#genuinely I think storm hawks had some neat concepts and world building

[pennumbra]

So does anyone remember Storm Hawks

[jiangsspace]

Pins and Needles | 04

>> Taehyung gets hurt and Na-Eun is furious at you.

Pairing: Kim Taehyung x fem!reader

Word count: 2,6K

Genre: angst, fluff, actor!taehyung

Warning! Not gender inclusive. This fiction does not include gender neutral terms nor gender neutral concepts. The entertainment business has a long way to go, in providing equality, although progress has been made. This is only fictional and should not be taken very seriously.

Plot: Taehyung gets his first role in a big movie production. He is excited but he knows he’s on it, because his girlfriend, Na-Eun, negotiated with the producers of the movie. What happens when a seasoned costumier with a dark past and an actor with severe seizures meet in the brutal world of entertainment?

Note! All resemblance to real life people is unintentional and all characters, for the exception of Taehyung of course, are the fruit of my imagination.

Two months into the production and Taehyung had managed to crack open your wall and shed some light in you. He would try and steal glances from you from time to time, when you stood in the shadows, ready to help if someone needed to fix their costume. They rarely did, so most of the day you lingered in your room sewing for your own pleasure.

Taehyung was in the middle of a battle scene and the director was monitoring his performance with keen hawk eyes. Taehyung’s physique definitely suited these kinds of movies. He had a lean build and was fairly muscular. Something the entertainment industry liked to call a Robin Hood-build.

The scene was cut and immediately stylists rushed over to him and started pampering him, asking him if he needed anything and patted his skin dry from sweat. You were looking from afar thinking Taehyung hadn’t noticed you, but he had taken the habit of always inspecting his surroundings to see if you were there. When you weren’t there he felt a little uneasy, and when you were he thought his performance was better.

One of the stylists, ever so obviously placed their hand on his arm when patting his forehead with a cold cloth. She was laughing and trying to spark a conversation, which went in vain since Taehyung was stealing glances at you.

Suddenly uninterested by the flirting scene in front of you you turned on your heels and walked back to your room to finish the medieval dress-project you had began the other night when you didn’t feel like going home to your demons.

Not even fifteen minutes passed that Taehyung was knocking on your door. You opened it slowly, no need to encourage his visits when he had a girlfriend. Someone would still get ideas and it would be the end of your career. Maybe his too.

“Hey, you left.” Taehyung’s statement stayed in the air as an awkward filler. “What are you making?” He quickly tried to change the subject by focusing on the dress on the mannequin.

You followed his gaze and registered where it landed. You laughed awkwardly and went between Taehyung and the floor-length dress, as if to protect it from view.

“It’s not done yet. No one was supposed to see it.” You felt bad for him. He was only trying to be nice and you shot him down. “I don’t feel confident enough yet to show my work like this.”

He noticed how your voice had grown quieter as you spoke and you were being shy around him. He had already noticed that when he placed his hand on your arm after laughing together. You had winced and asked him not to touch using the excuse that you were sensitive.

“I say we make a deal.” Taehyung offered his hand and spoke in a more relaxed tone to calm you. “I don’t get to see your unfinished work until they are done, but could you come watch me shoot? It calms me for some reason.”

Your head snapped up in confusion. Your eyes were curious yet suspicious. Taehyung figured you weren’t the kind to take things like that as a compliment.

“What do you mean it calms you when I’m around?” Your voice was small and Taehyung could almost see how you wrapped yourself in yourself and closed off from the world. As if to protect.

“I like to know you’re watching me when I shoot.” Taehyung flashed a friendly smile. He always seemed to have a smile on his face, except when Na-Eun was at the studio. It wouldn’t have surprised you if she was one of the producers of this movie or her father’s company was.

“But like, not in a creepy way,” he laughed throwing his head back. He was showing so much genuine emotion that you little by little loosened your grip on the prejudice you had of him. “You calm me, that’s all.”

You nodded shyly. “If you want I can show you the sketches I made for this dress.” You walked over to a drawer in the side room and pulled out a piece of paper. The drawing was in black and white but you had wrote the colors down. Taehyung had followed you in and leaned over your shoulder to look at it.

“I love it!” he ran his fingers along the lines and stared at the picture for a while without saying anything. He took one step closer to stick his face closer.

You felt his front pressing against your behind and it made you sick to the stomach. Not because it was Taehyung but because the contact was too sudden and explicit. It felt so raw and threw you off guard. In fear and disgust you let the paper fall and turned around like a whip.

