 

“That sounds absolutely great,” he says, quickly, in order to camouflage the volume of your delight as you hump his thigh faster, more vigorously, your breasts bouncing and slapping against each other. Hobi watches them with a deep furrow of his brows and his bottom lip caged between his teeth. Tortured, absolutely tortured. 

It only urges you on—and you find yourself in a vapor of horniness. 

“Yes, Da—”

He clamps your mouth shut with his hand, your moan caught in his palm. That act alone drives you prematurely to the peak of your orgasm and you know, you know, that if your clit rubs against his toned, clothed thigh just once, you’ll be coming all over him. 

But Hobi manhandles you, pushes you down, gently, onto the floor. 

You’d think he was angry with you, hadn’t he smiled at you—and your vapor thickens, your hormones fucking with your brain. Hovering above you, he grips your throat, merely holds you there without any pressure, and he kisses the tip of your nose. 

He fucking kisses the tip of your nose. 

Your pool leaks onto the floor. 

“Be quiet,” he mouths and does it again, more prominently, to make sure you understand what he’s voicelessly saying to you. “Yes, I have about five employees in that department who would be willing to work on that. Very diligent and dedicated. One of the best people I’ve ever had under me.” 

He cringes, realizing the wrong string of words he used in that silence, and you burst out into laughter—one he has to silence by clamping your mouth shut again, looking away to focus on a fixed point somewhere in your bedroom while smiling himself. 

And you get his attention right back at you when you lick his palm. You expected him to be repulsed by it, but his eyes enlarge and his mouth falls agape as strange feelings wash over him. Then, he ruts against nothing and plunges two of his fingers, index and middle, into your mouth. 

Your slick is warm as it trickles down your flesh and onto the floor; your body hot all over from the situation, the secrecy, his dominance and his fingers alone. His eyes deepen when they slide over your full mouth and you can see, even through your thick vapor, the way he’s swallowing down his growls. He strokes your tongue, barely, softly, plunging them further until he hits the spot that makes you gag. It sobers him quite rapidly, the sound. Swearing—still voicelessly—he starts to pull out his fingers, but you wrap your hands around his wrist, keeping him there as you suck on those long, slender digits, focusing on not making a sound. 

His eyes lid, heavily, at your diligence. 

“Three months, you said?” He tugs his fingers out, that anger evident, but not towards you—towards the other person. And he lets it out by ripping your panties away from your body in a blink of an eye. “Can we make that two?” He caresses the silky skin of your mound with his knuckles, without venturing downwards, and you shudder, needing him there. “Rub your clit,” he mouths and you gasp, even though you don’t know why. You’re so overwhelmed by the respect he emanates, horny and sensitive that any word he’d throw your way would make you react this way. You feel like a schoolgirl; small, submissive, breedable. And you want to please him, make him proud, do as he says. But you don’t share the same hastiness as him—because before you can get to the end of your thought process, he takes your hand and places it on your pussy. 

He must be getting the same thrill out of it. 

You rub your clit, obeying him, and watching him watch the work of your fingers as you twirl them on that swollen, little flesh—it’s nothing you ever experienced before. Your pleasure quickens, as hasty as Hobi to get you to your peak, and you have to lift your fingers in order to not come quick, your lungs heaving, your mouth letting out short breaths that make him absolutely feral. 

“Oh, pup,” he mouths, the wrinkles on his forehead divulging the depth of his torment and pleasure from the sight. “Good job. So good. Yes.” He nods, encouraging you—and you almost come right then and there, but you lift your fingers just in time. Fists clenched, you throw your head back, frustrated but pleasured just the same. And you can’t take it anymore. 

Neither can he. 

He runs his hand down the middle of your body, stopping at your thigh, wrapping your leg around his torso. 

“If you can’t make that work in two months, then we have nothing to talk about,” he bites, panting, but he hides it well, his voice untouched by it. Firmness and respect coats it, strengthens it, gives a new instrument to the hymn of your clit. “I have things to do and places to be outside of Korea and I can’t afford to be held back by three months. I’m sure I can find business partners who’d be able to make everything work in just one—”

Seething, he leans over, grabbing your vibrator. He turns up the intensity, the sound growing louder and louder and you shriek, soundlessly. 

You’re going to explode if he uses that on your tortured clit—

“Apologizes for the noise.” Hobi spits on your clit, the long string of his saliva plopping onto your flesh, making you quiver and moan, quietly. “There’s construction work outside. I guess you’re not the only one working on a Sunday.” 

The bitterness, the snide comment—you feel like screaming, in the most delicious, exhilarating way. And you do, when Hobi places the vibrator down on your needy clit. 

He moves it, rapidly, from side to side while he’s still talking on the phone, but his words are a blur that you fail to understand, your whole being fixed and concentrated on the adrenaline blended with fireworks of intense pleasure that create an orchestra of passion. His imaginary wings unfurl and beat in the air, opulent and dusky black. His eyes never falter their hypnosis as they bore into yours, coaxing your orgasm out of you, while his mouth keeps silently telling you to be quiet, praising you to motivate you. 

And you do explode. 

In his face when he explains something you can’t comprehend. 

And you come again when he takes a deep breath, stopping short in the middle of his sentence, shocked, zestful, wet and ecstatic. You sprinkle his chin and his neck, ruin, most beautifully, his polo shirt and devastate, even more so, his pants. 

And he’s grinning, so awfully pleased. 

Lifts the vibrator. Doesn’t turn it off. 

“I’m sorry. I’m getting an important call from a family member, who comes first on days such as these. Please, don’t hesitate to contact my secretary and make an appointment with me. We will discuss further on the matter. Have a nice day.” 

And he’s smart. 

Ending the call, he turns off the vibrator and tosses both things sideways. Props both arms beside each of your shoulders. And the flush that was stifled during the entirety of the work phone call now peeks through the surface, the petals of roses licking across his skin. Your own flush promenades hand in hand with him in this close proximity, your golden aura, gained from your exquisite orgasm, bathing you in holiness. 

And you still can’t speak, tongue-tied. 

He sweeps away your flyaways matted to your glistening forehead, brushing his knuckles down your face. And when he reaches your jaw, he cups your chin and kisses you, tenderly. Gives you a hundred more. Little, hungry, yet pure kisses. 

“What did we just do?” He laughs, softly, in disbelief, shaking his head. You laugh along with him, your still lingering and heightened vapor causing you to nearly levitate underneath him. 

He kisses you again, deeper this time, more slowly. Your nectar gets smeared on your cheek from his with each voracious movement of his mouth, his head. And it’s an element that makes this become real for you. That helps you fathom that you just experienced an adventurous event that wasn’t a part of the curse—that was good, through and through. 

And it’s yours. 

No one else’s. 

And he makes it even better when he shares the details of his phone call with you. Lifting you up and carrying you into the shower, he tells you of the way the “motherfucker” tried to keep him from breeding you for three months. Was cocky enough to promise him he won’t find a better business partner to work on a project that Hobi’s been passionate about for weeks—a way to get older children better education in schools in terms of things that aren’t normally taught: surviving skills, basic medical skills, cooking skills and life skills regarding various of things that they will need during and after high school. His organization also offers a form of preschool and elementary babysitting, therapy, library, game activities, singing, dancing, language learning—anything to keep those kids busy and away from their phones. It’s a place of rest, a place of safety and comfort and Hobi works hard to maintain that. 

The guy offered his premises and means of educational materials, even though Hobi makes do just fine—but it wouldn’t be available for at least three months. He explained that he needed them for the semester, wanted to elevate his ways, which is why he sent out a word. 

He told you all this while washing you clean in the steamy, hot shower. And it wasn’t until a week later that you found out the guy truly wasn’t able to make it happen sooner, but upon talking with him in person, Hobi was so satisfied with him and his work ethic, that he was willing to risk it. What he didn’t tell him over the phone was that he specializes in a group of orphaned children, homeless, and those who live in children’s homes. And Hobi’s mind was blown, his heart moved and softened, enough to shake his hand and start working on this renewed, expanded project. He put the kids that weren’t his first—and you fell in love with him deeper than you ever had before. 

And it wasn’t until spring came about and the first heat waves of the sun caressed your skin that he booked the flight, paid for a luxurious hotel resort in Antalya, paid for your mani, pedi, your Shein order and shopping sprees in malls, where he found you the simple dress he was apparently going to marry you in, and held your hand the entire way there. It took half a year to fulfill his longing and his biggest dream—and half a year to break your curse. You spent it visiting him in the office to bring him snacks, eye patches and face masks, distracted him with quick fucks, strip-teases, blow jobs underneath the table while he kept his suit on, smeared makeup and lipstick on his face and collar whenever you were in the mood to make out with him. 

It took such a long time, but you didn’t mind at all—because at night, you and him would pretend. Hobi didn’t want you to get on birth control; cared enough for your well-being by not wanting to confuse your body for a few months. Settled for the play of pretending—for condoms and nutting inside, going through the motion that there’s no latex preventing his longing from erupting. And during the day, you got to know him on a more meaningful, profound level. 

He loves to dance. Has danced with you in the living room on multiple occasions. Slow dancing, bachata, lambada. He wasn’t shy; enjoyed every minute of it and you watched him shine like the heart-shaped sunlight he is. You found the core of him, like a seed within a cherry, when you had your arms locked behind the nape of his neck and he led your hips into the rhythm of the sensual song. 

He loves children because he was loved right as a child himself. Wants to pass that on. Wants the kids to know that love exists, no matter what they’ve done. You broke down when he shared that with you and wished a place, like his organization provides, existed in your forlorn girlhood. 

Maybe you wouldn’t have been so broken. So prone to bad decisions, imbecility. So liable to the poisonous kisses of curses, to their tempting touches and their manipulative sounds of sweet nothing. 

Hobi had given you a promise ring right after he told you that there was to be a long waiting period for the baby. And when the time came and spring opened their buds of flowers, Hobi proposed to you. A grandiose diamond ring on your finger; plane tickets and more wons that you ever held in your hand, safely tucked in a white envelope. That’s how he announced it to you. And he didn’t get on his knee on the beach, where you glued your heart together. 

Not in Seoul, not on the island of Jeju. 

He proved his devotion to you and his irrevocable love for you amidst the surrounding mountains in Juwangsan national park by the Yongchu waterfall, five hours away from Seoul. Scraped his leisure pants because for a while you were paralyzed before you burst into tears and started running around, your first reaction of shock dispersing and turning into a holy euphoria you never experienced before. He laughed as did many people who were witness to the engagement, his hands that still held the ring box shaking as the audience clapped and cried along with you. Your white, linen dress billowed in the warm, spring-breathed wind, but you didn’t care much for it—because when you gained feeling in your muscles and your hunger to kiss him overpowered you, you stole and drew all of his patchouli-filled breath. 

You made it yours as he became yours, too, eternally. 

And when you gave him your yes, the mountains glorified yours and his love, exalted your unified souls, worshiped your hearts that beat for one another. Sang the praises of your unborn child.

You inhaled it, with gratitude and great importance, and it swirled within you even as you continued on your hike. Even as you visited the Daejeonsa Temple, where you spent the most time, dwelling in that thankfulness. You took in the beauty of the greenery, fresh air and mountains differently, more thoroughly and tremendously because you sensed they were there for you. Flaunted their earnest opulence and fervency for your happiness, for they knew you were looking back. 

Life gained feeling, too.

And Hobi wouldn’t stop fondling your ring while he held your hand. 

It’s what he does now as he presses the hotel room card against the device by the doorknob, a half month later. And it’s not lightness that is intertwined in his shoulders, but immense heaviness. Your flight was delayed by two hours and you waited another two hours for your luggage. Hobi didn't have to say a thing—it was written all over his countenance and figure, the weight of his perturbation. From his solemn look, tense features, lack of speech to his slouched shoulders, slightly shaking hands and deep breaths. 

You don’t want to poke the beast, but you do want to pet it—make it feel better. Because despite the misfortunes, you don’t consider them setbacks or ruination. You are here, with him, engaged and about to get filled with his baby. No troubles can take that away from you and they can try as hard as they want. 

You are about to carry his berry baby, conceived from the orchard he built in you, in the middle of Antalya, Turkey. 

Nothing could be better than this. 

Thinking about it, it paints a smile on your face. Hobi plants your suitcases on your king-sized bed, paying very little attention to the swan, made out of towels, sitting prettily in the middle of it, surrounded by rose petals, the ones that live beneath his skin so joyously and most comfortably. Feeling pity for him, because you know why he feels the way he does, you take his arms and slink through them, hugging his torso from behind, nuzzling your face in his oversized shirt-clad back that he wore for the first time in your presence. 

Hobi? Oversized clothes? Strangely, it works, even though you’re so used to his suits, his well-fitted classic clothes that accentuate his buff figure. 

He sighs, running his hands down your sides like he always does. You kiss his spine, without fear as you chose to wear zero makeup for the flight, but then he clasps your hands in his—right there in the center of his chest—and you swoon, tender and in love, appreciating the gesture, even though he’s done it many times before. 

It’ll never get old. 

“I can’t breathe in this room,” he murmurs, sighing a little louder this time around, and you furrow your brows, a wisp of worry curling in your gut. 

You’re about to let go and open the balcony doors to let some fresh air in, but Hobi acts faster. He swivels halfway, takes one step back with you, and turns on the air conditioning. Waits a little bit, stares at a fixed point on the ceiling—only to discover that it’s not working. 

Hobi punches the wall, startling you. 

“Hobi?” you call out his name, the wisp fading into a strong wind that moves your organs to and fro. 

He pinches his forehead, seething, and your instinct is to put a stop to it. You take his hands, notice they’re trembling, and the wind is knocked out of you. 

Trembling hands… What are they portraying? Anger? Anxiety? 

You sit him down on the bed, coming to stand in between his legs, and you cradle his face. Even the muscles in it quiver. Feebly, but they’re there. Pity constricts your heart. 

“What’s going on?” you ask, searching for his eyes, and when he meets you halfway, there’s unbelief that paints a murky landscape across his darkened pools. The brightness is dimmed. Your heart laments it. 

“Everything is going to shit. I wanted this to be perfect for you, but the air conditioning isn’t working. We waited for hours at the airport—”

You kiss his forehead, silencing him, and you linger there, even as you reassure him. “I’m so happy to be here with you that I couldn’t even give two shits about that.” 

The unbelief deepens and you figure he expected you to be as disappointed and as cranky as him. He doesn’t understand that the time you’d been graced with, the absence of your ex and the opportunity to be in a place your heart had quietly dreamed of conquers any obstacles that have tried to get in your way. 

You can’t be shaken. 

Not anymore. 

“We’re not at the airport anymore, we’re here. You can make a call to the reception and they will send a guy to fix it. It’s already perfect because I’m about to hear your English, first of all. And second of all, you’re gonna—” Your tone lowers to a whisper, “—breed me. Do unspeakable things to me here. Are we gonna fuck in the ocean? Oh, my god. I want that so bad. We can go to the beach at sunset with very few people around and you can nut in me. We’ll have a sea baby.”

This time, his sigh is dusted with relief and he slides your thighs over his, making you sit on his lap. The brightness in his eyes begins to flicker, shining through the murkiness, making its way back, and you’re happy to see it—relieved just the same. Though, you note something else, something new appearing in those pools. 

The moon. Night-caressed pearls. The waves of the turbulent, passionate sea at midnight as they wash out that terrible landscape. 

The same moon he carved into your thigh on your first date. The same moon that you hope will be lining your skin once he smothers you in his longing. 

“I’m so grateful to have you. I’m so grateful to have you as my wife. No one compares to you,” Hobi says, the moonlit pearls in his eyes wet as he’s overcome with emotion. He rests his head on your bosom, hugging you tight. “I love you, pup.” 

You bury your face in his silkily soft hair, reveling in the fresh undercut he got for this baby-making vacation. He purrs, happily, like a kitten, when you gently scrape your long acrylics upon that gritty surface. 

“I love you, too.” 

It’s time for dinner by the time you both come out of the shower, sharing one humongous towel. You push him down onto the bed and massage his back, helping him unwind on a deeper level—until his body is light and soaring, his eyes drowsy and lidded. Arm shading the lower half of his face, he studies the way you make love to your body by lathering it in shea butter lotion, then dressing it in a skin-tight, pale green, sleeveless dress with a slit in the back, its hem almost reaching your ankles. You put on some Aretha Franklin and open your clear makeup bag, reciprocating the eye contact in the mirror in front of the bed as you squirt foundation on your flushed cheeks. 

You didn’t realize he was watching you. 

“No panties, no bra?” he asks, his tongue dry as he licks his lips, still naked, glistening in the sundown from your lotion. Your eyes wander to his lower regions and find him hard. 

You smile, tapping in your foundation with your beauty blender. 

“I made the mistake of accidentally ordering extra small instead of small, so it’s tight on my body,” you explain your lack of underwear, your mouth ends quivering as he just keeps looking at you with bottomless devotion. “So I don’t want any panty lines or straps.” 

“I think that’s no mistake,” he says, his hand gripping his shaft for a moment before it relaxes, concealing his weakness for you. “I’m gonna rip it off of you with ease once your belly’s full. And I’m gonna make it fuller.” 

You bite your lip, blending your concealer, feral. “Careful, or no dinner for you.” 

Hobi chuckles, his body twitching, and you sink your teeth deeper into the pillow of your bottom lip. “Why?” 

Cream bronzer—you suck in your cheeks, making him suck in a breath. “If you keep talking, we’re skipping dinner and I’ll force you to make good on that promise.” 

He scoffs, the sound full of humor. “There’s no forcing when it comes to you.” 

You put on cream blush for nothing as your own natural blush resurfaces under that layer of makeup. “Your game will never not get to me, Hobi.” 

He hums in response, a tinge of embarrassment coloring that sound, and you coo, finishing your make-up with a thin eyeliner, mascara, brows and a brown lipstick. You brush out your hair, letting it cascade down your back. Put on some gold hoop earrings. Spray on your perfume. Crawl over Hobi’s lap to show yourself to him. 

“What do you think?” 

He fails to cup himself now that he’s turned on his back, with how long he is, and you pry his hand away, kissing his palm, marking it with that brown shade. 

“Beautiful,” he breathes out and your smile aches. “I’m gonna fight anyone who looks at you tonight.” 

You laugh, softly, leaning over to plant that same mark in the middle of his chest—just like he marked you all those months ago. “No need to fight for me. Are you gonna get dressed?” 

His shyness comes through, his flush reaching his neck and collarbones, and you salivate. 

“I’m hard,” he says, nearly pathetically, and you coo, endeared by him. Grasp him with your left hand, purposefully, and his eyes flick to your ring, moaning. “Oh, pup.” 

“What are we gonna do with you? I just put on my lipstick,” you whine, pouting feignedly, and Hobi whimpers, enveloping your hand with his fist, leading you to fuck him in a fast rhythm, the left over lotion on your palm making it slick and easy. 

“Just lick my tip and stroke me like that,” he croaks out and you feel your folds soak with your nectar. You were fine with him marinating your makeup, but this is better. “You don’t have to suck it. Just lick it with that tongue of yours, pup.” 

You swear, moaning, darting out your tongue and kitten licking the ridge of his head like he asked, twisting your wrist as much as he lets you in the deathly grasp he has over your hand. 

“That’s it, baby. You know how to do it. You’re my smart girl. My smart wife,” he praises, throwing his head back as he takes the pleasure you give him, going as far as hollowing out your cheeks on that sensitive part of him, despite the fact he told you that you didn’t have to. He groans, deeply, lifting his shoulders from the bed and gripping your hair, his hand trembling all over again. “Fuck, you make it so hard for me not to fuck your mouth.” 

You moan around him and he pulls you away from his cock and smashes his mouth against yours, kissing you so devastatingly ravagedly that you can’t breathe and you grow slack in his hold, sinking onto your knees on the floor. 

He holds your face as he lets you go, your foundation and lipstick smeared all over his chin, lips and cupid’s bow. You gasp at the sight, gulping. 

“I’m sorry, pup. You’re gonna have to redo your makeup. I couldn’t help it. You’re just so good,” he apologizes and you can see it on his face, how serious he is about it. “You deserve to be kissed like that. Hm, you’re such a good pup for me.”

You mewl, missing his lips already, and you quicken your pace around him. He lets you, matching you, and his sounds rise in volume. 

“I’m gonna come so quick for you, just because you look so good like this.” 

You hiccup, squeezing him. “Like what?” 

He hums, licking his lips, tasting your girlishness, and he grins, lopsidedly. “So pretty on your knees for your husband with your makeup ruined, knowing he did it because you sucked him so well.” 

The third person. You die—you die a beautiful death. 

“Oh, fuck, Daddy.” 

“Yeah, baby. I know. So good. Like always with you.” 

And you come back to life. 

You moan, giving him your all through your motions, sucking him, licking him, going even as far as taking his balls into your mouth, spreading your noises all over them, divulging how much you love that part of him. And he warns you before he comes. Doesn’t want to ruin your dress. And you watch as he spurts his cum all over his stomach while you milk it out of him—bedazzled, in love, fucked out and absolutely mesmerized.

And you rub his cum into his skin in the way you’ve noticed he likes to do on yours. Dig a grave for all the negative things he had to go through because of you and for you. You didn’t do that all those months ago, focused as you were on forgetting. But now that you’re healed from it and so is he, you dig that grave deep. Throw in his rightful anger, your ex, the painting. Sweep the soil back over it. And never look at it again. 

He thanks you for taking care of him. Tells you that it was all because of how beautiful you are. Cleans the little you left behind of his own nectar while you fix your makeup. Dresses himself in black pants and a shirt that makes you laugh so hard that your stomach hurts. 

A black and white shirt with a pattern of condoms. 

“What?” he asks, but laughs along with you. “We’re saying goodbye to condoms once and for all, pup.” 

You blush, terribly. He leaves the top buttons undone, letting all eyes see the way you marked him with your brown lipstick. 

And he gets stared down at dinner. Cares very little, as smitten as he is with you—can’t lay his eyes off you as you walk, even as you eat and drink your Turkish tea, as you sway your body to the live, foreign music while your cigarette smoke dances along with you. Can’t stop touching you either—has to have his hand on you under all circumstances. On your forearm, the back of your hand, your knee or your thigh under the table. 

Your belly, after all that food. 

“I’m gonna marry you,” he says after a long moment of balmy silence. The spring wind, drifting from the palm trees, chilly ever so faintly, brushes your hair away from your face, caressing so coolly your freshly washed body, and you’re obsessed with the feeling. With his reminder that he’s gonna marry you. With him. With the fact you’re here with him.

There’s no other place you’d rather be. 

“I know,” you intone, shyly, grinning, so terribly happy that its sparks detonate on your face, your thumb mindlessly playing with your ring. “I feel at home here.” 

He seems to be touched by that. But you didn’t understand the gravity of his words. 

Not until later. 

Two strong cocktails in, the night falls. The musicians gather their instruments to leave, but Hobi, with a mind of his own, pulls you up to your feet to dance with you to the song of that balmy, restful silence. And the ardent dance, filled with twirls and sways, catches the eye of one of the musicians. An elderly man, with ebony hair, mustache and tender wetness in his eyes, picks up his decades-loved violin from its case and starts playing a song unheard by the night. A song made, intimately and privately, from his own gentle, but kindled heart for you and Hobi. The fervid song, tied with the fire of a passion shared between a husband and wife, moves you to tears and once the man sees them, he weeps along with you. 

With your face pressed against Hobi’s, he barely leads you in the dance as you still ever so slightly to listen to that expression of love and marriage, paying your full attention to it. And if there ever were any forgotten crumbs of cranberries in your blood, the man’s mastery and Hobi’s touch smooth it out, completely. Order it, wordlessly, to swim out of your tear ducts. 

The man ends the song and you and Hobi clap for him, bowing in all respect and sincerity. He sends you a heartfelt kiss and a thumbs up Hobi’s way, pointing at his shirt and you wave him goodbye, laughing. 

No need for words. 

All was said. 

