#choosing nibs

[marvelfilth]

Sweet dreams (18+)

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x f!reader x Wanda Maximoff

Warnings: dubcon, smut, fingering, somnophilia, praise, restraints, blindfold

Masterlist

You shift on the bed, slowly stirring into consciousness, your mind still heavy with sleep. You curl deeper into the pillow, desperately chasing some remnants of sleep.

There was a party at the Avengers tower last night - one of Tony's best, some might say - and it left you pleasantly buzzed and bone tired. Natasha made you stay in her room, choosing to spend the night with her girlfriend, right across the hall. You couldn't say no even if you wanted to - making it all the way to the other side of the city to your own apartment sounded like the worst thing last night, and the promise of sleeping in Natasha’s bed, in her clothes made you giddy enough to stay. Even if she spent the night in the arms of another. Even if you have feelings for the said another.

God, you're such a mess, falling in love with two of the most unapproachable women.

You have no idea what time it is - your sleeping mask prevents you from seeing anything and you're glad for that. You would've been up already with the sun shining right in your face.

You sigh deeply, and float back into unconsciousness, dreaming of soft touches and gentle hands, of warm breath over your neck and wet kisses pressed to your shoulders. Your hips move, buckling back in search of friction, your heat leaking with arousal. You whine in your sleep, wishing for the touches to move lower, to sink into your warmth and make you come undone.

And then there's a bite. A gentle nib, teeth scraping against the slope of your neck, and you realize with a start - you're fully awake, and the warmth on your hip is still there, wet lips are still on your shoulders, and oh…

There's another pair of hands.

You tremble, squeezing your hips tight, and inhale deeply. Soft hair tickles your face and you try to move, but strong arms keep you in place from both sides, two bodies trapping you in place.

Before you can even think about speaking, fingers trail down your stomach, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake. Another hand tugs your shirt up, revealing your underwear. You know it's drenched, but you still try to hide it, wriggling your body to the side.

A husky chuckle makes its way to your ears, teasing your neck with a hot gust of breath.

Natasha.

You moan, your legs spreading on their own violation.

“Good girl,” she husks, her palm settling on your lower stomach possessively.

Another voice hums, and then someone cups your breast under your shirt, tracing circles over your nipple before pinching it, sending sparks down your body right to your aching clit. You whine, reaching to tug off your mask, but you're stopped. Your shirt is pulled up, exposing your breasts, your hands near the headboard bind by it.

“Don't move.”

Wanda.

You cry out pathetically, almost coming from the sound of her voice. Hot mouth leaves your breasts wet with spit, lips leave purple bruises on the tender skin.

“Touch me, please,” you moan, arching off the bed. “Please.”

Another husky chuckle, another pinch to your nipple and then… a finger slides over your clit, then moves to the side of your panties, up and down, up and down, and you whine, trying to grind against her hand. An arm wraps across your stomach, keeping you in place. Someone - Wanda - burrows her face into the crook of your neck, marking.

Natasha leans over you, and finally, finally, plunges three fingers inside, and, oh God, you have no time to adjust because Natasha thrusts deep and fast, curling her fingers. You moan, trapped in place by two of the most beautiful women, your pussy swallowing Natasha's fingers, the wet sounds making you blush.

You can feel your wetness dripping to leave a stain on Natasha's bed.

You pant, orgams approaching. Wanda slides her hand off your stomach to play with your clit, circling it rapidly, her breath hot on your neck, her body molded against your side.

Your sleeping mask is tugged off right when you start clenching around Natasha's fingers. You blink against the blinding light, barely managing to focus on Natasha's dark eyes and Wanda's slurty grin.

“Wanna see you come, pretty girl,” Natasha smirks, pushing deeper.

You throw your head back with a moan, body taut, your walls clenching hard, and when Wanda presses firmly on your clit right when Natasha’s fingers curl inside you, you cry out loud enough for everyone in the tower to hear.

“Good morning,” Wanda whispers against your lips, swallowing your moans as you come.

[lonely-moons]

♡୭something good | sam winchester x reader, pt. 2

title: something good, pt. 2 (read pt. 1 here)

pairing: stanford!sam winchester x socially anxious!reader

warnings: once again a hell of a lot of overthinking, social anxiety, reader is yet again an (i say this with affection) awkward loser, sam winchester being a sweetheart, more m&ms (when do i get sponsored)

summary: you begin to remember your plans to just go at it alone, but it seems as though sam winchester is hellbent on ruining that

wc: 2,943

masterlist

over the next two days, the weekend, where you have no excuse to run into sam, your inflated sense of joy wears down. you wake up and wonder what's gone wrong, how a couple hours with the guy had managed to chip away your self-promise that you would just make it through college without caring about the social aspect. with choosing not to form any connections, so that it didn't hurt as much when no one would want them with you anyway.

you spend an embarrassing half an hour working this through in your head before getting out of bed on saturday. you know there's nothing wrong with being civil - it's not your aim to be an unwarranted bitch, after all - but growing attached? that's a mistake you've made time and time again. you know better now.

even though you and sam had exchanged numbers, neither of you appear in the other's phone over the weekend. not that you're actively checking. you illuminate the screen for the time, for the date, for the temperature before you head out to grab some dinner. it barely even crosses your mind that your inbox is empty.

and when you get a spam call on sunday afternoon, you most certainly do not almost fall off your bed in your haste to grab it.

when monday rolls around, you're the first to arrive in class. you always are. it's a tactical move that you can never quite give up, something that lessens the anxiety that's ceaselessly churning in your gut. you want first choice of a seat so that you don't end up too close to the front or back, where the students usually get picked on. the middle is your comfort zone, where you can blend in with everyone else. you're typically good at that, after all.

when someone slides into the empty seat beside yours, you don't even look up, assuming it's someone you don't know, given that that's pretty much everyone. only when there comes a light "hey" do you flinch slightly and stop digging around in your backpack.

"8 a.m. classes are just the best, aren't they?" sam rubs slightly at his eyes, and despite the exhaustion in his tone, the words come out through a small smile. not for the classes - for you.

"what?" you ask. it's the only thought in your head right now, and it comes out as majestically as it sounds bouncing around in your brain.

"think these should be illegal." he looks at where your hand is still stuffed elbow-deep into the backpack perched on your knees. "you get lost in there?"

you blink, shaking away your surprise even though most of it manages to stay latched on. "um..." your fingers move around, finally finding what you're looking for, and you extract your arm then unceremoniously dump the bag to the ground. it lands on your foot but you act like it doesn't. thankfully there are no 600-page hardback textbooks in there right now. "just... need a pen." you smile clumsily, waving it between your fingers. "got one."

now it's sam's turn to be taken aback. you're about to wonder why he looks like he's never seen a pen before, but then you realise which one you've taken out: the one designed to look like a syringe. you had found it in a joke store one day after going out for a walk in the local town. you didn't like leaving without buying anything - and you had thought it was pretty cool.

"oh, it's - it's not real," you say, pressing the nib to your arm and clicking the top. "see?" you internally roll your eyes at yourself - no kidding.

he looks amused, the beginning of his dimples starting to peek through. you try not to look at them. "well, if it was, i think i'd have to tell you you're in the wrong class."

the sharpness of your own awkwardness manages to deflate you. you had started off on edge with sam on friday, as you do with everyone, but by the end of the evening had felt comfortable. it's only been three days, yet you seem to be back at square one. you look around, frowning slightly now, thinking that at least it can't get much worse. "i don't know, half the people here look like they'd want to be put out of their misery." you're sure you'd make the top of the list but don't mention that part.

"they'd probably prefer something more effective than a syringe."

you click it again, offering sam a brief glance. "anything can be effective if you've got the spirit."

his eyes switch between you and the pen, that amused sort of light dancing in his eyes. "i don't know if i should be inspired or terrified."

"both?"

his dimples finally tip into full-blown as he agrees, "both."

for some reason it eases your tension, and you continue talking until your professor arrives, which ends up being much sooner than you'd have liked. it's much sooner than you'd like every day, because it now seems to be some kind of unspoken routine that sam comes to sit beside you in classes. there's been nine so far. not that you're counting.

you also aren't counting that you handed in your project four classes ago, which means that there's no obligation forcing him to be here. at least not of the scholarly kind. you can't stop yourself from wondering if he feels bad for you. if he realises you have no friends, and this has turned into some sort of pity thing - god, you really hope it's not a pity thing.

but he doesn't act like it's a chore. doesn't seem to be regretting his decision as he asks you about the newest book you're reading, doesn't mind when you start a silent game of hangman during a boring class after finishing the tic-tac-toe he'd initiated. doesn't mind that you sometimes need to pause in the middle of a sentence because your words are becoming too fast, too thick for your mouth to keep up with.

you try not to read into anything too much, which unsurprisingly doesn't work. it's just like you to get annoyingly caught up in anyone being kind, your usual clinginess always threatening to rear its head.

the next day, you're sitting in class wearing a top that never usually makes it out from the bottom of your closet. it's nice, nicer than something you usually wear while not being too over-the-top for a college morning. and you tell yourself it has nothing to do with seeing sam, that you just want to get your money's worth out of buying this thing on a whim. you certainly aren't wondering if he'll notice, if he'll like it, because it wouldn't make a difference to you either way.

you don't care.

that thought repeats in your brain like a mantra, bouncing around so strong that it keeps turning your head in the direction of the door. it's beginning to get ridiculous, which the antsy tapping of your foot so kindly reminds you of. you grab your notebook from your bag and begin to add to some of your notes, just to have something to do.

when your professor arrives a few minutes later, the seat beside you is still empty. you try not to feel disappointed - sam could be late, or maybe he's sick today. or, you think, when you spot him a few rows away from the front and talking to two guys, maybe that clingy nature of yours has made its appearance after all.

you wish you could say you imagined the sinking feeling in your chest, the wheel turning in your head that reminds you of why you don't usually bother with people in the first place. why you made your promise. you know it's irrational, that sam doesn't owe you anything, and certainly doesn't have to always sit beside you.

that doesn't mean you hadn't hoped he would.

when the class is over, you leave on your own. usually you and sam would linger for a few moments outside, talking until he really does have to rush off for his next class. you usually head back to your place, enjoying the walk through the campus. even before you can plug in your earphones, the chirping of the birds keeps your mind happy as you run over your interactions with sam.

now your earphones come out tangled and a crow squawks obnoxiously loudly in your ear. you huff, then it seems the world really does hate you as you feel a small stone in your shoe. the walk home is more of an angry march, your mouth set into a hard line and jaw clenched. your top's thin fabric makes it so that the wind raises relentless goosebumps on your skin. maybe you'll just go to sleep, ditch your class later and mark today off as not having existed.

you collapse into your bed immediately, not bothering to move the blankets. about five hours are lost after you've woken up some time in the late afternoon. the rest of the day is a bust, with you just half-heartedly getting some work done but mostly watching movies that aren't holding your attention either. you know you're overreacting, but you can't seem to bring yourself to care.

the next day, you don't have a class with sam until the early afternoon. you arrive late - by your standards - to class, after having snoozed your alarm one too many times, which drags your mood down even further. you pulled on the same outfit from yesterday, still piled on the ground, and hoped your deodorant would get you through until you could take a shower tonight. now you settle unhappily into a seat at the back, desperately trying not to watch the back of sam's head. you once again leave right after the class, heading back to your room but only making it twenty minutes before your stomach loudly complains.

you head to the closest place on campus where you know you like the food. it's a relatively busy fast food place, but not many people venture up to the second floor, so you're usually able to find a quiet corner to reside in. but you're here later than you usually would be, which means it's rowdier, and as you make your way to the queue, you decide you'll just bring it back to your place where you can continue the show you had started last night.

"y/n?"

you turn in alarm towards the separated queue that's designated for anyone only ordering coffee. sam is standing there, hands in his pockets, that usual smile on his face even despite the bags under his eyes.

you blink for a moment, wondering if you're still half-asleep. you somehow hadn't noticed him, despite his height, but you had been mostly sighing under your breath and watching your shoes. it's weird, though, how you're suddenly seeing him in here, when it's not a backdrop you're used to seeing behind him. but the light streams through the high windows, hitting his eyes in a certain way that draws your attention. they look expectant, a little amused, and you nearly debate running when you realise you haven't responded yet.

"oh." you shake your head, stumbling a little as some old guy in a hurry jostles past you. "hi sam."

"hey. you getting some lunch?"

you nod, still feeling a little bleary from your lack of sleep last night. "coffee?"

"yeah..." he seems to think for a moment, thoughts whirring about behind his eyes as he pauses. "hey, are you busy?"

"busy?" you ask, like you don't understand the word. "um... no?"

he shifts on his feet. "mind if i join you for lunch? my treat."

now you're really sure you're not following the conversation. this doesn't seem like the request of someone who's trying to shake you. sam easily could've pretended to not have seen you, or at least just said a polite hello. now he's offering to buy you lunch?

"you don't have to -"

"i want to."

you think about your promise to yourself, about just making it through college without giving much thought to friends or socialising. maybe you know that deep down you're being dramatic, or maybe it's the fact that the queue moves so that now it's your turn and you have to make a split-second decision. but you nod.

"okay."

sam's shoulders loosen and he steps over from his own queue to yours as you both go up and order. a few minutes later you're sitting at a booth. on the bottom floor, which you're not too thrilled about, but you did at least manage to get a corner. sam's got a salad, but you're starving, and looking forward to digging into your pizza and fries.

"i didn't see you during class," he says. "is everything okay?"

"oh, just... um... had a paper to finish." you take a bite of the pizza, wincing at how hot it is, but you know you'll just start running your mouth if it's free.

"ah." he nods, like it was the answer he'd been looking for. "i was wondering why you looked so busy in class yesterday. i didn't wanna disturb you."

you stuff another bite of pizza into your mouth, feeling horrible. you had practically spent the last twenty-four hours thinking he was another person who would just throw you away like something discardable. you know you overthink things all the time, but recognising that only seems simple in hindsight. and then whatever negative emotion it generates only dissolves into guilt, which hits you in full-force now.

"you know me," you smile, though it feels all wrong, "just... busy." busy mind, you guess, always managing to come up with ways to destroy you.

"i've noticed." it's lighthearted, which might make you feel worse. "you get it finished?"

"yeah. all done."

"well, good, i'll need you there tomorrow. i had to actually listen today."

your mind only just manages to push that first part aside so that you don't begin making a fool of yourself.

you know he always listens anyway. somehow manages to play the silly paper games with you and still take perfect notes. but you widen your eyes. "oh, the horror. maybe you should be laying down right now."

"should i get my vitals checked? maybe i need a shot - you've got that covered, right?"

the jab at your pen isn't lost on you. "yeah, sure, where do you want it?"

his laugh is abrupt, like it snuck up on him. you like it, you think, knowing that it's genuine. that you get to hear it before he can decide which way he wants it to be heard.

the conversation sinks into that easy flow once again, and only then you feel how much you've missed it. you keep talking until your food is nearly gone, just a few meagre fries left. at one point, sam leaves under the guise of wanting to get a refill. but when he returns, he's holding two small ice creams in little cardboard tubs.

you send him an unimpressed look, which deepens into a scowl as he refuses to accept your money. he was the one who'd decided you should have one, not you, which meant he had to pay. or so he claimed.

"so, no game of thrones t-shirt today?"

you look down, realising you'd never changed out of your slightly-more-fancy top from the day before. it hadn't felt like as big of a deal as it had yesterday, but now you're painfully aware that you're wearing it. how it clings to you in ways your spider-man ones certainly don't.

"laundry day." you shrug, a little too quickly, grabbing your drink. some of it sloshes down over the side of the cup, but thankfully he doesn't seem to notice. or, at least, care.

"huh... well, you look nice. it - looks nice, you know, the, uh... colour. suits you."

you watch him, confused. he looks a little shy as he says it, sinking down in his seat slightly. is he flustered? the stammering is usually your thing; while sam isn't arrogant, he does have a particular air of confidence about him. that seems to have dissolved entirely.

as if hoping to save himself, he reaches across and steals a fry from your plate. before you can pry any deeper into this, your face automatically drops into an expression that might be suitable for someone who'd killed your firstborn child.

"hey, i bought them," he says, snickering, and it seems as though the look on your face eases something back into him.

you hadn't even wanted any more of the cold fries, having been about to move on to your ice cream. but you like the way his eyes crinkle in amusement at your reaction. you grab the ice cream now, swirling the plastic spoon around inside, trying not to outwardly react to the fact that there's m&ms added in - which he obviously knows you like by now. you narrow your eyes at him, ignoring the flip of your stomach. "this becoming a thing now? you giving me free food?"

"are you complaining?"

"depends. do i ever get to return the favour?" it's bold for you, something that slips out as a teasing remark before you can really dissect what it means. the kind of thing you probably should've thought out in advance - you have a feeling that the lost time worrying will be made up tonight as you try to sleep. you're not sure if you want to take it back.

sam doesn't react much, but you do notice the quick tick of his lips. "name a time. i'll be there."

never mind. you don't want to take it back at all.

when you get back to your room, you collapse against your bed like earlier. only this time, it's with a sigh of contentment. the thought only hits after a moment, as you're staring at some peeling paint on the ceiling, and it's so swift and striking that you feel as though you've been sucker-punched.

hold on - did you just ask sam winchester out on a date?

and did he say yes?

[not-freyja]

Afterwards

Today, the 30th of May, 2025, marks exactly one year since I published the final chapter of This is an Adjuration. In recognition of this strange anniversary, I would, my dear, dear class, like to tell you another story.

Called many things—The Adjuration, "Freyja's fic," and The Damn Fic—This is an Adjuration is a 300k word beast of a story about grief and inevitably, yes, but mostly about love. About choosing to love, as a radical act of defiance, no matter the cost. I can, and will, talk about this book all day.

But I'm not here to do that. I'm not here to talk about the story.

Instead, today, one year since its completion, I have gotten out my keyboard to talk about writing it.

I have always been a story teller. A childhood spent inventing worlds and plots to pass the time in the woods. Scary stories around campfires. And when I was twelve, I took my first crack at writing a novel.

It wasn't very good.

But that feeling, that indescribable feeling of having written—it was the best feeling in the entire world.

So, I chased it.

I wrote everything, everything that I could. I wrote poetry, short stories, music. I attacked each piece of English homework with the tenacity of a rabid dog. I started writing fanfiction.

And then, one day, I got brave enough to start posting the fanfiction. To take the piece of my heart that I had carved out with a fountain pen and place it in the digital commons for others to read.

(It still wasn't very good.)

And I want you to know, I do not mean that as an insult to my younger self. They were doing the best that they could, and getting better at it day by day. But the work that I was writing as a middle schooler did, in fact, read like it was written by a middle schooler.

The comment section responded in kind. The internet can be a cruel place. But that didn't stop me.

Fast forwarding, I grow up. Life was what life is. Big and beautiful and painful and messy and—

For the sake of my dignity, I will skip the details; but by 2019, I was… not okay. More than not okay—I was bad. Very bad. In fact, I was actively suicidal.

I kept writing, though. Kept telling stories. Kept trying to make sense of the world through the eyes of people that don't quite exist. I don’t know why, not really. Maybe it was because reality was gentler, easier to swallow, through eyes other than my own. Regardless of why, I kept at it, a compulsion that seemed as inevitable as the dawn.

The world turns, and Freyja writes.

And I kept living.

More bad things happened. Some small, some life changing. And so much joy, and beauty, though it was difficult to see it at the time. But then the worst thing—out of all the terrible things I will keep to myself—happened:

I stopped writing.

I put the pen down. More than that, I wanted the pen gone. Broken. De-nibbed. I tore through my ao3, deleting work after work. I chucked notebooks in the fire. In hindsight, it was madness, but at the time the logic was painfully, brutally simple: my words were me, and I wanted me gone. I hated myself, and everything I touched. I bathed myself in shame, and rage, and I thought poison to be a shield against the weight of the world.

…It was a bad time.

Fast forwarding again. It's 2023, and Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom comes out. I play it, of course—LOZ has been a longtime love of mine. I could, and have, written entire essays on that game and its merits (and faults) but… what matters is that I felt it, that old love of storytelling, again. That feeling—it came back to me, playing that game. That old familiar feeling of a story welling itself up inside of my chest and begging to be let out.

I decided to be brave. I decided to pick the pen back up.

First, I wrote the ending, something sorrowful and tragic and final: the exact feeling inside of my own heart.

Then I wrote the prologue, that first step through a one way door for Link.

And I wrote, though I did not know it at the time, that first step for me as well.

See, what you have to understand about me, class, is that I get a bit too attached to fictional characters. I know that they aren't real, that they are constructed vessels for abstract ideas, but even so, I get attached. Very attached.

So with one hell of a story to tell about my dear friend Link, I had a goal. Simple, achievable, and brutal. I would tell his story, and then I would die.

Yeah… surprise, the damn fic started out as a very long-form suicide note. Started out, I say, because it didn't stay that way.

Link—Legend, rather—and I were bound together. He and I stumble into the narrative in the depths of depression and suicidal ideation, the only thing keeping him alive is the fact that he has too many responsibilities to die. The narrative (the act of writing it) gives both of us one more mark of accountability.

Legend is convinced that he will die on this quest. I am certain I will after it. Neither of us had any idea how wrong we were.

In the first chapter, the prologue, I sent us (Link and I) on a quest. His was to save himself. Mine was—I thought—to tell a story. There was a non zero chance that we both failed. The odds were stacked against poor Rulie, and the Chain entire. I hadn't written in years.

In the second chapter, I dragged Legend out of retirement. But more importantly, I dragged myself out of retirement. Adding a second chapter felt like a promise. A commitment. This wasn't just a few words slapped together anymore, this was a narrative.

And the narrative continued.

Chapter after chapter, I shouted into the void in a combined caterwaul of Link's struggle and my own. There were times it grew difficult to write. Arcs and scenes and deaths came that were a true struggle to write, technically, and emotionally. As I said, Link is, to me, a very dear friend. Hurting him so brought me no pleasure (though some of the class' reactions did spark joy—back to that later).

But the narrative continued.

There were days where I was the problem. Where the darkness in my own mind had claws. Where sharp objects and chemical induced oblivion sang like a siren. Life was too much, and too little, and I didn't want to be here anymore. On those days, I wrote twice as fast.

And the narrative continued.

Humans tell stories, you know? It's one of the things that makes us human in the first place: that driving need to weave tales, to search for metaphor and truth in fabricated reality. A tradition that stretches back to the first campfire, the first story.

The story teller talks, and the audience listens, huddled up together in the dark.

That was the image in my mind, as I posted chapter after chapter. I sat before a campfire, telling a story to myself, staring into the flame for fear of what could be waiting in the darkness.

And slowly, people came to sit next to me. They came in the form of a familiar username, leaving a comment after an update for the fifth chapter in a row. Questions. Debates between readers about theories. Drawn out conversation in the comments, breaks in the narration spent not with my own thoughts, but with the audience. You were there. Link and I were no longer alone.

Here, the pressure increased manifold. For adjuration is a word that means two things, and one of those things is a promise, solemn vow. The other is a plea, an earnest urging. I promised Link that I would finish his story, no matter what. I begged him not to leave me while I did. Link and I had a deal, an understanding even, writ large across the story in entire. That this—this work of fiction—is an adjuration.

And then there you were, class. And our adjuration expanded to hold you. "Don't abandon the story," you pleaded.

"I won't. I couldn't," I promised.

The adjuration went the other way, too. "Stay with me. Trust me. Come with Link and I to the end," I begged you.

"We're here. We're listening. Around the fire," you vowed.

And we all kept our promises, didn't we?

The narrative continued.

Somehow, readers became friends. Some of them became family. What was a collection of anonymous usernames are now—somehow—the people I love most.

I will not go on to highlight any specific person, any particular relationship. If I were to begin, I would not stop, and this would become a very long afterword. (Yeah, yeah "15 chapters," I know.) But if you are sitting here, wondering if I am talking about you when I speak of my friends that I made on ao-fucking-3… yes. Yes, I am.

I shouted into the void, and you called back.

Through over three hundred thousand words, eighty six chapters, and ten months, we saw the story through to the end. Link's journey was over. And as for me, well… I had finished telling the story. The metaphorical campfire banked low.

I looked up, at my audience, and I saw how many of you there really were. I tried to prepare myself for the dissolution of our fellowship. Our reason to be together was concluded. People that I had now come to know, to love, had no further use for me.

It was time for you all to leave.

But you didn't. You threw more logs into the fire. "Thank you for the story," you said. "Would you like to listen to mine?"

I would. I really, really would.

It's been a year, now. With no "use" to these relationships. You came for a story, I told it; when it was over, you stayed.

