#federal prison!!!!!

[runwayblues]

jail

[eoieopda]

I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY TO YOU AFTER THIS

IX. Heedless and Willful || KNJ

(banner by @/itaeewon)

Title: My Feet to Follow, and My Heart to Hold (Masterpost)

Rating: NSFW - minors dni

Genre: college!au, roomie!au, angst, s2l, the absolute slowest of burns

Pairing: Namjoon x female reader, unrequited Taehyung x reader

Beta'd by @/kookstempo, @/casuallyimagining, and @/toikiii - thank you endlessly!

Summary: You know a lot about the many types of love thanks to Kim Taehyung. You love him as the only person you see as “family”, you love him as your very best friend, and you love him as the beautiful, funny man he’s become. But when a twist of fate during your senior year has you rooming with his good friend Kim Namjoon, you just might find that you have plenty left to learn about love. 

Lesson One: there are such things as a right way and a wrong way to love and to be loved.

//

Things accelerate between you and Namjoon, but complications linger.

Section Warnings: language, kissing, groping, breast play/nip stim, fingering, protected sex, penetrative sex, multiple orgasms (f. receiving), multiple rounds

WC: 8k

The world is mine: blue hill, still silver lake, Broad field, bright flower, and the long white road A gateless garden, and an open path: My feet to follow, and my heart to hold. - Journey | Edna St. Vincent Millay

Saturday December 1st

The weekend brings with it a deluge of rain, a slow-moving weather system that has the streets holding inches of water, the road-side drains overflowing. 

You stay inside all day, and so does Namjoon, but you largely orbit around each other, working on your own things, leaving the other alone.

Things had accelerated so suddenly between you that now you feel like you had slammed on a brake, inertia carrying you to teeter dangerously over an edge. You’re not sure if Namjoon is feeling the same way, but you think it’s probable. 

You kind of want to tip over the edge, is the thing. 

You work in your room, sitting at your desk, your bedroom door wide open. You’re kind of working, kind of watching water rush down the road below the apartment. It’s well after dinner, pitch black outside, but the streetlights illuminate the flow as the rainwater moves along beneath you. You’re having trouble focusing because of the rain - it lulls you to sleep, tricks you into thinking it’s bedtime. You can’t remember ever seeing rain like this, and the sound is all-encompassing, like you could wrap yourself up and exist within it.

You’ve just given up on focusing and closed your laptop for the night when there’s suddenly a huge boom from outside, loud and close enough that the floor shakes beneath your feet, and everything goes black around you. You scream, startled, and jump to your feet, knocking your desk chair over behind you with a loud clatter. That startles you a second time, and you scream again, clutching at your chest and backing yourself against your bedroom wall, heart pounding. 

Across the apartment, Namjoon shouts your name, his voice deep and commanding, clearly alarmed.

The dark presses in around you, little fingers on your ankles and arms. You can’t see anything - not your bed, not the chair on the floor, not your hand in front of your own face. The silence is suddenly so loud it throbs around you - the sudden lack of normal noise toying with your senses. You’ve never been in quiet like this - no hum from the refrigerator, the central air system, your devices. All you can hear is your heartbeat pulsing in your ears, the angry, relentless sound of rain, and the echo of Namjoon’s voice calling your name, playing back and looping through your mind so loudly that it’s almost like you’re hearing it again.

You are hearing it again - his alarmed voice cuts through the darkness, calling your name with a little bit of an edge, a tinge of fear this time.

“I’m here,” you manage, your voice coming out like a gasp.

From the living room, you can see a small point of light coming rapidly closer, and then Namjoon appears in your doorway, guided by his cell phone’s flashlight. He seems a little out of breath as he pauses in the doorway, taking in the scene before him - you pressed against the wall, a hand still pressed to your racing heart, the chair askew on the floor, the rain pelting the window like it wants to break the glass.

Once he can see that you’re unharmed, Namjoon clicks his phone off, and you both let your eyes adjust. In the dark, everything various shades of black, his shape seems so large, taking up so much of your vision. He steps around the chair, not bothering to right it, and stops about two feet from you. 

“I think a transformer blew out there,” he says, his voice odd, like most of his brain isn’t even aware that he’s speaking.

Two feet from him, your hands itch to reach out and touch him. Your feet beg to close the space between you. Your heart continues to throw itself against your ribcage, furious and demanding to be heard. The darkness takes its tiny fingers off your limbs, presses guiding fingertips to your back instead, nudging you forward. 

If you’re going over the edge anyway, isn’t it better to jump than to fall?

Two feet from him, in the most profound darkness and silence you’ve ever experienced in your life, you find yourself nearly gasping for each breath as you fight your body’s every urge.

A line of St. Vincent Millay’s poetry leaps into your head, unbidden:

in me alone survive the unregenerate passions of a day when treacherous queens, with death upon the tread heedless and willful, took their knights to bed

Heedless and willful, you jump, crossing the space in a single stride. Namjoon’s hands coming to your waist like he was waiting for you. 

He can kiss you only for a moment before he’s interrupted by you tugging his shirt up; he breaks away from you to pull it the rest of the way off and tosses it behind him, coming back to attach his mouth to your neck, sucking and kissing a line down to your collarbone. You run your hands along his chest, over his pecs, down his stomach, up his sides, your head thrown back to make room for him as he nips and soothes at your throat. 

He groans happily as you dip your fingers towards the waistband of his jeans, then tugs bossily at your own shirt. You peel it off, dropping it to your feet, and move to kiss him again, but he’s busy reaching around your back and deftly pinching the clasp of your bra. It falls away, and you shake the straps loose from your arms, hearing it hit the ground. Cold air assaults your chest only a second before Namjoon’s large hands cup you, his mouth searing against yours out of nowhere.

Everything’s heightened in this total dark, total silence. You can hear every hitch of his breath, the thud of your own pulse, can feel every tiny movement of his hands, of his mouth. He toys lightly with your nipples, running his fingers in circles around them before plucking at them lightly, then abandoning your chest to run his hands over all the newly uncovered skin - your stomach, your back, your arms. 

“You’re gorgeous,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I’ve thought so the whole fucking time, you’re so fucking gorgeous, I can’t think straight sometimes.”