And Hobi senses it, a changed man. Because when you walk up to your hotel room and he sets you down on the bed—he doesn’t rip your dress away from you like he promised he would. No, he takes his time, revealing your skin little by little, kissing and licking every inch that opens for him. He’s that embodied passion and he unravels himself on your body, sucking on your perked nipple as he holds the rim of your dress beneath your breasts. Sighing, humming. Circling the tip of his tongue around that sensitive trigger. Your moans echo around the spaciousness of the room and he answers each and every one of them with his own. 

“Do you want it now? On your first night here?” he asks, pools whisked to yours, grazing your nub with his teeth. You cry out, spreading your legs as far as the tightness of your dress lets you while Hobi’s body compresses them down with his weight. 

You want it every night, every day until you have to return back to Korea. Want to be so full of his nectar that you’ll still feel it, even at home. 

“I want us to try every day,” you say, stroking his hair, shuddering as he rolls his tongue up and down on that nipple of yours, nuzzling his face in your breast as he sucks it. Makes your brain malfunction a little bit. “Do you think they sell pregnancy tests in that little shop? I should’ve brought some from home.”

Hobi grows serious, popping your nub free. His puffy lips search for yours, enveloping them in a deep kiss. And he spreads tiny kisses on your cheek and jaw as he responds. “We can say fuck it and take that test when we get home.” 

The same seriousness closes down upon you. “What if we fail? What if there’s something wrong with me that I don’t know about?” 

He cradles your face, his thumb fondling your skin, your black eyelashes, sturdier than they usually are due to your mascara. “You’re young, you’re healthy. You have nothing to worry about. I’m older. What if my swimmers are blind, hm?” 

Your eyes wet at the thought, but a sweet reminder seizes you—the softness you saw wrapping around him when he told you about the renewal of his work project, the amount of poor children without parents or homes that have won over his heart. And your answer is ready on the tip of your tongue. 

“There’s always the children from your work. We can adopt. As many as we want.” 

Hobi looks into your eyes, deeply, for a long time. And you don’t catch the drenching of his pools, nor the tender glint, the wetness of the pearls. No, you catch a single rivulet trickling down on each of his cheeks, plopping down onto your chest. The hard sucking in of his breath due to that softness swathing him all over again. The tremble of his lip. The petting of his hand over your hair as he exudes gratefulness. 

“I love you, you know that?” he whimpers and you burst, your own tears dripping down the sides of your face as you take him in. The raw, compassionate and humane version of him that only few, selected people are allowed to see. You, his mom, his dad, his sister and… little Luna. And you sob, your whole body warm from the amount of love that boils in you for him. “You’re my good little pup. I love you so much.” 

“I love you,” you whisper, your voice broken owing to the intensity of your feelings. Hobi kisses your neck and your hand brushes down his back, scattered with myriads of condoms. Try to feel for his wings. Want them as sensitive as his heart. “Your swimmers aren’t blind. They have 20/20 vision.” 

Your little joke causes him to chuckle, adorably, and he makes that sound travel down your throat as soon as he kisses you again. Slowly, carefully—as if engraving the shape and the feel of your lips deeply into his brain, into his system that he will give to you. You want more of him, the intangible things as well as the tangible ones. All of him, all that put his being together; all that helps him get up in the morning and lay his head down at night. 

And it invigorates you, the knowledge that you will get just that—once he fills you up with his nectar and his swimmers find you, perfectly. Yours and his berry baby will grow amidst the orchard he will continue to take care of; and you will have him. 

Eternally. 

Beyond death. Beyond the end of time. 

You will have him—and you will have a little him as well. 

“I want you,” you whisper onto his lips, perking up your breasts for him by squishing them together and he sees you, sees what you’re doing and he licks your nipple again, both of them at the same time in fact, torturously slowly, humming. “And I want a little you.” 

Lifting his head to kiss you, nastily, he groans. The smack of yours and his mouth, the ridding of your dress—still slow, still sensual. He studies your body for a moment, shuddering, full of longing for him and his nectar, ready for him with the way it’s glistening in sweat and arousal. And he sighs, differently this time. 

The sound is coated with as much longing as your body is. 

You love being looked at by him; love the knowledge that he’s looking at something that’s his. Always been his to transform, make new, clean and heal. Always been his to love. 

And he kisses his pathway down your tummy as if he thought about the same thing, his hands following every inch of your skin, fondling the places he kissed, licked and sucked. Not hard enough to create a mark, but lovingly enough to moisten you even more, to make your heart swell—and something else, too. 

He stops at your navel. Squishes the lower belly fat, biting it as he coos—and you can feel how much he loves that part of you; always has. Because of that, there’s no insecurity tightening your lungs or worrying your brain. Only balminess, the sound of cicadas, the dance of the palm trees as the wind blows through it, the faraway sea sloshing upon shore and his noises caked with yearning—for you, for the baby. 

“Our baby is going to live right here,” he says, as if he was coming to terms with it, now that he’s about to make it happen, and you soften, running your hand through the tufts of his windswept hair. “It’s going to grow and feel our love. Feel how much I love him or her. How much you do.” 

You nod, a liquified softness. “Do you want a boy or a girl?” 

He gazes at you through his lashes and butterflies zap your stomach. “I want a baby that looks like you.” 

Your heart, too. 

“So, a girl?” 

He rubs his face in your tummy, breathing evenly against it. “Even a boy can have your features. Your hair. Your hands.” He takes it, the one closest to him, and drifts his fingers through yours. “I want to hold their hand and know I’m holding yours. And I want to give them the love I have for you.” 

A film flashes through your mind. A little boy, sitting on a sofa next to resting Hobi, watching TV while his Daddy absentmindedly plays with his small fingers, kissing them, biting them playfully to make him growl in that adorable way. The same little boy growing into a young man, having been watered by the love Hobi has for you and the new, fatherly love he gained for him. One that does not cease even as he’s older. 

A boy, a man loved by his Father—ceaselessly. 

Something you never had, but your child will. 

You don’t realize you’re crying until Hobi wipes your tears away. Your heart thumps so rapidly against your chest that you believe it could poke through the flesh. 

And you fall for him, all over again. 

“That’s the most beautiful thing you ever said to me,” you whisper, high on your heightened feelings for him, high on him. “Besides, ‘will you marry me?’”

Hobi smiles. Moves you so your head reclines on the pillows, knocking towel swan off the bed, making you giggle. And he sits on his legs, clutching your waist, thumb rubbing circles on your tummy, squished and overspilling in your position as you wrap your own legs around him. 

Comfortable, safe, elated. 

“Two days from now, I want you to wear that dress I bought you,” he says, his smile blossoming wider and your lips mimic the same movement for some reason, despite the fact your brows furrow in confusion. 

“What dress?” 

He slides his hands up your highs. “The white one. The one I told you I was gonna marry you in.” 

A soft gasp leaves your lips and a mist of tears thicken in your waterline, understanding what he’s saying. “Are we—?” 

“Yes, pup.” A stream, not a rivulet, cascades down his cheeks and you break, you break beautifully and happily. “We’re getting married in two days. I prepared everything. Your parents and mine are flying in. I paid for their plane tickets. A small wedding with the closest. My sister slapped me when I offered to pay for hers—”

An alarm rings loudly in your sternum and you don’t think before you voice it out. Hasty in a way you don’t like, but it’s due to a certain fear that you feel expanding throughout your body. 

“What did my Dad say?” 

Hobi’s smile doesn’t fade and it spurs a fragment of ease to shoot down your form. 

“Your Dad gave me his blessing.” 

A brand new shrub begins to grow in your orchard. The final one. A shrub of goji berries, healing, beneficial to your Father complex, the very means that will treat your scar caused from it, rejuvenate the skin that bears his ignorance, lack of love, care and attention. 

And you can’t breathe.

Hobi lays the front of his body against yours, propping his chin against your chest, holding the side of your face in his hand, tracing your shock and unbelief with his thumb. 

“He looked at me as if he wanted to kill me, but once he heard that I mean well with you and that I make good money at my job—actually, once he heard that I work with children, his whole demeanor changed—”

“He loves children,” you blurt out, your vision unfocusing. “He just doesn’t love me because I grew up. It’s some kind of block in his body, I don’t know.” 

Hobi pauses for a moment, thinking about your words, his thumb now tracing your lost eyes—your eyelids, your eyelashes. 

Your Father played with you when you were a little girl. Took you on walks around the city. Bought you McDonalds. Taught you how to count money when you were struggling, unsure if you had enough from the paper Wons he gave you. But once the sadness of your girlhood absorbed your life, his presence in it shifted and moved away. 

And never returned. 

“He does love you, he just doesn’t know how to express it. That’s what I sensed,” he whispers, his hand descending to your neck, and you wonder if he feels the twigs of those goji berries underneath that skin—that quickly they grow. “If he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have listened to a word I said. He wouldn’t have asked me if there’s anything I needed from him in terms of the wedding. And he wasn’t mad about the fact that it would be non-traditional and in Turkey, though your mom insisted she’d wear a hanbok anyways.” 

You’re so overwhelmed that you can’t speak, the notion that your Father always knew you strayed away from your heritage and preferred the West sneaking into your heart. He accepted it; and he accepted Hobi. 

You reach within yourself, pluck a goji berry and feed it to the emptiness that lived within you for too long. And you do it again and again—until there’s no hollowness that eats at your insides. 

You’re whole.

“Thank you for telling me,” you murmur, brushing your knuckles down his cheek and Hobi leans into your touch like he always does. “That healed me. I can’t wait to marry you.” 

Hobi mirrors your softness and kisses you with it. And it’s now that the dip of the scar in your skin replenishes—through each and every moment of his mouth against yours and through his shifting to the place between your legs once you coyly ask for him there. He eats you as if he were starving, and it has great meaning to you—the fact it’s someone you love that is consuming you and not your emptiness anymore. Your feet slide across the pattern of the condoms on his back and it quickens your orgasm in the middle of his sucking and finger-fucking, all owing to the fact that Hobi made order in your life; healed your Father’s complex and now is preparing you to impregnate you, only to marry you two days later. 

You come so hard that you don’t sprinkle him, but drench him whole, your nectar painting him in glimmering light that becomes holy in the moonlight that streaks through the balcony. 

He heaves, ferally, kissing your clit over and over again—so hard that he’s essentially sucking it and you cry out in overstimulation. 

“Taught you how to squirt, didn’t I?” he growls, hovering above you as the drops of your nectar pitter-patter on your chest and within your shyness due to his words, you’re ready for him. 

He did teach you that. Since the fateful day of his work phone call, before and during which you edged yourself so painfully that when he pleasured you with your vibrator, you exploded just the same, you aren’t able to have dry orgasms. He has triggered something within you, using his businessman voice and respect, that rains for him and it has changed your sexuality once and for all.

“You did,” you try because of your shyness, your hands instinctively popping the button of his pants open, and Hobi hums, wiping his face clean and pushing his soaked fingers inside your mouth. 

You didn’t expect it and the loud moan that slips out of your throat comes as a surprise to you. Hobi’s length twitches beneath your hands and twitches again when you suck on his fingers, just as loudly. 

“I love it when you squirt for me, but pray to God, pup, that you don’t squirt around my dick because I’m not pulling out, you hear me?” he rasps, his voice deep and solemn, causing your walls to clench tightly and your heat to reach a boiling temperature. Your hand, mindlessly, slinks to your pussy to rub your clit and he tips his head, noticing it. “Move your hand.” You do, your heart bouncing in your ribcage. Hobi begins to thumb your clit and you writhe your body against the mattress, following each circle with your hips, the pleasure faint but so good. “Do you think you can hold your orgasms for me once I fuck you, hm?” 

You whimper, regarding the idea impossible, knowing how well he does it. Impossible and rapturous. “No.” 

He chuckles. Stops his circles. Lets you use his thumb. “I’ll make you, then. I can stop anytime.” 

You roll your eyes back, his dominance-tinged words better than the stimulation of your clit. “Can you?” you bite back, playfully, your shyness vanishing. 

Hobi bites his lip, intoxicated by your new confidence. Pins your hands above your head, leaning his weight on them. Brushes his lips against yours. “Don’t go bratty on me now. Don’t do it to the baby.” 

You choke out a curse and Hobi digs his half-moons into your forearms. The moonlight anoints them, purifying the atmosphere. 

“I’ll be good for the baby,” you whisper, curling your hips to feel more of his manhood, eager for it. “And good for you.”

Hobi growls, kissing the skin beneath your jawline just once. “A good what?” 

You know what he wants you to say and your eagerness lengthens. “A good pup.” 

Shifting so he can hold both of your wrists in his singular fist, he glides the tip of his cock along your feminine flesh—up and down, up and down. 

“That’s it. A good Mommy for the baby and a good pup for me.” 

He buries himself in your heat and it’s the breaking of the curse upon your life, for the intention is there. The final installment to your healing of your Father’s complex because you’re not a little girl anymore, walking in the withering forest of your saddened girlhood. 

You’re a tender woman and you’re being made love to. 

There’s respect to the languid and dionysian movements of his love, no matter the hardness he uses. A breath is choked out of you and he inhales it, letting your hands free to cradle your neck, pressing his forehead against yours as he moans. Your mouth is parted and Hobi plays with your tongue without closing down his lips on yours, which causes you to mark your nails down his lats. Goosebumps decorate his skin at the feeling and he speeds up, beckoning out your whiny noises as you take it. 

His cock, the healing, the respect, the love. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, consuming your noises as soon as he kisses you. Doesn’t stop ramming into you. “I love you, my pup. You’re my life.” 

You cry out and he rips the coil of your orgasm by filling you to the hilt and lingering there, stimulating your clit by giving you fast, little strokes that makes his mound rub against it. And the orgasm overtakes you, your whole body limp and delighted as the heavenly pressure courses down every nerve ending, spreading that healing, respect and love, sealing it there. 

“God, that was beautiful,” Hobi comments, stunned by the explosion of your pleasure, and he begins to give you long, hard strokes that empty out your brain and try to push out your sudden guilt for coming when he wanted you to hold back your orgasm. 

“Oh my God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“No, pup,” he groans, the muscles around his eyes tightening as he pants. “You’re good. Just keep coming for me. I was only kidding, pup.” 

He takes your nipple in his mouth, his back strong and monumental and you sink your nails into it, marking him with the same half-moons, blushing, joyful. Hobi returns to your neck, your jaw and lips and you whine at the principle of him returning. 

The feeling of it is so enormous that you come again. 

“Yes, pup, that’s it. Come for your Daddy. So pretty, yes. I’m so close. I’m right there with you. Gonna make you a Mommy.” 

The words that are true, at last. Not a pretense. 

And then he’s fast, fucking you into the bed. Changing his mind at the last minute and lifting your hips into the air, slamming into you so hard that you have to hold onto his forearms, scattering your half-moons there and you take it all, ravenous, yet tender as you are. The squelching noises, his growls melting into soft mewls as you squeeze around him and it’s him who can’t take it. 

Who can’t take the distance. 

Who places your hips back down and eats your mouth, plunging his tongue inside while keeping up his rhythm. Never once faltering, nor wavering. He kneads your breast, sucks on your lip, bites it. Holds you by your throat, pushing his thumb inside your parted mouth and you have a feeling, amidst the haziness of your mind, that’s your trigger. One of them, at least. 

“Suck on it.” 

You clamp down on his length, obeying. Your orgasm inches closer, your fourth one of the night. 

“Good pup,” he husks, closing his eyes for a split second, slowing down, rolling motions. “Are you ready to become a Mommy for our baby? Daddy’s so close.” 

The sound that leaves you is of such a desperate kind that he grunts, delighting in it. Buries himself inside you to the hilt, stopping there, giving you tiny strokes that scramble your brain, plays with the haziness. Your arousal and your yearning is so raging and feverish that the pain of his tip osculating your cervix feels divine. And all you can think about is how it’s going to widen over time for yours and his baby. 

“Yes, yes, please. I want it. Give it to me, please, please, please,” you beg, your lungs and your pulse quickening, muscles taut and Hobi moans in a way you’ve never heard him before. 

The longing at its peak, sensitive, delicate and frail—yet he still remains as strong and monumental as he is. His Achilles’ heel has been struck and he begins to twitch inside you. 

“Oh my God, pup, I’m coming so hard for you.” Long strokes, whimpers. “Are you gonna take it like the good little wife you are?” The ultimate hard thrust—the blooming of his longing, your agreement, and it’s happening. He comes. “Fuck, fuck, yes. It’s all yours. It’s all yours, pup.”

He paints you anew with the warmth of his nectar, fucking it deeply into you. And the title you utter is not one construed out of your lack, but it’s a crowning of his new role. 

“Daddy.”

The final breaking of the curse. 

The conclusion. 

He continues to ram into you, softly, his thumb finding your clit—and it’s over. 

Everything. 

You step into a new life with him while you’re still connected and he keeps coming for you, his swimmers antsy and desirous to find your egg. And crossing the threshold, you come—devastatingly intensely, your body trembling and his mirroring the same shakes while he gives you the last of his all and a kiss that lasts a lifetime. 

A clean slate, a clean heart, a clean body. 

A clean life.

An orchard, brimming with fullness and ripeness. 

Ready for your berry baby. 

He looks at you for a long time, then, grinning so widely that you can sense the entirety of his joyful heart in it. His eyes wet and his smile softens as the gravity of what just happened washes over him. You feel the same process collapsing over you, splendidly, and you think that you and him must have become one. 

“We did it,” he whispers, a tear pouring down his cheek and another one following. 

You nod, your cheeks stained with the same tears. “We did it.” 

And the newness of your life and being feels natural—just as though it has been there the whole time. 

On the day of your wedding, bright early in the morning—after Hobi woke you up with his sensual The Weeknd playlist and ate you out so calamitously that you had to give it back to him by riding him into oblivion—you sit down for breakfast and discover something about him that almost makes you call it off. 

Hobi put strawberry jam on his butter toast with scrambled eggs. 

The Turkish sun envelops him bewitchingly, makes his tanned skin glow in its light as he enjoys, provocatively, every bite of his strange breakfast, focusing all of his attention on it. His eyes never leave it and his mouth smacks so loudly that it as irks you as it makes you laugh. 

Your unbelief towards that combination is so strong that it took you some time before you could speak up. 

“What the fuck, Hobi?” 

His eyes flick in your direction, innocently, cheeks full and squirrel-like, layered in sweat. His hands hold a half of the toast, despite the fact you and him just sat down. Does he really enjoy it that much? He inhaled it. 

“What?” he asks, mouth full, and you chuckle. 

“Jam and eggs?” 

He swallows, making a sound that divulges just how much he loved that bite. “Pup, it’s so good.” 

You widen your eyes. “I’m not marrying you today,” you say, but you don’t mean it. You’d marry him even if he forced that abnormal toast down your throat. 

He’s not one bit perplexed by your sentence. Stares you down as he runs his tongue over his teeth, mouth closed. “Be quiet.” 

Heat comes apart in your body and you blush, squeezing your thighs together under the table.

“How could a combination of eggs and jam be good?” you ask, standing your ground, despite your feelings. 

Hobi smiles. “One time I accidentally put sugar instead of salt on my scrambled eggs and it changed my life forever.” 

Your eyes might pop out of your sockets. “What?” 

He laughs, extends his hand towards your face. The sweetened, yet buttery smell of the toast hits your nostrils and your repulsion towards it dissolves. “Try it.” 

You don’t trust it, though. “I’d rather die.” 

He tightens his lips. “Be quiet and take a bite.” 

Taken aback, your instincts win and you don’t realize your head is leaning towards the toast until your teeth sink into the crunchy tastiness. You take a small bite and thoroughly chew, the mixture of sweetness and a little bit of saltiness, wrapped around the crispiness of the toast and the slight mushiness of the eggs creating something metaphysical in your mouth. 

Hobi watches you with a proud, lopsided grin. Knows you like it before you say it. 

“What the fuck?” 

He bursts into laughter and lets you have it, places it on your plate before devouring his second one, your liking for it elevating his. 

And you devour it just the same. 

“Life changing, isn’t it?” he intones, smacking his mouth in all the pleasure of the world. “Expect this kind of breakfast every morning when we get home. After I eat out your little pussy.” 

You choke on it and hide your feverish face in your hands, your stomach doing somersaults. “Oh my God, Hobi.” 

He laughs again, tenderly, and the sound travels all the way to Cappadocia, where he marries you at sundown. 

On the rooftop of a cave hotel, overlooking an immeasurable amount of kaleidoscopic hot air balloons that magnetically travel to the heat of the orange sun, the mountains and volcanic peaks darkened by its overpowering magnificence. It encourages the sleepy walk of camels and tightens the hearts of the witnesses below and the hearts of your parents, parents in law and Hobi’s sister. 

The simple dress Hobi bought you ripples in the compassionate late afternoon wind. Silky, pearlescent like his eyes in a certain light, caressing your tanned skin. So very akin to the one you wore on your first date with him, but longer, sleek, homeric in its significance.

And he matches you, all white, in his tuxedo, a stark contrast against his bronze skin and black hair, a wispy strand softly being blown sideways from his forehead by the wind. He holds his tears back in the same way he holds your hand—with all his might. And you do the same. 

You share your vows. 

He shares his, intertwined with the first poem you recited for him. 

“I’ll carry your heart with me ‘til my last day on this Earth and I will fear no fate because you are my fate.” 

Through your tears, you can see the way he’s stifling his habit of saying your pet name. And when he catches your quivering smile, he breaks into more tears. 

And when you proclaim that you do take him as your husband and when he proclaims that he takes you as his wife, your tears conjoin as do your souls in a kiss that makes the mountains quake. The heat of the Turkish sun perpetuates the act of love. 

The audience cheers. 

Your Father weeps.

And you believe no sadness, no ruination will ever come close to you again. 

You and Hobi celebrate. Dance throughout the night to foreign, passionate music that your heart seems to know. Fly in a hot air balloon, where he gets drunk and kisses you until your lips get numb. 

Almost throws up all the dark liquor he drank once he sees how high from the ground he is. 

And you can’t stop laughing. 

Not as he takes you to the Valley of Love the next day to look at penis-shaped rock formations that nature apparently formed out of the blue. 

Not as you give birth nine months later and he makes his sound effects as you push out his child. 

A baby boy that has your hair, your hands, your mouth and your chin—and a whole lot of Hobi’s pearlescent eyes and slender nose. A delectable, heavenly concoction. 

And certainly not as you take the five-year old boy to the Yongchu waterfall, where his Father proposed to you, and he starts sputtering out uncontrollable giggles when Hobi tells him that you ran around when he popped the question and precisely, with utmost detail, shows him how. 

On your way back, when little Hyeonwol’s legs hurt and drowsiness weighs him down, he surveys the mountain peak, transfixed by it. You and Hobi notice it at the same time and share a look that could never be described through any poetry, through any beauty of words, not even the ordinary kind. 

And it’s automatic, a silent, collective and simultaneous decision to break Hyeonwol’s spell by kissing each of his cheek. 

The dream came true. 

All dreams have, even those undreamed. 

And you believe that even as you grow old with Hobi, you’ll never stop laughing. 

You’ll never stop eating strawberry jam toasts with scrambled eggs with him. 

With Hyeonwol, too. 

And you'll never stop feeding the berry boy the fruits from the orchard that Hobi continues to take care of within you.

HYEONWOL — HYE-ON-WOL 

賢월

Meaning: worthy moon 

This name is given to a worthy person who is as precious as the moon. 

𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan.

© 2024 hoseoksluna, all rights reserved.

BACK to masterlist | READ part one | READ part two | READ part three | READ part four | READ part five

[r3starttt]

Ditto

a/n: part two of don’t delete the kisses! this whole story is based on me atp 🙁 I love new jeans and the song felt right so…

Prt.1 | Prt.3 | Prt.4

Warnings: mentions of suicide. very cliche and cheesy. fluff.

“I got nothing to lose. Stay in the middle. I like you a little”

If pain must come, may it come quickly.

Because I have a life to live, and I need

to live it in the best way possible.

If she has to make a choice, may she

make it now. Then I will either

wait for her or forget her.

You’d died some years ago, one day after your birthday to be specific. You’d left your family, friends and girlfriend with no previous warning, so suddenly that everyone that knew you broke into so many pieces when receiving the news.

Everyone felt so off, so confused. How could you be laughing with everyone just some hours before simply stop existing? Why didn’t you ask for help? How long had you planned the whole thing? How did all of this even work?

