#god i hate city driving so much

[soupkiddo]

had to bust out the emergency cheese while stuck in SF traffic today

[scalproie]

I need every car drivers and pedestrians in my city to blow up

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[idontdrinkgatorade]

couldn't fall asleep and started feeling depressed and anxious and horribly paranoid about my future so guess who's on tumblr at 12:15 a.m.

[hoshigray]

𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐛𝐨𝐫! | fushiguro tōji

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬: Not only are you drunk on a Friday night, but you’re a drunk, closeted succubus who is, unfortunately, under the care of the hot neighbor under your roof! Would you ruin the mood if he found out about your little secret? You don’t even wanna know!

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬: Toji x afab/fem! succubus reader - explicit content; minors DNI - modern au! reader + Toji are neighbors - age difference; reader is in late-20s + Toji is mid/late 40s - crushing/mutual pining - drug/alcohol usage - fingering (f! receiving) - oral (f! + m! receiving) - clitoral play (swiping) - Daddy kink - sqǔitïng - anal play (m! receiving) - 69 + backshots + spooning + cowgirl positions - unprotected sex (psa: wrap it up, or get tf up) - creampies - praise kink - pet names (baby, doll, dollface, good girl, mama, princess, sweetie) - implied marathon sex - mention of drool/spit, tears, and cum - not proofread; will do l8r.

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 7.8k

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬: pulled this story out of my ass; I literally spent a whole single DAY dedicating to writing it. please enjoy, and tysm for 11.9k loveliesss ☆ love and appreciate u all !!

“…shit.”

There’s no way.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit—”

Of all days for this to happen.

“Oh, my fucking God, not tonight!!”

Tonight was already an eventful night, with the full moon shining brighter than the stars. Life has put you so fast in a whirlwind that you can’t recall the last time you permitted your body to unwind. Can you blame yourself, though? From moving to a new neighborhood and scoring a new job, things have kept you undeniably busy for the past few months. And not too mention,  it’s your fault for being a bit of a hermit and lacking a drive for social interaction. 

That’s precisely why your old college besties – Shoko, Utahime, and Yuki – pulled you out of your hideyhole and encouraged you to join them this Friday night to have some fun! “C’mo~n, lighten up! No more thinking about work or whatever; have some fun!” “Yeah, y’know you’re my biggest drinking buddy. Now, hurry up and share this cocktail with me!” The ladies pressure you to relax and enjoy the start of the weekend with some good drinks and delicious food. And, you hate to admit, it worked like a charm – the longer the hours went, the more you felt free as if all the weight holding you down had been lifted.

The only problem is, like all good things, that it had to end and that you had to go home. Now check this out: 1) you left your car at home because, again, you were rigorously dragged out of your abode by your college companions. 2) You were all pretty much drunk, enough for neither one of you to drive on the road. And 3) you guys are in the city, and catching a lift is not only a gamble but SUPER expensive! Guess that’s what you get for choosing a Friday night to free-ball.

However, when hope was lost, and you wouldn’t be in the comfort of your bed tonight, you received a text on your phone, and you could practically hear the angels sing in the heavens above!

Recent Message from: Neighbor Fushiguro

Yo. You home? I’m out in the city picking up stuff for the house. Need anything?

Thank God for neighbors, am I right? The chances of someone you know being within the same vicinity of you may be low, but never zero! Did you feel bad that you texted back saying you needed a ride back to your house? Sure. Did you feel extra bad when you asked a huge favor for him to drop your friends off at the nearest hotel? …Yeah. 

But luckily, he didn’t seem to mind. The only thing you had to endure was him teasing you about your little outing (with the help of your friends in the back of his truck) and your tipsy persona. “Never took you fr’ one who drinks.” He scoffs while putting you down on your couch after slinging you over his shoulder because you complained about your feet hurting. Damn heels! “Neither one who gets drunk.”

“It wasn’t my fauuu~lt,” you whine with a significant stretch while your neighbor roams around. “My fwiends, they forced me to–hic–to do it…”

“Mm, do your ‘fwiends’ always push you over to do things?” He shouts from the kitchen; you can hear cabinets opening and closing. 

“When you’re the youngest of the group, they do.”

“Well, maybe I gotta get to know ‘em so they can push you into goin’ out more. And maybe you can quit avoidin’ me when I invite you over.”

“I don’t try to avoid you!” You sprout defensively. “And quit teasing me, Toji! You’re supposed’ta be on my side; I’m the victim here.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever ya say.” Heavy footsteps draw nearer to where you are, and your heavy eyelids open to see a hand stretching towards you with a glass of water. “I’m here takin’ care of ya now, aren’t I, lil’ victim?”

A smile pulls your lips as you take the glass. “Thank you,” you express before a sip, and your neighbor lifts your feet to sit on the cushion beside you. 

“Y’re welcome,” he places your legs on his lap, grabbing the remote to turn on the television. 