“Namjoon,” you gasp quietly, half a reaction to his words and half a reaction to him gripping the waistband of your joggers and pulling them down over your ass in one motion. You kick them off and he walks you backwards to your bed, pushing at your shoulders until you fall backwards. You hear his zipper as he removes his jeans, and when he climbs up next to you on the bed you can feel but not see him straining against his boxer-briefs. 

He brings his mouth to a nipple without warning, giving it one experimental lick and taking it between his lips when you whine in appreciation. You can feel yourself getting impossibly wet as he alternates licking and sucking, and his spare hand rubs circles down your body until he reaches the lace edge of your underwear, and he pauses. It’s the first time tonight he’s shown any hesitation. 

He removes his mouth from your breast and moves back up where he can kiss you. His fingers skim the lace, a ghost of a touch, barely there.

“You good, baby?” he murmurs, so low, and you feel yourself clench - over the timbre of his voice or his cocky use of the pet name, you’re not sure. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Touch me. Please.”

It’s wild how dark it is, how you can’t see anything on his face, can’t see which way he’s moving; the dark seems like it’s pressing in around you, like it’s the very thing shielding you from the onslaught of rain that you can still hear loud and clear. 

Namjoon’s fingers skim over your slit so lightly it almost tickles, and you squirm, needing more. He presses harder on his second pass through, pressing the lace against your entrance. He moans when he feels how wet you are even through your panties, pressing himself harder against your leg as he swipes his fingers through again. Then he’s hooking his thumbs under the waistband and pulling your panties down your legs, cupping your sex with his whole hand.

“Fuck, baby,” he whispers hoarsely, and presses his middle finger into your heat up to the last knuckle. You suck in a breath, fingers curling in your bedspread, as he fucks you that way - middle finger only - for the barest of minutes before adding a second digit.

“God,” you groan, feeling yourself stretch to accommodate it. “Damn it.”

“Yeah?” he murmurs. “You’re so wet, what the fuck.” He’s right - you can hear it each time he pushes back into you. Your back arches, your body trying to press his fingers even deeper. When his thumb grazes your clit, you gasp out loud. 

He swallows the rest of your noises with a kiss as he continues, and when the crest of your orgasm snaps a few minutes later you moan messily into his mouth as his fingers fuck you through it, steady and unyielding. 

“Holy shit,” he groans when you clench around his fingers as the waves hit you. “That’s right, baby, fuck.”

You’re reaching for his briefs the second you’re back in your body, down from your high, and he pulls his fingers from you gently to help wiggle them over his hips and off his body. You slide your hand over him lightly and he hisses through his teeth as you wrap your fingers around him and rub him base to tip, sliding your palm over the wet head of his cock, using his own pre-cum to slick up your hand as you continue. 

He’s hot in your hand, bigger than you’d expected, and you revel in listening to his light moans turn breathy as you toy with him. Finally, he grabs your wrist, pressing a kiss to your jaw.

“Should I go get a condom?” he asks, voice so low it’s almost a growl. 

“I have some,” you tell him, rolling away from him and sliding your nightstand drawer open. You lay on your stomach so you can use both hands to rip a new one from the strip, and Namjoon rises to his knees behind you, one hand tracing the curve of your ass.

You reach over your shoulder to hand him the foil packet, and you’re startled by his phone light again when he turns it on so he can see what he’s doing. His phone lays on the bed, illuminating him from below, and you take a minute to take in how good he looks. You’d had no idea he had that body under his sweaters and baggy t-shirts. 

He turns the light off again, the darkness surprising you with its intensity all over again. Your eyes are so busy trying to adjust again that you miss him moving until you feel his hands guiding you to lay back, his legs stretching between yours, his tip prodding your entrance as his lips find yours again.

“You’re okay?” he checks in a whisper, reaching down and squeezing himself at the base. 

You kiss him in answer, pressing your core against him, letting your body tell him yes, I’m fine, yes, I’m ready.

He rocks into you slowly, an inch at a time, and the sensation tears a low, long groan from you. It mingles with his own; he breathes through his mouth in short pants, tinged with half-formed moans, until he bottoms out and he stills. 

“Give me just a second,” you request, whispering, and he nods, running a hand reverently down your face, down your side, coming to rest under your ass, hitching you up slightly as he adjusts. You hiss as the movement forces him just a touch deeper as you struggle to relax. 

He kisses you again, deeply and sweetly, and as you grip his shoulders and feel yourself relax, you start to move, little bits at a time.

“Okay,” you whisper, when you’re ready. “Thanks.”

He scoffs, like it’s ridiculous of you to be thanking him, but he starts to move. It’s slow, and even though you can barely see him you get the feeling that his eyes are on you. In the amplified silence, each breath seems to echo between you, each tiny moan or hitch of breath coming through loud and clear. You kiss sloppily, your hands exploring as he keeps the slow rhythm. His cockhead drags against you, the feeling agonizingly sweet, and you arch against him, trying to bring him closer.

The rain beats against the windows in waves as he fucks you slowly, like it wants in, like it has a score to settle. You press fingertips gently to Namjoon’s face, blindly feeling your way to the flat of his cheekbone, down to his jaw. Everything feels so intense, your fingers shake a little as they trace his jawline, reverent. 

“Namjoon,” you whisper, and he answers you by sheathing himself completely, pressing his mouth to yours, and doubling the pace. He’s so large, it feels like he’s everywhere - inside you, around you, above you, everywhere. 

You cry out when he finds an angle that has you seeing stars with each stroke, and he grunts, working hard to keep hitting it the same way. You lock your legs around the back of his thighs, trying to keep him close. You cling to his shoulder with one hand and tangle the other in his hair, holding tight as he pounds into you. When he feels you start to pulse around him, the beginning of an orgasm starting to build up, he actually laughs, once.

“Close, baby?” he asks, reaching down to press his thumb against your clit.

“Y-yeah,” you gasp, the feeling of electricity racing clear down to your toes. “Joon, please, oh - god -.”

He hums, pleased, and shifts you so he’s holding you up by the hips, the angle changing just slightly.