Writing that story was my purpose, for a while. My literal reason for living. Now, a year later— where am I? Who am I?

Well, if you read the Damn Fic, then you know. I am every version of myself that I have ever been. I am a kid who likes stories. I’m a student. I’m a teacher. I’m an addict. I’m staying up way too late writing. I’m in line for a ride with you at Disney World. I’m laughing at a stupid joke. I’m 16 and thinking I won’t live past 25. I’m on the phone with my friends, playing the dumbest game. I’m way past 25. I’m at yet another funeral. I’m at a wedding. I’m getting dumped. I’m falling in love. And I’m so much more, all at once.

And I'm still alive, here in the afterwards, one year past my expiration date.

I have so many more stories to tell you guys. I hope you like them. I hope I tell them well.

The narrative continues. I’m sticking around, and that is an adjuration.

[goldenwitherphoenix13]

Huh.

Well

That's quite the close vote.

... @lonleyzodiac you seein this shit? Lmao

Anyways, 52.5% of you are wrong :).

Sorry. But I actually didn't choose this. I asked a friend of mine from University, specifically one who DISPISES Miraculous, and she said "whichever one causes the most chaos." ... which didn't help so she picked Nathaniel 2 minutes later. THANKS BUDDY!

So you can't even blame me! Blame her! Not Zo, not me, her.

Anyways, here we are, time to give yall the food you want! Here is the current run down of

The Cataclysm Incident AU

The full plot of this AU so far can be found below, the plot is not set in stone and can be changed at any point due to any reason. Ok long post incoming here we go!

In this a loosly Civil war based AU, the truth has been spilled, yada yada ladybugs a liar, and now the Heroes are arguing about Ladybugs reliability and if there is a good reason for all this lying.

Chat is particularly pissed because A, his dad wasn't the hero that he was made out to be and has recived praise for nothing, B, Ladybug lied about it because it was his desire even though hecdidnt deserve it, and C, She didn't even tell Chat noir, her day one partner to defeat Hawkmoth

As the heroes are arguing, Rooster Bold says something trying to calm everyone down. Look, he's just trying to help ok. A few other heroes are also trying to calm tensions, it's just Bold has to be the catalyst here for the AU to work just trust me on this.

The wording pisses of Chat for some reason, I'm not 100% sure on what is said and why it angers Chat so feel free to make it work, and he attacks him, not realising Cataclysm is active. AND YES HE CAN DO THIS! HE DOES THIS IN CHAT BLANC HE JUST CATCHES HIMSELF BEFORE HE CATACLYSMS HAWKMOTH! BUT HERE HE DOESNT REALISE ITS HAPPENED! .... anyways.

Caprikid, being the impulsive idiot he is (affectionate), rushes forward and uses his paintbrush to throw Chat off aim. When trying to lift his Brush to complete block the actual attack, however, he's a little too slow and ends up taking the blow to the chest, as seen in the image above.

Ladybug, quietly from the crowd, summons a lucky charm knowing its the one chance they have to reverse this cus this just got extremely serious. What the item is us up for interpretation, its just needed to fix this mess in a bit.

Rooster Bold catches and holds onto the now injured and detransformed Nathaniel (because screw you my headcanon is Cataclysm can potentially rip through a hero outfit and force a detransformation).

Nathaniel is currently in a bit of shock, proccessing this right now, and Ziggy, who is now very tired, just lays in his hands while he holds her close.

Chat, meanwhile, realises what he's done and regrets it immediately. He didn't even know Cataclysm had activated. He only intended to hit Rooster Bold, not try to kill him. He doesn't know what came over him.

However, when trying to offer support, Rooster Bold threatens Chat with the sharp nib of the pen as "back off you just hurt him so youre a threat right now" type reaction. He is not happy. He's angry. Not just that Chat tried to hurt him, but hurt Caprikid.

Nathaniel, not wanting this to escalate further, headbutts Rooster Bold lightly on the chest to calm him . Get his attention off of everyone. It works, but Bold doesnt drop his guard. Rooster Bold quickly flicks the pen back into the holder, scoops up Nathaniel and legs it out of sight, making sure the firming crowd of civilians can't get a glimps of Nathaniels face.

And, of course, the heroes are left to process this. Ladybug tells them they can continue this argument another time because there are way more important things going on right now and they just dont have time for this right now and runs to catch up with Rooster Bold and Nathaniel.

Thustly, things end with the team more muddled and messy than before, some torn between hearing out things, sone torn between hatred in both actions. The heroes just really don't know how they should be feeling right now.

Meanwhile, Nathaniel is now in pain while Rooster Bold is trying so so hard to find a power that he can use to help Nathaniel. He calls Ladybug, gives their location, and she calms him, giving him an idea of what he can do. The power to numb the area of injury of anyone he touches.

Ladybug gets there and she asks how Nath is doing and Rooster Bold asks her to please hurry up with the miracle cure. After hesitating and getting a little bit scolded, she uses the miracle cure.

Bold, finally assured Nathaniel will live, detransforms and relaxes.

Orriko, after quickly checking on Ziggy, gives them a quick exposition dump that the injury may have been physically fixed with newly created cells to stop the necrosis of Cataclysm, but the pain will linger for a while due to the fact that the kadybug isnt a healing miraculous, its a creation one. It created new cells to fux the necrosis and injury, but the pain will linger for a good while considering the pure destructive power of Cataclysm. Nathaniel is gonna be out of commission for atleast a while.

Ladybug says both of them are off hero duty for the time being, so they can recover physically and mentaly respectfully, but are to keep their miraculous to care for the kwamis and eachother. She sees that as a decent enough course of action. She's not doing great herself honestly. Ladybug is tired of this shit and having mental breakdown number 4954, but sge can express that when she is back home.

Adrien is akso having a mental breakdown because he just nearly killed his friend and isincredibly guilty.

Bunnyx saw everything and is a bit sad now. She will pop in to check up on her best bud tho.

And Luka missed everything and saw it on the news, got a lore dump from Sass, and has made phone calls to try and get the full story (Juleka ranted about everything to him, He caught Marinette mid panic attack, and got Adrien to atleast stop fully blaming himself for this and to blame multiple factors)

Oh also this is also without mentioning that school is now extra tense cus the heroes all know who Caprikid is, deduced who Rooster Bold is, and now everyone's scared to talk about this so the tension at school just sky rocketed.

Um.... if anyone has any ideas on how to make this better (changes are fully welcome i will magpie them and credit you!), or if you want to add their own headcanons, or write your own Fics with this concept, let me know! I'd love to hear about it!

Anyways, I'm gonna go hide for a while, have a bonus of Rooster Bold threatening Chat Noir!

BYYYYEEEE

[alphabetboyluvr]

LANDSLIDES - 002 | GUILTY AS SIN - JJK

part title credit: guilty as sin - taylor swift

these fatal fantasies giving way to laboured breath... they don't know how you've haunted me so stunningly... without ever touching his skin how can i be guilty as sin?

pairing: officeworker!jungkook x female reader (coworkers)

premise: jungkook asks you to dog sit over chuseok. he doesn’t ask you to steal the empty spaces in his head, the dreams he’s yet to have, nor the idea of you always just being ‘you’ to him - and yet, like a thief in the night (with his own damn dog as your accomplice), you do. (part one link)

warnings: slow burn (emphasis on slow, emphasis on burn), miscommunication, missed opportunities, missing jungkook, inappropriate mentions of masturbation between friends, frustration (sexually and emotionally!)

wordcount: 18K

note from holly: this was supposed to be a 30k chunk but the 1000 paragraph limit told me no </3 so instead, this is part 1 - part 2 will come tomorrow :)

minors dni // cross posted to wattpad

When Jungkook comes to stand by your desk, his freshly pressed suit unspoiled from his morning commute and with a coffee in either hand, you know he must be up to something.

"Let me guess," you hum. "You dipped your nib in the company ink again and need me to do damage control?"

It wouldn't be the first time, and the new secretary has been ogling him ever since she started just before the Chuseok break. You've joked about it a few times, but you really wouldn't put it past him.

Popping your coffee on your desk, Jungkook toys with his tie a little, smoothing it down. "Why do you always think so little of me, you little gremlin?"

His pouty whine would be believable if you didn't know him as well as you do. Glancing up from your screen, you're greeted with a smirk. Even he can't keep up his pretence of innocence. "You know exactly why."

"I'm a good boy," he promises. "Got you coffee and everything this morning!"

"Because you want something," you laugh. "I wasn't born yesterday, Jungkook."

"Can a friend not get a friend a coffee just because?"

"Yes—but you don't."

In fact, Jungkook normally waits until midday for his first coffee. Treats it like a reward for getting through the morning without any caffeine. He's gone out of his way today—or just ordered coffee to the office to make it look like he has. Regardless, an effort has been made.

He takes a second. Purses his lips. Narrows his eyes.And then he smiles. "Fine. I need a favour."

"See, I knew it was too good to be true!"

"Oh, c'mon!" He laughs. "I'd get you coffee if you asked."

"I asked last week when I was running late, and you told me to wake up earlier and get it myself!"

"Well, it was your own fault for being out until arse o'clock in the morning!"

Your fault, you think but don't vocalise. It's not like you'd been out with him. You'd been on a date. Another with Mingyu. Hadn't stuck to your word of cooling things off. Spooked yourself with those dreams about Jungkook. Needed to bring yourself back to reality.

If he hadn't asked you to dogsit, you never would have gotten so caught in the domestication of it all. It's your biggest weakness and he damn well knows it. If anything, he should be thanking you for choosing to realign your focus instead of leaning into silly little thoughts about him. It also helps that in the cold, harsh light of Monday mornings, the thoughts just make you cringe more than anything.

"Sorry, Dad," you roll your eyes. "Didn't realise I had to ask your permission."

Jungkook's lips purse in the gentlest of ways, corners upturning ever so slightly. He shakes his head. "You're cranky this morning."

"And you're up to something," you reply. Have barely even had a chance to look over your weekend emails yet, let alone prepare yourself for Jungkook being a nuisance. His department is two floors up. There's no need for him to be here.

In the corner of your screen, an email pings through. Though your glance is quick, it connects a flurry of dots together.

Subject: International Food Expo - we're in!

The company you work at is the head office of a chain restaurant. Jungkook works in franchising—negotiations, specifically. Gets the restaurant placed in the best locations. Recently landed a spot in Starfield Mall. Got himself a nice little bonus.

You're over in the interior design team. It's a small cohort, just three of you, but you're responsible for ensuring cohesion amongst all the spaces. It's up to you that customers get the same feel whether they're in Seoul or Sokcho.

Both starting the job at the same time, directly after graduation, Jungkook had approached you with a strategy in mind. Roped you into creating the interior mood boards and mapping out the spaces before they'd even been acquired. Gave life to them that made it so much easier for investors to imagine.

It had been seen by management as a waste of resources before then—why waste time creating hypotheticals?

They just hadn't yet experienced Jungkook, and all of his charm, pitching for them, using your content to tip negotiations in his favour. It's a partnership that works. Is a practice now adopted by the company across the board, thanks to the pair of you. It's why you work together so often, even if you're on completely different floors and dealing with such vastly different tasks.

"I've been asked to go along," he says, nodding towards the screen. "Little old me is our brand ambassador for the week."

"Congrats," you beam, knowing that Jungkook is the best man for the job. He loves the company. Really believes in the restaurant. Clicking into the email, you scan the details. "A week of schmoozing, huh? However will you cope?"

He's about to joke about how tiresome it'll be, but then you hum in confusion.

"Jeju?" You question, looking at the location. You scroll, just to check you aren't imagining things—but there it is, clear as day. Location: International Conference Center, Jeju. "All the way in bloody Jeju?!"

"It's for international markets," he says, putting his best guess out there. "Seoul's been done a hundred times over for different Expos. Busan, too. I think they're trying to attract more foreign companies—and would the CEO's rather send themselves on city breaks or island getaways? Anyway, that's actually the favour I wanted to ask you..."

It all sort of clicks into place, now. "Bam?"

With a sweet nod, Jungkook offers a gentle smile. "You know there's no one I'd rather look after him. The trip is four days, Tuesday to Friday. If it's too much, I can book him into a kennel, but��"

"No," you shake your head. "Don't do that. You know I'm happy to look after him."

"Sure?"

Jungkook would rather die than leave Bam at a Kennel for the week. He doesn't trust anyone with his baby unless they've proved themselves, but the way you happily cuddle up with Bam on the floor of Jungkook's apartment on any given day of the week is proof enough to him that you love him, too.

If he's gonna trust anyone with his most prized possession, it'd be you.

"One condition," you bargain, 'cause you know that you can. Jungkook'll do anything to have you agree.

"Go on..."

"Have you replaced all the cheese I ate last time I looked after him?"

He narrows his eyes. "Yes."

"Good," you beam. "And could you be a babe and make me some of your pad kee mao? The sauce at least? I can do the rest."

If there's one thing Jungkook will never fail to impress you with, it's his cooking—but your favourite of all of his dishes is his Thai drunken chicken noodles. He imports the special basil needed for it. Goes an extra mile to make sure it's just right. You haven't been to your favourite Thai place since you learned just how well he makes the dish. Will just send him a text when you fancy it, and end up at his place an hour or so later with beers from the convenience store and ice cream sandwiches to chuck in his freezer for dessert.

"That it?" He laughs. "Cheese and noodles? God, you are easily pleased."

"I'm a woman of refined tastes," you say, pompously poised.

Jungkook knows you well enough to know you're no such thing, but he needs this favour, so he doesn't bite. Just says, "And you're sure?"

"I'm sure," you promise. "Now leave me alone. I've got work to do—and thanks for the coffee."

He nods, that little smile of his affecting you far more than it really should. You can't help it. The lighting in your office is far nicer than the rest of the establishment. Makes him look... well, makes him look like himself. Like 'home' Jungkook. The same one who hangs out with you in sweats and messy hair on Sunday mornings, not the suited and clean-shaven Jungkook who swaggers through the corridors of your workplace.

Three of you work in your specific office, and you're all interior designers. Changing the bulbs was one of the first things you did. Lea, your manager, is the most senior in your team. Below you is Jiwon. A fresh graduate, she's still learning the ropes, and as much as you like her, you really wish she wouldn't go all heart-eyed over Jungkook every time he enters the room.

It's not her fault. The warm bulbs just bring out all of those terrible, intrusive little stars in his chocolatey brown eyes. They're terrible, 'cause they're stolen from other people; intrusive, 'cause as he walks away and your gaze follows him, it seems like they've landed in your eyes, too. A secret shared that neither of you even realises exists.

"How do you do it?" Jiwon sighs once Jungkook is out of earshot. "I'd melt if he looked at me like that."

"He looks at everyone like that," you deflect. "And trust me, he's just as disgusting as he is charming. Don't let the tailored suits fool you."

It's been a little while since Jungkook last used the copier room for indecent affairs that would have gotten anyone else into a meeting with HR. Workplace violations are far easier to get away with when you're doing them with someone from the HR department, after all.

Jiwon joined the team just as Jungkook was curbing his bad behaviour. Granted, you know about more of it than most, but everyone who was lucky enough to grab his attention for more than five seconds used it as bragging rights for months.

One thing that you did enjoy about Jungkook's slut era was the lack of women he ever took home. Didn't want to introduce new people to Bam, if they were only going to be fleeting endeavours.

But you're his friend, not a casual fuck. He knew that bringing you into the fold wouldn't be fast nor fleeting. It'd be a lifetime kinda thing.

Which is what makes you feel so guilty as you stand by the water cooler a little later that morning, daydreaming about being back in his space again. Silly little thoughts about facetime calls when you were wrapped up in his sheets, and he was back at his parents' place in Busan. Memories of lazing the days away with Bam, and the look on Jungkook's face as he finally arrived home after a few days away.

You've seen him at home a million times over, but there was something different about him then. Serene. At peace. You know that he was probably just happy to be back with his baby, and tired from driving, but the lazy smile that had hung off his lips, round glasses framing his equally round eyes, just seemed... new.

Your thoughts are cut off by your boss—not Lea, but your actual boss, Mr Seo—calling you into his office. A little flustered, you realise that you've been running the water for too long. Your bottle has overfilled, and the excess tray is almost full, too.

"Hi," you greet him all rather pleasantly, waiting to be told to sit before you actually do so. "What can I help you with?"

A burly man in his late 50s, he built the brand from the ground up. It's been his life's work, and so he's selective with his staff. If you aren't pulling your weight to make the company a success, then he doesn't want you tying your name to it.

When you and Jungkook started going rogue in the early days, he hadn't been happy—but Jungkook had blagged a probation extension for the pair of you. Had told Mr Seo he'd work for free, if he could just prove his strategy would work.

In the version of events Jungkook tells you, he pretends that Mr Seo agreed without docking his pay. Filed away in the back of his cabinet which houses his contracts, past and present, Jungkook has a written agreement with Mr Seo, and a month's worth of missing wages in his salary from that year.

Your pay was never docked, though. Jungkook's a damn good negotiator, and was just as competent back then, too. He was the one that got you into that damn mess in the first place, so it was only fair that he keep you as clean as he could.

What you do know is that you both cut it incredibly fine to losing your jobs before they ever really began. While Mr Seo respects you both for what you've done for the company since then, it still scares you a little bit.

"I trust you've seen the email regarding the Expo, yes?" He says, nodding towards the chair on the opposite side of his desk.

You take it in a hurried fashion, quickly sitting down because, quite frankly, it feels like your legs are jelly. "Yes, yes. Very exciting! I'm sure Jungkook will bring the company great results."

He nods. Agrees. "And I also trust you've been making plans for our stand?"

You learned of the expo approximately fifty minutes prior. Like fuck have you made any plans.

"Oh, of course!" You bullshit. "As long as we can work out the logistics with shipping our materials to the island in time, it should be brilliant."

How the fuck you're supposed to plan a stand at an Expo for a week's time on a different bloody island is beyond you.

You'll get it done. You always do. You'll just be incredibly stressed about it until the event begins.

"Naturally," he nods. I know the turnaround is tight, so we'd like you to go with Jungkook to oversee the preparations. He arrives on Tuesday, but the event doesn't start until Wednesday evening, so you'll have a day to finalise things."

"Oh," you say, unable to hide your surprise.

"Flight and accommodation will be covered by us, and Jungkook's getting a healthy bonus for any deals signed at the Expo—I'm sure we can make a cut for you, too. After all, you two are our very own dream team."

You take a moment to gather your thoughts. You want to go. Of course you want to. A trip to Jeju with one of your closest friends? Under the guise of work? All expenses paid? Who wouldn't want to go?!

But without you in the city, there's no one to look after Bam. Sure, Jungkook could take him to a kennel, but you know what he's like. He'll spend the entire time stressed. Won't be able to relax and engage with people in such a way that deals will be cut. Punters usually like him for his carefree nature. Without it? Well, you're sure they'd like him all the same, but you don't want to tempt fate.

"Mr Seo," you awkwardly begin, uncertain which answer will slip out of your mouth. "I'm afraid I already have commitments in the city that I can't cancel. I'm not available."

Silence lingers for a moment. Just a second. It feels like an eternity.

"Very well," he accepts.

"I'm sorry," you quickly apologise, knowing that you probably look like an ungrateful employee. If there's one thing you are, it's a fixer, and so before you can even comprehend what you're saying, you're throwing solutions into the void. "But I know Jiwon is just itching to get more involved with different sides of the business. I can get her on board with my planning this week and coach her on Jungkook's strategies. I'm sure she'd be eager to work hard, if she were given the opportunity."

Mr Seo mulls over your proposition—one of you which you already regret—then nods. "Alright. I'll trust your judgement. Can you send her down to my office?"

"Sure!" You say with a little too much glee, before you retreat back to your office with your tail between your legs. Lea is at a meeting, so once Jiwon has been sent on her way, it's just you, your water bottle, and a whole lot of regret.

Laying your head on your desk, you let out a little whimper.

It's for the best. For the company, for Jungkook, for you. For the sanctity of your friendship. For your sanity.

A message dinging through on your work chat interrupts your self-pity party. Glancing up, head still on the desk, you see Jungkook's name in the corner of your screen.

Jeon Jungkook, Franchising: oi you little gremlin

Jeon Jungkook, Franchising: i could have booked him into a kennel

"Shut up," you groan at your screen.

Jeon Jungkook, Franchising: it would have been fun :(

Sitting up with a sigh, you poise yourself to send a message back. Find that nothing wants to come out. Your fingers hover above your keyboard with uncertainty. Takes a full minute before you can muster anything up.

Two floors above you, Jungkook is slumped in his desk chair. Has an office of his own, 'cause it's easier for the amount of meetings he has.

In the background of his screen, an email thread with Mr Seo details how Jungkook was the one to ask Mr Seo if you could join him. Explained how it just made sense. Offered part of his bonus package up with it. Said he'd cover the extra expenses if necessary, but that he thought it would be beneficial to the company to have you there, too.

While you're the person Jungkook trusts the most with Bam, you're not the only one. He could always ask Jimin or Taehyung before resorting to a kennel.

As your reply comes through, another email from Mr Seo is delivered, too.

RE: IFE JEJU, Interior Des. Department

Jungkook—

Have spoken with Jiwon. She will accompany you.

Any problems, let me know.

Mr Seo

With a sigh, Jungkook shakes his head. This isn't what he wanted at all.

And when he checks your message, he only frowns even deeper. Unlike you, he's renamed your contact details on his list. Everyone else still has their work-focused username.

Gremlin: It's your lucky day

Gremlin: You get a hot young thing to keep you company instead, wooo

Gremlin: HR if you're reading this, ignore it

Gremlin: Try not to be too miserable without me

He sinks down a little further into his chair. Purses his lips. Would far rather be alone than with anyone that isn't you.

Chewing on his bottom lip, he decides that maybe this is for the best. While he does think it would be good for the company, he knows that isn't why he suggested it. He just remembers what happened last time he spent more than a weekend away from you. Is scared it'll happen again.

Or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe he wants it to happen again. Just you and him, away from the confines of life as you know it.

Thing is, you'd have to return home at some point. If anything ever happened between you both, it'd change the very fabric of your friendship. He doesn't want that.

So instead, he decides to reply in the same way he would have done maybe a year or so prior.

Jeon Jungkook, Franchising: She'll fall in love with me

Jeon Jungkook, Franchising: They always do

Jeon Jungkook, Franchising: Don't say I didn't warn you.

In the warm lighting of Jungkook's living room, the main light is off, lamps providing you with just enough clarity to go over the files on his coffee table.

Over by the sink, Jungkook is washing up your plates from dinner, while Bam leans against his legs. Your overnight bag is still by the door, and Jungkook's glasses are in your hair, keeping it out of your eyes. Highlighter in hand, you're picking out key markets for Jungkook to make contact with over in Jeju.

"Avoid Babiyeo," you tell him, switching over to a thin red pen, putting a star next to their name.

"As in the leisure centres?" Jungkook hums, familiar with the company but not well-versed. The soft melody of his playlist carries a tune around you both, keeping your thoughts connected and in sync.

"Mhmm," you say, flicking over to the next paper. "The CEO's son is in legal trouble at the moment. They're keeping it fairly well covered up, but to do that they're making huge expansions they can't afford. Keeping the news positive, things like that. I reckon they'll go bust before the end of the year."

"Shit," Jungkook lets a breathy laugh escape his lips. Had no idea—but you've both got friends working in various industries. Have your arms dipped into numerous grapevines. Drying up the last of his bowls, he turns to face you and is unable to continue on with his words.

He gets it. Understands why domestication is your biggest vice when it comes to feeling things you shouldn't.

"Acorn Limited are also bad news," you add, putting a little star next to their name.

"Yeah?"

Jungkook puts the now-dry bowl on the counter and walks towards where you're sitting on his living room floor. He joins. Sits on the opposite side of the table. Lets Bam clamber over his legs, and encourages him to sit, too.

"Yeah," you nod, then look across at Jungkook. "They're a hot-shot protein company. Are trying to get themselves partnerships with different restaurants. The guy running it is some twat from Singles Inferno. Company'll be done by the next quarter."

"Some of them do alright, y'know. Reality stars are raking it in—"

"He's besties with the Babiyeo CEO's son," you tell him with a knowing smile. "Kept getting pictured together outside clubs. Whatever baby Babiyeo has been up to, I'm willing to bet the acorn guy has been, too."

Jungkook presses his lips together. Accepts your expertise. Nods, then sighs, "You should be coming on the trip. I can't do this without you."

Yes, he can. He's more than capable. Has closed more deals than most people have had hot dinners.

What he means is that he doesn't want to do it without you, but admitting such a thing verges on territory that Jungkook doesn't feel comfortable entering.