You haven’t been in this neighborhood long enough to say you have friends. Don’t get it wrong; everyone you contacted has been lovely and friendly, and some have opted to help with your move! But aside from the casual greetings in the morning or the nods of acknowledgment, you barely know people who scratch the surface of acquaintanceship. Not to mention, it’s your fault for being a bit of a hermit. 

…But, there is one neighbor you could say you’re pretty close with. Someone nice. Someone dependable…Someone attractive that you’re on a mission not to stare too much.

Toji Fushiguro lives two houses down from you across the street. Remember I mentioned you had people assist with your move? This widowed, middle-aged man was one of the nice handymen who aided you and your friends with your boxes and heavy furniture. You remember it like yesterday, seeing this brawny man stroll up your driveway on the sunniest day of June. You nearly mistook him for an Olympic athlete. 

“So, y’re the one movin’ ‘round here?” The calm baritone of his voice was unforced. “Nice to know there’s a cute face on the newbie. Need any help?” It’s how he asked – so sultry and alluring you almost spaced out before nodding absentmindedly to his request for aid, hoping he didn’t notice you watch how the scar of his lip moved as he spoke. “Welcome to the neighb’rhood, kid.” Rarely do you have butterflies running amok in the pits of your guts, but they were challenging to deal with that day. 

And it doesn’t get any better from that day forward. No matter how hard you wished not to run into this immediate crush of yours, he would somehow wheedle his way into your path. It started slow, exchanging hellos or good mornings whenever he left for work or you took the garbage out. Then came the “Want me to do y’r lawn fr’ ya?” or the “House down the street’s havin’ a little barbecue, wanna get to know people?” You thought moving away from the busy city life would die things down. However, Toji making your head race every chance he gets wasn’t a move you could envisage. Think about how you felt the day he asked for your number to keep in contact “fr’ emergencies…or if ya need anythin’, shoot me a call,” how your heart jumped to your throat! Oh, the girls never stopped teasing you when you told…

Nonetheless, you can’t deny how much help he’s been. Well, outside of that, just being a great neighbor all around. Besides being an absolute succor, he’s an outlet you can come to for anything. Whether for the house, the community, or just personal conversations, Toji’s someone you can admitlingly say you’d depend on. With trust built from day one, sharing pieces of yourselves to break down barriers, it’s safe to say that he is undoubtedly a friend who made your decision to move a worthy risk.

…Yet, what’s even more risky is being alone with him, something you do everything you can to avoid. Why? Look at him! Would you trust yourself to be anywhere with this man alone? Of course not! This is why tonight is the riskiest night you’ve ever bestowed upon your drunk self.

“You got somthin’ to say?”

“Huh?” You perk to reality, anxiousness filling you once you realize you had been staring at the man. “N-No, I’m sorry.”

He stifles a snort, grabbing your feet to massage them from the pain. “Oh, wanna act quiet. You were all bubbly in the passenger seat with y’re friends. Now y’re all shy because y’re stuck with me, huh?”

“T-That’s not true!” A lie; he was right on the mark. Your heart has been beating nonstop once he sat next to you. “It’s just that…I’m sorry for making you drive and pick me and the girls up.”

“Nah, don’t apologize,” his focus is on your feet as he kneads and rubs the sole of your foot. “Told ya I was around the area doing some shoppin’, so pickin’ ya up on my way back was easy.”

You take another sip of your water. “Shopping?” 

“Mm, my kids are down here for the weekend, so I had to go out fr’ a bit and grab shit fr’ my daughter.” Ah, yes, Toji is a father; you remember him telling you about his two children in college, a junior and a sophomore. “They’re at the house right now; saw ‘em after I dropped stuff at the house before bringin’ ya home.” 

You hum. “Sorry for stealin’ you from them for a bit.”

He shakes his head with a humorless laugh. “Please, they probably don’t even know I’m gone. They’re big kids. Plus,” your breath hitches when emerald eyes trail to you. “Now I get to finally have you all to myself, no curvin’ me and whatever this time.” 

“I’m not tryin’ to curve…”

“Yeah, yeah.” He goes back to massaging your feet.

“…Thanks again, Toji. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem, sweetheart.” Your abdomen flexes at the use of the nickname. “You know I always got you…Say, did you hit y’r head somewhere?”

You blink, eyebrows furrow. “No? Why?”

He points to his temple. “Because I see like a lump right here.”

You mirror his movements, your hand touching the spot he’s pointing. And your fingertips meet with a lump on a location that sparks too much familiarity. You gasp aloud and cover the lump with your hand, the other covering your other temple. 

Oh, no.

Black eyebrows knit together. “You okay?”

Play it cool! “Y-Yeah, yeah, I’m fine! You’re right; I probably hit my head somewhere while out.” You take this time to remove your legs off the comfort of Toji’s lap and stand up from the couch. “I’ll put something on it to stop the swelling.” You can also sense something aching down your lower back at that moment. Oh, hell no!!