It was no surprise to anyone that you weren’t the most healthiest girl, but how did nobody ever notice that you weren’t good that day?

Your parents couldn’t stop blaming themselves, the rest of your family could not stop crying for months after you left, your friends couldn’t deal with school knowing you wouldn’t be there and your girlfriend, she felt so sick. She felt like maybe she should also try, just to be with you. She felt physically weak at your lost.

And if it wasn’t for the letters you left before doing what you did, if it wasn’t for your parents and their love for you, if it wasn’t for your girlfriend and the respect she’d always had for you. She would’ve probably done it.

“Mom, dad. I love you both with my entire heart. Words cannot describe it.

And I’m so sorry I left.

I have one las thing to ask you, please take care of Ellie.

Please be nice with my friends and take care of them like I did.

Please support on Ellie and let her support on you.

Please forgive me. I promise we’ll meet again.

Tons of love, your daughter.”

Those were the last phrases written on the letters you’d left for your parents. You’d planned everything for so long. And yes it sucked that you left but for you it was the best. You died so peacefully and made sure everyone knew.

You made sure everyone would move on.

And so they did.

And so you did.

You were born again. This time it was a pretty normal life, just you and your mom, some friends from school and that was it. But the more you grew up the more things started to get more complicated.

You’d had the most beautiful dreams about a freckled girl whose name was El, she had the most pretty smile you’d ever seen. And those dreams were so continuous, you’d have them every day. There were many pieces left but the general context was there, and honestly you felt like it wasn’t necessary, it all felt just too familiar.

You’d find out that El was actually Ellie, she loved dogs until one bit her and she never ever wanted to get a pet, until you got cats so she begged her dad to get her one. Everyone called you Mel so you just assumed that was your name. And Ellie was definitely your best friend.

But those dreams became nightmares, or at least that’s the feeling you got whenever you woke up. Ellie was always there, but you felt sad, you felt empty and annoyed all the time. And it felt so real.

You’d cry in your sleep and your mom would always come to your room to wake you up, but you never explained to her what was it. You had the feeling you shouldn’t tell her.

And it all made sense the moment you turned eleven. They weren’t dreams or nightmares, just your past life. And it made you feel sick because of everything that had happened.

It wasn’t your only memory, not even your only life. But that’s the one that came first to your mind.

And how could you just ignore it all when it felt incomplete? When you still remembered every detail of it and when you remembered all the promises you made to Ellie but couldn’t accomplish?

You had the same taste as her, same interests too, so your plan was to get to college with her, graduate together and then travel around the world together. Become rich together, have lots of cats and if you’d convince her, make a family.

But the heart is way more powerful than the mind, and it all stayed like that, like a dream some teens in love made one day.

From that age on your life had changed completely. Good grades without trying, thanks to all the previous knowledge, smarter than the rest of your classmates and more mature of course.

You did anything to search for Ellie, to understand why was she so important. Turns out she was the privileged one in this life, or that’s what it looked like since she’d go to the most prestigious schools. Roles this time were kinda inverted, or maybe it was just a coincidence.

There was nothing you could do to find her, at least not at that age. She lived far from you and attended to schools you could never afford.

So the only thing you could do was live your life as a normal person, grow up and find a way to get close to her.

And that’s what you did. You forgot she existed during most college, you were stresses and doing homework or studying all the time. Working on projects, doing exams.

You just didn’t had time to think on anything else. But it was worth it because that allowed you to get your dream job, and eventually your dream life.

“God, baby, I’m gonna miss you so much” your mom opened her arms, waiting for you to hug her. You practically run to her, she smelled so good, and she was always warm, how comfortable, how comforting “you’re sure you don’t want my help with building stuff?” right, you’d just moved to a not so small apartment.

“I promise mom, I’ll find a way to make it work” she kissed your forehead gently, laughing at the lipstick mark left on it “I’ll clean it, don’t worry” you stopped her hands before she’d try to clean it with her saliva “I hope you learn to value your mother once you see how hard it’s to be an adult”

“Oh stop the drama! you know I love you” now you were the one hugging her, tightly as if it was the last time you’d do it “Call me if you need anything, you know time never matters Mhm?” you nodded.

The moment your mom left and you closed the door you took a deep breath, because maybe you should’ve said yes.

There were at least 10 boxes displayed in the whole apartment. You didn’t even know what it was. The bed was already there, so was the couch and a huge tv, what else did you need and why had you bought so many things for the apartment?

“Fuck me”

You had a big body yes, but not strong at all. And yes you were smart, but not enough to understand the fucking instructions that came with everything you had to build for probably the next whole week.

It was late at night already, probably around 10pm, and so far you’d only managed to build your desk. You were currently sitting on the cold wooden floor as you ate some shitty ramen you’d bought thinking it would taste amazing. It didn’t and was stupidly spicy.

Your fingers were moving all over your phone, scrolling trough Pinterest and then trough Instagram and changing the same two apps over and over again until you finished eating.

All your lights were off but the light coming from the outside thanks to the huge windows was more than enough to illuminate the whole place. There was a small balcony right in front of the windows so you went outside, taking advantage of every place of the building since it costs almost too much for what it offers.

So you stay outside, resting your arms on the railing as you kept on scrolling through the same apps, looking for more inspiration for the apartment. Until you realize what you’d have to deal for the rest of your stance there.

A guitar being played coming from the apartment right next to yours. You sigh in annoyance because whoever is playing is not even good at it an you’ll probably have to listen to the same song until they learn how to play it.

“She wanted a band…” Ellie, your girlfriend, your best friend, the girl you broke her heart once, she wanted to become a singer, until you, her best friend, the girl she liked so much, told her how much she sucked at it. So stubbornly she quit and told everyone how it was your fault.

A sigh escaped out of your mouth, was it worth the try? would Ellie even fall for you again? was she even single? was she even your Ellie?

You’re so stupid.

-

The loud buzzing accompanied with a not so relaxing song wakes you up. 8 am in the morning, too early for a day of doing nothing-well, making your apartment look pretty.

You turn off the alarm and stare at the ceiling in pure silence for probably the next ten minutes.

It has been a week since you’d arrived the building. At this point you were already getting used to someone playing the guitar at night, you’d even go outside to hear the progress.

Back to today’s day. It all goes as what has become your new normal. You’d had the most non healthy breakfast and then you’d start to put together a new piece of furniture.

Today it was the last day of it actually, the only thing left was a small shelf that wouldn’t take much time.

And that could only mean one thing, today was the day you had to finally take out all the thrash.

So once you finished you lazily walked trough the whole apartment. Picking and folding boxes, and panicking over the exaggerated amount of plastic that came with the wrapping of all the furniture you’d bought.

You put all together so you didn’t had to go in and out of the building more than once and went outside your apartment, walking towards the elevator and sighing in pure relief because it was thankfully empty.

But things can’t be perfect because the moment you placed everything on the floor to throw them separately in the huge trash containers in front of you, the plastic started to fly away due to the weather.

Fucking unnecessary air.

Before you actually panicked a hand grabbed the huge piece of bubbly plastic, extending her arm back to you “need any help?”

Blessed necessary air.

Maybe your face looked as shocked as you felt because the very gorgeous Ellie standing in front of you tilted her head slightly, probably confused.

“Uhh yeah, thanks” you noticed how she had a tattoo on her right arm, she was wearing a pair of black jeans, some dirty converse and a white tank top under a baby blue plaid shirt-Were you staring too much?

“You just moved in?” she put the plastic under her arms and threw a small plastic bag on one of the containers “Mhm, a week ago” she nodded, awkwardly “I thought I was loud”

“Not at all, well, it’s probably the apartments, they’re kinda sound proof or something” you placed the last box on the container, meeting her eyes. They’re just as pretty as you remember.

“Really? I’ve been hearing this guitar all week at night, I don’t think they’re good if that’s the case” your two walked towards the building again, a small awkward smile forming on her face.

“Yeah…. that’s me, I thought no one could hear me. Sorry”

That changes all, suddenly the guitar is not annoying at all, in fact, you’re waiting for listening to it every night.

“Don’t worry it’s fine just… never mind” and then there was pure silence between the two of you as you walked inside the building.

“I promise I won’t be so loud” she was playing with her fingers “It’s fine, really. Im used to it by now” there were som loosen hair strands covering her face, she was looking down, probably ashamed “It’s the only free time I have to practice, I’ll try to to it earlier”

The elevator opened, she extended her arm so you would go inside first

“Its your house, feel free to do whatever you want, it doesn’t bother me el”

Fuck

“You know my name?” she panicked, maybe it was someone she knew but didn’t remembered?

“Mhm?” Play dumb, it always work

“You said el, did I hear wrong?”

“Yeah, probably” you clicked to the floor where you both lived at, turning your head towards her “Is that your name then?”

“No, actually, it’s Ellie. Ellie Williams” she extended her hand to you, she’s so cute, you thought. You did the same, shaking hands as you told her your name.

“Is it okay if I call you El then?” please say yes “yeah, I don’t mind it”

The moment you got in your apartment you wanted to scream. She was even prettier than what you remembered.

Your head kept on repeating the small conversation you just had with her, over and over again.

You decided to go to her apartment next day. being new in the building has its advantages, like casually gift her some food to maybe apologize for how loud you’d been even though you weren’t, or to thank her for being such a nice neighbor today, or any reason that gives you the chance to see her again.

-

There it is, Ellie’s guitar, at its usual hour.

You had just finished cleaning all the dishes you used for dinner. Fucking adult life. And were laying on the couch, scrolling trough social media.

Until you hear her of course.

Discretely you stood up from the couch, walking with your bare foot to the big cristal door that leaded to the balcony and getting outside, just like you did when you just arrived.

Hands resting on the cold railing, head resting on your wrists and Ellie’s guitar playing right next to you. This time one of the windows were open, she’d done it on purpose, didn’t she felt ashamed for being so loud- or maybe you’re exaggerating every interaction with her and overthinking everything that’s related to her.

-

The doorbell rings three times. 10 am. Too early.

A loud groan escapes from her mouth and she covers herself with her gray hoodie. She freezes the moment she steps out of bed because there’s only a pair of sorts covering her legs. Who the fuck is looking for her?

Maybe it was a bad idea to stay later at night playing the guitar for the pretty girl living next to her. She’s freezing, sleepy and exaggerated tired.

Or maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Oh…. did I wake you up? I’m so sorry” because there you are, standing right outside her door “Do I look so bad?” she chuckled, rubbing her eyes “I’m really sorry I just…. I wanted to thank you for yesterday and also apologize in case I was loud”

You extended your hand to her, giving her a small plastic bag with some food in it “I’m going out later, sorry for being here so early-“ she took the bag from your hands, finally looking back at you “it’s fine, you didn’t had to, really”

Would it be okay If she asked for your number? Would it be okay if you asked for her number?

“I was wondering If I could get your number too? just in case…”

You weren’t even finishing your sentence when she was already grabbing her phone

Maybe it was gonna be easier than you thought.

-

Week 7 of living here. It was indeed easier than you thought.

However there still was this thing bothering you. What should you actually do?

Yes you’ve met her casually and yes the bond with her was forming naturally. But what’s with your past life thoughts?

Because those “dreams” and “nightmares” had came back. And it was painful, because you regretted the decision you’ve made, almost every day. And it felt wrong to feel guilt, but how could you not?

And all these thoughts were eating you alive because what if you loose her again, what if she looses you again? Could you maybe talk with her about this? Or maybe-

“You good?” a cup of tea is placed in front of you. she sits right next to you, placing her legs on top of the chair. you nod.

“You zone out a lot” her lips curve upwards, making her dorky smirk appear. you smile back “There’s always thoughts on my mind, sorry”

“I wanted to ask you something…. don’t laugh alright?” “Don’t act so shy then” she rolled her eyes

You took a sip from the tea she had just made, staring at her face and trying to read the expression on it. She wouldn’t say anything.

“You can totally say no and I’ll act like nothing happened but uhm… would you maybe like to…. I don’t know, go out or something?

“As in a date or as in friends?” of course you knew what she meant, you couldn’t confusing the laughter “Yeah el, I’d like to go out with you” she smiled, moving her hands around her neck. She was probably burning inside from the shame.

“Is this how you always act around girls?”

“I always get asked first”

“Oh sorry miss hot, sorry for wanting to be asked first too”

“So you wanted to…. Why didn’t you ask?”

Her hands practically slapped her face, she’s so dramatic.

“I don’t understand how didn’t notice. I couldn’t stop looking at your tattoo when we met”

“I just thought you liked it”

“I also stared at your lips”

Silence. Just the sound of you sipping the tea, purposely loud.

“Stop it”

-

The date had basically been going out to every place near the building.

Walking trough a small park as you ate ice cream, shopping together at many thrifting stores and finding out you’re both so different yet with the same taste.

Both changing the conversation topic whenever a cute dog or cat passed by. Talking about pets, she sharing with you how she feared dogs when she was younger because one day a dog bit her, you feeling your heart almost exploding because it reminded you of the old Ellie.

Lots of small fights over who’d pay for the food and eventually letting her pay for you. Ellie wanting to hold you but being to shy to do it until you decided to grab her hands and then she wouldn’t let you go.

“Tell me more about your childhood, how was it to be born rich?” hopefully it wasn’t as depressing as you’d experienced it on your past life.

You were holding hands, walking back to your apartment. It was night already, not too late though.

“Great actually, I didn’t had to put much effort growing up. School was a pain in the ass thought, my parents would pay me classes to study after school and when they knew what I wanted to study in college they almost fainted, they practically told me I wasn’t that smart” a chuckle came out of her mouth “But they were always there for me. I didn’t have many friends though, I’ve always been very shy and introverted. What about you?”

You were too focused on how pretty she looked. She noticed and just smiled at you.

Was it the right time to kiss you?

“My life’s normal, I only have my mom and I’ve never connected with people so I just had some school friends growing up, nothing too deep. I was smarter than the rest of my class so I could skip some school years”

“I thought you were my age” her lips pouted in confusion “so you asked me out without being sure of my age? What if I’m five years younger than you?”

“You were the one to accept” she let go of your hand, holding her arms on the air acting innocence “I’m just two years younger, don’t worry you’re not doing anything ilegal”

Your arm extended, holding her hand again. Both of you gettin inside the building and then walking to the elevator.

Maybe now it was the right time to kiss you?

Her lips pressed on yours. Both of you closed your eyes, you could feel the grip on your hand tightening softly.

Your bodies felt like they were made for each other. The way her hands were the perfect size for yours, the way her fingers intertwined with yours, the way her mouth touched yours so delicately and so perfect.

The way your hands were the perfect size to fit on the back of her neck. The way her hands were the perfect size to fit your cheeks.The way your noses touched trough the kiss.

How beautifully your hearts had the same beat. How your breathing was as steady as hers.

It was a weird feeling that both or your bodies experienced as soon as you kissed. So familiar, so warm, so comforting. A deep form of love that could be experienced all over the body. A love that felt so safe and addictive.

And you two were craving for more.

Ding

The elevator opened, making the both of you break the kiss, which didn’t even last much, but it felt eternal, it felt like the right thing on the right moment.

The way your bodies and faces changed after it spoke more than words could ever. She couldn’t stop staring at you, and you weren’t precisely trying to avoid her so you did the same.

The dizziness that the elevator itself cause on the body combined with the way you two felt was almost too much to take. It felt so overwhelming, and finally it was in a good way for your body.

To you it just felt like peace, like you’ve done the right thing. No more regret or remorse, no more fear or anxiety.

To her it felt like this was meant to happen, like a deja vu that came out of nowhere but was meant to appear. Like if this had a deeper meaning behind it and she had to discover what it was. Like all of this had a deeper purpose for her and her life.

Soulmates, she thought. But it couldn’t be, she didn’t believe in that.

Ding

The elevator opened again

“Do you mind staying with me?” you finally stop holding hands with her, just to look for your keys. But before you could get your hand in the pocket of your jeans she stopped you “Stay at mine, I wanna show you something” a dumb smile appeared on your face.

It wasn’t the first time you’d go to her apartment but you’ve never seen it properly, you’ve never been there at night either.

-

You had arrive to the building probably about three hours ago. It was currently 12 am, Friday.

You were on her balcony as she played the guitar. She only knew a couple of songs and wanted to show to you how she didn’t suck as much as you thought she did.

And you gladly accepted. You had the perfect view of her tattoo on full display as she played the guitar, you could hear her pretty voice as she sang and the light coming from the other buildings was just perfect.

Ellie on the other hand, she could see your pretty eyes shining at her sight, she could see the way your hair fit you just perfectly on your body. How there’s some strings of hair tucked behind your ears. How pretty you smile is as she sings.

And it might be exaggerated but she feels like you’re the one. Like you didn’t just move to this building for no reason, like she didn’t decided to take the trash out that day so randomly for no reason, like you didn’t just appeared in her life for no reason.

You couldn’t just be a small romance on her life and then leave. This couldn’t be temporary.

You made her feel so familiar, like she had known you for years. She decided to believe in destiny, she believed that maybe you two were just meant to find each other, like this was meant to be. And you were just fine with it.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” your voice came out low, almost like a whisper. Her head moved towards you, she hummed thinking about her answer “Or…. reincarnation”

That word made her feel shivers all over her body. An image showed on her head for just the blink of an eye, almost too fast to even notice.

She was laying on the bed with someone else besides her, same question being asked. It changed her response.

“Maybe” unconsciously she but her bottom lip, just staring at you “do you?” she saw you nod. Your eyes were looking straight to hers, and for the first time on her life she didn’t felt like looking away. She felt unexplainably comfortable with you.

“Don’t mind me being so weird but…. I already know you” she just laughed “I’m sure we’ve met before, somewhere else at a different time”

“Maybe it wasn’t the right place, or the right moment” so she agreed? “I feel the same but I don’t think I’ve seen you before though” would it be okay if you tell her the truth? Would she believe it?

“Why you think that is?” and unconscious sigh escaped your mouth “What?” “Everything” she chuckled, lowering the guitar to the floor.

“Maybe destiny wanted something different, but love always wins right?” no, it doesn’t “And maybe we ate too much and it’s too late so we’re wandering” she stood up, white socks stepping on the floor as she walked inside. She stood on the frame of the door, waiting for you to get in.

“Wanna watch a movie?” She closed the door and placed her guitar on a wall, her place somehow was so tidy.

It had a lot of things though, a bunch of furniture filled with comics, books and vinyls. Some figures that looked pretty expensive. You only recognized the spider man one.

She had a console near the huge tv placed in her living room, and a bunch of pillows alongside a small blanket on the couch.

“Why do you have so many pillows in here?” she was already turning the tv on, laying on the couch and patting besides her so you would sit there. And so you did.

“I take a lot of naps in here during the day and fall asleep after working, I don’t realize I’m sleepy until I can’t even stand up so I decided to bring this here”

How could she be so lazy? and why was it so hot of her to be lazy?

“So you take naps while you should be working?” she nodded “I’m guessing you’ve been doing it for years now, I can’t believe you still have the job”

She just shrugged, casually opening her arms along the couch. And who in this earth would deny to cuddling with her?

None of you realized but eventually both just felt asleep, hugging each other, embraced by the warm blanket she’d covered you both before playing the movie.

[phoxey]

Decide.

This is part 2, for part 1 click here

Lusher x Bebe!reader

CW: still angst, alcohol, breakdown, mental health issues

AN: I promise this has a good ending. trust me.

Her eyes filled with tears.

She didn’t answer and you watched tears rolling down her face before you sighed.

“I see.”, you whispered but Seoyoung looked at you as though you had slapped her.

Without another word you left the room, the building and Seoyoung.

With every step you took, your heart broke into more and more pieces. It physically hurt you, but you kept walking. A part of you wished that Seoyoung would run after you and try to get you back, but you knew she wouldn’t, she had made her decision. And you had made yours.

You wandered restlessly through the night for what seemed like twenty minutes but were actually hours. At some point you sat down on the side of the road, no care to be seen. Slowly you got out your phone.

23 missed calls. 8 by Bada, 5 by Tatter, 4 by Minah, 3 by Cheche, 2 by Kyma, 1 by Soweon.

Seoyoung didn’t call you once.

Your messages were going crazy as well.

Bada:

What happened? Seoyoung is crying! Come back! She told me what happened. Come back please. We can figure this out. Pick up your phone! Please

Taeyoung:

Pick up pick up pick up Please Please Where are you? We are worried! Come back, we can talk about it! I promise, everything will be alright!

You huffed. As if. Nothing would be alright. Seoyoung and you would have no future together, not if she was ashamed of being your girlfriend. You know it was fanservice and it didn’t mean anything, but you couldn’t stand seeing her flirt with the same people who cursed you out.

You stood up and wandered around some more. The streets were almost empty. The sky was clear, and you could see many stars. Seoyoung would be talking about the star constellations now if she were with you. Or show you a star and tell you that it was your star. She was cheesy like that. But you couldn’t help but notice how the stars didn’t shine as bright this night and the moon seemed smaller than usual. It seemed like the night sky was sad. Reflecting your own feelings.

Before a tear could roll down your cheek, your phone interrupted you. It was Seoyoung’s mom.

“Hello?”, you asked timidly as you picked up.

“Thank God! What is happening? Seoyoungi sent us a cryptic message, but we can’t reach her!”

“I…I think we broke up.”, you said, your voice cracking.

“What why?”

“Long story… What was the message?”, you asked worriedly.

“Look, I really don’t know what happened between you two, but she wrote that her life doesn’t make any sense anymore, and that she wished she wouldn’t exist. That you would be happier without her.”

“What?!”, you practically screeched.

“Do you know where she could be? I am scared, she will hurt herself.”, Seoyoung’s mom sobbed.

“I think I know. I will talk to her. Don’t worry.”, you said hastily and ended the call.

You practically sprinted to the apartment that you and Seoyoung shared.

When you came in all the lights were off, but you could hear sobbing from the living room. Carefully you turned on one of the dimmer lights. Seoyoung sat in front of the couch, slumped over, her entire body trembling with sobs. Tears shot into your eyes. Then you noticed the many empty soju bottles around her.

“Oh God…”, you whispered and were immediately next to her, a hand on her back.

She looked up confused. Her face was swollen and her eyes wet and red. Her pupils were large and unfocused. You couldn’t resist and leaned in to kiss her forehead, as you always did when she was crying.

A sharp pain shot through your face when she slapped you before your lips could reach her forehead.

“I have a girlfriend!”, she said angrily.

“W-What?”, you stuttered confused and held your cheek.

“Oh right… not anymore… she hates me.”, she slurred.

Only then you realized that Seoyoung was probably too drunk to even recognize you.

“She doesn’t hate you.”, you said gently, wanting to calm her.

She shook her head. “She does. I hurt her.”

“Seoyoung… nae nabi…”, you sighed.

“That’s what she always called me.”, Seoyoung sobbed. “And I’m so stupid and hurt her. I didn’t want to… I swear… I only wanted to protect her…”

“Protect from what?”, you asked confused.

“M-My girlfriend… she had suffered too much already…”, she hiccupped. “She wants to go public, but I’m scared that… it will hurt her only more…”

“What do you mean?”

“Her parents said cruel things because she loved me… If the public found out… she would live through that again. I don’t want her to be subject to that again… I love her so much…”

Tears started rolling down her cheeks. “I’m sure she would live through all of that again happily if that meant she could kiss and hug you for the world to see.”, you whispered.

“Do you think?”, Seoyoung asked. Her hands started to frantically search for something. “I… I should call her… Apologize… maybe I should post on Instagram… about us.”

You took her hands gently. “Talk to her tomorrow, she is probably asleep right now. And you should too.”

“Yeah… I don’t want to wake her. She is so pretty when she sleeps, y’know? She will tell you no, but I like to wake up next to her and she is still sleeping… So peaceful…”

“You can tell her tomorrow, okay? She would want you to sleep now.”, you said and pulled her up.

Seoyoung wasn’t able to keep standing, but before she could fall you had already scooped her up into your arms. Gently you carried her to your shared bedroom and put her on her side of the bed, but she immediately rolled over to your side.

“This side smells like her… I miss her…”, she mumbled into your pillow.