“Ohmygod, yes,” you cry, and the circles he’s been rubbing into your clit suddenly send you flying, your eyes screwing shut, a single, wordless wail leaving you as every muscle in your body goes taut.

“Fuck,” Namjoon hisses as you squeeze around him, dropping his forehead onto yours and gasping your name as he spills into the condom inside you. He pumps into you a few more times as your muscles relax by degrees, pressing a chaste kiss to your temple.

You lay tangled together for a few minutes, both breathing hard. Namjoon slips out of you gingerly and shifts like he’s going to get up. You kiss him quickly, before he can get too far, and he stills, letting you.

When you’re content, he disappears into the bathroom, dealing with the condom and cleaning up. He returns with a damp cloth for you, turning the light on his phone back off again when you’re done.

In the total darkness, he pulls you close. You rest your head against his chest, his arms around you, and listen to his heart. Despite the storm and the power-outage, you’ve never felt so safe. You can’t imagine ever feeling anything else while he’s wrapped around you like this.

“You called me baby,” you tease after a little while, and he snickers.

“It just slips out,” he laments, and you can hear the smile in his voice. “Sex makes me… affectionate. I have trouble untangling the two.”

You hum against him. “I think I like that,” you observe, and he hugs you a little tighter.

You’re starting to drift off when he says your name again. 

“Hm?”

“I promise this isn’t the post-sex chemicals talking,” he says carefully. “But I wanted you to know. I think… I’m really falling for you.”

You press your lips together, wrap an arm around his middle and hold him close. Your chest feels like it’s caving in, your eyes suddenly burn, you can’t inhale.

Because you’ve felt it, too. And you don’t know what to do with it.

He takes your silence the wrong way. “You don’t have to - don’t feel pressure to say anything -.”

“No,” you say quickly. “I promise, it’s very much not that. I’ve… maybe been thinking the same thing. It’s just… scary. You know?”

He presses his lips to the top of your head. “Yeah,” he says. “It can be. But I’m here. We’re in it together, okay?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, tangling your feet in his legs, searching for a warm spot for your chilly toes. “Okay.”

Sunday December 2nd

The lights come on hours before dawn, your lamp illuminating the room in a yellow glow, your laptop dinging as it starts to receive charge again, your alarm clock numbers flashing 12:00 over and over again. You lay there, still, coming to your senses by degrees. 

Namjoon is still in bed with you; you can feel his body, warm and solid, behind you. Minutes pass and it becomes clear by his steady deep breathing that the lights aren’t going to wake him up. You roll slowly, trying not to disturb him. He’s sleeping on his back, his face turned away from you, one arm flung up over his head. You feel yourself smile as you look at him. 

There’s not a doubt in your mind that you want this, that you want him - wholly, completely, without boundaries or limitations. There’s not a doubt in your mind that the way he treats you - the way he gives you such openness and understanding, the way he listens and asks questions, the way he hears you and cares for you - is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. When you’re with him, you feel like he’s by your side, like he’s got you. 

And while Taehyung had been physically next to you for the last seventeen or so years of your life, it’s never felt like this. 

You scoot closer, lining your body up against his side, and reach an arm over his stomach, pulling yourself as tight to him as you can and laying your head on his chest. In his sleep, he shifts, sensing the difference, the arm that was over his head coming down over your back and pulling you in. Then his head lolls back to your side, his eyelids fluttering. He reaches to press a kiss to the top of your head, and then flops back down against your pillow.

“Lights’re back?” he tries to ask, the words slurring together with sleep.

“Mhm,” you answer. “Do you want me to get up and turn the lamp off?”

“No,” he says, voice low and scratchy. “Stay.” Then he reaches over, guiding your chin up gently so he can lean down and kiss you again. 

You open for him immediately, leaning up on an elbow to reach him better. It’s different this time - slow and sensual, explorative, relaxed. There’s no rush, no pressure for it to go further. His fingers run through your hair once, twice, then release it, skimming down your bare back instead. You realize with a shiver that you hadn’t gotten up to find pajamas in the dark. 

He keeps you warm anyway, his hands roaming your back, your arms, your ass, your back again. You have a lot of things you want to tell him, but you save them, store them for later, as your body responds to his touch and you give yourself to him again. When he pants your name against your lips you feel the words bubbling up inside you, beating against doors to be let out, but you lose them along with your senses when he tips you over the edge again.

You clean up better after this time, waddling to the bathroom to pee and then stopping at your dresser to pull out pajamas. Namjoon hovers near your bed, clearly unsure if he should head to his own side of the apartment or not.

You scoff at him, like he should know better. “Get back in that bed,” you demand teasingly, and he listens, running a hand through his messy hair and looking around like he’s a little dazed, a little unsure of how he got here. 

You click the lamp off and make your way back to him. 

He wraps his arms around you immediately, and you eventually fall asleep matching your breaths to his slow ones.

Wednesday December 5th

I know my many failings I just can’t be the girl I should But I hope you know despite this In my life, you’re everything good

It’s certainly not good writing, and you have zero intention of turning this in for anything - zero intention of another living soul ever seeing it. But it feels good to put the words to paper.

You close the notebook when Gloria and another girl from class join your table. You’ve been assigned the task of workshopping your classmates’ portfolios as the semester crawls to a close, and today you’re meant to sit around and talk through your notes with each other.

“I want to go first,” you say immediately. “Gloria, you are out of your mind.”

Gloria beams, knowing exactly what you’re referring to.

“Catch me up?” the third girl, Sharmin, asks.

“Gloria’s entire portfolio is in iambic pentameter,” you tell her dryly. “Honestly, Gloria, I’ve got to know why.”

Gloria giggles. “Okay, okay - it really was just for the challenge. Like, it’s super great that poetry is all no rules but sometimes the challenge of saying what you’re trying to say within the framework of existing rules is… kind of fun?” 

“I shall call you The Bard. Or maybe Bardess,” you joke. 

The three of you move on to discuss the actual content of Gloria’s portfolio and then Sharmin’s - asking questions, noting lines you really liked, pointing out patterns and themes and hedging guesses on their meanings.

Finally, it’s your turn. 

“Your voice is really sharp,” Sharmin compliments you. “I mean… maybe I don’t mean sharp. Clear? Crisp? Something like that.”