In the house he likes to call his mind, he's bolted the door of the annexe. Occasionally, he will sit and stare at the locks. Wonder if maybe he made a mistake locking you—or more specifically, the idea of you—away in there.

But then he watches Bam choose to shuffle around to your side of the coffee table, and watches as he rests his head on your leg. His snout is by your knee, sniffing at your bare skin with his wet nose. There's something familiar about you. Safe. You don't smell like Jungkook, but you still manage to smell like home, in a way.

"Bam would be even more lost without me," you softly say, scratching behind his ear, and it does admittedly give Jungkook a little solace.

"True," Jungkook accepts, then sighs.

It's getting late and he's got to be up early for his flight. Is leaving for his flight at just gone 3AM, so you're staying over. Crashing on the couch, 'cause having a home gym was more important than setting up a spare room. Thankfully you've never known a couch to be so cosy. Have fallen asleep on it a dozen times over, and it's yet to make you ache in the mornings.

It's all very normal, how you set into a routine. He lets you wash up first. Sorts out Bam while you sort out yourself. Doesn't need to, but writes you out a list of feeding times and emergency numbers. Grabs a spare blanket—one Bam hasn't slept on, but by the morning definitely will have—and turns the sofa into something that really does resemble a bed.

"Sure you're gonna be alright out here?" He asks when you come back through.

He ignores the teeny tiny shirt and even tinier shorts you like to call pyjamas. Or at least he does as much as he can. Doesn't mean to look at your ass. Does it regardless. Four times.

"Yeah," you promise, grabbing a bottle of water from his fridge. There are containers full of his speciality noodle sauce and enough cheese to keep you very happy for the next few days. He got an extra block of the one he knows you like the most as a thank you. "Go to bed. Get your beauty sleep, uggers."

"Hey, you need it just as much as I do," he assures you, then tips his head and makes a small click with his tongue. "C'mon, Bammie, bedtime."

The sound of his paws tapping across Jungkook's hardwood floors is ever-so-soothing. It's hard to be in a house with a pet and not inherently feel like home, you think.

"Night night, Bammie," you coo after him. He turns back. Tilts his head, just like his daddy. Trots on over to you for a few more scratches behind his ears. Doesn't leave until you tell him, "Go find your daddy."

Glancing up to Jungkook with a sweet little scrunch of your nose, you hadn't called him that name to take the piss for a change. The scrunch of your nose is actually an outward display of your inward cringe. Jungkook just scrunches his up right back.

"Gross," he whispers, then holds his hand out for Bam to sniff. "Night, Gremlin."

"Night, Kook."

The sharp sound of Bam's bark snaps you awake. The room is dark, but enough light bleeds in through the blinds for you to see Jungkook awkwardly trying to shush him. Rucksack slung over one shoulder, he's holding a bag with his other hand.

"Leaving without saying bye?" You sleepily mumble, rubbing at your eyes with a yawn.

"Didn't wanna wake you," he whispers. Bam, apparently, had different ideas. "He knows I'm leaving."

"What time is it?" you ask, still totally out of it.

"Just gone three," Jungkook says. It'll take him an hour to get across to Incheon, and even though he knows it won't take him much time to get through security, he still likes to be on time. Would have been easier if he was flying from Gimpo, but he's guessing Incheon must have been cheaper.

Nodding, you adjust your body to sit up, and reach out for one of the files on the coffee table. Hold it across for him.

Popping down his bags, Jungkook takes it with great interest.

"Here. I was having a think before bed. Did a little research on an American company that's gonna be at the Expo. Their head marketer has shares in a bunch of baseball-related companies. Get pally with him," you mumble, thoughts not really cognitive, but you've written it all down for him regardless. "Talk to him about the K-league, or something, I dunno. I reckon Mr Seo would shit his pants if we expanded into stadiums and sports venues."

Jungkook flicks over the notes. Nods. Doesn't know how the fuck you manage to find out half the shit you do, but knows you're wasted on the interior design department.

"See," he softly whines. "This is why you should be coming with me."

"You'll be fine," you promise him, then yawn a little bit all over again. You woke up at the worst possible time.

"You can take my bed, y'know," Jungkook offers. "I'll be gone in a minute or so. It's all yours."

Would be weird getting into his bed while it's still warm, you think.

Shaking your head, terribly covering a yawn, you insist it's fine. He begs to differ, so you double down—until all very suddenly, your notes are tossed onto the sofa beside you, and Jungkook is pulling you over his shoulder. Yelping from the surprise, you don't have time to cognitively respond, let alone demand to be put down.

He wouldn't listen anyways. Instead, he walks you across to his room, and tosses you down on his half-made bed. It's a little haphazard, he finds himself leaning a little too far forward. Almost ends up on there with you. Finds that his blood pumps just a little faster through his veins for a nanosecond.

God, he wishes he wasn't leaving.

Or that you were coming with him, at least.

Can't bear to tear himself away from you when you're all sleepy and sweet and—Oh get a grip, man.

"There," he says triumphantly, pushing his thoughts well out of reach. "Now, go back to sleep, alright? I'll let you know when I fly."

Sitting up on your heels, you find yourself unsure of how to say goodbye—and so you don't really say much at all. Just mumble, "Fly safe."

"Will do," he nods, then exits his room to give Bam a farewell that is just as rough and tumble as yours had been. "Be good for the gremlin, Bammie."

"Fuck off!" You call through, knowing that you'll forever be known as a gremlin, even on your deathbed, you're sure. Tucking yourself under his duvet, you're secretly comforted by how warm his bed still is. Smells just like him, too. "Bye Kook."

"Sleep tight!"

With that, the door slams shut, and everything feels a little colder. Bam whines by the door. Scratches at it a little. Begs for Jungkook to come home.

"Bammie," you call through. "C'mere!"

The way he excitedly bounds through Jungkook's apartment and jumps up onto the bed is borderline comical. He's not used to people being in the house after Jungkook goes out. Thought he was alone—but now he knows he's not, he's quite content. Nuzzles his snout into the duvet and flops his body down on yours. Doesn't realise he's not still a puppy, but you don't mind.

Moments like these make you realise that you definitely did make the right decision.

But moments that come a little later fill you with regret—like the picture that is sent to the office by Jungkook on the work messenger. Working hard or hardly working? He captions it.

The photo is of the booth that's been set up to look like a beach house version of the restaurant. The intention was for it to look like a 'Jeju' branch, of which you're yet to open— but it looks bloody fantastic. How you were able to wrangle contractors and suppliers in such a last-minute rush was nothing short of a miracle.

And yet—

Good work guys!

Wow, looks great!

Jungkook and Jiwon, doing us proud!

Dream team! Good luck!

It's that last one that really bothers you. Dream team. Exactly what you and Jungkook have always been called in the office—but you're easily replaced, apparently. It's your own fault. You're the one who said she should go instead.

It doesn't stop you from walking around with a face of thunder for the whole day. Not a scrap of work gets done. All you can do is lament your choices.

Still, you get to go home to Bam, and that does admittedly soften the blow.

"Show me him," Jungkook immediately whines when he calls later that evening.

You shake your head. "Tell me about the day first."

"That's so not fair."

"Quicker you tell me, quicker I show–"

"Fine," he scowls at you, but softens his expression almost immediately. Yawns. His shoulders press up to his ears as the rest of his face scrunches up. He's lying down on his hotel bed, the crisp white sheets not too dissimilar from his ones back home that you'll be curled up in later that night. "The set up was fine. Most of the vendors are here already. I'm so mad we didn't manage to snag a slot in the catering tent, yanno? Give people a chance to try our menu, but whatever. There's always next year, right?"

"Right," you nod. Yawn, too—and then adorably so does Bam. "It's our first year there. We're just making our presence known. Bigger and better things next year."

"Exactly. Now show me Bam."

His impatience makes you smile. You're just about to tap the switch camera icon, when a sweet, feminine voice echoes through your speaker.

"Did you say something, Jungkook?"

He glances over the sound of the voice, and then flicks his eyes back to you. Gets a read on your face as quickly as he can before you flip the camera, 'cause you're not really sure how much your face is giving away, but you know your surprise wasn't hidden.

"Er, no," he says to the girl. "Just checking in back home—"

"Oh, is that your puppy?" the voice, of which you know all too well, squeals. There's a slight ruffle of sheets as Jiwon tucks herself beside Jungkook. Hair a little damp, the straps of her top are loose against her skin. "Oh my gosh, isn't he the sweetest."

"Isn't he just?" you reply with a smile so fucking fake that it's a good job the camera isn't on you. There's a look on Jungkook's face that you don't really understand. He almost looks guilty—but there's nothing to feel guilty about. He can do what he likes. "Gonna take him for a walk in a bit, then I'm just gonna pop out for half an hour to see Mingyu."

"Are you taking Bam with you?" Jungkook asks, brows a little hard, the ridge between them nicely defined.

"Hadn't planned on it," you chirp, your face just as hard as his. "But I can take him to meet Mingyu, if you like?"

Jungkook swallows. Tries to pretend as if his jaw isn't tense. Is incredibly stern when he says, "Rather him not meet new people when I'm not around."

"Sure," you say, then flick the camera back to you. Are pleased to see nonchalance sitting prettily on your features, no matter how perplexed you might feel."I should be off, though! Call me if you need anything."

"Wait!" Jiwon says quickly, clearly unaware of the weirdness between you and Jungkook. She sees you bickering all the time, so must just figure this is what you're like when you're not ripping each other's heads off. "Just wanted to say thank you—I'm so glad I'm here."

Jungkook's eyes focus on your face as Jiwon gives even more thanks. He doesn't understand the sudden attitude you've developed. All he wanted was to see Bam, but you've a face like a slapped arsed and are trying to hang up. It's fuckin' rude, and if Jiwon wasn't there, he'd tell you so.

He lets you hang up. Doesn't ask you to stay.

"She alright?" Jiwon innocent chirps after you go. "She seems a little..."

"Just tired," Jungkook dismisses. "I woke her up at like, three this morning when I was leaving."

"Oh? She was at your place?"

It's really none of Jiwon's business, but Jungkook chalks it up to her being young, and unaware of when to keep her mouth shut.

"Yeah," he states definitively and plainly, ending the conversation. Heads to the bathroom to clear his head. Turns the shower up to just as hot as the one at his house has been ever since you left his apartment the last time.

'Cause Jungkook's been lying to himself.

There's no lock on the damn annexe. Or at least not from the outside.

The annexe has everything he needs. He's been sitting there, inside, quite comfortably with you for a little while now.

He really did think you were gonna call things off with Mingyu.

Is unaware that Mingyu got left on read four days ago after another dull, fruitless 'how was your day', 'fine thanks, and you?' conversation. As hot as he may be, he doesn't challenge you. Excite you. Anger you. Make you feel any kind of passion.

Which is funny, 'cause you find yourself reaching for a bottle of wine that you know is far too expensive for a Tuesday night glass, just to piss Jungkook off from afar and well in advance of him ever realising what you've done.

Just like you mentioned going to see Mingyu just to get a reaction out of Jungkook.

Childish as it may be, you feel threatened. People praising Jiwon in your place already made you feel insecure at work, and now she's in his hotel room in a state of near undress? Something about it just irks you.

It shouldn't.

It shouldn't, it shouldn't, it shouldn't.

But it does.

And so you spend your evening on Jungkook's couch with cheese, wine and Bam. Put Love, Rosie on, 'cause it's your favourite guilty pleasure film and you think it'll cheer you up.

Instead, you end up silently sobbing by the halfway point, Bam only snuggling into you even further. Can understand that you're upset. Comforts in the only way he knows how.

Sleep is hard to come by that evening. You're full of wine and cheese, so it should be easy. Lights out as soon as you close your eyes—but you toss and turn, and with every move, the scent of him wafts even deeper into your senses. Any further and it might just enter your bloodstream. Seep down into your heart.

By the time morning comes, you feel even more rotten than you did the night before. Have slept on it all. Know that he hasn't done anything wrong, which only makes you feel even more stupid for being so annoyed.

You've also slept on the idea he might have slept with Jiwon. It wouldn't be out of character, but it would be the first person in your department he's shagged. It's always been out of bounds. He knows this. For the same reason you wouldn't shag anyone he works closely with. It'd just be weird. Make meetings uncomfortable.

When you call on your walk that morning, you half hope he won't pick up.

But he does. He always will.

"Hey," he says a little breathlessly. A towel is whipped over his shoulder, sweat dappling his skin. There's something so devastatingly beautiful about mid-workout Jungkook. "Sorry, didn't think you'd call."

Almost as if you're looking for reasons to be annoyed, you take offence to this.

"I always call?"

"Well, yeah, but you were so fuckin' weird last night," he laughs, heading out of the gym and into an empty corridor of the hotel.

"I wasn't anything," you reply back with a scowl—and realise how terribly you're hiding your annoyance. Flick the camera over so it focuses on Bam as he trots along the path. "Just tired."

It's the same excuse he bullshitted to Jiwon. Knows you're talking bollocks.

"Even Jiwon asked what was wrong with you—"

"Oh, well I'm terribly sorry to have inconvenienced you, Jungkook," you snap, completely unjustified. It's too late, though. You've started. Have to see it through. "But if you don't mind, I'm responsible for your pet right now and I'd rather not be having this conversation when I need to be focusing on a million other things at once."

"Fine," Jungkook snaps right back. All he wants is to see Bam, but he doesn't want to be having this conversation either. "But you know what? Don't bother calling back until you've taken that stick out from up your arse."

You shouldn't be surprised when Jungkook hangs up.

But you are.

For the second time in as many days, you find yourself crying. 

Oh, it's all so pathetic! And stupid! There's no need for it, you think.

Thankfully you're not too far from home—Jungkook's home, that is—so you can cut the walk a little short as long as you come home at lunch to check on Bam, too.

You don't even really understand why you're fighting with him. Wish you weren't.

When Jungkook zips open his suit bag as he's getting ready for the Expo opening ceremony, he finds himself wishing just the same.

Tucked on top of his blazer is a brand new tie; one of which he most definitely did not put there. 

An incredibly muted bronze and black paisley pattern swirls over the material, and on top rests a note.

Jungkook rubs his face with a flat palm. Rakes it through his hair. Swallows back the awkward heat prickling at his eyes and the tickle in his throat. Doesn't wanna bawl.

But then he reads the note, and he just can't stop himself.

Dad!!!

You're gonna do great!!!!

Come home soon tho :(((((

Woof woof!!!!!!!

Your Bammie <333

P.S. I'm colour blind but the gremlin said this one is the same colour as me!!! Do you miss me??? I miss you!!!!!

The first time you had ever learned of Jungkook's tattoos was in a dive bar a few blocks over from work. It was just after you'd pulled off your first deal together—the one that set your working relationship in stone—and you'd both been blowing off steam.

The walls were red, and so were your cheeks, blushed from the heat of what it felt like to sit beside him in a tatty booth.

So used to sitting across from him at meeting tables, something about it changed your dynamic. Any threats of being on opposing teams were whittled down to nothing more than a life that could have been.

He had your back. You had his.

Blazer off, his sleeves were rolled up. You didn't ask him about a single one of the tattoos, like he half thought you might. 

Instead, you just accepted him as he was. Didn't stroke your index finger up his arm, tracing the lines, like most girls do as an excuse to get better acquainted with him.

That night he made a promise to himself to never ruin the working relationship you have together.

You work too well to jeopardise it. He has goals. Knew, even back then, that you'd help him achieve his aspirations, like some sort of twin flame type of shit he didn't believe in.

Didn't. Past tense.

These days, when you think of Jungkook and his tattoos, you always think of the snake. It's the one you see most frequently for it's so close to his wrist. Have always understood snakes to represent change.

Jungkook is yet to shed his skin. He's still just the same as he always was, you think, as you get in the lift and head up towards your office floor.

Just 'cause he hadn't hooked up with anyone from the office in a while didn't mean that he'd changed his ways. More fool you for thinking that he might've.

And it's not like it even matters at all. Who he lays down with is none of your concern. You've never cared before. Not really.

It's just that you've been going to sleep in his sheets. Eating dinner he prepared in advance for you. Waking up to his pup excitedly doing zoomies around the room, 'cause he's ready for his walk.

When you get home, you put Bam's leash up next to your coat, which is hung on top of Jungkook's. Kick your shoes off by a pair of his. Use his shower gel when you get washed, and wistfully tuck yourself up into the armchair you helped him pick out for his bedroom. It's tucked in the corner. Is perfect for watching the world roll by.

You know you should have just called him this morning. Spent the entire walk stubbornly hoping that he would instead, but he's just as childish as you are.

You've bickered with him a hundred times over since you first met him, but never like this.

The elevator dings to a stop, pulling you from your tiresome thoughts of Jungkook. Pulling your body from its slumped leaning stature against the mirrored walls, you trudge into a place that endlessly reminds you of him.

Impossible to escape, is Jungkook. Perhaps that's it. Maybe you've just had enough of each other. Need a little time to breathe.

Everyone else who started at the company around the same time as you has already left. It's just you and Jungkook still here from the small pool of fresh graduates that had been taken under Mr Seo's wing.

But you like it here. Like your job. The salary you earn is great—far more than you would get anywhere else.

Again, you don't know this, but Jungkook's always negotiated on your behalf behind closed doors. He makes the company far more money, and does admittedly get a pretty huge bonus every year according to the amount of deals closed.

That being said, he also stomps down to Mr Seo's office in the fourth quarter when news of the next fiscal year's raises are shared. Will demand that your base salary is matched to his. Has threatened, on numerous occasions, to call for a pay disparity audit from external forces if your wage isn't boosted up, even if it means his is cut down to make up for it.

You went out on a limb trusting him in the early days. This is how he repays you.

That's just friendship, though, he thinks. You help him, he helps you.

He also knows you'd probably be annoyed if you ever found out he meddled with things like that.

The girls in the accounting office always think it's so lovely whenever they see the pay increases. Yours and Jungkook's are never quite what they should be, and they know exactly why. It's why they always ask you how he is whenever you go to drop off inventory reports and materials lists with the lead accountant.

You think they just fancy the pants off him.

Which is also true.

And it's also why a couple of them are curiously standing outside your office space, giggling like school girls as you approach it.

"Morning," you smile, then laugh a little too at their giddy excitement—but when you turn the corner and realise what they're so smitten over, you're a little lost for words.

Sitting on your desk is quite possibly the largest bouquet of flowers you've ever seen. Peonies, you think from afar. Pretty and pale pink, they're in a glass vase. Two dozen easily, if not more, blooming just for you.

"Oh," you hum, because it's hardly what you expect to walk into on a Thursday morning.

Mingyu flashes through your head, but you haven't heard a peep from him since you last let your conversation dissolve over the weekend. He has no reason to send you flowers.

But nor does anyone else.

"We tried working out the message," one of them admits. "But whoever your secret admirer is, they're hell-bent on keeping it secret!"

Shameless, you think, suppressing a well-natured laugh. They've got balls to admit that they've read the note.

Walking to your desk, you see it sitting atop of the flowers, and read it for yourself.

Anyone reading the note who knows a single non-superficial thing about the mystery sender would know who it is in a heartbeat. All it takes for you to know is to see the name of who it's addressed to.

Bammie—

She's right. It does match you. When I get home we can dress you up in my new tie.

Tell the gremlin that you deserve head scratches.

And extra treats.

And that I miss her.

Glancing over to the girls, who desperately want gossip, you simply shrug. If they've never heard Jungkook talk about Bam before, then they clearly don't know him at all. If he wanted his name on the note, he'd have put it there.

He could have gotten them sent to his apartment. He chose here. But he also chose anonymity.

And so you give him a little grace.

"Your guess is as good as mine," you bullshit with an apologetic smile that no one believes.

Lea just looks at you from across the room with a raised brow. Waits until the girls leave, then says, "That's not the kind of bouquet you send a colleague."

She already knows you're looking after Bam. That being said, she hasn't read the card. Has no idea what it says. Just knows that there's only one man you ever talk about with such warmth to be deserving of those flowers from.

"Apparently it is," you shrug, all but confirming who sent them with a coy smile.

"I hope he lets Jiwon down gently," Lea sighs, knowing just as well as you do that she's got a bit of a thing for Jungkook.

What she doesn't know is that it's the exact reason you're fighting with him.

Hell, even he doesn't know that!

So deep in your denial, neither do you.

"Why would he need to?" You downplay it all. Lea doesn't know about the awkward call Jiwon inserted herself into, or the fact you've already decided that he must have fucked her. "Like I said, apparently these are the kind of flowers sent by just a colleague."

Lea shakes her head. Has been observing you and Jungkook for years. Was waiting for a Christmas party, or one of those nightmarish summer tennis tournaments for the pair of you to finally figure it out. You're just as thick as two wooden planks when it comes to all of this, or so it would seem. A little push might be needed.

"Colleagues don't send flowers just because," she tells you with an air of authority. "And if I know anything about the stories you've told me, Jungkook doesn't send flowers full stop."

Just like that, you're thinking of those damn tattoos again. The snake, specifically.

Maybe, just maybe, he is changing.

And if you weren't confused before, then you sure as hell are now.

During the summer months, Jungkook often goes home to see Bam at lunchtime. It's not uncommon for you to go with him. In the winter, when the temperature of his apartment is less of a worry, Jungkook probably only goes home for lunch once a week or so.

Walking up to Jungkook's apartment in the middle of the day without him feels a little bit wrong. In one hand, you're holding a peony by its stem. In the other, you're clutching your phone just in case he calls.

In all honesty, you had planned on taking the entire vase back, but it was bloody heavy. You'll wait until he's back in the office.

It might just be paranoia, or the misplaced assumption that everyone is obsessed with what Jungkook does, but you swear there have been far more people passing your office today than usual. People you've seen maybe once or twice in your entire lifetime.

Lea was right. Jungkook doesn't send flowers. 

Has a repeat order going monthly for his mother, but that's it. And even then, he's kind of forgotten about it.

You've debated it with him before; flowers and their presence in relationships. 

He thinks a potted plant would be far more practical, but if he was really going to get someone something, it'd be herbs. Maybe a potted mint bush. Something useful that they could enjoy together.

A few weeks ago, you had told him he'd make an awful sugar daddy.

"Well, yeah!" He'd just laughed. "I save my money for myself. Me alone. If someone wants nice shit, they can get their own job."

"Oh, so you'd never treat a girlfriend?" You'd scoffed, forgetting the fact he never really has girlfriends. Just flings. "Never get her nice shit?"

"Well, that's different," he'd said. "It's not transactional."

"Everything in life is transactional, whether people like to kid themselves it is or not."

Jungkook looked affronted when you said this. You'd had differing perceptions of life for as long as he'd known you, but you'd always been a romantic. Always believed in the prevailing nature of love.

Bam had adjusted in his sleepy position. Curled up a little tighter, then stretched right out. Rested his hind paws on your thighs and tucked his nose into his chest.

"Bam disagrees," Jungkook assured you.

"You trained him using transactions," you reminded him regardless. "Rewarded him with a treat every time he did as you asked. Transactional."

"Okay, but this?" He gestured to where Bam was curled between the pair of you on his sofa. That's always been a rule of his. No sofa for Bam—he's got all the beds he could ever want! But when Jungkook is on the sofa, it's the only place he wants to be, too. "He knows he's not supposed to be on here. He knows he won't get a reward, so why is he up here? It isn't transactional. He just—"

"Is playing you for a fool," you had laughed. "He wants to be on the sofa, so he lets us pet him in return for us not shooing him off. He's the one setting the transaction up. You're the one getting the reward. He's playing you at your own game. Aren't you, baby?"

You'd cooed a little, scratching at Bam's thigh. He shook it ever so gently and readjusted, but didn't stop resting against you.

It was a curious thought; the way that nothing in life ever comes for free. Even the favours you do for Jungkook by dog-sitting are transactional. You get just as much out of those days as he does.

The conversation had mellowed into something else, 'cause Jungkook didn't want to get into a debate. Knows that you can defend your point until the cows come home—has been in enough meetings with you to know as such. Likes being on your side 'cause you always win—and with a negotiator like him to seal the deal, it's always so much sweeter.

As the calling screen of Jungkook's contact details takes over your screen, phone resting against a wine bottle on the coffee table, you wonder how transactional this is.

He gave you flowers, and now you're giving him a call.

Anyone with a rational mind would surely ask: is this not how romance works?

But when he accepts your call, and you're met with a stern face that's desperately trying not to smile, you're reminded of what he really is: your best friend.

Neither of you wants to be the first one who cracks and gives in first, even if you both know this is all so stupid.

You reach over to pick up the peony. Hold it in front of your face. The petals have bloomed so spectacularly that it almost eclipses you.

Jungkook's face scrunches up a little, his terribly hidden smile slightly distorted but ever so hard to hide.