Taehyung was surprised and knelt down to pick the picture up and give it back to you, but seeing Taehyung on his knees in front of you made you lose it. You had to get out and take a breather. Taehyung on his knees changed into another man on his knees pleading to get a taste of you and caressing your thighs. He kept repeating how his wife didn’t need to know and that you were so beautiful he couldn’t help himself.

Crying was for the weak and you didn’t want to show Taehyung how weak you were, in fact. But the emotions were so strong the tears came down on their own and stained your cheeks. Your breath was hitched in your throat and breathing became very laborious.

Taehyung got up like an arrow and made the mistake of trying to hug you. He hadn’t realized he was partly the reason you were so distressed. When his arms wrapped around you, your hands flew up to his chest to create some distance between you.

“Get off me!” Your tears were preventing you from seeing clearly and making you more anxious than you already were. You pushed him away, but he didn’t move. To an outsider it must’ve looked like Taehyung was comforting you, but it felt more like an attack. Taehyung’s arms around you made you think of someone else. It made you want to cry out in anger.

You pushed again harder, and Taehyung gave in and stumbled away from the force your fists elicited. At that, you dropped to the floor trying to gather yourself.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t-” Taehyung couldn’t finish his sentence. He dropped to the floor with you with sad eyes. Pity was the first feeling he must’ve felt.

The next morning Taehyung knocked on the door again. Shooting hadn’t started yet and he wanted to offer you a coffee. But no one answered the door even when he knocked for the third time. His eyebrows scrunched in disappointment as the coffee in his hand became colder and colder.

He had to be on set in five minutes and he decided to leave the coffee by the door for you to see. He got a pen and wrote your name on it.

He was tired and out of breath by the second take. No one seemed to notice his heavy breathing and sloppily moving limbs. Action was shouted time after time and Taehyung thought his body would soon collapse. His partner was also unaware of his state and kept striking ruthlessly like during rehearsals.

Taehyung was now completely aware if he was one beat late he would get the punch of his life. The thought seemed funny enough to consider, but Taehyung was too tired to really know what was smart and what wasn’t.

If it wasn’t the will of someone higher than humans Na-Eun walked to the studio and locked eyes with Taehyung, as his supporting actor punched him straight in the face. Taehyung’s lip explosed and the blow was strong enough to leave him unconscious.

A scream of agony could be heard from the main studio as you sat in your room watching intently at the coffee cup which had your name written on it. Taehyung’s handwriting was neat and clear, easily readable. Just like him.

Quick steps were heard from the corridor and you knew they belonged to Na-Eun. No stylist wore high heels during the day at work.

You were still sat on your chair, needle and thread in hand. You had taken a break from the medieval dress as it made you nauseous to look at it. Socks were the perfect cure for nausea and stress. And right now you had the feeling Na-Eun was coming to you.

The noise grew louder and louder the closer the source approached your door. Before you knew it, a bull-like raging Na-Eun appeared in the doorway and stormed in to grab you by the hair, but you expected that kind of behavior so you spun around in your chair and escaped her barely. Luckily you had shorter hair, so she couldn’t grab your ponytail.

“You bitch!” She was raging and lava was pouring out of her ears. “Because of you Taehyung had another bout at home and now he’s too tired to shoot.” 

You stood wordless in front of her. Na-Eun hadn’t witnessed anything that happened yesterday.

“Taehyung just received a punch in the face, because of you.” Her words were dripping with poison and her eyes glared at you. Still, you were unable to say a word. She really was a terrifying person. “He’s so tired, because he stayed here with you last night. He’s my boyfriend, keep your hands off of him!” she snapped with such force that she stumbled backwards.

She was fuming with rage and your reaction wasn’t the one she had hoped to witness. You were cold and nonchalant but Na-Eun wanted to see you on the floor crawling at her feet, begging for forgiveness. It was the least she expected from you, from Taehyung, from everyone.

She tried to take a step forward to intimidate you, but you stood your ground with an expression of steel. Not one muscle moved on your face even though you screamed from the inside. Na-Eun stared at you, clearly calculating whether you were a fight worth fighting.

“Keep your hands off of him. He’s mine!” She took one more step forward but surrendered quickly when she noticed you still hadn’t moved. Na-Eun lifted her hand to slap you as a sign of warning, but her hand never touched you because someone’s hand was keeping her from hitting you.

