#fleet week 2024

[lost-technology]

The Flowers and the Trees

Ace Trigun Week Prompt 1: Self-Discovery / What Makes Us Human Rem explains demi-sexuality to her twins.

The Flowers and the Trees “Do you think that I’ll meet someone like Alex someday?” Nai asked. Rem laughed softly.  “Maybe,” she said.  Vash and Nai were sitting on the grass with her, asking her for stories of Old Earth and about her past.  She was not forthcoming on most of it, but she could share bittersweet memories of her former lover. To her mild discomfort, they were asking other things, too – things that she could not have imagined in one-million years ever having to answer for children of eight months old… … But Vash and Nai were no ordinary children.  They were Generator-Plants in human-form growing from infancy to adolescence in the span of mere months. Questions were coming up fast.  Rem was unprepared for them.   Her lessons in language, science and culture were supplemented by the ship’s computers.  They could not know the intricacies of love and attraction yet, but they did know a great deal of dry science.  They knew terms such as “amniote” and “placental mammal.”  They knew that storks did not carry babies down to their mothers from Heaven, although they knew that they’d been given to Rem by a Plant. They knew by now that the people in frozen sleep aboard Project SEEDS were meant to settle a new world and to create new generations.  “Do you think you’ll ever have any kids besides us?” Vash asked.  “I mean, when all the people wake up, do you think you’ll meet someone and make some kids?”  Rem almost fell straight backwards.  It was a good thing she was sitting down already.  Good Lord these kids were forward!  “Why do you ask that?” she asked him, in turn.  Vash crossed his arms and pouted.  “The only other kid I have to play with around here is Nai.  I’d like some little brothers or sisters.”  “I’m not enough?” Nai protested.  “Oh, is that all?” Rem said.  She gently poked Vash on the tip of his nose.  “You both will have plenty of other children to play with before you know it!” “Well,” Vash added, leaning back with his hands braced on the dewy ground, “We’re also wondering about you, Rem.  You sound really happy when you talk about being in love.  I keep wondering if you’ll find someone and we’ll be like the families we see in some of the videos.” Rem sighed longingly and looked at the false blue sky above them.  “It is unlikely that I am going to give you two any siblings, And, no, Vash, I do not think it is likely that I am going to meet anyone who will be like Alex was for me.”    “I’m a little confused,” Nai confessed.  Rem put a gentle hand on his shoulder.  “Remember when I told you that there are all kinds of people?” The twins nodded. “Well, some humans don’t have the kind of attraction to each other that makes kids unless they have a deep, unshakable bond. They aren’t naturally as attracted to others as most people are.”  Vash screwed up his face in thought.  “Are you gay, Rem?”  Rem’s eyes went wide.  Nai burst out laughing and grabbed his belly.    Rem’s face fell into a glower.  Eight-month old children.  Asking very personal questions about her sex-life.  Where was the nearest airlock again?  The impromptu-mother took a deep breath.  “Boys,” she said, “It’s not as simple as that.” “So, what are you?” Vash asked, rapt.  “I don’t have the instincts that most other humans have,” Rem said, softly smiling, hoping she could get her words across.  “Some people call it asexual when you aren’t attracted to anyone physically – In my case, I found Alex and developed an attraction to him, so I am what is called demisexual.  I only had eyes for him. I don’t think I will find anyone like him on any world. I’m just not built like most people are.”  “I’m sorry, Rem.”  “You have nothing to be sorry for! You need to know these things! I’m fine, really. There are many ways of being a person. For me and for you.” 

[artisticdivasworld]

2024 Trucking Year in Review: Challenges, Victories, and the Road Ahead

This past year has been a whirlwind of news in the trucking industry, from regulatory shifts to technological advancements and economic challenges. Let’s take a step back and look at some of the major stories that shaped 2024 for truckers and trucking companies alike. One of the most talked-about developments this year was the ongoing push for stricter emissions regulations. The Environmental…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How I got scammed

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/05/cyber-dunning-kruger/#swiss-cheese-security

I wuz robbed.

More specifically, I was tricked by a phone-phisher pretending to be from my bank, and he convinced me to hand over my credit-card number, then did $8,000+ worth of fraud with it before I figured out what happened. And then he tried to do it again, a week later!

Here's what happened. Over the Christmas holiday, I traveled to New Orleans. The day we landed, I hit a Chase ATM in the French Quarter for some cash, but the machine declined the transaction. Later in the day, we passed a little credit-union's ATM and I used that one instead (I bank with a one-branch credit union and generally there's no fee to use another CU's ATM).

A couple days later, I got a call from my credit union. It was a weekend, during the holiday, and the guy who called was obviously working for my little CU's after-hours fraud contractor. I'd dealt with these folks before – they service a ton of little credit unions, and generally the call quality isn't great and the staff will often make mistakes like mispronouncing my credit union's name.

That's what happened here – the guy was on a terrible VOIP line and I had to ask him to readjust his mic before I could even understand him. He mispronounced my bank's name and then asked if I'd attempted to spend $1,000 at an Apple Store in NYC that day. No, I said, and groaned inwardly. What a pain in the ass. Obviously, I'd had my ATM card skimmed – either at the Chase ATM (maybe that was why the transaction failed), or at the other credit union's ATM (it had been a very cheap looking system).

I told the guy to block my card and we started going through the tedious business of running through recent transactions, verifying my identity, and so on. It dragged on and on. These were my last hours in New Orleans, and I'd left my family at home and gone out to see some of the pre-Mardi Gras krewe celebrations and get a muffalata, and I could tell that I was going to run out of time before I finished talking to this guy.

"Look," I said, "you've got all my details, you've frozen the card. I gotta go home and meet my family and head to the airport. I'll call you back on the after-hours number once I'm through security, all right?"

He was frustrated, but that was his problem. I hung up, got my sandwich, went to the airport, and we checked in. It was total chaos: an Alaska Air 737 Max had just lost its door-plug in mid-air and every Max in every airline's fleet had been grounded, so the check in was crammed with people trying to rebook. We got through to the gate and I sat down to call the CU's after-hours line. The person on the other end told me that she could only handle lost and stolen cards, not fraud, and given that I'd already frozen the card, I should just drop by the branch on Monday to get a new card.

We flew home, and later the next day, I logged into my account and made a list of all the fraudulent transactions and printed them out, and on Monday morning, I drove to the bank to deal with all the paperwork. The folks at the CU were even more pissed than I was. The fraud that run up to more than $8,000, and if Visa refused to take it out of the merchants where the card had been used, my little credit union would have to eat the loss.

I agreed and commiserated. I also pointed out that their outsource, after-hours fraud center bore some blame here: I'd canceled the card on Saturday but most of the fraud had taken place on Sunday. Something had gone wrong.

One cool thing about banking at a tiny credit-union is that you end up talking to people who have actual authority, responsibility and agency. It turned out the the woman who was processing my fraud paperwork was a VP, and she decided to look into it. A few minutes later she came back and told me that the fraud center had no record of having called me on Saturday.

"That was the fraudster," she said.

Oh, shit. I frantically rewound my conversation, trying to figure out if this could possibly be true. I hadn't given him anything apart from some very anodyne info, like what city I live in (which is in my Wikipedia entry), my date of birth (ditto), and the last four digits of my card.

Wait a sec.

He hadn't asked for the last four digits. He'd asked for the last seven digits. At the time, I'd found that very frustrating, but now – "The first nine digits are the same for every card you issue, right?" I asked the VP.

I'd given him my entire card number.

Goddammit.

The thing is, I know a lot about fraud. I'm writing an entire series of novels about this kind of scam:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

And most summers, I go to Defcon, and I always go to the "social engineering" competitions where an audience listens as a hacker in a soundproof booth cold-calls merchants (with the owner's permission) and tries to con whoever answers the phone into giving up important information.

But I'd been conned.

Now look, I knew I could be conned. I'd been conned before, 13 years ago, by a Twitter worm that successfully phished out of my password via DM:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

That scam had required a miracle of timing. It started the day before, when I'd reset my phone to factory defaults and reinstalled all my apps. That same day, I'd published two big online features that a lot of people were talking about. The next morning, we were late getting out of the house, so by the time my wife and I dropped the kid at daycare and went to the coffee shop, it had a long line. Rather than wait in line with me, my wife sat down to read a newspaper, and so I pulled out my phone and found a Twitter DM from a friend asking "is this you?" with a URL.

Assuming this was something to do with those articles I'd published the day before, I clicked the link and got prompted for my Twitter login again. This had been happening all day because I'd done that mobile reinstall the day before and all my stored passwords had been wiped. I entered it but the page timed out. By that time, the coffees were ready. We sat and chatted for a bit, then went our own ways.

I was on my way to the office when I checked my phone again. I had a whole string of DMs from other friends. Each one read "is this you?" and had a URL.

Oh, shit, I'd been phished.

If I hadn't reinstalled my mobile OS the day before. If I hadn't published a pair of big articles the day before. If we hadn't been late getting out the door. If we had been a little more late getting out the door (so that I'd have seen the multiple DMs, which would have tipped me off).

There's a name for this in security circles: "Swiss-cheese security." Imagine multiple slices of Swiss cheese all stacked up, the holes in one slice blocked by the slice below it. All the slices move around and every now and again, a hole opens up that goes all the way through the stack. Zap!

The fraudster who tricked me out of my credit card number had Swiss cheese security on his side. Yes, he spoofed my bank's caller ID, but that wouldn't have been enough to fool me if I hadn't been on vacation, having just used a pair of dodgy ATMs, in a hurry and distracted. If the 737 Max disaster hadn't happened that day and I'd had more time at the gate, I'd have called my bank back. If my bank didn't use a slightly crappy outsource/out-of-hours fraud center that I'd already had sub-par experiences with. If, if, if.

The next Friday night, at 5:30PM, the fraudster called me back, pretending to be the bank's after-hours center. He told me my card had been compromised again. But: I hadn't removed my card from my wallet since I'd had it replaced. Also, it was half an hour after the bank closed for the long weekend, a very fraud-friendly time. And when I told him I'd call him back and asked for the after-hours fraud number, he got very threatening and warned me that because I'd now been notified about the fraud that any losses the bank suffered after I hung up the phone without completing the fraud protocol would be billed to me. I hung up on him. He called me back immediately. I hung up on him again and put my phone into do-not-disturb.

The following Tuesday, I called my bank and spoke to their head of risk-management. I went through everything I'd figured out about the fraudsters, and she told me that credit unions across America were being hit by this scam, by fraudsters who somehow knew CU customers' phone numbers and names, and which CU they banked at. This was key: my phone number is a reasonably well-kept secret. You can get it by spending money with Equifax or another nonconsensual doxing giant, but you can't just google it or get it at any of the free services. The fact that the fraudsters knew where I banked, knew my name, and had my phone number had really caused me to let down my guard.

The risk management person and I talked about how the credit union could mitigate this attack: for example, by better-training the after-hours card-loss staff to be on the alert for calls from people who had been contacted about supposed card fraud. We also went through the confusing phone-menu that had funneled me to the wrong department when I called in, and worked through alternate wording for the menu system that would be clearer (this is the best part about banking with a small CU – you can talk directly to the responsible person and have a productive discussion!). I even convinced her to buy a ticket to next summer's Defcon to attend the social engineering competitions.

There's a leak somewhere in the CU systems' supply chain. Maybe it's Zelle, or the small number of corresponding banks that CUs rely on for SWIFT transaction forwarding. Maybe it's even those after-hours fraud/card-loss centers. But all across the USA, CU customers are getting calls with spoofed caller IDs from fraudsters who know their registered phone numbers and where they bank.

I've been mulling this over for most of a month now, and one thing has really been eating at me: the way that AI is going to make this kind of problem much worse.

Not because AI is going to commit fraud, though.

One of the truest things I know about AI is: "we're nowhere near a place where bots can steal your job, we're certainly at the point where your boss can be suckered into firing you and replacing you with a bot that fails at doing your job":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/15/passive-income-brainworms/#four-hour-work-week

I trusted this fraudster specifically because I knew that the outsource, out-of-hours contractors my bank uses have crummy headsets, don't know how to pronounce my bank's name, and have long-ass, tedious, and pointless standardized questionnaires they run through when taking fraud reports. All of this created cover for the fraudster, whose plausibility was enhanced by the rough edges in his pitch - they didn't raise red flags.

As this kind of fraud reporting and fraud contacting is increasingly outsourced to AI, bank customers will be conditioned to dealing with semi-automated systems that make stupid mistakes, force you to repeat yourself, ask you questions they should already know the answers to, and so on. In other words, AI will groom bank customers to be phishing victims.

This is a mistake the finance sector keeps making. 15 years ago, Ben Laurie excoriated the UK banks for their "Verified By Visa" system, which validated credit card transactions by taking users to a third party site and requiring them to re-enter parts of their password there:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090331094020/http://www.links.org/?p=591

This is exactly how a phishing attack works. As Laurie pointed out, this was the banks training their customers to be phished.

I came close to getting phished again today, as it happens. I got back from Berlin on Friday and my suitcase was damaged in transit. I've been dealing with the airline, which means I've really been dealing with their third-party, outsource luggage-damage service. They have a terrible website, their emails are incoherent, and they officiously demand the same information over and over again.

This morning, I got a scam email asking me for more information to complete my damaged luggage claim. It was a terrible email, from a noreply@ email address, and it was vague, officious, and dishearteningly bureaucratic. For just a moment, my finger hovered over the phishing link, and then I looked a little closer.

On any other day, it wouldn't have had a chance. Today – right after I had my luggage wrecked, while I'm still jetlagged, and after days of dealing with my airline's terrible outsource partner – it almost worked.

So much fraud is a Swiss-cheese attack, and while companies can't close all the holes, they can stop creating new ones.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to post about it whenever I get scammed. I find the inner workings of scams to be fascinating, and it's also important to remind people that everyone is vulnerable sometimes, and scammers are willing to try endless variations until an attack lands at just the right place, at just the right time, in just the right way. If you think you can't get scammed, that makes you especially vulnerable:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #24

June 21-28 2024

The US Surgeon General declared for the first time ever, firearm violence a public health crisis. The nation's top doctor recommended the banning of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, the introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons. President Trump dismissed Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in 2017 in part for his criticism of guns before his time in government, he was renominated for his post by President Biden in 2021. While the Surgeon General's reconstructions aren't binding a similar report on the risks of smoking in 1964 was the start of a national shift toward regulation of tobacco.

Vice-President Harris announced the first grants to be awarded through a ground breaking program to remove barriers to building more housing. Under President Biden more housing units are under construction than at any time in the last 50 years. Vice President Harris was announcing 85 million dollars in grants giving to communities in 21 states through the  Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO) program. The administration plans another 100 million in PRO grants at the end of the summer and has requested 100 million more for next year. The Treasury also announced it'll moved 100 million of left over Covid funds toward housing. All of this is part of plans to build 2 million affordable housing units and invest $258 billion in housing overall.

President Biden pardoned all former US service members convicted under the US Military's ban on gay sex. The pardon is believed to cover 2,000 veterans convicted of "consensual sodomy". Consensual sodomy was banned and a felony offense under the Uniform Code of Justice from 1951 till 2013. The Pardon will wipe clean those felony records and allow veterans to apply to change their discharge status.

The Department of Transportation announced $1.8 Billion in new infrastructure building across all 50 states, 4 territories and Washington DC. The program focuses on smaller, often community-oriented projects that span jurisdictions. This award saw a number of projects focused on climate and energy, like $25 million to help repair damage caused by permafrost melting amid higher temperatures in Alaska, or $23 million to help electrify the Downeast bus fleet in Maine.

The Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion to support domestic sources of nuclear fuel. The Biden administration hopes to build up America's domestic nuclear fuel to allow for greater stability and lower costs. Currently Russia is the world's top exporter of enriched uranium, supplying 24% of US nuclear fuel.

The Department of Interior awarded $127 million to 6 states to help clean up legacy pollution from orphaned oil and gas wells. The funding will help cap 600 wells in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, New York and Ohio. So far thanks to administration efforts over 7,000 orphaned wells across the country have been capped, reduced approximately 11,530 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions

HUD announced $469 million to help remove dangerous lead from older homes. This program will focus on helping homeowners particularly low income ones remove lead paint and replace lead pipes in homes built before 1978. This represents one of the largest investments by the federal government to help private homeowners deal with a health and safety hazard.

Bonus: President Biden's efforts to forgive more student debt through his administration's SAVE plan hit a snag this week when federal courts in Kansas and Missouri blocked elements the Administration also suffered a set back at the Supreme Court as its efforts to regular smog causing pollution was rejected by the conservative majority in a 5-4 ruling that saw Amy Coney Barrett join the 3 liberals against the conservatives. This week's legal setbacks underline the importance of courts and the ability to nominate judges and Justices over the next 4 years.

[slytherinslut0]

SLYTHERINSLUT0’S KINKTOBER

october 11th. blaise - mirror sex, body worship.

KINKTOBER MASTERLIST. | 2024.

summary: writing this was detrimental to my health. blaise is a man. a MAN. you’re having a terrible day, your boyfriend knows what you need to make it better.

warnings: 18+ MDNI, SMUT, PIV, fingering, multiorgasm, teasing, begging, doggystyle, dirty talk, praise so much praise, body worship, soft dom blaise, pet names, the usual nasty shit you'll find this month.

"Yeah that's what I said...he didn't listen to me, though. Of course."

Parchment crinkled under the weight of your hand, quill scratching faintly as your boyfriends voice hummed in the background—an effortless drawl that filled the room like low music. You barely caught the words, caught up in the mechanical rhythm of  your writing—but that didn't stop him from droning on, stretched out like a relaxed cat on your bed—one leg bent, both hands tucked behind his head, his gaze lost somewhere in the ceiling's quiet expanse.

"And? What happened?" You asked, finally letting the quill drop, grimacing at the ink smudged across your fingers.

"Detention," he said, clearly amused, "cleaning rat barrels for a week."

You managed a smile, but it was small, fleeting—more like a shadow of the real thing. Blaise noticed, of course he did, but he let it linger undisturbed, as if waiting for the right moment to ask what was really wrong. His stories were always an offering, an attempt to pull you from the depths of a day that felt as heavy as the sky before a storm—which usually helped, but today, even he couldn't shake the weight entirely.

You rolled away from your desk, chair wheels creaking until you reached the mirror. There you were, reflected back at yourself—no makeup, hair half-tumbling from the ponytail you'd given up on hours ago, the lines under your eyes telling a story you didn't want to read. You sighed, lifting a hand to touch the flyaway strands, knowing it wouldn't help. You were a bloody disaster.

"What're you lookin' at, baby?" Blaise was behind you before you even realized it, his warmth filling the space behind your chair, his arms snaking around your waist with the same natural ease as breathing. "Did I tell you you look beautiful today?"

You exhaled as he rested his chin on your shoulder, his eyes meeting yours in the glass—

"Don't lie, Blaise," you muttered, the exhaustion making your voice heavier than it should've been. "I look a mess."

"Not a lie," he whispered back, his lips so close you could almost taste the mint on his tongue. His hand lifted, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear before trailing down the side of your face like it was something sacred, like you weren't just a tired girl with too many thoughts. "You're always beautiful...so, so beautiful."

The heat from his words bloomed in your chest, a slow burn, even as the weight of the day pressed heavier. It felt as though the reflection was mocking you—this version of yourself you could barely recognize, worn down by everything that had gone wrong.

"I can tell when something's bothering you," he pressed on, his voice drawing you back, patient and unhurried. His fingers made soft circles on your stomach, waiting, coaxing. "Wanna tell me?"

"Nothing's bothering me...I just.." you shook your head, the words coming out on a breath, too small to carry the weight of what you meant. "I just had a bloody terrible day."

He hummed, thumb grazing your skin. "How terrible?"

"The kind that makes you feel like the universe is against you," you whispered, gaze falling, unable to look at him while your voice cracked. "I'm sorry—I know you wanted to go out tonight, but I just—"

"Shh—hey, don't do that," he interrupted, his fingers tilting your chin, forcing your eyes back to his in the mirror. "I don't care about going out. I care about you. We don't need to be anywhere else. I've got everything I need right here, baby. Okay?"

Merlin—your heart clenched, the ache reminding you just how easy it was to fall in love with him—and how you managed to do so, all over again, every single day. Blaise always had this way of making you feel like the center of the world, even on days when you felt like you were disappearing from it.

A small, trembling smile ghosted across your lips, and you nodded. "Okay."

"Yeah?" He nudged your chin gently, brushing more stray hair from your face—he never once took his fucking eyes off of you. "You're so fucking beautiful, babygirl...how are you all mine..."

A sigh escaped your lips as his fingers moved to massage your shoulders, his lips finding their way back to the curve of your neck, pressing slow, deliberate kisses along your skin. The tension in your body began to melt, replaced by something warmer, softer.

"Messy hair, no makeup...you're a fucking dream," he whispered. "Every morning I wake up...and I still can't believe..." his hands trailed down your arms, a slow blaze of fire, grazing over your belly before they curved up your chest. "...that all of this...is all for me..."

Your head tipped back, a soft whimper slipping from your lips as he pressed himself closer. One of his hands slid back up, fingers curling around the base of your throat, his thumb stroking the side of your neck. He groaned softly against your temple, other hand still pawing at your chest.

"Look at you," he rasped as his eyes met yours again in the mirror. You could feel his gaze tracing the outline of his hand wrapped around your throat. "Tell me you know you're beautiful."

Your heart was racing, breaths coming in shallow bursts as the intensity of his touch, his words, filled the room. He was crowding over you, pressed against the back of your chair, his hands insistent but not frantic, like he had all the time in the world—

"I know," you whispered. "You tell me every day..."

He hummed, the sound vibrating in his throat. "Mhm…and I'll keep telling you…because I don't think you get it yet...just how truly beautiful you are…”

Your lashes fluttered, eyes heavy beneath the weight of his gaze as his fingers moved lower, the buttons of your shirt parting effortlessly, baring the delicate lace underneath.

His jaw clenched, hunger flickering behind his eyes, his touch roughening with it. “…and just how lucky I am... to get to touch you like this."

Your head lolled back onto his shoulder, your back arched, baring yourself to him with a shivering sigh. His hand around your throat tightened, not too much, just enough to remind you he held you, that in this moment —this skin—belonged to him.

His other hand moved across your chest, teasing your nipples through the lacy fabric, kneading, coaxing your heart to race under his palm.

"I'm a better man because of you," he whispered, lips ghosting over the pulse at your neck. “...because you make me want to be."

Your whimper came unbidden, warmth flooding your veins as his eyes never left yours—devouring you through the glass. This wasn't just about touch. It was something Blaise always made sure you felt in this relationship, the thing tethered between you—the fulfilment of a need to be seen and a need to be known.

"Look at you." His lips tilted in a breathy smile, dripping with reverence, with something sacred as his hand roved over your chest, taking his time. "Perfect. So fucking perfect."

Both big hands fell to massage your tits now and a small, broken sound escaped you—helpless against the onslaught, your body betraying your efforts at control. You closed your eyes, biting your lip to stem the flood, but it was useless. Blaise, like this, was unrelenting, determined to make you remember this moment, every whisper, every touch. His voice was an echo you'd hear in your dreams.

"Blaise..." his name fell from your lips in a breathless whisper. “Gods.”

"Open those pretty eyes for me, babygirl..." he purred  as his teeth grazed the curve of your neck. You obeyed with a shiver—your reflection pure chaos — a mess of need and want, heat pooling low in your belly, an ache between your legs you couldn't ignore. Blaise hummed. "I want you to watch yourself. I want you to see what I see."

His hands slid lower, skimming the curve of your hips and settling on your thighs. You watched as he moved with deliberation, savouring the way your skin shivered beneath his touch. He shifted your legs wider, pushing the fabric of your skirt higher until it bunched around your waist. His eyes darkened, and for a moment, you weren't sure who was falling apart faster—him or you.

"Fuck," you moaned, barely holding onto the sound, feeling it slip past your lips like a breath. "Blaise.."

With a satisfied smile, his eyes flicked to yours and you noted the way his breathing shallowed—admired the way his fingers slipped along the insides of your thighs, tracing the soft skin without haste. The sensation made your breath hitch, and you bit down on your lip, fighting to keep your eyes open.

A low groan rumbled from deep in his chest as he pushed your skirt up further, exposing your underwear in the reflection.

"That's my girl,” he murmured, his voice thick with adoration. "These thighs...mm, fuck...so soft.."

His fingers dragged back down, agonizingly slow, tracing your thighs again.

You shuddered. You knew just how needy you sounded but gods—"Blaise, please..."

Blaise knew too, and of course he just chuckled, lips grazing the curve of your shoulder, his teeth catching on the fabric there. The nip was gentle at first, but just enough to make you gasp, your hips jerking reflexively—and you watched his eyes flash, lashes fluttering—

"Fuck...these hips," now he was growling, his nails biting into your skin. "The way you roll them...torture, pure torture... just to make me give you what you want..."

Your breath hitched again. You were a squirming mess, now—each fucking word a slow burn that licked at every nerve.

"Is that so bad?" You whispered, though the words barely left your mouth before a soft moan interrupted them. "Making you…give me what I want...?"

His laugh was rougher this time, his breath searing hot against your ear. One hand moved again, fingers teasing the edge of your underwear—and you realized you were holding your fucking breath—meeting his gaze in the mirror, wide and wanting, the tension between you thick enough to choke on.

"Not so bad...when I want to give it to you..." his fingers danced over your clothed cunt—light, taunting, threatening to give you everything you craved but holding just shy of it. Your hips rolled again, involuntarily. "But absolutely disastrous," his fingers traced higher, the ache of wanting made your pulse thunder. "...when I'm trying to make you wait."

You whimpered, snuffing a groan in your throat, and he smiled—watching the effect, his jaw falling open when he grazed over your clit through the fabric and you moaned loud—shameless.