"Will you stop hating me now?" Is all he says.

"Never hated you," you grumble, bringing the flower a little lower, but still in frame. Sitting on the floor, your back is to the sofa and Bam is behind you, right where he's not supposed to be.

If Jungkook is bothered by it, he doesn't mention it. "I missed him this morning."

The guilt that crawls into your stomach and makes itself at home is rancid. Anguish is her name, and she loves nothing more than ruining a good thing.

The frown that steals the pretty smile from your face isn't one that Jungkook enjoys seeing on you, no matter how cute it is when your eyebrows pinch together.

"I should have called," you acknowledge, knowing that it was cruel of you not to, even if you were fighting. "I'm sorry."

Jungkook just smiles. "I assumed the stick was still up your arse."

Narrowing your eyes, you're pleased that he's joking with you; that things feel normal.

"It's fine," he dismisses regardless. "Last night was the opening event so I was a little worse for wear this morning, and then Jiwon was rummaging about at fuckin' six in the morning. Took her fuckin' hours to get ready."

And there it is; confirmation that she's been sharing his bed.

Though you don't frown, there's a stupor to the muscles in your face. The brightness you were looking at him with fades—and very quickly, Jungkook becomes the one who looks unhappy, now.

"What?" He says, genuinely a little confused.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

You just shake your head. Dismiss it. Flick the camera around and lift your phone to focus it on Bam as you give him a little scratch behind the ear.

"He's been good as gold," you begin to waffle on. The ridge between Jungkook's brows deepens. "Best boy in the doggie park, aren't you? There's a new couple who have just started walking a Yorkie. Yappy little bugger. I don't think Bam's a fan."

"No," Jungkook supposes. "He doesn't like yappy dogs—and I don't like it when you deflect. Show me your face, gremlin. What's going on?"

"Nothing!" You insist, but don't flick the camera back. Just get a little more boisterous with Bam, and while it does make Jungkook smile, he can't shake the horrible feeling that's building in his diaphragm.

Your Anguish has a cousin who goes by the name of Confusion, and she adores wrapping herself up in men who fail to communicate in a way that is healthy.

"C'mon," he softly says. Flicks his camera around. Shows you an empty hallway of the convention centre. Says, "I've left Jiwon in charge at the height of the day just so I can answer your call. Talk to me. What's wrong?"

"You didn't have to answer," you grumble.

Jungkook is smarter than most. Will have clocked the time of day and knew it was lunch. Definitely assumed you must be with Bam. It must be why he picked up.

Flicking the camera back on himself, Jungkook is almost at a loss for what else he can say to get you to open up.

A little honesty is needed.

And so you pout. Mumble, "They're calling you and Jiwon a dream team in the office."

Jungkook's frown intensifies as his dewy pink lips rest ajar. You'd say he looks distressed, but that's far too intense of an emotion for such a childish qualm.

He just knows that if he heard your partnership with another colleague—especially one in his department—being referred to like that, he'd take offence. It's you and him. You're the dream team. Always have been.

Shaking his head, Jungkook doesn't hide his contempt. Scoffs. "Fuck off. Dream team? She's using your strategies at a booth you designed, and even then, she's barely doing that—you know Acorn guy? The one you said to steer clear of? She's gunning for him—"

"Oh, you're kidding me," you gasp in disbelief. You warned her that he's bad news, multiple times. "Him?!"

"She's young," Jungkook says with a little judgement. Is scared of turning thirty, but definitely doesn't understand people who are closer to twenty. "He's just some hot guy on TV, to her. Doesn't realise his business is gonna tank. She isn't thinking about it long-term."

Which is funny, 'cause Jungkook never really used to think about things long term, either.

Sure, with investments and saving his money, he's always been a little cautious. When it comes to the business, though, it's someone else's money he's playing with. He takes risks. Does dumb shit and it gets rewards.

He really is incredibly good at his job, though. It's part of the reason the women love him, you always think.

It's not.

They like him because he's kind and also so bloody hot he should be on billboards, not in boardrooms.

You like him because he's competent.

In fact, you think there's nothing hotter than a competent man who just knows how to get shit done. And when said competent man can cook like Jungkook? Cares for his dog in the way he does? Looks like he does?

Sigh.

You ignore the way he looks a lot of the time, but you've a pair of eyes and a part of your brain that recognises attractive men. It's hard to ignore all of the time.

"Anyway," he shakes his head. "Not important. She's perfectly fine if not a little misguided—but she isn't you. So, stop worrying about it."

You take a second before you reply. Flick the camera back to you.

It surprises Jungkook, how Confusion has travelled through his bloodstream. Her bony fingers toy with his heart, and he's taken aback by just how sharp her nails are.

Looking at you never used to feel like this. He's not sure why it does now.

You muster up a little courage, even if you can't bring yourself to look at him properly. Let out a deep sigh. Now or never. You run the risk of causing another fight, but if you don't come clean, it'll only dirty everything.

"I just thought we kind of had an agreement, Kook," you eventually whine with an ever-so childish pout.

The hands that have been tearing at his heart migrate through his bloodstream. Get into his brain. Get into his house. Opens doors. Begins moving the furniture.

Stay out of the annexe, his thoughts hiss at Confusion.

Still he seems perfectly calm when he asks, "Watcha mean?"

He's not making this easy for you.

In fact, you'd say he's making it difficult. It would be far easier for you if he just acknowledged what he's already done.

"Well, just..." you take a moment or so to think about how it can be phrased with any dignity—and then you think fuck it. "She's in my department, Kook. I always thought you wouldn't fuck anyone I have to directly work with. It just makes it awkwa—"

"Woah, woah woah," he interrupts. Confusion sits on his shoulder, now, with a twisted smirk on her greyed-out face. "Wouldn't fuck anyone? What the hell do you think I've been doing?!"

"Well, I mean, it's less what and more... who," you joke a little too flippantly.

You don't think he's ever looked so offended in the entire time you've known him.

"You've got to be kidding me."

If anything, you're a bit surprised by just how offended he is. Jiwon is an incredibly pretty girl. A little young for him, granted, but not abhorrently so.

"What?!" You reply, equally confused, then relay everything back to him. "She woke you up this morning getting ready? Was in your room when I called you? Fucking got on your bed right in front of my face and cosied up with you to look at Bam."

Admittedly, that last one was said with a little venom. It annoys you the most.

"She woke me up this morning from across the room," he counters. "Was in our room because we were a last-minute addition to the convention, and it was the only room left within a ten-mile radius—twin beds, may I add! If I don't even share my bed with you when I'm at home, then what the hell makes you think I'd share one with her?! Yeah, the call thing was weird. I'm not gonna lie, it was, but I answered when she was around because I didn't want either of you to get the wrong impression."

A smile wobbles on your lips, as you try to remain stoic. Either of you. You know that you apparently got the wrong end of the stick—but you're not entirely sure what he means by either of you. You wonder what impression he's trying to give her, then decide it's not important.

You clasp your hands together. Lean forward. Put on your best noble old man voice, and say, "Well, it appears that it might have just happened, regardless."

Confusion's perch on Jungkook's shoulder is knocked loose when he laughs, though those sharp nails do claw onto his back. Leave scratch marks that will take a little while to heal—what's important is that they will.

One day, this awkward misstep will be something you laugh about. Kind of like he is, now. You'll forget your tears, but you won't ever forget the strange feeling of weight lifting off your shoulders, mind eased by Jungkook.

"You're a fucking idiot," he laughs with such fondness it almost doesn't feel like an insult. "Seriously? You thought I fucked her? And was then, what? Trying to brag about it? C'mon, you little gremlin! Give me some credit."

Never before has 'gremlin' ever sounded so kind. So warm. So much like 'darling', or 'mon amour'. Secret code for unspoken words.

"I don't know," you whine. Bam shuffles a little bit on the sofa behind you, turning his face away from the noise. You reach back to scratch his head as an apology. Jungkook smiles. Your care for his baby is so innate that you don't even realise you're doing it. "Her hair was damp, and she was practically falling out of her top—"

"Oh, but what I am supposed to do?" He laughs. "I can't tell her to cover up in her own damn room, and even then I just ignore it. I didn't sleep with her. I'm not going to sleep with her. Okay?"

He's not even thought about it. Feels nothing when he looks at her. No excitement. Even if she is attractive, he doesn't think his body would work properly.

Hasn't been working as it should do for the best part of a year now.

Or maybe it would better be referred to as 'malfunctioning'.

'Cause it seems to work okay when he thinks about you.

He 'malfunctioned' earlier on that day, as a matter of fact. Was just showering. And he missed you. And was thinking about those damn pyjama shorts. How smooth your legs had been when he'd hoisted you over his shoulder. How pliant you'd been as he chucked you down into his sheets. Your sleepy eyes and the 3AM husk to your voice. Fuck.

Even thinking about it in a dingy hallway of a convention centre, with your pretty face smiling at him through his phone, is making his heart race. If he doesn't get a hold on it, he'll go into cardiac. Might just flatline.

"Look, I gotta get back, okay?" He softly says. It's not a lie, but it is more sensible than he wants to be. "Have to make sure Jiwon hasn't sold the company to the acorn guy. There's a networking event tonight, so I can't call during Bammie's walk, but I'll check in at some point."

"Alright," you nod, a little sad to see him go, but understanding of it. "Hurry up and come home. Bam misses you."

"I miss him, too," Jungkook pouts. "Show me my baby before I go."

Phone angled to fully capture Bam, you indulge Jungkook for a few moments before he really does have to go. He lingers for a second or so after you say goodbye. Can't muster up anything good to say to make you stay.

Holding the stem of the single peony you'd taken home with you, you roll it between your thumb and fingers. Watch the petals twirl.

"What should I do, hey, Bam?" You wistfully sigh, eventually getting up to pop it in a glass of water. Jungkook has no vases, for he's never had any need for flowers.

The peony isn't the only thing blooming in his kitchen these days, though. It hasn't been for a while.

Work passes slowly that afternoon. You want to get home. See Bam. Finish off the wine you opened so that Jungkook doesn't scold you for letting it turn into vinegar when he gets back. And then you wanna sleep—just so you can wake up the next morning and take Bam on his walk.

It's not like that isn't part of your agenda tonight, too. It's just that Jungkook won't be around for that one.

Instead, his evening is spent in fancy rooms with men in even fancier suits and women who take a fancy to him, too. A whisky is in his hands at all times, his pretty lips embroiled in conversation. He talks so much he barely has any time to drink.

People gravitate towards him; those who feel threatened by his charm gravitate towards Jiwon. Mistake her for a prize he's trying to keep. Don't realise his unbothered facade is anything but a facade.

It's gone midnight by the time he's kicking off his shoes with a little wobble as he gets to his hotel room.

"I'm being serious," he almost giggles, phone between his shoulder and his ear as he loosens his cufflinks. "It's a wig. I'm positive."

280 miles away, phone on your tummy, loudspeaker on as you gaze up at Jungkook's bedroom ceiling, you're laughing too.

"It can't be," you protest the current topic of conversation—Mr Acorn (as he's now affectionately known between you both) and whether or not his hair is real. Jungkook had left Jiwon to continue her poorly judged perusal of him, in favour of checking in with you instead. There was no one else at that party he wanted to talk to more than he wanted to talk to you. Laughing and joking about stupid shit, he's glad you answered. "He went swimming on Singles Inferno!"

"So?!" Jungkook snorts, tapping his phone over to loudspeaker too and tossing it down onto his sheets. A little haphazard, he's unbuttoning his shirt. Is a little tipsy, but not enough to warrant any huge issues. "Maybe he used industrial strength glue."

"Surely he'd rather people just know he was bald? Start a trend?"

"Maybe he's got a terrible head tattoo," Jungkook theorises, tossing his shirt across to a chair, before finally discarding his pants, too. Is just in his boxers now as he clambers into the sheets. "Bald eagle. An ex's name. I dunno. But I'd take chemical burns over that."

"You'd never get a girl's name tattooed on you," you laugh in response. Legs tucked up, heels to your ass, you let your knees gently sway. Bam is curled up in his own bed by the foot of Jungkook's. You're not on facetime, mainly 'cause Jungkook clicked the wrong button, but it's also nice not using poor Bam as an excuse to talk to you.

"And I'm also not balding, so we don't have to worry about that."

"Are you not?" You hum, just to wind him up. "I swear there's a patch of missing hair—"

"Shut up," he cuts you off, voice just as fond as it is stern. "I will swim all the way back to the mainland and speed run up to Seoul just to shut you up. Don't speak it into existence. I have great hair."

"Mmm," you hum. Sinking a little further into his sheet, you turn on your side. Take him off speaker. Hold your phone to your ear. Look at the empty side of his bed and wonder what it'd be like if he were here. Know better than to indulge it. "And you are just so modest, too. Absolutely no ego whatsoever."

"It's why the ladies love me," he jokes, not realising just how true it is. Jungkook takes a moment before he says anything else. Is comforted by the silence you leave for him, totally unaware it's because you're not sure how to respond. "Not that it matters."

Though his delivery is soft and airy, like feathers falling from a well established nest, it lands in your chest with a heavy thud, like a stone from a bridge. You couldn't swerve in time. It shattered your windshield; plummeted straight into your heart. 'Causes a pile up on the freeway, all your thoughts held behind a tongue that cannot speak.

"You tired?" Jungkook hums down the speaker when a response never comes. "I'm sorry, I can let you go?"

"No," you say incredibly quickly considering you've been leaving your side of the conversation empty. "No, sorry. Just can't believe you're actually behaving yourself. Who are you, and what have you done with Cassanova that normally takes a hold of you after a few drinks?"

He's right here, Jungkook laments, knowing better than to act on the way he's been feeling lately. Just says, "Maybe I'm maturing."

"I find that hard to believe," you tell him. If the tiktok psychology gurus who have taught you everything you know about modern men are anything to go by, his brain should have finished fully developing about a year ago.

And while Jungkook would tell you to get fucked and that his brain was already fully developed, he knows that if he sat down and really thought about it, maybe it'd hold some merit. Afterall, it's been about a year since those first thoughts about you started creeping into his mind house.

It's only recently that he's been flirting with that damn annexe door, but he's been aware of someone in there for a while, now.

"What?" He smiles down the phone, resting an arm on his bare abdomen, looking up at the dark ceiling of his hotel room. "Maybe I am. Maybe shagging random girls doesn't excite me anymore."

"You're lying."

"Am I?"

"Yes," you insist, but there's a smile on your face.

There's something about his denial you enjoy.

It's why you're arguing against him. You wanna hear him deny it again. Tell you he doesn't care about other girls. You don't necessarily want him to care about you beyond what he already does. Or at least that's what you tell yourself.

"No," he simply replies back. "I'm not."

"So if Jiwon—"

"Why are you bringing her up again?" He's smirking, now. You can hear it in his tone. "Are you jealous?"

"Jealous?!"

"Yeah," He insists, just like you had been earlier. "You don't like the idea of her sleeping with me."

Incorrect. You don't like the idea of him sleeping with her.

"Well, no," you admit. "But because I work with her—"

"That's not it," he fights against you. Knows that you didn't go and see Mingyu when you said you would, and also now knows you said you would after you thought he'd slept with Jiwon. He might not be able to read women's minds, but he's learnt your M.O. pretty well over the years.

"You're drunk," you whisper, trying to hide behind the alcohol that both of you have in your systems. Neither of you are in any position to make sensible choices.

"Tipsy," he corrects. "And so are you. Go on. Be honest. Tell me."

"There's nothing to tell."

"Yeah, there is," he whispers, his words far braver in sentiment than they are in sound.

You swallow. Can't work out if he's just teasing you or not. "There's nothing."

The silence in the room around you is deafening. It's like all you can focus on is Jungkook, and the way you imagine his lips pouting together at the end of each sentence he speaks. Pretty and pink and—

"So you've never thought about it?" He interrupts your thoughts with a question you're unprepared for. 

"What?" You reply a little dismissively, as if it's an outlandish think to consider.

But Jungkook doesn't buy it.

Has been driving himself insane.

Knows he can't be the only one—and if he is, then maybe he really is insane.

"Us," he replies as if it's water off a duck's back. Simple. Easy. "You've never wondered what it would be like?"

"Kook..."

It's like playing chicken. Both too scared to cross a line for fear of it changing the entire fabric of your lives.

But you can acknowledge something without acting on it. Confirmation means nothing; it's the choices that follow which really mean something,

"Yeah?" He husks. His sleepy eyes are pressed shut, his voice a slow drawl. "What is it, huh? You want me to admit it first?"

You almost laugh at how dumb this whole conversation is. You're friends. Have been for years. Colleagues. Just... Well, just you and Jungkook. He's never thought about you like that. You're certain of it.

Yet still, you ask, "Well, have you?"

He doesn't reply immediately. You half think he's drifted off to sleep, proof that he'd had too much to drink to be having a conversation like this.

But then you hear his breathy little laugh through the speaker. You know he must be nibbling down on his bottom lip as he smirks. The sound is so familiar you can picture it. You wish he was here. Want to see it. Feel it.

Fuck, you curse yourself out. This is not good.

And Jungkook's only gonna make it a whole lot worse.

"Yeah," he quietly admits, keys in one hand and padlock in the other as he stares at the annexe door in his mind. Wide open, there's no going back now. Only forward. "I think about it all the time."

Bam nuzzles the side of his head against your tummy as he adjusts into a slightly more comfortable position on Jungkook's bed. The sheets are a mess from all your tossing and turning, your body plonked right in the middle of his mattress. There's no his side or your side anymore. You've made it yours, and Bam has joined in.

He shouldn't be on the bed. You know this, he knows this. You're both disobeying Jungkook. Are in this perfectly innocent sin together, and will face the wrath of Jungkook as a unit.

There's never really much wrath that comes from Jungkook. He's the type to smirk and laugh in the face of the people who've wronged him. Believes in karma. Fate. He draws the lines at horoscopes, though. Thinks they're bollocks. Smiles, still, when you blame shitty things on Mercury.

The only time you've ever seen him angry—nostrils flaring, jaw tense, agitated beyond compare—was when some guy wouldn't stop hitting on you in a bar. You'd told him no a dozen times over and he just wouldn't listen.

It still pisses you off that he listened to Jungkook without hesitation, but you also know it looked like Jungkook was gonna break his nose. You're far less intimidating when you're annoyed. Jungkook laughs at you whenever you get frustrated. Says you're cute—or at least as cute as a Gremlin can be.

You've got a similar look on your face now, all perplexed and bereft. If he were here, he'd be teasing you, trying to make you crack a smile.

Annoyingly, you know he'd be able to.

You're staring up at his ceiling, early morning light seeping in through the gaps in the curtains. The world you wish to ignore today rudely intrudes on you regardless.

It's his karma, you think.

You disobey Jungkook, the world disobeys you.

With one hand resting on Bam, the other is tightly clutching your phone. For the past five minutes, you've been locking and unlocking it like a wind-up toy drummer.

To call, or not to call, or whatever Shakespeare said.

The faint hum of a wine-induced hangover buzzes between your ears, but it isn't so bad. Probably because you didn't really have that much to drink.

If anyone asks, you'll say you had a bottle.

And by anyone, you mean Jungkook.

If Jungkook asks, you'll laugh— We had a call? Are you sure? —and he'll laugh too— Yeah, we were both pretty drunk —and you'll both pretend like he didn't say the words that he did.

Pulling the pillow he usually sleeps on across to your face, you press it down. Scream into the padding. It's not loud enough to alarm Bam, but it is enough to make him cock his head.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it had only been Jungkook's lips that were loose last night.

The issue is that yours were, too.

You wish you didn't remember all the words you'd said. The way you'd told him to shut up.

The way he'd hummed, "Oh, come on. You know you think about it, too."

The way you'd said, "I do no such thing."

He had laughed. Said you were a liar.

You'd protested. Said it didn't matter anyways, 'cause you both know it'd never work.

"So you have thought about it," he'd teased.

"Briefly."

"How briefly?"

"Like a matter of minutes—"

"Okay, rude," he'd pouted through the receiver. "I last way longer than a couple of minutes."

"You're disgusting," you'd laughed at the way he'd made it all about sex.

For all he knew, you could have been talking about a relationship—but you're right. You both know it'd never work, so of course this is about sex.

"You the one who's thought about it, though," he'd flirted through the phone. Biting down on his bottom lip, the darkness of his hotel room had slipped him into a fatal state of hedonism.

There was a beat of his heart. One. Two. Still no response from you.

He knew you were thinking about it. Thinking about him. Decided to push his luck. Had almost whispered, his fingertips trailing down his torso, as he chanced, "Do you ever think about me when you touch yourself?"

Silence continued to linger for longer than it should have, until you finally just whispered, "Kook."

"Yeah?" He'd smirked.

"You can't ask things like that."

But he can, and he did, and your lack of an answer was an answer in and of itself.

He wasn't even really after the truth. He just wanted to get under your skin; burrow himself down into the deepest, darkest, most depraved corner of your brain. Revenge, he thinks, for that damn annexe you've assigned squatters rights to.

You set up home in him? Fine . He'll do it right back.

"So this is what I am, huh?" You'd replied, with a little faux chip on your shoulder, trying to deflect from yourself. "Just another office girl for you to fantasize about?"

There's always been a challenge to you that Jungkook has liked. You're sparring partners. Will bicker and argue and end up laughing over it all. It makes for excellent brainstorming meetings, 'cause you're always trying to win. You bring out the best in each other, even if it is in a bid to do the opposite.

Jungkook had sighed. Weighed up his options. Rested his hands over his boxers, only to find himself far too entertained by the conversation. It wasn't a surprise, nor was it unwelcome.

The frequency of his thoughts about you had been doubling, tripling, quadrupling ever since Chuseok.

His bed has become a pit of sin in recent weeks; nobody but him in the shrouded decay of a mind-house he's been neglecting in favour of the annexe shared with you.

He already knows just how bad it's gonna be for him when he returns home, and the pillows are dented by your crown, the lingering scent of your perfume wrapping around him just like he knows his hand will be around his cock. Tight. Strong. Firm. It's your name he'll whine, just like it was when he was in the shower earlier that morning.

God, it's gotten so bad.

He needs to stop before he ruins everything.

It's not like sex is an uncommon topic of conversation between you both. Casual vulgarity had been a tool used to bond with; a taboo way to tease one another. It's always been casual. Uncalculated.

It's different, now.

In the darkness of midnight, the stakes were raised almost as high as your heart rate.

"You think so poorly of me," he'd whined, a teasing smile on his lips. It wasn't rare to hear Jungkook address you so playfully. In fact, it was a common occurrence—yet it felt strange, this time. "You know you're not just another office girl."

"Do I?"

"You should."

"I don't," you'd shrugged into his sheets. "Tell me, how am I different?"

The distance between you made a flirt like this safe. Immediate consequences were null and void, and the alcohol in your system didn't seem to care for it either.

"I can't tell you."

"Sure you can."

"You don't wanna hear it," he'd promised.

"Try me," you'd challenged.

And then Jungkook admitted something he knew far better than to confess, but couldn't seem to help himself. He just wanted you to know that you were special. That you were different.

That you are different. Are special.

"None of the office girls have ever made me cum in my own bed."

It came out far less sweet than his brain had told him it would, but it was still a compliment, he thought.

"Jungkook!"

"What?!"

The way you both kind of shrieked at each other only amplified the shock of the confession, but also did well to hide the way it excited you, too. Got you hot beneath his sheets. Aroused.

"Don't say things like that," you'd scolded him with a laugh, playing it off as a joke. "I'll report you to HR."

"You'd do no such thing," he'd smirked down the line. Matched your energy. Played it off as an incredibly obscene, vulgar joke. Will turn his nose up if you ever ask him if he was telling the truth. "And anyways, the HR girls love me. You'd be fighting a losing battle."

"You're awful," you'd told him with such a tenderness that suggested you really didn't think that at all.

And so he smiled. Decided to cut his losses. Agreed. "Yeah. That's me."

The conversation dissolved into casual chatter until you both made excuses about being tired, or needing to sleep off the alcohol.

Yet both of you would spend the next hour awake, staring at your respective ceilings. Occasionally, you'd look to the space reserved for him in his bed. He'd do just the same. Would look at Jiwon's empty bed and lament the fact that it wasn't you on the trip with him.

He never should have asked you to watch over Bam—but there really isn't anyone else he'd rather have in his apartment.

Then he's thinking about you all over again, in his home, hair claw-clipped like it so often is, and how cute those little pyjama shorts of yours would look peeking out from the hemline of one of his shirts. He wonders what you're wearing; if it's your bare skin against his sheets. Wonders if he sleeps naked after he gets home, if it'd feel like your arms are wrapped around him; if the scent of your perfume would sink into his skin.