You couldn’t help but smile fondly. You tucked her in, wrapping your blanket around her. Then you laid down next to her, watching as she drifted off to sleep. You thought, she was right. A gay relationship would hurt Bebe in the competition. You would tell her that it’s fine to come out after SWF was over. That you would delete your social media until then.

You quickly sent Seoyoung’s mother a text, that her daughter is safe and fine, before you covered yourself in Seoyoung’s blanket and falling asleep as well.

You woke up to a hand on your cheek and half opened eyes gazing at you.

“I must be dreaming still.”, she whispered.

You turned your head to kiss her wrist. Then you smiled softly at her.

“You’re not. I’m here.”

“Listen, I-…”, you broke her off with a finger on her lips.

“It’s okay.”

“But-…”

You shook your head. “No. Don’t.”

She closed her mouth then and proceeded to caress your cheek, lost in thought.

“Penny for your thoughts?”, you asked.

“You know… I’d always choose you.”

[crippleprophet]

Is it okay for people with agoraphobia to look and take some of the advice you have for housebound people on here? I'm not really great at picking up nuance so I'm worried that it'd be crossing some boundary or that it's not the intention of the tag

that’s completely okay, i appreciate your desire to be respectful even though i’m sorry you were concerned! i absolutely consider folks with agoraphobia my comrades + community members and i’d be super honored if anything i’ve shared is helpful (+ am always interested in hearing what that was if you’re comfortable!) the rest of this is not anything you need to answer your question, just thoughts i’ve been having on the subject

i haven’t had the opportunity to talk to enough homebound [due to chronic illness / “physical” reasons] people to know if this is a common experience but for me i’ve noticed that similar to chronic illness often carrying depression with it, since becoming homebound i’ve become terrified of leaving the house.

this is definitely influenced by the fact that it’s untenably painful, my photosensitivity (in the UV sense not the epilepsy sense), the ongoing pandemic, the fact that i only left the house to go to the doctor for over a year & i’m afraid of the doctors appointment itself due to medical trauma, etc etc but like. there’s also the very strong pull of habit – i’m an incredibly obsessive & ritualistic person – and what Goffman refers to as “the relief of self-isolation” for marginalized people sheltering from a hostile society, a phrase i read in undergrad 5 1/2 years ago that’s stuck with me ever since for how profoundly it resonates.

i’m not trying to say these are necessarily your or any other person with agoraphobia’s feelings & experiences, more to illustrate how the liberation of all homebound people & shut-ins & hermits is bound up together; any sanist strategy for oppressing agoraphobes can easily be leveraged against me, not least because as a severely underdiagnosed person, the medical establishment does not think there is any “legitimate” “physical” reason for me to be homebound. to respond to this oppression by arguing it’s inapplicable because i’m not crazy would be untrue + a cruel act of lateral violence.

i’ve been reading a lot of butch/femme history recently (i post about that on my main @campgender; followers age 18+ only please) & have found myself entirely reconfiguring my understanding of the queer art of isolation, the incredible ability of our ancestors to hunker down & survive under circumstances unimaginable to the average person. i absolutely don’t want to deny the deep pain – not only the aspects i experience but also the heightened isolation of people without or before internet access + the ways these circumstances / forms of oppression can foster abuse –

but my god, so many 50s butches didn’t leave their homes during daylight hours for years in order to not be hate crimed for their gender presentation, & that’s the folks who were making it to the bars. so many others – “discreet” couples who didn’t want to risk being outed by engaging in queer community; people assigned female who “passed” as men & their partners; butch sex workers & other people with identities perceived as contradictory or unacceptable – existed marginalized by both queer & normative communities.

every time i think substantially about homeboundedness i always get tracy chapman’s “subcity” stuck in my head. obviously my access to housing period is a huge position of privilege, & i’m in the most economically secure position of my adult life so far; the abjection i experience is nowhere near the scale of people in the position of the speaker of the song, who’s implied to be street homeless. but the line “people say it doesn’t exist ‘cause no one would like to admit that there is a city underground” is such a succinct & accurate depiction of living the kind of life society tries to convince itself is impossible. but there truly is a rich genealogy of homeboundedness especially in queer history.

again i hope some of my posts & such are helpful / resonant! wishing you all the best 💓💓

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Triangulum - Chapter 3 - An Unwelcomed Guest

— — — — — — —

Bill’s head hurt.

A searing ache throbbed at the back of his skull while consciousness returned to him once again. No pain in recent memory compared to something like this; even getting his eye ripped out of its socket had been more of an inconvenience at worst. It took forever to regenerate those things!

The closest thing he could compare such intense pain to was his outright death, which sent a jolt of panic through his mind that only furthered his headache. He wasn’t dead again, was he—

“Why would I go through all this effort to bring you back, only to deceive you about what I have to offer?”

Oh. Right.

Any concerns were washed away in an instant as the feathery face of the shelduck drifted to the front of his mind. Not just their face, but the conversation the two of them had shared in the mindscape. The game they had wanted him to play, their contract, the destruction of the barrier as a prize—

—something was wrong.

Even with his eyelid still closed, Bill could physically feel a disconnect with his body. 

It was difficult to verbalize properly—his eye felt too distant from his limbs, and his usual shape felt noticeably altered. As if he’d slipped into a costume with lots of awkward parts, ones that stuck out in ways that forced him to be aware of their existence as he tried to descend down a narrow passageway.

Almost exactly how he’d felt whenever he possessed someone in the past. 

But the way the body suited itself around his existence, it didn’t feel like it would belong to a talking, anthropomorphic shelduck. Even with his eye closed, Bill could still feel a lack of any feathers pinpricking their way through his skin, or a beak protruding from his face—

“When did I ever say you were going to possess me in this game?”

…Ah.

Alright, even he couldn’t ignore a good loophole dodge when he saw it. Point to Tangy for their oh-so-clever little trick; he’d be sure to give them kudos for it later. 

Kudos in the form of soaking their tacky windbreaker in a gallon of rotten tuna fish for a month. Good luck getting the smell out after that one, Birdbrain!

“—what if he’s not even in there anymore?”

“Yeah, he could’ve jumped out after Wendy clunked him on the back of the head!”

“Are we even sure it’s him in the first place? Just sayin’, some random kid cackling maniacally in the middle of the woods isn’t the weirdest thing to happen around here.”

“Everyone just hold on a second, I’m trying to think—”

The sound of frantic, hushed voices stirred him further awake, and he fluttered his eyelid—no, wait, eyelids plural—open the tiniest amount to investigate. 

It didn’t seem like Birdbrain had taken any extreme measures with his vision; he still possessed a functioning eyeball. But rather than being set in the center of his face, his vision had taken a hard shift to the left and weakened to a noticeable degree. And while his vision hadn’t carried over to the right side of his face, he could feel another eyeball rotating around in its socket.

Almost as much as he could feel a set of teeth and tongue in a separate cavity much lower on his face—oh, eugh, he’d forgotten how bizarre it felt to have his face parts separated like this, and not even the fun kind of bizarre!—or a protruding nose right smack dab between his new pair of eyes.

Alright, so Birdbrain had gone humanoid for his vessel. Bit cliché, but nothing he wasn’t used to by this point. And if his mouth and eye placement weren’t enough to confirm this fact, peering open his eyelids further revealed his head to be slumped forwards, gaze fixed on a pair of black-panted human legs that were clearly attached to his body.

Yep, there was no denying that he’d been slapped back into a meatsuit mecha.

An even-riskier peek around him revealed he was currently tied up in some sort of bedroom. One clearly owned by the word’s most generic older woman of all time; creme-colored floral wallpaper decorated the walls, a shelf lined with creepy, porcelain dolls was situated near the door, and a comfortable old recliner had been set up near the fireplace—

—hang on, wasn’t this just the parlor room in the Shack?

“He’s awake!”

Shoot. Guess he’d made it a bit too obvious that he’d regained consciousness.

Bill’s head snapped up to full height at the sudden exclamation, only find himself on the receiving end of a number of different intimidation methods—all to various degrees of effectiveness.

Mabel’s weapon of choice was her beloved grappling hook. One of the better options of the bunch; metal was strong enough to shatter a fragile human skull if aimed at just the right spot and applied with just enough power and force. Terrible for his current vessel, but Bill could appreciate a healthy level of bloodlust.

Stan’s brass-knuckled fists were—admittedly—also an inspired choice, given how effective his fists had been in the past. A fact that Bill was happy to ignore and brush to the side as he shifted his attention over to—

—the random plank of wood in Dipper’s hands, one he was gripping tightly with all the intimidation of a mildly-inconvenienced kitten. Yeesh, had he even tried?

Of course, Pine Tree’s embarrassing incompetence was compensated in full by the gun in Ford’s hand, both the barrel and his own violent gaze locked onto Bill like his life depended on it.

Hmm, that was annoying.

And here Bill had hoped he could keep his return discreet for at least a short while before these suckers caught wind. Maybe strike some fear and uncertainty in their naive minds by staring ominously at them through their windows, only to vanish from sight when they came over to investigate. 

Were their minds playing tricks on them now that they were back in town? Were they simply paranoid as a result of what happened the year before? Or was there really someone watching them beyond the shadows of the trees? 

Maybe if his methods were effective enough, Ford would even start shooting at the woods in a blind panic. Heck, maybe one of the kids would even get caught in the crossfire!

Y’know, fun stuff like that.

But unfortunately for Bill, it seemed like he’d dropped right into the belly of the beast and Ford had gained the upper hand while he’d been unconscious. 

Any attempts to move his new human limbs revealed them to be restrained to the chair he was seated upon; arms tucked behind the back and bound at the wrists, torso tied in place—what, had there been a sale on rope or something? It was a miracle they’d left his legs alone—or maybe they’d just run out of rope by that point?

Nope, an abandoned piece near the far wall rendered that guess incorrect. Maybe they just hadn’t had enough time to restrain his legs, then?

Moving the focus back to his captors, Bill’s gaze bounced from person to person as he took a quick stock of their expressions. Unanimous hatred and fury trying so desperately to mask the uncertainty and fear behind their expressions. The clear desire to come across as intimidating, despite the trembling hands around their weapons.

So much fear, despite having the upper hand over him. Bill was tied to a chair and barely conscious, yet he could get a reaction like this outta them?

Good.

Because otherwise, he had no idea how he would be able to spin this situation to his advantage. With the element of surprise and mobility no longer an option for him, tapping into those fears and insecurities was the only weapon that Bill had left at his disposal.

Speaking of which—

The silence in the room stretched on as the Pines continued to stare at him, to the point where Bill was starting to grow bored. Sure, leaving them forever entrenched in uncertainty might be fun in theory, but that also required him to remain quiet for just as long.

And while that wasn’t an impossible order, Bill Cipher was not the kind of triangle to sit and behave quietly if he had any say in the matter.

He needed just the right comment to break the ice. A perfect reintroduction to his presence in their lives, one that would only strengthen that fear behind their eyes.

“I gotta ask, what didja think a gun was gonna do against me?” he asked with a grin at Ford. “I mean, do you really think regular old bullets are going to be enough to get the job done?”

His pupil flicked over to Dipper. “Guess it’s better than whatever Junior’s got going on over there, though,” he said. “Seriously, Pine Tree, a piece of wood? I guess you might have a chance at beating me in a game of interdimensional rock-paper-scissors, but outside of that, I don’t like your odds.”

Just for good measure, he punctuated everything with his loud, trademark cackle—one that shook the room and everyone in it.

Oh yeah, that’d do the trick nicely.

Sure enough, everyone’s grip on their weapons tensed, the fear in their faces now completely tangible as the worst scenario they could possibly imagine was confirmed.

“Bill.”

It was Ford who spoke first, tone marinaded in venom as he stared Bill down. Such vitriol sent another cackle throughout Bill, his body wiggling with delight against the bonds that held him to the chair. “Aww, it’s good to see you too, Sixer~!” he said sweetly. “What’s it been, about nine months now? Nice beard, by the way. Really brings your face together in a way that those sideburns didn’t, know what I mean?”

His amusement fell with a vindictiveness he made no attempt to mask. “Although if you ask me, I’d suggest taking up that old face-burning habit of yours to clear everything up and start fresh,” he said, narrowing his eye—eyes. “I mean, you’re clearly the expert in burning things around here. Facial hair, bridges, minds with me in them—”

Bill was cut off by the cold, threatening steel of the gun barrel being pressed against his cheek, pupil flitting up to Ford’s own cold, threatening gaze. “Stop talking.”

Oh, he was real mad. 

Of course, not even Ford’s ire was enough to silence Bill completely, and he managed a smug grin despite the distortion of his cheek against the weapon’s tip. “Again I ask: just a regular gun? No Quantum Destabilizer? No memory-erasing device or fancy-schmancy magical weapon from your precious journals? You must really getting dull in your old age if you're busting out the repeat performances, Fordsy.”

He tilted his head, half in thought and half to give himself some breathing room. “Although I have to wonder why you didn’t just try to kill me while I was knocked out, if you’re this trigger-happy?”

The answer to that one was pretty obvious. Given their initial reactions, they hadn’t been certain if he had actually been possessing someone—and they weren’t about to go and murder an innocent human on the off-chance they were wrong. And now that he was awake and his presence confirmed, they weren’t about to go and murder an innocent human while he was possessing them.

And if that was truly the case, it probably meant he was free to run his mouth as much as he wanted.

Probably. 

Maybe?

“Ooh, lemme guess: you wanted me to be awake before you pumped me full of lead?”

…Aw, heck with it; he couldn’t resist a chance to press a few more of Ford’s buttons! To really test the waters on what he could get away with saying or doing. “Well, I’d love to see you take your best shot at it~!” he continued with a wide grin, one that show far too much of his gums. Guess that was one benefit to having a humanoid vessel again. “I know it’ll probably get a real laugh outta the poor sucker I’m puppeting around now—”

There was a click of the hammer as the tip was pressed further into his cheek, to the point where not even leaning away from it would pull Bill out of its line of fire.

Alright, limit reached for the time being. “Okay, okay, geez, I get the picture,” he said, rolling his eyes in annoyance. “Can I at least ask for a mirror or something? I wanna see what I’m working with over here.”

Okay, maybe one more. “I’d fetch one myself, but as you can see, I’m a bit tied up at the moment~!”

Ha. Hilarious.

Luckily for him, his clever little risk seemed to pay off in the unexpected way of making Ford lower his weapon, with an added bonus of painting a look of confusion across his face. And judging by the looks being exchanged between the other family members, it was clear that his little joke had been far more effective in causing confusion than he’d originally intended.

After a few more minutes of perplexed silence between them, it was Mabel who eventually—and hesitantly—spoke up with a: “You…don’t know what you look like?”

Hmm, an unexpected question to follow the unexpected responses. And a stupid one at that; did she really expect him to give her the honest, unfiltered truth when prompted? If she did, the answer to that question would be a resounding “It’s funny how dumb you are, Shooting Star~!”, followed by a bout of condescending laughter to drive the point home. 

And the answer to her former question would probably be that same reply and condescending laughter. There was no chance across the entire multiverse that he would tell them about his little deal with Tangy. Birdbrain had said it themselves back in their mindscape: the second they found out that he was playing a game where the prize was the destruction of the barrier, the second Ford would do everything in his power to keep him restrained until the end of the game.

Or, well—more restrained than he was already.

Still, as good as his clever little joke had been, he had unintentionally dropped a small hint to them about his situation. 

Guess it was time to do what he did best; scramble their mushy little brains more than he’d done already and throw them completely off the right track. 

“I mean—it was all kind of a blur when I possessed the guy,” he said casually, leaning back in the chair as far as he could. “Didn’t exactly feel like stopping and sussing out all the details, not when the chance to stretch my legs again after spending nine months as a lawn ornament was right there in front of me—hey, come on—”

The barrel of the gun was at his cheek again as Ford gave him another warning look. “Don’t listen to a single word he says,” he said, directing the statement at the others. “We have no reason to believe that what he’s telling us is the truth, so don’t take any stock in anything he’s saying.”

Bill narrowed his eyes up at him. Spoilsport. Spoilsport and a hypocrite, to boot! “Oh, yeah, that’s rich, Sixer,” he said bitterly. “But I guess you would know what it’s like to give people a reason not to trust you, wouldn’t you?”

His functional pupil bounced over to Stan, the corners of his mouth twitching with the threat of a smile. “I’m just saying: the last time we saw each other, you were promising to finally give me that equation,” he said, with a look back to Ford. “But then when I ended up making the deal, it wasn’t your brain I ended up in, was it—OW!”

The tip of the gun was jammed so hard against his cheek that the skin would likely be bruised in the shape of a triangle later. “Stop talking—”

“Alright, that’s it.”

Before Ford could respond, Stan’s hand was back on his shoulder and gently goading him towards the door. “Ford, come on, let’s just—”

“Stan—”

“He’s tied up, Soos says the rope’s got the unicorn stuff woven into it,” Stan kept trying. “Let’s just step outside for a sec. Kids, why don’t you go with him? I’ll be with you in a few minutes, just—”

“We’re on it.”

Ford opened his mouth to protest further, but Mabel had already taken one of his hands in her own while Dipper claimed the other. “Come on, Grunkle Ford,” Mabel said, giving his hand an encouraging tug. “Let’s go wait in the hallway.”

“Yeah, why don’t you go ahead and leave, Sixer~?” Bill teased with a kick of his feet. “I’m sure I won’t go anywhere while you’re gone!”

A risky taunt, for sure. Ford had turned the gun on him enough times to prove that he was only a few more pokes away from throwing caution to the wind and sticking a bullet between his eyes, regardless of the consequences. Besides, the sooner Bill got the chance to be alone and collect his thoughts, the better. 

But at the same time, any opportunity to get under Ford’s skin was just too good to resist—nor did he have any desire to try resisting in the first place!

It seemed to be a lucky day for him in terms of taunt-rope balancing, because Ford pulled his hands from the kids’ embraces and trudged out of the room with calm, restrained steps. Steps clearly powered by every last ounce of self-control he could possibly muster, ones that suppressed a deep, brooding storm that swelled just beneath the surface.

Good. Seethe harder, Stanford.

Eventually the door shut behind him, leaving Stan and the kids—their own hands now void of any that possessed six fingers—behind. Although it was only a second later when the door cracked open again, and one six-fingered hand reentered their line of sight. 

A hand that Mabel immediately took hold of again before both her and Dipper hurried out into the hallway after him. Leaving only Bill, Stan, and a deafening silence left in the room.

A deafening silence that Bill was quick to break with a casual: “Gotta say, the beard look is waaaay more natural on you than it is on Sixer. Covers your ugly mug way better than his does.”

Apparently Ford had kept all of the restraint for himself because Stan was back to him before he could blink, and Bill had no time to brace himself as the older man grasped a rugged hand around his throat. “Listen to me, and listen good, Wise Guy,” he growled. “I don’t know how you got back here, and I don’t really care how.”

The hand around Bill’s neck tightened while he balled the other into a fist. “But I punched your lights out once, and I can do it again. As many times as it takes for you to stay down for good.”

He moved the first near Bill’s blinded eye, his good pupil following despite himself. “You try anything with my family again, you’re gonna know what it feels like to get punched to death twice. ¿Comprende?”

It was a threat Bill knew that Stan would hold himself to if necessary. One that Bill couldn’t help but feel a twinge of genuine fear towards as those final memories inside Stan’s head came rushing back to him. 

And for a split second, Bill could almost feel the terrifying heat of the flames around them, creeping nearer and nearer as they swallowed every last bit of the room in their destructive wake—

One fatal mistake…

—only for a brief moment, before he flashed Stan another toothy grin. “Seriously though, you should keep that beard. Maybe try and convince Sixer to shave his, I don’t know who I was kidding when I told him it looked good, that was such a bad idea on his part!”

His grin spread wider, once again revealing far too much of the inside of his mouth. “But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

Stan punched him. Hard.

And when Bill crumbled with a shout, pain enveloping the area around his right eye that was sure to be bruised within minutes, Stan turned and stormed out of the room.

Yep—flew too close to the sun with that one.

— — — — — — —

Ford had barely made it out of the room before the stress of the situation brought him to his knees, and Stan entered the hallway to the sight of almost everyone else circled around him in an attempt to bring comfort.

Seeing him, Soos lifted his head. “So, is it really him?”

“Sure looks, sounds, and acts like it,” Stan said. “Alright, so the guy who tried to take over the universe and who we thought was dead is now tied up in the next room, very much the opposite of dead.”

He pressed a weary hand to his temple as he glanced around at the rest of the group. “...Does anybody have a game plan?”

From beside Ford on the floor, Mabel perked up. “What about that zodiac prophecy thingy Grunkle Ford tried to do during Weirdmageddon?” she asked. “Didn’t he say that was supposed to stop Bill?”

“Hey, yeah!” Stan snapped his fingers with an inspired look. “Great idea, Pumpkin, we could try that!”

“But don’t we need all of the symbol-things for it to work?” Soos pointed out. “And out of the original ten, we only have, like—” He paused to count heads. “—six of the people here that we’d need.”

From the spot near the wall where Wendy had seated herself, she lifted her head to join in on the conversation. “Well, then why don’t we just get the other four?” she asked. “I doubt it’d be hard to convince Robbie, Pacifica or the others to help us out. They probably hate Bill as much as we do.”

“We could also try the Quantum Destabilizer,” Dipper added thoughtfully, pressing a hand to his chin. “Grunkle Ford said it could blast Bill back into the Nightmare Realm, but I wonder if that would actually work without a rift to—you know, blast him back through.”

“What do you think, Dr. Pines?” Melody asked, directing the question at Ford.

And suddenly all eyes were back on Ford again, who had yet to move from the spot where he had collapsed after leaving the bedroom—too enveloped in his own overwhelming, smothering thoughts to take any notice to the others’ suggestions.

Bill was alive.

A scenario he had only envisioned in the worst of the nightmares that plagued his head on a nightly basis. A fear that lingered over him like the shadow of a starving predator, waiting to strike its unsuspecting prey when they least expected.

He had wanted to hope so dearly that he’d been dreaming when that child between the birch trees began to laugh in that horrific, familiar way. The bone-chilling laughter that often echoed through the deepest recesses of his mindscape, nothing more than a mere shadow of the one who had once produced it.

But this was no dream, no nightmare, nor a bad memory he could simply banish to the back of his mind—

Bill was alive.

“Dr. Pines?”

“The Zodiac Prophecy is a no-go,” he said, his words forming on their own as he returned to his feet. “The entire town believes that Bill is dead, and letting too many people know that he’s returned could ignite a panic.” 

He cast a tense look around at everyone else. “One would argue that too many people know about his return already.”

“Hey, come on, I don’t think anyone here’s in a hurry to go blabbing about him,” Wendy pointed out. 

“Regardless, it’s not a liable option at the moment,” Ford continued. “And unfortunately, neither is the Quantum Destabilizer. The only power source stable enough to power the device was only obtainable in another dimension, with the assistance of another another dimension’s Fiddleford McGucket—”

“Oh, yeah, that’s gonna be tough to get, then,” Melody spoke up. “Fiddleford's out of town for a few weeks with his family.”

“We had to put our weekly anime club meetings on hiatus until he got back,” Soos added sadly. “But, that gives all of us plenty of time to catch up on our latest show and discuss our thoughts once he’s back!”

Ford raised his hands. “Wait, that’s not what I—”

“Well, what about when he does get back?” Wendy asked. “I mean—like I said before, I doubt he’d be in a hurry to go blabbing to anyone else. Plus he’s probably smart enough to build anything we’d need to get rid of Bill.”

“Wait, I—”

“Yeah, yeah, good point, Wendy!” Stan said, waggling a finger at her. “The guy turned this place into a giant, robotic, triangle-punching whatchamacallit. He could definitely build some fancy-schmancy power source—”

“You’re missing the point!”

Ford’s fist hit the wall before he could even process his action, and suddenly the hallway was quiet enough to hear a pin drop. His frustration lingered for only a second, before he took a look at the concerned expressions around him—

—and the guilt swiftly drowned any other emotions that had been building inside his chest. “Sorry, that was—sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

Several pairs of shoulders unclenched as his arm fell back to his side, and Stan moved to him again. “Woah, woah, hey, come on, no one here’s about to judge you for swingin’ a fist,” he assured him. “Feel like outta anyone here, you deserve to do it the most.”