Na-Eun gasped in surprise as she felt Taehyung’s long fingers wrapped around her slender white wrist.

“Don’t touch her, Na-Eun,” voice full of dominance he growled “or you’ll regret it.”

“Tae-?” she winced as his grip on her tightened. “Taehyung, you’re hurting me.” He let go approaching you carefully. Like a hunter trying to soothe a scared animal, he didn’t touch you. Simply whispered in a calm tone to bring you back to this moment. 

Na-Eun scoffed and crossed her arms across her chest, clearly annoyed. Taehyung paid no attention to her, she was air to him. You were the only thing that mattered. Taehyung didn’t know what had happened to you in the past, but he was determined never to see such pain on your face as yesterday.

He had stayed with you for what seemed like hours, to soothe you and talk to you about himself and his problems. He didn’t think you were actually listening, so letting his guard down he poured his soul into your hands and a little bit into your heart. Truth is, you had listened to every word and tasted the bitter taste of each and every one of them. Taehyung really was trapped in a lie of a relationship and a maze with no way out.

“Can you hear me?” he used your name for the first and it seemed to work since your eyes snapped up to his in confusion. As if you had just woken up. “I’m here with you now.”

“You two really are something,” Na-Eun laughed coldly “Your mind is crippled and she can’t speak.”

Taehyung turned to look at her with a passion she had never seen in him. Something he had never even experienced in his life. This feeling of rebellion and standing up to himself gave him the courage to stand in front of Na-Eun and stare at her in the eyes. She had dark brown eyes which were considered beautiful, but Taehyung knew what she was like in private.

“We’re done. This- this sick deal we have is over. I don’t care what rumors you decide to spread about me, I know I’m the better person here.” Taehyung received strength from every word he uttered and his posture now made him look enormous. Na-Eun didn’t quiver, but her lips were shaking. She was clearly intimidated by him and the sudden power he had wielded.

When Na-Eun had left the room you fell to your knees, supporting your body with your arms extended straight and your hair fell to your face. Taehyung knelt down to be at eye level with you but didn’t initiate contact. If you were going to touch him, the action had to begin by you.

“I don’t need to be saved.” You managed to mutter out. Embarrassed to know that Taehyung had witnessed you at your worst, unable to defend yourself and standing like a terrified deer that wanted nothing but to run away.

“Even the strongest need to be saved,” Taehyung laughed. “You aren’t alone in this world.” Taehyung hesitated to confess what he had wanted to say for so long. You hadn’t lifted your head the entire time you were left alone. “And I need you to save me.”

The winter passed and spring flowers were blooming when the production was just at its end. The almost two year long project had taken a toll on everyone, but the results turned out successful. Taehyung received an award for his performance and the movie was a box-office hit. Na-Eun and Taehyung still had to work together as she was one of the producers, but further major conflicts were avoided. Taehyung had you to ground him.

He spent every night with you, in your room watching you work. He no longer called you needle fairy, but used your real name. 

“Taehyung, you did well.” With a smile you offered a cup of coffee to the exhausted actor. The last scene had just been wrapped and the actor was dripping with sweat. Before coming to you, he had shooed away all the attention-seeking stylists who wished to be close to him. He only wanted you.

“Thank- thank you,” he had yet to steady his breathing as his chest was rising and falling at inconsistent intervals. “I feel drained.”

He took the paper cup from your hands and your fingers brushed together. It felt extremely cliché, but you thought someone had plugged a wire in your spine to send electric shocks across your entire body. The contact felt so new and pure. For the first time in ten years, touching someone else felt natural and good.

Taehyung never asked about your past which made you respect him even more. He didn’t necessarily need to know what had happened to you, in order to establish a true relationship with him. Over time you would be so comfortable around each other that touching wouldn’t be a problem. 

And if you were being honest, you had deprived yourself from human contact for so long in the fear of getting hurt again. No one could be trusted in the business and you practically breathed the costumes you created and took pride in the work you did. Taehyung didn’t want to hurt you or make you fear him. He needed you as much as you needed him.

“Do you want to come to my room and try this new jacket I made?” He whined like a tired child but followed you anyway, his needle fairy.

one | two | three | four

 this concludes the final installment of Pins and Needles. It’s been quite a ride, but I made it. Some of you might know that I’m not very talented when it comes to these long pieces, so I hope it made some sense and that the text was good. Thank you xxx