"Gods—Blaise, please—" you were so fucking desperate now. Heat scorching your skin. Eyes squeezed shut. He was going to kill you, you were sure of it. “No more teasing—“

"Eyes open." He husked, bringing one hand back up to cup your jaw. "You close them and I'll stop. Keep being good for me, baby..."

You whinged—meeting his dark eyes in the mirror, lust blown pupils swallowing his irises. You watched yourself—his arms curled around you, strong and firm—long, slender fingers finally, fucking finally, giving you what you want—slipping under your underwear, fingertips kissing the sensitive lips of your throbbing cunt.

"Good girl...so good for me..." he muttered, slicking a single digit between your folds, grazing your clit. That did it—blinded with relief, you whinged, moaning deep in your chest. "Oh fuck, you're so wet...you need this, don't you, baby..."

"Yes—Gods—" you held his eyes in the mirror, hips jerking toward his touch. "Need it...need you..."

"So sensitive f'me..." he whispered in your ear, brushing the bundle of nerves again, earning another shuddered groan. He kissed at your jaw. "I'll never get tired of hearing you say that...that you need me..."

"Fuck—I do—always—" the words bled out, unfiltered. "Always need you."

Blaise shuddered, you could feel his hips rocking gently against the back of the chair as his fingers found your clit, indefinitely this time, and began drawing tight, frantic circles over it. Your back crested, your head falling back just slightly before you remembered what he said and returned your gaze to his in the mirror—he was watching you, body crowding yours like he was preparing a meal—and you spread your legs wider, noting the entire mess he'd made of you in minutes.

"Beautiful," he cooed, jaw tensing as you gripped his wrist—one hand shifting to grope your chest. "Messy girl...m'dying to get inside you..."

You cried out, your pussy clenching, craving to be filled by him. "Blaise—baby—please..."

Wetness soaked your thighs—coated his fingers as he dipped lower and pushed two inside you, crooking them deep. The reaction was involuntary—you cried out, ground your hips into his palm, fucking yourself on his digits, wanting—no, needing more. He groaned, squeezing your breast harder than you're sure he'd intended—teeth sinking into your shoulder in a futile attempt to compose himself.

"Fucking hell—that's it, baby—" his thumb twirled your clit, fingers driving deep—bliss burned your eyes, and you moaned. "Soaked and still so fucking tight...fuck.."

"M'gonna—I need you—" you were babbling, lost in sensation, coherent thoughts banished to the perimeters of your mind. "Inside—pleasepleaseplease—need you—"

"Cum first," his hand on your breast slipped up, tangling through your hair and nudging your face toward his—his lips found yours, soft and tender. "Wanna' make you feel good..."

Pleasure flooded you, muscles collapsing as you succumbed to it—Blaise kissed you again, holding you there, tongue delving into your mouth while he rubbed your swollen nub faster, pumped his fingers deeper.

"I...oh, Gods—already feel s'good..." you moaned into him, and he jerked you harder to his body, tongue massaging yours while his plush lips worked over your mouth. "Mm—fuck—s'good—"

He groaned. "Mhm—cum for me."

And then you did—every nerve in your body ignited at once. The obscene, wet sounds of him pumping his fingers into you filled the room, a rhythm that matched the frantic pulse in your ears. His mouth smothered the desperate cries of pleasure that fought to break free as your body convulsed, writhing against him. Your hips bucked, helplessly seeking more, fingers digging into his wrist like anchors as your entire world spun wildly out of control. He was both your rock and your undoing—keeping you tethered to earth while hurling you into the stars.

It felt like you were suspended in that ecstasy forever, the air leaving your lungs in shattered gasps, until, at last, your breathing found its rhythm again. Slowly, he withdrew his fingers, his own breath shaky, eyes dark with hunger. He brought his slick-coated fingers to your lips, pressing them past, and you groaned as you took him in, suckling greedily.

"You like that?" His voice was a low rumble, vibrating against your spine. You moaned in response, your tongue swirling around his digits, eyes fluttering shut at the taste of yourself. His other hand moved, urgently, his belt coming undone and echoing through the room as he freed himself, groaning, "Fuck."

Blaise had lost his composure completely—you didn't need to look at him to know it. In an instant, you were on your feet, his hands pulling you up as he kicked your chair out of the way, rolling into the wall with a thud. You turned your head to look at it but his lips crashed into yours, both hands cradling your face as he sank to his knees, dragging you down with him. The hardwood floor beneath you was cold, but his touch—his touch was a wildfire, scorching every inch of your skin, setting your blood to boil.

You moved instinctively and gasped as your fingers found him, warm and hard in your palm, twitching at your touch. He growled low in his throat, his hips jerking involuntarily as you stroked him, kneeling together on the floor, breaths mingling in the heated space between you. The moment stretched, unbearably tense, until with a swift motion, he spun you around, turning you to face the mirror.

His hands were everywhere—on your hips, sliding down your thighs, grazing the curve of your waist—pulling your skirt higher as he met your eyes over your shoulder in the reflection—

"Look at yourself," his fingers tightened on your hips, guiding you back against him, his length slicking between your thighs, grazing against your heat. "See what you do to me."

You gasped, melting into him, tightening your thighs around his shaft, fighting to keep your eyes on his in the mirror. Blaise exhaled, cranking your throat to the side and snatching a breast before biting the meat of your shoulder, cock pulsing when you whinged in delighted pain.

"Blaise—fuck—please..." your cunt clenched with anticipation, heat at your cheeks as you watched yourself in the mirror, desperately trying to tip your hips so he'd slide in. "Please, fuck me—"

Your voice was ruined. Music to his ears. Blaise could never deny that begging.

"Shit, baby..." he pressed in, leaning you forward until you were resting on your elbows in front of the mirror—seething as his girth stretched you open—splitting you wide in a way that made your eyes roll. He pulsed at your entrance, taking his time, letting you bask in the drag of your walls along his swollen length. In his reflection, his were lips parted, chest working with broken breath. "So goddamn tight..."

"Fuck," you moaned, unbridled, his hands bruising your hips as he picked up the pace. "Yes—mm—Gods, yes—"

The power of his thrusts stole your breath, quaked your bones, your cries of pleasure hiccuped by the rapid strokes of his hips. Blaise was the most patient man you'd ever met, until he wasn't. He groaned, his eyes trained on your ass, skin smacking skin with loud slaps—you were captivated, unable to think or speak or do anything other than watch—fire stoked by the sheer eroticism of watching him fuck your pussy. A hard, vicious plunge—you shrieked, and you could see him smirk to himself before gracing your ass with a soft smack, piercing your cervix.

"Sexy little thing. All fucking mine." He wound your hair in his fist, popping your neck back to hunch over you. "You like that, hm? Watching yourself get fucked?"

You whimpered, neck aching with the force of his grip, nails digging into your palms as he drilled you. The switch in his demeanour was dizzying. His dick was hollowing you out, rending you wide—you could hardly focus on his words—

"Yes!" You managed. "Fuck—yes—"

He groaned, fucking faster—his gaze ravaged you, wandering over every inch of your reflection before stopping at your jiggling chest. His hand slipped down from your hair to grasp a breast—squeezing and kneading the soft flesh in his huge palm, his other hand snaking down around your thigh to swirl over your clit, and you choked—a noise wrenched from your lungs far louder than you'd have liked.

"Fuck—fuck—" his hips moved erratically. He was getting close. So were you. "Tight—squeeze me s'good—"

You whinged. He swirled his fingers faster. "Blaise—m'gonna—cum—"

It descended upon you—the promise of oblivion—as you found one breath, another breath, and then found yourself in the mirror, skin gleaming, expression wrought with pleasure, entire body shaking with the pistoning of your boyfriends hips.

His eyes were still on yours, reverence inside them, worship.

He grunted. "Yes—fuck, cum on my cock, baby—let me feel you—"

It was a command that shattered all thought, a primal cry of ecstasy that ripped through you, overtaking every nerve, every vein, every muscle in your body. Your limbs trembled, thighs shaking as the pleasure coursed through you, molten, burning under your skin. You were less than halfway cognizant of what was leaving your mouth—barely picking up on your boyfriends groans and moans in your ear as you squeezed and milked his cock through your climax, fucking you deep until he couldn't take it anymore and erupted as well—pouring his cum into you, rolling his hips until he was empty.

Swallowing hard, you collapsed onto the floor, your chest heaving as he pulled out, leaving you breathless and trembling. His hands, still warm from the heat of your skin, gently held your arm as he sank down beside you. Without a word, he tugged you against his chest, the steady rise and fall of his breathing a calming rhythm against your back. His fingers threaded softly through your hair, untangling the remnants of tension as the two of you lay there, catching your breath.

After a few moments, he leaned in, pressing a kiss to your temple, the touch so tender it made you melt all over again. You tilted your head to meet his gaze, a soft smile curving your lips, all the stress that had plagued you earlier dissipating into nothing.

"Maybe I should have bad days more often." You smiled through an exhale.

"If this is what it takes to fix them," he murmured with a smirk, his voice deep and gravelly from exertion, "then I'm more than willing to be your remedy, anytime."

You hummed, a huff of a laugh slipping out as you traced lazy shapes on his chest—inhaling his scent with each breath. You loved this man. Loved that he never failed to make you feel so goddamn beautiful, so special, so needed.

"Seriously though," you whispered after a while, your cheek pressed to his chest, "thank you. For this. For knowing exactly what I needed."

His fingers stilled in your hair, a quiet hum of understanding in his throat.

"I always know what you need, baby," he said, his voice soft, filled with something more than just desire, something warmer. "And I'll always be here to give it to you."

[mariacallous]

India’s $13.9 billion aviation industry—projected to cater to over 300 million domestically by 2030—is a ticking time bomb.

This July, in the sweltering heat at the Delhi High Court, additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati announced that new rules on pilot duty and rest periods would not be implemented this year after all. Introduced by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in January, the rules were designed specifically to combat pilot fatigue. They were set to take effect in June, but were abruptly retracted. The hearing addressed a writ petition filed by the Federation of Indian Pilots (FIP), seeking clarity on when the new norms would be enforced. The DGCA’s response followed its request to airline companies in April for a tentative implementation timeline.

Concerns over pilot fatigue had been mounting in the months leading up to the announcement of the new Flight Duty Period, Flight Time Limitations, and Prescribed Rest Periods by the DGCA. The urgency deepened in November 2023 when a 37-year-old Air India pilot, Captain Himanil Kumar, collapsed at Delhi Airport while training to fly the airline's Boeing 777 fleet, and later died at the hospital. Kumar was the second Indian pilot to die on duty within three months; in August, Captain Manoj Subramanyam, a 40-year-old IndiGo pilot, suffered a fatal cardiac arrest just minutes before his flight from Nagpur.

These back-to-back tragedies raised alarm in the industry. “Another young Indian pilot passed away today due to a suspected cardiac event,” reportedly tweeted Captain Shakti Lumba, a retired IndiGo VP who is now the president of the Professional Pilots Society in India (His tweet was since deleted.) “If this doesn’t convince the DGCA, civil aviation ministry, and airlines to urgently address the stress, fatigue, and anxiety among pilots, nothing will.”

The DGCA, India’s aviation watchdog, regulates the country’s Flight Duty Time Limitations (FDTL). At 13 hours of flight duty time, India’s FDTL is already demanding, but after the pandemic slowdown, increased route expansion and pilot shortages have forced many to fly beyond the recommended maximum of 60 hours a week, exacerbating crew exhaustion. The DGCA finally responded to the growing crisis by revising FDTL norms in January 2024.

The new guidelines increased weekly rest periods from 36 to 48 hours and introduced quarterly fatigue reports. Its scheduled implementation on June 1, 2024, was pushed back due to pressure from operators. An airline CEO, speaking anonymously to the Economic Times in January, claimed the proposed regulations would require a 20 percent increase in pilot numbers, which would escalate expenses and lead to huge numbers of flight cancellations. Still, the DGCA held firm on the FDTL implementation deadline till early March. By the end of the month, however, it appeared to have yielded to influence from the airline lobby. A notice on the regulator’s website announced the deadline had been deferred, without providing a reason or setting a new date.

The pilot fatigue problem isn’t unique to India. In January, two pilots for Indonesia-based Batik Air fell asleep for 28 minutes mid-flight, causing their plane to veer off course between Sulawesi and Jakarta. In April, unionized Virgin Atlantic pilots in the UK voted 96 percent in favor of pursuing an industrial action in response to rising fatigue. Earlier, the CEO of Wizz Air UK faced a backlash for urging crew members to push through their fatigue to avoid flight cancellations. In May, senior pilots at Virgin Australia raised safety concerns, claiming rostering systems were pushing them "to the limits.”

But in India, the belief that overwork and fatigue are not just acceptable but essential has become entrenched across industries. The aviation crisis is just the tip of the iceberg; it is the tech industry that is leading the charge. Last year, Infosys cofounder Narayana Murthy suggested that Indian youth should work 70 hours a week for the nation's development. Murthy’s advice came up at the Indian Parliament on the first day of its winter session and found support from a list of influential Indian tech leaders, including Bhavish Aggarwal, founder of India’s first AI unicorn, Ola Krutrim; Ayushmaan Kapoor, cofounder of the AI-powered customer platform Xeno; and even veterans like Sajjan Jindal, CEO and MD of JSW Group, and Vinod Khosla of Sun Microsystems. Almost all of them justified the extended work hours, which far exceed the maximum eight to nine hours per day stipulated by the International Labour Organisation and the Indian Labour Code, as necessary for strengthening India’s economy. “We have to make India an economic superpower that we can all be proud of,” Jindal wrote on X. He cited Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, “who works 14-16 hours everyday,”as a model. In July this year, the Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employee Union said the state government had plans to increase working hours in the sector from the current maximum of 10 hours (including overtime) to a staggering 14 hours a day. As the union planned massive campaigns to oppose the move, the labor minister stated that the push for the proposal had come from the companies.

The airline companies think they have a solution to the fatigue crisis: technology. IndiGo, India’s largest airline, announced it would be an “early adopter” of a wrist-worn fatigue-monitoring device it was developing with French defense and aerospace company Thales Group. The device can provide “detailed insights into demographic data, including routes, pairings, crew profiles, and more, going beyond traditional scheduling-focused biomathematical models,” the airline stated in a press release in September. The airline, which operates 2,000 flights daily and employs over 5,000 pilots, said the device would be rolled out after a proof-of-concept trial. No date for the rollout was announced.

Wearable activity trackers are not new to the aviation industry. IndiGo’s device sounds similar to Actiwatch, a now-discontinued line of research-grade actigraphs from Philips, used to monitor sleep patterns, study circadian rhythms, and track physical activity as part of an airline’s fatigue risk-management system. But they partly rely on performance tests and subjective measures, such as self-reporting, which often results in being targeted by the airlines, says Captain C. S. Randhawa, president of the Federation of Indian Pilots. Safety management systems on the whole tend to be neglected by operators and are viewed as an additional expense, says Captain Amit Singh of the NGO Safety Matters Foundation.

In May 2023, Air India launched safety management software called Coruson, as well as BAM (Boeing Alertness Model), a fatigue-mitigation tool integrated into its rostering system, which is used by airlines to create and manage pilot schedules. Coruson, developed by cloud software company Ideagen, centralizes, analyzes, and reports on safety-related data—such as incidents, hazards, and risk assessments. BAM, developed jointly by Boeing and the software company Jeppesen, predicts and manages pilot fatigue by analyzing flight schedules and performance data. These tools were designed to prevent the creation of fatiguing rosters and pairings, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson noted in an internal message to employees. The carrier also introduced two new digital tools for its crew—the Pilot Sector Report app, to help pilots easily submit information on flight performance, incidents, and observations post-flight; and DocuNet, a digital management system that facilitates the storage, retrieval, and sharing of documents (such as flight manuals, training records, and compliance documents).

Despite these measures, the airline was fined by the DGCA in March this year for violating FDTL limits and fatigue management rules. This May, Air India Express cabin staff called in sick en masse to protest against “mismanagement.” This followed a similar protest from the crew, mostly pilots, at Vistara airlines. Both Air India and Vistara are now owned by one of India’s largest conglomerates, the Tata Group, which took over the former from the Indian government in January 2022.

Twenty-five of those who called in sick at Air India Express were terminated. Others were reportedly served an ultimatum. Those sacked were later reinstated by the airline following an intervention by the chief labour commissioner. Nearly a week before, the regional labor commissioner of Delhi had allegedly written to the Tata group chairman pointing to “blatant violations of labour laws” and insisting the legitimate concerns of the cabin crew be looked into. According to CNBC, Vistara employees said the agitation at their end had to do with recent salary updates, which fixed pilot pay at 40 flight hours—down from 70. Protesting first officers claimed that the new salary structure would result in an almost 57 percent pay cut. Under the new terms they would also have to fly up to 76 hours to earn what they were previously earning at 70 hours.

To placate the pilots and get them back to work, management had assured them that salaries for the “extra working hours” would be credited once Vistara was integrated with Air India. At the time, two Air India pilots unions had written to the chairman of the company, saying that such issues were not isolated but systemic. Burnout was the other related issue, with many pilots complaining of inadequate rest and being pushed to their limits.

Captain Singh, a former senior manager at AirAsia, tells WIRED that such effects significantly increase the risk of accidents, but also adversely affect pilot health in the long run. Tail swaps—rushing between different types of aircraft to take off immediately after disembarking from another—have become more prevalent under the 13-hour rules, and can further contribute to exhaustion, as do hasty acclimatization and, most significantly, landing three, four, or more flights consecutively, which Captain Randhawa described as a “severe energy management challenge.”

In the 2024 “Safety Culture Survey” conducted by Singh’s Safety Matters Foundation in July, 81 percent of 530 respondents, primarily medium- to short-haul pilots, stated that bufferless rosters contribute to their fatigue. As many as 84 percent indicated concerns with the speed and direction of shift rotation. “That’s the problem with the new rostering softwares the operators are introducing,” a pilot from a private airline, who requested anonymity, says. “They’re optimizers designed to make pilots work every second of their 13-hour schedule, leaving no breathing room.” The buffer-deficient timetables push pilots to their limits, so any additional pressure—like unpredictable weather—can easily overwhelm them.

Solving this issue with wrist-worn fatigue-measuring devices is contentious. But that isn’t the only problem. A year since they were hyped up, the buzz around fatigue-management tech has all but fizzled out. There have been no updates from IndiGo about the wrist device. Neither IndiGo nor the Thales Group responded to requests to comment.

[onlyswan]

summary: in which leaving the past behind is not as easy as forgetting, and you want to be everything jungkook wants to know.

idol!jungkook x f!reader, est. relationship / angst, fluff / wc: 7.9k

playlist: strange by celeste / sinking by clairo / manta rays by chloe moriondo / ceilings by beabadoobee / iris (cover) by phoebe bridgers & maggie rogers

content/warnings: [deep breath] no one will know the violence it took to become this gentle / it’s their first winter as a couple / oc’s ex bf slaps oc / jk beats up the ex / blood and bruises / crying :( / mention of cheating (not in our main’s rs we don’t tolerate that in this household :]) / mention of s*x / jimin as both their older brother and friend :(

in which masterlist!

note: greeting 2024 with angst woopsie… i literally ugly sobbed writing a particular scene T_T… anwww i hope it’s a good read <3 as always reblogs and feedback are appreciated! i’d love to hear your thoughtsss 🥺

—

the word VICTORY flashes across the screen.

with a proud smirk adorning his lips, jungkook pushes down his headphones to hang around his neck.

he rises from his seat, resting his crossed arms over the partition dividing the computer that you’re renting from his.

“hi, baby. are you almost done?”

he chuckles to himself when he realizes that you didn’t hear him, not with the music blasting from your headphones. you direct your attention upwards when endless song by no reply is abruptly put on pause; the cushions of the headphones are pressed up against your cheek by your boyfriend’s doing.

“what?”

“hi, baby. are you almost done?”

“oh, yes…” your focus returns to the screen, fast fingers dancing along the keyboard without an ounce of hesitation weighing on them. “i just… need to… send the file to my email.”

jungkook blinks at the long rows of words you’re masterfully curating, thinking to himself — how the hell do you think and type that fast at the same time?

it was his suggestion to stay at a pc bang tonight so you could be together while you each do your own thing. he spent his half of his day-off playing games, and during that time, you worked on your research paper and finished an essay that isn’t even due for another week. you took a break every hour, munched on some snacks, and cheered him on while he was diligently playing. perhaps he could’ve done something more productive today, but it couldn’t have made him happier.

he holds out the last slice of gimbap in between chopsticks, lightly poking your lips, and his heart flutters when you offer him a sweet smile after welcoming the big bite with some difficulty, cheeks full and nose scrunched.

“is there anything else you want to eat?”

you shake your head, and unable to speak while chewing, you gesture for water as if you’re playing charades.

a kiss is granted to your forehead.

when he comes back with a bottled water, all your tabs have been closed and you’re wearing your white beret again, re-organizing your belongings in your backpack.

“ready to leave?” he inquires as he hands your order.

you hum as a reply, standing from your seat as you swing the backpack over your head to wear it with little to no effort.

jungkook thinks you’re so cool.

you visit the restroom as he settles the bill. when you come out, he’s already pulling out a credit card from his wallet. you decide to head straight for the door then, wait for him outside as the air inside the room has started to feel a little too stuffy after you stepped away from the computer.

you’ve always thought about it— how time stands still when you experience something traumatic, how that moment feels stretched for eternity… how utterly barbaric that is. you’re forced to memorize frames of the origin of your scars, relive it over and over again, eyes closed and open. moments of happiness, on the other hand, are fleeting. they are sand slipping through the gaps of your fingers. getting out of bed is scooping them in your hands and praying that they will hold on to you in the following rotations and revolutions of the earth. they never do.

there he stood at the bottom of the stairs, just as horrified as you.

his face is the last thing you want to see on a winter night.

because you still recall the amalgamation of emotions in his eyes two winters ago. his skin was flushed from the cold, but he turned redder with anger and your stomach coiled in shame.

“juwon?”

the name felt odd in your mouth. it’s like when you eat a food you haven’t had in a long time, and it doesn’t quite taste like you remember it.

and to be honest, you didn’t know what you expected to happen when he carried on to climb the remaining steps that led to you. but it definitely wasn’t… this.

the first hand to carress your bare body, as if it was in disbelief of its existence, and the rings you used to blindly adore— they collide with your cheek with a sound that resonates in your eardrums.

the slap thins out into a ringing noise.

“are you insane?!”

it continues to assault your hearing even as you scream and hit him back.

it ends when someone bumps against your shoulder in a haste, and the next thing you register is juwon lying on the ground with jungkook sitting on top him, balled fist throwing unforgiving punches at your ex-boyfriend’s face. juwon is held hostage by the shock and is unable to reciprocate jungkook’s aggression. he attempts to fight back but your boyfriend dodges easily.

“jungkook! stop, stop, stop!”

you run down the stairs with panic thundering in your chest, nearly in tears as you forcefully grasp at the back of jungkook’s coat to pull him away, but with his strength and the adrenaline flowing through his veins, your efforts prove to be fruitless.

“you fucking bastard! i’m gonna kill you!”

“that’s enough-” you cry out. “please!”

“how dare you lay a hand on my girlfriend like that, huh?!”

he is furious, gripping the collar of juwon’s sweater and slamming him to the ground.

“your girl?” coughing, juwon faces the side to spit out the blood in his mouth, which then shapes into an arrogant smirk. “didn’t you know? ____ was mine first. i was the first!”

the next punch he receives cuts his lower lip open, and a stronger metallic taste assaults his tongue.

“jungkook!”

before jungkook could inflinct more permanent damage, you resort to holding back his arm with both of your hands.

your gazes connect, and your heart drops to your stomach. he is seething with anger. your blood runs cold and a thick haze clouds your thinking. you can’t move your limbs. what do you do? what do you do? what do you do?

“____, let go. i’m not fucking finished with him.”

“please,” you beg, ignorant of the tears that have begun to slide down your cheeks. “that’s enough. look at him!”

“and why should i care?” he spits out as he shrugs you off.

“ah, jungkook! i said that’s enough! why won’t you listen to me?!”

your desperate tantrum falls on deaf ears. you squeeze your eyes shut when he re-assumes his stance, tucks his thumb over his folded fingers, exactly what he taught you about making a proper fist to avoid injuring one’s self when boxing.

“stop it! you’re scaring me!”

that throws a bucket of ice over jungkook’s head. the anger in his eyes is replaced by vacancy, and with that, juwon seizes the opportunity to finally strike him with a jab and escape from underneath him. jungkook finds himself pushed aside on the ground with a throbbing cheek, mostly likely to be noticeably bruised in the next hours.

“love-” you gasp, and you rush over to him but your path gets rudely obstructed by your ex.

“is this the guy you cheated on me with?”

he is extremely near that you can feel him panting on your face. two years later, your stomach coils in disgust. your glare is venomous, and if only looks could kill, if only looks could kill…

“just leave, won’t you? what’s the point of all this?” you roughly push him away with your remaining shred of energy, driven by exhaustion and frustration. “it was so long ago! get a fucking grip!”

he huffs in disbelief as he wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth. it also drips from his nose and eyebrow. strange enough, you do not feel guilt nor compassion for this man. not anymore.

“are you seriously crying just because he got punched one time…? isn’t that a little unfair? you loved me too. once.” he snickers, but he is visibly pissed off. he can no longer look at you in the eye. “shit, is he that much of a better fuck than me?”

your skin crawls. bile creeps up your throat. technically speaking, this is the consequence of your own actions, but you can’t help but to be resentful.

“you are…” your voice trembles, but your glare remains unwavering. “still as despicable and shallow as ever… and i don’t regret what i did.”

and it may have been a long time ago, but you still know how to hit him where it hurts the most— his ego.

you purposely bump against his shoulder as you make your way to jungkook, leaving him speechless as he stares at the ground. the night the two of you broke up, you were crying and begging him for forgiveness… what the fuck happened?