“Ya sure? Need me fr’ any—“ 

BZZZZ!! BZZZZ!!

Toji’s cut off from the vibration of his phone in his jeans, pulling the device out to see that someone called “Megumi” was calling. Good, a distraction!

“N–No, no, I’m good from here.” You say through gritted teeth, the alcohol taking effect and making your stance a little buzzy to uphold. “J-Just stay here, I’ll be back!” You don’t even wait for his approval, turning on your heel and heading out of the living room to the stairs. Your body feels wobbly with every step you take, but you don’t pay it any mind because you can feel the lumps beneath your palms increasing. “God, please, not now, not today…!”

You march as fast as you can to your bedroom, nearly stumbling on the floor as you haul ass to your bathroom door. You do a terrible job watching your footing fall after rushing to turn the lights on, and stuff from the counter falls because of the impact. But you didn’t care, shuffling up so you could look at the mirror. And the sight you see fills you with immediate dread.

Horns are the first thing you see from either side of your head; the tips curl as if to form a crown but point to the ceiling. Your eyes are no longer human-like, pupils shaped like slits as if morphing into a reptile. And your ears get horizontally pointier.  “…shit.”

You then lift your skirt and tear a hole in your pantyhose above the hem of your panties, and your fear quadruples at the sight of something long and slithery protruding out of the hole. A long tail with a pointy end; you lose your mind. “Shit, shit, shit, shit—”

It’s then you realize why this is happening: you had forgotten to take your daily supplements that are meant to subjugate these features of yourself. You’ve been taking them for the longest time before you moved into this neighborhood, so you’re used to your typical human facade. Now, seeing these parts of yourselves is the very LAST thing you need right now! 

And then something hits you, an unsettling feeling that you’re too scared to confirm. Your eyes travel down to your shirt, your hands hesitantly pulling the bottom tucked into your skirt and lifting to reveal your navel. You then tug the top of your skirt to expose a spot you’re honed in on the mirror. And the urge to scream grows tenfold once you see a black marking on the lower part of your belly. 

A womb tattoo!?!? 

“Oh, my fucking God, not tonight!!”

“YO, HEY!” And just when it couldn’t get worse, you hear Toji coming up the stairs and beelining for your open bedroom door. Wait, no— “I heard screamin’ and a big ‘boom,’ you alright? Where are y—“

Your neighbor stops dead in his tracks once he appears in front of the bathroom opening; his concerned expression shifts to an immediate neutral deadpan. He stares at you, and you stare back at him, the silence so thick you could cut it with a knife. A ring fills your eardrums, dissociating from this entire scene and all its complications.

You want to cry. Maybe scream, throw up, or just straight up die on the spot. 

Because this wasn’t the night for someone to find out you’re a succubus.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

“…”

“…”

“…So, what are you?” 

Not even concealing your face in your pillow can hide you from the eventual questions of Toji, who sits idly on the corner of your bed. You cringe internally, never thinking this dilemma would befall you. The point of moving was to turn a new page in your life and leave the past behind with the city. Now, you are shriveling on top of your bed like a moody teenager, and your neighborhood crush is here to witness your depression.

“…What happened to your phone call?”

“It was my kid. I told him to lock the door since I’ll be out a little longer. Don’t try and deflect,” his blunt answer has you descend further to your inner turmoil. “How come I never seen these horns before?”

You sigh heavily; there’s no point in trying to divert now. “…I take supplements that hinder any features of my succubus appearance so I can look like an average human for the rest of the day.”

“Daily?” He sees you nod through his peripheral. “Succubus…the hell’s that?”

“Basically, I’m a demon that…that…” Yeah, no, let’s not finish that. “Never mind.”

“Bullshit. Tell me.” 

“D-Don’t worry about it, it’s not—“

“Look here,” he speaks to you with a stern tone, a hand coming to your waist to shove you a bit. “I went ahead and picked y’re drunk butt up, made sure ya don’t puke up a storm, and now y’re here looking way different from before. The least you could do is explain.”

God, to be lectured by a human – totally humiliating…! “…I’m a demon that gets energy from…se–….sexu, uhh………..sexualactivitywithhumanbeings.”

The silence that trails after your ramble is beyond awkward. 

“Oh.”

…

“Oh.”

God, just kill me right now!

The older man forces a cough. “So, you…have sex every day?” You can practically sense the tiny hint of discomfort from prompting that question.

“W-Well, I used to when I was younger. But I haven’t really…done it in a couple of years.” Jesus Christ, why is it so embarrassing to admit to someone other than yourself? This is the literal worst! 

“Is that bad?”

“It’s, uhh…It can be?” 

“So, why haven’t you done it?”

“Because…!” You snap your face out of your pillow and finally allow yourself to breathe correctly. “I just…I don’t have time like I used to anymore, and using my powers to make people forget afterward can get tiring. Also, the more times I do it, the more my drive gets intense from the last. The desire of a succubus can be dangerous, you know? And since it’s been a while since I’ve let my powers out, I’m sure it’s nastier than ever…”

“…Well,” Toji turns to face you. “Have you ever had the urge recently?”