It doesn't take long for the thoughts to become lewd. He thinks of your lips, and how they'd part with a gasp if he were to stroke your skin with his fingertips. Thinks of your waist, and what it would feel like to hold. Thinks of your body in a way that really ought to get him fired.

How his lips could drag across your skin; the wet pink of his tongue learning where you liked to be touched. How he'd guide your hands. The words of approval he'd use— Yeah, like that. Oh, fuck. Yeah, just like that, baby. You're so good at that aren't you, huh? You know how many times I've imagined this? You're so much better. G'na make me cum, babe. Keep going. You want my cum, yeah? Yeah, you do. Oh, fuck—

"No," he sharply scolds himself, tearing his thoughts from you and his hand from his thick, impatient cock. "Fucks sake, man. Get a grip."

Wanting you like this is selfish, he thinks. Selfish and stupid and— God —so fuckin' dumb.

He also thinks it's your fault. You're an interior designer, after all. Have made that stupid annexe feel more like a home than the rest of his head ever has. Added candles and cushions. Hung pictures on the wall; turned off the main light in favour of warm lamps that just make him wanna curl up and fall asleep with you on the sofa.

It's so different, this little annexe in his brain, to the apartment that he actually lives in.

If he were to assess it thoroughly, he'd realise that the annexe looks just like your apartment.

But he hates your place. Has never been shy about telling you so. Hates all your nicknacks. Hates the clothing rails you use instead of a proper wardrobe, and the way your beside table is actually just a stack of books you're yet to read. Hates how there's always a cosy blanket within touching distance, and how it always smells like black cherry candles. Hates how firm your mattress is, even if he's only ever slept on it once, fully clothed after you'd both had way too much to drink after a tight work deadline.

He also hated how he didn't wake up with an aching back like he usually does. Hated how sleeping in his own damn bed began to feel wrong, and how nowadays it only feels right during those first few days after he returns from trips; when it still smells like you and the rings you take off your fingers in the night are still tucked beneath his pillows.

Kind of like they are now, as you finally decide to stop being a miserable cow and just get up. You're normally the one who calls him, and it's typically always when you're walking Bam. Last night had been an anomaly. There's no reason for him to call you, now.

It's when you're showering that your phone lights up. Only briefly. Messages, not calls.

JK: can't call this morning, gotta head to the exhibition hall early

JK: give my baby a head scratch from me

JK: send me pics!!

JK: of bam

JK: none of you

While the vomit emoji he adds onto the end of the final message is a little uncalled for, it's actually kind of a relief that he doesn't want to call. Having to face him right now, when you're in such a sorry state of confusion, would have only made the situation far worse for you.

At least that's what you tell yourself.

Your face when you walk into the office, and the state of despair Lea seems to find you in, would suggest otherwise.

By half past ten, you've managed to wrangle Jungkook into conversation eight times.

It's not until you mention him in relation to Jiwon that Lea seems to notice.

"Okay, so?" She laughs. "Everyone knows you and Jungkook are like a package deal. She isn't taking your spot—plus, you're her senior . If she tried to undercut you, do you think anyone would want to work with her?"

It's a good point, but you don't really care to listen to reason right now.

"But it's not undercutting," you pout. "You saw everyone in the group chat. Dream team. "

The way your voice heightens in pitch and nose turns up as you utter the phrase is nothing short of hilarious, and Lea makes sure to let you know.

"You're being a big old baby about this," she laughs again. "Jungkook's gonna come back, relay all of the deals he's set up, and then he's gonna whisk you up to his office to spend the next two weeks drawing up plans. I doubt I'll even see you!"

Admittedly, in the busy periods, you'll work at his desk. In the big chair. The special one he got after his first bonus. The one on his side of the desk. He'll work on the opposite side—the client side—with his laptop.

It's caused a fair amount of confusion before, whenever people have come to his office. Your nonchalance about it all makes it seem totally normal. Most people don't question it anymore—and if they do, you just say the programme you have to use runs better on his computer than it does on a laptop.

Which isn't a lie.

But you could always just work at your own desk.

The issues is that Jungkook likes to keep you close when he's working. Makes it easier for the random questions he blurts out that you're always ready to answer. Annoys him to no end when you're not there and he has to go off and find you.

By the time he finds you, the question is always half gone or you start blathering on about something completely irrelevant and he forgets it anyway. It makes him antsy not having you close.

Neither of you seem to realise it's not normal.

"Look," Lea sighs, minimising her tab so that she can give you her full attention. "You're the one who suggested Jiwon should go. It's just work! You're acting like a jealous girlfriend—"

"No, I'm not!" You gasp. "Don't be absurd!"

"Well, whose apartment did you wake up in?"

"That's hardly—"

"Whose?"

"I mean— Well— His, but —"

"Who was the first person you spoke to this morning?"

"Okay, that's not fair. I'm looking after his—"

"Who was the last person you spoke to last night?"

You pause. Narrow your eyes.

Lea just smiles.

"At least tell me you're in the spare room and not his bed," she jokes—but when she notices the look on your face, her smile drops. "Oh, you're kidding me! You know what you're like when it comes to domestication ! You're bloody nesting , aren't you?!"

"Oh c'mon," you scoff. "I'm not an animal!"

"Uh, yeah," she says, dumbfounded. "You are. That's the issue with humans. Too many bloody primal desires—"

"I do not have a primal desire for Jungkook!"

"Look me in the eyes and tell me you've never thought about it."

"I haven't!" You assert, eyes locked on hers. It's almost believable. Or at least it is until your lips begin to twitch. The look of shock on her face is borderline offensive. "Oh my God, shut up!"

Lea's face scrunches up in revulsion. Shoulders to her ears, she whispers, "He's a whore !"

"Okay, that's not nice."

"But it's true!"

Sighing, you slump into your chair. Push your pout up to your nose, and then sigh even deeper than before.

Looking across at Lea with such perplexity anyone would think she's just asked you to design interiors for a rocket ship, you decide you absolutely cannot let this confusion get the better of you.

"It's fine," you assure her. "He's coming home tomorrow evening. Once I'm out of his house, I'll be way more rationable about things."

"You sure?"

No.

"I'm sure."

As Jungkook places his rucksack down beside a bar stool in an airport lounge, he can't help but feel like he's doing something wrong.

It's dark outside, and the dim lights of the bar give way to a seedy intimacy that he's always loved about places like this—how fleeting they are. The casual embrace of a stranger's stare can linger for hours afterwards, consuming his thoughts for an entire flight.

Yet the only people he's even looked in the eyes of tonight have been the airport staff checking him through. Even as he asks for a whisky, he barely registers the woman behind the bar.

Placing his phone down, he also discards the lanyard that's been around his neck. He forgot to take it off before heading to their airport, and just popped it back on after going through the scanners.

It's not like he needs it now. The conference centre is miles away.

He's still in his business suit. Left quickly. Just confirmed with Jiwon that she didn't mind him catching an earlier flight and in all honesty, it suited her better. Jungkook had been so annoying about Acorn guy the entire time. Kept telling her it was a waste of energy, and no business would come from her pursuit of him. She wanted the chance to prove him wrong; to achieve something by herself.

"Are you Leaving early, too?" An American accent drawls from beside him, immediately grabbing Jungkook's attention.

A burly man with greying hair takes a perch on the stool beside Jungkook. Nodding towards the lanyard, he holds up his own. Mitch Ellis his tag reads, and instantly Jungkook is reminded of the folder you had handed to him before his departure.

"Did a little research on an American company that's gonna be at the Expo. Their head marketer has shares in a bunch of baseball-related companies. Get pally with him."

The opportunity hadn't arisen. Jungkook barely even had time to breathe, let alone seek out some elusive American businessman—yet here he is, in the flesh, approaching Jungkook.

Sucking a little air between his teeth, Jungkook nods. Laughs. Says, "Got a family to get back to."

What. The. Fuck.

He doesn't know why on earth he said that, he just knows he can't take it back. A family. For Christ's sake! It's not just the abandoned house in his brain that's rotting—it's the whole damn thing. Stupid .

Pursing his lips in approval, Mitch nods. Lends an expression that Jungkook can only assume means he respects the answer.

"Family man," he says. "Don't see many of them in the industry these days."

Jungkook shrugs. Continues on with his bullshit. "I love my job, but home's where the heart is." Or at least, it's where his dog is. Of course, he loves Bam more than he cares to articulate—but a man and his dog surely don't constitute to a 'family'. "You off early, too?"

"Wife and kids tagged along for the trip," he nods, then quickly asks the barmaid for a whisky, too. "Promised I'd take them to Lotte World tomorrow."

Jungkook grimaces. "Ooft, on a Saturday?"

"The crowds that bad, huh?"

Gritting his teeth, Jungkook tips his head from side to side, then says, "Get magic passes for the family. It's worth the extra price. Trust me."

He'd never dream of going to Lotte World on a Saturday.

In fact, he doesn't dream of it full stop. Grew up going to the Busan franchise, and would opt for it any day of the week. Everland would be his second choice if couldn't be bothered for the drive. But never the Jamsil Lotte World. It's always rammed .

"I swear, kids—" Mitch shakes his head "—All they do is bleed you dry."

Jungkook smiles. "I'm yet to reach that stage, but I can imagine."

Mitch looks appropriately confused. Did Jungkook not just make up a bullshit imaginary family? Surely he hasn't faltered already?

Jungkook clarifies, "Going home to my girl and my dog. No kids—or at least if I've acquired one over the last couple of days, it'll be a surprise."

He doesn't know why he said that.

My girl.

Oh, God. He's going insane. He must be. This is ridiculous.

Those stupid dreams of his had already started migrating into daydreams. Now, they're being spoken into reality. This is terrible. Really, truly, awful.

Mitch has an easy ten, maybe twenty years on Jungkook.

His hair is greying, and there are lines embedded into his skin that tell stories of the life he's lived.

While it's his career Jungkook would typically be envious of, he finds himself jealous of Mitch's personal life. Wife. Kids. God, he hates the conformity of it all, but there's an ache in his chest when he thinks about all that he doesn't have.

And it only worsens when he thinks of you and Bam.

"Ah, young love," Mitch nods, again seemingly in approval of Jungkook and his 'choices'—which is bizarre, because Jungkook wants to punch himself in the face. "Make the most of it. You'll be longing for the good old days once the kids come."

It's too late for Jungkook to correct himself. Too late to admit to the truth. To say 'lol, jk, im single, just fancy the pants off my coworker.'

The thought of it all makes him want to hurl. Fancy.

He's never admitted his crush before, not even to himself. Oh, this is all so awful.

And so Jungkook panics. Says, "Hopefully we've got a couple years before then. We're both at the same company, so we're trying to figure it all out before doing anything we can't take back."

What is wrong with you?!

"Oh?" Mitch chirps, encouraging Jungkook to continue.

"Were interns at the same time," Jungkook begins to overexplain, as if it makes it any better. He's speaking a crush into existence that he isn't even sure exists, and declaring it as love of some sorts? Oh, this is really barbaric. He might throw up. Maybe if he pretends to faint, he can get out of this situation. He thinks it would be less mortifying. Yet, still, he continues! "Have gone up through the ranks together, but are different departments."

Why is he still talking about you?!

Oh God, his head is gonna explode. It's like you're building an extension on the annexe. He never gave you planning permission, and yet there you are, concrete trowel in one hand, a brick in the other. You're so pretty, he thinks.

Get a grip!

"HR nightmare," Mitch laughs, then leans a little closer. "Truth be told, it's how me and the missus met—I worked for her Daddy's company. Thought I'd be fired on the spot when we told him."

"But I'm guessing...?"

Mitch nods. "I'm now their longest-serving employee and am set to take over in the next five years," he laughs. Thankfully, it all worked out. Hopefully, the same'll be said for you and your missus."

Jungkook's lips curve into a tight-lipped smile. Decides he has to change topic, or otherwise he might just self-implode. "Yeah. Fingers crossed—anyway, I don't think we had a chance to speak at the conference, did we? What's your company?"

As if Jungkook has earned a gold seal of approval, Mitch nods his head over towards a couple of chairs that overlook the runways. Picks up his whisky. Begins to walk away. Says, "I was about to ask you the exact same thing. What did you say your name was again? Let's talk."

"Jeon Jungkook," he grins, picking up his whisky, finally forcing you out of his brain. "Yeah. Let's chat."

"Bammie," you whine into Jungkook's pillows when the sound of his paws excitedly clattering across the floorboards wakes you. You can't have been asleep for very long. A couple hours, tops. "It's not time for walkies yet."

Burrowing yourself deeper into Jungkook's sheets, you try and drown out the noise–but it's fruitless. Not only is Bam too cute to ignore, you worry that there's something wrong.

Sitting up, eyes all beary, the dark nothingness around you clues you in on the fact it's definitely the middle of the night. Pushing the duvet off your body, you swing your legs over the side of the bed as your phone begins to vibrate. Jungkook's face takes over your screen, and a frown takes over yours.

Part of you wants to ignore it. Wonder if maybe you've already slept through it ringing out, and that's what woke Bam up.

At this time of the evening, Jungkook should be at the afterparty. It's unofficial, and not endorsed by the convention, which only means one thing: people are getting legless.

He'd sent you a message earlier on in the day saying that Jiwon was still trying her absolute hardest to bag the Acorn man, after an unsuccessful attempt the night before. You wonder if he's wing-manning her.

Bitterly, you wonder if she's cut her losses. Turned her attention to Jungkook, instead.

He's probably shitfaced by now.

Part of you worries he'll want to continue the conversation from the night before. You're too sober to even consider flirting.

Sliding across to answer, you hold the phone to your ear and you begin to walk in the direction of wherever Bam may be.

"Yeah?" You croak down the phone, rubbing your eyes with the back of your hand.

"You sound chirpy," he teases.

Bizarrely, you think he sounds sober. "Fuck off."

"Charming. Undo the bolt on the door," Jungkook demands down the line, but there's almost an echo, as if he's just in the other room or something like that.

Your feet softly pad into the living room, the darkness not much of a hindrance. You know his apartment like the back of your hand; the veins, the freckles, the grooves dappled in your skin below your knuckles. All it takes is a couple of steps for you to reach the light switch, and absolutely zero thought for you to flick it on.

"Hm?" You mumble a confused sound as light bursts into the room. Your eyes squeeze together, a groan catching in your throat. Blinking once, twice, you adjust quickly. Spot Bam by the entryway, looking up at the door expectantly. One of his paws taps at the steel, a soft whine trembling on his lips. Turning your attention back to Jungkook, you say, "What?"

"'I'm home, gremlin," Jungkook softly smiles down the phone. "Let me in."

"But it-" You begin to protest, knowing that his flight isn't until tomorrow.

Jungkook doesn't care to explain himself. Is just as tired as you sound.

"Let me in."

You don't need to be told twice.

He's home.

It shouldn't make you feel the way that it does, all warm and content.

But it does, and for a moment, you let yourself indulge in the sensation of welcoming Jungkook right back to where he belongs.

Hanging up, you place your phone on the kitchen counter, reaching out to scratch Bam's head when you get to the door.

"Is it daddy, huh?" You ask him as he continues to paw at the door. There's a small metallic click as you unthread the bolt, which is quickly replaced by a robotic beep as you press the easy-release button for the latch.

Before you can even properly open the door, the handle is being pressed down from the outside. The sound of Jungkook's hushed voice echoes into the hallway instantly as he coos over Bam just to wind him up a little before he can see him.

"Who is it, Bammie?" He asks through the door, and you already know exactly what he looks like—smile so large it takes over his entire face.

You help to push the door open, and find that there's sunshine in the middle of the night in Jungkook's hallway.

"You're home," you sleepily smile as you watch Jungkook crouch, arms wide and all-encompassing as he greets Bam in the most boisterous of ways. He's not making any sense. Isn't saying any words. Just lets noises rumble from his throat, of which Bam somehow seems to understand.

In a way, you understand it too. The mental translation is a bit patchy, but you know it's something along the lines of, I've missed you so much Bammie, Daddy's home now, let's never spend time apart ever again.

Glancing up to you, that daylight smile hanging off his lips, Jungkook's got a glisten in his tired eyes.

Maybe you haven't adjusted to the light as well as you think you have, but there's something different about Jungkook. Something that's making your weary heart work overtime. It's all a bit strange. All a bit lovely. All a bit terrifying.

"Yeah," he tenderly agrees, hands scratching behind Bam's floppy ears as his eyes fondly meet yours. How could he ever stay away? "Home."

part three to be uploaded tomorrow <3

[sam-keeper]

Hey Look At This Comic: The Nib

the kind of essay comics published in The Nib (now sadly defunct) tended to lean towards illustrative panel contents. in a lot of their comics, the images show, basically, what the text describes. it's a way of producing comics that emphasizes clarity of information delivery and tends to have some level of redundancy, with relatively straightforward metaphors. one piece in the "color" issue by Erlend Sandøy bucks that trend in really extravagant fashion. the comic goes against an awful lot of conventional advice about clarity of panel layouts, often choosing sprawling nonlinear layouts or notional strips that run from top to bottom (see the two pages above). the metaphors also come thick and fast, and although most are straightforward there's enough just happening on every page that it enforces a kind of slower exploration of the details.

like, I love the way color (fittingly) and composition work in the fourth page. the smiling bike riders in the bottom catch me, they're discordant with the primary subject of the page--the failure of green parties in coalition to enact their plans and stick to their promises. what's harder to see at a quick glance is the third bike rider who's careened straight into the smog that makes up the frame. it's obscure enough in the print that I totally missed it and put my big dumb fat fingers over it when I was taking the photo! 😩 it's a fun little trick cause it takes the frame, which I think tends even when representational to recede into the background, into another area of panel content. but more than that it brings into sharper focus the overall rhetoric of the page: that green movements have achieved mainly small areas of apparent natural recovery, pushing the deeper structural issues to the margins of discourse. those issues are, however, inescapable.

(I do think the bit about the german greens totally failing to reduce coal power but succeeding in banning nuclear power is quite funny, like gosh do you think those two facts might have some causal relationship? ha ha oops)

the sprawling nonlinearity is also really well suited to a page like the overview of the countries where green parties hold power, which IS a sprawling, informationally non-hierarchical subject. how the reader navigates this page doesn't matter, and it's nice to see someone breaking from the McCloudian/Eisnerian focus on the sequence as be all end all. more than that, though, I just think it's clever and charming! What a good looking gosh darned page! composing the globe out of foliage and having pop-out informational panels be branches with their own leaves? it's great stuff, a pretty immediately graspable visual device that's both pertinent and super flexible. there's all these interesting little details--like look at the ballots flowing out of the US like leaves stuffing that ballot box, juxtaposed with the text pointing out that first past the post means all these votes go, essentially, into the void. the image doesn't make that last bit clear, and the text doesn't spell out the leaf metaphor, it's a gestalt. that's comix, baby! awoo!

the whole coverage within this comic in particular feels like a very even handed account of the green political movement's achievements and also some of its ideological failures--again, often conveyed not directly through fairly neutral text but instantiated in the art itself. it's just one of a number of comics in this issue that feel bold and experimental, and when I first wrote this review in 2023 I suggested picking up a copy of the Color Issue. in fact, it looks like you still can--I guess that must be one issue that remains in stock. but The Nib itself is no more and most of its issues, including gems of experimental documentary comicking like this, are out of print. thankfully, on the way out founder Matt Bors decided to put the entire collection onto the Internet Archive. you can read the color issue there.

this review originally ran on Cohost, Thu, Feb 23, 2023. I am porting these reviews with minor editing over to Tumblr and eventually to my own website, because websites and periodicals may die, but comics are forever.

[katieeswth]

ꜱᴛᴜʀɴɪᴏʟᴏ ᴛʀɪᴘʟᴇᴛꜱ x ʜᴏɢᴡᴀʀᴛꜱ ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇꜱ

impulsive and thrives on adrenaline , bold (sometimes to a fault), loyal and quick to defend his friends, has a natural talent for leadership, prone to acting before thinking ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴɴᴏɴꜱ:

➴ plays as a chaser on the gryffindor quidditch team, more for the thrill than the glory

➴ constantly in detention for sneaking into the forbidden forest or trying “heroic experiments”

➴ keeps a collection of odd trinkets from every adventure he’s had—each with a chaotic story behind it

➴ is terrible at potions, but brilliant at defence against the dark arts

➴ once tried to duel a poltergeist “to defend the honour of gryffindor tower” (it didn’t end well)

kind-hearted and sincere, patient, hardworking, deeply values fairness and inclusivity, quietly confident—doesn’t need to be loud to be strong, chaotic around his friends ᯓ .ᐟ

ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴɴᴏɴꜱ:

➴ works part-time in the herbology greenhouses and talks to his plants like they’re friends

➴ took in an injured puffskein in first year and still cares for it—named it “Nibs”

➴ keeps a dream journal beside his bed and occasionally writes poetry inspired by what he sees at night

➴ talks to plants and animals like they’re old friends—some of them seem to respond

➴ always knows the best, quietest spots around the castle (and shares them with friends who need a breather)

sharp-minded and observant, highly ambitious but with a strong personal code, often comes off as cold or detached but deeply loyal to a select few, sarcastic with a sense of humour, strategically chooses his battles—never reckless, always calculating

ʜᴇᴀᴅᴄᴀɴɴᴏɴꜱ:

➴ keeps a journal where he writes down goals, plans, and subtle observations about people

➴ prefers dueling and spellcraft to quidditch

➴ sometimes vanishes for long stretches into the dungeons or the forest — no one’s quite sure why.

➴ known for gliding silently into rooms and startling people unintentionally

➴ always has a silver ring on his left hand — a family heirloom with protective enchantments.

dividers credits: @cursed-carmine

[a-wraith-891]

A Hawthorne Mafia AU

Characters: Alexander Hawthorne, Jameson Hawthorne, Nash Hawthorne,

Extra Tags: Dark Hawthorne Family, Dark Jameson Hawthorne, Dark Xander Hawthorne, Dark Nash Hawthorne.

summary: Everyone knows that if you want an audience with Tobias Hawthorne I, there are a few people you have to get through first. (And honestly, his grandsons can be just as terrifying)

Part 2

Everyone knows the truth in this city: if you want Tobias Hawthorne the First to hear you, you don't simply walk up. You don't knock. No. You navigate a gauntlet.

And the first gatekeeper, is Alexander “Xander” Hawthorne—the favored grandson. There is no whim of his that his grandfather will not grant.

Xander wears mischief like a perfectly tailored suit, a disarming mask of innocence. But his genius is a honeyed blade. Beneath his too-bright grin, something always glints, sharp and predatory, a darkness that promises ruin.

Often, a cocktail rests in his hand, something expensive, experimental, its ingredients as obscure as his intentions. He dares the world to guess its deadly composition. (No one is foolish enough to try.)

The first test is simply finding him. Xander has a connoisseur's taste for the obscure, a habit of choosing lounges so hidden they feel like secrets, or forgotten basements that someone with enough ill-gotten money has transformed into "members-only" establishments. These are never the glittering clubs directly under the Hawthorne name. Instead, he gravitates to places one strong wind away from ruin, places with faded stains on the walls and the echoes of old tragedies in their very foundations. (These are hunting grounds, not showpieces.)

There is never obvious security around him. Newcomers, blinded by their own ambition, mistake it for arrogance. (They are always wrong.)

Everyone else knows better. Tobias Hawthorne doesn't put protection on his grandsons out of hubris. He doesn't need to. No one manages to sneak up on the Hawthornes. There is no threat they don't anticipate, no shadow they don't already own, or, at least, none that has ever survived to tell the tale.If you know someone—a bartender drowning in a debt to the family, a former courier who once crossed them and, against all odds, lived—you might get a whispered tip. Alexander favors places close to chaos. Police taped crime scenes. Fresh disappearances. Unsolved mysteries. There's never any proof that he caused the disappearances, but he gravitates towards them nonetheless.

(He doesn't cause all the violence, no, but it follows him. Like a hungry wolf, drawn by the scent of blood.)

Once you are in the right place, finding him isn't difficult. Even amidst the hum of the crowd, the entire room subtly shifts around him. People unconsciously adjust, as though the very air around him carries an undeniable weight. The staff cater to him with fear lining their eyes, their movements swift and silent, as if he personally signs their paychecks. (Perhaps he does, in ways far more binding than paper currency.)

He never seems to demand much. A solitary drink, perhaps. A small, meticulously arranged plate of something esoteric. Always, a leather-bound journal lies open before him, a fountain pen, who's nib probably costs more than your car, scribbling cryptic notations. But there is that smirk, a slow, knowing curl of his lips. The kind that registers every bead of sweat on your brow, every tremor in your hand, savoring the delicious cocktail of your nervousness. He doesn't just observe; he consumes.