“let’s go home.” you demand quietly while refusing to meet jungkook’s stare— a mix of confusion, offense, and rage.

but the thing about juwon? he always needs to have the last word.

“you better keep a close eye. you might think you know ____, but whores never change. especially those who became one so young.”

“dude, how are you still speaking?!”

it’s too late when you realize that jungkook has left your side. he swings at juwon’s face with a force that sends the man stumbling backwards. he completely loses balance then collapses on the ground with a curse that almost misses your ears.

“don’t ever go near ____ again! don’t even think of it! if you show your face to me again, i might really end up fucking killing you. you hear me?!”

—

jungkook doesn’t recall a time when he felt a rage this intense and consuming. witnessing you get slapped, his vision went dark and he was shaking with fury. everything was a blur after that, but he knew one thing: this man violated the most precious person to him, and he won’t allow him to get away with that unscathed.

and that must be why he feels restless until now. neither one of you has dared to utter a word for the past couple of minutes. he can’t see your face as you’re walking ahead of him, leading the way with his wrist in your cold hand. however, he can hear your sniffles, and he can see you wiping your tears dry with the back of your hand. he thought he has experienced heartbreak, but this pain cuts deeper than anything he has ever felt.

“baby, let’s go back.”

he breaks the silence, standing infront of you to stop you on your tracks. he almost reeks of desperation as he intertwines your fingers together.

“please? there should be a cctv camera infront. we can sue him.”

“are you even hearing yourself? you’ll also get into trouble!”

his insistence only fuels the urge to cry and scream and break things. it’s an understatement to say that you’re ashamed. it was foolish of you, really, to assume that leaving the past behind would be as easy as forgetting. it may be out of sight but it is everywhere, and it sneaks up on you without tell and mercy.

“you attacked him out of nowhere! he can sue you for that too!”

“out of nowhere?” he repeats your words slowly, hurt flashing across his face. “i was protecting you, ____! who knows what else he could’ve done? and the shit he was talking about you? was i just supposed to stand there and do nothing?”

“and i’m protecting you too! why did you even have to punch him again?! he was obviously just trying to provoke you! god, i-” you release the air in your lungs you didn’t realize you’ve been holding. “thank god he didn’t see your face.”

that struck a nerve for some reason. he harshly rips off the mask that has been concealing half of his face all along.

“he hit you! look- fuck, you’re bleeding-”

oh, his rings must’ve grazed you.

jungkook brings out a clean white handkerchief from the backpocket of his pants, pressing it softly against your cheek. the sharp sting forces you to grit your teeth. it’s not only the wound… your skin is still warm and tender from the assault. you’re terrified to look at the mirror. you don’t want to feel sorry for yourself.

“and that’s what you’re really worried about right now?”

“okay, then i’m sorry for caring about my boyfriend and his career! i’m sorry, okay?!“

he dies a little inside when you harshly push his hand aside.

so this is what it feels like to be at the other end of your anger… shitty. it feels really shitty. after what happened, there is no sadness or fear. the twinkle in your eyes have been replaced with sharp daggers and it is gutwrenching to watch. it clicks for him then: you weren’t scared of him. you were scared for him.

he doesn’t allow you to go further than ten feet away. he seizes your arm before sneaking his hand on your waist to tug you closer to his body.

“you think i’m letting you out of my sight again? it’s not happening!”

you click your tongue in exasperation, left with no choice but to admit defeat as he hails the approaching taxi. you cover your face to hide from the blinding headlights.

ever the gentleman, jungkook opens the door for you.

“get in, ____.”

and the first thought that enters your mind: the air freshener is nauseating. it has to be something mixed with lemon.

you roll the window down as your boyfriend dictates the address of your destination to the taxi driver. not yours, but his. you send him an unimpressed scowl, but he only looks back at you challengingly under the warm dim light. the soft cloth is placed over your wound again, rudely snatched as you turn away from him. you hold it on your own as you watch the world outside the window, streetlamps with blurry light streaks and homes you will never set foot into. in the midst of your musing, you register the weight on your head, or its lack thereof. your beret landed on the ground in the aftermath of the first strike. what is there left to lose?

you thought you could be happy at last, but beside you is another soul you’ve stained with your bloody hands.

juwon was right, you never change.

—

“i still don’t think it’s right that i know the password.” you whisper as you push the door open.

“but i have a key to your house. what’s the difference?”

“i don’t know…” you begin removing your boots, carefully placing each one in the middle level of the shoe rack. “you live with six other people.”

“namjoon-hyung and yoongi-hyung are in their studios. the others went home.”

you enter the living room with jungkook hugging you from behind. his cheek rests on top of your shoulder, and he doesn’t want to let you go. the ride here was suffocating. he thought you wouldn’t talk to him for the rest of the night anymore.

you blink at jimin who is sprawled out on the sofa, a gray blanket that matches his sweatpants is covering his naked torso.

“why does he sleep here? doesn’t he have a bed?”

“the sofa is more comfortable.” he mumbles loud enough for you to hear as he opens his eyes halfway, but then he gives up and closes them again, curling in on himself to resume his slumber.

“okay… now i know what to get you for your birthday.”

for a brief second jungkook assumes that you’re joking, but you sounded way too nonchalant.

“a sofa?”

“a new mattress,” you blankly stare back at him, before proceeding to break free from his embrace to search for the bathroom.

he follows you like a lost puppy, whining. “why does he already have a birthday gift and i don’t?!”

“quiet!”

he winces. “sorry, hyung!”

—

you’re perched in the space between jungkook’s thighs, legs swung over one of them as he tenderly presses a cold compress against your left cheek. you’ve changed into the pair of pink cooky pajamas he wore a few times and has kept in his closet specially for you. sinking into his mattress, drowsiness has also begun to seep into the depths of your bones. it’s been an arduous week, and you’re exhausted of fighting in every sense of the word.

“he deserves more than what he got away with.” he mutters through gritted teeth.

“jungkook, enough.” you chide at him with a sigh. “let’s just forget about this.”

“your face is going to be bruised for atleast a week! how am i supposed to ‘just forget’? are you hearing yourself?”

your rhetoric question from earlier comes back to gnaw at your thread-like sanity. you feel backed into a corner. you can’t think of a solution that will put this issue at rest, much less make either one of you feel better.

“he’s not worth it.”

“you are to me.” he declares.

it’s impossible to argue with that. you want it to stay true. you want him to keep believing in you.

“i’m tired.” you whisper, removing yourself from his lap. “let’s go to sleep.”

he gazes at you with longing.

you are lying on his bed but you have never felt so far away.

“are we really not going to talk about this?”

“not now. i’m tired, jungkook.”

“baby…”

“juwon is a terrible person, but i had it coming…” you mumble. “that’s all there is to it.”

foreboding silence falls upon the bedroom. you can’t bring yourself to look at jungkook, so you close your eyes and pray that when the sun rises, this night will simply turn out to be a nightmare orchestrated by your wicked mind.

“whatever that is, it doesn’t warrant what he did.” he plants a gentle kiss on your forehead, and it takes everything in you not to fall apart into a thousand shards. “and i’m sorry that i couldn’t stop it from happening.”

—

jungkook returns after his shower, not yet done with drying his dripping hair with a towel. you’ve drifted off to sleep in the time that he was gone, lips slightly parted open as you breathe out puffs of air in a steady rhythm. your hair is a halo and you’re an angel snoozing on a cloud.

he heard it loud and clear, and you haven’t denied it either, but there’s not a part of him that believes it. is he blindly in love with you? is this what he was warning him about? are you not an angel, but a siren?

wary of waking you up, he attaches a bandaid to your cheek. he flicks the lightswitch but he turns on the night lamp so you won’t have to manuever the dark incase you wake up in the middle of the night in need of the bathroom.

shit, shit, shit. he curses in his head when you begin shuffling as soon as he settles himself on the bed, but it’s just you unknowingly seeking for warmth in your sleep. he gathers you in his arms and your pillow is abandoned in favor of his naked chest. it always feels fitting, like his heart is the stuffed toy that you can’t go without at night.

he swallows the lump in his throat, brushing your hair away from your face to gently caress your soft skin. you look so serene. but your ex’s fingers can be traced on the red bruise that has tainted your cheek and his jaw clenches, hand momentarily balling into a fist to release the leftover anger still boiling in his blood. everyday, you feel the need to act tough because of people like him, and you are… but deep down, he knows, that you just crave to be loved.

“you loved me too. once.”

however, that has lost its meaning when juwon didn’t love you the way you deserved to be loved.

and jungkook admits it’s not as easy for him to do in a whole different dimension. he leads a kind of life not everyone survives, but that never stopped him for trying his damn hardest.

—

you’re awoken in the middle of the night by jungkook’s forehead accidentally knocking against yours. his snoring doesn’t cease, however, and you had to remind yourself that this is the same boy who continued sleeping despite rolling off his inflated sleeping bag on camera.

you slowly sit up as you rub the sleep from your eyes. you spend an unknown amount of time spaced out, barely blinking. afterwards, you force yourself to leave the comfort of the bed, taking the cold compress along with you. you drain the melted ice over the kitchen sink before opening the refrigerator to refill it with ice cubes. you can’t help but to allow your eyes to wander around, which then leads you to contemplate on whether to cook ramen or not… but then again, it’s already 3am and most likely, you won’t be able to sleep again if you do.

“yah! why are doing just standing there?”

the deep voice echoes throughout the kitchen. you yelp in shock, nearly dropping the ice bag as you tap on your pounding chest.

“i told you to stop doing that!”

jimin bursts into a fit of too delighted giggles, hunched over the kitchen counter as he places a hand over his belly. he’s fully clothed this time, fresh from the shower, judging from his hair.

“it’s not funny!” you whine. “one of these days i might be holding a knife when you do that!”

“ey, what would you be holding a knife for? jungkook never lets you lift a finger while you’re here.”

that’s just because he knows you’re not very talented in the kitchen.

the wide smile on his face then fades, expression morphing into one of concern as he studies your face bathed by the refrigerator light.

“what happened to your face?”

fuck, you’ve completely forgotten about that.

“it’s a long story.” you sigh, closing the refrigerator.

“it’s alright. i have all the time in the world to listen.”

“you know that i really appreciate that and i’m grateful but…” your smile borders on a wince. “no, you don’t. get some more sleep, please.”

your unexpected response causes jimin to scratch his head shyly. the two of you stare at each other for a few seconds before laughing at the same time.

“oh, that’s right!” you pause on your tracks when an essential item pops in your mind. “do you have healing ointment? for cuts and bruises and stuff?”

“it’s for jungkook,” you add.

“doesn’t he have that?”

“it’s not here,”

your sweet smile tells jimin everything he needs to know.

“ah, that kid really comes home to different houses now. he’s all grown up.”

“…and how many exactly?” you arch an eyebrow.

he purses his lips together, jokingly pretending to think hard. “the dorm… and then his family… then there’s you?”

“anywhere else?”

“nope!”

“sooo, do you have it or not?”

“i’ll go downstairs and buy it right now.”

he offers you a kind smile and pats on the head. a protest dies down in your throat as he goes straight for the front door.

“thank you!”

“you’re welcome!”

—

despite your active efforts to avoid making any sort of noise, the door produces a small ‘click’ as you cautiously close it behind you. you discover that jungkook has flipped over to face your side, his arm outstretched as if he was reaching out for you. you almost feel bad for leaving him alone in bed, so you sit next to him, positioned on the lower half of the bed since he took up your space.

a short snore escapes him, one that rises then falls so abruptly, like a note on the piano pressed on accident. you cover your mouth to muffle your giggle.

how adorable. you have grown to tolerate, and even adore, his snoring.

stolen kisses on his bruised knuckles, tiny and featherlight, apologetic most of all. their bad condition brought upon by boxing worsened when he used his dominant hand bare, knuckles of his two longest fingers ripped. it seems that he did the bare minimum by putting a stop to the bleeding then washing them clean, then nothing else. he didn’t even tell you, didn’t complain or show any sign that he was in pain.

you hold the cold compress over his bruises, switching between his cheek and knuckles, mindful of not touching the wounds as to not aggravate him in his sleep.

you’ve been stripped down bare— your pride and dignity dismantled into pieces that create a picture of you that you do not like… but could be the love and sincerity in your heart be enough to live by? even if no one is awake to witness it?

you’re saved from drowning in your thoughts by the front door being unlocked. for the second time, you tiptoe your way out of jungkook’s bedroom.

“this is for wounds, and then…” jimin returns the tube inside the paper bag to grab the other. “this one, for bruises.”

“thank you. i’ll pay you back.”

“yah!” jimin expands his eyes threateningly, which you mimic in challenge as you hug the paper bag to your chest. “i’m also your older brother, okay? i should do these things for you.”

you scrunch your nose, to express disagreement at first, but later on it only makes your smile appear brighter.

“doesn’t it hurt you to smile? please use them well too, ____. do you understand? that’s why i bought the biggest ones!”

it does hurt.

“thank you…” you reply shyly.

you’ve forgotten how it feels like to be taken care of by family.

—

“baby, where did you go?”

jungkook’s raspy voice is music to your ears.

he woke up a mere minute ago, caught in the middle of sitting up on the bed once it caught up to his sleep-muddled brain that you’re no longer beside him.

“nowhere,”

you sit at the edge of the bed without another word, putting his hands over your lap to apply the healing cream to his afflictions.

his eyelids flutter in sleepiness as he watches your every movement.

a small dollop at the pad of your finger, transferred over his torn knuckle and smeared with the lightest of touch. occasionally your finger pauses, unsure, calculating— the last thing it wants is to hurt him.

he kisses your lips— he feels suspended in time—hasn’t quite reconnected with reality and with his body. wide-eyed, you seem taken aback by the display of affection. his mouth then softly curves with fondness.

“i love you.”

“i love you, too.” you whisper timidly.

your actions have become hurried, but jungkook is far too drowsy to notice your discomfort.

for the final part, you rub the cream on the bruise on his cheek. you press a kiss on the corner of his lips. “all done. go back to sleep.”

“let’s go,”

he hooks his arm under your knees, eager to carry you over to your side of the bed, but he gets interrupted by your protest.

“wait, wait, wait- i need to pee first.”

“wha- hurry!” he complains with a peeved frown, which you fail to catch a glimpse of because he has squeezed you taut against his body. “i won’t be able to sleep without you here.”

—

eternally cursed with the ability to feel too much of everything.

you push your back against the bathroom door, breathing heavy and labored as you blindly pat around for its lock. the click serves as the cue for your salty tears to drip from the edges of your eyelashes, cascading down, down, down your chin. some of them crash on the collar of your pajama top, the rest on the white tiled floor. this room is a stranger to your shipwreck, but old habits die hard.

the intense pressure of the water collides with the porcelain sink. rain and thunder and the gusts of wind being your gasps for air. an isolated storm undetected in the city of seoul you’re forced to brave alone, on the floor, tucked into yourself to protect the beating sacredness inside your ribcage. the sobs claw their way up your throat rather than soaring like exhales do.

no one has ever raised their hand at you. not even your parents. not even when you broke your grandmother’s precious china, or lost their big paper bills to the wind, or cursed at them for embarrassing you infront of your friends.

you want to be mad and say that juwon deserved what he got. you want to say that you hope his nose is broken. but you don’t know how one is supposed to react when something like that happens. you don’t know if it justifies everything after that. if the roles were reversed and you slapped him, won’t no one bat an eye?

…and you know jungkook has questions you still haven’t figured out how to answer. you know he now has reasons to doubt you. you know in his eyes, you may now be a hypocrite and not the advocate he adored. these days, you don’t really want to be seen as anything less or more than who you are, but you so desperately wish to be someone he is proud to love.

you feel mocked for even daring to dream of it.

“i’m tired, i’m tired, i’m tired.”

incoherent mumbles further stirs the unbridled chaos.

“i’m so sick of this. why… why do bad things keep happening to me?”

you don’t expect an answer but you yearn for some sort of meaning. you don’t mind suffering but you wish it could only be to an extent where you don’t have to fear.

echoes of rumbles and thunder. you’re nearer the sky but farther from heaven.

—

it’s been more than a week. you’ve been waking up with a gaping hole in the middle of your torso. you climb out of bed, cover up your cheek with make-up, good as new, and go about your day as if nothing happened. life on its own is already too much of a burden for you.

jungkook checks up on you everyday, though, despite his busy schedule. mostly through the phone, and whenever he can, he goes straight to where you are after work to dote on you no matter the time. he kisses you on the cheek, claims himself to have healing properties, and says i love you. and during those periods of time you were together, he hasn’t said another word about the incident. and it has been driving you absolutely insane.

you glance down at him, sat on the floor with an ipad balanced on top of his propped up knees, wearing one of your anti-radiation glasses as he finds himself absorbed in drawing the view a foot away from him. you.

“why do you keep looking at me?” he scolds you lightheartedly. “go back to studying so we can go to sleep.”

“can’t help it,” you mumble as you reposition your pen over the paper. you’ve been reorganizing your notes the whole night for your upcoming tests, but your mind keeps flying everywhere else. “my boyfriend’s too pretty.”

“ah, it can’t be helped then. sorry about that.” he smirks cockily, pulling the dramatics by switching his eyes between you and his back. “should… should i turn around then?”

“did you box again?”

the accusation is spat out before you can think twice.

“oh, you did. your knuckles are all messed up again.”

he pouts, crossing his legs. “but baby, i have to train... i wrapped my hands properly!”

“still,” you sigh. “can’t you just let them heal for a little while?”

you turn to the cabinet on your other side to bring out the pouch of healing ointments you’re now suspecting he brought and didn’t accidentally leave behind.

you lay out your hand, and jungkook puts his on top of yours, dragging himself close.

you both smile when you see that he has laid his hands over your thighs like he’s getting a manicure. silly boy. you pull them closer by his fingers so you can reach his red knuckles.

“why are you trying so hard?”

your finger is stained with his blood. your voice is as gentle as your touches, and that’s why it hurts.

jungkook doesn’t know either. he’s been trying to extinguish his leftover anger and bitterness through work and boxing— suppressing the onslaught of negative thoughts threatening to poison what the two of you have. jungkook doesn’t want to know. he doesn’t want anything to change. right now, he can’t afford them to.

“there’s no one to fight.”

“turns out there is,” he argues.

he regrets it as soon as your hand trembles.

“it’s okay… to ask. we’re in a relationship. you’re entitled to know things like that.” your eyes are unafraid again, and it scares him, like you’re always prepared to let him go. “i won’t get offended, or anything like that. if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“i trust you,” he says simply. “so i don’t need to know. especially if talking about it makes you uncomfortable. it’s okay… we’re okay, baby.”

stillness washes over the room like a tide that swallows everything up, and for a moment jungkook is convinced that the two of you will never bring it up again.

but the words you utter next are a punch to the gut.

they almost sound like a plead.

“but i can’t live my life that way, jungkook.”

strands of your hair descend to your face, framing it perfectly, but your eyes become hidden from view. you rip a bandaid open and blanket it over his two knuckles, still wounded as before, if not worse.

“if you intend to be with me for a long time, then i need you to need to know…” because there will be things i’d want to tell you, but wouldn’t feel the need to.

“then tell me,” he replies, prompted by a renewed determination. “i don’t just intend to be with you for a long time. i want way more than that.”

—

jungkook fiddles with the hello kitty bandaid using his thumb, mind reeling and grappling to process the overload of information told by your storytelling voice. all of a sudden, he’s grateful that you decided to lie down on the bed for this conversation.

“juwon was your boyfriend before me, no?”

“no, no, no. he was…” your lips part as if you have something more left to say, but you eventually give up. “yup, no.”

“so you found out that he’s been cheating on you for-for two mo-”

“three-”

“three months, and you…” he blinks. “slept with a stranger and let him catch you?”

“i was really petty. i was seventeen after all… my pride couldn’t take it. my friends- they tried to stop me but… but all i could think of was how to make him feel the way i was feeling.” your voice sounds small, smaller as you squeeze yourself into his side and curl up to hide your face. “so i let him think i was the bad guy.”

he understands that you were vengeful, but he doesn’t know if you comprehend the scale of what you have done.

“he looked so sad and hurt that i started to feel guilty. i don’t know if i was still acting when i was apologizing to him.” you scoff with eyebrows knitted together. “i felt so dirty… i still feel like a bad person, you know?”

you took the face of juwon’s demons and he didn’t like what he saw.

“i had it coming,” — he now has a grasp of what you meant before.

“so how has he been doing this to me for such a long time? how does he stomach it? knowing what i was going through? that’s what i thought… it makes me so upset…”

jungkook doesn’t try to assess you as you speak. he only listens, until your voice cracks. his heart is split into two as tears flood your eyes, escaping past the corners and slipping down to soak the fabric of his t-shirt.

you sniffle. “and the sex wasn’t even that great. i regret it even more.”

he flinches, abruptly squeezing his eyes shut. not that great? okay… okay. the mental image of you being physically intimate with someone that isn’t him definitely doesn’t sicken him to his core. at all. nope, nope, nope.

“fuck, baby, please,” he groans as if he is in pain, putting an arm over his eyes. “hearing about you have sex with other guys is making me want to punch something again. fuck.”

“that’s what you took away from the story?”

“yes!” he exclaims with conviction. “we should’ve met a year earlier. i would’ve let you use me!”

you gasp, scandalized. “oh my god! jungkook!”

“argh-” he animatedly clutches at his chest that caught your fist.

“you’re crazy!”

“uhuh, about you.” he proudly replies, pulling you closer to his side, as if that was still possible.

the subtle upwards of the corners of your lips gives him a sense of relief. he tenderly cups your cheek, his thumb ghosting over the bruise that has turned a darker shade of blue and purple.

“listen to me, i- i’m not here to tell you what’s right or wrong. i’m not that type of person. but what i can do tell you is that this…” he briefly shakes his head. “didn’t change the way i see you at all. he hurt you. he cheated and you were hurt, ____.”

your eyes gleam with uncertainty, a fresh wave of tears threatening to escape. “are you sure?”

“of course i am. why wouldn’t i be sure?”

“because you’re crazy about me.”

the sweet innocence of your eyelashes fluttering elicits a chuckle from him. you’re so fucking cute.

“that’s the reason i’m sure.” he tilts up your chin to plant a kiss to your lips, mumbling. “i’ve never been wrong about anything i’m crazy about.”

“thank you,” you say quietly, melting into his embrace. you nuzzle your face against his chest, and at last, you grant your eyes rest. “i can finally sleep peacefully again.”

fuck, it’s been weighing on you this whole time and he didn’t know.

“i’m sorry i only dated assholes before you.”

“aish, why would you be sorry about such a thing?” he kisses the top of your head, gentleness contradicting his following sentence. “i’d crush each one of those assholes for you.”

and he’d beat himself up the worst if he ever becomes one of them.

you yawn, sniffling right after. “mhm, i bet you will.”

he carefully rolls over to the side so he can wrap both arms around you, and you keen in contentment.

“jungkook?”

“yes, baby?” he coos.

“i… really… love you so, so, so much. you are… the one person i’d die for before i hurt.”

goddammit, it’s an angel sleeping in his arms.

“that’s a relief to hear. you’re very smart and scary when you’re mad.”

“eh, jungkook! i swear i’ve grown up! i’m not like that anymore!”

“okay, okay!” he laughs at your childish whining and squirming as he ushers you back in his embrace. “i believe you! i trust you! i love you too!”

—

although you spend more nights together in your apartment for your safety and convenience, in all honesty, you like staying over at jungkook’s more. his smell evokes the sentiment of home, and when you stay long enough, it becomes a temporary part of you. you’re gradually more well-versed in the organized and unorganized corners of his room. you like that you know where he keeps the safety pins and you know to be careful when walking so you won’t trip over his dumbbells he leaves lying around. and it’s a little ridiculous but… you like that his mattress is on the floor and you don’t really know why.

your boyfriend is still blissfully asleep as you climb over him, landing on the floor without a sound like a veteran spy. however, you rush to step out of the room before the rumbling of your empty stomach could wake him up.

“yah, thief! what do you think you’re doing?!”

“fuck!” the pack of ramen hits the floor when your hands fly to your chest to clutch at your painfully pounding heart. “i swear to god, you’re going to kill me one day!”

and unsurprisingly, your chagrin is countered yet again with jimin’s all too pleased laughter.

“____, you look so suspicious! why are you using a flashlight? we have electricity! we can pay for it!”

“i don’t like it too bright, okay?” you grumble as you pick up your supposed midnight meal.

“let’s just turn on this one then.”

“uh-” the objection dies down in your throat when the light over the dining table was switched on.

“i’m hungry, too. grab two more packs of ramyeon, please.”

“who’s the other one for?”

jimin fills the pot with water from the sink while you pick up two more of the same pack from the pantry.

“just us. don’t you agree that one pack is too small for one person?”

“it’s just enough for me though?” you rip open the packs one by one to retrieve the packets of seasonings. “with your job, though, i’d definitely have a bigger appetite.”

“alright,” he pouts, pretending to be upset. “let’s have just two then.”

“no, no, no-” you chase his hand, tightly gripping the last pack that he stole. “let’s have three! let’s have three! i didn’t eat dinner!”

—

“my mom brought a lot of kimchi yesterday. there’s an entire box in the fridge. i’ll pack you some before you leave later.”

“put some more in,” you say cutely as you peer down at the pot of ramen beside jimin. “please?”

he chuckles, adhering to your request before handing the container to you.

“thank you!”

you hop on the counter infront of the stove, chewing on a mouthful of kimchi with a joy akin to a child receiving a sweet treat. leaving the ramen to cook for the next five minutes, jimin sits a few feet away.

“aigoo, are you that hungry?”

“this is so delicious!” you praise his mother’s cooking instead of answering the question. “i can really eat this on its own.”

“ey, don’t fill yourself up yet! we have a lot of ramyeon to eat!”

“sorry, sorry!”

your giggles fill the apartment with warmth during this freezing winter. jimin didn’t doubt it when jungkook said that you light up every room you enter, he just didn’t expect that he would also gain a friend.