“I-” Woah. That question came out of nowhere, almost answering it without proper consideration. “Wh–What do you mean by that…”

He shrugs. “Like—you know what I mean—like, even though you try to suppress it, do you still have those urges to do…ya know, it?”

Things get a little uncomfortable here; now you wish you kept your face in that pillow. Tojo’s gaze on you is distinguished — gentle yet stern, matching his demeanor. He's calm and calculating and is waiting for your response to his strangely personal question. 

“I…I, I don’t know.” It was another lie.

“Why’re you lyin’?”

“I’m not…!” Toji clicked his teeth with a face.

“Fine, answer me this then. Have ya ever thought of doin’ it since ya moved here?” 

Yup, this question was far worse than the other. His words echo inside your noggin, bewildered with every syllable relaying. And the widowed man lifts his brow from the lack of an instantaneous answer. You open your mouth, but words fail to aid you, your tail shying away behind your shadow. “I-I…I don’t—“

“Ever thought of me?”

“Toji!” You shout defensively. Sure, it might’ve been out of line to ask. However, it’s the fact that he’s breaking your exterior with every question — because of how on-the-mark he is. You could never prepare yourself for that inquiry, the heat on your face growing more unbearable. How could he know of the frenzy he puts you through just for existing? 

“I’m not dumb.” You peep Toji, turning his torso and facing his entire front in your direction. “You think I don’t notice how often you try to push me off when I invite ya over or know when y’re lookin’ at me when you think I’m not aware’?” He dents the bed with his added weight, and you forget to breathe, watching him inch closer. “Or act all shy and cute when I got you to myself?” 

You gulp, your brain short-circuiting at the feeling of Toji’s palm on your thigh. There have been countless nights where you’ve thought of your neighbor more than once, indulging in fantasies you could never speak of to a soul, especially Toji himself. To let the man know of the dirty things you’d want him to say to you, the names you wish him to call you, the erotic things you’d like him to do to you — death is the only option necessary not to let that happen. Unfortunately, he seems to have a good idea now that he’s cornered you like this, and you’re too stunned to utter a word.

“It’s okay, though,” he whispers low now that he’s close to your face, and you have to hold back on letting out a yelp when his hand comes to hold your face, his index finger toying with your sensitive earlobe. “‘Cuz I love it when y’re all timid, can’t even look me in the face…Like now.”

You try to avert away from him, but his thumb brings your chin back to him. “Toji, please,” his name feels forbidden to say all of a sudden. 

“Tell me ‘no’.” His nose brushes the tip of yours, and you chew your lip. “I’ll stop right now and leave, let you deal with this y’reself…Or,” he ghosts to your ear, and you quiver. “I’ll stay with you and treat you to what y’ve been scared to ask fr’.”

“Toji, wait,” Fuck, you can’t remember the last time you had your ears so keen, his breath brushing it enough to compel you to meltdown.

“Say ‘no,’ princess.” You’re locked under his forest-green orbs, and you swear you could hear your heart hammering your chest. “Or I’ll treat you right tonight.”

Perplexed eyes can’t move anywhere else, and your lips are wet from licking them without knowing. Is this really happening…? An inquisition you had no time to answer for yourself once Toji closes the gap, centimeters nearer with every millisecond.

I…can’t…

His face draws near, and your eyes reflex to close. 

I don’t…want to…

Toji pulls you in for a gentle kiss; your thoughts radio silent after the contact of his scarred lips on yours. No shot. Your neighbor was kissing you right now — there’s no way!? This had to be a dream…! This is truly a wild night: not only are you tipsy to the noggin, but your neighborhood crush has found out your secret, and now you’re kissing that exact crush in your room?? Your muscles go tense at what is occurring. 

He peppers your lips with kisses, forced to catch up with him as he claims your lips, a palm snaking to the back of your head to keep you steady. He licks your bottom lip, chewing gently to prompt the softest gasps out of your mouth. “C’mon, baby,” he coos to your sensitive ears. “Relax wit’ me.” You nearly melt at the lick of your helix as his free hand courses from your chest to your waist. The brush of his fingers onto your tail makes you jolt. 

“Toji, wait,” you mutter under your breath as he nibbles on your pointy ear, your hands gripping the back of his black wife beater. “D-Don’t; I’m so sensi—Nmmm…!” Jesus, the moan you held back! Toji trails his mouth to your chin down to your neck to suck on your skin. And your lower half throbs harder. “Ahhh…hahhh…”

He returns his lips to yours; this time, his tongue runs on your teeth vigorously to seek entry. You submit after a chew to your bottom lip, whimpering as the older man inserts his wet muscle to greet yours. Surreal, isn’t it, to be tongued down by your neighbor? You don’t know whether it’s the alcohol, the twitches between your inner thighs, or the flick of his tongue and the sound of his purrs that have your face getting hotter. 