He flicked a thumb back at the bedroom door. “‘Sides, at least you held out as long as you could. I may have given the little jerk a—let’s call it a ‘welcome back gift’.” 

A pause. “I…I gave him a black eye, that’s the joke I was trying to make.”

“Non-refundable gift,” Wendy said with a proud nod. “Nice.”

“Stan’s got a point,” Dipper added from Ford’s side. “It’s Bill Cipher. I feel like if anyone deserves to be angry right now, it’s you.”

“Yeah, sorry for uh—sorry if we sounded like we weren’t taking this seriously,” Soos added. “I know how dangerous he is, and Wendy and I even told Melody everything about him ahead of time. Just in case something like this ever happened, of course. A big bad returning during a moment of peace is a common trope in sequels, after all.”

He rolled his hands together. “And since this is the summer after he died…you know, sequel summer? Just…just sayin’, it wasn’t outta the realm of possibilities.”

“I wasn’t sure how much of it was actually true,” Melody admitted. “But also I’ve seen way weirder stuff in this town. So if you all say that kid in there’s actually an evil triangle demon bent on destroying the universe, then I’d believe it.”

“There, you see?” Stan added. “Ain’t nobody here to judge. You be as angry as you want, punch another wall or two if you really gotta.”

“Although if it helps you swing at them less, clearly we’re all on the ball when it comes to thinking of ways to put Cipher back under the ground where he belongs,” Wendy pointed out. “Maybe the stuff we already suggested won’t work, but putting our heads together like this will probably get us somewhere a lot quicker than when you were just doing this by yourself, y’know?”

“Once again, Wendy knows what’s what,” Stan agreed, and gave her a thumbs up. “If I were still your boss, I’d give you a raise.”

“...No, you wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

He reached over to clasp a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Point we’re tryin’ to make is that you’ve got your family here for you this time. You don’t have to deal with this alone again.”

“Yeah, Grunkle Ford,” Mabel agreed, casting him a weak smile as she once again tucked a hand into his own. “We’ll do everything we can to help you kick Bill’s butt again!”

Ford’s gaze fell to her face, sweet eyes wide with concern and small hands once again gripping his own tightly. He could feel them trembling, clearly masking just as much fear as he was harboring inside him—

—the same way his had trembled as he pulled the trigger on the memory gun, wiping every little trace of what made his brother himself from his mind. 

He forced his gaze to the man at his right, eyes moving up to the face that mirrored his own to a near-identical degree.

The face of the man Ford had cried over for a week straight while he worked so tirelessly, so desperately to restore those lost memories. For whom he had dug out every last movie reel, scrapbook—even old postcards that Stan had sent during his travels across the country, and with whom he had spent several long night poring over the contents. 

The man whose confused expression shifted to bright realization as the kids read out the jokes from his favorite joke book, jokes he would follow up with every terrible punchline with perfect recollection. The man who suddenly remembered his and Ford’s brush with the Jersey Devil mid-story, only to go on and tell the back half as if the two of them had only experienced it yesterday.

The man who had risked sacrificing all those precious memories, all of who he was for the sake of the world’s safety. For the sake of his family’s safety.

And now Bill was back, leaving that precious sacrifice nothing more than a pointless suffering for Stanley to have endured.

“I’ll figure out a way to stop Bill by myself,” he said suddenly, pulling his hand out of Mabel’s before turning to the others. “Someone’s going to need to stay up and keep an eye on him tonight anyway. I’ll use that time to come up with a plan, and we can reconvene tomorrow.”

He reached for the doorknob. “As for the rest of you, it’s late and you should be getting to bed.”

Everyone exchanged a series of unsure looks, which Stan vocalized with a: “Do you really expect the rest of us to just sleep while you deal with some all-powerful demon all night?”

“Also, do you really expect us to sleep at all with someone like that in the house?” Wendy added. “I mean, I know he’s kindaaaa—” She made a shrinking motion with her fingers. “—now, but this is the same guy that crawls through people’s heads like a sugar-laced kid in a Hoo-Ha Owl’s playplace, right?”

Ford looked to her, then the other adults with a raised eyebrow. “You said the rope had unicorn hair weaved into it?”

“Well, yeah,” Soos confirmed. “Plus we set up those moonstones, got you that mercury you needed—”

“We have a whole stash of everything in the storage room, too,” Melody added. “If you need any more of anything.”

“Then it should be enough to hold Bill in place for the night,” Ford said matter-of-factly. “And if it’s not—well, I’ll be enough to hold him in place for the night.”

Before anyone could question him further, the bedroom door was opened and shut behind him. Leaving the rest of them out in the hallway, the shrill and barely-muffled greeting of “Welcome back, Fordsy~!” in the bedroom only adding to the unsure aura surrounding them.

Despite the door being closed, Soos held up a hand to the side of his mouth. “Uh, okay! Good night, Dr. Pines!” he called. “Also if you’ve gotta shoot him, please aim the bullets away from Abuelita’s porcelain doll collection!”

Mabel finally let her arm—the one that she had kept outstretched even after Ford let go of her hand—fall back to her side with a dejected sigh. A look that Dipper immediately spotted and moved to her side to comfort her. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” he said reassuringly. “Ford’s just worried about Bill, that’s all. And he probably just wants us to stay safe.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t need to go around makin’ himself unsafe to do that,” Stan said, pressing a hand to his head with an annoyed huff. “Is he out of his mind? What’s he thinking, dealing with all of this by himself?”

Everyone else exchanged a look. “Well, if he doesn’t want our help then…what should we do now?” Melody asked.

With a sigh, Wendy took a wide step away from the wall. “Guess we do what the doc said and try to get some sleep. Dibs on the couch as usual, by the way.”

With that, the shuffled on down the hallway, while the rest of the group silently watched her take her leave. Once she disappeared around the corner, Soos pointed towards a door on the opposite side of the hallway. “Uh, I dunno if it’ll help at all, but Melody and I sleep in the room next to Abuelita’s,” he said to Stan. “If you want, we can sleep in shifts and check in on Dr. Pines for you.”

“And if anything actually happens, one of us can come get you,” Melody added. “Leaving the other person down here to help him if he needs it.”

“Yeah!” Soos said, nodding in agreement. “If anything happens, we’ll come get you, okay?”

Stan hesitated to respond—as if the idea was anything but okay to him—but eventually he gave them a tired nod in return. “Alright, you two. Just keep an ear out for him.” 

He leaned over and placed a hand on Soos’s shoulder. “And—should I not get here quick enough to do it myself—I give you my blessing to punch the pointy little jerk in my place.”

With a look of honor, Soos pressed a hand to his forehead in a salute. “I won’t let you down, Mr. Pines! I’ll even knock out a few of his teeth if I’ve gotta!”

“Good man, Soos,” Stan said, giving his shoulder a pat. “Now get.”

With Stan’s approval, Soos gestured for Melody to follow him to their bedroom. “I’ll be the one to come get you if we need to, then,” she assured Stan as they walked. “That’ll leave Soos open for—well, that.”

And soon their bedroom door closed behind them, leaving nobody but the remaining Pines in the hallway. And with a gruff sigh and the realization that they were the only ones left, Stan turned to face the kids.

Despite the reassurances from everyone else—and even each other—they had shuffled close to one another with their attention firmly locked on to the door of Abuelita’s bedroom. As if they expected Bill to come bursting out of it at any second.

Yep, that was about what he expected.

Another sigh brought Stan to their level, and he gave both of them a weak smile. “Well, you two knuckleheads heard everyone. Let’s head upstairs.”

The two exchanged an uncertain look. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah,” Mabel added. “I mean…it’s Bill.”

“If Ford’s so insistent on dealing with this by himself, then he’s probably got a couple of tricks up his sleeve to solve it by himself,” Stan pointed out, and reached over to lightly bap the top of Dipper’s hat. “It’s like you said, he probably just wants us to stay safe. And if he does need our help, then—well, he knows where to find us...”

Even he couldn’t bring himself to try and sound convincing by the end of his reassurances, but he gave both of them a nudge to move forwards before returning to full height. “In the meantime, let’s not give that demon the satisfaction of knowing he’s freaking all of us out and go get some rest, okay?”

After another look to each other, the younger twins eventually let themselves be lead down the hallway. Despite this, Stan counted at least three times where one of them would pause to look back towards the bedroom door, before they finally rounded the hallway corner and the room was barred from their line of sight.

The interior of the Mystery Shack had fallen silent by that point, save for the faint creaking of the wooden floor beneath their steps as they headed for and—after grabbing the bags they had dropped upon arrival—up the staircases that eventually brought them to the topmost floor of the shack.

Mere hours ago, the sight of the old attic would’ve been a nostalgic welcome back, like greeting an old friend after spending so long apart. And approaching the room at the far end would’ve been the equivalent of bringing that old friend into a warm hug.

Warm, friendly, welcoming—

But the air around the trio just felt so miserable as they slowed to a gradual stop outside the bedroom door, and Stan reached a hand to the doorknob. Rather than turn it immediately, he instead chose to direct his attention back at the kids. 

Silent attention—as if he wanted to say something, but struggled to find the proper words.

After a few, long seconds, he spoke with an uneasy: “Hey, uh, if you kids need to—you know…” The hand on the doorknob moved to the back of his head. “You gonna be alright by yourselves up here? You know you can always join Wendy in the living room, or come bunk down with me if you really need to, or something—”

The younger twins looked to each other in silent consideration, until Dipper finally spoke up: “I…think we’ll be okay,” he said, although his shaky tone implied otherwise. “If we’re really that scared, we can always sleep in shifts.”

“Yeah,” Mabel added with a bit more optimism. “And—and we’ll lock our door and window—”

An oink at the staircase drew a pointed finger from her, aimed at the pig who had ambled up the stairs after them. “—and we also have Waddles as an attack hog if we really need him! We’ll be okay!”

Her shoulders fell. “Right?”

Dipper folded his arms with a feeble nod, hands tightly gripping the sides as if he were attempting to keep himself grounded with such an action. “Yeah, we’ll…we’ll be okay.”

Stan didn’t miss this, and knelt down in front of them. “Hey, you two listen to me, alright?” he said, moving a hand to each of their shoulders. “I may not know how the little demon got back or why he’s back at all.”

The hands moved to ruffle their heads. “But what I do know is that I ain’t gonna let him lay a hand on either of you or Ford,” he reassured them. “And I don’t care how long it takes or how many times we gotta kill him before he stays dead. We’ll squash him for good if it’s the last thing we do—”

He was suddenly cut off by Mabel flinging herself at him in a tight hug, with Dipper quickly following suit. Stan remained still for a few seconds, before he wrapped an arm around each of them to complete the hug. “Alright…we’re gonna be okay, okay?”

He forced a smile as the two of them broke the hug. “And hey, look on the bright side,” he continued. “With the puny size he is now, we could probably just step on the little jerk and actually squash him to death!”

Sure enough, his weak attempt to lighten the mood brought a small pair of smiles to their faces. “We could get a pair of really big shoes,” Mabel added, smile widening further as she made a stomping motion with her foot. “Just go squish, like he’s a gross cockroach under a boot!”

“Are you implying that he’s not a gross cockroach already?” Dipper asked with a weak laugh.

“Touché, but I like painting a clear, visual picture of my words,” Mabel explained. “It’s almost as fun as painting an actual picture! Ooh, I wonder if I should paint an actual picture of Bill with a cockroach body—?”

“Save that for tomorrow,” Stan said. “Right now, you two need to get some rest. You’ve got a whole summer to look forward to, and I ain’t gonna let you kids miss a second of it.”

He gave them a wink. “Even with a sudden triangle-shaped cockroach thrown into the mix.”

Both gave him a smile—much wider than before—in return before finally shuffling to the door and pulled it open, revealing the waiting bedroom on the other side.

Aside from a lack of almost any dust on the furniture—had that been Soos and Melody’s doing?—the bedroom had remained mostly untouched since the previous summer. A few scattered googly eyes rested on the floor beside a forgotten food bowl for Waddles on Mabel’s side of the room, while several crumpled pieces of paper still filled Dipper’s old wastebasket.

And while uncertainty and fear still lingered in the air as the kids stepped inside, a bit of that old, nostalgic warmth did seem to be sneaking its way around them in a reassuring embrace. A reassurance that despite the evening’s stress, this was still a place they could call a home away from home.

After one last little smile at Stan—one he returned in full—Mabel shut the door behind them. Stan continued to wordlessly stare at the door for a few minutes, attention focused on the clicking of the lock, then the creaking of the wooden floor on the other side. When he was sure the sound had reached their beds, he finally turned and shuffled back towards—then down—the staircase, continuing onwards down the hall on the second floor until he reached the door to his own bedroom.

It was only once his hand touched the doorknob that his entire posture sank from exhaustion.

He once again lingered for a moment as he looked back towards the staircase that lead downstairs—before he shook his head and trudged on forward into the bedroom.

— — — — — — — — 

It was barely an hour later when Stan firmly concluded that he was not falling asleep anytime soon.

How in the heck was he supposed to sleep at a time like this? Bill was back! The evil triangle demon that had tried to take over the town—town? Universe? Dimension? Eh, all of the above.—and had haunted his brother’s mind for literal decades!

Ford had always downplayed how much weight Bill truly held over his mind, always reassuring Stan that he was fine whenever the topic came up in conversation and was always quick to change the subject to something unrelated. 

But if Ford really thought the guy who slept in the same cabin as him for months on end wouldn’t notice him crying out in his sleep—the names Bill, Cipher or both being shouted into his pillow with so much hatred and fear more times than Stan could count—then Stan had a bridge to sell him.

And if he really thought that he hadn’t picked up on the subtle little ways Ford would flinch or the way his mood would shift on occasion—probably due to some unearthed memories about Bill, ones that Stan so desperately wished he could just punch as hard as the guy who had burned them into his brother’s mind—then Stan had two bridges to sell him.

“But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

With a grunt, Stan rolled over onto his back and squinted blindly at the ceiling. He didn’t trust the pointy little jerk as far as he could throw him but he’d raised a good point. What right did he have to stand—lie around and call Ford an idiot for not wanting to talk about Bill, especially when he’d been the one in charge of getting rid of Bill in the first place?

He felt his thoughts drift to the earlier events of the day, before all the Bill stuff had started. Soos’s wedding announcement, the tour of the new exhibits—

“The very weird point they’re to make is that none of this would’ve happened without you building the shack to begin with, Grunkle Ford. So in a way, a lot of this is because of you!”

“Well, we kinda have you to thank for the idea, Dr. Pines. You and the kids, of course.”

It didn’t bother him. 

Really, it didn’t.

So what if Soos wanted to give Ford the credit for tying the knot with the girl he liked, or for giving them the smart-guy science methods to make the exhibits more exciting? Even if Ford was terrible at hiding his Bill feelings, at the very least he’d seemed pretty flattered by all the praise. 

He’d felt appreciated, nostalgic over the new, science-y ways that Soos and Melody were bringing in customers. The kids were excited to be spending time with him this year.

Ford felt like he belonged.

What kind of jerk would Stan be to take that happiness away from him, especially after all the years that had been taken from him already?

At at the end of the day, it didn’t matter if people slapped Ford’s name over every single one of his own accomplishments. Honestly, after stealing his identity for three decades, Stan would willingly give up a few of his own accord if it made Ford happy.

If Soos wanted to give Ford credit for building the place that inevitably lead him to his fiancé—even if Stan had been the one running the place when Soos started working here—then fine. If him and the kids wanted to give Ford credit for the exhibit ideas—exhibits that were wildly improved from the two-bit slop Stan had been pushing for the past few decades—then fine.

It was fine.

But if there was one accomplishment that Stan thought nobody could take away from him, it was the ability to keep his family safe. Not just them, but Soos, Wendy—the entire town. They had all called him a hero, finally saw him as someone worth a darn—

At the end of the day, he had finally proven he was worth something to someone.

And then Bill came back, alive and unharmed. Stan had failed to kill him good and proper, and now he was back. Now he was back, and now Ford and the kids had to spend their summer in fear.

Now he was back, and Stan was truly worthless again.

After staring at the ceiling for about ten more minutes—and waiting another ten minutes for his nightly body aches to settle—he fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand and swung his legs over the side of the bed. And with the groan of a man whose bones were older than he was, he pulled himself to his feet, trudged out of the room and headed down to the first floor of the shack. 

The light of the TV stopped him at the living room doorway, and a quick peek into the room revealed that he wasn’t the only resident of the house who was still awake.

Despite the TV running some early morning infomercial for a cheap and useless product—one worth more than its share of that hyper-specific brand of scorn and mockery that only a snarky teenager could provide—Wendy’s attention was firmly glued to her phone as she tapped away at the keys.

At the sight of Stan in the doorway, however, she lifted her head with a curious look. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Whaddaya mean? Clearly I’m sleepwalkin’.”

“Haha,” she said, snapping her phone shut. “Gonna try again with Dr. Pines?”

“You know it,” Stan said, and placed a hand on the doorway frame. “You, uh—you holdin’ up okay out here?”

“Psh, don’t even start,” Wendy said, waving him away. “I mean, sure, I’ve got my share of worries about that little megalomaniac being back—”

She flashed him a grin. “—buuuut I think a lot of ‘em were pretty evened out by the fact that I got to clunk him in the back of the head with a bat!”

“Oh yeah, that was great,” Stan agreed with a smirk of his own, before pressing his hands together in a squishing motion. “Isn’t it soooo satisfying? The little jerk talks suuuuuuch a big game, but you hit him once and he crunches like a soda can.”

Wendy cackled at that, although her expression fell again as she cast a glance upwards. “How’re the squirts handling it?”

Stan followed her gaze up to the ceiling. “Well, they’ve stayed in their room so far, so my money’s on ‘probably as well as they can with somethin’ like this.’”

“Mmm…”

She flipped her phone back open, fingers once again tapping at the keys. “At least they’ve got each other through all this,” she mused. “The two of them combined are some of the toughest and strongest kids I’ve ever met. No matter what happens, they’ll get through it so long as they stick together.”

“Yeah,” Stan agreed, with a glance back towards the hallway. “At least they’ve got that goin’ for them…”

Both fell silent for a moment, before Stan turned to leave. “If you hear any yellin’ going on down the hall, it’s because I’m trying to convince Ford to go to bed,” he told her. “If I succeed, make sure he actually goes up to bed, okay?”

“You got it, boss.”

— — — — — — — —

The room was silent, save for the scratching of pencil to paper as Ford continued to write. 

Not for a lack of trying on Bill’s part; he had made several attempts to strike up a conversation with Ford already, but all had been shot down by either a menacing glare or the flash of the gun he kept within reaching distance.

And while neither were enough to completely shut Bill up, he did fall silent after the dozenth-or-so attempt to take advantage of the chance to gather his thoughts.

He’d agreed to play a game with that stupid duck and they’d plunked him back down in front of the shack. He assumed it had been right in front of the shack, at least; he did recall being greeted by the concerned faces of Mabel and Ford, along with some faint, blurry remarks about how he’d potentially fallen out of a tree—

—thank you, Birdbrain—

—but there was always a chance that they had stumbled across his body somewhere else and simply brought him to the shack to keep a closer eye on him. 

Regardless of how it had happened or wherever those suckers had originally found him, he was back in town as Tangy had promised. Sure, it had been a sneaky drop off with several details of what that drop off entailed omitted. But at the same time, they had still kept their word.

And while Bill still had plans to dunk that silly little windbreaker of theirs in tuna fish—perhaps with the added flair of tossing in a bottle of itching powder, Melt-Your-Skin-Clean-Off-Your-Bones-Juice, and maybe a splash of lime for taste—he could at least respect how much effort they had put into getting him here at all.

Planned retribution aside…eh, game could recognize game.

And speaking of game—

His thoughts shifted to the deal they had agreed upon, sealed with both a handshake and a signature. Three months, they’d said. He had exactly three months to play. Three months to find all the pieces of their dumb trinket and put it all back together again, Humpty-Dumpty style.

He briefly considered the idea of not playing their game at all—out of sheer spite for their deviousness in getting him here—but the idea was discarded as quickly as it formed. Despite their underhanded methods to get him back to town, they had been very clear about how strictly they had to stick to their contract. And even if they’d been lying about the legitimacy of said contract, they had still foolishly locked themselves into a deal with Bill himself.

Whether or not they truly planned on upholding themselves to their side of their deal didn’t matter—if he won their little game, Bill would either have a destroyed barrier or a duck subjected to an eternity of slow-roasting over an over fire in the Nightmare Realm. Maybe in the case of the second option, such torture directed at another being would be enough to get his buddies off his back when he returned. Heck, maybe he’d even get a spiffy new jacket out of the deal!

And that was simply the worst case scenario. Best case scenario, the barrier would be gone and no one would be able to stand in his way ever again.

And a prize that valuable was enough for him to humor the tacky idiot and romp around an annoyingly-familiar hick town in a meatsuit for a summer.

Even with his current situation, escaping wouldn’t be a difficult task to accomplish. Sure, he was tied so tightly to a chair that it would make Harry Houdini blush—he would know, he dabbled in a bit of dealmaking with the famous magician back during the height of his career—and the ropes apparently contained some of that fancy-schmancy unicorn magic that the household had used to protect the shack last year. A fact that soured Bill’s expression for a brief moment, but at the end of the day, even a magically-laced rope was still just a rope. And any rope could be cut with the right tool, or by the right sucker.

The sound of paper being ripped from a notebook distracted Bill from his thoughts, and a mischievous grin poked at the corners of his mouth as he cast a look in the direction of his six-fingered warden—just as the discarded page was crumpled into a ball and tossed it into the unlit fireplace.

Well, a sucker by any other year was just as gullible—or whatever.

Sure, Bill knew Stanford Pines would rather chew off his own extra fingers than be unpromptedly helpful to him in any way, shape or form. But even if a few details about the bigger picture had to be omitted—it wouldn’t be the first time when it came to Stanford—there were always ways for Bill to get people to do what he wanted.

The scratching of pencil to paper began again, and Bill lightly tugged against the binds that held his wrists. Well, while there were always ways to get people to do what he wanted, even he knew it was highly unlikely that he’d manage to trick Ford into freeing him tonight. And the near-silence of the room was starting to become agonizingly dull. 

To reiterate an earlier point, Bill Cipher was not the kind of triangle to sit and behave quietly if he had any say in the matter. Even if Ford was attempting to keep a lid on things now, there was always a way to annoy him into tossing out a few bits and pieces of information he had gathered in Bill’s absence. Perhaps some of that information would be of use to him.

Or maybe he would only succeed in getting the gun shoved in his cheek again.

Either way, the fifteenth attempt at starting a conversation was always the charm~!

“You know,” he began with a light kick of his feet. “I’m surprised you haven’t bombarded me with questions about how I got back yet.”

He saw Ford’s hand twitch in the direction of the gun, keeping his attention still firmly focused on his writing. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to, Fordsy!” Bill continued. “You and I both know for a fact that you’re a man beckoned by the call of the strange and bizarre.”

He winked at him with his good eye. “And let’s not kid ourselves; I’m the strangest and bizarre-est guy you know~!”

Another kick of his feet, his feet bouncing against the chair legs. “Even if I no longer have access to your mind, I can tell you’ve got a billion questions about me buzzing around in that lump of wet meat you call a brain,” he continued. “Questions like ‘How did he get back?’ ‘Why is he human now?’ ‘Why, oh, why did I think that a simple memory gun would be enough to defeat someone as powerful, as amazing, as unstoppable as Bill Cipher?’”

Ford’s hand inched closer to the gun as Bill kept talking: “You must’ve felt so proud of yourself for that memory gun trick, by the way,” he went on. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did, it was a smart move that only a brainiac like you could’ve drummed up in the short time you had.”

A wink. “Well, lucky for you I’m not the kinda triangle to hold a grudge,” he continued. “In fact, I’d even be willing to answer a couple of those hypothetical questions for you! And to call us even, you can always just answer a couple of mine in return. Like what you’ve been up to in the past nine months~! Come on, I’ll bet you’re just dying to tell me all about how you grew that beard of yours!”