“how’s your cheek?”

“as you can see,” you motion at your face. “yellow. soooo… uglier.”

“that means it’s healing well.”

“i know,” the apples of your cheek become plump as your lips curve. “it no longer hurts to smile.”

“that’s a relief to hear,” he returns your kind smile. “jungkook has been worried about you.”

that’s the end of what he can tell you. jungkook won’t be pleased if you learn that he cried when he talked about the horrible thing that happened to you.

“thank you,”

“huh? for what?”

“being jungkook’s happiness.”

from his peripheral vision, he perceives your surprise. however, he is too flustered to meet your eyes while he is speaking from the bottom of his heart.

“the past year was physically and mentally draining for the team. as you know, we… we were considering giving up and disbanding. and of course it’s hard on all of us, but i’m really, really worried about jungkook. but!”

he chuckles at the dramatic rise of his own voice.

“i’m less worried now that you’re in his life. and i’m not saying this to put pressure on you or anything! but you see, when he’s tired, he bounces back quickly because of you. he’s smiling more because of you. and i know it goes it also goes the other way around. mhmm… i-i guess what i’m saying is that i hope you can continue being each other’s strength? be each other’s cheerleader?”

you have begun to feel emotional as you listened to his sincere and heartwarming words, but you can’t help but to cackle at the fact that you just witnessed the park jimin say the word ‘cheerleader’ while daintily waving his hands around as they were holding pompoms. how awfully endearing.

“…or something like that.”

uncontrollable giggles vibrate his body, dramatically slipping down the counter and onto the tiled floor to enshroud himself in extreme sheepishness.

“ah, ____! this is driving me crazy! don’t laugh!”

“what are you doing lying on the floor?” you playfully scold him, recording with your phone in secret. “why do i suddenly feel like the older one?”

“what’s with the noise?”

you whip your head around, wide curious eyes greeted with a shirtless jungkook who is still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“is that ramyeon…? i want some too.”

jimin groans when he feels your foot poke him lightly.

“mister, can we add more? my googie is hungry too.”

—

“hyung, ____ told me something recently that really put a lot of things into perspective.”

and with that, jimin pours another bottle of beer in his and jungkook’s ice-filled mugs. “let me hear it.”

“if you intend to be with me for a long time, then i need you to need to know. at first i didn’t understand what it meant? then after we talked, something clicked for me. ahhh, i see it now. ____ didn’t want us to trust each other blindly… because that… that isn’t a good… foundation? for something that i want to last for a very long time. you, me, the members… don’t we all trust each other because we know that we’re good people to our core and we’re good at what we do? isn’t that why we have come this far, and why we keep going? besides army, of course!”

jimin blinks lazily, glossy eyes from the alcohol underneath it all. “that’s right. we wouldn’t have started this anyway… without that kind of trust. i don’t think it’s a connection you can just build with anyone too.”

“oh, that’s it. that’s right!”

“living together for a long time doesn’t guarantee it.”

“exactly.” jungkook nods repeatedly, probably too passionately, a guaranteed ticket for a hangover later on. “we talked about that last time too.”

“right? so we should protect it… maintain it… never lose sight of our purpose…”

the lack of words that follow does not equate to silence. glasses clink against each other and teeth rip bags of chips open and noodles are slurped. they’re overseas and they can’t go to a korean restaurant and grill their own meat. the hotel steak would take forever to arrive and quite frankly, they had it yesterday and it was not good. this is not exactly ideal, but it has its own charm.

jungkook takes another swig of the bittersweet alcohol, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand afterwards.

“____ has become an important part of my life that i would do anything to protect too. how do i say it…?” he exhales to relieve the heavy weight on his chest. “i feel like i gained more purpose in life, hyung… to be honest, i might have a harder time because of that. i know it but… i’m happy. seriously, i’m happy.”

—

taglist in the reblogs! send an ask/dm if you want to be added (or removed) :D

—

[slightly-knot-insane]

a blanket monster where it is dormant at day active at night

It trasform into your ideal fantasy

Thanks for the ask! I'm not sure is the expression 'blanket monster' and actual thing or slang for something, but I'm going to take it quite literally lol

My True Form

Monstertober 2024 - day 7 + 15 [ Extra Appendages + Abstract Abomination ] by @ozzgin

[ gn!monster x fem!reader ]

I mean, you should've assumed the blanket you've bought at the witch's shop wouldn't be ordinary. It was a bit pricey too for a second-hand thing. And not even that pretty. It was... you couldn't even determine what colour it was, but it had glittery threads woven here and there. But for some reason, you wanted it badly.

Everything was fine with it during the day. It was just a plain blanket. But, ever since you bought it, you started having strange dreams. At first, they were mild wet dreams, sexy and fleeting fantasies you didn't even remember in the morning. You would just wake up horny and with need to masturbate. And you would. Every day.

Then, just about a week ago, you had a very vivid dream about having sex with a minotaur. Very vivid dream about a massive and fat bull man crawling on you and pounding your pussy until it was swollen and sore. And you woke up and noticed your pussy really all red. You realized that the minotaur's cock looked exactly like your monster toy. It wasn't just a dream, apparently, but you weren't complaining.

The next night a similar thing happened. This time you were mounted by a unicorn and sex lasted for hours and completely healed all the bruises minotaur left. Again, unicorn's phallus was just like your favourite sex toy.

This strange event occurred every night, and every toy you owned grew a body in your dreams and used you just like you have been using them all these years. You become super horny and wet just thinking about your bed and nightfall.

Tonight, you hear a voice. "Do you want to see my true form?"

Excited, you almost shout: "Yes!" and the blanket you bought from the witch shifts. It takes a different form, it grows and becomes heavier. You can't really grasp what it is, where its face is, or anything for that matter. It touches you. Everywhere. It is all over you, surrounding you, massive and warm.

"I'm happy you want to know my true form," it whispers. "Having you all these nights was amazing, but I want to have you like this."

You are exposed to it, completely vulnerable and amenable. The sensations are incomprehensible. It touches your body with multiple hands and claws. It pushes something into your mouth, pussy and ass, all at the same time. It holds you and lifts you and you lose every sense of direction. It whispers and grunts and moans as if it has multiple mouths. It fucks you in ways you never knew were possible, and you experience orgasm after an orgasm. It's incredible. Once you start begging it for a break, your throat sore from all the whimpers and cries, after all night of fucking your every hole, it turns into a simple blanket again and covers you.

Your strange and abstract monster blanket stays with you for a long time and you are never cold or lonely again.

[bratbarzal]

Let It Happen (LH43) 3/3

Pairing: Luke Hughes x Fem!Reader

WC: 17k

>PART ONE< / >PART TWO<

I'll spare you from everything, if you would still have me, I'll be waiting all my life

General Warnings: pining and longing and fluff galore!!! I think maybe sexual references but who remembers atp. angst (slut shaming, mentions of past relationships and I can't think of a better way to say daddy issues we've all been there)

A/N: we did it, Joe!!!! desktop tumblr really didn't want this to happen!!! I can't believe I finished this!! thank you guys so much for reading, and liking, and messaging me and reblogging and all the commentary, and all the love!!! I appreciate it so much!!

if there is a crossover of readers of on your side and readers of this fic (first of all ily) there is a little oys easter egg in here!! did I think through the logistics of this being set in the same universe? no. did I have fun anyway? yes. I fell in love with writing Luke in that fic so it was only right for me to add it in here!!

Happy New Year to everyone, thank you for reading my work!! 2024 was the year I finally plucked up the courage to write all my random thoughts down and the fact that it spiralled into this blows my mind a bit, but I'm grateful to be here!!

You can distinctly remember the first time you had properly taken notice of Luke Hughes, and it wasn’t back in the restaurant at the club like he probably thinks.

It had been early November, in your freshman year.

Ellie had finally convinced you to join her at one of the games at Yost, and you were bundled up in a coat two sizes too big, the only thing you had remotely close to team colours, and the only thing likely to keep you warm enough to tolerate a whole game and warm-ups.

You were watching the boys skate around, and he had caught your eye in an instant. 

“Who’s that one?” You had asked, pointing down to where number 43 was reaching out awkwardly to sweep up pucks with his stick. You could see the soft brown curls peaking out the back of his helmet from all the way in the stands, and his height made it unmistakable to realise that you recognised him.

He had come up to you at a Halloween party the week before, and if you hadn’t been so preoccupied by the fact that your only-just-ex boyfriend at the time was in the same room, his tongue down another girl’s throat, you might have been endeared by the boy in the dog costume. 

Friendly smile, boyishly handsome features and warm eyes that under any other circumstances might have made your heart skip a beat. It wasn’t the first time you had seen him - you vaguely remembered the gift basket, and you knew he was in a couple of your classes, but you had never really spared him more than a fleeting glance before that party. 

As soon as he had noticed your teary eyes upon approach, his demeanour had changed in an instant, and where anyone else might have backed off, might have been uncomfortable or deterred, done a u-turn and given up on his mission to approach, his expression had softened - worried and caring in a way that made your throat go dry, and you had to dash off to the nearest bathroom to splash your tears away.

“That’s Luke,” Ellie had told you, “Luke Hughes, Jack’s brother.”

“Oh,” You had pouted, disappointed. Jack had made it painfully obvious that he wasn’t your biggest fan the first time you had met him, and if you’re honest, you were hardly a great admirer of his, either. 

Ellie had noticed your expression, had nudged you with her elbow until you took your eyes off of the figure on the ice, and had narrowed her eyes right at you. “Why?”

“He’s in a couple of my classes, is all,” you shrugged, eyes travelling back and finding him in an instant.

“Luke’s cool. You’d eat him alive, though, probably get bored within a week.”

“I wasn’t thinking about him like that,” you frowned, watching him skate around the ice with the grace and enthusiasm of a clumsy puppy dog. Cute. “Just curious.”

“He’s waaaay too nice for you,” she scoffed, and you had tried to swallow down the pang of offence you had felt, knowing she had very little of your past to compare him to. The two of you had only been roommates for a couple of months at that point, and she had only ever seen you interested in your ex. “He’s also kind of a like a little brother to me. Dorky and annoying, but I’m very protective of him.”

You had bit your tongue at how patronising that had sounded, knowing Ellie was one of the youngest people of your freshman class - a July baby - and Luke might even have been older than her. 

“Like I said, just curious.”

You had noticed Luke a lot more after that, though.

A quiet, recurring presence.

A seat behind you in business comms, a figure against the wall in the corner of the room at different parties, on posters that lined the walls and the perimeter of Yost Arena, in articles you edited for extra credit in the Michigan Daily. 

You had even made small efforts to get him to talk to you - never being the type to make the first move, yourself - started talking to his friends, some of the guys on the hockey team, had made sure his name was on the list for your sorority parties, you’d even dropped your pen once in class, and he’d just handed it back over with a soft smile, never uttering a word.

You wouldn’t call it a crush, but it was somewhere around the borderline of that - especially looking back after the summer you shared with him.

And you think, in retrospect, that if he’d have ever made a move, would have spoken to you even just once after the incident at the Halloween party, you probably would have developed one.

You hate to admit it, now, but he had been right all those weeks ago in the restaurant. 

He’s kind of inevitable like that.

By the time he disappeared in your sophomore year that little spark of something had mostly fizzled out, but it didn’t entirely stop you unintentionally keeping tabs. Stats that cropped up on the sports channels, articles in the paper, posts on your instagram feed.

And you don’t know what you would call it, the way he kind of stuck with you, but when you’d seen him in that booth in the beginning of summer - when he’d spoken to you in full sentences, had met your eye and held contact in a way that sucked you in like a vacuum - you kind of felt that spark reignite.

The boy you almost, kind of, could have known, once upon a time, finally making the effort to get to know you.

And Luke Hughes is persistent. You have a detached admiration for just how much. He pushes, and he presses, and he perseveres until all your resolve is gone - resolve you’ve spent years mastering, with quick wit and snark protecting your heart from anyone who dares to take aim for it.

But that detachment is waining. 

Especially as you lay on your front on your childhood bed, the NHL awards playing on the TV in your room back at your mom’s house, and you try to busy your hands with the crotchet kit you had picked up from the mall before you came home for a couple of days. 

Your admiration is blooming and blossoming in the depths of your stomach into something intricate and uncontrollable. 

And it has nothing to do with his name, his career, the award he is nominated for.

It’s just him. 

Larger than life on your TV screen, but it still doesn’t capture him in his entirety, and you think for the first time that you miss him. You miss movies in his bed, you miss watching him from the passenger seat of his BMW, the sun shining from the window beside him, illuminating his profile until you burn from the glare. You miss his stupid jokes and his teasing smiles, and you miss the warmth in your cheeks when he looks your way.   

And it’s only been like 2 days.

You miss Luke Hughes.

You kind of think you missed him before he even left.

You might have even missed him before you knew him, but that would be crazy, right?

Maybe he makes you crazy.

Maybe you need this week to recuperate, to attempt to build those walls back up before they’re damaged beyond repair. 

Luke hadn’t given much thought to missing you before he and his brothers left for Vegas. He’d been so caught up, internally, about his and Quinn’s nominations, that he had thought it would continue to distract him the whole time they had been out there, but boy was he wrong.

All he remembers about his trip is thinking of you, and when the boys got back, and you had been visiting your mom for the weekend, all he could do was think of you more.

He thought of you when they sat at the table for dinner, and your place across from his was empty. He thought of you when he watched movies alone, thought of texting you some sort of commentary as he worked his way through the list of rom-coms you had given him, but you hadn’t texted him yet, so he gave up quickly on that idea.

He thought of you in bed, thought of the last time the two of you had been in there, together, and if he’s honest, he thinks of that almost all the time. Of messy kisses, wandering hands, and connection so deep he doesn’t think it will ever fizzle out. 

And when he finally sees you again, he thinks he might have to get Quinn to source some sort of defibrillator for the house, because he swears his heart stops beating.

You poke your head into his bedroom, a shy smile on your face, and your bag is still on your shoulder, which means he had been your first stop, before you’d even gone to drop your things in yours and Ellie’s room. 

He sees you in the reflection of his mirror, and turns immediately, clumsy fingers releasing the tie he’s been struggling to get right for a couple minutes, and steps toward you before he can even begin to tell himself not to seem so eager.

“You’re back!” He grins, and when your face lights up in return, he can hardly find it in himself to care anymore how down bad he comes across.

“Yeah,” you breathe, stepping into the room, discarding your bag by the door and shuffling toward him. “You didn’t have get all dolled up for my return.”

You reach to take both sides of the tie into your hands, and he feels himself go warm all over at the mere proximity of you after so long apart. 

“It’s my cousin’s wedding,” he tells you as you start to knot the tie, knuckles brushing slightly across his chest until he’s holding his breath, lungs expanding so that he feels your touch a little more. “They’re having their reception at the club, later, you should come down.”

“You’re asking me to your cousin’s wedding?”

“Not like that,” he chuckles nervously as he looks down at you, eyes focused on the task at hand. “Just, haven’t seen you in a week, wouldn’t want to leave you here alone, it could be fun.”

Not to mention the fact he’s been watching the door for the past two days while he’s been home, waiting for you to get back and hoping it would be before the event, and he could figure out some way to ask you.

“You can’t just invite a random person to your cousin’s wedding reception, Luke.”

“She said I could!” He reasons, frowning when you raise a brow at him. “Not a random person, she said I could bring a friend.” He grasps gently at your hands as they straighten the fabric, halting your movements. “We’re friends, right?”

“If you say so.”

That wasn’t a no, he thinks, courage building within him in such a way that he starts to buzz with it. That would definitely have been a flat out no, before.

“You’d be doing me a favour.” He bargains, still holding your hands against his chest. “Quinn and Jack are bringing Josh and Turcs, I’d be like a fifth wheel,”

“So what you’re telling me is that you have no other friends?”

“Sure, if that’s what tugs at your heartstrings.” He has plenty of friends he could ask. Eddy, Duker, Luca - they’re all in town. None of them would look as pretty in a dress as you would, though. He wants to say there’s no chance of any of them kissing him after a few cocktails, but that would probably be a lie. “C’mon, they’re not gonna be checking IDs at the bar,” he wiggles his eyebrows in an attempt to convince you, “The free bar.”

“I don’t have anything to wear to a wedding,”

“What about that blue dress you wore to the formal last year?”

He remembers his throat going dry at just a picture - frosty baby blue silk against glowing skin, hair falling past your shoulders, the prettiest smile he’s ever seen in every photo.

And that is where misplaced courage gets him, he thinks. Letting slip that he has been creeping on your Instagram like some deranged stalker, because where else would he have seen you in that dress? He’d been in Jersey, by then. Scrolling down his timeline and swiping at every photo dump in what he didn’t even realise at the time was an obvious attempt to catch a glimpse of you.

Idiot.

“That was Ellie’s dress. I think she gave it to the Goodwill or something.” You frown, barely even picking up on his slip - unaware to the point that his heart rate can level back out to normalcy.

“You’ve got time to go shopping, you could get another,” he shrugs, reaching into the pocket of his pants. “Here, take my card.”

“Gee, thanks, Daddy Warbucks,” you push at his hand when he attempts to give it to you.

“I’m not adopting you. I’m more like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman.”

“Are you implying I’m a prostitute?”

“No,” he scoffs, only because, unintentionally, he totally was, and now he can’t get the picture out of his head - you in thigh high boots, legs for days stood out of the blue skirt, and the white top with the cutouts, soft summer skin he’s been missing the touch of peaking through - and he starts to wonder if that would be too much too soon to ask of you; to dress up for him like that. Maybe for halloween, if the two of you have progressed past whatever this is, by then. Keep dreaming, Hughes, he can already hear you saying. “More like a sugar baby.”

“I don’t need your money.”

“I’m trying to do something nice for you.”

“You don’t have to buy me things for me to like you.” You pout, and his own lips curl up at your defensiveness - so eager to prove yourself to him over something he isn’t even actually pressing. 

“Because you like me already?” He can’t help himself, a small voice in the back of his mind telling him to push, push, push at your buttons until you practically malfunction - craving you in whatever disoriented state it was that he had seen you in last, pliant and willing and crumbling so nicely for him to scoop up and piece back together. “Because you missed me?”

He shouldn’t want that - want to have to hold you in place, that is, not really - but he does. He wants to be the one that gets you like that. The only one. 

“What time’s the reception?”

That should also have been a flat out no.

Interesting.

You give in so easily, then, to the point where Luke gets giddy, letting you know when and where he wants you - always and anywhere, if he’s honest - and you roll your eyes as you agree, but you stay right in front of him long after you’ve finished with his tie, and he’s so tempted to kiss you that he’s buzzing with excitement. 

He sneaks a kiss to the corner of your mouth - quick enough that you don’t push him away, or make any sort of comment about it, and darts down the stairs at Quinn’s calls for him, leaving you to figure out whatever it is you need to do to be ready for later.

And he thanks his lucky stars that later comes before he has the chance to really dwell on it. His day passes in a blur, the ceremony over in a flash, family photos taken before he even realises he doesn’t need to force a cheesy smile, and only brief moments spared over the course of the early afternoon to think about the things he’s lacking.

As he sits in the church between his brothers, he realises that he wants to be sitting with an arm slung around you and a hand in your lap - your fingers swirling absentminded shapes into his palm as the two of you watch the ceremony side by side. Wants to look down at you staring up the aisle in bewilderment, a soft flush to your cheeks, a dopey grin on your face and a far-off look in your eyes. Wants to mutter stupid jokes in your ear and watch you twist your lips to bite back a giveaway smile. 

As he rides over to the club in the back of Quinn’s car, sandwiched between Alex and Josh with his brothers up front, he thinks he’d kill to have you in his lap - as illegal as that may be, but it’s only 5 minutes, and he’d make sure you were safe with an arm curled around your waist.

And when he’s waiting in the reception hall at the club, the late afternoon ticking into early evening, hearing speeches about falling in love and finding your person, he wants you in the seat beside him. Wants to rest his arm on the back of your chair, play with loose strands of your hair or stroke soft fingertips against your warm skin, and press gentle kisses into your temple.

It’s alarming how quick these thoughts consume him - his college years spent pining, his summer spent basking in whatever attention you choose to give him - and he can’t help but let himself be carried away with the hope of it all, that maybe he is wearing you down enough to give in to such thoughts.

Especially when he sees you walking in, and he swears the world has started moving in slow motion like a scene fresh out of one of those rom-coms you keep trying to subject him to.

His legs stretch without any instruction from his brain, pushing himself up onto his feet until he can make his way over and meet you halfway.

Your eyes light up and your hand lifts in a nervous wave as you start heading straight for him, the action causing the thin spaghetti strap of your dress to fall down your shoulder. 

“Hey,” he breathes out, in what feels like relief, mouth breaking out into a dreamy grin until you’re right in front of him.

“Sorry I’m a little late, it took me forever to find a dress, and then my hair wouldn’t go right, and then the Uber took every back road known to man despite me literally telling him,” Luke reaches to readjust the fallen strap as you talk, fingers trailing ever so slightly against the soft skin of your shoulder, “That I knew a quicker way, and then we ended up at those lights over on Palmer for like 10 minutes, I think I was in that car so long I’m all crinkly.”

His eyes drop slowly down your figure, the silky fabric clinging to your curves in all the right spots, the soft yellow a perfect match to the tie around his neck. “You’re beautiful,” he reassures you with ease, cheeks flushing ever so slightly when your eyes meet his - but he’s used to that, by now, the way his head goes hot when you look at him. “I was gonna get a drink, do you want one?”

He extends his hand out to you in invitation before you even nod in response, and when your fingers slide between his, the heat that is swirling around his head and face starts to spread down, past his neck, into his chest, settling there as the two of you make your way over to the bar. 

This last week without you has been hell.

Sat in his hotel room in Vegas, checking his phone for any sort of update - a text, an instagram post, a story - and wondering if that night before he had left had been playing on your mind the same way it had on his. 

Soft, slow kisses pressed into reciprocated lips, hands memorising every inch of each other’s bodies, desperate but intentional movements into one another. It was hardly his first time, but God, had it felt like it. It was definitely the first time he had ever felt anything that deep for another person - felt so connected, so attached.

And, despite the lingering insecurity that he thinks he might always feel when it comes to you, he knew you felt the same.

You had told him in the simplest terms - you wanted him - but you had shown him so much more. Eyes stuck on his as he moved against you, foreheads pressed together, lips seeking his at every given opportunity, nails scratching at the broad expanse of his shoulders when he had taken the lead and flipped the two of you over. 

Gasps and moans, pleading and pining, begging and singing for him as you came undone for the first, second and third time. 

He doesn’t know how you can possibly even try to carry on pretending you don’t feel even an ounce of the infatuation he does.

Not when you look at him the way you do, eyes sparkling and wanting. Not when he had spent the past week pressing his fingertips into the bruises you had kissed again into the lowest part his stomach like that had become your spot, hoping he could aggravate them enough to linger until you could make some more. 

Not when, even though the two of you have been stood at the bar now for a good few minutes, you haven’t made any efforts to take your fingers from where his are playing with them between the two of you.

“You never answered my question, earlier,” he hums as the two of you wait for your drinks.

“You talk so much, Hughes, you’re gonna have to remind me which question that was.” 

“Did you miss me?” His head tilts with curiosity as he watches the hesitation cross your features, lashes fluttering as you look up at him with your lips pressed together to keep them from spluttering out the truth. “I missed you.” He admits, in the hopes that expressing his candour might elicit the same in you.

“I’m surprised you found the time, you looked very occupied on your brothers’ stories.” Bingo.

“You been keeping tabs on me?” The smirk that accompanies the question is instinctual, and he manages to catch the slight shift in your demeanour before you can retreat, closing his fingers around your hand before you can pull it away. 

“No,” you scoff, and when you pull insistently for him to release your hand, the strap of your dress falls loose down your arm again, Luke’s eyes following before he fixes it for you once more. “Just stumbled across some pictures, I guess,”

“Yeah, you just tripped and fell into stalking me?”

“Don’t act like you weren’t doing the same, I saw those little 3 dots come up so often I was starting to think you were typing up the entirety of War and Peace.”

Which means you’d been lingering in your message thread with him, too. Gotcha.

“You know, the world won’t end if you just admit you missed me.”

“Fine.” It slips out before you know what you’re saying, eyes widening like a deer in the headlights as you realise you’ve already given in. “I missed you.”

He smiles, but doesn’t press, and it’s a smile that lingers as the two of you just look at each other, his eyes drifting down to watch your lips twist and press together, biting back whatever insult or chirp you’re just dying to throw his way to cover up. He waits for it to come, but loves that it doesn’t, and loves even more that you’re holding onto the moment as much as he is. 

“Do you wanna dance?” Luke asks a while later, once the two of you have gulped down a couple of drinks, have sat with the others for a little, and he’s watched you watch the dance floor with a yearning gaze.

Your eyes meet his after he poses the question, a confidence in his demeanour that has you crumbling immediately.

You nod, allowing him to guide you over to where a few other couples are swaying on the dance floor, and you let him guide you into his arms, one hand in his and the other resting on his shoulder. 

It should be awkward, you think, remembering back on all the times you’ve tried this before. School dances and proms, clumsily shuffling and trying to avoid being stomped on by your partner’s feet - but the two of you move with ease, and you’d like to think it’s because his body knows yours by now.

“This is so weird,” you mutter, eyes cast down to watch his feet move in his fancy Oxford shoes, a soft flush to your cheeks.

“What do you mean?” He asks, nerves heightening as he stiffens like he’s waiting for you to let him go - to step away and cut this short like it doesn’t make you feel the same way. 

“Slow dancing is for old folk like war veterans and millennials.” Your lips twist as your eyes meet his, and his lips turn up into a slow smile, a deep, melodic chuckle following closely behind.

“If you’d rather bump’n'grind on me, I get it,” he smirks.

“You’re such an idiot,” you scoff back, twitching to shake the hair from your shoulder, assuming that’s what is causing the shivers currently shooting down your spine, and not the large, possessive hand resting in the dip of your waist. 