“I thought so too,” Gloria agrees. She pulls up a document on her laptop, referring to some notes she took. “I also noticed - and really liked - that while your topics were all different from each other, you had this recurring theme of life and death.”

You stare at her blankly. “I do?”

She gives you a sideways smile; it’s not uncommon for you two to pick things up in each other’s writing that you hadn’t noticed.

“Sure,” she says, and her finger goes to her screen as she reads a few examples, “Who would try to fight the tide, / the dark, the depth, the chill? That’s from your first one. 

“Then, the second one: On Sundays I leave stones / atop marble markers to memorialize / those that you and I chose / to leave unturned. That whole entire poem is about a graveyard, so, yeah.”

“Oh! And your latest one!” Sharmin adds. “Where you’re, like, growing bones in your chest?”

You cover your face. “It sounds so dumb like that.”

But even as you’re speaking, other lines spring into your head:

Autumn leaves me hollow.

but my feet itch and beg to go, / into the night where the wolfpack hunts, / into the storm of wind and snow.

Nothing grows here that isn’t dead.

Gloria’s right. You do have a recurring theme about death.

You hadn’t realized. You hadn’t known you were weaving this single thread through everything you put to paper.

What you did know, the part you were aware of was that every one of those poems was about Taehyung.

You press your fingers over your mouth and take a slow, steadying breath. Somehow, everything hurts. It feels like you’re coming apart. It feels like your sutures have been cut too soon as you wrestle with this truth laid out for you:

Every metaphor you ever wrote with Taehyung in mind was somehow connected to death.

Like something inside you knew, long before you did, that whatever was between you was dead before it started. 

Like something inside you knew that no matter how many words you devoted to him, you could never breathe life into it. 

Like something in you knew the situation had a failure to thrive from the very beginning. 

“And life?” you finally manage to ask through your fingers. But you already know every line you wrote about what comes next, about moving forward, about better possibilities.

If autumn can’t make me happy, / I wonder if winter might.

I know despite the dangers, / I can’t afford to stay inside.

This one, they say, will live.

And, most recently - that the girls hadn’t even seen, in my life, you’re everything good.

You didn’t need someone to point these lines out to you. You knew exactly what you’d been writing about - Namjoon, and the way his very presence seemed to represent the promise of something better. 

–

You hustle home after class, walking so fast that you actually get your heart-rate up. Inside, you drop your bag on the ground and call Namjoon’s name, crossing the living room.

“Yeah?” he calls back, turning at his desk, but you’ve already entered his room, approaching him at a clip.

He’s got about a hundredth of a second to look surprised before you’re kissing him, hands coming up to cup his face firmly. He leans up to meet you, grunting with happy surprise, his hands coming to rest on your forearms.

When you break away, he smiles at you quizzically. “What was that for?”

You shake your head, indicating that you know your reasons are silly. “Because I wanted to,” you tell him truthfully. “Because I like you, and I missed you today, and….”

And you’re everything good.

“And I’m just… happy to be with you,” you finish lamely, nibbling with your bottom lip, a nervous habit.

He slides one hand down your arm and takes your hand. His smile softens from something teasing into something sweet, those dimples winking at you.

“Well,” he says, looking up at you, “speaking of how much you like me… you don’t have class on Friday, right? What about work?”

Friday is a day off at the university - some kind of training day for staff. 

“Nope,” you say. “Kris is on, not me. Why, what’s happening?”

Namjoon’s hand goes to the back of his neck. “I, uh,” he says, a little bashfully, “I wanted to take you out. Like, for the day. On a date. I had some ideas.”

You press your lips together, trying to fight back the smile that’s breaking across your face. 

“Yeah,” you say, your voice coming out small. “That sounds really nice. On Friday?”

“Mhm,” he says, his smile growing cockier now that you’ve said yes. “Wear comfortable shoes. And something warm - it’s supposed to snow a little.”

You’re still practically fighting the pleased smile off your face with a broom. “Okay, I will,” you tell him. You feel like you need to get out of there so you can squeal and hop around and maybe text Kris. “I’m gonna go change. Come hang out if you want?”

You tap his wall twice in goodbye and head to your room, closing the door while you change into sweatpants and a hoodie. You’re aware that he’s seen you naked now, but it still feels necessary. You text Kris as you change, and they send you back a row of exclamation points and a “#TeamDimples!”. You send them back an eye-roll and head to the living room couch. 

–

[5:22 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: i’m going into the city friday to do some holiday shopping [5:22 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: you in? [5:23 PM] You: i have plans already :( i’m sorry [5:25 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: we could come back early [5:26 PM] You: my thing’s all day :(  [5:29 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: ok [5:30 PM] You: sorry tete :(  [5:34 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: it’s fine. dinner tonight? [5:35 PM] You: only if i dont have to walk my ass back to campus… [5:37 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: youre such a complainer 🙄 [5:37 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: i’ll pick you up

You chew on your pinky nail, staring at your phone screen. Do you need to see if Namjoon has dinner plans? Do you need his permission to go eat with Taehyung?

You don’t know the rules to this middle-ground you’re in. 

But in light of everything you figured out today, you err on the safe side.

Namjoon’s in the kitchen, opening a beer by the sound of it. When he wanders back through the living room, you catch his eye.

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately. You must look worried. 

“Is it… um… Taehyung wants to grab dinner on campus. Are you - can - ?”

Understanding dawns on Namjoon’s face, and he comes over, sitting on the couch next to you and setting his beer on the coffee table. 

“You don’t need to ask me before you spend time with your friends,” he says seriously. “Even that friend. You said you’re in this… so, I trust you.”

It’s such a simple thing, but it almost chokes you up. “Okay,” you whisper, so your voice won’t break. “And you’ll be okay? You can order or something?”

“I fed myself for years before we lived together,” he reminds you gently. 

“Yeah, okay,” you say, feeling a little foolish. “So, I’ll see you after dinner?”

He gives your hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll be here,” he promises.

–

At dinner, surrounded by noisy groups of other students, you and Taehyung each pick at your plates, chatting in between bites. 