And fuuuuuuck, he’s such a good kisser — scratch that, he’s an AMAZING kisser! You’re practically turning into putty in the palm of his hands as he lips you, tilting his head to a proper position with a soft push to your face as he deepens the kiss. He sucks on your tongue, and you mewl, helplessly quivering when he teases the muscle with nibbles. Your waist has a mind of its own while it sways involuntarily, rocking as you sink into the zealous kiss. He’s not overpowering you in any way; if anything, he’s so overwhelmingly comforting, his hand caressing your cheek tenderly, and soft noises of lips smacking and breaking apart bounce one after the other.

Then, you shrill unexpectedly. “…!! Mmahhh! T-Tojiii, d-don’t—don’t touch…Haahhh…”

“Oh? Well, lookie here.” Your ears perk at Toji’s chuckle. Unbeknownst to you, distracted by the intense kiss, your neighbor sneaks his hand under your skirt and touches your private zone shielded by your pantyhose, fingers pressing up on your vulva area. “All we did is kiss, and ya already got your panties wet?”

Embarrassed? Of course, it’s been so long since you were touched like this and out of practice. Now, your repressed emotions start to crumble out of their straightened form the more Toji’s middle finger rubs on your panties. And let’s not even mention your thighs motioning to ride on the digit, your dignity starting to disintegrate. “Ohhh, Toji…”

“Mmm? What is it, sweetie?” He nuzzles to your neck after licking and sucking on your chin. “Feelin’ good down there?” He curls his middle and forefinger to push. “Got ya all excited?” He receives a confirmed hum. “Tell me how y’re feelin’.”

You gulped thickly, your breathing shaking. “I-I’m feeling—shit…” he laughs lowly at your swearing. “Nnnm! You’re making me feel…so hot.”

“I can tell, you’re twitchin’ like crazy right on my fingertips.” His fingers move into a circular motion, and your mouth goes agape. “Fuck, man…Hey, hold on, I wanna do somethin’.”

Toji removes his fingers from under your skirt before you can tell, the heat between your legs going tepid as he withdraws from your figure to lay his back on the bed. But before that, he unzips and loosens his jeans to his butt. A noticeable tent of his boxer briefs has your lips locked to each other, and your eyes widen when he subtracts the material. Just when you thought this night couldn’t get any more crazier, you are awake to witness the display of Toji’s erection in real-time. 

How long has it been since you’ve seen a real-life, living, and breathing dick before your eyes? You honestly can’t recall that; the responsibilities of human life have made you grow numb to your demon necessities that it no longer feels innate. However, the sight of your crush’s solid, girthy, excited cock is marveling. How your mouth waters as you ogle at it is borderline humiliating, eyes glued to the uncut tip.

“Like what ya see?” He asks smugly, kicking his jeans and briefs off and slapping his thigh. “C’mere, mama.” Oh, fuck, the quirk of your insides was unavoidable at his comment, primarily as he guides you closer to him. “Let’s warm up.” You yelp as he effortlessly moves your legs to where you straddle him. He pushes your skirt up to your waist, and you can hear the tear from your pantyhose. His thumb comes to slide your panties to the side, and he whistles. “Damn, lookin’ all pretty and wet fr’ me.” 

It’s either the fact that Toj’s dick is inches in front of your face or your bare pussy out in the air in front of him; either one of the two has your mind going in a whirlwind. And it all comes to a standstill the moment you sense something wet and firm glide across your labia, and it takes everything in you not to tremble. “Mmm, oh, fuck,” he groans after licking your cunt, throwing in another lazy one to have you holler. “It’s been so long…Shit.”Toji’s hands curl from your legs to cup your asscheeks, keeping your butt near him to lap his tongue around your chasm. You whine as he licks you down, your teeth clattering at the sensation. 

Oh, my God, your head begins to ache. It feels so good, your body finally coming back to the groove of things as you move your butt around. The man under you quickly latches his mouth onto you, a firm grip on your ass to keep you in place for him to service you. Speaking of service, your eyes flick to the erect limb before you, your mouth salivating with the run of your tongue across your teeth. Fuck, it looks so good; you admire internally before inching your face close to the length, your head getting dizzier from the sheer size and musk. Damnit…I wanna taste him so bad…!!

“Go on, dollface,” Toji gives your butt a playful smack. “I know ya need this bad.” 

God, he’s so right — you need this; there’s no point in denying anymore. You blow on it before placing a tender kiss, noticing how it pulsates as your hand wrings around the shaft. You lick your lips before pecking at the uncircumcised tip, and Toji’s hold on you goes tighter. He’s sensitive, you note. Adorable. You stick your tongue out to swirl around the cockhead, bathing it with your saliva before you inhale it with a delighted hum, gradually warming up your loosened jaw.