“Y’know, I’ve realised something about you lately,” he starts, voice low as he leans in, angling into your exposed neck and stopping his lips within mere inches of your ear, “You have a tell.”

“A tell?” You turn, brow raised as your gaze meets his, faces close enough that you can feel the soft pants of his breath on your skin.

“For when you’re enjoying yourself more than you think you should be,” he hums, his eyes fluttering a little as they drop to watch your mouth, the swipe of your tongue wetting your lower lip. “You call me an idiot,” his hand on your waist squeezes ever so slightly, your back arching a little into his touch, “Or stupid,” he uses his other hand, the one clutching at yours, to pull you closer, “Or dumb, or a dork.”

You can feel your heart thudding at the call-out, beating in time to the music, in time to the way your bodies sway together, creating it’s own rhythm for the two of you to dance to. 

“Maybe you’re just a stupid, dumb, dorky idiot.” You squeak out, immediately hating the way the words taste in your mouth, your face souring and eyes narrowing in deliberation. There’s no way that was at all convincing, and the smirk that tugs up his lips is all you need to know he sees right through you.

“Maybe,” he humours you, anyway. “And yet, you can’t get enough of me.”

“A smug dorky idiot.” You correct yourself, cutting out stupid and dumb, the sharpness of those words cutting at your tongue like a knife. 

The pointlessness of such discussion almost waters down the exhilaration you feel at being this close to him, in public, nonetheless, where literally anyone else could call you out on your growing tolerance of Luke, could connect the dots regarding all the time the two of you have been spending together and wave the evidence of your growing affection like a chequered flag for all to see.

This definitely feels like you’re crossing the finish line.

And, of course, it’s Jack who does the honours, primed all night to find some way to get between you and Luke upon your arrival, stumbling up to the two of you at the end of the song you’re swaying to and laying a heavy palm on your shoulder.

“Isn’t this cosy?” 

“Fuck off, Jack,” Luke scowls before you get the chance, a pointed glare directed towards his brother, the palming grip at your waist growing faint as you try to wedge a little distance between the two of you, fighting a losing battle with your instinct to run and hide. 

“I need to talk to your girlfriend.”

“I’m not his-,”

“She’s not my-,”

The two of you speak simultaneously, and despite the fact that you were saying the exact same thing, him saying it kind of dampens your mood, putting a good couple of steps between you and Luke with your arms crossing over your chest as you look toward his brother. 

“Whatever. Can I borrow her for a couple minutes?”

“I’m not property, Jack, you can ask me directly.”

“Please can we talk? Alone?”

“Let’s go outside,” you huff, storming off before he has the chance to say anything else and making it all the way outside before he speaks again. 

“Sorry for interrupting, you and Luke looked kind of cute-,”

“What do you want?”

“I’m sorry I said you were messing him around, and that you were toxic.” 

You frown at him, watching as he diverts his gaze to the ground, nervously shuffling on his feet and fingers fidgeting with the cuffs on his shirt. 

“I’m sorry for all the things I said and did at that party, I didn’t mean them, I was just drunk and upset. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

You chew nervously on the inside of your cheeks as he talks, arms wrapped around yourself to shield from the brisk night air, and you watch as Jack starts to unravel before your very eyes.

For as long as you’ve known Ellie, for as long as you’ve known him, you’ve never seen him as anything less than cool, calm and collected - it’s kind of the main thing that grinds your gears about him if your honest, the fact that he never seems real. Like he’s putting on some sort of persona to seem like he has all his shit together, when you know he doesn’t.

“I really like Ellie, you know,” he sighs, and you scoff, because of course you know that. “And I was blaming you for putting this wedge between us when it’s really me that’s been fucking up.” You know that, too. “I’ve been thinking about her this past week, and I really wanna pull myself together and finally do something about it. Stop being such an idiot.”

You bite your tongue from questioning the reality of that. He’ll always be an idiot, you think, but that’s best left unspoken. It’s not even personal to him, that’s just part of being a man.

“She likes you too,” You tell him instead, despite the fact that it goes against all sorts of girl code to do so. You’re doing them both a favour, and the universe should really just let you off, you feel. “I don’t know why either of you have wasted so much time when you’ve both felt the same way all along.”

“You really think she’d say yes if I asked her out?”

“I do,” you shrug, “And it doesn’t need to be done on some romantic boat trip or some crazy elaborate scheme, you should just ask her when she gets back next week. Like as soon as she comes through the door, it will save us all a headache.”

“You sound like Luke.”

“Yeah, well, he’s rubbing off on me, I guess.”

“I don’t need to hear what the two of you get up to when you’re alone, that’s my little brother.”

You reach over and shove at his arm, and for the first time ever, when your eyes meet his, neither of them are narrowed. He’s smiling, and you’re smiling too, and it feels a little like a weight has been lifted from your chest, fresh air filling your lungs.

“Let’s go back inside, Luke’s probably thinking we’ve killed each other.”

“I’m just gonna take a second, it’s kinda stuffy in there.”

Jack nods, before making his way back to the reception, and you make your way over to the fountain, heels working through the gravel until you take a seat on the side. 

It’s a couple of minutes before you hear footsteps, and before you see the fancy oxfords come into your view, eyes roaming up the long, lean body of the boy who has your brain running marathons.   

When your eyes meet, his gaze is warm, and it feels like he can see right through you. Like he’s looking into the depths of your mind, holding a big cheesy sign as he waits at the finish line for your thoughts to come to an end.

He sits wordlessly beside you, his knees knocking against yours, and waits for you to speak - although the silence doesn’t feel awkward, or forced. He waits, patiently and understandingly, and you feel like he’s giving you the time to figure out what you want to say. 

It feels monumental, this moment, like you’re teetering on the edge of something real and honest for the first time in a while.

“The other week, when we,” your voice feels heavy, thick at the back of your throat, “You know,”

“I was strictly advised to forget about it, so no, I don’t know,” he teases, and you’re kind of thankful that he’s trying to ease the tension you’re building for yourself. “But if you wanna jog my memory.” You shove lightly at his shoulder. “I’m kidding. What about it?”

“I’ve never really done that before?”

“What, snuck a guy up to his room in the middle of a house party and rocked his world?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” You scoff, smiling to yourself, despite the weight of all that you’re about to admit to him. “I’ve only ever slept with one other guy, and he wasn’t very nice about it after, so I just,” you frown, “Don’t really do it.”

“You don’t-,” he frowns too, you can see it from your peripheral, eyes till on the hands fidgeting in your lap, “But I thought-,” You look over and meet his eyes, brows furrowed and lips parted in confusion. “What?”

“The first guy, Jamie,” you start, twisting to face him, knees knocking once more. “We started talking in the summer before my freshman year, got to know each other ‘cause he lived one town over from me and he’d come into work all the time, and then when I started college he was a sophomore, and he was the first guy to ever take, like, a serious interest in me. And we had a lot in common, he was on the soccer team, we grew up in the same area, we got on really well, it was the first time I ever really felt connected to anyone like that. But I’d never done anything before, so I wanted to take things slow,”

Jamie Reeves. Captain of the University of Michigan Soccer Team until he tore his ACL at the end of his last year, ruining all dreams of playing in the MLS, like it was entirely achievable for a player of his caliber anyway. You had been infatuated by him, though. The kind of infatuation that a younger you might have doodled little hearts around his name in all your notebooks.

And then he turned out to be a complete leech.

“Please don’t tell me he rushed you into it.” Luke straightens his posture, reaching to place his hand over yours in your lap, the touch immediately comforting, and his concern even more so.

“No. Not exactly.” You sigh, hating how dramatic you feel about the whole thing. “We went on dates, and things were going really well, so I figured I trusted him enough to be my first, then after we had sex he just went really off. He wouldn’t take me out anymore, wasn’t putting any effort in. And then people started asking me all these questions about him, and what we did, and I realised he was going around telling everyone all the details, like I was just some conquest he could tick off to the boys on the team.” You remember how ashamed you had felt, eyes on you in every corridor, whispers about you in every class. You couldn’t leave your dorm without someone muttering some obscene comment about you, and you just felt awful. “Every time one of them saw me they’d make all these dumb comments, and I just felt dirty all the time, like I’d done something wrong. Then I went to a party at Pike, the one at Halloween,” The party that Luke had approached you for the first time since you met, and you had stormed off in tears - not due to him at all, but due to the fact you had just seen Jamie sticking his tongue down someone else’s throat, mere days after you had seen him last. “And he was all over one of the girls on the field hockey team, didn’t even look my way again after that, not that I really wanted him to.”

“You haven’t been with anyone since?”

You shake your head. “Doesn’t stop people saying I have, though. I tried dating a couple times, but it always ended up the same way, rumours being spread about me sleeping around and being easy. And it’s so dumb, ‘cause it’s like I trusted one guy, and somehow it keeps backfiring on me.” You pay no mind, for the first time in a long time, to the crack in your voice as you say it, no longer afraid of showing any hint of vulnerability. Not to Luke. You need to get this out - get it out of the way, once and for all, so you can move past it. Move on, even, with someone you hope won’t treat you the same.

“Does that mean you trusted me?” 

You try not to think too hard about all the times the two of you have shared any level of intimacy - the physical touch mostly initiated by you, and it’s hardly ever on a whim. You think a lot about Luke, if you’re honest. About how he’s honest, and he sticks by his word when he promises not to tell anyone anything. How he always tries to make you laugh or smile, even if it’s something stupid. He isn’t afraid to embarrass himself with you, isn’t afraid to give you power, to let you take the lead. And even though sometimes he jokes otherwise, the times you hang out, he has no ulterior motives. He likes talking to you, likes watching movies with you, likes meeting your eye in a crowded room and giving you one of those smiles that have started to make your heart stutter with something unidentifiable.

“I guess so.” Your shoulder lifts in a nonchalant shrug, your words anything, but. “I don’t know, I’ve been thinking about it since and I can’t explain why it happened but I feel like you and me are-,” 

Connected? Compatible?

You know what he would say you are. You don’t know if you’re there, yet.There are so many things the two of you have become over the past few weeks, so many things you’ve wanted to be for longer than you even realised, so many things you’re afraid to say.

“I feel like out of everyone, you’d have no reason to lie to me. Or about me.”

“I wouldn’t. I didn’t know all that stuff,” he frowns, and it seems like his mind only just makes sense of all the times you threatened him after the fact, making sure he wouldn’t tell anyone that the two of you kissed, or hung out alone in an intimate space and maybe potentially enjoyed yourselves. He had thought you were ashamed of it - but all this time, you’ve been protective. Of yourself, of the trust you were building in him. “Why don’t you tell people, that those guys are all lying?”

“No one would believe me,” you shrug, eyes cast down to where his hand still rests on yours, and his touch prevents you from picking nervously at the skin around your nails.

“I do,” He assures you, “And I promise the next time I hear anyone say any of that stuff about you, I’ll beat their face in.”

“Yeah, you’d drop gloves for me?”

“Look at you with your hockey talk.” He coos, lifting a hand to caress your cheek, where you had barely noticed a tear trailing down until he wipes it away with his thumb, a proud smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah. I would. We’re partners, remember? I’ve got your back.” He extends his pinkie out to you, and you curl yours around it until he’s tugging it toward him, leaning down to press his lips to your knuckle, his kiss like a promise as his green eyes meet yours. 

It doesn’t gross you out, this time. If you’re honest with yourself, it hadn’t the first time he did it, either. It was cute, in an entirely dorky and childish and almost nostalgic way.

And you’re compelled to do the same, leaning and touching your pouted lips to his pinky, eyes fluttering closed as you kiss his skin, the rush of blood to your head somehow louder than the steady stream of the fountain beside you. 

“Listen,” he starts, lowering his hand but keeping your pinkies interlocked, resting them between you both on the stone. “If whatever this is that we’re doing makes you uncomfortable, or brings all that stuff back, I can back off a little.”

Something akin to disappointment floods through your system, your heart rate picking up in a panicked staccato, but you try to stay cool - still, for whatever reason, holding your cards close to your chest. 

“I can make sure my brothers don’t make any more stupid comments about us, they’re doing it to annoy me, not you. And I can,” he takes a deep breath, eyes flickering between yours as if to gauge your desires before he has to reluctantly pander to them. “I can stop, too.”

You nod, because it’s all you can do to shake away the tears threatening to flood your lash line at just the thought of him giving up on you. 

It’s the lump in your throat that blocks the words coming out to tell him as much, and your lips twist in discomfort as you take in the way he’s looking at you - gaze filled with dwindling patience and waining resilience. There’s only so far you can continue to push him, you can see that now, and if you’d have told the version of yourself that first sat down with him all those weeks ago - the version of yourself that refuted any chance of ever warming up to him, that saw him as nothing more than an annoyance, a disturbance to your tips for the day - that the thought of him stopping whatever you have would make you feel like this?

That cold-hearted bitch would have laughed in your face. 

“Hey, lovebirds!” There’s a shout from across the courtyard, and Quinn  appears in the distance with hands cupped around his mouth. The intrusion has you retracting your hand, and you can see the way Luke reacts in your peripheral, a resigned nod given instinctually before he looks over to his brother. “I’m driving home if you two want a ride!”

Luke doesn’t look back at you before pushing himself up, but he offers a hand to help you stand, and the two of you walk in silence to meet Quinn by the exit.

The car ride back to the house is silent, too, save for the soft hum of the radio that filters through the car. Josh sits up front with Quinn, head lulling against the window as he falls asleep worryingly quick, and you’re squished in the middle between Luke and Alex, Jack having stayed back with their parents. It’s hard not to press your legs against Luke’s - his are so gangly and long that they take up more than their fair share of room, and it’s much less awkward despite the circumstances to be touching him than touching Turcs. You feel a lot less tense when you’re touching, anyway. 

And when Quinn pulls up, Luke still helps you out of the car - ever the gentleman, even in the face of apparent rejection.

Quinn and Alex work at lugging an overly inebriated Josh up to his room, leaving Luke to guide you through the house, and the silence starts to become unbearable as he whispers a quick and quiet goodnight, leaving you at the door to yours and Ellie’s room as he makes his way down the hall.

“Hey, Luke,” you call out in a whisper toward him as he retreats, his tall frame turning, a gleam of what you interpret as hope flashing across his green eyes.

“Yeah?” He hums back, voice low as not to disturb anyone else, gaze meeting yours, locking in place with an almost audible click.

“I don’t want you to stop.”

You’re worried for a second you’ll have to expand, that maybe his slightly intoxicated memory doesn’t stretch as far back as to remember the conversation the two of you had had out by the fountain. 

Elaborating on it would be embarrassing to say the least - because what, exactly, are you supposed to say?

I don’t want you to stop flirting with me.

I don’t want you to stop kissing me when no one else is around.

I don’t want you to stop being the only person I can talk to.

I don’t want you to stop bulldozing into my very secure and sturdy walls, thank you very much. They’re starting to tumble down in what could be a very calamitous fashion.

Worried you might have to expose a little more of yourself than you had originally anticipated, you chew at the corner of your lip, waiting.

But then he smiles - in that easy way that makes your bones feel like jelly, your knees weakening to the point that you lean against the still-closed door of your room. In the way that has that loudmouth voice you’re trying too often to suppress within you screaming, God, he’s so cute!

“I know,” he smirks, the bastard, liquid courage running deep through his veins, “Inevitable, remember?”

You scoff, almost instinctively rolling your eyes despite the endeared warmth that floods your belly. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know,” he says again, “You coming?”

And all you can do is nod, biting back a fully-fledged smile before you’re rushing over and slotting yourself under his outstretched arm.

You definitely enjoy him more than you should.

Living with boys for the first time in your life has taught you a lot over the weeks you’ve been staying at the lake house.

The first is that they’re weirdly messy - in ways that shouldn’t bother you, but they do. It isn’t clothes left around, or dirty plates - but it’s hand soap crusted around the spout by the faucet, shoes kicked off and discarded at random points throughout the house, and they, for some bizarre reason, never put the lid back right on anything.

The second is that they’re loud - and that should have been anticipated. Guys are notoriously obnoxious. But it isn’t just their voices that carry. It’s footsteps up the stairs, stomping in the dead of the night when one of them needs a drink. It’s chewing their food, or slurping their coffee, or scraping the feet of their chairs against the floor when they’re sat at the dining table. It’s tapping their hands on their knees in haphazard rhythm whenever there might be an ounce of peace that they, without a doubt, misunderstand for awkward silence. 

And the third is that they probably couldn’t organise a fire in a match factory. And that goes for a lot of things - the kitchen cupboards, their laundry loads, and, most importantly, one of the many parties they love to throw.

It wouldn’t bother you so much - they usually work out in the end - but this time, it’s Ellie’s birthday, and the way they leave everything until the last minute is about to give you an aneurysm or something. 

There’s no food, no drinks, no cake, no decorations, and the party is tonight.

And Jack, who’s grand idea it had been to throw her a party in the first place, seems to have kidnapped her - disappearing and leaving you to try and figure out what’s going on.

Cole is the one who finds you in the kitchen, spiralling out, frantically trying to put together some kind of list so that one of the guys can go to the store and pick up the bare minimum to throw a party together - and he manages to calm you down - gathers the rest of the guys and helps come up with a plan, sharing out different categories. Quinn and Josh are down to get drinks, Cole and Alex are down to get food, and you and Luke are down for decorations. 

And then within the next five minutes, you’re back up in your room, transferring things from one of your bags into a tote, so you can carry more stuff back to the car without having to bring back a load of plastic, and Luke is sat on your bed, leaning back onto his hands as he watches you, green eyes still tickling your skin with their tangible watch. 

“I know we’re on a time crunch, but could we make another pit-stop at the mall? I still need to find a present for this baby shower.”

“Oh, actually, I made you something.”

“You made me something?” You can feel him watching you as you dig through the bag you’d brought back with you from being home.

“Yeah, I was bored, when you guys were gone, I forgot to give it to you when you got back, got kinda distracted by the whole wedding thing,” you tell him, reaching blindly to try and find the little figure. “I went by that art supply store and picked up one of those kits,” You finally find it, pulling out the little crotchet animal that may or may not have been your fourth attempt. The first had a stubby neck, the second had uneven legs, and you don’t think the third one’s face was anywhere near appropriate to be gifting to a child. This one isn’t perfect, but you’d honestly reached your limit with it. “Don’t make it a thing, it was like therapy while I was back home to be honest.”

“Oh that’s adorable.” He pouts, accepting it from you and immediately turning it back, bobbing it’s head as if to greet you. “Why a giraffe?”

“Long neck,” you smile, reaching out to pat it. “Reminded me of you.”

“Ha ha,” he rolls his eyes, but the laughter feels real enough. “She’ll love it.”

“She?” It slips out by instinct before you can check yourself, eyes widening as his meet yours again, his lips twitching in the corners. “Thought you said it was for your captain,”

“It is.” He smirks, “Men can’t carry babies last time I checked.” 

You nod, because of course men can’t carry babies. Of course the shower is for the mother of the baby - who you vaguely remember Jack and Luke talking about - someone who works with them back in Jersey. Someone they’re both close to, clearly, if Luke’s stressing this much about a gift.

“Wait, are you jealous?”

“No.” You scoff, frowning purposefully, lips turning down in forced denial.

“You’re jealous.”

“Am not.”

“You want to take this back now, huh?” He holds the giraffe in a way that it bends, adorably, like he’s trying to taunt you with it, and it’s wonky eyes do little to distract from the charm he gives it.

“Nope.” You shrug, “You can give it to whatever girl you want, doesn’t bother me at all.”

“Of course not,” he stands, stepping toward you slowly, “You couldn’t care less what I do away from this house, right?”

“Right.” You gulp, looking into soft green eyes, your legs starting to wobble at the knees, strength and integrity waining as the seconds pass. You really don’t know why you’re still keeping this game up. Ever since that night of the wedding, you’ve been sneaking off into Luke’s room as soon as Ellie falls asleep. You fall asleep by his side, and he wakes you when he gets up early, so you can sneak back without Ellie realising you’ve even gone.

You’ve kissed him every day, sometimes tender, sometimes torrid - over the centre console of his car when he drops you off at work, in his bed before you drift off to sleep, in the kitchen when you sneak off under the ruse of refilling your drink. He can tell the difference between the flavours of lip balms you wear, comments on it like he has a little ranking system filed away somewhere in the back of his mind. You both whisper your secrets in the dark of the night, and you had promised him that you would try to open yourself up more to him.

“I thought we were past this,” he hums, stepping closer, voice low in a way that buzzes through your bones. “Thought we were being honest with each other, now.”

“Honest?” You ask, voice weak, neck craning now to look up at him, eyes boring into your own as he advances on you. 

His hand reaches to cup your jaw, to tilt your head just that bit further, and presses his lips straight to yours instead of elaborating any further.  

He’s tentative, at first. Gentle, even. Fingertips ghosting along the side of your neck, pulling you closer, less with any physical force and more so with pure magnetic attraction, your skin humming - buzzing, even, to be touched by him in any which way. 

Your chin tilts as your mouths slot together in a soft, slow kiss, and when his lips touch yours, everything else fits perfectly into place. The fingers of his left hand press firmly into the flesh of your hip, now, using a slight force to manoeuvre you how it suits him - as close as he can physically get you - and those on his right reach around enough to slightly curve towards the back of your neck, applying just enough pressure so that your chin angles upward to deepen the kiss, his tongue pressing a pleading invitation into your bottom lip.

An invitation you immediately grant him, your hands finding their place on his body with ease, one flat against the warm expanse of his chest and the other matching his, soft fingertips grazing the skin of his neck until they tangle in the slight overgrowth of curls at the nape.

Everything feels so fluid, so effortless, and yet, so new - like this is the first time you have kissed, an eruption of fresh feelings bursting through you. There’s still a familiarity that lingers - one of ease, where it’s like your bodies have each other mapped out, already. You know every cell of him and he of you, and it’s evident in the way the moment escalates.

Your bodies naturally gravitate towards the nearest surface, his fingers reaching out behind your hip to soften the blow of him pushing you into the dresser, your back arching, feet moving in sync as not to tangle and trip, or stumble and break the kiss.

But there’s nothing else clumsy about it.

He lifts you with ease, the cold surface only a slight shock to the system, and it brings you to the perfect height where he can seamlessly move his kisses from your lips, past your jaw, down your neck and into the crevice of your collarbones, leaving a trail of the sticky residue of your lip balm. 

Strong hands cup your thighs, parting your legs until he can stand between them, and your fingers bury themselves into his curls, pushing into him however you can. 

When his fingers graze the inside of your thigh, his lips part from the hot skin of your clavicle, and his head tilts slightly until his darkened green eyes meet yours.

“Please,” you breathe out before he can even ask, beyond caring for whatever particles of pride you’ve been desperately trying to cling to when you watch his lips curve slowly into the most panty-dropping smirk you think you���ve ever seen.

“Please what?”

Your lips part as if by instinct, a biting remark fizzling out on the tip of your tongue as your mind works for some kind of comeback, for some semblance of resistance to whatever this version of him is, but there’s nothing. Just a frantic plea for him to do anything to you. Whatever he wants.

Your hips shuffle forward as if led by a mind of their own, trying to force his hand up, only for him to follow the movement of your thigh.

“Touch me,” you find yourself pouting, spikes of heat flashing through you at the way you can see the thoughts crossing his mind, of all the ways in which he can torture you - putty in the palm of what you thought were safe hands.

“Tell me you were jealous,” he prompts, leaning forward to press a teasing kiss to your lips, “Tell me that the thought of me even talking to another girl makes your skin crawl.”

Don’t let him get cocky, a voice prevails in the back of your mind, despite the accuracy of his words. Tell him he’d have to have an ounce of game for you to be remotely worried, tell him the only thing that makes your skin crawl is his incessant need to mouth off all the time. Tell him, tell him, tell him!

“I was jealous,” you breathe out instead, chasing the victorious smirk that stretches across his lips in the hopes you can kiss it away.

Jealous of a girl you’ve never met, in a relationship with another man, pregnant with his child, not remotely interested in Luke.

A girl who gets to see him all the time, who knows him probably in ways you might never, who he cares enough about to want to gift her something meaningful. Who he casually texts and smiles at his phone as he’s doing so, who he and Jack talk affectionately about in ways they’ll never talk about you.

You’ve officially lost it. 

“And if you don’t touch me in the next 3 seconds,” you carry on, scrambling to claw back one single iota of your dignity, your hands gripping at his broad shoulders, “I won’t let you touch me again.”

Luke laughs. Practically snorts at you, eyes crinkling in the corners in pure amusement. Your dignity is long gone.

“1,” you start, your voice shakier than you’d ever like it to be, and his hands move to either side of your hips, clutching at the edge of the dresser.

“2,” you didn’t think you could sound worse than before, definitely longer than a second ago, but you’re quickly proven wrong as you watch him leverage that grip to push himself upright, creating a distance between the two of you that drains all the heat from your body.

“3.” he finishes, taking a step back and watching you with unadulterated hunger in his eyes, daring you to follow through with your threat - and the smug idiot knows you won’t.

He knows it’s coming, even anticipates the way in which you pounce on him, arms ready to catch you when you throw yourself down onto the ground in front of him, landing with a quick thud that jolts you straight into him. Hands at either side of his face pull him down, and he does half of the work in bending his back so it isn’t as clumsy. 

You tangle yourself up in him, legs twisting between each other until you’re stumbling toward the bed, and it’s as soon as you get your fingers back into his hair, as soon as his hands are pushing your top up, grazing at the warm skin of your back, that you hear a call of your name.

You falter back from him just as the door swings open, managing to create a reasonable amount of distance as Ellie swaggers in, voice still raised as she asks, “Have you seen my-,” It’s Luke that she sees first, eyes zeroing in on his flushed face with pin-point accuracy, her brows furrowing as she takes him in, heaving chest and messy hair and all. “Lip gloss?”

Lip gloss? Is she joking? 