Finally, as you scrape some sauce absently around your plate, he shoots you a baleful look. “I’ve really missed you lately,” he says, voice low.

Your stomach sinks. “I’ve been here, Taehyung,” you protest. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

“I know,” he says. “I know that. It just feels like we don’t talk as much anymore.”

You twist your lips to the side. There’s truth to what he’s saying, and you know it. 

“If you want to talk to me, talk to me,” you insist. “Nothing’s different.”

He looks at you flatly. “You know that isn’t true.”

“I love you, Tete,” you tell him, and it’s the first time you’ve said it to him without feeling like you’re hiding layers, slipping secrets between the vowels. “I’m right here. I promise.”

He purses his lips, looks away from you. “What’s new with you?” he asks, finally. He must have been thinking about how little he’s asked you that, over the past few months, how happy he was to let you exist just outside his orbit. “Have you heard from Lin lately?”

You fill him in on what you can - Lin, Kris and the bookstore, even finally telling him a bit about your thesis work on St. Vincent Millay’s anthology. He tells you about a fight he had with Jimin, about how he almost failed a required biology class this semester, how his mom had the flu last week but is doing better now.

He doesn’t mention dating, so neither do you.

The guilt eats at you all night long, even after you’ve gone to bed. You lay in the dark, your stomach hurting with it.

You’re not sure if you feel bad because you and Taehyung aren’t supposed to keep secrets, or if it’s because you know you’ve done Namjoon wrong by keeping quiet.

Both, you decide sometime around two in the morning. You text Namjoon, “are you asleep?” He answers almost immediately, “almost. you ok?”

You brace yourself and send, “can i come over there?”

When he sends back, “please do” you grab your phone charger and make your way across the dark living room, lit only by the streetlights outside. You make your way into Namjoon’s room, into his bed, into his embrace. You fall asleep between his arms, feeling entirely like the least deserving person alive. 

Friday December 7th

You follow Namjoon’s directions on Friday, wearing something warm, and sneakers. But when you head for the kitchen in the morning - he’d told you to be ready early - there’s no Namjoon in sight.

“Namjoon?” you call through the quiet apartment. “Hello?”

There’s no answer. You pull out your phone, ready to text him, when you hear footsteps and then the jangle of keys outside the front door. 

Namjoon comes in sideways, shouldering the door open, a tray with two coffees in his hand.

“I tried to get back before you were up,” he says sheepishly.

“We have coffee here,” you say in answer, trying to catch up to whatever is going on.

He gives you a mischievous smile. “We have a train to catch. We needed them to be to-go. You ready?”

It’s cold out; you’re immediately glad for your big puffy coat and the scarf around your neck. You walk with your hot coffee in one hand and Namjoon’s hand in your other. The walk to the train station is only minutes, and soon you’re standing on the platform, peering in the direction that the train should come in from. When the wind picks up, you scoot closer to Namjoon, scavenging for body heat. He smiles down at you and gives your hand a squeeze.

When the train rushes in and the doors slide open, Namjoon lets you go first as you step out of the cold and head down the corridor, looking for two empty seats. You find one in the second car you walk through, and you slide over to the window seat. You both settle in, rearranging heavy coats and coffee cups.

“How long are we on for?” you ask Namjoon. He’s refused to tell you anything about the day, wanting it to all be a surprise. 

“Around half an hour,” he tells you, and offers you an earpod. Quiet beats fill your ear as the train starts to move, buildings rushing past faster and faster until they give way to the browns and greens of less urban areas. 

Namjoon taps your thigh when your stop comes, and you slide out and follow him towards the doors and back into the sharp, December air. 

“Where are we?” you ask, as the train pulls away. Namjoon waves a hand at the train station’s sign, which reads the name of a quiet town west of your university. You’ve never been here before, but you know of it. 

Namjoon leads you by the hand away from the train station and towards town. You spend the morning ducking in and out of little niche shops, a few art galleries, and one extremely cluttered antique store just for the hell of it. You talk the whole time - pointing out funny items, telling stories when something sparks a memory, joking and laughing quietly.

Around lunchtime, you stop on the sidewalk. Snow flurries drift down around you; not enough to stick, just enough to get caught in hair and eyelashes.

“What do you feel like eating?” he asks you, blowing on his fingers to warm them. “There are actually a lot of decent options along here.”

“Somewhere warm,” you joke, and he gives you an indulgent smile. Then he wraps an arm around your shoulders as you continue up the street, reading a few menus until you settle on a little cafe. You share a hot meal, watching the snow fall lazily outside. 

“What else do you have planned?” you ask curiously, as you finish up eating.

“One more stop,” he says. “It’s the piece de resistance of the day.”

“Ooh,” you say, eyes wide. “Can’t wait.”

Namjoon pays and you zip yourselves back into your coats, heading back into the snow. He leads you, to your surprise, off the main strip and down a narrow side-street. A weathered sign swings in the winter wind, the paint so chipped and peeled that you can’t read it anymore.

He pulls the door open and holds it for you as you step through the threshold of the most beautiful antique bookstore you’ve ever seen.

“Oh, my gosh,” you whisper, reverent, eyes scanning the walls of shelves, the tables, the stuffed armchairs. 

“I know you love books as much as I do,” Namjoon’s low voice says, close to your ear. “I wasn’t sure if you love old books as much as I do.”

“I do,” you breathe, running a hand just above the covers of the displayed novels to your right. 

You walk together through the display tables, deeper into the belly of the shop. The register is currently unmanned, a little bell on the counter meant to summon whoever operates it. 

“I have an idea,” you say to Namjoon, looking over your shoulder to smile up at him. “Let’s play a game?”

One of his eyebrows jumps. “What kind of game?”

A giggle erupts from you, and you try to stifle it. “Not that kind. Let’s shop alone. I’ll pick out three for you, you pick out three for me. Then we can meet back here in… twenty minutes? Or so? Then we can swap.”

Namjoon’s smile is open and wide, practically taking up his whole face. “I like it. Twenty minutes? I’ll set a timer on my phone.”