Fuck, the taste of a cock — something that felt nostalgic the moment he graced your tastebuds. Your eyes water a bit, trembles rocking your figure as Toji sucks on your wetness, and every inch you intake fuels the haze that fogs your brain. You stroke and suck him simultaneously, a forgotten method that rekindles now in this moment. You coat him with your spit the more you relax your jaw, slurping him unapologetically as if a different part of yourself takes over. 

On the other hand, Toji feels the same way. It’s been way too long for the widowed man since the last time he has been intimate with someone, let alone have a bare ass right in front of him. It’s no secret that he’s had the hots for you once you moved here, but having you on top of him like this is like something out of his wet dreams. The way you murmur cutely as you suck his dick turns him on so bad, a guilty pleasure come true as he drinks your nectar off your damp naked folds. His tongue teases around the entrance of your vagina before pushing it in, fucking your opening with his wet muscle. You cry on his girth, your tail cringing in the air from the stimulation. He spots it and grabs it from the base; how your lower half jolts to the grasp is humorously darling to him. So cute.

The minutes go longer as you two keep pleasing each other, and a soft whimper escapes your lips when you release Toji from your lips, lips plastering long and sweet kisses on his shaft as you massage the tip. Your other hand palms and kneads his ballsack, the jerk of his thighs rewarding to see, so you increase the pace of your hand.

“—Thhh, nmm!” Toji curses from behind, sluggishly licking from clit to your slit while succumbing to your touch and mouth. “Shiiit, just like that, baby, suck me off like t—Mmngh! Christ, I’m gonna..fffuckin’ cum…”

But then, you remove yourself from Toji’s member, the cold air instantly blanketing him. Green eyes blink as you move off of his lying body, observing you bending over with your face to the cold sheets.

“Toji,” you plea to him desperately, hooded eyes shining eagerly. “Please, I need it…Here,” you spread your ass, fully exposing your slit wet from your fluids mixed with his saliva. Jesus, you were heathing as if you were in heat. “Do it here, I need it inside…!”

You had the man shook; the cogs in his mind stopped working briefly. The picture of you presenting yourself like this to him was unexpected, but goddamn, did it turn him on astronomically! Toji stands on his knees and advances to you, removing his tank top and discarding it to the floor. “Yeah? You want it that bad?” You nod impetuously. “Words, sweetie. Need you to tell me what to do.”

“Toji, pleeease…!” You wiggle your ass until he cusps it, kneading your flesh lovingly to the point that your tail curls around his forearm. “Please, put it in, I wanna feel it…!”

“Yeah, is that what my princess wants?” You and Toji bite your lips when he aligns his tip to your inner labia, teasing you with grinding motions. “Does my demon baby want Daddy to mess y’r insides that bad?”

Oh, we’re playing that card, too? Holy shit, you were getting so wet from this! “Yess, Daddy, pleasee! Mess me up with that dick, wanna be filled up right nooww…!”

He can’t hide the proud grin. “Good girl. Here,” Toji begins to push the cockhead to you, and your lips flatten at the wince of pain that accompanies the push. “Stay still, and lemme reward you,” his hips move slowly in your direction, you grip the sheets to prepare yourself, and your nerves are dialed to a plane of exhilaration you can’t regulate. Oh my God, is this happening? He’s gonna fuck me? So many thoughts cloud your mind, too excited and anxious for what’s to come because it’s been so. Damm. Long. How’s it gonna feel? Is your body ready enough? How does Toji feel about this; is he just as nervous as you a—

Your train of thought is brought to an abrupt halt at the sensation of Toji’s tip finally inserting itself into your vagina, too absentminded that your open mouth couldn’t say a word. Oh, fuck it’s in, it’s in! Your eyes widen, your muscles tense, and your voice struggles to cry. The older man continues to add himself leisurely, the length sundering your slit and stretching your opening as you take him inch by inch. Your back arches instinctively, wailing silently as you can feel the foreign limb intruding your tightness, quick quirks of your frame as he rubs your velvety texture. Ohhhh, my God…!!

When he slowly starts to rut into you, recurring waves of rapture hit your nerves every. Single. Time! You’re entire body is rocked to the core with every short yet gentle pound; the feeling of Toji’s veiny cock scrapping your channel has you shivering. And once he’s encouraged to push his entire member until the very hilt, you yelp aloud when the tip kisses your womb. “—Oooh??!”

“—Mmngh!” Your quick spasm surprises Toji. “Ohhh, shit, there it is. Hmm? Is this where ya want me, mama? Want me right…here?” He snaps his hips swiftly, the rushed movement and hit to your cervix knocks you winded. And another, you keep wringing his shaft acutely. “Ahhn, God fucking damn i—Iisshhffuck, fuck, I can’t, gonna…Hnghh!”

Toji’s body shudders above you, bucking into your warmth with a jittery pattern. The prolonged reaction of his orgasm claims him now, succumbing to the silky, tight texture and how well you’re grasping onto his girth. He comes inside you, moaning as he ejaculates earlier than expected. You sense it, humming to the immediate filling. So warm, so full of his cock already that your toes curl. 