The hand wrapped around the grip, and Bill settled lower in the chair with a sigh. “Fine, I guess it was too much to hope for a chance to catch up with an old friend,” he said with a dramatic flair to his tone—

—one that immediately shifted into something far more malevolent. “But then again, I guess I wouldn’t find any of those around here, now would I?”

Bill paused, giving Ford him a few seconds to chime in—only to roll his eyes when he heard a click from the gun as Ford turned off the safety catch: “Oh, come on, Stanford, are you really telling me that you’d rather spend the entire night alone with your thoughts than to spend five minutes holding a conversation with me?”

“Yes.”

It was the first word, sans any threats, he’d managed to get out of Ford all night, and it was annoying enough for Bill to sink further against his restraints with a huff.

Not a defeated huff; if a stubborn, old fool not giving him what he wanted was enough to stop Bill Cipher, then he wouldn’t be Bill Cipher. If he’d possessed enough patience to wait eons for a functioning portal, then he could certainly possess enough to get a few words outta Ford over the course of a single evening.

And as soon as Ford stopped being so difficult—you couldn’t avoid talking all night, Sixer—he'd be in business.

The distant sound of floorboards creaking somewhere on the other side of the shack perked Bill up again with a look towards the ceiling. Guess the rest of the household was fighting back the urge to sleep with a stick.

The sudden lack of pencil to paper also caught his attention, gaze bouncing back to where Ford was seated. He hadn’t moved, but Bill could still see the pupils of his sunken-in eyes shift towards the door with mild curiosity.

Mild curiosity that vanished the second he realized Bill was watching him, and his focus immediately returning to his notes after clicking the safety back and leaving the gun where it rested.

Hmm.

“Fine, you don’t wanna talk about what you’ve been up to for the past few months?” he tried again. “Fair enough, I really didn’t wanna hear about it. Why don’t we talk about about something else, then? Like the kids, perhaps?”

The hand was back at the gun without pause. 

“They’re looking well, older even. Or do they?—I’m still fuzzy on the details of the aging process of you mortals,” Bill continued. “Or if you don’t wanna talk about them, we could always talk about your brother. Can’t believe he’s still wildly swinging those fists around like a wild animal, especially when that didn’t even work the first time—”

The gun was ignored completely as Ford crossed the room in an instant, the vitriol behind his eyes hot enough to burn straight through Bill’s skin, blood, skull—everything, until it bore a hole right through to the other side of his head. A motion that made Bill jump against his better judgment—his blackened eye instinctively twitching as he remembered Stan’s earlier show of force—and for a fleeting moment, he expected another hand around his throat in seconds.

Before Ford could react proper, however, a loud knock pulled both of their attention to the bedroom door. After a silent breath of relief, Bill shot Ford a cheeky grin. “Sounds like you’ve got company~! Unless they’re here to see me, which—I mean, who could blame them if they were?”

Ford glared at him before turning back to the door. “Who is it?”

“Jersey Devil. Who d’you think it is?”

“...Come on in.”

The knob turned and Stan slowly entered the room, casting a silent look between the two of them before settling his gaze on Ford. “Just checkin’ in. How’s, uh—” he began, then paused. “—how’s everything going?”

He was clearly talking to Ford, and making an obvious effort to ignore the triangle-shaped elephant in the room. So naturally, Bill had to do everything in his power to make his presence as loud and obvious as possible.

“Everything’s peachy~!” he piped up, with another wiggle against his binds. “Ol’ Fordsy and I are having the time of our lives catching up on things! In fact, I think he was just about to tell me about what the kids have been up to for the past few months?”

He flashed Ford a wide grin. “Come on, Ford, I’ll bet they’ve shared a ton of stories with you~!”

Stan pointed a finger at him. “Hey, you’d better watch that mouth of yours, before I come over there and make it match your eyeball.”

“What, you’re gonna punch it?” Bill asked. “Go right ahead, I was just lamenting the fact that my mouth and eyeball are separated in this body.”

He giggled mischievously and flashed him a wide grin. “Your fist’s about the size of a mouth-sized eyeball, right? Just asking, because the second you swing it at these puppies—” He gave a warning snap of his teeth. “—I can’t promise that you’ll get it back.”

“Everything’s fine, Stanley. Go get some sleep.”

Ford’s tone was so scripted and hollow, like the words he actually wanted to say were being held back by a metric ton of steel. More than just the physical steel plate installed in his head, a whole dam of metaphorical steel was keeping the flood of Ford’s true thoughts at bay. And judging by the way Stan’s features twisted with uncertainty at his brother’s words—only until he spotted Bill eyeing him and promptly shifted his expression into a look of disdain—there was clearly something keeping his own thoughts hidden as well.

Oh, it killed Bill to not know what they were thinking. To lack the ability to act as the metaphorical wrecking ball that could smash through all that steel in an instant, leaving him free to pry open every last little thought, rivet by rivet, bolt by bolt.

Well, at least he still possessed the ability to verbally taunt them~! “You heard the big guy, Goldfish~! Why don’t you run on back to bed while the adults talk?”

“Why you little—” Stan began, then paused with a look of confusion. “Goldfish, what—”

“Your sign in the Zodiac Wheel,” Bill elaborated. “You know—that little goldfish thing on your hat! Although I guess it could also be a reference to your constant desperation for fortune and fame, combined with your childish dream of dragging Sixer off on some ridiculous, insignificant boat adventure. You know, first part’s the gold, second part’s the fish?”

He tilted his head. “Of course, I could always call you Fez instead, but that just sounds silly. It’d be like calling Question Mark Shirt or Pine Tree…I dunno, Other Hat? Hmm, kinda like that, actually.”

“...Welp, that one’s on me for asking,” Stan said, and promptly turned his attention back to Ford. “I did need you for something, though. Apparently Soos found a few more moonstones that he said we should lay out in the hall—”

“Well, feel free to lay them there,” Ford said, making his way back to his chair. “One at each corner, evenly spaced…Probably a smart idea to stick one at the end of the hallway for good measure—”

“I really think we need your help with it,” Stan urged.

“Not if you follow my instructions.”

Bill’s eyebrows shot as far up his forehead as they could get, expression lighting up with sadistic glee. Oh, oh—they were fighting~! “Aww, I’m back for five minutes and you two are already at each other’s throats again!” he said with a mirthy twinkle in his eye. “Man, even after all this time, you Pines Twins still can’t get along!”

He began to rock back and forth in the chair with delight. “Come on, punch each other in the face!” he demanded excitedly. “Give Sixer a black eye that looks worse than mine!”

He stopped rocking for a moment, and cast a look down at the chair. “Hmm, I forgot that you mortals haven’t evolved to the point where you can hear the voices of inanimate objects,” he said. “Such a shame that I can’t hear how much this chair is screaming while I rock around on it!”

With a cackle, he proceeded to rock back and forth even harder. “Hehe, I’ll bet the four-legged jerk's absolutely livid right now—ACK!”

The chair suddenly tipped over and crashed—Bill and all—to the floor with a loud clatter. With his limbs too restrained to catch himself in any dignified fashion, Bill quickly found himself with his face squished into the lavender rug near Abuelita’s bed. 

Both Ford and Stan stared at him for a moment, their disagreement temporarily forgotten at Bill’s misfortune. However, Stan snapped back to reality first and took advantage of the other two being distracted long enough to pull Ford towards the door and out into the hallway.

Bill barely had time to bark out an irritated: “Hey, get back here and pick me up!” before the door was pulled shut behind them. With a irritable huff, he attempted to rock the chair again in the hopes of adjusting to a more comfortable angle.

And after a moment of struggling, he finally succeeded in rolling the chair onto its—and by extension, his—back. Leaving him completely flat on the floor with his gaze pointed upwards at the ceiling.

Well, at least this angle was more familiar.

— — — — — — —

“Stanley, I said—”

“I know what you said,” Stan replied, closing the door shut behind them. “But you know I’m gonna try and make you sleep tonight, right?”

“And you know I’m not��going to do that, right?”

“Ford—”

“How on Earth am I supposed to sleep with Bill still alive?!” 

It was like something had finally crashed right on through whatever wall Ford had built up in his mind, the stress he had tried desperately to repress all evening spilling out of him in an instant. “The memory gun should’ve worked,” he muttered in a panicked tone. “It…it destroyed everything in your mind, right?”

“Well, yeah, everything—” Stan began. “But—”

“There had to have been something he did, something that protected him,” Ford rambled on, mostly to himself. “Was it a spell? Some kind of failsafe? Did he catch onto our plan—”

“Woah, woah, hey, just breathe for a sec,” Stan interrupted. “Yeah, this is exactly why you’ve gotta let someone else babysit the little jerk while you get some sleep. You’re not gonna get anywhere if you’re too tired to think straight.”

And maybe if Ford got some sleep, he could shift some of the burden to Stan’s shoulders where it belonged. Yeesh, the poor guy had really been holding back earlier. Had he really been this stressed all evening?

…As if Stan needed to ask.

“You’d be surprised at what I can accomplish during an all-nighter,” Ford assured him. “Back in my college days, I once started a twenty-thousand-word essay at ten in the evening, and had it on the professor’s desk by six the next morning.”

He pressed a hand to his forehead. “And when you first arrived here to help me hide the journals, I was starting my fourth consecutive day of staying awake.”

“Fourth?!” Stan sputtered in disbelief, before he shook his head. “No, no, just gonna ignore that for now—it’s not like I got any room to talk when it comes to bad sleep schedules. But also you are not staying up four days to deal with this by yourself.”

He reached over to place a reassuring hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Come on, Stanford, let me help you,” he urged. “At least go get an hour of sleep. I’ll stay down here, keep him quiet—heck, I’ll duct tape his mouth shut if he gets too mouthy with me.”

He balled his free hand into a fist and thumped it against his own chest. “Let me help you put that pointy jerk twenty feet back under the ground, and make it stick this time!”

Ford’s eyes fell to the hand on his shoulder and followed it up to the desperation in his brother’s features.

An expression near identical to the one he had worn after being blasted by the memory gun. Confusion mixed with a desire to understand…

It was like they were back in that clearing in the woods, the natural warmth of the sun draping itself back over the town, after the blood-red skies of Weirdmageddon had barred it from sight for so long. Stanley kneeling in front of him and the kids in a dazed trance, no recollection of whom he was or the sacrifices he had just made.

All of which he had assured Ford was worth the risk while they swapped clothes back in the Fearamid, beneath the wretched tapestries of the remaining Zodiac members, an ear perked on both ends for Bill’s thundering footsteps reapproaching the main room.

But had it been? Had it been worth the risk?

Up until Mabel’s scrapbook method, they had no way of knowing that Stanley would’ve been able to return to his usual self. And as far as they knew, that cure only worked when presented with the memory gun’s effects. What if Stanley got involved again, only for something worse to happen to him than lost memories? What if he couldn’t simply be scrapbooked and home movie’d back to his usual self again this time around?

What if—

“Yeah, well, if they keep on bein’ that thrilled, you’re gonna have to bust out that necromancy spell to talk to me.”

“I’ve made up my mind, Stanley,” Ford said, and turned back to the door. “You go get some sleep.”

“Wh—Ford!”

His brother’s name fell on deaf ears as Ford promptly open and shut the door behind him. Stan continued to stare at the closed door, too dumbfounded to properly react. 

Ford really didn’t want his help with Bill? He could understand sending everyone off to bed earlier, but he was still turning down his help when it was just the two of them?

He raised a hand to the doorknob, the temptation to try and properly sway Ford into letting him help rising in his chest—

“Mr. Pines?”

Stan nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of a voice from the other bedroom in the hallway, and he turned to see Soos standing in the doorway. “Everything alright? …I don’t have to punch anyone yet, do I?”

With an exhale, Stan forced his hand back to his side again. “Yeesh, Soos, don’t sneak up on me like that or I’m gonna be the one who starts swinging. But nah, everything’s fine. Just thought I check in on Ford, is all.”

“Alright,” Soos said with a small smile as he held up a fist of his own. “But I swear, I will throw a punch if I need to! I made a promise, after all.”

He paused, and switched the fist to another hand. “Although maybe I should use this hand,” he said thoughtfully. “Don’t wanna accidentally break my Shack-Brochure-and-Fanfic-Writing hand on his face, you know what I mean?”

He swapped back to the first. “Although it’s probably better to use your dominant hand to punch—”

“Go to bed, Soos.”

“You got it, Mr. Pines!”

He shut the door, leaving Stan once again by himself in the quiet hallway.

Stan cast a look back to the door in front of him, his hand moving towards the doorknob again.

The same way it had when Ford had called him to the shack all those years ago, eyes bloodshot and features sunken from a lack of sleep—four days, Ford?!—and he’d showed up without a second thought to help.

Despite all the time they had spent apart, Ford had relied on him enough to seek out his help. Despite everything, Stan had still held some worth in his brother’s eyes.

And how had Stan proven that worth to his brother?

By tossing him through some massive, otherworldly portal for thirty years, stealing his identity, and ruining his life.

By getting huffy over a simple thank you and nearly dooming the entire universe.

“But then again, you might have a little trouble convincing him. Considering your poor track record in fixing mistakes.”

By not doing the one thing that had actually granted him worth, and killing that stupid demon proper.

He slammed his hand back down to his side again in a balled fist, and headed back down the hallway.

Forget it, he’d try again tomorrow.

— — — — — — —

“So, how’d the fight go~?”

Not even Bill’s shrill tauntings could pull Ford out of his determined state as he returned to his chair and notebook, the tip of his pencil once again dancing across the paper with incredible speed.

From the floor where he’d fallen earlier, Bill cast him a sour look. “Oh, real mature, Sixer. You’re really not going to pick me up?”

Ford’s hand clenched tighter around the pencil as he went to scratch out his latest idea—one that joined the dozen other scribbled-out ideas above it—before moving down to the next empty row on the paper and starting again—

“Uh, hello? Stanford? I’m talking to you!”

Talk then, you vile little demon.

The tip of the pencil snapped and Ford was unable to bite back his frustrated grunt of surprise. Right on cue, a cackle started from the floor as he reached for a pencil sharpener. “Hehe, I heard that~!” Bill chimed in a singsong voice. “Guess we know who lost the fight, eh, Grumpypants~?”

Ford paid him no mind as he quickly sharpened the pencil back into a point and returned to his work with that fierce determination from before.

No matter how many scribbled-out ideas he had to toss into the fireplace, he was going to find a solution to this problem.

No matter how long it took, no matter how much he had to verbally endure at Bill’s hand again—

—he would make certain that his brother’s sacrifices hadn’t been in vain.

“...Okay, seriously, are you going to leave me down here all night?”

— — — — — — — —

Mabel couldn’t sleep.

Ever since she’d settled into bed—a snoozing Waddles curled up at her side—her eyes had stayed glued to the ceiling. At first she’d tried distracting herself by holding mental conversations with the mold spots permanently stained into the old wood, but not even Daryl could lift her spirits at a time like this.

Every few minutes, her gaze would move to the bed across the room, a question lingering on her tongue for a moment before she returned her attention to the ceiling.

It was around midnight before she finally vocalized her lingering question with a quiet: “You awake, Dipper?”

Her answer immediately came in the form of blankets shuffling as Dipper rolled over to face her. “Of course I am.”

She rolled over to face him proper as well, both pairs of eyes shifting to the triangular window of their room. The moon hung high in the night sky, its beams of light shining through the glass and illuminating the floor in a way that would normally be comforting.

Tonight, however, the sight of an eye-shaped object through the triangular frame was just a painful reminder of what waited for them just a few rooms below.

“I can’t believe he’s back…”

Dipper turned his gaze from the moonlight and back to his sister at the sound of her voice. “Did you see Grunkle Ford?” she asked quietly. “He was so scared…”

“I don’t blame him,” Dipper admitted, placing a hand to his forehead. “We went through all of that trouble to kill Bill, and it didn’t even work.”

He slid the hand down to cover his eyes, but immediately lifted it again to peek over at her. “Hey, you saw it, right? How much he looked like me…”

There was more shuffling—this time on Mabel’s end—as she sat up in bed completely. “It was like when I saw him during the puppet show,” she said, pulling her legs to her chest. “Except the hair and eyes were different this time around. His left eye wasn’t all—”

She covered her own left eye with one hand. “His hair color’s different this time, too. I wonder why?”

“Who knows?” Dipper said with a shrug. “Although I guess meeting—or re-meeting a guy who looks like me isn’t the weirdest thing to happen in this town, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Mabel agreed. “Still…why’d it have to be that guy? Why does he have to ruin everything?”

A sad hum escaped her as she hugged her knees close. “So much for getting to spend more time with Grunkle Ford this summer…”

Dipper let his arm fall before he sat up in bed. “Hey, come on, you really think it’s gonna take all summer for Grunkle Ford to get rid of Bill?” he asked. “He’s spent the last thirty years traversing the Multiverse! He’s explored more dimensions than we could probably even think of on our own—dimensions where everyone lives underwater, dimensions ruled by talking robotic octopi—”

When Mabel plopped sadly back against her pillow again, Dipper paused for a moment to think. “—dimension where the air is made of cotton candy instead of oxygen?”

As he’d expected, the concept twitched the corners of her mouth with mild amusement. “Ugh, I’ll bet that dimension is soooo tasty,” she said. “I wonder what they do when it rains, though? All the cotton candy would just melt and then they’d have no air—ooh, I’ll bet they have like, a ga-ZILLION of those cotton candy-making machines ready for when that happens!”

“Anything’s possible in the Multiverse,” Dipper said with a nod. “My point is that Grunkle Ford’s been around, and he’s probably picked up a lot of different ways to get rid of Bill! Even if the methods he’s tried already didn’t work—and even if we can’t use stuff like the Zodiac or his Quantum Destabilizer—I’m sure he’s got something up his sleeve.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. And if none of those work, we could always come up with some ideas for him! Like—like—”

She flumped her arms across her blanket with an exasperated huff. “Well, I’m too tired to think of anything now, but I’m sure we could think of something!” she said, scrunching her face in concentration. “What if we…I dunno—”

“Oooh!” Dipper snapped his fingers with inspiration. “What if we got one of those time travel devices, strapped one to Bill, and then rocketed him to a date so far into the future that he’d never be able to get back to our time?”

Mabel pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle, but her amusement faded almost immediately. “Nah, that wouldn’t work. He could always trick and possess someone super far in the future, and they could help him get back here,” she pointed out. “Like what he did with that Blendin guy, remember?”

“Oh, yeah…”

The two fell silent again, the only noise that could be heard was the gentle summer wind rustling the forest outside their window. “We should probably sleep for real,” Dipper finally said. “We can just…do what we told Grunkle Stan we were going to do and take shifts, right?”

“Well then, you sleep first,” Mabel said, once again in an upright position as she reached over to pull Waddles close to her. “And like I said I was gonna do, I’ll let Waddles stay on your side and be your guard hog while you sleep.”

Waddles followed up her remark with a groggy little oink of reassurance, and Dipper let out a chuckle. “Yeah, and what’s he gonna do if Bill pops up in my dream?”

“I mean, you can always dream up a dream Waddles to eat him,” Mabel suggested. “He looks like a corn chip, right? I’ll bet dream corn chips taste just as good as real ones!”

She plapped a hand against the top of Waddles’ head. “Plus then when you wake up, you’ll have the real Waddles right there to comfort you!”

This got a full-on laugh out of Dipper. “Alright, alright, point made. Send him over.”

Mabel leaned over the side of the bed and gently set Waddles to the floor, giving his little rump an encouraging pat. “Go on, boy! Go protect Dipper from the dream nacho!”

With another tired little oink, he ambled on over to Dipper’s side of the bedroom and oinked up at him for assistance. “Go ahead and set an alarm on your phone, Mabel,” Dipper said, and reached down to pull him up onto his bed. “What should we set it to? An hour? Hour-and-a-half?”

“An hour works for me,” Mabel said. “But if you don’t actually sleep for that hour, I will not hesitate to stay up longer out of spite!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sleeping…”

Dipper settled back down under the covers while Waddles snuggled up next to him, and it wasn’t until Mabel heard Dipper’s light snoring that she finally dared to tear her gaze from him and reach for her phone.

That was good. At the very least, he’d be getting some sleep tonight.

She looked to the window again—the moonlight still faintly illuminating the darkened room—and crawled out of bed to stare outside properly. Despite the tall trees that surrounded the shack on all sides, there was little to block the ocean of stars that painted the night sky.

After staring for a bit, she turned and crawled back into her bed. With another look at her brother to make sure he was still asleep, she dug her hand between the mattress and wall, the tip of her tongue poking out between her lips in determination as she fumbled around for the unseen object she sought so desperately.

She knew it was a longshot that it would’ve remained in the same place for nine months—given the dustless state of their room, Soos would’ve been the most likely candidate to find it if he searched-slash-cleaned hard enough—but eventually her fingers brushed against something and she pulled it out to investigate.

It was an old, dusty piece of paper, the same one she had crumpled and tucked in its hiding spot almost a full year ago. The edges were frayed and torn and the tint of the paper was a sicklier yellow than she remembered—but the jagged writing on the front was still just as legible as the day she’d found it in Stan’s car:

“Note to self: Possessing people is hilarious! To think of all the sensations I’ve been missing out on—burning, stabbing, drowning. It’s like a buffet tray of fun! Once I destroy that journal, I’ll enjoy giving this body its grand finale—by throwing it off the water tower! Best of all, people will just think Pine Tree lost his mind, and his mental form will wander in the mindscape forever. Want to join him, Shooting Star?”

Mabel stared hard at the paper for what felt like an hour—although in reality, it was probably no longer than a few minutes. She read and reread several times over, every cruel word like a knife to her vision and gut, before finally crumpling the paper in an angry fist and shoving it back down between the wall and her mattress where it belonged.

She settled back against her pillow again, and turned back to Dipper’s bed. Still fast asleep, with nothing more than the occasional twitch or shift in place.

He was sleeping, supposedly without nightmares. That was all that mattered.

She continued to stare at him until the sight made her drowsy, before turning her attention back to the various mold spots on the ceiling.

Daryl was going to have to work overtime tonight if he really wanted to lift her spirits.

[jjonglemons]

CLAWS MASTERLIST | all my works can be found here

posting chapter two today too actually so y'all can have some more excitement with the series lol i gotta try to sell it yk?

CLAWS

Chapter Two: Over and Under

Summary: when you started attending hogwarts university, you didn’t expect to immediately fit in with a group of guys who call themselves ‘ateez’. it’s only natural that as you grow closer, someone falls in love, becomes an enemy, and unravels the drama.

WC: 3k

Tags: smut, some members will be assholes (for the drama sorry), angst, hate fucking (oops), degradation, drinking, partying

March 2024

Your breath hitched in your throat as Yunho looked at you, sadness written all over his face. Wooyoung was yelling and swearing at Jongho while Yeosang and Seonghwa tried to hold him back. Mingi was cross-armed in the background, watching silently as the scene unfolded in front of him. Hongjoong and San were consoling each other about what to do, the situation obviously tearing the group apart.

October 31, 2023

You wanted to throw up. You physically couldn’t stand seeing both Wooyung and Yunho standing so close to those girls in the corner of the kitchen, laughing and leaning over to whisper something into their ears because the music was so loud. One of the girl’s hands was pressed firmly against Yunho’s chest, and he didn’t seem to mind. Wooyoung was holding the other around the waist, pulling her closer every now and then when she’d shift away slightly. The music engulfed you into the moment, pain aching nearly unbearably in your chest. You didn’t want to be there anymore. You didn’t realise how firmly you were gripping the red solo cup in your hand until you heard a light crack and felt cool liquid dripping down your forearm. “Fuck,” you muttered, looking down at the now existing puddle of vodka on the floor.

“Really? On my Yeo’s nice carpet?” Hongjoong’s voice sang beside you playfully. He let out a chuckle before you abruptly looked up and glared at him, signaling him that this wasn’t a joking matter. His smile fell instantly when he saw the look in your eyes. “Are you okay?” The liquid on the carpet began to twist and turn, morphing into odd shapes that seemed to turn into various ghoulish creatures that represented all the rage you were feeling. “Woah, okay,” Hongjoong exhaled, placing his hands on your shoulders from behind, “love, we need to calm you down.” You felt a sense of ease wash over you as Honjoong moved his energy through you. Taking deep breaths, you began to relax. Having a friend that had the power of healing certainly had its pros. 