You go in separate directions as you browse. At one point you have six books in your arms, and you stop and set them down, examining their spines for which you should keep and which you should put back. The smell of old pages permeates the air, along with something Christmas-y - pine, maybe a touch of peppermint. You make your way further into the store, climbing a set of open, metal stairs that lead to a balcony of sorts, with more shelves at the top. 

You can see Namjoon down below, crouching next to a shelf, his finger tracing the spines of the books on the bottom shelf, clearly looking for something specific. You smile softly, watching him. Then you bustle on to the next section you’re interested in.

When your phone buzzes in your pocket that your twenty minutes are up, you make your way back down to the spot you’d chosen to meet back up. You hold the books behind your back, smiling. 

He does the same. “Trade on three?” he asks. “One… two… three!”

You hand him the stack and he hands his books over to you. You can’t help the smile that spreads across your face as you read the titles. You’d both done the same thing without knowing - one fiction, one non-fiction, one poetry. 

“I think we spend too much time together,” Namjoon jokes, faking solemnity. 

“Agreed,” you say, grinning up at him. “What do you say we buy what we want to buy and go across to that coffee shop to read?” You point out the window, eyeing the coffee shop across the street. 

“I like this plan,” he tells you happily, and takes your hand to lead you to the register. 

The coffee shop is a good choice - it’s got a fireplace on one wall, and you and Namjoon manage to score a small table not too far from the circle of warmth. Just as he had on the train, he hands you an earpod, and you spend several hours easily - chatting some, reading, watching the snow out the window.

You haven’t felt this at peace, this understood by somebody, perhaps ever in your life.

It gets dark early, making it feel late at night when it’s still early evening. Namjoon holds you close as you walk back down main street, back in the direction of the train station. Halfway down the block he stops, looking down at you, something warm in his gaze.

“What?” you ask. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

He doesn’t answer, just leans down to kiss you sweetly, his thumb stroking your jaw whisper-soft. 

You’re sleepy the second you sit down on the train. You lean against Namjoon’s shoulder, eyes heavy. You’re not sure if you actually drift off or not, when Namjoon gasps beside you.

“What?” you ask, sitting back up. He looks back at you, eyes wide, clearly horrified. “What? What happened?”

“I’m so sorry,” he blurts out, eyes flashing to his phone and then back to you. The panic in his voice is evident. “Y/N, I’m so sorry.”

“What happened?” you repeat, feeling your own nerves start to tingle. 

“I texted the wrong group chat…” he says quietly, still sounding horrified. “Fuck, I’m so fucking stupid. I’m so sorry. I thought it was the one with only Yoongi and Hobi…”

He turns his screen to show you. The groupchat is clearly the one with all the guys, the bubbles at the top numerous. 

[6:02 PM] Hoseok: Namjoon you’ve been quiet all day

[6:03 PM] Hoseok: what’s the story?

[6:05 PM] Namjoon: took y/n on a date today to that antique bookstore 😊

[6:09 PM] Seokjin: wait….. taehyung’s y/n?

[6:09 PM] Jungkook: OOP-

Your stomach sinks. “Oh, my god,” you say, eyes on his phone screen. 

“I’m so sorry,” he repeats, sounding pained.

“No, it’s okay,” you say automatically, even though it probably isn’t. You take a deep breath, rub a hand over your face. “He was going to find out eventually. And, honestly, I didn’t want it to be a secret forever, you know? This isn’t… this is real, it’s not a stupid friends-with-benefits thing, it deserves to… be.”

You trail off, not sure what you mean, but Namjoon leans forward, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you close. 

“I’m still sorry,” he murmurs into your hair.

“It’s okay,” you tell him. “It really is.”

On your lap, your phone buzzes.

[6:12 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: wow.

Sunday December 9th

You try for two days to get Taehyung to answer you. He ignores text after text, call after call.

On the first day, you feel terrible. You’re sure he’s feeling betrayed, confused, hurt.

By the second day, you’re pissed. 

[9:57 PM] You: taehyung, please talk to me

[11:08 PM] You: tete. please?

[12:33 AM] You: seriously, can you answer?

[9:41 AM] You: morning. Can we talk today please?

[2:12 PM] You: the silent treatment’s getting old. Pick up.

[5:57 PM] You: i’d LIKE to apologize to you in person but its kind of hard when you’re ignoring me!!!

[8:49 PM] You: fine, i’ll do it this way [8:54 PM] You: i’m sorry i didn’t tell you. I’m sorry you found out that way. [8:56 PM] You: for what it’s worth, we aren’t like…… officially official or anything [8:57 PM] You: it’s been heading that way, yeah, but…. not yet [8:59 PM] You: i think… telling you would have made it realer, and i didn’t know if it was real enough for that yet [9:03 PM] You: and if i’m being honest… i didn’t know how to tell you

[9:32 PM] Tae Bear 🧸: can i come over

Relief floods through you so heavy that you exhale everything inside you, eyes closing, head sagging towards your chest, the hand holding your phone going limp. Namjoon looks over at you from his side of the couch. 

“He answered?” he asks. 

“He’s coming over,” you confirm, typing in an answer to Taehyung. “You don’t mind, right? I owe him some answers.”

“No,” he says evenly. “I don’t mind. Do you want me to… I mean, I’m just thinking of when I talked with Elyse. Would me being there… help? Or make it worse?”

You let out a bitter laugh. “It’d help me tremendously,” you admit. “But I think it’d make it worse for him. Thank you, though. I appreciate the thought.”

“Okay,” he says quietly, and reaches out to give your hand a squeeze. “Well, you know where to find me.”

Outside, the December night is cold, but dry, the air tickling your throat on its way to and from your lungs. 

“Listen,” you say softly. You and Taehyung are sitting side by side, a foot apart, on the stairs in front of your apartment. The stone step feels like a slab of absolute ice underneath you, but you can’t care about that right now. “I’m sorry it happened like this. I was trying… I was trying not to let anything change between us.”

Taehyung doesn’t answer, just stares at the road. From the side, you can see the tightness in his face, the clench of his jaw, the movement of his throat as he swallows. You’ve known him almost your whole life. You can read him like a book.

He’s hurting.

He’s trying to pretend he’s not.

“I mean,” you continue, your heart aching, “you never tell me about your girls.”

“That’s different,” he croaks. 