And Jesus Christ, it felt so. Fucking, Good! You were no longer drunk from the alcohol; now, you were intoxicated by the prowess and pleasure of Toji’s dick. 

“Hah, haaaah, fuck,” he throws his head back with a hiss, his abdomen relaxing from the earlier flex. Then, your tail glides up from his abs, feeling up on his skin and roaming on his happy trail. He snickers at your feline-like comportment, “Heh, actin’ all cute now that you got what ya wanted, huh?” You say nothing, bashful to his words, while your tail curls up to his chin. “Don’t go quiet on me now, dollface; I heard you squeaking and moanin’ seconds ago.”

Toji then returns to rut into you despite recovering from his climax, furled to have you shrieking uncontrollably for him. The smacks of his pelvis recoil the flesh of your ass, his come stuffed inside you now glued to his erection as he rocks into you balls-deep. “Mmmm, yeah, that’s right, baby,” he grabs your tail and wraps it around his hand to pull; you scream louder, and your vaginal walls clamp tighter than ever. “Arch more fr’ me, enjoy me—nmm…!—fuckin’ you real good.”

The pull of your tail makes your senses hypersensitive, perturbed by the stress of it being pulled, yet the enjoyment you feel from it is too inexorable to comprehend. Coherent sentences double down to undecipherable babbles, “—Daahh, hoohhfuuc—D-Daddyyy, Daddyyy…!!” Tears well up in your eyes as he inflicts blows to your ass, the pain too quick to prepare for yet the sting enough to make you rigid. “—Too much, ish t’oo muuuch…!”

Another smack to your butt, and you howl once again. “Huh, ya say that, but y’re milkin’ my cock like crazy.” He bends down to remove your hands that try to hide your face and horns with the pillow. “What, ya don’t like this? Hmm? Want me to stop?” 

“No, nooo!!” You shook your head immediately; your vision blurred for a few seconds. “I loveee iit, I love this, love Daddy’s diick—Ahaaa!! More…I want moreee!” Fuck, this is bad; any more than this, and you’ll be addicted for sure.

“Good,” he whispers to your ears. Good Lord, you weren’t going to survive. “Because I ain’t done wit’ ya yet, princess.”

Before you can register his sentence fully, Toji straightens and lays on his side behind you, lifting your leg to create a suitable angle. He then plunges into you harder and faster, the different positions helping the sporadic cadence achieve deeper penetration while scraping your upper wall with ease. At this point, your body is too hot and sticky to care about anything else outside this room; your head pounding and too misty, your senses corrupted by the constant pokes to your cervix and the increasing haze that you don’t feel human anymore. Your succubus roots flourish, drool escapes your lips, and wanting nothing but this feeling to remain ceaseless.

“Gahh, ohhhDaddyyy, ahhahh,” eyes roll to your skull at the brush of your sweet spots. “Shhoo good, I fweel shoo gooood…! Harder, hardeeerr!” 

“—Khhck, goin’ as hard as I fuckin’ can!!” Toji kisses your cheek after a lick, chewing on it after hearing you mewl submissively. “Jesus, this pussy, out of this fuckin’—Nnngh…world.”

You turn to him and claim his lips, and he reciprocates into your steamy kiss. Vulgar tongues exchange spit and encroach on each other’s mouth, and you helplessly suck on Toji’s after he shoves it, your puffy lips intaking the attractive noises he makes. And you slither a hand down to your clitoris to swipe erratically while your tail goes around Toji’s waist and curves into the crevice of his ass. Suddenly, Toji stiffens at the pointy end of your tail, tickling his anus, and the raven-haired man gasps at the insertion. Too stunned to speak, he can only move his hips rapidly, his white-ringed shaft digging deep into you with the help of stimulating his prostate. 

“—Taahhh, y-you, lil’ minx…!” He breaks the kiss and bites your lip to hear you whimper. “Tryin’ ta make me cum again?”

You nod, breathing heavily. “Ohhh, Daddy, I’m so close…! Gonna come!”

“Me too, mama, me too…” 

Hot moans and groans fly out of each other’s mouths, bodies stuck to each other as you both chase for release. Everything feels so fast, so hot, happening all at once; all you can think about is the grinding presses you push up on your delicate clit. Fuck, fuck! It’s coming, it’s coming…!”

Then, it arrives. Your cunt, aching for the climax, receives the crescendo you’ve been aching for this entire time. The walls of your vulva contract around Toji’s member, milking and wringing him as you come loose to your grounding. A clear liquid exerts out of your urethra, showering out to stain your panties, torn pantyhose, and bedsheets, your breathing losing its steadiness and falling to a jagged tempo. The same goes for Toji, who falls into his peak along with you; your fluttering folds force him to submit and release his second load into you with a hiss. The older man’s heaving frame keeps bucking into you until every drop fills you to the brim, burrowing his face deep into your neck to rest as the shocks rock you both.