Yeosang moved over towards you, noticing your energy shift as he was passing by the seas of warm bodies to get water from the kitchen. He followed your body’s direction to where it was pointing, flickering his glances between Yunho and Wooyoung standing beside the fridge and your red face. It wasn’t very well lit in the room, yet he could still see the irritation rising to your cheeks. 

“Have you not told them yet?” he asked, “or, one of them, anyway.”

“No.” You sighed, turning around so you were now facing him and Hongjoong.

You, Yeosang, and Hongjoong had been joint at the hip since your first year at the university. The three of you instantly hit it off, becoming best friends quickly. They knew about your complicated feelings, that you liked both Wooyoung and Yunho. But you just never got the courage to tell either of them how you felt. You watched them from a distance as they’d date other students, attempting to suppress the jealousy you harboured. At one point, something almost developed between you and Wooyoung, but it never did. The two of you being the only ones in Gryffindor made it easy for you to spend a lot of time together. You’re not even sure if either of you even realised it was happening, the growing connection. He seemingly moved on and was back in the dating pool when the year started. You assumed not seeing each other as much over summer break caused that rift. Throughout September, you noticed how he smiled at his phone often, so you’d ask him who he was talking to in a way that would come off as being playful and hide your ulterior motives of why you wanted to know. He’d simply tell you it was person a, or person b; someone he’d met over the break or at work, and so on. You and Yunho had grown closer over the summer when you found out his family was moving to a neighbourhood close to yours. Wednesday evenings, the two of you would go to the drive-in theatre together then practise magic afterwards. With his telekinetic abilities, the two of you made a solid duo. Once, you formed a bow and arrow out of fire from which he shot a bullseye in under a second, burning a clear hole through a tree stump. 

“I haven’t,” you admitted, tossing the broken cup into the trashcan a few inches away, “I don’t know if I ever will, honestly. I think I just need to get over it.”

“You say that as if you haven’t already been trying to do that,” Hongjoong responded, “give it time.”

“Maybe you just need to get under someone else,” Yeosang chimed in.

Hongjoong snapped his fingers like he had just had an ah-ha moment and pointed finger guns at you. “Yes, that’s what you need.”

“Guys,” you whined, nudging there sides, “I do not need to get fucked to get over them.”

“Fair enough,” Yeosang nodded, backing away with his hands up in surrender, “I just know you. You need an external push to actually take another step forward.”

You nodded, throwing your head back with a loud sigh. “I just know I should have never gotten involved with either of them in the first place. I mean, Wooyoung and I being so close not only emotionally, but physically in the dorm rooms, it was inevitable that at some point we’d let our inhibitions slip.”

“Did you guys ever talk about it?” Yeosang asked.

You shook your head. “No, we both never addressed it and just acted like everything was normal. I can’t blame him for feeling the way I do when I see him flirting with other people when we silently chose to act like nothing happened. It was a dumb decision, we were drunk.”

“You don’t know how he actually feels, En, you really should talk to him. Maybe he's hiding the fact that he isn’t actually over that night, either. You know he’s good at putting on a brave face.” Hongjoong added. 

You bit your lips as you thought about what Hongjoong had just said. It’s true, maybe he did feel the same way about the situation. But, it seemed like when it came to sex and romance, neither of you were great at communicating and just decided to shove the feelings down instead. “Maybe you’re right,” you said. “Since Yunho and I started hanging out one on one over the summer, I swore I was getting over Wooyoung until I saw him again.”

“Did you and Yunho ever… You know?” Hongjoong asked, and you knew exactly what he was referring to.

“No, we only held hands sometimes. I thought how I felt for him was purely platonic until I heard from Seonghwa that he had started seeing that sophomore a few weeks ago.”

“You know they broke up, right? She was just using him for his money. He was pissed when he found out. That’s why it only lasted a couple of weeks.”

“I knew they broke up,” you confirmed, “but of course, seeing him all over that girl in the kitchen tonight isn’t helping me feel any better.”

Yeosang and Hongjoong nodded, unsure what else to add to the conversation. It was pretty clear you needed to figure out how to address your feelings, and that wasn’t something they, unfortunately, could help you with.

A few moments later, you saw San approaching the three of you in a rush. “Guys,” he shouted, nearly out of breath, “some freshman is throwing up all over the bathtub, can you please help me out?” He begged.

Yeosang and Hongjoong looked at each other, then let out a gagging sound before agreeing.

The party was hosted by Yeosang at Slytherin, thus his responsibility, but he’d be damned if he had to go through that situation alone. Plus, Hongjoong’s healing abilities would make cleaning the mess up much faster. “We’ll catch you later,” he said, giving you a quick pat on the back before dragging Hongjoong along with him to follow San towards the bathrooms.

You stood there for a moment, allowing your thoughts to wonder while the music tempted you to sway along with it. You didn’t see Wooyoung or Yunho in the kitchen anymore, nor the girls, so they must have moved elsewhere. You felt sick.

“Hmm,” a voice hummed beside you. Your trance was broken, trying to ignore the fact that Jongho was now standing in front of you, along with Mingi. “Must suck, huh? Seeing your two boytoys with other girls,” he taunted. 

“What do you want?” You rolled your eyes and crossed your arms.

“Nothing,” he sang, “I was just observing this whole time.”

“And why is that?” You scoffed, “You hate me, Jongho, so why are you watching me tonight?” Mingi smirked beside him, anticipating the potential drama to unfold. He enjoyed a nice cup of tea. Jongho’s face became unreadable for a moment. “And how do you even know about them, anyway?”

“Yeosang talks too loud. His bedroom is far from mine, yet I can still hear him yapping away with you on the phone at night.”

You groaned, mentally facepalming yourself. You weren’t mad at Yeosang, you already knew this about him. But, you were a bit worried if Jongho would say anything to Wooyoung and Yunho. Despite his hostility towards you, though, he didn’t give you the sense that he’d be one to reveal someone else's business. Mingi, on the other hand….

“Don’t,” you seethed, pointing harshly between the two of them, “say anything to them, got it?”

“And what happens if we do, princess?” Mingi provoked.

“Mingi, I swear to god if you say something.” You were gripping his collar at this point.

He laughed, removing your hands from him. “Alright, alright. I won’t. I look forward to seeing how this plays out, though.”

You pushed past him, making sure to shove him with your shoulder in the process. “I need another drink,” you mumbled. The kitchen was empty at this point, all of the guests were either smoking outside on the balcony, overcrowding the common room, fucking in a bed, or sick in the bathrooms.

“En,” Jongho’s voice sent chills up your spine. 

You finished pouring your double shot of vodka and downed it quickly before turning around to face Jongho, slamming the shot glass down onto the island. “Can’t you just leave me alone already?” You groaned, “I’m tired of you coming at me all the time. I have no idea why you dislike me so much.”

Jongho’s expression seemed to alternate between remorseful and aggravated in a blink of an eye. “Maybe if you weren’t such a bit-” he cut himself off as a few random students entered the kitchen, laughing loudly. Jongho moved over to you, swiftly taking your hand and pulling you upstairs.

“What the fuck is your issue?” You spat as he closed his bedroom door behind him. While you were grateful to him for bringing you to a quieter place, the fact it was his bedroom made your blood run cold. Never did you expect to be alone with your sworn enemy in their room.

“Just let me explain,” he began to say, before wincing. He groaned, reaching his hand up to his head. He was clearly in pain.

Your resentment towards him melted away, “Are you okay-” but only for a moment.

“I’m tired of you acting like you’re so high and mighty because of your family,” Jongho was back to acting like his usual, shitty self, “waltzing in here, stealing my friends…” He had you backed up against the wall, and you were annoyed at how aroused you were beginning to feel. You weren’t even sure if you hated him mutually, but you certainly weren’t a big fan. Anymore, anyway. “Yeosang and I used to be so close, until you showed up,” he was so close that you could feel the heat of his breath on your face. Then, it dawned on you, what Yeosang had said earlier about getting under one to get over another. With the alcohol now pulsing through your veins, your guard was down. You didn’t care that the man in front of you despised you. Besides, you’d heard that hate fucking made a good time. 

“Jongho,” you said, “can you fuck me right now?”

“What?” His eyes were wide, not taking them off of yours.

“I said,” you closed the gap between the two of you, “can you fuck me right now?”

“Why would you want me to fuck you?” He was genuinely confused, but couldn’t deny how hard he was getting from your initiation. “I hate you, remember?”

“That’s exactly why I want you to fuck me right now,” you replied, causing Jongho’s brows to furrow even further, “we can put the adrenaline pumping from our anger to good use, don’t you think?”

He stood there for a moment, unable to move. At that point, he was just as horny as you. He exhaled, allowing his primal instincts to take over. “Fuck,” he growled, dropping his hands to the sides of your head and pulling you closer to him. Without another word, his lips met yours hungrily as he gripped harshly at your hips. You knew about his superhuman level of strength, and it was enticing to experience it under these circumstances. He picked you up and pushed you against the wall and you swore you heard it crack. You wrapped your legs around his waist as your fingers ran through his hair. You moaned, his mouth exploring your neck. He continued leaving a trail of hickeys as his hand found its way under your dress. Quickly pushing aside your panties, his fingers gingerly met your clit and you inhaled sharply. Suddenly, you were lying on your back in his bed as he hovered over you. He helped you remove your dress before inserting two of his fingers without warning, a loud mewl escaping from your lips. 

“Oh, fuck,” you winced, simultaneously feeling pain from the lack of time to adjust and pleasure of his fingers curling against your sweet spot. 

“I do hate you,” he said in between kisses, “but, god, have I imagined fucking this pretty pussy of yours.”

You screamed as he removed his fingers hastily, replacing them with his cock. You were so lost in the sensations he was creating that you didn’t even realise he had undressed himself. He threw your legs over his shoulder crossing one arm over your ankles to keep them there whilst he wrapped his hand around your neck with the other.

“Jongho,” you moaned, beginning to squirm beneath him, “please,” you begged, “more.”

“Are you sure?” He asked.

You were surprised he asked you such a question. Though, at this moment, you didn’t care if he was nice underneath all of the mean exterior. You just wanted him to keep pounding his hatred into you. You nodded, biting your lip as another groan slipped out. “You said I was a bitch, right?” You taunted between moans, “so fuck me like one.”

Jongho wasted no time as his pace quickened, the sounds of his body slamming against yours echoing throughout the room. “Fuck,” he groaned, “you’re so tight. Has no one been fucking you lately?”

“You already know this,” you sneered, gripping the wrist of his hand around your neck harder as you yelped, his cock continuing to pound against your cervix. “Have you forgotten our conversation earlier?”

Jongho pulled you up, his hand reaching behind the back of your head so he could grip your hair and keep you upright pressed against him. “I thought bitches always got fucked?”

“They do,” your eyes began to roll, “that’s why you’re fucking me right.” Jongho’s thrust began to get sloppy as he began to reach his peak. Low grunts fell from his lips, harmonising perfectly with your higher moans. “Make me come like the bitch I am.”

With that, he gathered up all the remaining energy he could muster to finish both of you. His face was so fucked out as he felt you squirt all over his cock, pulling himself out quickly to spill his hot seed onto your stomach. He collapsed beside you, tiredly reaching for the packet of wipes on his night stand. “Here,” he breathed heavily, handing you one, “to clean yourself up.”

“Thank you,” you exhaled, still coming down from your high.

“Jongho?” The two of you sat up abruptly by Seonghwa’s voice coming from the other side of the door. “Are you in here?”

“Fuck,” Jongho muttered, running his fingers through his hair, quickly picking up your clothes and tossing them towards you. “Closet,” he whispered, quickly trying to redress himself and look presentable before opening the door.

You quickly pulled your dress over you as you shuffled into his closet, trying to keep your breathing inaudible.

Jongho took a deep breath before opening his bedroom door to meet Seonghwa. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Mingi is looking for you,” he said, glancing around the room. He could sense Jongho wasn’t alone. “Are you with someone right now?”

“No,” Jongho answered a little too quickly.

“Right…” there was an awkward pause before Seonghwa continued, “well, like I was saying, Mingi is looking for you. I’d rather not have to send him home with Hongjoong pissed, so hurry up.”

Jongho nodded, watching Seonghwa as he walked down the hallway to return to the party. He slowly closed the door, allowing the breath he was holding in to be released. “Fuck,” he muttered.

You wobbled out of the closet, “Do you think I’ll be able to sneak out of here?”

[interstellar-productions]

I want to continue my earlier post about Aaron and pastels. More specifically i want to talk about why i think he would naturally lean to pastels. (Outside of my own personal bias of putting pretty boys in pretty colors)

If we’re bringing in my Aaron post yesterday (about how he copes with his traumas) then i think he’d lean naturally to pastels for similar reasons as to why the rest of the OG foxes like the vibrant orange of PSU. Aaron doesn’t want people to see him or look at him, he wants people to glance right over him. The artist part of me considers the symbolism of colors and how they can be used to convey messages.

With that i bring you this. The foxes use bright orange as their colors so that way they can’t be looked over. This has more then one meaning to me as a psych major and art enthusiast. The general public doesn’t like to acknowledge people like the foxes because their living breathing proof that the world is an ugly place. These are people that have been used and abused to a point where they’ve been severely damaged. By the foxes colors being bright orange its a statement that forces people to acknowledge their existence, their survival. “You ignored me when I was being broken. You will NOT ignore me now that I have to live with the aftermath of your ignorance” for the foxes the bright colors are an act of defiance.

Aaron hates the bright orange, he doesn’t want people to see him because people seeing him means that he has to admit what happened too him. That’s why he hates the bright orange because everyone knows what it represents and more importantly it’s such a bright color he can’t hide when he wears it. He’s forced to stand out and be seen.

Thus we move forward to several years down the line (in my mind he starts with socks in his senior year) he’s made peace with himself and what happened to him. Therapy and strong support system and building better relationships with his family (the foxes). He might never really get to the point of wearing or being comfortable in the bright fox orange (I imagine that all the foxes still have certain things that are fox orange, I also imagine that Aaron has never felt comfortable in the color). But i think at some point he gets used to wearing pastels. Aaron and Andrew wear dark colors a lot in the books and i have to think that for Aaron it comes from needing to blend in and Andrew it comes from a place of intimidation.

So as Aaron gets more comfortable and heals he starts to unconsciously lean to pastels colors. The foxes use neons to make themselves seen. Aaron leans into pastels.

The foxes: im going to make you notice me so that way you’ll never be able to say “i didn’t know” again.

Aaron: its ok if you look at me, I’ve made my peace with what i am

The foxes what you to see them, thats how they heal.

Aaron grows to be ok with being seen even if he doesn’t go trying to make people notice him.

Just Aaron whose version of healing is him going from so violently wanting not be noticed and wanting to be normal so bad it physically pains him, growing to be comfortable with maybe not being completely normal and becoming ok with standing out just slightly. Just enough.

Aaron going from being scared of being noticed to be ok with it if it happens.

Making peace with it. Making peace with himself.

And it all starts his last year at PSU when he’s at the mall and comes across a pair of socks that will be so comfortable with his scrubs and work shoes. He doesn’t even care that their sky blue with pastel creamsicle orange fox silhouettes.

[pweepsiee]

Thank you but goodbye

This won’t get any traction because only pictures of tits get pushed or interacted with but that’s okay. I’ll add tags so you guys see this anyway.

It’s hard to know where to start. I spent a long time on here, putting pieces of myself out into the void, hoping for connection, validation, maybe even some kind of understanding. But it’s been a journey that taught me more than I ever anticipated—about others, about myself, and about the darker sides of online spaces and human nature.

I’ve been through more than I ever thought I’d face here. I’ve had people send me things no one should have to see—gore, graphic threats of rape and murder. Strangers who decided they had the right to punish me with violence for simply existing and sharing my body on my own terms. I’ve been slut-shamed, insulted, torn apart, told I’m not “enough” in a thousand different ways. Too fat, too ugly, too bitchy, too much of a people pleaser. For some, my body was never enough to satisfy whatever expectation they’d dreamed up for me. And when I expressed my pain, I was told to just “try harder” to please. Every insult, every attack—it was relentless.

At first, there was a thrill in it. The idea that people were paying attention. But over time, it became less about freedom and self-expression, and more like a trap. I started needing the notifications, addicted to the fleeting rush of being “seen,” even if it came with all the ugliness. I posted things that made me feel raw, exposed, and ashamed—but still, I kept them up. It wasn’t even about me anymore; it was about performing for a faceless audience, one that only wanted to consume and never connect. I kept hoping that if I posted more, someone might notice that I was struggling, that I was hurting. But the moments I tried to be vulnerable were met with derision, mockery, or worse, cruelty.

On October 6th, I tried to end my life. It wasn’t a whim or a flippant decision—it was the culmination of feeling completely worthless, invisible beyond what I could offer visually, and unheard. I had tried to signal that I was in pain, and the responses I got were gut-wrenching. People told me to “try again,” mocking my failure to die. Others brushed it aside entirely, demanding I get back to posting my body as if I had no value beyond that. It was like looking into a mirror that only showed one version of myself—a version people felt entitled to consume and degrade.

There’s a sickness in spaces like these, a perverse lack of empathy and human decency. There’s a void where kindness, respect, and understanding should be. I’ve encountered men who would spit their hate, their misogyny, their violent fantasies at me without a second thought, men who have shown me how easily they can strip away my humanity to satisfy their own needs. Some are rapists, some are worse, and they all seem to revel in their cruelty, hiding behind screens. They have taught me that, to them, I am just an object—a body, a pair of tits, something to use and discard. They’ve shown me how quickly love, admiration, or even simple respect can turn into venom the moment they don’t get exactly what they want.

Being on here has been like swimming in polluted water, beautiful on the surface but poisonous underneath. What started as a space to share myself turned into a source of harm that corroded my mental and physical well-being. It was more than just being objectified—it was the sense that I didn’t even matter as a person, only as a vessel for gratification. And that feeling sank deeper and deeper, leaving wounds I’m still working to heal.

I’ve met a few kind people here, people who saw me for more than just a body, who offered me small glimpses of kindness, understanding, and friendship. To those few: thank you. Your kindness did not go unnoticed, and I wish you nothing but peace, joy, and all the love you deserve. To those who saw my humanity and respected it—I’m grateful.

But to the rest: those who degraded me, insulted me, sent me threats or slurs, and preyed on my vulnerabilities—you’ll reap what you sow, one way or another. I don’t hold anger toward you, but I do pity you. And I have no intention of letting your words and actions follow me into the future.

There’s been a silver lining in all of this, and it’s one of the few positive things I’m taking with me. Through all of the toxicity, I discovered something important about myself. I realized I am a lesbian, and that I no longer want to be viewed as something for men to consume. I am worth so much more than being reduced to a body on a screen, worth more than any like, reblog, or message notification. I deserve to be seen, truly seen, as a whole person, and to be loved for who I am, not what I look like or what I can give to others.

This is goodbye. For those who truly cared, I’ll remember you. For those who didn’t, I’ll leave you behind, along with this platform that no longer serves me. I’m taking my life back, my self-worth back, and finding peace in spaces that don’t drain me.

Thank you, and goodbye. ♡´･ᴗ･`♡

[whatsk-poppinhomies]

Pairing : bully!Yandere!Hwang Hyunjin x F!Reader TW : yandere ; very dark themes ; emotional abuse ; manipulation ; physical fighting ; verbal fighting ; HEAVILY TRIGGERING ; domestic abuse ; physical abuse ; Word Count : 3.6k

Your relationship with Hyunjin was tumultuous, there was no other way to describe it, and there was no way to explain why it’s the way it is either. There was nothing particularly wrong, but there was absolutely nothing right about it either. The two of you being together was the perfect storm, a natural disaster that left nothing but pain and destruction in its wake. 

Standing in the bathroom you stared at yourself in the mirror, bruises littered your shoulders and your arms where Hyunjins fingers had grabbed you just a little too tight. Scratches and deep cuts lined your skin from when he’d get so mad objects would be thrown around the house, glass shattering on the floor and ricocheting back up against your legs. Handprint shaped blotches of red would sting at your cheeks, serving as a stark reminder to what you went through just to be with him. 

Why were you still with him? It was a solid question, but one that you never actually thought to ask yourself, or at least, you didn’t want to think too hard about the answer. Right now though, you were with him because he loved you. Of course he loved you, there was no one else in the world that would ever love you as much as he did, there was no one else in the universe that would follow you around wherever you went and be willing to fight with you over such mundane things like bumping into a man by accident in the grocery store. He only fought with you because he absolutely cherished you, because he was trying to do anything to keep you with him. 

How could he possibly love you when he was laying his hands on you so often, with such frequency that it almost seemed like he was enjoying it at this point? There were men out there that would be willing to love you in ways much better than he did, in ways that you didn’t even know existed. Your body would be worshiped, your every word would be listened to, your every move and every breath, everything about you… You would be doted upon like a queen in her castle. But to receive that kind of love after this… When the love that Hyunjin gave you was the only kind of love that you knew… It would be like emotional whiplash, you wouldn’t be able to handle it. 

At some point you had grown accustomed to the love that Hyunjin would thrust upon you, and sometimes you’d await it, knowing that when he was finished with his assault you’d be loved in a way that had tears stinging in your eyes and your jaw slacked as he would take you to highs that were unreachable by any kind of drug. Hyunjin was an amazing lover, he just loved differently… There wasn’t anything wrong with that. 

“You had to sneak out again, didn’t you?” Your friend asked when she noticed your eyes drifting to the window more than once, a look of fear flashing across your face when you saw anyone that even remotely looked like Hyunjin. “Why won’t you just leave him? You look like you got your ass beat, Y/N… It’s not good…” The sleeves that you had rolled up due to the summer heat were now slid back down your arms to cover the fresh bruises that darkened your skin in various places. 

“I’m… I’m fine… I just bumped into the wall, that’s all.” Another excuse to defend him, it’s what you always did. Your friends knew better though, they could see the shape of every splotch that littered your body, they perfectly matched the shape of a hand and fingers that gripped onto you too tightly. “Really… I’m fine.” You tried to reassure her, but she looked so disappointed in you that you could only bow your head, unable to even look her in the eye anymore. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore…” You mumbled, and you knew that she wouldn’t push it. There was no point, not when you had made it quite clear from the getgo that you weren’t going to leave him. 

A lot of people would call it stockholm syndrome, the way you excused everything he did, the way you genuinely loved him no matter how much pain he caused you. You had so many opportunities to get away from him, to tell someone about what he did, but you never said anything, and you always went right back to him. You personally didn’t think of it that way… you weren’t making excuses for him, you were fine, you didn’t want to leave him. Your relationship with him was just… different, and people didn’t seem to understand that. 

“Baby…” His voice cooed from behind you, and you couldn’t help but jump, whipping around to face him with wide eyes and a sheepish smile, your body already trembling when you saw the look in his eyes. The bell above the door hadn’t rang out, or maybe you just hadn’t heard it… But your friend didn’t react to his sudden appearance either, not until he was right there behind you, his hands firmly gripping onto your shoulders as you sat in your seat. “You didn’t tell me that you were going out today…” He sang out the words, sounding as sweet as possible, and to everyone else in the little cafe, he probably was a sweet guy. They didn’t feel the pain of his fingers pressing deeper and deeper into the dip of your shoulders, his nails breaking the skin beneath your shirt. 

“I invited her out, I came and I picked her up.” Your friend spoke up quickly, her eyes narrowed at your boyfriend. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think she was about to jump across the table and attack him, and maybe she wanted to, well, not even maybe, you knew she wanted to… But she wouldn’t, not here. “I just wanted to talk to her about work and stuff and how hard it’s been for me, she’s my best friend.” Oh, ever your protector, your friend thinking she was taking the fall for you being out today, but her excuses wouldn’t make him waiver. He already knew what he was going to do, and he was dead set on doing it. 

“Hmm…” Hyunjin hummed from behind you, his chin falling against the top of your head as his thumbs began to knead roughly into your back, right against your shoulder blade. “Well, it looks like the coffee is all gone now… I’ll be taking her home with me.” His hands slipped down your shoulders until he got to your elbow, quickly yanking you up off the chair and pulling you toward the exit. 