“How?” you ask softly. “How is this different?”

“I wasn’t actually dating any of them,” he says.

It’s not the whole reason, and you both know it. 

“So, what is this?” he asks. “Is he your boyfriend now?” He positively sneers the word.

This stops you. You don’t know how to answer. Technically, no. But essentially… yes. You just hadn’t talked it through yet. “He… I…”

Taehyung stands suddenly, shoves his hands in his pockets, paces to the curb and back. “Well?” he demands, facing you. The hurt is practically dropping from him, and you’re reeling to fight the instinct to make it better, reeling trying to determine at lightning speed if you’ve actually done something wrong.

“Not technically,” you whisper. 

He stands there, surrounded by the dark, staring you down, his face more serious than you’ve ever seen it. You stand too, taking a few steps to stop before him. 

“What does this mean for us?” Taehyung asks. His voice breaks on ‘us’. “What are we now?”

You reach out, fingers skimming along his arm, wanting to comfort. “Taehyung, it doesn’t mean anything for us. We’ll be the same as we’ve always been.”

You watch it cross his face as he decides to make you prove it, but you don’t have enough time to react before he’s doing the thing you’d day-dreamed of time after time after time - before you knew Namjoon. He’s closing the gap between you, his hand curling in the fabric of your jacket, his lips finding yours, searching for something that three months ago he probably would have found. 

–

Upstairs, Namjoon can’t let go of the uneasy feeling in his stomach. He can’t get that day with Elyse out of his head - how his eyes had found yours and he’d felt steady, had literally felt the fist of anxiety loosen on his lungs. What if you needed him out there? Finally, he can’t take it anymore. He crosses the living room and peeks out the window, just to gauge how it’s going - he’s sure he can read your expression or your body language enough to tell if you’re okay or not.

He leans over, looking out, and the blood in his arms and legs turns in an instant to ice.

Outside on the sidewalk, you’re kissing Taehyung. His dark hair hangs over your face, where one of his hands rests. Your bodies are impossibly close together, seeming to meld into one in the shadows.

He stumbles away from the window, trying to get away from it, but the image burns in his brain. He makes his way blindly back towards his bedroom. His heart pounds, and he finds himself nauseous, his eyes suddenly burning like he’s walked through smoke. 

“Fuck,” he hisses, punching his doorframe. Then he slams his door shut, and locks it for good measure. 

He should’ve known, he thinks. He should’ve seen this coming from day one. 

Elyse had made him feel stupid, yeah. 

But it was nothing like this.

<- Prev || Next ->

I'M GOING INTO HIDING BYE!!!!!!! <3

love y'all thanks for reading!!!

[starwrighter]

1/?? Halloween prompt

I’ve got brain rot for creepy Deadserious content but only when it’s only seen as creepy by outsiders. (I know I’m writing a fic with a similar plot but it’s different I swear! Also my grammar is shit because I’m getting dental work done tomorrow and I’m nervous) Tw for stalker behavior

So Damian has a crush on Danny and immediately goes about acting on these feelings much to onlookers horror. Danny is swooning because someone made the effort to do a background check on him. Danny thinks Damian doing this is really smart because, he could be a serial killer for ancients sake why would you risk that? Others say this is a horrible invasion of privacy.

Damian not realizing he's being creepy (being liminal and being an ex assassin, turned vigilante wasn't doing him any favors) Plus Danny also not realizing it's creepy unless you relay Damian behavior towards him with different names.

Damian's just being a textbook stalker, breaking into his house and shit and Danny's all like "awwww he likes me" because this is just normal ghostly courting rituals! His dormroom isn't his lair so Damian breaking in doesn't feel like he's violating any sort of boundary. To him it's like a friend showing up at the coffee shop you work at to say hi.

Danny's had stalkers before, he's very cautious of his behavior to insure he never stalked anyone. Being stalked back in Amity was a horrific experience for him. From cameras in the locker rooms at school (wes) to cameras in his bathroom and bedroom at home (Vlad)! He couldn't feel safe anywhere! To Danny Damian's not a stalker, he's his protector. Nobody seems to understand when he tries to explain this though they just look at him like he's lost his mind.

Damian’s not subtle at all and Danny’s kicking his feet like a lovesick school girl who found out her crush likes her back. Overall it’s super cute from their points of view Damian’s planning an official confession to ask him on a date while Danny’s trying to figure out if Damian actually likes him or is just being nice. They’re just doing normal couple things but people just jump and attack Damian’s character while painting Danny as some kind of brainwashed victim.

The thing is… Danny’s become very good at appearing normal while Damian refuses to pretend to be a bumbling idiot like the rest of his family. He also refuses to dull down his personality for anything other than secret identity reasons. For these reasons since their relationship had become public, Damian had been painted by the media as a creepy possessive boyfriend who threatened Danny into a relationship. This infuriates Danny, the only one doing any kind of possession is him god damn it!

They want to be around each other all the time and that’s normal behavior for ghost/liminal couples! They live much longer than regular humans do they’re like elves, their perceptions of time are messed up. They still spend time apart they still have hobbies and an independent life, people just get hung up on the amount of time they do spend together. It’s normal behavior for them to know mountains of information about each others interests to the point they almost know more than each other. It’s normal to know each other’s schedules and background check the people they associate with. (The realms are very dangerous with shapeshifters and manipulators like spectra and Desiree who can ruin your afterlife in a matter of minutes) Their relationship is creepy to those who haven’t gone to extremes to survive.

Damian has taken to ignoring the reputation press has given him. He’s dealt with paparazzi and tabloids before it’s just frustrating to deal with. It’s when people start accusing him of hurting his beloved that really pisses him off.

(Bonus if Danny’s the one frothing at the mouth to maul a reporter while they try to paint him as a poor innocent victim)

I’mma end the prompt with this so everyone understands why Damian specifically being targeted by press. The more liminal you are the more creepy/uncanny you appear to other people and the more effort you have to put in to hide it. It’s why the bats are more believed to be Eldritch creatures than actual humans in suits. Surprisingly becoming a Halfa completely changes this effect to do the complete opposite. It’s easier for the human brain to look at a halfa and think “Innocent or normal,” Vlad and Danny were morons when it came to actually hiding their identity’s it was only their statuses as halfa’s that prevented people from comprehending them being anything other than normal.