“You came all the way back up here for lip gloss?” You ask, still slightly breathless and brain fogged, and feeling very much like you’ve just put all your chips on the table and watched them get swept away in seconds. 

You watch as Ellie’s eyes dart to Luke’s mouth, watch him grow conscious of the balmy coating smeared across his lips, and you feel your heart stop in it’s place, your chest squeezing in anticipation of a thump thump thump that doesn’t come.

“No,” she mutters, diverting her attention back to you with a sobering shake of her head. “Balm,” she corrects, “The kind with SPF, I think I’m burning, I didn’t realise me and Jack were gonna be gone all morning.”

“Uhm, yeah,” you breathe, reaching up to tuck your hair behind your ears in the hopes it helps cool your head down, some. “I have some in my bag.”

Your tote is on the dresser you had just been placed on yourself, and you use the opportunity to dig through it to will the burning sensation in your ears away, levelling out your breathing as you root around for a tube of lip balm you know is in there somewhere.

“Could you check for my car keys, too? I was thinking we could drop by the mall for lunch. Catch up” She adds, with a forced wiggle of her brows, clearly what she had actually come up here for, and you fish those out too, throwing them across to her. “Quinn’s looking for you before you go, Luke, something about a list.”

“I should go check what he wants,” Luke mumbles, putting another few steps of distance between you before he offers an awkward wave, and departs the room with heavy feet that you hear stomp all the way down the hall, the last thing you see of him being a skinny, lopsided crochet giraffe poking out of his back pocket.

Apparently Jack’s plans of keeping some element of surprise for the party had gone out of the window as soon as he had got her alone - and you’re kind of grateful for the fact.

Keeping secrets from Ellie is stressful - you of all people would know, you’ve somehow managed to keep a pretty big one from her all summer - and she usually has a way of figuring things out on her own.

You probably would have folded to her - just the two of you out together, sipping smoothies in the food court at the mall - if he hadn’t already filled her in one the plans for the night. 

It makes up a little for his lack of effort, earlier - especially now that your hands are clear of it. You don’t know how much you trust the guys to put something together while you and Ellie are looking for an outfit for her, but you have no choice but to leave them to it. Jack had reassured you he had everything under control, and despite the absurdity of that statement, it’s nice for that panic you had been feeling earlier to have been flushed away.

“I think tonight’s the night,” Ellie sighs dreamily, elbow resting on the table and her chin in the palm of her hand, “We had this really deep conversation while we were out walking, and he pretty much told me he has feelings for me, he was really nervous, it was kind of cute.”

“I’ll take your word for the cute thing,” you chuckle, sipping at your smoothie and smiling at how happy she looks. It’s nice to hear, her having hope about the situation for once, instead of dread or fear. 

“He said you two spoke at his cousin’s wedding,”

“It was nothing,” you shrug, “He didn’t need any interference from me to realise he likes you, El, he just needed a nudge.”

“I can hardly call you out on interfering,” her lips twist, nervously, “I’ve kind of been doing the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think I’ve been hanging out with Cole so much all summer?”

“Cole?” You frown, leaning back into your chair, “You’ve lost me.”

When you’d last spoken to Ellie about Cole, she had told you they just got along, and there was nothing more to it - and you had no reason to believe otherwise. When you and Luke had been in the midst of your own interference, and you had been playing third wheel to their hangouts, they had been getting along. Almost like siblings. Cole never flashed her those flirty winks or toothy grins that he gave everyone else. 

“He’s into you.” She says, finger swiping in the ring left behind from her smoothie cup on the table, “And I was kind of giving him advice on how to approach you. I figured you wouldn’t mind, ‘cause he’s like your normal type, and you seemed like you liked him-,”

“I’m sorry, you think I like Cole?” 

You’re taken aback. You don’t remember giving any sort of indication you were ever into Cole Caufield.

Maybe you could have been, before this summer - would have probably fallen victim to his cheeky smiles or his teasing banter. He’s probably closer to your usual type, if you even have one. Confident, with a presence that sort of demands attention. But you realise, now, your attention should be earned - in more than just a flash of cute teeth and boyish features.

In dumb jokes told just to bring you out of a bad mood, and a car with the AC dialled up waiting for you after a shift on a hot day. In hands that offer you help before you ever have to ask, and eyes that see so far beyond what version of yourself you try to put out there.

You could have liked Cole, in another world, or another life, if another boy wasn’t around. 

“I did until I walked in on you kissing Luke, earlier.”

You blink slowly at her, mouth agape as she stares blankly back. 

What the fuck?

“I wasn’t kissing Luke,” you scoff, denial making your face twist in funny ways that you can even feel look deranged. “We were talking.”

“Into each other’s open mouths?” She snickers, “Unless he’s been digging around in our stuff when we’re not around, I can’t think of any other reason he’d have left the room with Summer Fridays Vanilla Beige smeared all over his lips.”

“It was Brown Sugar, actually.” You correct her, guiltily, hoping the words you mutter next through pouted lips don’t quite make it to her ears. “He says it’s sweeter.”

“Oh my God.” She guffaws, mouth agape and eyes wide in realisation. “How long has this been going on?”

“Nothing’s going on,” you deny, although you can feel heat creeping up your neck, already. “We just get along-,”

“We get along, and you don’t welcome me home with an open mouth.”

“Ellie-,”

“Listen, he’s not just some guy that you can mess around with, he’s way deeper into you than you probably realise, and-,”

“I like him, okay?” you blurt out, voice just loud enough to be heard over her rambling but not enough to carry anywhere else, and the silence that follows is almost deafening - prolonged in a way that you can’t even remember if you said anything, or not.

But the way Ellie is looking at you tells you enough.

Why is everyone so caught up on you breaking his heart?

As if you aren’t putting the entirety of yours on the line.

“Luke?” She asks, like the two of you haven’t just been talking about him. “You like Luke Hughes?”

“Yeah,” you sigh, leaning onto your elbows and pressing the palms of your hands to your face, eyes scrunching tight to try clear up some mind space to make sense of what it is you’re admitting to.

It makes sense already, to you. Verbalising it is the problem.

He’s charming, he’s funny, he makes you laugh, most times unintentionally but that doesn’t make your feelings dwindle in the slightest. 

He’s weirdly passionate about that one horse movie and won’t shut up trying to get you to watch it with him, but it’s endearing in a way that you want to kiss him to shut him up. Or maybe even watch it, God forbid.

He literally never stops eating, but it’s like his body is in tune to yours now, and he always makes double if he feels like you might be hungry so you don’t ever have to ask, which is weirdly sweet.

When you lay beside him in the middle of the night, you don’t feel pressured to do anything other than talk.

And when you do, he listens to you - retains information and checks up in a way that makes you feel seen, makes you feel a way you haven’t in a really long time. He doesn’t talk over you, or dismiss your feelings, or try to change the topic when things go a little too deep or get a little heavy. He shares the load, asks questions that make you think and process things in a new way, and he isn’t patronising when he does so. He doesn’t say things that sound like they’re straight out of a Psych 101 textbook like your feelings are valid or what makes you think that?

And he compares your wildly different worlds in a way that doesn’t feel like a competition. His troubles aren’t worse than yours, his life isn’t harder.

You’re equals.

You’ve never felt like anyone’s equal, not even Ellie.

It’s like with all the other parts of your life that make you hurt, make you feel small and insignificant - they fade away when you’re with Luke.

His corner of your world is bright - despite the seemingly inexhaustible snark-meter constantly ticking between you two - it’s easy, doesn’t weigh down on you or make your chest feel tight, not in that way, at least.

You’ve been introduced to a whole new influx of feelings in your chest by Luke.

You can give in to the ugly side of yourself that wants to bite at him until there’s nothing left, to push whenever he gets a little too close, and you don’t have to worry that you’ll scare him off or push too far, ‘cause he’ll just pull you with him and bite back - only, it doesn’t hurt like when anyone else does it. Somehow, you think he savours the parts that other people might spit out - chews and swallows and rubs at his belly in satisfaction like you’re the best meal he’s ever had. 

Despite all the other things that have shattered your heart, Luke Hughes makes it feel whole, again.

And it should make you feel sick - lovey-dovey stuff like that usually does, your walls shooting straight up at the first sign of affection from anybody, metaphorical sneakers on and carrying your legs as far and as fast as they can run - but this doesn’t.

You don’t want to run from Luke, not really.

“I thought you said he was dorky and annoying.”

You’re pretty sure she had been the one to say that, at some point, but you don’t remember arguing the fact, so you don’t bring it up.

“He is.” You pout. He’s also apparently inevitable. “He kinda crept up on me, I guess.”

Ellie is quiet for a minute as she watches you, eyes narrowing as she takes you in - shoulders slumped, lips pouted, defeated.

“Why not just tell him, then? Why hide it?” She asks, leaning onto the table too until your faces are level when you peak up at her, “You know he likes you back, right? He’s got the biggest crush on you, it’s borderline problematic.”

“I don’t know, I don’t really understand why he likes me.”

“Does it matter?”

It does. You don’t want to keep running, but you can’t really help it. There’s something ingrained deep within you that is trying to shelter yourself from all the ways in which succumbing to these feelings will inevitably hurt you.

“Luke’s way smarter than me, and he’s way more successful, he’s kind and he’s generous, he comes from a great family, has this great house, we have literally nothing in common, and he doesn’t see that now because he just thinks he’s attracted to me, and he likes that I don’t just fold to him because he’s some superstar, but the second that’s gone,” you sigh, trying to swallow down the hurt in your voice, blink away the onslaught of tears, “He’ll just get bored of me like everybody else does, and then he’ll be gone. And I’ll just be some girl he broke up with and left behind, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

Ellie frowns, a strained mutter of your name called as her hand falls to yours in an attempt to comfort you. “You’ll never know if you don’t try, babe.”

“No, I know.”

It’s all you’ve ever known.

Men who start off treating you like some prized possession - cherishing you, making you feel valued and loved - and the second the shine wears off, the second something even newer, even brighter, even sparklier, crosses their path, they’re gone.

And you’re left behind wondering what it is about you that keeps driving them to leave.

It happened with your dad, with his new wife and their perfect kids - the boys he always wanted, who he never had to force himself to like. The dream family he abandoned you to pursue. It happened with Jamie, with all the girls he saw after you, with the way he never even looked your way again, even after all the secrets you shared, and the promises he made. With all those other boys who never saw you as anything more than a fabricated story to spread for a few brownie points with their buddies in the locker room.

It will happen again.

These feelings you have for Luke - the comfort he gives, the contentment, the ease in conversation, the warmth he bathes you in until your skin prunes and he seeps in through the cracks - they’re better kept to yourself. It’s easier that way, to keep this whole heart under lock and key, not giving anyone a chance to break parts off and keep it for themselves.

It’s almost perfect the way it is.

Safe, even from the clutches of the boy who pieced it back together, brick by laborious brick.

“There isn’t long left of the summer, anyway,” you go for a nonchalant shrug, but your shoulders feel heavy, and it turns out more like an arduous huff. “I doubt he’s shy of female attention back in Jersey, he’ll forget I ever existed before he even knows it.”

“You should talk to him,” Ellie suggests, “At least let him know where you stand, even if it’s to tell him things can’t go further.” 

The thought of it is too daunting. Looking into those gleaming green eyes and laying your heart on the line.

You can pretend all you want to Ellie, to yourself, even, that you wouldn’t want more, but you don’t think you could keep up the show with him.

“He deserves at least that.”

And damn it, she’s right.

Maybe he even deserves a proper chance.

Luke never thought he’d regret kissing you for any reason, but he’s wishing he had practiced some restraint up in your room, earlier.

If he hadn’t advanced on you, had let you pack your bag and got you out of the house before Ellie and Jack got back, he could have followed through on his plan of action for the day.

A plan he’d been hyping himself up for, all week - getting you on your own, talking things out, maybe even asking you out. Properly. Not just dinner at the mall, but a real date. Planned, perfected. A fancy dinner, or a trip to the movies. A picnic blanket laid out somewhere with a nice view, and an abundance of your favourite snacks. 

He wants to kiss you without having to hide it, anymore.

He wants to walk with you tucked under his arm. Wants to have you in his lap when there’s too many people over at the house, and the group are struggling for space on the couches in the den. 

He also sort of wants peace of mind, but what’s that compared to not having to sneak around, anymore. 

He’d made his mind up in the morning, waking up beside you at 5am, rousing you from your sleep with soft mutterings of your name, and lips pressed to your cheek until he could feel you smile. 

“Hi,” your voice had been croaky, and your movements slow, shuffling against him as your skin became illuminated by the soft glow of the rising sun slipping through the gap in the curtains. Your legs had been tangled with his under the sheets, and you did little to untangle them, and he was tempted to lock his so that you couldn’t. 

“Hey,” he mumbled, lips still moving against your skin, nipping at your cheek, your jaw, your throat, and your fingers rose until they clutched at the back of his hair, curls wrapping around them as you held him in place. 

“What time is it?”

“Around five,” his own hands landed on your waist, slipping under the hem of your tank, and trying to savour the warmth of your skin, your body hot from being against his all night. “Figured you’d need to be a little earlier today with it being Ellie’s birthday and all.”

“Thank you,” you used your soft grip on his curls to tug, until his face left the crook of your neck, and you blinked softly, smiled sweetly, and he felt his heart beat at twice the normal speed. You leant up and kiss him, straight on the lips, and he smiled against you just as you pulled away. 

He felt cold all over as soon as you detached yourself, and he rolled onto his side to watch as you stood, arms raised to stretch and lifting the bottom of your tank top to rise up your belly.

He felt robbed. Like he deserved longer with you, and it had been as you crawled back over your side of his bed, and had kissed him once more before leaving, that he had decided he needed to do something about it.

His original plan had been to steal you away at some point in the night, everyone else too distracted by the party to notice or care, but being teamed up with you to go get decorations seemed like it would work too.

Until Jack came back and fucked his plans up.

Jack said that he would go get the food with Turcs, that he had already paid for a cake, and he had to show his ID when he picked it up. He said Ellie shouldn’t have to do anything, and that you would be the best person for her to do nothing with, which left Luke picking up decorations with Cole.

It wasn’t that he minded Cole’s company, but Cole isn’t you.

He probably could have tucked Cole under his arm as they walked side by side through target and picked up a bunch of of banners and streamers, given the logistics of their height difference, but it wouldn’t have been as cute.

He has managed to get a lot of unexpected information though. And of course, his only thought is that he can’t wait to share it with you. 

Cole tells Luke how he and Ellie have only been hanging out all summer to make Jack jealous.

He bites his tongue to refrain from telling him that sort of trick doesn’t work on his brother, but Cole seems too pleased with himself for Luke to rain on his parade, and he finds it kind of funny that everyone’s been working to get the two of them to wake up to their feelings, not just you and him.

Cole might have even ended up putting more effort into it than you and Luke did, acting as a go-between for Jack and Ellie, and raising the stakes for both of them to make a move.

“And what do you get out of any of that?” Luke chuckles as he works at taking the banners out of their plastic wrapping, Cole taking the plastic and putting it straight into the trash.

The smile drops as soon as Cole says your name, though, and Luke’s hands stop in place. “Ellie’s been giving me insider info. I’m primed and ready to make a move.”

“Wait, I’m sorry,” Luke frowns, “You like her? Since when?”

He tries not to let the panic stirring in his chest reflect on his features, but it’s hard. 

Cole and Ellie had been hanging out for a long time, now. He can’t have been into you that whole time, right? Not without saying anything to anyone else - Cole is kind of mouthy, like that. Word would have got back around to Luke if Cole’s liked you for months. 

“Since I met her. She’s a really cool girl, really funny.” Cole scoffs, hand reaching out for more trash. “And she’s, like, one of the hottest girls I’ve ever seen, you know?”

Of course Luke knows. He’s seen the most beautiful sides to you - soaked head to toe from a garden hose, eyes crinkled from laughter, or the aftermath, curled up on a couch with just-dry hair and heart opening up to him for the very first time. In an orange baseball cap and a Mets jersey, twirling as you exit one of the fitting rooms you had found in the mall, a big cute grin on your face as you allow yourself to dorky with Luke, and only with Luke. Sat out on the fountain at the club, skin bathed in the glistening moonlight and your heart thumping in the palm of his tender hands. Laid beside him in the early hours of the morning, soft snores falling from between your lips and hair splayed out against his pillow.

But he can’t exactly say that to Cole - who has apparently been working to pursue you this entire time without Luke ever catching on.

“Ellie says I’m her type, so I don’t know why I’m stressing about asking her out-,”

“Out like on a date? Like you want to date her?”

Luke knows he sounds like an idiot without Cole giving him the weirded-out look he gives, but he’s starting to lose out to the dread that is flooding the pit of his stomach. He stumbles to follow Cole out of the kitchen and into the living room, where they had set up a step ladder before to hang the decorations.

“You really think I’d be trying so hard if I didn’t?” Cole scoffs, “Catch up, Luke, I’m trying to end my summer with a girlfriend-,”

“She’s hardly girlfriend material.”

The words taste sour in the mouth that moves before his brain has time to think - sour enough that he has to try not to grimace, wishing he could suck them back in and swallow them back down like they never came out. 

“What do you mean?” Cole asks, his features dropping into a frown. “I thought you two were getting along.”

“We are,” he agrees, despite it seeming like an understatement, but words are starting to pour out before he can filter them, and he can already feel himself getting carried away. “And she’s a nice enough person, don’t get me wrong, but I just don’t think it would work out with her like that.”

“You think she’d be hard work?”

He knows you are. But he likes you that way. He doesn’t want anyone else to worm their way into your good graces like he has. 

“Yeah,” he huffs, “She’s always out, and always flirting with guys at the club, you’ve seen it.” He knows he’s pulled that out of his ass, but what else is he supposed to say?

“I think she’s just fishing for tips, Lukey,” Cole chuckles, and Luke’s cheeks flush with humiliation at the pet name. He feels small, like he’s just something that Caufield can steam roll straight over without much protest. “Can’t blame her, some of those guys have deep pockets.”

“I’ve just heard stuff, you know.”

“Like what?”

Jesus Christ, Cole, he thinks, wishing he’d just take his word for it and get over you, already. As if it would ever be that easy. He doesn’t particularly enjoy saying these things out loud - using the words you had so carefully confided in him against you - but there’s a panicked desperation creeping up within him, becoming possible to ignore, and it’s cancelling out all other rational thoughts in his brain. 

The second you find out Cole Caufield is interested, you’ll no longer have any need for Luke.

Luke, who your every conversation with starts or ends with some sort of bickering argument, who annoys you to no end, who riles you up like it’s what he was put on this very Earth to do.

Cole is charming, he’s always had an ease when it comes to talking to girls that Luke never quite found in himself, and he’ll win you over in no time - and that’s if you aren’t interested, already.

But Luke is building up to that.

He’s been building up to it all summer.

Even before then, without entirely knowing it. 

The two of you have something, even if you refuse to admit it. You wouldn’t have kissed him all those times, otherwise, wouldn’t have come to his bed in the middle of the storm those weeks ago, and almost every night since he came back from Vegas, wouldn’t have slept with him before he left, wouldn’t have begged him to give in to you - not if you weren’t interested in him.

You’ve shared parts of yourself he knows no one’s ever seen, and he can’t let that be for nothing. 

But now the rug is being pulled out from under him, and all he can do to cling on to the edges with an idiotic possessiveness that curls his upper lip and brings his heart to a screeching stop. 

“Like how she’s with a different guy every week at Michigan. Apparently she gets around.”

“Oh,” Cole frowns, and Luke watches as his face turns, his own fists clenching at the urge to take it all back, to defend her and call Cole out on his immediate shift despite it being his own fault. 

He’s made his bed, now. He has to lie in it.

“Ellie didn’t mention all that stuff.”

“She’s hardly gonna call her friend easy.” Luke scoffs, and he thinks the way the words are spat out of his mouth is some sort of reflection of the way his lips don’t want to say them. Like they’re disgusted that his brain would even conceptualise them enough to be spoken. “Especially when you were doing her a favour with the whole Jack thing.”

“I don’t know man, I think you’ve got the wrong idea of her.”

Luke rolls his eyes as Cole makes his way back toward the step ladder, banner in hand, jaw tensing as he scrambles to think of something to stop this.

“She’s not the kind of girl you date,” he manages to call out, despite the tremor in his voice, every fibre of his being fighting the words from being spoken. “And there’s like a month left before we all leave for camp, so if you were to start anything, it would just be for the summer, anyway.”

“Jack and Ellie have started something with just a month left.”

“That’s not the same thing, they’ve been into each other for years, they text and call all the time, nothing’s really changing for them except for a label, you really think you’re gonna keep that up after just a couple months of knowing her?”

He reaches out for the other end of the banner and holds it as Cole positions his side, lip tugged between his teeth and a frown on his face as he mulls Luke’s words over. 

“You’ll be in Montreal, and she’ll be here, and you’ll be focusing on hockey, and training, and you won’t have time to keep up something serious with a girl you barely know.”

He tries not to think about how it’s the same distance to Jersey - an almost 2 hour flight - and how he’d be doing the exact same thing, swept up into the season before he knows it and potentially doing nothing but letting you down. 

“And you know what she’s like, she’d find something to argue about with a monk, for God’s sake,” he scoffs, brows furrowed so hard he can feel the tension in his forehead, “All you’d get from her is an earache. She’s not worth it.”

Cole turns to narrow his eyes at Luke, but something else over the top of his head catches his attention, instead, and the surprised muttering of your name turns Luke’s blood to ice.

Frozen in place, eyes wide, heart thudding in his ears, he waits with bated breath for something to happen - for Cole to break into a shit-eating grin, and tell him he’s just fucking around. For the ground to swallow him up. For anyone - literally anybody else - to respond.

But your voice carries straight over to him. Travels through his ears, ricochets around the cavern of his skull, shoots down his spine and makes his legs go numb.

“We uhm,” your tone is shaky, and Luke, for the first time, maybe, ever, hates the way you sound. “We were just checking if you needed a hand with the decorations.”

He turns slowly, and it’s Ellie’s eyes he meets first. Pointed, narrowed, betrayed, even, she glares at him like he’s just kicked a wounded animal right in front of her. 

“You can’t decorate your own party,” Cole laughs from behind Luke, as Luke’s attention drifts slowly your way. 

His eyes meet yours, and he can see the watery glaze over them from across the room. Can see your throat working to gulp down your hurt as your lips twist.

Ellie says something in response, and he vaguely hears Cole speak too, but all that he can focus on is the blood rushing around his head, a whooshing and whirring that makes him feel like his ears are about to pop, or his brain is about to explode. His lips part to speak, to say something, anything, to explain what you had clearly overheard, but your gaze drops to the floor, and he sees your walls build back up right before his eyes, brick by brick, cementing themselves back in place.

He’s such an idiot.

He’s such a monumental asshole.

The last time he had seen tears in your eyes had been sat by the fountain at the club - he had wiped them away, and had promised you he had your back, and you had just caught him having anything but with Cole. And all that after you had told him why you had ever been hesitant to let anyone in the first place.

He doesn’t think he’s ever messed up like this.

He steps forward, unsteady on his feet, and you step back, still not able to look him in the eye again, before turning on your heel and making your way upstairs.

Luke hears the stomp of your feet as you go, watches Ellie go after you, wishing it could be him, and stands, motionless, until he feels a firm pat on his back.

“Don’t worry, man,” Cole says, “She’s cool, she’ll be over it after a couple of drinks.”

Luke doesn’t even think he says anything coherent when he responds, a grunt or a grumble - it can’t have been words, because he can’t even form them in his brain. 

“I’m gonna ask her out tonight, anyway,” Cole chuckles, “So what you said won’t even mean anything.”

Great.

He’s just fucked things up with one of the greatest people in his life, the girl of his dreams, and it doesn’t even mean anything.

Not the kind of girl you date. 

Not worth it.

All that from the boy who supposedly had your back not that long ago. The first guy in a long time, maybe even ever, to make you feel secure, and safe, and like you could trust someone again.

Luke thinks you’re an earache. 

He thinks you’re argumentative, and only worthy of a brief, summer fling - that keeping up anything with you when he goes home would be a waste of the time and energy he should be dedicating to hockey.

And he’s probably right, you think.

It’s only what you’ve been telling yourself in the back of your mind all summer. Self-deprecating thoughts about how he’s far too good for you, and you’re only interesting when he can’t have you, and he’ll get tired of you before you can even realise he’s already drifted off.

Ellie had told you all the way back in your freshman year that the two of you weren’t a good fit. Jack had been telling Luke the same all summer. And you had only just managed to convince yourself otherwise on the drive back to the lake house from the mall.

You can hardly blame him for being two steps ahead.

You think that’s why you can’t bring yourself to cry - the sting of tears prickling persistently but never pushing through, eyes watering so much you can’t even put on mascara without the fear of it trickling down your face and ruining the rest of your makeup.

You’d tried crying, before. Had ran up to your room and had sat on the other side of your bed, hidden from the door and knees pressed to your chest. Your breath had stuttered, and your lips had trembled, but the tears wouldn’t fall, try as you might to have made them.

And when Ellie had found you, had sat beside you with an arm stretched over your shoulders, you had tried, then, too.

And it would be your luck that as soon as you press the inky substance into your lashes that they would finally fall, so you’ve been sat trying to wish them away for the past ten minutes - the tube clutched in a death grip in your hands as you sit at the makeshift vanity you and Ellie had set up all those weeks ago when you had moved in, taking deep breaths and willing the hurt to go away.

It’s where Luke finds you after knocking with no response - you barely remember hearing it - shuffling wordlessly into the room and perching himself down behind you on the edge of the bed.

You see him in the mirror, your eyes darting away before his can meet them in the reflection, and you stiffen your shoulders, bracing yourself for the blow.

“I didn’t mean any of what you heard.”

You breathe out a humourless chuckle, bitterness settling into the pit of your stomach and your lips trembling with resistance. 