The second test is what you dare to say. Xander has no patience for sob stories, no time for appeals to loyalty, hollow pleas of loss, or perfectly rehearsed pitches for an audience with his grandfather. That isn't why you are here.

You talk to Alexander to see if you can pique his interest. No one can truly explain what catches his attention. Sometimes it is a perfectly timed, dark joke that cuts through the polite facade of the room. Sometimes a cryptic quote from an obscure, forgotten novel. Sometimes, infuriatingly, it is simply standing there in absolute silence, waiting, until he breaks the stillness first. There is no predictable logic to it, no discernible pattern, at least, not one visible from the outside.

But the other Hawthornes always understand. His brothers can read the subtle tilt of his head, the fractional shift in his gaze, and know when the youngest is truly intrigued. Nash knows. Jameson knows. Grayson—especially Grayson—knows.When Xander reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a handcrafted puzzle box, its polished surfaces gleaming under the dim light, and begins twisting its intricate edges with deceptively lazy fingers, that is when you know you have him. That is when you are truly being watched, measured. He offers it to you then, the smooth, cold metal a silent challenge, and he asks, his voice a silken thread, if you want to solve it.

And then comes the third test: what you do next. React too boldly, too confidently, declaring your immediate ability to solve it with a brash tone, and he shuts down, his polite goodbye a death knell. You are escorted out, your name forgotten before the door even swings shut. React too meekly, too unsure of your own capabilities, and you vanish into obscurity—lucky if it is mere obscurity and not a shallow grave beneath some forgotten overpass.He isn't the one who passes final judgment. But he is the one who decides if you are even worth the Hawthornes' time, if your existence holds any value in their bloody ledger.

If you pass, Xander allows a sliver of a genuine smirk to play on his lips, promising you a future challenge of wits. (A veiled threat and nothing less.) He rises, claps you on the back, hard, too hard, perhaps even making your knees buckle, and personally escorts you to the exit, his presence a gilded cage.If you fail, he offers a smile. Polite. Almost sweet. A viper’s smile. He dismisses you with a promise to "be in touch." (He won't, of course. Only fools believe him.)

If you pass, that is the precise moment to leave. You nod, lower your eyes, a silent submission, calling him Mr. Hawthorne even if he is half, a third or a quarter your age. You are dismissed, and you go.If you pass, this becomes the agonizing time to wait. You don't chase them. You can't. You simply exist in a suspended state of anxiety, knowing that the family, like a predator, will come to you when they are ready.

You receive an invitation. Sometimes that same night, a phantom presence at your door: a man in a perfectly tailored Armani suit, appearing at precisely 3:14 a.m., a stark white card pressed into your hand, a message whispered in the pre-dawn quiet. Other times, it takes days. Weeks, even. The silence itself a form of torture. But if it is time-sensitive, if your problem is truly urgent, somehow, they always know. (No one questions how anymore. It is simply a terrifying truth of their world.)The meeting, if you are deemed worthy, takes place at The House—a club in name, but not the kind you'd ever find in a guidebook. It is too elegant, too meticulously curated to be a mere mob front. (That is the point.) Marble floors gleam under ambient lighting, velvet booths invite, and the live jazz band plays smooth, oblivious melodies as patrons, unaware of the currents flowing beneath the surface, sip aged wine. Two guards, impeccably dressed, stand just out of sight, their eyes constantly sweeping, their hands never far from the hidden weapons beneath their jackets. If you are here, you are either someone of immense importance—or you have been summoned by someone who is.

After Xander, there are two more shadows to navigate, two more fae to appease before the true meeting takes place.Jameson Winchester Hawthorne, the Golden Grandson.And Nash Westbrook Hawthorne, the Prodigal Grandson.

Jameson is the first you see—lounging in a plush velvet booth like he owns the very air he breathes. He possesses that crooked, effortless grin, one arm flung over the back of the seat, head cocked in theatrical boredom. Someone stands before him, talking fast, gesturing wildly, sweat beading on his linen shirt. Jameson nods along, humming when appropriate, his smile never faltering, a perfect mask of engagement. But if you are truly paying attention, if you understand the language of power, you notice—he has already stopped listening. Long ago.

Jameson, with his devil-may-care charm and sun-gold smirk, has ruined more men with his words than any of his brothers have with their hands. Some people mistake him for the soft one, the merely clever one, or the spoiled one. The chilling truth is he is both. And terrifyingly, neither. He is the Hawthorne you never see coming until he has already dismantled your world piece by painful piece, leaving you exposed, and is walking away with your most guarded secrets tucked into his suit pocket like souvenirs. (Years ago, when law enforcement foolishly believed the Hawthornes were vulnerable, they tried to get in through Jameson. One agent vanishes without a trace. One flips, becoming a ghost in the system, working for the very people he swore to destroy. One falls hopelessly in love with him, willingly stepping into the gilded cage, and never comes back out.)

Just behind Jameson—leaning against the far wall like a storm waiting to happen, or more accurately, a fight waiting to happen—is Nash. The eldest. The quietest. The Prodigal Grandson. His arms are crossed over a chest that seems carved from granite. His expression is a stone wall, utterly unreadable. His eyes, the color of warm earth, scan the club with an unnerving calm, pausing just long enough to send subtle, silent signals to the guards with a twitch of his shoulder and a barely perceptible flex of his hand to look alive.

While Jameson is the temptation, the siren song that lures you onto the rocks, Nash is the inevitable, brutal consequence. If a bar brawl explodes somewhere downtown, leaving bodies broken and blood on the pavement, Nash is likely the reason. A fist. A gun. A chilling, undeniable message. He doesn't lose sleep over blood, not a stranger's, and certainly not his own.

Most people, the ignorant and the doomed, assume he is just muscle. Just heavy fists and a blank stare. They are wrong. A simple delve into the Hawthornes' carefully scrubbed past would show that the transcripts from his old school, before he inexplicably drops off the map, tell a different story. He is top of his class, a mind as fast and sharp as his instincts. People tend to forget that. (Until it is far, far too late.)

Together, Nash and Jameson are a study in terrifying contrast: one all fire and shadow, the other golden and grinning, a shimmering mirage of false promise. But they are two halves of the same perfectly calibrated machine, and if you make it this far—if they let you make it this far—you had better be ready for the final, ultimate test. One of the most ruthlessly brilliant decisions Don Tobias Hawthorne ever made is keeping those two grandsons close—Jameson and Nash—and the world is a far worse place for it.

When you step through the lacquered doors of The House, Nash zones in on you immediately. He watches the precise way you move. The calculated path your eyes take across the opulent club. The specific drink you order when the waiter materializes at your side, silent as a wraith. The exact route you choose to approach their secluded booth. Every motion, every minute detail, cataloged, dissected, and weighted.His hand twitches near his side, a barely perceptible flick of his wrist. Just a fraction of a movement, but Jameson sees it, understands it, and with an easy, charming smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, the older boy turns and dismisses the sweating man who has been pleading his case. The man leaves, beaming, utterly convinced his troubles are over. (That is Jameson's trick: pretty smile, pretty words, and poison laced into every syllable. He makes people losing everything think they are winning.)

"Please, sit," Jameson says, his voice a honeyed invitation, when you reach their booth. He gestures to the plush seat across from him. His smile is warm, radiant, even but his eyes are cold steel, and something about the way he watches you makes your pulse trip, your hear a panicked hummingbird in your chest.Nash doesn't smile. His poison isn't hidden like his brother's; it simply drips from him, quiet and thick, like crude oil waiting for a spark to ignite a conflagration. The slightest lift of his chin feels like a warning, a prelude to the violence that will inevitably ensue. You can see, then, why people underestimate Jameson. Why they mistakenly call Nash nothing but the enforcer, the blunt instrument. You can see it is all part of the act, a meticulously choreographed performance, and it is a performance that ends in blood if you miss your cue.

"I'm Jameson, and this is my brother Nash," he offers, as if there is any remote chance you don't already know. You give your name, your voice perhaps a little hoarse. They don't even blink. (Of course they already know. Your name, your record, your habits, your vices. Probably your blood type, your deepest fears, and the names of your childhood pets.)

"What did Xander say?" Jameson asks casually, as if inquiring about the weather.And you pause. Because—what did he say? Nothing. Not really. Just a backhanded compliment, a puzzle box twirled between deceptively lazy fingers like he was bored, like your entire presence was only mildly more interesting than the expensive drink in front of him. So that's what you describe. The shadowy booth, the strange, disjointed conversation, the chilling moment the youngest Hawthorne tests your nerve with something sharp and silver that glints in the dim light. You speak carefully, every word a tightrope walk, acutely aware that each syllable is being weighed, measured, dissected.

Jameson's smile doesn't waver, but there is a glint behind it, something unreadable. Nash doesn't move at all, a statue of contained menace, but you get the distinct sense he has already decided something, the verdict already etched in the hard lines of his face. You aren't sure where to look. Jameson's eyes draw you in, a beautiful, fatal current, but Nash's expression holds danger like a loaded weapon, aimed squarely at your head. You flick your gaze between them in a desperate attempt to find a safe place to land.When you finish recounting it, Jameson lets out a soft chuckle, light and melodic, like the tinkling of ice in a glass. Nash shifts, just a shoulder-roll, something minuscule���but Jameson's smile sharpens, a predator's grin, at the motion. Something has just passed between them, an unspoken signal.(And you didn't catch any of it. You are merely the pawn.)

"Tell us what we can do for you," Jameson says at last, his voice losing its honeyed edge, becoming colder, more direct.

Nash bares his teeth then. It isn't a grin. It isn't friendly. It is the primal, chilling display of a feral animal. It makes your stomach twist into a knot of cold dread.You explain, the words stumbling a little, caught between your dry throat and the suffocating pressure of their combined gazes. You scan the room. Anywhere but at them. Looking at them too long is like staring at the sun—beautiful, yes, but it will blind you. And then burn you to ash.

They could kill you now. Right here. No one would stop them. Anyone not already owned by them can be bought. Silenced. Buried in a shallow, unmarked grave.You finish your story, and silence stretches, thick and suffocating, like a heavy shroud. They don't look at you. Don't look at each other. Just... watch, their eyes drilling into you. Your skin prickles, a phantom chill crawling up your spine. You wonder how anyone survives being in the same room with the Hawthorne grandsons for long.

Finally, Jameson turns his head, a deliberate, slow movement. Nash meets his gaze, an understanding passing between them without a single word. You see the flick of an eyebrow, the barest curl of a lip from Nash. That's all it takes. Jameson breaks into another of those breathtaking smiles, a dazzling, lethal display. "Alisa," he calls, his voice like velvet laced with acid.A girl appears almost instantly, seemingly materializing from the shadows. Tall, severe, her long brown hair perfectly slicked back into a precise bun. She raises a single brow, a silent question. "Yes, Mr. Hawthorne?"

"Let Grayson know we've got someone for him."She nods once, a crisp, efficient movement, and disappears into the crowd, heading for a heavy, unmarked door guarded by two grim men in black suits, their faces impassive, their hands never far from their concealed weapons. Your breath hitches, a gasp caught in your throat. If Jameson is sending you to Grayson... that means you have passed. You are still in the game. One perilous step closer to Don Tobias Hawthorne I himself. Jameson catches your eye. Leans back. His smile softer now, a shark-like tenderness. "Go on," he says, with a lazy, dismissing wave of his hand.

You rise, murmuring your thanks, a faint, almost inaudible sound. You incline your head, a deep, respectful bow. "Mr. Winchester Hawthorne. Mr. Westbrook Hawthorne."

Nash doesn't respond, his expression still a mask of granite. Jameson just smiles, a thin, knowing curve of his lips, and lifts his glass in your direction, a silent toast to your continued, precarious existence.

You follow the girl. Into the deeper shadows. Knowing the real game, the deadliest one, has only just begun.

This is part one! Hope you guys enjoyed it.

[dinnfameron]

Every time one of my niblings comes running up to me sobbing, and I wrap my arms around them and say, "oh, honey, what's wrong?" and I wait for them to tell me through their hot tears and big, gasping breaths, and then I say to them, "I'm so sorry that happened to you. That must have been really hard/scary/painful," and I give them a nice cuddle, I think that I heal myself a little bit.

Because when I was a kid, the adult response when I cried, no matter the situation, was always "quit crying." Like I could control it. It was always, "shh, you're okay." Like I was choosing to inconvenience them and could just switch it off if I wanted.

I never learned how to stop crying, but I DID learn to never ever ever admit that I have feelings to anyone. I did learn that other people will reject me for having feelings. I did learn that asking for comfort makes me a burden, and so I did learn to stop asking for comfort. And eventually, I even unlearned how to accept comfort when it was freely offered.

So yeah. I never say "stop crying" to my nibs. I never say, "shh, you're okay."

Instead, I say, "I'm sorry you're hurting. What happened to you was hard, and I understand why you're crying about it. I'm here with you. I love you." And you know what? It feels good to say.

[robo-milky]

Nani?!! Another Stand fountain pen user????

All the inks you have are very pretty!! Show all one day please!! And the fountain you have too!! Its like car lovers that put they cars names? Your fountainis called... Roro?.

I'm loving your "Phantom of the Opera" ink so much. Yes, your husband dorm coded.

....could have sent this earlier , but I was distracted by the fact that Roro won.

Dip pen user too, I like suffering.

SOBBINF CRYINF WTF WHY’D YOU HAVE TO SEND HIM COCO???!?!?!??!?? Haha- bald. Round. Bruh Rollo always looks so irritated and disgruntled why did I choose such a sour man 😔 I’ll tolerate him cause it’s from you <3 Augh fine I’ll unhat your man too

But anyways YIPPEE ANOTHER TRADITIONAL INK USER (I do have a glass dip pen but I’ve been eying a couple metal nibs lately-) I’d love to see your collection some day too!! (Ayo I would NEVER dirty my pens with such a… cursed and ugly name 💥💥 /j)

I do have extra M&G inks (classic black, red and blue) stored up but it’s only for like emergencies. Sheaffer’s Latte is on the pedestal cause that’s the one I use for daily writing— the others are for fun! I only got the cartridges for my Sailor Fude (not shown). Unfortunately I don’t have swatches of the rest 😭😭

The pens I currently have inked up are my TWSBI Eco M and Sailor Procolour F! The rest are Hero (the froggy pen is inherited from my grandpa ^^) The one I use for daily writing is Sailor <3

[kylorengarbagedump]

Playing Soldier: Chapter 20 (NSFW)

Read on AO3. Part 19 here. Part 21 here.

Summary: In which equestrian experience translates remarkably well to other activities.

Words: 5000

Warnings: good ol' fashioned fuckin'

Characters: William Tavington x Reader

A/N: Cowritten with @bastillia.

HELLO! WELCOME BACK AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE <3

We spent a week in Philadelphia earlier this month exploring and enjoying Revolutionary War stuff of all sorts - it was a wonderful time but left very little opportunity for writing until we returned!

However, we hope the wait for this chapter was worth it hehehe. More intimacy looms on the horizon as the two worst people you know attempt to navigate the possibility of liking another person's company for the first time in their entire lives.

Love y'all so much <3 <3 <3 Hope your January has not been too terrible - looking forward to seeing you quite soon!!

William’s eyes flicked to the redcoat behind you.

“Dismissed.”

Without a word, the man turned and left. You stood, breath held, your gaze locked with William’s, the air thinning between you in the dying echo of the soldier’s footsteps. When they descended down the stairs, you exhaled, arms folding over your chest. The man across from you said nothing, choosing instead to stare, head tilted to the side.

“It was very kind of you to offer me a pass before I departed last week,” you said.

William’s brows raised with an unspoken here we go, and he returned to writing. “Was it, now?”

“Oh, yes,” you said, taking advantage of his diverted attention to roll your eyes toward the ceiling. “Otherwise I might have been gratuitously interrogated by strange men at some ungodly hour.”

“A marvel you managed to remain so very subtle,” he drawled without looking up. “Truly.”

“Perhaps my subtlety might have been aided by a touch of forethought.”

“I doubt that.”

You snorted. “For all your concerns about discretion, you’ve made little effort to facilitate it.”

“It must have slipped my mind.” He dipped the nib into the inkwell. “I do apologize.”

“Oh, I can tell you’re dripping with contrition.” You gestured toward the window. “What would I have done if you hadn’t been here? Slept with the wolves, as you so aptly put it some days ago?”

“Perhaps,” he said, between the strokes of his quill, “if you hadn't been traveling at such an ungodly hour as you say, such an issue would have been entirely impertinent.”

You laughed. “What importance is it to you when I travel?”

“Merely stating an observation.”

“And what is it you observe? I might perish of my curiosity.”

“Perhaps a general lack of acumen regarding your own safety.”

“Since when do you concern yourself with my safety?” He still wouldn’t look at you. It was beginning to rile you. “Or do you now consider me a piece of your property because your mouth has been on mine?”

His jaw tightened, but he spoke with utter composure. “Lower your voice.”

“Why?” You stomped forward, planting your hands on his desk. Just to spite him, you got louder. “I personally don't recall agreeing to your terms of discretion.”

He paused, carefully slotting his quill into its stand, a long sigh escaping his nose. “Since it's apparent I won't be accomplishing anything else this evening…”

William pushed himself to his feet, adjusted his jacket as if you were invisible. You wished your nails could turn to claws as you dug them between the wood grain of his desk.

“Oh, my apologies,” you said, “have I interrupted your very important tasks, Colonel?”

He rounded the edge of his desk, meandering toward the open door, and you huffed, leaning over to read what he’d been scribbling.

“The faults committed by the American commander…”

Behind you, the door eased shut, a thought that seemed inconsequential at the time, as you felt dismissive of anything in this moment but his full and complete attention.

“... were neither unimportant in themselves, nor inconsiderable in number…” You laughed, straightening. “Well, William, what were—”

A strong hand gripped your shoulder, whirled you around, and shoved your back against the desk. Before you could breathe, or even think, William was clasping either side of your face, his mouth smothering yours.

You gasped into him, your eyes fluttering shut, blood stoked instantly in the heat of his presence. Gripping his wrists, you held him against you, your lips parting to allow his tongue entry, groaning as it passed over yours. He stepped forward, slotting his leg between your thighs, one of his hands delving into your hair, the other sliding over your shoulder and down your side.

Like erupting from the sea, you broke from him, gulping in air, allowing your head to fall into his shoulder as he nipped at your exposed neck.

“What the… You…” No coherent sentences formed. You shuddered, goosebumps lining your skin.

A laugh hummed in his throat. “And here I believed you'd never cease.” He pinched the flesh along your carotid between his teeth, and you shivered. “My, my, your heart is racing.”

You sneered. “Arrogant prick.” Growling, you squirmed in his hold, but he forced you to lean back over the desk, robbing you of strength and leverage. He huffed, low and excited, his hands curling around your waist. “Bastard—”

William tutted politely. “Please spare me the performance of belief that I brought you here to castigate me.”

“Then conduct yourself so that I have nothing for which to castigate you.” You swallowed, your gaze dancing over his face. His pupils were wide in the candlelight, desire edging out his irises. “Providing me authorization to enter this bloody fortress would have been a start.”

He shrugged, tugging you closer, his focus dipping to your heaving breast. “I’d say it worked out rather well.”

“You weren't in danger of sleeping in the wilderness with all manner of brigands and beasts.”

“Is that not what soldiers do?” William trailed a hand up your back, his thigh wedging further and applying pressure against your cunt. “Are you not one such little soldier?”

“Ugh!” You wriggled again with only half of the effort you’d need to appear sincere, your clit sparking at the friction from his leg. “You know very well what I mean.” A laugh escaped. You wondered why you were even bothering to argue with the scolding he’d given you. “But you apparently care far more about propriety than my safety.”

William met your eyes, his own narrowing. “Is that so?” He held you against his body, guiding you forward as he stepped back. “Perhaps that’s why I summoned you to my office… “ A few steps, and you’d skirted his desk, “... and ordered your escort to abandon you to the whims of a brigand…” Hand on your waist, he sat in his chair, pulling you into his lap, “... alone.”

You examined his face, your knees settling on either side of his thighs, your hands pressing on the planes of his chest. Beneath you, he felt sturdy, powerful—and in his expression, beneath the cynical veneer, was something horrifyingly sincere.

He could have released you to your accommodations. He could have met you at sunrise, or perhaps never again, if it were his wish. But he'd wanted to see you with his own eyes, to hear your voice with his own ears.

Perhaps, the stupid part of yourself began, he’d scolded you not out of concern for his character, but concern for your well-being?

A mad notion if ever there was one.

“If that is true…” You traced his jawline, up to his cheekbone, admiring the pretty curve of his nose. “... Then such a brigand must admit he enjoys being castigated.”

William clutched your hips, gathering your petticoats above your knees so he could slip underneath them. “Behave,” he purred, pulling you against his pelvis, allowing you to feel his growing need for you. “Lest I be brought to believe you’d prefer the wilderness.”

“Perhaps,” you replied, coasting your palms across his breast, “I’ve reason to believe the wolves would be gentler.” Beneath you, he felt like an ironclad instrument, an armored beast. You ached from your hours-long ride—but his body was all you'd been craving for days. “Unless, of course, you planned on being gentle.”

A smirk curved his lips. “Oh, dandelion,” he murmured, groping and squeezing your ass as he rocked you along his swelling erection. “If you truly believed that to be my plan…” He leaned closer, and the tip of his nose brushed your ear, traced down your neck. “You would have sought the wolves.”

His teeth sank into the flesh just over your collar. You yelped, gasped as you shuddered, gripping him closer. The pain sluiced through your nerves, poured out like wine through your fingertips, and you sighed with a rush of euphoria.

William’s gaze raised to level yours. A breath crackled between you, and within it, a spark leapt from flint to powder.

At once you were frantic, clawing at the lapels of his jacket, wishing to shred the vile barrier between your unmet skin. Another roll of your hips against his lap, and he snarled, releasing you to cup the back of your head and force your mouth to his.

You moaned in your chest and rocked along him again, again, torn between the sensation of heat between your thighs and the desperation of his lips on yours. You gripped his shirt, shivering when he licked into your mouth, whimpering when he captured the kiss between his teeth only to silence you again by deepening it. His grip on you tightened, his hips jerked, cock grinding against you like that might temper its need.

“God,” you huffed, breaking the kiss to catch your breath. “I might be fooled into thinking you missed me.”

William’s lip curled in a half-sneer, his hand gliding over the top of your thigh so his thumb teased your needy clit. Instantly, you buckled on top of him, your head collapsing against his shoulder, your cunt driving against him.

“What was that?” He inched further, putting pressure on your core, slicking himself in your wetness. “Speaking for yourself?”

You whined, the temptation of being stretched fogging your mind. “Shut up.” You shifted, trying to edge his fingers toward your entrance, but he resisted. “Ugh!’

“As I surmised.”

“I hate you,” you whispered, your fingers biting his shoulders. You met his eyes as he flicked his thumb back and forth across your clit, found them cobalt with cruel delight. “God—”

"Now, now," he said with irritating clarity, thumb tracing the sensitive hood, "we both know that is not how I wish for you to refer to me."

You considered moving your hands from his shoulders to around his throat and strangling him. Then he pressed two fingers to your soaked core and eliminated all cogent thought.

Your body remembered even more keenly than your mind the delicious, agonizing sensation of being stretched, of being full; remembered too how he pounded oblivion into you, how mindless you became at the end of his cock. Your core throbbed and clenched with anticipation, and you sought relief for its ache with spoiled petulance. Twisting, you tried to force him inside of you to no avail.

William's gaze flipped from your chest to your eyes. Like a deviant scientist, he studied your face and pushed into your cunt.

Tension released from your center in a groan, and you clenched around him, instinctually wanting him deeper. Your thighs trembled, and you panted, jostling your hips in an attempt to ride his fingers. Hiding a laugh under his breath, William’s free hand groped at your breasts, trying to tug them free from your stays. This tried his patience for all of three seconds before he ripped open your jacket, sending straight pins flying.

“Are you—” began your complaint, but he flicked his wrist, curling his fingers inside of you, and your argument died in a moan.

Because your eyes were rolled out of your head, you only felt his hand supporting the small of your back as he leaned forward before grabbing something from his desk and slicing your stays’ back laces. You gasped, your breasts bounced with new freedom, and William pulled them into the air before latching onto one with his mouth.

“You—”

Bastard, ass, demonic excuse for a man all tempted you. But the lave of his tongue over your hardening nipple, the pressure of his fingers against your wet, aching walls marginalized everything but your hunger for more.

“William,” was the only word you decided to use.