In short Damian’s too dead to be perceived as normal while Danny’s too alive to be perceived as anything other than normal.

[blanket-burrito-protocol]

The 50th anniversary of AIMs (American Indian Movement's) occupation at Wounded Knee is coming up, so the Lakota People's Law Project is leading another push to free an AIM activist who was wrongly convicted of killing two federal agents in 1975- Leonard Peltier. He was convicted on false evidence and false testimony and sentenced to two life sentences. He is now 78.

LPL has a formatted email up on their website now which you can personalize and send to Biden to ask for clemency. (Please personalize emails like this so it doesn't get filtered as spam. Just move some words around, add some, take some, you don't have to write a whole email.) Please pass this around.

[meku95]

[MORE FED WORKERS + PLUS]

Another set of workers that we seeing the QSMP streams federation lore

And

Prison Island guards are interesting since they can speak.

Eye soldiers since they nuclear abomination, corrupted by overseer too

Shadow workers, since they are from the nether....

And

Walter bob and Elena theory

With some headcanons they get separeted when they join the federation in different departments

[infinitecyanroses]

It's funny how in the promo for this prison event, they made it look like they were locking everyone up for legitimate crimes when really what happened was the Feds realized they need to keep the islanders away from the eye workers so they wouldn't spill any secrets to them or cause anymore trouble while they tried to do damage control but they already ran out of options to relocated them to. Egg island was hijacked by a cyclops that traumatized and forced the islanders to kill each other and after that they probably realized any other remote location they could send them to could be compromised as well. So what secure space do the Feds have left to send the islanders to? One max security prison. Yeah that might be screwed up and certainly kill any credit they have left with the islanders but hey, at least it's secure! The islanders were already calling the original island a prison anyway, might as well show them what a real one is like! Plus what better way to closely monitor them all and conduct experiments on their psyches then by committing to the bit with security guards, prison jumpsuits and everything! Besides, with all the available islanders securely locked up, none of them can kill more workers or infiltrate their offices. Might as well keep the eggs there too so they aren't a security risk and bring back egg tasks so the islanders are more invested to stay in the prison to provide for their eggs

[chiffsters]

gemstone zam infographic because i physically cannot contain my thoughts ignore the badly drawn hand i was rushing

[ricky-is-too-silly]

I love these sm

[taemcains]

what i find interesting about greg is that he's not written just to tick off another item in the golden retriever player whatever tiktok be saying trope checklist. though it's shown that he's charming many, many times and even how he uses it like a superpower, he's always maintained boundaries with the squad and strictly doesn't mess around. it's constantly mentioned that he doesn't see anyone that way, anyone except lane and he shows it through subtly reassuring her every chance he gets.

tldr greg girlies... let me in

[bitcell]

everyone freaking out over the theories of roier being part of the federation and how cellbit would divorce roier when he found out, just for cellbit to be like "damn, me too, except they torture me with chainsaws and they give u flowers, anyway here's how we're going to manipulate them together"

[lilybug-02]

Hey lily, how're you doing with the current "Texas situation"? Because that shit is so fuckin dumb

Greg Abbot is a piece of shit Governor. Literally so many things are going wrong in Texas that I didn't even know what you were referring to. I looked up the news and currently its about the Texas-Mexican Border Dispute. [News Article]

"The fight between Texas and the federal government over the control of the US-Mexico border has further intensified after state governor Greg Abbott announced he will defy the Biden administration and US supreme court by ordering the installation of even more razor wire to deter migration." - Erum Salam, 26 Jan. 2024

Due to this, the Texas authorities actively allowed a woman and her two children to drown in the Rio Grande this month with witnesses. It is disciple to hear such disgusting acts in my state and they are not the only deaths. Many have died from being caught in the barbed wire or shot. Horrific things like this are not uncommon to hear about in these border areas. I do not want to scare people with this information, but I think it is important to understand.

RAICES is a good Texas-based nonprofit to donate for as they provide many free and low-cost services to immigrant children, families, and refugees.

[stingrachelmha]

One last kiss before you go

[villain-song]

i love you people

i love you world

we are afraid

but we must not be complacent

love each other

fight for one another

never ever give up

we will survive

we will live

keep imagining a better future

hold it in your hearts

one day there will be no fascism, no white supremacy, no patriarchy, no empire, no dispossession, no capitalism, no oppression, no racism, no cishetamatonormativity, no ableism, no unfree labor, no prisons, no billionaires, no destruction, no regimes of death

let's fight for a better world so that one day there will be clean air, clean water, clean lands, housing for all, healthcare for all, food for all, love instead of hate, unity, solidarity, caring communities, abolition, liberating education, the ability to do what we love, queer liberation, black liberation, liberation for all peoples, sunshine on our faces, life instead of survival, and so much more

loving and hope are happiness.

[linimoonlight]

This prison event is amazing!!! Yesterday was so much fun!!

We've been asking for therapy for so long now and i guess we now got therapy in prison... kinda. Maybe not what we meant by therapy but definitely what we needed. Maybe.

And of course i have to talk about fitpac. How has prison made them even more gay? I didnt think that was possible. Like how did Pac get all these rose bushes to give to Fit at any given moment? All the flirting going on constantly. Fit always reacting to the numerous amounts of time when Pac got downed. AND THE KISS, MARRY, KILL???? Where are my baby steps?? Like yeah we all knew these two are a little fucked up and we love them for it. Pac wanting to kill Fit and Fit kinda thinking thats hot was not too surprising. But Fit writing the words "Fuck Pac" on a sign adressed to his son was what really got me. FitMC the game was KISS, marry, kill! These two are gonna be the death of me and somehow prison made them worse /pos.

[crippled-peeper]

not anon pretending that the systematic disenfranchisement of disabled poor and black Americans is “anti Biden propaganda” and not just a lived fact for many people

[comradeboyhalo]

crazy how every islander is upset q!foolish imprisoned their friends (normal) while q!bad is only upset he's working for the federation and, more importantly, that he broke bestie code and didnt include him