“I mean it, I don’t think those things about you, I promise, I-,”

“It doesn’t even matter,” you cut him off with a roll your eyes, pushing the mascara tube toward the mirror and figuring you’re just gonna go without. 

“I was panicking, and it just came out like word vomit, and I feel really sick about it, and really stupid, and I wish I could take it all back-,”

“I said it doesn’t matter.” You meet his eyes this time, trying not to fall for just how distraught he looks behind you in the mirror. 

“Of course it matters,” he frowns, and you look away as soon as he pushes himself up, knowing he’s coming for you. “I need you to know that I would never have said those things-,”

“You said them, Luke,” you scoff, “What do you mean you would never have said them, you literally did.”

“I know-,”

“It doesn’t matter-,”

“Can you stop saying that!” He frowns, appearing at the side of you, hands gripping your shoulders to get you to face him. “I’m trying to explain this to you, I’m trying to fix things, and you’re-,”

“What, giving you an earache?”

All those weeks ago, the backs of your legs sticking to the bench in the booth in the restaurant, leaning over the table and sparring back and forth with him, you had convinced yourself that he liked it.

That the glint in his eye was indication of as much, the twitch at the corner of his lips, the way he would bite back without a second to think about it, and had matched your every effort to get one over on him. 

You had thought the two of you had something real. Something you had never found with anyone else. Quick wit, and similar senses of humour, shared boundaries, a mutual level of respect. 

You had thought his persistence had been something that would stick.

And clearly, you thought wrong.

He whispers out an utterance of your name that hurts like fingers wrapped around your throat - clenching and squeezing until you go hot in the head.

“I keep saying it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t, Luke. You were right, we wouldn’t have been able to keep this up past the summer, anyway.”

Luke’s brows furrow your way, eyes darting between yours as his lips part to speak, but nothing comes out.

“You’re going back to Jersey soon, I’m going back to school, it was fun while it lasted but things have run their course.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“We both do.” You shrug, wearing your feigned indifference like armour, just like you know so well to do. “You don’t say the things you said on a whim, Luke, some part of you has to believe that they’re true.”

“I don’t-,”

“I’m giving you a chance to cut things off with no hard feelings-,”

“No hard feelings?” His disbelief cuts through you a little, the hurt in his eyes and the scrunch of his features, too, but if you give in, now, you’re setting yourself up for a world of hurt. 

You had barely just built up the courage to give your heart to him, in whatever shape he had scrunched and squeezed it into before, and he had already managed to bruise it. Giving in will only result in it breaking. 

“I have feelings. I have feelings for you. And I know you have feelings for me, too, you can’t pretend you don’t-,”

“It doesn’t-,”

“It matters.” You don’t think you’ve ever heard him sound like this - so sure, so serious, so raw - and when he takes a hold of your face, hands cupping your jaw, tender but firm, and forces you to look at him, you see the same in his features. “Cole is into you. And he said he was gonna ask you out, and I panicked trying to convince him not to. I should have had faith that you would have turned him down. And I should have been honest, and I should have told him that I’m into you. More than into you, I think I-,”

“I wouldn’t have turned him down.”

You lie with such ease that it makes your heart ache more than the truth, but it’s the only thing you can do to protect it.

If you let Luke carry on, you’ll let him back in.

You can’t let him back in.

Not with the tears that now well his eyes, or the way his face drops like you’ve just struck him in the gut - pained and powerless.

“What?”

Your hands shake in your lap so much you have to clench them shut, knuckles turning white as Luke’s touch slips from your skin. 

“If he asked me out, I would have said yes.”

Luke runs a hand through his hair, blinking repeatedly before he tears his gaze away from yours, and you feel like you can see his walls building - a sight that should flood you with relief, but doesn’t.

“So, what, everything we’ve been through together, all the things we’ve done, all the things we’ve said, you’re just gonna throw it all away like none of it matters?”

You can hear the hurt - can feel it even, clawing at your skin as if it’s trying to find a way to dig past the barriers you’ve put in place. 

But you have to do this.

“I guess not.”

Luke was always going to hurt you. Was going to burrow himself through whatever cracks you left bare to him, weasel his way into your heart and tear it from the inside out. And maybe you were always going to do the same to him.

“Alright then,” he mutters, robotic and distant, with his eyes stuck on the floor. 

He stands from where he had been crouched beside you, backing away before turning completely, and he walks away in long strides, the door to your bedroom closing with a soft click behind him. 

The tear that falls when he’s gone does so slowly. You feel it trail all the way down your cheek from the corner of your eye, until it drops, almost audibly, from your jaw and onto your lap. 

And then the rest follow, uncontrollable and unrelenting.

Inevitable, just like he had said.

A/N: so...... please don't hate me I wrote the ending first lmao!! I imagine this will cause riots in the streets tbh but please let me know what you think hahahah this whole story has become my baby!! she's problematic but she's mine!!!!

[rqyup]

# placeholder (oneshot)

pairing.. toji fushiguro x reader

cw.. angst, swearing

jujutsu kaisen masterlist

Toji had always been a mess, but you thought, swore, you could fix him. Why else would his sharp green eyes soften every time they landed on you? Why else would he let you see the cracks in his armor when the rest of the world only ever got his smirks and scowls?

But after the fight, the one that ended it all, you finally accepted the truth.

He’d had girls every week, even before you and him. Petite, curvy, blonde, brunette; it didn’t matter. Toji Fushiguro could have anyone he wanted, and that fact alone made your stomach churn. You hated how it ate away at you, the knowledge that you were never special. Just another name in a long, long list.

You knew why he did it, you knew more than anyone else. Why he drowned himself in women and cheap liquor every time he had the cash. He was running, coping with the grief that clung to him like a shadow. The death of his wife had shattered him in ways you could never hope to fix. And you knew this because you’d seen it firsthand, felt it in the way he broke down around you, no matter how much he pretended he didn’t need anyone.

“Toji?” You’d found him slumped on the couch, reeking of alcohol. His shirt was half undone, his hair disheveled, and his eyes glassy. He turned his head lazily to look at you, his lips curving into a sad, drunken smile.

“Honey…” he slurred, his voice softer than you’d ever heard it.

Your heart stopped. Honey? He never called you that.

“Megs misses you,” he muttered, his words tumbling out clumsily. “Come home… I don’t want all these women, I swear. I only need you.”

For a fleeting second, your chest tightened, and something warm spread through you. Flustered. Hopeful. But it shattered just as quickly as it came. Those words, they weren’t meant for you. They were for her.

You looked away, biting your lip to keep the tears from falling. It hurt. God, it hurt to know that you were just a placeholder, a shadow he clung to when the real thing wasn’t there anymore.

...

“Toji, I can’t keep doing this!” you yelled, your voice breaking as the two of you stood in the middle of his apartment. “You can’t keep running to me when you’re drunk and lonely, and then pretend I don’t exist the next day!”

He scoffed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. “What the hell do you want from me, huh? You knew what this was!”

“No, I didn’t!” you shot back, tears streaming down your face. “I thought—God, I thought I could help you! I thought I meant something to you!”

Toji’s lips twisted into a bitter smile, and for a moment, you swore you saw something crack in his expression. But then his words cut through the air like a knife.

“You didn’t mean anything,” he said coldly. “You were just a quick fuck. A replacement. Same as all the others.”

The words knocked the air out of your lungs, leaving you standing there, frozen. You wanted to scream, cry, anything, but all you could do was stare at him, your heart shattering into pieces.

And in that moment, you finally understood. Toji Fushiguro didn’t need saving. Not from you, not from anyone.

rqyup © 2024 – do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my content; dividers by me; likes and reblogs are appreciated !

[endless-ineffabilities]

The Bolter (part five)

Steve Rogers x f!reader / (Bucky Barnes x f!reader)

synopsis : Steve carries out his decision to return to Peggy, aiming to live out the rest of his days with her. But this means he's leaving everything behind - he's leaving you. Did he make the right choice? Will there be anything left with you to come back to?

in this chapter : In present day, the reader and Bucky get closer - will one of them finally slip up? We also see what happened in 2018, during the battle in Wakanda.

themes/warnings : pining, unrequited love, Bucky dealing with ptsd, brief mention of violence, language

word count : 2.1k

main masterlist ▪︎ series masterlist

📝 a little bit of an explanation on the timeline : 2016 - Civil War ▪︎ 2017 - post Civil War / Steve and reader on the run ▪︎ early 2018 - Infinity War ▪︎ 2018 to 2023 - the lost years / post-snap ▪︎ late 2023 - Endgame / Steve's departure ▪︎ 2024 - present day / Falcon and the Winter Soldier period ▪︎ 1950s - where Steve went back

2024, seven months after Steve's departure

You win. Again.

By now, you're convinced Bucky is actually letting you win in Battleship. Each guess he made had been wrong, so it must be deliberate.

"James Buchanan Barnes," you sigh.

His lips form a sly smirk. He isn't even trying to deny it.

You reach across and lightly shove his non-vibranium arm. "It's no fun if there's no challenge."

He shrugs, "Maybe I like the way you react when you win. You get so... expressive." Another smirk. Damn him.

What could possibly be so amusing about the way you practically screeched and stuck your tongue at him the first time you won?

"Yeah, but you let me win four times in a row."

"Deal with it, doll."

"You suck."

He grimaces, "Suck?"

Right. You keep forgetting he is an very old, very ancient centenarian.

"It's an expression."

Something flashes across his face, and you can't really make out what it is. "Do you suck, too?"

"What?" you exclaim. "I just said it's an expression. It means you're annoying."

He holds your gaze for a moment, before laughing, eyes visibly crinkling at the corners. "I'm messing with you, doll. I know what that means. I'm old, not unaware."

Damn him again.

And damn the way the rare instances of his laughter is slowly growing to be a thing you yearn for. Bucky has a playful side, you've come to realize. You get this feeling of lightness, because you're proud of him. The more it comes out, the more it shows how much he has healed.

You blink at him, shaking your head, before bursting into laughter yourself.

Damn it all to hell.

It takes a beat for you to collect yourselves.

Then for a second, it's there. That fleeting shift in his expression. A pinch in his eyebrows giving way to a look of shame. Just for a moment, his mind drifts back to the long list of names in his notebook. To Yori's son. To the crimson in his ledger.

You notice, and you don't hesitate in taking his hand, squeezing gently. "Hey," you say, catching his attention. "I'm glad we get to do this."

I'm glad I have you.

Glancing down at your hand wrapped around his, he smiles, slowly, like a sun rising and casting its glow over the horizon.

"Let's play one more time," Bucky says as he begins rearranging the pieces on his side.

You were about to protest, but then he adds, "I won't let you win, I swear."

Fifteen minutes later, you do indeed win again. He laughs at the incredulous expression that must be plastered on your face.

You take it. Because maybe you did win, fair and square.

Or maybe because his laughter feels like winning.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

The days have blurred into weeks and into months.

It feels like time is passing quickly, every second feels less and less like the lash of a whip, reminding Bucky of past pains. Of loss. Of all his sins.

Life almost feels normal. The kind of normal he is afforded in his life, at least.

Sessions with his court-mandated therapist. You. Dinners with Yori, desperately unable to tell him the truth. You. Sleepless nights, glimpses of his darkness haunting him. You. Sleepless nights, tempting images of you.

Behind all the laughter and the times you would spend playing Battleship on the floor of his barely furnished apartment, Bucky gets a sense of something gnawing at him. Something not unfamiliar, but unwelcome all the while.

It's fear. He has something to lose, once more. A friend or a kindred spirit. Whatever else you will find in each other. It's there and it's real, and it makes him feel like Bucky again.

He doesn't want to lose it, whatever it is. He's already lost Steve.

He's not going to lose you too.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

early 2018, Infinity War

After you and Steve left the cabin, it's like the universe was sent a go-ahead signal of some sort.

The world slowly descended into chaos, and the Avengers were needed back into the fold.

Your group had to rush to Scotland to rescue Wanda and Vision. Then it was back to the Avengers compound.

"You think all is forgiven?" Senator Ross asked, the threat evident in his tone. "You think you can just walk back in here like nothing happened? Romanoff has been leading my team on some wild goose chase - "

Natasha merely scoffs, unamused.

" - and Huntress has been actively aiding and abetting her fellow fugitives around the globe."

You were about to say something snarky, but Steve had already taken a step forward, partially shielding you from Ross' view.

"We're not looking for forgiveness, and we're way past asking permission," Steve declared.

In that time, life became drastically different from your days in Alaska. You barely had a moment of repose, worried about the fate of the world.

But you found comfort in the blonde super soldier who was constantly hovering over you. His eyes would meet yours before a decision would be made. His hand sometimes pressed at the small of your back as you walked beside him. Time and again, you found him watching you, a silent question in his eyes. You'd nod back, I'm okay.

You didn't notice, but in one of those moments, Wanda had witnessed the exchange.

And she felt it. That something. Much like what she has with Vision.

But it just wasn't the right time.

It is a bit hard to face the truth that you might be in love when the whole world is burning.

"I guess this is our normal, after all," you wistfully remarked to him one evening, after everyone else had left. The plans were laid. You all were to go to Wakanda the next day.

Steve felt a sense of bitterness arising from him upon hearing your words. It really isn't fair. He has always done everything right, but he's losing count of how many joys he's had to sacrifice.

He lost everyone once. His mom, his sister, Bucky, his fellow soldiers, Dr. Erskine, Peggy. He'd buried himself in ice, only to wake up again in a world that wasn't his anymore.

What else does he have to lose, who else, before he is finally allowed to be happy?

His smile was pained when he replied, "I think I figured out the kind of normal I want."

Despite your exhaustion, you smiled back and curiously asked, "Oh yeah?"

Steve hopelessly tried to commit you to memory. The lilt in your voice, the shape of your lips. That undying spark in your eyes, which remained even when everything was cast in gloom.

Just in case he would wake up one day and find his whole world taken from him once more.

"Yeah," he finally said.

The world is ablaze, but he's grown used to it. He knew he would lay his life down on the line again if that means it would be saved.

But everything be damned, he allowed himself one selfish thought when he confessed, "We never should have left that cabin."

I'm in love with you, were the words caught in his throat. His heart screamed it, yearning to be heard.

And you did.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

It was a cruel twist of fate. But Thanos deemed it destiny.

Was it always meant to happen? Were they always meant to lose?

Steve didn't know how long he stayed on the ground next to the pile of ashes that used to be his best friend.

Bucky was gone.

Steve barely heard the screams. Anguished voices calling out the names of their friends, still searching.

All that would have been unbearable. The sounds of distress enough to drive one mad. But Steve heard nothing. He had nothing.

It's not fair. Inside, he felt like that sickly kid who was always dealt the worst hand. It does feel like he's a kid again, petulant and angry. It's not fair, he thought over and over, I don't deserve this.

Bring Bucky back to me.

Maybe it was all his fault. Maybe if he never took that damned serum... maybe... maybe...

"Cap," he heard someone break him out of his haze. Rhodey stood to the side. "Steve," he repeated, pleading, but Steve still could not find the strength to get up.

Then from the distance, he heard Natasha calling out for you. He stumbled to his feet, his head spinning. Casting one last glance at the spot where Bucky vanished, he turned and started running.

He found Natasha immediately, but not you.

"Where is she?" Steve growled, and his voice sounded rougher than he's ever heard before. Natasha would have recoiled in surprise, if she didn't possess nerves of steel.

"I'm looking," Natasha snapped impatiently. You would have been her loss too.

Steve felt as if he had already scoured through the whole field twice, his body threatening to just give in and crumble to the ground once more, as the hope of finding you dimmed.

Then he heard your faint voice, weak and weary, standing out among all the others.

"Steve?" There you stood, your face half-covered in dried blood and soot. "Did we lose?"

He swiveled around and took you in, a deep breath of helpless relief exiting his lungs. He was angry and defeated.

He wanted to throw Captain America to the wind, and surrender everything.

He wanted to hear his mother's voice singing to him again. This world is cruel, and he wanted to go back home.

But there you were.

There you were, and Steve knew he had not lost everything.

"How did it happen?" you asked as he approached. "Steve, what do we do? There must be something - "

His mouth crashes into yours with such bruising intensity that it makes you stumble backward, but his arms were quick to catch you.

He was right.

You never should have left that cabin.

▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎ ▪︎

2024, seven months after Steve's departure

The nightmare is different.

It's worse. Much worse.

Bucky bolts upright on the floor of his living room, having chosen to bypass the comfort of his bedroom. He thinks this is because he needs to keep his TV on in the background, something to muffle the noise in his mind late at night.

Another reason, one he hasn't confronted yet, is how comfort feels so foreign. It feels wrong, like he doesn't deserve it.

Perhaps that is why he can't find comfort even in his dreams.

It flashes before his eyes, like a broken montage.

It's almost the same every time. He's the Winter Soldier. He's on a mission. There are faces swarming around him, bodies either racing to attack or running away. But he doesn't see any of them. He doesn't feel anything as he makes every single one of them crumble.

But it's different this time. The Winter Soldier does not so much as falter or show any hesitation as he wraps his metal fingers around your windpipe.

The Winter Soldier coldly watches as you expire. Bucky helplessly watches, unable to stop as he loses everything.

Thankfully awake, in this world where he still has you, Bucky's chest feels like it's about to implode.

So much for being a superabled freak.

The clock reads 3:13. It's late, but he needs some air.

He walks for 10 minutes, aimlessly. Then for 20 more, his mind having made a decision on its own. He soon finds himself standing in front of a familiar brownstone building, where your apartment is situated on the top floor.

You don't seem confused when you answer the buzzer. It wouldn't be the first time he has shown up unannounced.

"Can't sleep either?" You're a welcome vision when you greet him at the door, cheeks flushed by the white wine you usually drink at these hours.

She's still here, Bucky reminds himself. The only comfort that he won't deny.

Instead of walking past you, straight into your apartment like he always does, he takes one step closer.

And then another.

He shuts the door behind him.

You watch him carefully, scanning his every movement. There's something here, something different. He takes another step and he has you pressed against the wall.

His eyes betray the storm of emotion brewing inside. He has to remind himself that you're here, and he has you.

"Bucky," you whisper, and it's all he needs.

He leans in and finally touches his lips to yours.

Read part six here ~

taglist (let me know if you wish to be added!) : @vicmc624 @littleliyah16 @babezawa @klammykayla @justsebstan @blue--ingenue @numblytemporary @bradshawass @delicious-xx @mrsevans90 @heartarianagran @tinystarfishgalaxy @kyoquixote @mochibochinochi @spngingerbread21 @zbeez-outlet @rena15 @raging-panda @marveldaydreamer @integers @torntaltos @imthebadguyyy @iidear @blackhawkfanatic @smhnxdiii

My emotions!!!!!! Hahahaha this chapter is a whole mess and so are our protagonists 🔪🫀

yes yes, expect that the next one is 18+ --- but I still won't say exactly with who --- maybe it's a trick? Maybe it's neither of them? Oh well, honestly some of you have got it bang on already 🤷🏻‍♀️

As always, I am keen to hear what you guys think!!

[dreamingkitsunewrites]

A "The Picture of Dorian Gray"!- inspired Nanami fic in two acts (From my Jjk Penny Dreadful Series-here)

*°࿐ Synopsis: After a harrowing escape from the hell of Shibuya, Nanami Kento finds a dark, twisted method to conceal the deep wounds forever etched on his flesh and spirit. He relocates to Malaysia, shedding his former identity in search of s fresh start, driven by the allure of an hedonistic lifestyle. He quickly resigns himself to a solitary existence, prioritising secrecy above all else's -that is, until one evening at the theatre, when your paths fatefully cross. What will happen next in this unfolding tale of tragedy and rebirth?

*°࿐Tags: Act 2- Nsfw + dark content (Katoptronophilia- mirror kink, softdom!nanami, fem! masturbation, pinv, breeding kink, graphic description of scar and injuries)

This work is part of the SPOOKINKY 2024 event hosted by @tsukimefuku 🖤

"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic (...)Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." -Oscar Wilde

࿐✧˖*° Fic Moodboard here✧˖*°࿐

Beneath the dim, flickering glow of the bakery where you work everyday, you move like a shadow, wiping the counter where the day’s sweet offerings linger—croissants, chocolate éclairs—fragrant remnants of a life half-lived. The scent clings to you, comforting yet oppressive, as you linger on the past. A year has passed since you fled into this quiet corner of Malaysia, seeking escape, yearning for the hum of the ocean outside your window. Here, in the solitude of this bakery, you’ve become a ghost—part of the background, invisible to all but the clock and the empty tables.

Yet tonight, something stirs deep within you. At the end of your shift, you return to your cozy apartment, heading to your bedroom to let your fingers graze the golden ticket on your nightstand, a silent promise of a dream that has been lingering in your personal space for weeks: The Tempest. Tonight, the magic of Shakespeare’s world will finally become your own. You slip into the emerald night dress you bought for this occasion, catching a fleeting glimpse of a brand new woman reborn in the mirror, staring back with a defiant gaze.

…

The air of the theater hums with electricity as you step inside, your dress shimmering like a forest at dusk. Eyes turn, glances linger. The crowd falls into a hush, a soft murmur ripples through the room. You feel their gaze—a strange, unknown sensation, both exhilarating and disquieting- you’re definitely not used to being the focus of the attention around you. As you navigate the rows to your seat, eager to find yours and hide among the crowd of faces, a chill runs down your spine. There, across the balcony, a familiar figure watches you—a tall, elegant man, poised in a timeless black tuxedo.The tailored jacket hugs his athletic frame,  the deep midnight black fabric contrasting strikingly with his fair complexion. A white pocket square elegantly peeks out from the breast pocket, while a finely knotted bow tie adds a sophisticated touch. His reserved nature, shadowed by a hint of intrigue, seems to enchant every woman in the auditorium, inviting curiosity from all who cross his path. With an air of mystery that surrounds him, he garners attention effortlessly, embodying both charm and enigma in every subtle movement.

It’s him—Mr. Nanami, the enigmatic man who has haunted the bakery for months. Always at his corner table, always with a book in hand, always distant, as though carved from some distant age. His gaze is now fixed on you, unblinking, his caramel eyes drinking in every movement you make. Even among the crowd, he is a statue, an artifact of mystery, his blonde hair gleaming under the theater’s lights, his presence too immense to ignore.

«If by your Art, my dearest father, you have

put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,

But that the sea, mounting to the welkin's cheek,

Dashes the fire out.»

The character of Miranda finally speaks, signalling the start of the play. Lights go off, the world fading into darkness around you, but his gaze never wavers. It pulses between you, an electric current that thrums in your chest. Even as the actors bring the stage to life, Nanami��s attention is all on you. His eyes trace the delicate curve of your neck, they notice the way the silk of your dress clings to your feminine figure—every movement, every breath amplified. In the silence between the scenes, memories of brief encounters in the bakery flood both of your minds—small gestures, the fleeting brush of hands as you served his command. Every mundane act now seems to acquire a deeper meaning, hinting at the long buried electricity now resurfacing in all of its power.

The actors' words echo in your mind, their tale of rediscovery mirroring your own. You feel the thread between you and Nanami tighten with each passing scene. Your heartrate is accelerates inexplicably, his hands itch imperceptibly. By the play's end, the applause is drowned by the weight of his gaze, a fleeting glance that feels like an unspoken invitation. The crowd fades, and you are lost in the depths of his eyes—amber pools that seem to hold unspeakable secrets. What darkness lingers behind them? What truths lie hidden beneath his composed exterior?

In that moment, you are both spectator and part of the story, caught between the stage and the gaze of the man who watches you from the shadows, as if you are both part of the same forgotten tale.

The applause swells, a rising tide of sound that drowns everything around you. The faces blur, the claps echo like thunder, and your senses are swept into the frenzy. Yet, goosebumps rise along your exposed back, a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold. In the midst of chaos, your consciousness fails to identify the tall figure slipping quietly behind you, a shadow stretching long across your seat. But your body doesn't: every fiber of your being tenses in alert, time stretching as if waiting for something to happen at any moment.

Nanami’s hand lingers for a heartbeat before resting on your shoulder, a firm, yet gentle touch. The unexpected pressure makes you gasp, the sound barely a whisper.

"Mr. Nanami... What a surprise," you murmur, turning to face him, your voice trembling like a prayer as you feign surprise. His name spills from your lips, the remnants of the performance still thick in the air.

"Good evening, Mrs... I apologize for the intrusion," he says, his tone softer than you expected. "I saw you in the crowd and... I couldn't resist."

His apology is followed by a smile—small, sincere, and unlike the elusive stranger you’ve come to know. You blink in disbelief, caught off guard by this sudden warmth.

"Good evening," you reply, your words stammered. "No need to apologize. I’m glad you noticed me." Beneath the surface, you are deeply surprised by the fact that he did really recognize you, a simple waitress, a face everyone easily forgets.

He chuckles softly, eyes flickering with interest as he watches you. "The actors were amazing tonight, weren't they?" he continues, easing into the conversation. " Yes, indeed” you answer “I've always been fond of drama... the way music, scenery, poetry, and dance all blend into one living thing."

He catches the spark igniting your eyes as you speak, lost in your own enthusiasm. "Yes, I think it's the perfect kind of art... a fusion of all forms. A single experience woven from many threads."

He watches you, entranced by your remarkable passion for arts. Nanami always secretly thought you looked beautiful, admiring your kind nature from afar while you served tables at the bakey. But tonight he can't help feeling drawn to your every movement, noticing every detail of you, the most attractive woman he has ever laid eyes on in a while. Suddenly a low chuckle escapes him, catching you by surprise: "A real aesthete, aren’t you? I think I’ve finally found a worthy companion for my abstract musings." He muses.

You smile back, amused by the compliment. "So…you are... an ‘aesthete’ too?" you ask playfully.

"Ah... I prefer the term hedonist. There's a difference. An aesthete merely appreciates beauty for its own sake. A hedonist seeks to immerse themselves in it, to live for the pleasure it brings. Do you understand?" He smiles wryly.