It left your lips again, and again, growing more desperate in each iteration. Sweat haloed your forehead, your thighs shook, you tried in vain to compel anything more than the slow, tormenting coil, the brush of his thumb on your clit. Meanwhile, his teeth assailed you, bit rings into your tits, and you couldn't decide whether to be furious he was marking you again, grateful that he'd chosen somewhere less conspicuous, or elated that he wanted to do it at all.

The rhythm of your breath, the shuffling of fabric, the shifting of weight as you balanced yourself above him all fell to the perimeter of your consciousness. Sensation shrank to the pulsing, living pleasure between your legs and the gnawing emptiness it inspired. You wanted, needed more, needed to feel his cock driving inside of you, needed to hear him seethe in delight as you enveloped him.

“William,” you whimpered, and he responded by digging his fingers into your thigh. “William, please—”

“Mmhm.”

“I—” You tried to drop your weight again, but he moved with you, keeping the pace torturous. “I want—I want more, please.” His body stiffened, and his eyes opened, gazing up at you as he swirled his tongue around your nipple. “Please.”

A whisper of friction on your clit, and he growled, sinking his teeth into your breast. You winced, swallowed a wail.

William paused from ravaging your chest. “I suppose,” he replied, finding his breath, “I can oblige you in this instance.”

His fingers slipped free of your cunt, and amidst the hungry tide of his breathing, you felt him grappling with his trousers between your thighs. With a grunt, he freed himself, gripping your thigh to guide your hips forward.

You gasped as the wet, swollen flesh of your cunt brushed his cock, and William hissed in pleasure. It seemed there was no point any longer in playing the game of who missed whom—all pretense of apathy had collapsed under the magnitude of your mutual need.

Gripping himself, William traced the head of his cock through your folds, coating it in your desire. When it neared your entrance, some strange, carnal instinct dragged at the angle of your hips, tilted them into alignment until you could just feel him start to stretch you.

With a whimper, you dropped your head to his shoulder again. Every muscle trembled, every fiber of your awareness narrowed upon the slow stretch of your body around his. You sank down another half inch, and whined again, pausing—somehow it all felt even more intense with you in control of your own undoing.

William growled, one hand snaking around your waist, the other gripping the back of your neck, pinning you to him.

“You wanted more,” he rasped in your ear, tightening the arm around your middle until you had no choice but to impale yourself further. “Now you will take all of me.”

You whinged, nodding meekly into his shoulder, and his grip flexed around your nape. Taking a slow breath, you lowered, swallowing him inch by inch. As you bottomed out, your thighs brushing his hips, a sound escaped both of you—yours lost somewhere in the wool of his jacket, his vibrating the hairs at your temple.

Your mind swam with the sensation of fullness, anchored only upon the deep ache where he stabbed your belly. William shifted beneath you, tightened his hold around your waist. Then he flexed his hips, and pushed in even deeper.

“All of me.”

A sharp gasp punched your lungs. He surrounded you, inhabited you, subsumed every sensation. God, yes, you’d missed him. And now you wanted to drown in him.

Burying your face against his neck until you could feel his stubble scratch the bridge of your nose, you exhaled, and melted like warm gold around his body. Your hips, as if possessed, began a gentle rocking motion, pulling a sound from low in his chest that vibrated against your cheek. A soft moan of pleasure left you at the feeling of his cock massaging you from the inside, and your body melted further, desperate to engulf him.

William’s hands coasted up your thighs, circled around to grab two fistfuls of your ass. He lifted you up the full length of him, then guided you back down so deliberately that you nearly sobbed. Again, again, he did this, until you straightened up to plant both hands on the sturdy plane of his chest.

Meeting his eyes, you found them blown black with lust, latching onto your gaze with a hunger that made you shiver. Behind that hunger, there was something you couldn’t name—something you hadn’t seen the last time he’d been inside you. This was different. You were not completely at his mercy, and he was making no immediate movements to amend that. In fact, that something in his eyes, the particular clench of his jaw…

He was holding back. Offering you control. And you needed to take it while you had the option.

Pressing your hands into his chest, you lifted and then sank down on him until your hips were flush with his. William groaned, his grip spasming on your ass. In time with your breathing, you began to ride him slowly, feeling every inch of his flesh drag against yours. To your satisfaction, you watched his eyelids flutter for just a moment before his attention locked onto the rise and fall of your breasts in front of him.

A surge of pride emboldened your movements, and you settled into a measured rhythm, your head dropping back at the steady, encompassing pleasure of his cock grinding inside you. You found your fingers itching to free more of his skin, sliding up to his tie, your hips never ceasing their elastic roll.

Just as you hooked into the knot at his throat, William’s hands came up to encircle your wrists, fixing your palms back on his chest.

“Not now,” he panted.

You pouted, straightening to sink all the way down on him. “Why?”

A muscle in his jaw jumped. His hands delved under your petticoats again to grip your hips.

“Later.”

With that, he drove his hips upward and speared you with his cock.

You yelped and collapsed over him, clutching his shoulders as he fucked you savagely. A moan dragged through your lips and suddenly you couldn’t quite recall what you’d just been so annoyed about as the pounding of his cock vaporized every last wisp of thought.

Eyes rolling into your skull, you clung to him like a sail to a storm-ravaged mast, your consciousness centering down on the bright spot deep in your belly that he struck over and over with every thrust. Distantly, you felt yourself driving down to meet him, heard the lascivious slap of skin where your bodies met. You knew you needed just a little more, knew that the barest touch to your clit would send you over the edge. But just as your hand plunged down to deliver you to sweet oblivion, William stilled.

He anchored you down against him, hands a vise on your hips and breath ragged in his chest. Whining in bereavement, you leaned back to look at him, both plea and question in your eyes.

“Take it,” he rasped, pushing your upper body backward and wrenching your petticoats up to bare you to his view. “Take your pleasure and show me.”

You stalled, head spinning and lungs gasping for air, as you processed his words. Flames burst beneath your skin. Eyes on his, you leaned back until your elbows rested on the desk behind you. You were so close, he’d nearly sent you careening into bliss already, but the knowledge that he wanted to watch electrified you.

Lip pinched between your teeth, you braced on your elbows and began to roll your hips. William exhaled, nostrils flaring, as he watched your cunt swallow him.

The new angle was intense, and you whimpered as you found that tender spot inside and fucked yourself against it, stroking it over and over with his cock until sparks showered through your vision.

Trembling, body desperate and aching, you reached down between your legs and found your clit. A breath of sheer pleasure shuddered from your chest as you swirled the tender nub once, twice, hips stuttering in their rhythm. The shower of sparks coalesced to a fuse, zipping hot and fast towards the bright center of you.

“William, I’m—God, I…”

“Come off,” he snarled, gripping your thighs with bruising strength. “Come for me.”

Your head fell back, the fuse reached your center, and your vision erupted white. Fragments of bliss ripped through your limbs, tore a cry from your throat, sundered and remade you again and again. Somewhere beyond conscious control, your body kept moving, drawing out your pleasure to impossible lengths, chasing the last embers of your orgasm until they finally crumbled to blistering ash.

Before you could even return to yourself, William scooped an arm around your middle, lifted you off of his cock, and dumped you to your knees on the floor.

“Ugh!” Your head spun. He stood. “You basta—”

He seized the back of your head and wrenched it back. Reeling, you clutched his thighs for support, your jaw dropping in response just in time to see him fist his cock in his other hand and pump it furiously above you.

Your irritation evaporated—his proud, flushed cock instantly hypnotized you. You laid your tongue over the pillow of your lower lip, and pleaded with your eyes for what he was about to give you.

William swore under his breath and came with a tattered groan, spilling warm salt over your tongue, your lips, your cheeks. His grip on your hair relaxed as his orgasm faded, and something possessed you to lean forward and suckle the tip of his cock for the very last remnants of his seed. He seethed, grip flexing behind your skull as you gazed up at him, letting out a tiny moan at the taste of your combined bliss. Then you sat back on your heels and swallowed.

William admired his handiwork, his tongue rolling in his mouth. Reaching out, he thumbed your jaw in a distantly familiar motion, gathering his seed from your skin and pushing it back over your lips. He scraped it onto your teeth, and you swallowed again. Both of you exhaled, the absence of tension flooding the room with warmth.

“I hope this isn’t considered part of my rations,” you said, half-grinning as you wiped his remaining essence off with the inside of your petticoats.

He snorted, tucking himself away. “That could be arranged, if you refuse to follow decorum.”

Your pulse skipped. “Follow decorum,” you mused coyly. “How terribly pedestrian.”

With a smirk, William stepped back, offering a hand. By instinct, you moved to slap it away—you didn’t need his help to get up—only to realize that you’d grasped it. He paused, then tightened his grip and pulled you to your feet, the effort bringing you chest to chest, and you flinched, your still-sensitive nipples grazing his jacket.

You met his gaze and forgot to breathe. A peculiar, tender part of you longed to kiss him.

William’s eyes flashed to your lips. Heat flushed your cheeks, your neck. Averting your gaze, you shoved your breasts back into your stays and tugged your jacket closed to hold it all together. You slunk from behind the desk, wanting to force distance between yourself and whatever bizarre urge you’d just experienced.

“Where might I find my accommodations?” You busied your hands by forcing your jacket shut with the few pins still stuck in the fabric.

He was silent for a moment. “Out the door, make a left, last door on the right.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Not in the barracks? Or the hospital?”

“No.” William exhaled, returned to his seat, and said nothing else.

“Oh.” Your throat felt thick. You nodded, walking toward the door. “Shall I…” See you tomorrow hung on your tongue. You hated the thought of sounding so desperate. “Close the door behind me?”

He shrugged. “If you so wish.”

You nodded, made to exit, but hesitated at the door. The candlelight flickered in tempo with your heart. Before turning the knob, you stole a glimpse over your shoulder, memorizing the fading flush in his cheeks. His gaze snapped to yours, and your attention shot to the floor. You opened the door and slipped into the hallway.

As you followed his directions, your core twinged with a familiar ache that you'd grown to miss. Not just the sensation itself, but what it represented, too—that you'd had him inside of you, that you'd managed some form of intimacy with him that few others seemed to approach (barring, of course, his history, which you didn't care to know). The fact he'd been so hungry, that he sought to sate that hunger through you, that he seemed to, in fact, hunger solely for you as you did for him…

Something about that satisfied you far more than almost any orgasm you'd had.

You arrived at the door he'd directed you to, and turned the knob to step inside. It opened to you, candlelight revealing a neatly made bed, a credenza sprinkled with dried flowers, a nightstand garnished with a couple of books and a pewter flask. Your heart fluttered before falling into your stomach.

This was his room.

Fighting the urge to run, you shut the door behind you, casting a glance across the floor, spying a satchel, a cartridge box. His saber leaned against the wall. All weapons that he’d once wielded against you.

But you had no reason to suspect he'd kill you now.

As long as he didn't find out what you and Goddard had gotten up to.

Taking a breath, you braved a few more steps forward. Now, perhaps more than ever, was the time to stay rational. Keep your wits about you. Play your cards carefully.

But care danced perilously close to a cliff’s edge as your brief tour of the room brought you to a halt beside his bed. You swallowed, staring at it. Suddenly your clothes felt stifling. Yet the idea of shedding them here made you shiver.

If only you hadn't stowed your pistol in your belongings before you arrived. Surely every woman wished for the protection of a pistol around the man with whom she'd decided to share a bed.

Inhaling, you swept your eyes over the headboard, the quilt, hating the glimmer of glee you felt realizing you'd wake up next to him again. The anticipation of his eyes in the morning light, his body in arm’s reach, his erection greeting you with the sunrise—the mere thought inspired a thrill.

You glanced down at your bodice, considering it for a moment before easing the pins free and letting it fall from your shoulders.

Your stays, already irremediable in their current state, sloughed from you like scales. You dropped them with a sigh, stretching your shoulders and coasting your palms over your ravaged breasts beneath your shift. The feeling touched a tiny smile to your lips.

It was almost irritating how insatiable you'd become for intercourse. Perhaps this was why it was demanded that it wait until wedlock. It was as if you'd been born anew into your womanhood, and the only way you could breathe was through the length of a cock.

Though, to be fair, it seemed to only be true for William’s cock. The idea of finding yourself at the end of Pearce’s made you want to vomit.

To shake that mental image, you cut your eyes to William’s nightstand. Il Principe crowned the stack of books, a sprig of dried milkweed marking the page he’d last read. Your head tilted towards it, fingertips reaching out to brush the papery petals.

You imagined that you were this flower. Admired in its wildness, cradled carefully, plucked with tender precision.

Or should you think it cruel that such a bloom was claimed for its temporal pleasures, rather than left alive to bathe in sunlight and drink the summer rain?

William’s words floated to mind.

You would have sought the wolves.

Did you truly crave brutality? It seemed that was doubtless—but what about it so enthralled you? Could it coexist with tenderness? Within the same man? Within your very own desires?

Your head began to pound. You were meant to clear your mind, not muddle it further.

Drawing a deep breath, you crossed your arms over yourself. You trailed your fingers up to your shoulders, back down over your breasts, your ribs, allowing each sensation to ground and refocus you. Finding the tie of your petticoats, you released them into a pool around your feet and stepped out, leaving your shoes and stockings behind as well. After a pause, your shift flew over your head to join the pile, and the darkness swathed your bare skin.

You took time to wash off in the basin before you slipped under the sheets, the linen cool and crisp. A soft sigh escaped you, and you nestled against the pillows. It was so much easier to relax in a man’s bed without him in it. You drew in a long, deep breath, a familiar scent filling your nostrils, lingering as your muscles unraveled. Involuntarily, you nuzzled into it.

Leather, woven with smoke, sandalwood. Apple. You'd breathed them in just minutes ago.

William.

You exhaled. As badly as you wanted to feel disturbed, it was late. You were tired. And you simply did not care to question why rolling in sheets redolent of him was unlocking your joints, allowing your eyes to shutter in comfort.

There was no reason to fight it, you decided. This was like a dog sleeping soundly in the clothes of its master, lulled into safety by the familiarity.

You also decided you wouldn't reveal to William that you'd ever compared yourself to a dog and him to your master in any analogy regarding your relationship.

Settling into the bed, you sighed in relief. Sleep swept you like a wave of a receding tide, its body littered with the dregs of memories from the past few days. They floated around you, drifting while you hovered at the surface.

Grace, Ferguson, Pearce, Goddard; cypher, code, passphrase, permission; pain, pleasure, pounding, pumping, William, William, William, William—

All of these thoughts sank, one after the other, into the depths of the sea. You rocked in the ocean’s embrace, balanced on the edge of consciousness for unknowable winds of time. It only fully swaddled you after another pair of footsteps had entered the room, another breath had snuffed the candle, another body joined yours in the bed.

[crowded-empty-places]

the way you wink, the way you turn

Night sky made pink, red lips that burn

The rhymes asleep, inside your pen

Gold nib that weeps, beyond your ken

There's no more peace, and no more roses

All hearts must cease, and scorch the poems

May you be free, to choose your choices

Don't dig the sea, just hear the voices

That kiss the sun, and drink the rain

Must kill the gun, must turn insane

Just play the tune, and love the moon

Leave me behind, i will be fine

Please be kind, dazzle and shine

[lucien-lachance]

I'd like to thank the remaster for making me finally write this after like two years of it rotating in my brain lol And wow! A non-shippy fic from me! Who'd have thought?

Fandom: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Characters: Tatiana Vestalis [Hero of Kvatch+Champion of Cyrodiil], Valen Dreth

Relationships: n/a

Rating: M

Warnings: Violence, blood, mentions of past sexual assault/suicide attempt.

Summary:

Nearly three years have passed since Tatiana escaped the Imperial Prison, nearly three years of being haunted by ghosts of the horrors she endured during her unfinished sentence. She never thought she'd return. Never wanted to even to take vengeance on those who abused her there. But several months into her new life with the Dark Brotherhood, Sithis and the Night Mother demand death be dealt within the prison, and for all her conscious and unconscious fears, Tatiana has answered their call. She cannot disappoint her mentor, the cursed blade she carries, or the Speaker that overshadows her softer dreams.

As she delves into the prison's dark, dank halls, she realizes one crucial thing: no shadow there is worth fearing, for she's the darkest of them all.

@arnaerr @blackmetalsnake @neloths-tea @cheesychickenwings @friend-of-giants @wingedknightrose @theladygrim @devilbrakers @heavy-metal-dick @fruk-choosing-a-username @justafoxhound @skyrim-forever @ray-elgatodormido @bunniletto

Read on AO3 or Continue Here!

----

Though she’d been there only once before—hungry, weary, and teary as she scrambled through grime and muck and gobs of gods’ knew what else bobbing in the sewer’s waters—each featherlight step seemed to lift the shrouds from Tatiana’s memory. Bloodlust and her restless imagination still made monsters of the mold blotching the walls, the silhouettes of forgotten rubble, arches, and the cracked, disjointed bones littering the gloomy passages. For months after her escape, her dream-self had stumbled after the doomed emperor, hounded by rats and chattering, hunch-backed goblins with broken teeth. Each night, she lost her bearings in the gloom, not finding freedom as she had in reality, but instead being snatched by her jailer and dragged her by her hair back to what he’d so snidely called their nest...

She squeezed Umbra’s hilt at that. Unseen talons seemed to curl around her hand and wrist, its magics wringing the fear from her mind like filthy water from a rag. Anger, dry and hot as a kiln, smoldered in its place. Cleansed and clarified her mind.

Vicente had warned her of how the job had claimed two Dark Siblings over the last few moons and insisted she recall or sniff out what she could of the labyrinthine passages. Chart her routes of ingress and egress if possible. Draft contingency plans. Oh, she’d tried, knowing well the perils of the caves and prison cellars, but transposing memory to ink had been like trapping smoke in tremulous hands, and it hadn’t been long before she snapped her quill and sent its brass nib skittering across the dormitory floor. Antoinetta Marie, her only Sibling at home at the time, had practically leapt from bed with a dagger in hand and her hair a bird’s nest. Yet now that Tatiana crept along with sodden boots and the reek of mildew and shit burning in her throat, no ghost of doubt or her past could catch her. She still knew the way. Sithis bless her, she knew the way.

Or perhaps it knew her. Led her up, up, up into the ancient vaults beneath the prison like a mastiff sent to dispatch dying combatants in the Arena. She didn’t much care. She would not disappoint her Family, Vicente, or Speaker Lucien. She would not deny herself this small victory in the war of her life. Above all, she would not deny Umbra its feast. It devoured any soul, beast or daedra, man or mer, but oh, how Tatiana shivered in pleasure when that soul was of someone she despised. She neither understood nor questioned the blade’s magic, and neither did she wonder if the sensation merely blossomed some sordid desire she never knew she’d had.

The truth didn’t matter. This would thrill her as Lucien’s smile had when they’d met briefly a fortnight ago. No more was she the starved, abused waif that had scrambled out of this place nearly three years ago. She knew the way, and it ended in blood and a blessedly quiet cell.

Little had changed in sight or smell since her escape—save for the subterrane and sanctum beyond the sewers. Guardsmen in heavy plate and mail infested both, obviously posted to prevent unwelcome guests and unsanctioned departures, but she’d been one of the Thieves’ Guild’s best before betrayal and grief drew her to the Dark Brotherhood. The bored and indolent soldiers, she could’ve evaded in ill-fitting mail. The young, zealous soldiers actively trawling the gloom proved only a modest challenge, for the rubble, greasy shadows, and smoky haze beyond their torchlight provided ample cover. Someone had clearly forgotten to tell them that light was blinding.

Memories resurfaced as she ghosted from the sewers into those more civilized passages, silent as a cat in her Shrouded Armor’s black leather and reinforced cotton. So long ago, there to the left, she’d almost leapt out of her skin when something slimy and serpentine brushed her ankle in the last drainage run. Over here, finally free of the sewers, the emperor’s blood forever stained the pale flagstone, dirty brown to her eyes and still a shocking scarlet in her mind. And here in a dust-cloaked alcove, her lesser self, overwhelmed, panicked, and utterly lost, had hidden and wept. She sneered disdainfully at the thought. Killed her contempt and ducked into that same alcove as a soldier approached. Gripping her dagger, she flattened her back against the wall and stood still as stone. Lurid orange torchlight shuddered around the corner as he paused at the nearby door, accompanied by smoke reeking of pitch. The bandana over Tatiana’s nose itched maddingly. Her eyes watered as they always did in the presence of smoke, dragging her lashes’ kohl into them. Burning and burning. Yet still she did not move and barely breathed. However she might’ve gloried in butchering the comrades of those who’d have gloried in butchering her, this wasn’t the time.  

Seconds ticked into minutes. Minutes, into what seemed a lifetime. The guard sniffled and loudly blew out his nose in the corner, sniffled again, then muttered a weary curse before continuing his circuit of the vast, pillar-lined chamber. His light and footfalls faded down the passage behind her. Exhaling, she adjusted her bandana and crept from her hiding place. She watched him stroll down the steps into the sunken chamber, his torch a fat firefly in the smoke. His thunderous sneeze echoed across the hall. She turned away dispassionately fled deeper into the complex, keeping to the upper walkways. The bastard was sick. Killing flies would’ve been more satisfying.

Beyond a crumbling archway, the stone of once-graceful columns and stairwells yielded to meandering passages hewn of coarse brown stone, their walls riddled with questing roots and the gouges and scratches of ancient shovels and picks. No lamps, mage light-infused crystals, or natural light knew these passages. But her pendant of Night-Eye, a gift from Antoinetta Marie, painted the darkness and all its perils in cerulean, cobalt, and navy as she slipped it over her hood: ankle-breaking pits in the floor, abandoned tools and weapons more dangerous in their coats of brittle rust than they’d ever been in the hands of the dead idiots who’d dropped them. Scatterings of bones and loose stones gaming to trip anyone groping through the perpetual night. Depressions in the floor betraying sinkholes waiting to swallow up anything that might pad over them. Some, she remembered All, she saw and avoided. Trickling springs gossiped about her as she stole along, each drip a nail clattering down the slate of her ears. She set her teeth, ignored the tension bunching in her chest. The springs muted her footfalls, but also those of anything else that called the caves home. Sweet Sithis, the things she’d have done for silence.

At least the goblins don’t seem to have had any vengeful friends, she thought wryly as she sidestepped a withered corpse, its frame twisted and skinny from bad breeding and nearly three years of decay. Rats and maggots had decimated its eyes, mottled green hide, and sinewy flesh. They’d dined even on its loincloth and baldric once the meat ran out. She snorted softly and kicked its skull before moving on. Her now-rusty arrow remained lodged in its left eye socket.

Before long, the tunnel began to march upward. A clammy draft swept down it, stiff enough to raise goosebumps on her arms but not peel tendrils of her gold, sweaty hair from her brow and neck. With it came hints of pitch and smoke, unwashed flesh and spiteful neglect, sickeningly familiar in how they wrapped her like a damp burial shroud. Here there were no springs. The mutterings of the storm still raging outside returned to her, leading her to the murky, stuttering light atop the rise. The false door still angled into the passage; the warden had been too careless to seal it or too confident in his hounds in the sanctum and subterrane. Dense cobwebs stretched from its edges to the floor like sinew between bones. She crouched beside it, just out of sight from anyone near the mouth of the cell beyond, and closed her eyes. Measured her breathing to calm her heart as the past swelled and throbbed in the pit of her skull.

The cell looked exactly as it had the night she escaped. Lofty, but smaller than a common horsebox, it was a place of rough granite walls carved with everything from oaths of vengeance and claims of innocence, to gibberish profanity and calendrical tally marks. Moldy hay—the same heap of moldy hay on which she’d wept, slept, and nearly died, judging by its rusty brown stains—consumed one half while a tiny, upturned table and chair crowded the other, fluffy with dust. Rain spewed down the back wall while lighting flashed through the barred window high above. Tatiana swallowed against the fist wedging itself in her throat. Squeezed Umbra’s hilt until her knuckles ached. Thoughts of rusty nails and torn, marble-white wrists faded to black as she did.

Then to red.

With her free hand, she slipped free the thong of the scroll case hitched beside her hunting knife; two spell scrolls nestled inside, their power tingling unpleasantly through her gloves. Right first. Left only to silence someone in an emergency, she reminded herself with a nod. The kill itself could be simple, swift, and clean; a held breath and single arrow would be all she’d need. But simple, swift, and clean wouldn’t satisfy her. Not this time.

Over the droning rain, her ears strained for jingling mail and the tromp of hobnailed boots in the  block’s corridor. One breath, two, four, and finally the first echo wandered around the far corner, as ominous and unchanged as ever. Oily dread churned her stomach, and she clutched Umbra’s hilt like a lifeline in a hurricane as the footsteps grew louder and louder, stomp stomp stomp, before halting. A towering shadow cut the hall’s torchlight. She held her breath again. Reminded herself that the jailer had no reason to enter her cell. No one had for years, by the unspoiled dust.