“Y/N!” Your friend called to you, and while you knew it would only get you into more trouble, you couldn’t help it, stopping in the middle of the cafe and turning to look at her as Hyunjin continued to try to yank against your arm. “Call me… Okay? Please…” She said, just loud enough for you to hear her, but you knew it was loud enough for Hyunjin to hear too, and he gave one last yank, pulling you with such force that you crashed against his side. 

“Defiance isn’t a good quality to have, baby.” Hyunjin said to you as if you were a baby, but it wasn’t for you that he spoke like that, it was to protect his image in a way. Speaking so softly would somehow make everyone who walks by overlook you, make them completely ignore the way his hand was wrapped so tightly around your arm that his thumb was almost touching his other fingers. 

You were being dragged toward his car, well, not actually dragged, you were willingly walking next to him, but anyone that knew the way he was, they’d naturally assume you were being taken against your will. “I wasn’t being defiant, I was going out for coffee with a friend.” You stated the truth simply, but the fact that you talked back in general seemed to irritate him. 

He quickly opened the passenger door, practically shoving you into the vehicle before slamming the door behind you. You were in for it when you got home, that much you were aware of. The way he stormed around to the drivers side and climbed in, the entire car seemed to be permeated by the anger he was exuding. “Always making me seem like the bad guy…” He mumbled as he shoved his key into the ignition. “I saw the way she looked at you… At me… She’s worried about you…” He continued to talk to himself as he pulled out of the parking spot, the rambling only further proving that your pessimistic train of thought was heading in the right direction. “She wouldn’t have to worry if you didn’t tell her so much. You shouldn’t be hanging out with her anyway, especially when I’m not around. You disobeyed me, you broke my rules… and I’m the villain.” He scoffed loudly, glancing over to you with the most sinister look in his eyes. “Ain’t that funny? You’re the one who makes me this way… but I’m the one who gets shit for it.” 

Your body was already tense, like a wrestler about to go into the ring, but you didn't have someone off to the side to give you a pep talk, you didn’t have anyone in your corner. It was you and Hyunjin, Hyunjin and you, no one else to stop what was coming. “Nobody would know what’s going on if you didn’t leave so many marks…” You mumbled, pulling your sleeves down even more to cover your hands as you curled up in the seat. 

Speaking back was always testy for you, he either loved it or hated it, it just depended on his mood. You probably should have known better considering you had snuck out of the house today and he was already pissed off, but you hated it when he tried to make himself the victim of what he did to you. “What was that?” He whispered, his knuckles a ghostly pale around the steering wheel. You didn’t say anything though, continuing to stare out the window, but you knew that when the car slowly came to a halt that he had his opening, even if only for the short amount of time that the light was red. 

The whipping of his head in your direction was enough to have a small gust of wind coming towards you. Defiance, disobeying him, talking back to him, these were all things that would land you in the washroom holding cold rags and ice packs over the bruises that he created while bandaging up the cuts and scrapes due to his ill controlled temper. Would he wait to get into the house to begin or would he start in the car, you weren’t sure. 

“Everything that I do for you, everything that I buy for you…” His head shook slowly, his breaths ragged although you weren’t sure whether it was because he was about to cry or because he was so pissed off. “It’s never enough for you, nothing is ever enough for you… But I love you enough to keep trying…” 

You rolled your eyes, the reflection of it perfectly mirrored back to him through the window. “Oh please, Hyunjin. We’re in the car, there’s no need for your narcissistic self pity act.” You muttered, already aware that you were in for it when you got home, so why not go big while you were still going strong? Before you could even turn your head to look at him, a firm grip was held in your hair, yanking your head back to forcefully turn you in his direction. 

“You’re pushing it.” He hissed, those three words alone holding a heavy threat, and while you never knew what he was fully capable of, you’d like to think that deep down in him somewhere there was some sort of love for you that would keep him from actually killing you, although he’s dropped the threat a few times before during bigger arguments. He forcefully pushed your head back against the window, not enough to actually hurt you, but the banging of your head against it had left you with a throbbing ache in the area. “Your friend is more trouble than she’s worth. Making you think you can talk back to me like this… Act like this. I don’t know who you think you are, but it’s gonna end real quick.” 

It felt like it took forever to get to the house, or maybe he had just somehow caught every single red light on the way home, but you were sort of thankful for the little bit of time that you had to prepare yourself before he pulled into the driveway. You knew that once you walked through that front door, you would be in a world of hell. 

Before he even put the car into park, you were undoing your seatbelt and rushing into the house, believing that maybe, just maybe if you got into the bedroom and locked the door behind you he wouldn’t come after you. It was wishful thinking, foolish thinking as well, but it didn’t stop you from doing it. It also gave you a little bit more time to mentally and emotionally prepare yourself for what was to come. Hyunjn was beyond pissed off now, and there was no turning back. You just needed to buy yourself a little more time before you faced it head on. 

The sound of the front door being slammed shut had you falling back onto the bed, curling up into yourself as heavy booted footsteps carried him closer to the bedroom. He hadn’t even taken his shoes off at the door, neither did you, but it was strange for him not to. Your heart was hammering in your ears, the heavy beating of it almost enough to completely block out the sound of his fist pounding against the bedroom door. 

“Open the damn door, Y/N!” He shouted, his voice sounding more like the villain in a horror movie than that of your boyfriend that, for some reason, you still loved and adored. “You’re making this harder on yourself… Why are you so. fucking.  stupid!” His words were accented with a pounding of his fist, punctuated by the loud banging of the door, the wood sounding like it was cracking now under his fists. 

“Just… Just go away, Hyunjin!” You called out, although your voice sounded far weaker in comparison to his. “I don’t want to fight with you… I just want to be alone right now.” He never listened, you weren’t sure why you thought that today of all days he’d listen to you now… But the silence that followed filled you with a bit of hope, that maybe he was as sick of the fighting as you were. Again, wishful thinking on your part, and a bit of forgetfulness. The sound of a key being turned in the doorknob, and you were far too slow in processing what exactly was going on, unable to get up and lock the door before it was being pushed open. 

“Why don’t you listen?” He asked, standing in the doorframe, the key still in the slot as he stared at you on the bed. “You do this shit on purpose so you can run to anyone who will listen and cry about what you cause.” He was narrating as he walked closer to you, and there was only so much bed for you to crawl back on to separate yourself from him. “You won’t even look at me when I’m talking to you…” He climbed on the bed in front of you, practically trapping you against the headboard. “Why are you so disrespectful?” Your refusal to answer only fueled his anger, nothing you did or said was good enough for him, it never would be, not when he was like this. 

A quick stinging slap had tears pricking your eyes, but your attention was fully on him again as his hands moved down to grip your wrists, the circulation being cut off had your fingertips going numb. “Why… Why don’t you love me?” You whimpered, sniffling softly as you stared up at him. “Why do you keep hurting me…?” The question had his head tilting, like a confused puppy that didn’t understand the words of its owner, but you knew that you didn’t own him… He owned you, that much was made obvious on a daily basis. 

Strangely enough though, his hands loosened their grip on you, the feeling of blood rushing back to your fingers sent a painful cold through the extremities. “Love you…? You think… I don’t… Love you?” He questioned, backing up off the bed, and you truly thought that your words had stopped him before things had gotten any worse. Maybe he’d leave you alone in the bedroom as he thought about what he was doing, about what he had done… Maybe he’d finally stop. 

“I just… I want to be with you… I want to stay with you… I love you so much, Hyunjin…” You whispered, your eyes following him as he walked around the room. Was he thinking about your words? Was he thinking at all? You wished that you knew what was going through his mind. Just as you were about to get up off the bed, wanting to go over to him, wrap your arms around him from behind and just hold him, soften him up, a picture of the two of you off the dresser was thrown across the room. The glass from the frame shattered and ricocheted off the wall, sprinkling the bed in tiny shards that reflected the sun shining in through the window. 

“Then why do you do this to me?!” He screamed, his hands twitching towards another photo. “Why do you go against me? Why do you go behind my back? Why do you sneak out of this house that I got for you, for us?!” His hand, with lightning speed, grabbed the photo and beamed it towards you. You were already curled up into yourself, your arms wrapped tightly around your knees and your head ducked down to try to protect yourself as much as possible, but the edge of the frame stabbed into your legs, the force behind the throw causing it to almost imbed itself into your skin as the glass cracked on impact. 

You yelped in pain, sobbing against your knees. “I’m… Not… D-Doing anything!” You tried to shout, but you were so broken, like a porcelain doll left in an abandoned home, slowly rotting away, time itself destroying you… Except it wasn’t time that was breaking you down, it was Hyunjin and the time that you were with him. You were fragile, far too fragile to stay with someone like him, but you loved him, and in moments like this, you couldn’t understand why. “I… I love you… Hyunjin…” 

“Then fucking act like you do!” He walked back over to the bed, grabbing your arms that were still cocooning your legs against yourself, dragging you across the glass shard covered mattress until you were on the floor. “I love you, I respect you! All I ask is for the same thing in return!” It was crazy, the way he thought that this was love and respect… That hurting you was a form of showing love. You would never return the favor though, because you would never think of hurting him, you could never bring yourself to fight back. You truly loved him, far too much to even try to protect yourself. 

“Hyunjin…” You whispered his name, finally lifting your head from your arms and looking up at him and then glancing down at your arm, noticing the blood that was slowly making its way down to your hands. Your legs stung with the fragments of glass that had stabbed their way through your pants and into your legs when he had dragged you across the bed. “Can I… Get a bandaid… Or something… I’m bleeding kind of bad right now…” You said softly, and that’s when his eyes softened, it was the only time he seemed to lighten up, when he saw the physical damage that he caused first hand. 

“Baby…” He cooed, his touch light now as he lifted you up off the floor, quickly rolling up your sleeve and letting out an audible gasp when he saw the deep gash that the corner of the picture frame had left on your arm. “Look what you made me do… Are you happy?” He tsked his tongue, tears clinging to his eyelashes that he quickly blinked away as he sniffled softly. “I hate hurting you, baby… I really do… I just want you to stay with me forever… I don’t want you to hurt me…” 

You nodded your head slowly before letting yourself crash against him, your arms wrapping tightly around his waist as you finally let yourself cry. “I’m sorry… I won’t do it again… I love you, Hyunnie…” You whimpered against his shirt, feeling his lips press against the top of your head. He was so soft, so sweet… You could never leave him. He wasn’t awful, he wasn’t mean… He was just scared, scared that you’d leave him, that you’d hurt him… You would never though. You loved him too much, you were his entirely, you could only hope that one day he’d truly realize that. 

[timbrhead]

metanoia | pt. 05.1 - scared to live, scared to die

𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨;

>> welcome, my name is 𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚, and ill be your scriptwriter (^‿^✿). my story will be kind of an choose-your-own-adventure story with a poll at the end of every part, where you can vote how the story continues.

This will be honkai star rail x fireader story with these elements: reincarnation, slow burn, i gave reader a proper personality (sry, not much customisation there), does not follow the original storyline

previous part <<< >>> next part (interlude chapter)

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ( this is important )

mentions of light injuries

surprisingly, your plan worked better than you expected.

well, not exactly in the way you hoped— you had the sneaking suspicion that he knows that you are not really mei lian. but at least he believed you when you said that you meant no harm.

one thing you learned about the general was, that through his many years of living, he could read ordinary people like an open book. it made sense; when you live for a few hundred years, you tend to pick up on the patterns of human behaviour.

even though he tends to laze around a bit, that doesn’t mean at all that he isn’t perceptive and cunning. in fact, it makes him even scarier that way— even in a drowsy and laid back state, you cannot escape his sharp gaze.

so he lets you quietly exist beside him, the impostor housing the body of his personal servant, just in case you attempt to try anything.

that was the only logical reason you could think off why he lets you live; to keep an eye on you. to study you.

but it wasn’t all bad, being under the watchful gaze of the general. he did not harm you, and after registering the fact that you were physically in a rather weakened state for a long life species, he even began to care for you.

you didn’t even register all the physical differences your body had. you noticed that your body was thin and lean, malnourished. you couldn’t carry heavy things, and you couldn’t run for long periods of time.

it was as frustrating as it was intriguing— it really made you wonder what mei lian survived with her siblings.

on the topic of your siblings, the general was kind enough to send out a search party for them, concerned as you were over their disappearance. maybe he saw that your worry towards these children were genuine, and decided to indulge you— that was at least your suspicion.

you were grateful nonetheless, it would be a pain to search for your siblings during your long work hours as the generals personal attendant.

not that it was a particularly hard job. it was even more domestic than you thought, you muse to yourself as you pushed a cart filled with tea and rice cakes to the courtyard. you saw the general propped on the chaise lounge, leaning over the chessboard he was playing on with yanqing.

„ general, it‘s tea time… “

you announce as you pushed the cart towards him, the steaming tea pot emitting the lingering scent of jasmine through the luscious garden. as always, the general flashed you a smug smile. he hummed, resting his cheek on his knuckles.

„ ah, perfect timing “, he announced, watching with sharp golden eyes as you prepared his tea.

„ something on your mind? “, he inquires, tilting his head slightly. you flinch, looking at him with wide eyes before waving it off, forcing a small smile to stretch across your face. you took the steaming tea cup, putting it beside a plate of sticky, sweet rice cakes.

„ i have just been—it‘s just some trivial things, general. here you go. “, you mutter, noticing his smile slightly waver as he grabs the cup, taking a sip from it. you noticed that he doesn’t like it when you weren’t transparent with him. it made him think that you were plotting something.

„ if it bothers you enough, then it is not a trivial thing. i would like to know. “

you sigh, averting your eyes. biting your lip, you prevent the frustration bubbling up and spilling from your mouth. „it…It is my siblings, general, i‘m—i‘m worried sick.“

you force out, gripping the handle of the cart. it has been two months ever since you started to work for the general, and ever since then, nothing of significance has happened.

every day felt the same, wringing out your sanity bit by bit as you acted like someone you weren’t, living a life you didn’t want to live. the mask you wore was slowly merging into a second skin, trapping you in this illusion.

„ the search party is searching for them as we speak “, the general retorts, making you calm down a bit. you nod slightly, running a hand through your hair. „i—i know, general. and i‘m forever grateful, but—“ the grip around the handle grew tighter as your eyes narrowed in exasperation.

„ i just feel so helpless. “

you admit, hearing the general sigh shortly after that. „ if you wish to do more, simply pray for their return. leave this up to my people, i‘m sure they will be found. “ he says, finishing his cup. you frown, raising your head.

„ is…is that truly everything i can do? general, why don‘t you let me join a search party? i know my siblings the best, i could help—“

„ absolutely not. “

he stops you before you could say anything more. you bit your lip at that. right. if he lets you go, then he also loses the control he has over you. there was no reason to let you go unsupervised, leaving his watchful gaze.

you were just about to protest, when he was suddenly standing before you, gently shushing you with a finger pressed against your lips.

„ please, dearest. it‘s not good for you to be stressed. you will strain your body even more. “, he comments, before slyly smiling. „why don’t we take a stroll instead? it is not healthy to be coped up inside the house all the time, no? “

he suggests, and before you know it, you are taken by his hand, with no room for protest. you could only gasp out a confused „ hah? “ as he led you out of the office into the streets, your wrist in his tight grip.

no matter how you look at it, the general was sometimes even more odd than you.

as you were led through the crowd, one that was naturally parting for the esteemed general of the luofu, you noticed that it too was a test. with the way he observed you so carefully, he wanted to test your reaction to specific things, watching if anything would make you let out an unusual reaction.

that didn’t occur though, so after stuffing you full with various items of street food and buying you a silly looking hat that he photographed you wearing ( possibly to quench his silent disappointment ) , he lead you back towards the seat of divine foresight.

but just then, as you wanted to convince the general to please delete the photo on his phone, you noticed an unusual flash of green whizzing by. it was a woman in a green robe, with light brown hair that was swooped to the side.

and momentarily, you locked your eyes with her dull ones, ones seemingly swallowing you whole.

after that a whole chain reaction started.

your vision began to waver. you felt feverish, and you saw lights flashing by you. jing yuan‘s calls were a faint echo, and everything seemed to flash by in a single second. you couldn’t even register wether you were standing or not, everything was spinning, and it was too much, too much, too much—

the voices of the passer-by’s and the general were slowly replaced with memories not belonging to you, and you felt sick, toppling over before blacking out.

you heard faint screams of agony, making your body shiver.

your lungs burned, making you tear up.

from this point on, the story really begins to ramp uppp ~ so don‘t forget to vote on what the reader should do next!

taglist; @shadowypeachsweets

- xoxo, laina

[raindrop-21]

Scarred Love - Chapter Seven: Sun And Moon

a/n: finally got some motivation and finished it, enjoy <3

Word count: 1,516

Cw: Ghoap x f!reader, soulmates, talk about scars, tiny mention if kidnapping[in a joking way] (Tell me if I missed any)

Ch1, Ch2, Ch3, Ch4, Ch5, Ch6, Ch7, Ch8~ Masterlist

Soulmates. You have them. They’re yours. All yours. How is this real? The happiness flowing throughout your body has made you energetic. The boys have taken you to a café to celebrate. Your entire body is still except for your mind and your leg that won't stop bouncing with adrenaline. You still can’t believe it’s real.

Johnny must be able to feel how the adrenaline is pulsing throughout your body with the way his hand is placed on your knee. You can tell he’s feeling the same way by the giddy smile on his face. Simon gets up to get your drinks once they’re ready, and when he’s back, he places your latte in front of you and Johnny’s mocha frappé in front of the two of you.

“I don’t think the two of you need any more serotonin in your systems.” He says with a huff as he places his own drink down; Earl Grey tea.

“We’re jus’ happy, ye’ big oaf.” You laugh at Johnny’s words.

The three of you spend a bit talking about small, mundane things before the topic of family is brought up. Oh no, you forgot that you had to meet their families… And they have to meet yours. Your family isn’t a big fan of them. All your family knows (thinks) is that your soulmate(s) didn’t give two shits about you and caused you a bunch of pain. That’s half true, they didn’t care about you because they didn’t know you were hurting with them, they didn’t know you existed. 

You can see it now; your mother red in the face, on verge of tears, a mix of joy and a mix of resentment, your father sitting on the couch acting like they don’t exist, keeping himself from yelling at them, your older sister looking at them with a look of jealousy and trying to figure out a way to steal them from you even though her soulmate is right next to her, the poor girl is so sweet, your younger brother wondering if the same will happen to him, but with two women, for the rest of the family; you can only imagine.

“Lass? Lass?” You’re pulled out of your train of thought by Johnny tapping your shoulder and calling for you. “Lass, you okay?”

“Yea… Just worried about the two of you meeting my family is all.” Johnny notices the truth behind your words by the sigh you let out and wraps an arm around you.

“Don’t worry Lass, me and Si can handle ourselves, right Si?”

“Right.” He huffs out.

You let out a sigh, “I believe you guys can handle yourselves, I do. It’s just that my family doesn’t exactly have… Nice opinions of the two of you…”

“Not nice opinions like how?” Simon says with a cocked eyebrow.

“Well…. They think you’re self-centered assholes who don’t give two shits about your soulmate and want to cause as much harm as possible to them.” The boys let out low whistles in response.

“Tha's no good…” Johnny mutters under his breath. “Could ye elaborate, Lass?”

You take in a deep breath, “I'm gonna say their hatred towards the two of you stem from the fact that not only was I born with a couple of scars, I continued getting small ones while I was little,” You hear Simon say something under his breath, you think he might've said “Curse that old bastard.”, “And between the ages of eight and now is when the scars and physical pain increased. I was badly bedridden for quite a bit.”

You can see the gears turning in both Johnny and Simon's head. What are they thinking about?

“Luvie, how old are you?” 

You look at Simon as he speaks to you, realizing you've never told either of them your age, and vice versa.

“I'm twenty-one, why, how old are the two of you?” Your curiosity is peaked, how old are the two men you're supposed to spend the rest of forever with?

Johnny sighs, “I'm twenty-six and Si's thirty-one.”

“Oh, that’s not that bad, only a 5 and ten year difference.” You say with a giggle.

“Yer still a kid.” Simon huffs out, which you take offense to, “I am not a kid. I can drink, drive, smoke, and vote, thank you.” You say, the attitude heavily present in your voice.

“A kid can do all that with a fake ID.” He counters, “Yer brain won’t fully develop ‘til yer twenty-five.”

You dramatically gasp at his response. The audacity of this man, “Then by that logic, Johnny’s brain just recently fully developed.” You snap back.

“Johnny’s a doofus, but the horrors of war matured him.” Johnny takes playful offense to Simon calling him a ‘doofus’.

The horrors of war, you might not have seen them, but you sure as hell felt them. The proof is literally etched into your skin by the hundreds of scars that are littered all over your body. A large one on your ass cheek for god’s sake, the recovery for that one was hell; you were either constantly standing or laying on your stomach. You couldn’t sit for weeks. It’s debatable what’s worse; seeing and feeling what’s happening to your body as it’s happening, or not knowing what’s happening, just being in pain. You don’t know what horrors they’ve seen, what plagues their mind, memories, and even dreams.

You sigh, you’re not going to argue and be stubborn, as much as you want to, you know whatever counterargument they have could easily prove you wrong or start an argument. So, you decide to use pure fact against them.

“Actually, due to brain metabolism, a woman’s brain develops three years faster than a man’s. Meaning, by next year my brain will be fully developed, and you guys know what horrors caused your scars, I don’t. I don’t know why I have a bunch of ragged lines and bullet wounds littered throughout my body. This may seem like an excuse or guilt trip of sorts, but it’s not. It’s just facts.” You say with a sigh.

Johnny and Simon just look at you, and it dawns on them that you were ten when Simon was eighteen, fourteen when Price recruited him for Task Force 141. Nineteen, with terrible scars that only multiplied when you were sixteen and Johnny twenty-four, a year into his military work and being recruited to the 141. Your scars only got worse and more visible, but instead of detesting the two who had caused you so much harm, you had walked up to them and spoke to them so shyly, thinking they wouldn’t believe you.

The strange silence is interrupted by a call you get, it’s from Eve. Holy crap, you forgot to call her. It’s nearly three in the afternoon. You look at the boys.

“Hey, this is important, I gotta take this. Do you mind if I take it at the table?”

“Go ahead.” They say in unison.

You sigh and answer the call, not too sure how Eve’s going to react, “Hello?”

“Girl! Why haven’t you called or texted me? I’ve been worried you got kidnapped!” She fussed, “It wouldn’t be hard…. Those two are freaking huge…” She mutters under her breath.

“I haven’t been kidnapped.” You respond with what seems like a sigh mixed with a giggle, your response makes Johnny and Simon raise their eyebrows, “I’m actually a legal step below being married and have full citizenship in Great Britain now.” After you say this you instinctively pull the phone away from your ear expecting her to happily squeal.

“Oh my god! You’ve found your soulmates!” She squeals out loudly, just as you expected her to. You can hear all types of giggles and congratulations from your other friends that are in the room with her, “You have to send us a picture of them!” She happily suggests.

You look over to Simon and Johnny before asking them, “My friends want to see a picture of the two of you, could I take and send one?”

You get an affirmative gruff from Simon, “Only if ye set it as yer lock screen after.” Johnny says with a grin, which you take as a yes.

You quickly pull up your camera app and position the camera correctly, “Say cheese.” You ring out playfully. Johnny smiles, pearly whites on full display, and Simon does smile, you can’t see his mouth from under the black surgical mask he’s wearing, but you can see the way his eyes crinkle at the corners. You quickly take the picture and send it to your friend’s group chat.

The other line of the phone is silent for what seems like forever before you get a response, “Ho-ly Hell they are good-looking. They compliment each other so well, like the sun and the moon. You can be their Earth, their bringer of life.” Eve says with a giggle.

“Oh my god, ew. I’m hanging up.” You said with a giggle before hanging up the phone.

“So…. Kidnapping, pictures, and bringing life… Interesting topics…” Simon chides.

Taglist:

@under-the-dirt @littlebluespoon @actuallyhiswife @cassiecasluciluce @darling006 @cdej6 @whynotbad @kaoyamamegami @oooof-ifellforyou @aldis-nuts @fanngirl19 @zealouspursecowboydeputy