You nod, half-missing the full meaning. "It makes sense to me... though 'hedonism' isn't a word you hear much these days."

At your remark, something flickers in his eyes—a momentary hesitation. His gaze drifts away, as though lost in a distant thought. Then he snaps back,as shaken from a dream.

"I have a question for you," he says, his voice now heavier. "Since you’re so drawn to this kind of topic... what do you think? Does life imitate art, or is it art that imitates life?"

You blink, caught off guard. His question is as profound as it is unsettling. Sensing your confusion, he continues, voice tightening with a quiet vulnerability.

"I know it sounds tautological... contradictory, even. But these thoughts are born from years of reflection, of trying to make sense of life."

He pauses, and for a moment, the air between you thickens with unspoken tension. The weight of his words settles around you, and you sense his inner battle—fear of revealing too much.

"Life is indeed the most intricate of masterpieces," you say softly, your voice soothing the strain in his words. "But I believe we create it. We choose the colors, the shapes, the shadows of our existence."

His eyes soften, a long, silent moment passing between you. Then, as though the walls around him have cracked, he sighs, and his words spill out.

"I’ve always had a special sensitivity... but my past... it hardened me, consumed me. I spent years hiding from it, burying my feelings beneath logic and calculation. And when I finally faced those demons, I realized..." He trails off, the confession hanging between you.

You wait, breath held, as he collects his thoughts. "I thought the pleasures of art and literature were gone forever. I thought I had lost them. But then..." He falters again, lost in the depths of his own emotions.

You try to simplify his cryptic confession. "So... you retired early and moved to Malaysia, didn't you? It's not something to be ashamed of, it's common practice here, Malaysia is such a dreamy place. I myself have left everything behind and fled here…" You try to make him feel at ease, failing to notice the deeper meaning behind his words.

His lips curled up in a faint smile, a touch of sadness in his eyes. How could such a pure soul like yours grasp the horrors hidden behind his elegant appearance? "Yes... escaping a life I didn’t recognize anymore seemed the only choice I had a year ago."

You smile back, unaware of the weight of his past, yet moved by his vulnerability. "It seems like we both needed to escape something,then" you say gently.

He watches you intensely, and for a moment, the shadows of his past flicker in his gaze, along if something else- quiet admiration for your spontaneous genuineness. Then, without warning, he clears his throat, inviting you to continue your discussion elsewhere:

"I hope you won’t misunderstand," he says, his voice low and hesitant. "But...would you join me for a drink tonight? I’d love to continue this conversation... and perhaps share a book with you. If you'd allow me."

You accept without hesitation, the thrill of the unknown surging through you. Walking side by side along the moonlit shore, your steps are light, the air thick with possibility. The evening unfolds before you, a path leading to an unseen discovery, your heart fluttering, unaware of the darkness that lurks just beyond the light of the moon, reflected inside his golden irises.

The ebony door creaks open, a haunting sound that reverberates through the dimly lit corridor as Nanami, with an air of quiet dignity, unlocks the entrance to his home, his quiet sanctuary. Leaning forward, he flicks the light switch, and with a courteous gesture, steps aside, allowing you to cross the threshold. Click. A warm, golden light floods the space, spilling like liquid amber into the darkness, inviting you into the treasure trove that is Nanami's home.

As you step inside, the musty scent of aged books mingles with a faint undertone of turpentine, whisking you away to a distant realm where art and literature reign supreme. The air is thick with stories untold, whispers of creativity echoing off the walls. Each available inch of wall space is claimed by an eclectic mix of paintings, their colors vibrant against the deep shadows. Books of every genre crowd every angle of the refined, tastefully furnished open space that stretches before you. Your eyes widen, your jaw drops; you are mesmerized, trying to absorb every intricate detail of this artistic sanctuary.

"I hope this is to your liking," Nanami's amused chuckle pulls you from your reverie, his voice like a gentle breeze stirring the still air.

"This... all of this... is yours? The paintings, the books, the antiques? How...?" You stammer, incredulous, as you survey the vast collection that feels both intimate and monumental.

"Yes," he replies, a contemplative smile gracing his lips as he leans against the doorframe, the shadows dancing across his features. "This collection is my legacy, the thing I’m most proud of..." His voice trails off, and as you admire his possessions, you fail to notice the way his gaze lingers on you, filled with a blend of longing and admiration. In his mind, your figure blurs with the contours of the most graceful of Aphrodites, the missing piece of his collection, the first soul to step into his sanctuary after a long, lonely stretch of time. He watches you spin around his living room, a vision of grace in a flowing dress that clings to your curves like a delicate drapery on a marble statue.

He could grow accustomed to this sight, to you... And in that fateful moment, he lowers his guard, granting you access to the most secluded part of his soul, a realm he has shielded jealously over the years. "Why don’t you take a tour of the house while I pour us a drink? What do you prefer: Cabernet or Whiskey?" he asks, his genuine smile like a rare gem in the dim light.

"Thank you, I’d like to explore your collection further… as for the drink… you choose, surprise me," you reply chuckling mischievously, a thrilling tension crackling in the air as your eyes lock with his, an electric connection that sends shivers down your spine.

The floorboards creak beneath your feet as you venture deeper into the labyrinthine layout, navigating narrow corridors flanked by towering shelves that groan under the weight of Nanami's extensive collection. Each step draws you further into his world, a place where dreams and memories intertwine.

As you explore, you ascend the stairs to the first floor, stumbling upon a cozy library. A plush, crimson armchair beckons you, piled high with dog-eared paperbacks and a precarious tower of art monographs. The adjacent bookshelf stands as a shrine to literary giants—Austen, Dickens, Joyce—their timeless works nestled alongside a first edition of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."

You are about to descend when something catches your eye: A door at the end of the corridor is slightly ajar, challenges you, invites your curiosity. A thrill courses through you, an all-consuming desire to uncover the mystery hidden within. Drawn by an unseen force, you approach, your heart racing as your trembling hand hovers over the doorknob. With a gentle push, you swing the door open, and a sudden burst of light slices through the darkness, momentarily blinding you. As your vision clears, you find yourself staring at your own reflection, an astonished figure in a green dress, caught in the web of shadows.

Stepping further into the room, you realize you’ve entered Nanami's peculiar bedroom. A quilted round bed dominates the space, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling mirrors that create a dizzying effect, reflecting your image endlessly in the dim light. Your gaze travels, and you find a portrait hanging on the wall—a blond man who looks strikingly like Nanami, but marred by burn scars that crisscross his body like a roadmap of pain, telling a story of flames that once ravaged his skin. His eyes, a deep, piercing gold, seem to harbor the weight of those infernos, a flicker of fire still smoldering within.

“Is this... Nanami?” you whisper to yourself, disbelief coursing through you.

"So you found out..." a faint, emotionless voice emerges from the shadows, and you immediately turn: Nanami stands on the threshold, his attractive features marred by a mask of suffering and resignation. He holds a single book in his hands: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

"Nanami... I didn’t mean to intrude. The door was slightly open, and I..." you stammer, searching for an excuse. " But…What is this? Who is the man in the portrait?" you finally manage to ask, your voice trembling with confusion.

His gaze drops to the floor, a deep sadness enveloping him. "I wanted to lend you this book…maybe it would have helped you better comprehend this situation of mine. I’ve always related to Wilde’s work…and its Preface holds everything I’ve painfully learnt about life” his words ring hollow in your ears, emptied of any meaning. “This portrait... It represents the state of my soul. This... is what I really look like." His voice is heavy with truth, and the weight of his words hangs in the air like a dark cloud.

A storm of questions swirls in your mind, casting you into a sea of panic, while your gaze flashes between him and the man of the picture "This...  it can't be real. Nanami, what really happened? What is this story about?"

"Please, listen to me..." he interrupts, his tone now urgent, demanding your full attention. "Over a year ago, I was involved in an accident in Shibuya,on the night of Halloween and got severely injured. I barely managed to survive, but half of my body was burned, damaged irreparably..."

He takes a step closer, his expression lost as he struggles to share his truth. "When I woke up in a hospital bed, I took a look in the mirror, and realized I would have never been the same man I was.” He pauses, trying to steady his accelerated breath “ seeing my condition, an old friend of mine decided to set off, travelling the world for weeks in search of a way to restore my appearance. And I thought he had returned victorious at first, when he proposed to me an ancient curse allowing me to channel all of my pain and ugliness into that portrait. So I ended up switching places with the man now hanging above my bed. My friend helped me escape to start anew in this secluded place of Earth, but the truth is that this was never meant to be a blessing…with time I fell prey of the illusion of my appearance, trapping myself in a cage of mirrors, constantly afraid to see my real aspect resurfacing…I’ve been such a fool to forget the real nature of this expedient: a curse will always be always a curse"

He retreats, hiding behind a wall of shame and guilt. "I don’t expect you to understand. You know nothing of the world of sorcery from which I came... and...I wouldn't blame you if you turned your back at me now, pointing at me like a devil…"

As he fights to suppress the lump in his throat, you stand in front of him, your knees threatening to give in at every word spilling from his mouth. But it's in this moment that you see his true nature for the first time—a broken man, whose defenses are now crumbling under the weight of his long-buried secrets. "I’ve missed my chance with you, I cannot hide from the monster I’ve become," he whispers, his voice cracking with guilt and regret.

Without thinking, you step forward, closing the distance between you. Nanami's breath hitches as your hesitant hand cups his chiseled jaw, grounding him in the moment. It is high time to free him from the demons of his past.  "Destroy the picture, Nanami... don’t let that portrait weigh down your soul any longer." 

Your words provoke an earthquake into Nanami's world: his eyes widen, meeting the compassionate determination in your gaze. "And this doesn't change anything, I’m not leaving…You don’t have to hide anymore, not from me," you say softly, knowing in your heart that this moment could be the key to unlocking the darkness that has held him captive for far too long.

…

His resolve wavers as he gazes upon your lips, mere inches away from his, a tantalizing promise lingering in the air. The last thread of self-control snaps when you pull him closer, pressing your curves against his sculpted form. In that intoxicating moment, he crashes his mouth to yours, a desperate kiss that spills forth your insecurities in a breathless plea for understanding. Lips collide, and the world fades, leaving just the two of you suspended in a cocoon of time and space. 

Fingers roam restlessly, exploring, dancing over each other’s bodies in a fervent embrace, like lightning illuminating a starless sky with passion's raw energy. The kiss deepens, heats, igniting flames of longing as he pins you against the cool surface of the mirror, your bare back shivering at the sudden chill. He looms over you, strong and commanding, tension rippling through his broad shoulders before he seizes the lower edge of a golden-framed picture, throwing it to the ground with a shattering crash. 

The echo reverberates through the room, breaking the spell that held you. As the cursed image lies in shards, you blink to find the real Nanami before you, a man sculpted by both fire and fate, his scars merely facets of a twisted charm. He holds his breath, waiting for your response, his vulnerability laid bare in the depths of his eyes. 

You stay silent at first. Your trembling fingers deftly start to unbutton his shirt, tracing a path from fine fabric to the rough, fibrous tissue of his burned skin. “You look even more handsome in my eyes now,Nanami... ripped at every edge but still holding your original charm, like the finest masterpiece” you finally speak, voice thick with emotion “you’re strong, you can heal. Let me help you, please... let me…” The weight of your invitation hangs in the air, a siren's call that stirs something deep within him. He hesitantly captures your wandering hand, “Are you sure?” he asks, his forehead resting against yours, a silent confession of both uncertainty and deep care. 

In answer, you push his shirt off his shoulders, your hands gliding over the contours of his biceps, igniting a wildfire in his chest long thought extinguished. You offer him compassion and heartfelt affection, and in that moment, he feels worthy of love again. “I am sure, Nanami… give me all of you without restraints tonight…show me you’re willing to start anew” 

“Fuck,” he gasps, his hands gripping your waist, spinning you around to face the mirror. “See how stunning you look? You are too much for me now,do you understand it?” He desperately spits out through gritted teeth “but if you choose to give yourself to me tonight, know that there will be no turning back. I won’t accept being left alone tomorrow...” His breath tickles your neck as he nibbles at your soft skin, pulling back to meet your gaze with a gravity that sends shivers down your spine. “What do you say? Do you accept my condition?” 

“Yes,” you simply breathe out, eyes locked on the reflection before you, feeling small yet cherished in his powerful embrace. “I guess I am the luckiest of  men, then…” His warm breath cascades over the delicate flesh behind your ear, a relieved smile curling against your skin as you tremble between his arms. 

“I could hold you like this forever…” he whispers, tracing the line of your spine with his index finger. His hands find the thin straps of your dress, gently coaxing them down your shoulders. The silky fabric slips away, pooling at your feet, revealing you in all your glory. “You are a masterpiece here, the most exquisite work of art I have ever seen.”

His gaze drifts to the mirror, breathless as he drinks in the sight of your curves, fingers exploring the valley between your breasts, brushing against your hardened nipples with a soft touch that ignites a deep groan from his throat. “Look at you; I’m going to worship every inch of your delicious body tonight, just like a painter brushing the pure canvas in front of him, I will paint your body with pleasure and reverence” With a confident caress, his hand glides down, cupping your sex, igniting a spark of longing that makes your breath hitch. 

“Nanami,” your voice is a prayer, each syllable infused with need as he parts your folds, cool air colliding with your now exposed clit. His experienced fingers start to explore your womanhood and a shiver dances along your spine “So soft,so wet for me already… keep those beautiful eyes open for me,I want you to watch as we create a work of art of pleasure tonight.” his other hand cups your chin, preventing you from looking away from your entwined image.

He moves with purpose, fingers drawing delicate circles on your sensitive nub, escalating your breaths into gasps. “You know, I’ve always believed that sex is a form of art—the highest, perhaps. The sensations it creates, the way bodies merge in a symphony of unbridled passion…” His rhythm quickens, pressure mounting until you scream his name, your body arching as waves of pleasure crash over you. 

“Let it happen, just like that, give in to it, feel the way your body yearns for mine” he encourages you, guiding you throughout your climax with his confident ministrations. “Look at you now,” he cups your jaw, tilting your head to see the beauty of your flushed cheeks and wild hair. “You are alive… the essence of beauty.” His kisses scatter across your skin, igniting every nerve, his hardness pressing against your plush curves, a testament to his hunger. 

His veiny hands unfasten his belt, pulling down his elegant pants to reveal himself to you: a glorious display of manhood, standing proud and ready in the mirror facing you. The base is girthy, the long shaft crossed by a single bluish vein up to the swollen tip, already for glistening with precum “look what your beauty does to me” his hips jacks forward instinctively as he notices the hunger in your eyes “Ready?” he asks once more, searching your gaze for any hint of doubt before entering you slowly from behind, his eyes locked on yours in the reflective surface, watching as pleasure and pain intertwine on your face. 

He’s barely halfway in but you already feel him everywhere, a melding of flesh and desire driving you mad as he fills you completely. A strangled groan escapes him. “fuck, you're too tight… "His eyes flutter shut as he revels in the sensation of your snug channel stretching apart for him, sweaty pearls coaxes his forehead, brows furrowed in concentration “you were made for me.” He buries his face in your hair, inhaling your intoxicating scent as he stills for a moment, savoring the connection of your entwined bodies. 

When his hips begin to move, there is no gentleness—only a primal need. He slams against you, each thrust sending you gasping against the mirror, fingers clutching the golden frame for support. Your body turned into a canvas painted with pleasure: head tilted back, throat exposed, breasts heaving with each  fervent thrust, trembling legs on the brink of surrender.  The smacking sound of flesh meeting flesh reverberates, a wild melody echoing in the room as you surrender to the rhythm of ecstasy, bodies swaying in perfect synchronicity. 

Together, you reach the precipice of bliss. The mirror captures the art of your union, an abstract painting of two entwined souls—calling out each other’s names, your bodies slick and sticky, pressed together in a tender embrace. In that moment, you know that this is more than just a union of bodies; it is a celebration of art, love, and the unyielding spirit of desire.

 Nanami’s eyes roll back as he feels you envelop him in a fierce grip, but he forces his gaze open, eager to witness the masterpiece unfolding before him. “I'm almost there…” He announces, grunting in your ear as he surrenders to your magic. Warm spurts of his very essence paint your walls white, making you his in the most primal of ways. He groans in pride and delight when the glass reflects the lewd sight of his overflowing seed dripping down your leg. Turning to face him, a loving smile dances upon both of your lips, the calm after a storm. “That was incredible, my diamond… thank you for sharing this masterpiece with me,” he murmurs, placing gentle kisses upon your closed eyelids, the warmth of his damp hair brushing against your forehead. “You’ve shown me that with you, I can finally find my way back to beauty.” He nuzzles your noses together, laughter bubbling forth as he regards you with a playful glint in his eye. “But I fear I need more from you tonight… are you ready for another round?”

You nod, a spark reigniting within you, a shared yearning to delve deeper into the connection that has blossomed between you in the stillness of the night. Without warning, he lifts you off the ground, effortlessly cradling you in his arms, bridal-style, and carries you toward his round bed, laying you down upon the luxurious velvet sheets. The sensation takes your breath away, and you gaze up at him, wide-eyed with wonder.

He kneels at your feet, crawling onto the bed, leaving a trail of kisses along your calves, thighs, and stomach, until he reaches your lips. For a moment, he pauses, studying your moonlit features, before pushing himself into your inviting warmth once more. This time, there is no urgency; instead, he makes love to you with a tenderness that transcends flesh, his thrusts slow and deep, punctuated by soft kisses and feather-light caresses. You gaze upward at the mirror hanging from the ceiling, capturing your supine figure beneath his muscled torso, tensing with every intimate movement.

In that sacred moment of Epiphany, the truth unfurls before you: together, you and Nanami create a beauty that has always eluded you both, a beauty that defies the boundaries of time and space, a masterpiece beyond convention. You were each other’s missing piece. Each creak of the bed beneath you resonates with magic, a spell binding you to this moment of bliss and rebirth, witnessed by every mirror surrounding you.

“We are art,” you lean in and whisper into his ear, your voice filled with newfound conviction, as the night wraps around you like a cloak, and the shadows dance in celebration of your fateful union.

Thanks for reading this far!🙏

Comments and Reblogs are appreciated 💕

Don't repost my works without permission.

[deesseshesca]

PAC : How can I best monetize my passions while staying true to myself?

Pull up we can do it on the red light ...

Hey Chérie D'Amour,

Sorry for the ghosting but your girl was going trough it with her health and mental. Plus fucking exam week ... can't wait for winter break. Also I am not travelling this holidays ... I am actually waiting for my birthday week so we are sooo onnnn baby ! Christmas advent calendar on KO-FI: Delulu December ! Let's do a deep dive on weather it is worth it or not to bring your situationship next year. Plus until January is all about GIRLBOSS reading on my blog.

xoxo,

I missed y'all so much

SHESCA.

PERSONAL READING (SALE) (LINK)

FIRE TO THE MOON

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DOWN TO MY CORE

CHARACTER UPDAPTE + LORE DUMP = 40$ (2for1)

PILE 1

Your heart beats with the rhythm of a dreamer, a soul brimming with untamed passions. But dreams alone are whispers—they need hands to shape them, feet to chase them, and roots to ground them. You’ve been hoping the tides will carry you to your destiny, but the waves are asking you to swim.

Success doesn’t arrive on the wings of wishes; it is born in the quiet rituals of discipline. It’s not about running at full speed or burning out in a blaze of inspiration. It’s the art of showing up when the world is quiet, when the spark feels dim, and when the path ahead looks steep.

Don’t let the weight of waiting fool you into thinking you’re stuck. You’re not. You’re gathering strength, learning to wield your creativity like a blade, and building a foundation that can weather the storms. But you must lean into the effort, the structure, the persistence that transforms a dream into a masterpiece.

Your success is not a question of if—it’s a question of how much love you’re willing to pour into the process. Build slowly. Tend to your passions like a garden: water them with effort, prune them with reflection, and protect them from the weeds of distraction. You’re not chasing success; you’re becoming it, step by deliberate step.

Remember, you are the creator of your own rhythm. Make it a song worth dancing to. ✨

PREVIOUS READING

2) Wanna know the love story the universe has for you? 💫 In 8 parts, I spill all: first meet, first kiss, confession, sexy time, and more. Don’t miss out! 👀💖 (LINK)

3) For ALL DECEMBER get 2 readings for the price of 1 : LINK

4) IF YOU BOOKED A PERSONAL READING 6 DEC 2024 ON KO-FI PLZ DM ME ( I TRY CONTACTING YOU BUT NOTHING WORKS)

PILE 2

Your fire is a dazzling force, but it flickers, waiting for a spark you think will set everything ablaze. You’ve been chasing the thrill of momentum, the lightning bolt of inspiration that will make it all click. But the truth is, chasing that spark is what leaves you burned out and standing still.

Life doesn’t wait for perfect timing or the rush of adrenaline—it unfolds in the quiet persistence of steady hands. The impulse you crave is fleeting; it’s the ember, not the flame. Instead of waiting for the universe to light your path, become the fire. Stoke it with intention, feed it with patience, and protect it from winds that will only blow it out.

You don’t need a grand sign or a sudden burst of energy to begin. The magic lies in the tiny sparks you create each day, the ones that don’t burn you out but warm you, guiding you forward step by step. Let go of the need to feel ready—readiness is an illusion. What you’re looking for isn’t found in fleeting flashes but in the steady glow of your own commitment.

Take your passions and treat them like a canvas. Add a brushstroke each day, no matter how small. Build something real and lasting—not in a rush, but with love, with care. Success isn’t about speed; it’s about direction. Choose yours, and keep moving, no matter how softly the fire burns. ✨

PREVIOUS READING

2) Wanna know the love story the universe has for you? 💫 In 8 parts, I spill all: first meet, first kiss, confession, sexy time, and more. Don’t miss out! 👀💖 (LINK)

3) For ALL DECEMBER get 2 readings for the price of 1 : LINK

4) IF YOU BOOKED A PERSONAL READING 6 DEC 2024 ON KO-FI PLZ DM ME ( I TRY CONTACTING YOU BUT NOTHING WORKS)

PILE 3

Your world is brimming with promise, a masterpiece waiting for the final touch—you. Everything is aligned, the stage is set, but the spotlight feels distant because you’ve been holding back, softening your edges to fit spaces that were never meant to contain you.

To reach your ultimate reward, you don’t need to do more, build more, or change who you are. You need to be unapologetically yourself. Peel back the layers of hesitation, the fear of being too much or not enough. The truest version of you is what the world has been waiting for—raw, unfiltered, and vibrant.

Your dreams are not fragile. They’re not asking you to tiptoe; they’re begging you to dance. Pour your quirks, your passions, your imperfections into everything you touch. The path to your reward isn’t about perfection—it’s about authenticity. The world will celebrate you not for fitting in but for standing out.

So stop dimming your light to make others comfortable. Stop shrinking yourself to fit spaces that feel safe. Be bold. Be loud. Be messy if you have to, but let it all come from the heart. When you show up as your truest self, you don’t just touch your reward—you become it. ✨

PREVIOUS READING

2) Wanna know the love story the universe has for you? 💫 In 8 parts, I spill all: first meet, first kiss, confession, sexy time, and more. Don’t miss out! 👀💖 (LINK)

3) For ALL DECEMBER get 2 readings for the price of 1 : LINK

4) IF YOU BOOKED A PERSONAL READING 6 DEC 2024 ON KO-FI PLZ DM ME ( I TRY CONTACTING YOU BUT NOTHING WORKS)

[taeghi]

the enhypen playlist series

⇁ a series in which each fic is based off a song that i've somehow associated with enhypen members :) ↽

playlist link : here!

genre : smut, fluff + angst

minors dni

last updated : january 28th, 2024

Tides of Regret by lee heeseung || (m)

♫ song : swim by chase atlantic

pairing : fwb!heeseung

summary : being magnetically attracted to frat boy lee heeseung was a bad mistake. but, agreeing to be friends with benefits with him was an even worse one. getting caught in a relentless, toxic cycle together leads to facing the consequences of your choices with a grand moment of truth. will you be able to break free from the destructive tide, or will you remain trapped in the undertow of toxic love?

▶ play song?

Back 2 U by jay park || (m)

♫ song : 505 by the arctic monkeys

pairing : exes to lovers!jay

summary : spending the week at your best friend's wedding sounded great at first, but seeing your ex boyfriend there brings back painful memories, emotions and past regrets. are you willing to rekindle a love that may have never truly faded?

▶ play song?

Remembering Us by jake sim || (m)

♫ song : about you by the 1975

summary : the love in your long term relationship with jake seems to be fading fast, and you're struggling to recall any good memories you have together. you wonder if jake is feeling the same, and will you be able to relight the flame you both once shared?

▶ play song?

Fleeting Summers by park sunghoon || (m)

♫ song : sunsetz by cigarettes after sex

summary : meeting park sunghoon in the small town your dad moved into this summer is as vibrant as the sunsets you witness. but, as summer fades away so does your time together. hopefully when the next summer comes your paths cross again under the same sunlit skies.

▶ play song?

Invisible by kim sunoo || (m)

♫ song : adore you by harry styles

pairing : shyboy!sunoo x popular!yn

summary : tired of all the guys you usually go out with, you had no idea about your secret admirer, but somehow you've managed to find love in unexpected places.

▶ play song?

Things Change by yang jungwon || (m)

♫ song : softcore by the neighbourhood

summary : you thought going to college with your boyfriend would be a great new step for your relationship, but it only leads to navigating the struggles and changes that come with entering college. you feel jungwon and you drifting apart and question whether you are still the right fit for each other, but you'll do anything to stay together.

genre : angst, suggestive

▶ play song?

Lost in the Spotlight by nishimura riki

♫ song : ordinary life by the weeknd

pairing : rockstar!riki x nonceleb!y/n

summary : you love nishimura riki, you didn't think your love for him could ever change. but with the fame, you realized that stardom can change people and love. you just wish you could have an ordinary life again.

genre : angst

▶ play song?