He isn’t coming for you, she snapped at herself, knuckles and fingers stinging from the strain of clenched leather. No one is. You aren’t bloody here, as far as they know.

~ and if they learn differently, we’ll kill them too ~

Umbra’s mimicry of her voice had become uncanny in recent months, losing most of its metallic edge and inhumanity, like a knife wrapped in lambs’ wool. Now, its sound caressed her spirits like a lover, soft and comforting, grounding when everything else would’ve tossed her to the winds. As always, it was right. Even if the patrolman wasn’t the handsome, black-hearted villain that had abused her, she’d kill him and Umbra would feast doubly. To the Void with the bonus, as Gogron would say. Gold? She already had that in spades. A display of skill? Lucien and Vicente already knew her talents, and the arts of killing and thievery were not among the talents she doubted in herself. Enchanted trinkets, weapons, or armor? Such things enriched her trophy hoard below Benirus Manor, but even the finest blade, gem, or cuirass paled before Umbra’s savagery and wicked beauty, the sheer ecstasy as stolen souls seeped into its ebon steel. She needed nothing else.

But the guard didn’t linger to harass the prisoners sleeping off yet another night in their miserable sentences. Like all dumbly monastic patrols, he turned with the scrape of a heel on stone and strolled down the block and up the stairs to the next floor, whistling a lazy tune she recognized from her time on the Waterfront. It settled her, somehow. Reminded her that blind bloodshed would eventually see her dead. Bonuses were always good. Needing nothing didn’t mean she couldn’t get something new.

Grumblings of thunder dragged her attention back to more practical things. It had been a couple hours to midnight when she unlocked the sewer gate and was probably two in the morning, now. The guard clearly wasn’t the sort to indulge in late-night beatings, so assuming the warden hadn’t altered the shifts, no one would come down here for another hour or two. Maybe not until dawn, if the bastard was as understaffed as rumor claimed.

Breathing deep, she poked her head around the corner to reaffirm that the way was clear, then padded through her cell and up the uneven floor to its gate; rust flaked the bars, but their cores and lock remained solid. All of the prison’s doors and gates wailed at the barest touch, as she recalled, intentionally left unoiled to serve as a final alarm against common escapes and intrusions. Tatiana considered herself common in many ways. Infiltration was not one of them. Her father and his Thieves’ Guild contacts had thoroughly seen to that. She drew a small oil dropper from the leather case hitched to her belt and drizzled the stuff down the hinges. Father’s wisdom wasn’t all for naught, she thought with a bitter smile. What were assassins if not thieves doing wetter work?

From the hidden sheaths stitched inside her bracer’s wrist, she flicked out a sturdy diamond hook, her favorite pick for locks that were more brawn than brain. Her cell’s lock was stiff, outdated, and far beneath a rogue of her caliber; it yielded with a sullen clunk. Wincing at the echo, she froze and counted off two ageless minutes. No one came or stirred. The gate’s hinges were silent as she warily tested them, but she opened it just enough to slip through. The corridor was a long, torchlit tube bored into black, unfeeling and unyielding stone. Disappointment flickered through her, but she couldn’t tell if it was her own or Umbra’s.

The gate across the corridor was a twin to hers. Its stout hinges drank down the rest of her oil. Its lock proved stiffer than hers. Son of a whore, she thought. But after a moment of forced patience and a sharp glance toward the coughing fit inside one of the farthest cells, the lock yielded. She kissed her pick before sheathing it.

The cell was somewhat smaller than hers. Sneering, Tatiana sidestepped the crusty, piss-stained bucket awaiting the drudges’ morning pickup. Without her Night Eye pendant, she’d have stumbled over it and fallen face-first onto the grimy mer huddled on the straw just beyond. What botched crime had landed him in prison for over a decade, she didn’t know, but it was obvious that his miserable shitstain of a life hadn’t been kind; even in sleep, his long face was pinched and shriveled as a prune left in the sun, his slate-gray skin gone pasty and his silvery hair tangled, lank, and smeared with dirt. He muttered in some Dunmeri tongue Tatiana didn’t recognize, his broken-nailed fingers twitching.  

Her heart began to pound again. Valen Dreth was dreaming his final dream.

Some might have pitied the wretch. Idealists drunk on utopian delusions. Churchmen or healers who studied the mind and ills of civilization. Those who championed the formation and funding of soup kitchens and boarding houses and who believed people most often turned to crime out of perceived or actual necessity. Tatiana was none of those people. She didn’t give two shits what had beaten Dreth into such a backbiting swine. Didn’t care what sufferings or vicious attitudes she might’ve shared with him—if he’d ever stopped taunting her for more than four seconds. No, she cared only that he would die. That his blood would flow like liquid sapphire, not the ruby that had come to so delight her.        

Disappointing, really. Like biting into a biscuit and finding it stale, hunger sated at the cost of withered pleasure. Still. It would be better than a murky silhouette.

She cracked the seal of the first spell scroll. Parchment and wax disintegrated into acrid smoke, and green energy seeped into her hands, shimmering subtly across her gloves’ stitches before fading and leaving her fingers peculiarly numb. She flexed them for good measure and knelt beside Dreth; he stank of stale sweat and the sick sweetness of a festering wound on his foot. She could touch him anywhere for the spell to work, even his knobby little knees. The throat seemed most fitting. Each time her jailer tossed her back into her cell after interrogating her for Lex or abusing her for his own amusement, Dreth viciously mocked her, gripping the bars of his cell with his maniacal face pressed to them. Sometimes, he’d spat at her. Sneered that such things were what her hips were made for, but that he pitied the guard, for she was the only woman in the block and the proud Valen Dreth wouldn’t take her if hers were the last warm tits in Tamriel. She would die before she ever knew clean clothes, good food, or the softness of warm, summer-drenched grass again. She deserved every abuse. She should be happy the guard wasn’t a wrinkly old bull with a bad leg and missing teeth and reeking breath. Vile insults salted his jeers, often to the whistles and guffawing of their neighboring prisoners.

Eventually, his venom bled into her. Morphed into bone-deep shame. She believed his words as much as she did the jailer’s. You don’t deserve love. You don’t deserve loyalty or freedom or care. If you did, your sister wouldn’t have betrayed you, your parents wouldn’t have disowned you, and you wouldn’t be here. Nocturnal didn’t want you. Not even the beneficent aedra want you. Parts of her still believed it.

Swallowing hard, her hand began to tremble as it hovered over his neck. The sensation that swept through her in response was not born of her own will or Umbra’s magic. It was a voice, yet also an unholy silence, something she could only describe as an instinct, as deep and adamant as those that drove people to rut or flee, yet soft as the whisper of wind on moonlit grass. Feminine and impossibly familiar, a figment resurfacing from a long-forgotten dream.

You didn’t deserve your lot, but it is forging you into what you were born to become. The aedra, daedra, and all of House Vestalis may loathe you, but Sithis does not. I do not. The Dark Brotherhood loves you, and you deserved this small victory. Dreth deserves his loss, too.

As she tried to decipher its source, the unspoken words slipped away like smoke through her fingers, drifting back beneath hopes of recollection. Yet its peace did not fade. It numbed her to all that work and Umbra couldn’t.

Tatiana seized Dreth’s throat. Light swept from her forearm into the dunmer’s body, too dull and fleeting to have drawn attention. Dreth’s scarlet eyes shot open just before the spell paralyzed him. Pure hatred gleamed there, but beneath it, like minnows flitting through dark waters, was fear. All his bluster and vehemence and sarcasm, she then realized, had been reflexive. Defensive. Cheap masks to hide his frailty. But she’d seen enough death to recognize true fear, both in the righteous and wicked. As she loomed over him like the storm loomed over the prison, she knew Dreth’s fear was real. A reminder that he had always been as pathetic as she’d briefly been. He was a small, yappy dog that quivered in the barest breeze, strong and daring enough only to bite another’s the ankles once their back had turned. He’d thought he outpaced his crimes. His sentence. The utter insignificance of his life.

Watching him realize the depth of his miscalculation made her smile. Roused heat deep in her belly.

Tatiana pressed a finger to her lips. Hush, that mocked, and she relished the notion that he’d be dead long before the spell faded and his nervous system remembered how to do anything more than breathe. Tugging her bandana down, she leaned low. Tendrils of greasy, golden hair dripped from her hood and onto his face. Lightning flashed through the window above them. Grumbles of thunder lingered long after. “Do you remember me, Dreth?” she whispered.

Sweat began to shine on his gray brow, signaling the futile effort he poured into fighting his paralysis. No words came, of course. No shift in breath or body. But recognition shined plain in his eyes. Of course he recognized her, even now in wicked black, blood-stained leather and cotton, armed to the teeth with a wide band of kohl smeared across her temples, eyes, and the skin between them. Of course he knew her despite the angry scar curling around her temple and her now-crooked nose. By his own admission, hassling her had been his favorite way to pass the time.

“Good, because I’ve certainly remembered you,” she derided. “I see you still haven’t been good enough to earn a toothbrush.” She glanced at his chapped, parted lips. His yellowed half-moon grins had presided over many nightmares. Once, they’d pricked tears to her eyes. Now, they made her yearn to bash his teeth in.

~ so kick them out. he won’t need them anymore. sithis will devour him whether he comes with teeth or bloody gums. ~ 

Shadow and purple mist flickered at the edges of her vision, Umbra’s magic far deeper and more powerful than the lens of a simple Night Eye charm. She could do that, she supposed. Stomp his head in. But that would be noisy, and even if she could handle the dozens of guards that would inevitably flood the block, her light, soft-soled stealthing boots weren’t suited for such things. She’d have needed her daedra-hunting boots, reinforced and steel-shod. The last thing she needed was a broken toe, jarred ankle, or gashes from shards of bone.

Blind bloodlust won’t help you here, she reminded herself. Good, but bitter medicine.

Ignoring the pressure building in the bowl of her skull, she steadied her breathing. She moistened her chewed, stinging lips before continuing. “Not that it matters. You thought a pathetic worm like yourself could escape justice and destiny. But in a way, I suppose I should thank your hubris. You’ve nearly paid your debt to the Imperial magistrates, but a far larger one has come due, and the Dread Father was kind enough to send me, of all His children, to collect it.”

At the mention of the Dread Father, the edge of Dreth’s nostril twitched. Disgust. Derision. Perhaps sympathies for the ancient Morag Tong. It would be minutes before he could speak, and many more before he could do more than blink, but Tatiana wasn’t taking chances. Not in this place. Not even with Umbra at her hip.

“I wish we could spend more time together, but as I understand, the Dread Father is as impatient as He is cruel,” she said, then pulled a dagger from her hip. Bought on a whim in the black-market weeks before, it was a wicked ten inches of dark iron, serrated and spiraled like a screw, coated in grease laced with both anticoagulant and hemolytic poisons. The latter were of her own creation. Hunts during the Oblivion Crisis had proved the stuff worked beautifully and equally well on men, mer, and daedra; the prison’s and temple’s best healers would lose him.

Dreth’s nostrils both twitched, as if he could smell its faintly bitter scent over that of his own filth.

“If I’m lucky, maybe He’ll give me that bastard of a jailer one day, and then both of you in the Void.” Lightning whited out the cell. Thunder shook dust from the walls’ uneven blocks, and before it quieted, she’d thrice plunged the spiraled dagger between Dreth’s legs, twisting it savagely each time, then buried it in his stomach. Thinned blood bloomed fast and free across his ratty trousers and shirt to pond on the floor. She stepped behind his head to avoid it and drew Umbra. Plunged its tip into his throat. Purple and black mists slithered up the blade and around her arms as it stole his soul, tingling icily in her hands as pleasure shuddered down her body, rattling her to the bones. She panted slightly as the thrill crested, crashed, and ebbed like a wave, leaving her adrift on quiet tides. It didn’t occur to her that the Umbra spirit had claimed a soul meant for Sithis, let alone what debt that might incur on her later.

She’d done what other Siblings could not. Dreth was dead. Gloriously, gruesomely, dead. She’d won.

But common sense and reflexive training spurred her from her twisted afterglow. Only idiots lingered at a murder scene. Umbra, she cleaned on his shirt and sheathed. The dagger she left in his belly. It was unique, but of mediocre make, and she had another of far better quality at home. With a throwing knife from her baldric, she sliced out his tongue and a tapered, pockmarked ear, wrapped them in salted oilcloth, and stuffed them in a case lined in more salt on her belt. Vicente hadn’t asked for a trophy to prove the job’s completion, but taking such things from a pup who couldn’t stop barking, whose every jibe and snarl begged for others to listen, seemed not only fitting, but necessary.

Tugging her bandana back up, Tatiana tiptoed around the lake of sapphire blood and slipped back down through her cell, careful to close the gate and evenly scatter the dust on the floor. A smile ached in her cheeks as she ghosted back through the caves, subterrane, sanctum, and sewers and finally into the storm. She slipped off her necklace and gazed up at the seething skies, listening to the thunder barreling eastward to Cheydinhal. To Vicente, Marie, and Speaker Lucien. To home.

The clean, cool air and rain washed her gear and body of filth as pride washed her spirits of misery. Speaker Lucien had been right the night he first came to her in Anvil, bearing steely gifts and honeyed promises of love, renewed purpose, and reclaimed satisfaction. It was good to have direction again. To feel powerful, loved, and respected in all the ways Dreth promised she wasn’t. Thoughts of Lucien’s approval, voice like dark silk and teeth a white crescent in shadows of his hood, stroked her basest instincts as she turned from Lake Rumare’s black, rain-rippled surface. Lightning flashed again, and when darkness returned to the bank, she’d vanished into the brush, ghosting toward the City to indulge in warmer, softer pleasures than those she’d tasted in Dreth’s cell.

Yes. Life with the Brotherhood was good.

[ask-seraphim-au]

Do any of you have a favorite food and/or drink?

"Such indulgences are below me, but very well, I am being encouraged to answer you. My favorite food would have to be cacao nibs. Simple, bitter, filling. That is all anyone needs, though I haven't truly needed food in quite some time."

"Oh, oh my, oh dear! So much to choose from. Honestly, I'm a big fan of Earl Grey tea– Oh, but Mint tea is nice as well! Really, you don't have to think too hard about offerings. I'll accept anything, so long as it is safe for my friends to consume! If I had to pick a favorite food, though, I'll never say no to anything with raisins. I'll always have a soft heart for the simple delights of the village that helped me at my lowest."

"Oh, yes! I am a huge fan of any Berry juice! And though the higher quality ones are far more than acceptable, I won't say no to a nice offering of any kind of fermented drink! It's always fun to see the cookies of my domain enjoying the spoils of their labors with me!"

"Oh– And food, too! I love Tarte Tatin Cookie's homemade Stamina Jelly Preserves. Call me old-fashioned, but I'll never complain about food made for the road, no matter how much Dragonhead Stew that silly Dragon City leaves me!"

[slightlys0iled]

thoughts on the 2000 cathy rigby musical version of slightly? i’ve always appreciated how >:( he seems to be the whole time

HI ANON! I hope you know this ask has made my absolute day, thank you for the ask!!

So I will say that I have a very complicated relationship with the Charlap and Leigh musical*. I find it pretty badly paced for a musical adaptation of a play, and the soundtrack is very hit or miss w me. It's no secret I much prefer the Stiles and Drewe "Musical Adventure", but for all my dislike of Charlap, I've always said that the Cathy Rigby version is by far the best staging of it.

*Charlap is the musical with "I won't grow up" "I gotta crow" and has had Mary Martin, Allison Williams and Cathy Rigby as Peters at different points. It's the one anon is talking abt

A way a lot of Peter Pan adaptations fail for me, top fan of the Lost Boys, is to make the boys too analogous. This is why I dislike the boys in the Mary Martin ver, they're all identical to eachother (save for Tootles, kinda) I can't even tell which one is which at times. Double for the Allison Williams ver (they also fail from looking like the fucking Newsies and there being like 30 of them. I dislike large Lost Boy casts anwyays but that's a diff post for a diff day). A good way to differentiate the Lost Boys is their introductory scene, which a lot of adaptations choose to cut for some reason.

The Cathy Rigby version of Charlap does include this scene, which is why I like it significantly more than the MM and AW productions. CR Charlap is a lot more like a staging of Peter Pan with Charlap's music at intervals, not a staging of Charlap's musical with Peter Pan at intervals, which is how IN MY OPINION, a lot of Charlap productions end up.

(also in this review thingy i'm gonna be referring to the cast of THIS proshot!)

(waayyyy more under the cut)

There's an individual in the Peter Pan fandom with an absolutely huge following so I'm not going to name names but if you know who I mean then you know who I mean, that considers Cathy Rigby the best on stage Peter Pan ever, and the rest of her cast to be the best stage cast of PP, and honestly, to an extent I'm inclined to agree.

My focus is always gonna be on the Lost Boys and it's an immediate con for me in the pros and cons list if the Lost Boys (and ESPECIALLY Slightly, but we'll get to Slightly in a sec!) are handled poorly, and CR doesn't handle them poorly, I honestly love them. Now they're definitely not perfect. No Curly and Nibs and Tootles are blended into Tootles and Nibs is just there.. ig, but I really like them. Another important thing to keep in for the Lost Boys is their comedy. I like when stage productions have them almost clowning, Barrie himself described Slightly as the comedic figure.

The boys are a great source of comedy especially on stage. CR keeps a lot of their physical theatre elements, they roughhouse a lot, something which the original 1904 boys were instructed to do in the script, and the number "Wendy" reminds me of my GCSE drama piece the way it's full of physicality, humour, and clowning! I also really like their costuming!

I like how distinct they each are, and that they don't get a "uniform" like the Disney lost boys, or AW Charlap ones. I also love that they don't just look like... normal kids (MM CHARLAP I SEE YOU!). They each have personality whilst still looking like... The Lost Boys.

They remind me a lot of the '03 boys, design wise, too, with the scrappy roughness of their look.

So, yeah, I do actually like them.

Onto Slightly, then.

One thing that I think Barrie did wrong was cutting the Slightly Soiled joke from the 1911 novel. Yes I know it's stupid toilet humour yes I know it's unfunny. But I think it's a good character establishing moment for him when he gets to be his egotistical self, bragging to the others. CR keeps it and it does genuinely get a laugh, which is cool.

In fact, this production just does a great job at nailing the "most conceited of all the boys" nature in him. He's really vain and just has this air of arrogance about him which I think every version of Slightly needs to have. One thing I love watching in scenes with a large cast including the boys is to watch their background actions, and I love how in Ugg-A-Wugg, before the big group dance at least — he legitimately looks like he doesn't want to be there (me too man, i also would not want to be in ugg a wugg), which is def giving the "i'm better than this + all of you" Slightly Soiled vibe.

I also really like how the other boys pick on him a lot? The other boys being mean to Slightly as a staging choice goes way back to the earliest castm where he was the only one played by a man, the others played by women, and it'd look inappropriate for him to share a bed with them, them all playing young children in 1904, so they would gang up on him and chase him out the home before any bedtime scenes. Of course this was later changed in modern adaptations where we don't bat an eyelid at that anymore and Lost Boy casts have been a variety of genders... but him being the go-to target of their scuffling remains. Probably because he's a huge jerk still, and always has been.

Thing only I even noticed: how he gets the "I will stay a boy forever" verse in I Won't Grow Up!! I've been saying for years that's Slightly's verse and no one has listened to me! (It's a bit like how I talk to the wall about how the 'wallet fat and an old man's hat' line in Be Back Soon from Oliver! is Charley Bates, these are things only I care about).

I just really love how the actor playing him carries himself too. This production does a great job of the minor parts, chorus, and ensemble staying in character all the time, I really enjoy it. How he walks with the snootiness and vanity you'd expect from Slightly Soiled, but yet how he drops the bravado around Peter. How he seems perpetually annoyed by being surrounded by the others and thinks he's better than them. I think the dude playing him understood the assignment, he's so fun and so Slightly.

Agree that he's perpetually walking around like >:[, Very him. Nails the egotism of Slightly.

I love him, actually. Wish we got to see him dancing w an ostritch (my favourite Slightly moment literally NOT ONE DIRECTOR HAS EVER ADAPTED!! 💔) but yeah. This Slightly Soiled gets the @/slightlys0iled stamp of approval!

Thanks for the ask!

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Cat, my ask is inspired by 'care- @yourheartonfire' I really hope you like it!

Please write a married!! villain who religiously indulges in their skin care, and a hero who really can't care less what they put on their skin. One night after them spending 2 rounds in horny jail, they're both up at 4am and after cleaning themselves, hero observes the villain indulging in their skin care routines, and upon spotting their lovely spouse the hero, they find their new target to perform skin care at.

Just when they remove hero's bath gown to apply body lotion (after much convincing ofc) they notice the array of hickies covering their entire body after 2 religious rounds of them in horny jail. Villain now needs to resist the hero, and take care of the hickeys and their hero's poor skin, but notising the way hero melts when they get their face massaged, and the little shivers passing thru them even after being for hours in hot shower, villain cant help but go for round 3 in horny jail!! and tho hero makes them promise no more hickies, they happily let themselves get carried away with their villain.

Well I hope ur comfortable writing this, absolutely no pressure :D I read @yourheartonfire 's care so many times its actually one of my fav!! But I would love to see a bit of your touch to it, really hope you don't mind and write a snippet like this one (with all your own touches obv)

Original :)

“I’ll be sore in the morning.”

“That’s the goal.” The villain’s smirk was undoubtedly of vicious nature. They could be quite sweet with all their big date plans and expensive vacations but the hero knew them by heart, knew their darkest sides and usually, the hero was the one in charge.

However, today, the villain seemed to be yearning for more than usual. Which wasn’t a bad thing, obviously.

But it made the hero wonder.

“Is this some new scheme of yours?” the hero asked as they got pushed back into the sheets. The villain found their neck and tried gentle nibs which, despite the carefulness, made the hero squeak in pain. The villain drew back and tried another spot, choosing kisses over teeth.

“Love, believe me. I would find kinder methods to stop you from working. I know you love this job,” they mumbled. “I can’t take that away from you, I’ve learnt that a long time ago.”

For a moment, they just stared at the hero and the hero really, really felt lucky to have married someone so diligent. The villain was always eager to do more than was expected of them. Their goals were beyond reachable which was exactly why it could be quite frustrating to face them in battle.

The villain’s fingers ghosted over the hero’s collarbone and then, very sweetly, they kissed the hero. It reminded them of their first kiss. Very innocent. And it intensified the feelings they’d had for this entire evening — not only lust but also gripping love.

“You tell me when it’s too much, alright?” the villain whispered. The hero recognised guilt in the question and it squeezed their heart a little too hard.

“Of course,” they answered. They let their thumb brush over the villain’s bottom lip and then added this just to tease them. “I’m not someone who comes home injured and bleeding all over my spouse during sex.”

“Oh, come on. That was one time,” the villain said and let their hand slide down to their thigh.

“It wasn’t fun.”

“I know, I apologised.” The villain had already reached their destination with their hand and the hero was truly astonished that their spouse was doing so much today. It felt like heaven, sure, but the hero couldn’t help but ask themselves if everything was alright.

Growing up in a…troubling household had left them anxious of every micro change in their spouse’s mood which, no matter how hard both of them tried, wouldn’t go away.

“I’m just worried about you,” the hero said. “I’m really worried sometimes.”

They went through the villain’s hair several times, letting their fingers comb through it carefully as the villain’s kisses travelled lower and lower.

“It’s okay, I can take care of myself, love.”

“Yeah, but that’s the thing. You don’t…” They wanted to say more but the villain had found a sensitive spot. They breathed in, breathed out and tried to concentrate. “…you don’t have to.”

The villain started to use their tongue and the hero’s mind couldn’t comprehend their surroundings anymore. But they wanted to make a point, they remembered. They pulled the villain’s face up and guided them back to their mouth.

“Sometimes…I just wish you could talk more with me. We’re a team. Maybe not at work but…at least at home.” What a cruel sentence to say but the villain seemed to understand. “You don’t have to carry around everything.”

“Yes, you’re totally right. I’m sorry, I just don’t want to be a burden,” the villain said. They tried to get back down but the hero’s grip on their jaw held them in place.

“You’re not a burden,” they clarified. “You never have been, okay?”

“Okay,” the villain whispered and for the first time today, their shoulders seemed to relax. “Okay.”

They kissed the hero yet again very softly but the hero knew this wasn’t it.

“They’re sending me on a mission next week,” the villain said softly. “Some say it’ll be suicide.”