Finally, everything goes quiet. The cozy atmosphere pulls you out of your heightened elevation and lays you down with silent clarity. Both you and Toji, sweaty and sticky all over, are still linked to each other as the high dissipates. Shuddering figures begin to calm down and fall at ease with the tranquility.

Toji kisses your neck, and you croon until he comes to lay his lips on yours for a tender peck, then on your soft cheek and your temple. He then removes his flaccid bulge, white fluids oozing out of your hole. “Damn, that was good,” he mutters breathlessly. “Hmm, how ya feel—“

The onyx-haired man couldn’t finish his question because of the sudden change of positions you abruptly conducted. He now lays on his back with you straddling him; the calm tone switched to an unexpected spiking mood. 

You then hand grab his dick and arrange it back to your raised hips. Viridian orbs widen. Wait. The tip meets your labia once more before you descend it down. What the f—hold on— And then, his cock is swallowed back inside your wetness, and Toji grits his teeth.

 “Sh-Shit, sweetie,” Toji’s hands come to your waist. “What’s up, aren’t y—“

“Sorry, Toji,” the man surveys with confusion, watching you strip off and throw your shirt somewhere. Your naked chest is now out for him to see, and his breath hitches when you place your hands on his pectorals while a span of bat-like wings springs out from your back. “…That wasn’t enough.”

Wasn’t enough?? He repeats with furrowed brows, noticing the half-lidded, lustful expression and the sharp dents of your canines. Then, it hits him: 

“The desire of a succubus can be dangerous, you know? And since it’s been a while since I’ve let my powers out, I’m sure it’s nastier than ever…”

…Oh, shit. “Wait, we can talk about—“ You get your answer once you bounce on his cock without notice, Toji nearly choking on his tongue. Nope, no room for prattling.

“You let out so much, made my mind go so crazy,” you grind your hips on his pelvis, squeezing his limp cock while it gets firmer and firmer. “Feel so good…More, I want moreee…”

“C-C’mon now, baby, can’t we take a break for a minute at least—“You bring your face an inch away from his.

“Daddy,” your neighbor shudders at the gentle kiss you place under his chin. “Please take care of me like you promised, ‘kay?”

Your gaze lured him in, a trap he was foolish enough to fall for. Because now, he’s stuck under your bow as you begin to inflict an inescapable rhythm, rebounding on his erection until the base meets your folds. Choked groans suppressed by Toji, but take his lips with yours, enforcing a loving yet salacious spell with your satisfied moans. Now, your crush realizes you weren’t the meek, adorable neighbor he dotes on. 

Tonight, he was yours to play like a fiddle…And shame on him for getting way more turned on than he should be!

Wow. Guess I’m dyin’ tonight.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

I should be fuckin’ dead right now.

Toji knew something was up when his eyelids opened, and his emerald eyes scanned the ceiling, instantly recognizing that he wasn’t in his master bedroom. The rays of sunshine are blocked from the curtains, yet the light of day crawls in and basks the room in a low glow. Chirps of birds outside greet him on the basking of a new autumn day, lying comfortably in the cold, silky sheets of the bed.

He wakes to a bit of a headache, mentally and physically groggy. Attempts to move are already tricky and aches all over his body keep him grounded in the mattress. Ugh, feel like I’ve lost all feelin’ in my legs; the man can’t even lift one leg without a grimace. And even his arms are challenging, one so oddly heavy as if it’s nailed down. 

“Fuck, man.” His first words of the day are a curse, irritated by the drum of his head. He tries to lift himself; again, it’s not possible, agitating the man even more. And why the fuck is my arm so hea—

He doesn’t finish his sentence — the answer reveals itself once he turns his head to the left. 

He sees you, surprised to view you in your natural form still. Horns have grown a little larger, yet still small enough for you to rest your cheek on his shoulder. You were sound asleep, faint snores picked up by his ears as he examined your face at ease with a peaceful slumber. Nude, the both of you, a hand wrapped around his left arm to stick close to you while the other is stationed at his chest, your bat wings shriveled together to not get damaged. And judging by the snake-ish feeling, your tail was curled around his bare thigh. 

Strangely innocent to see after the events of last night flash into Toji’s recollection, funny to match such a lewd scenario to such a sweet face. He stifles a laugh, placing his right hand on the vulnerable one on him, his thumb caressing your knuckles as he grasps your fingers. Suddenly, some of the soreness he harbors feels light — glad I ain’t dead, I guess.

Your eyes jit behind your eyelids, a soft groan as you suddenly move and scrunch your face. Finally, your drowsy eyes sheepishly flicker open. Lidded gaze fighting the spell of sleep with every bat of your eyes.

“Mornin’, gorgeous.” Toji greets you.

“…”

“…”

In real-time, Toji watches your somnolent morph into a gradual display of mortification. He’s a little envious to see you spring up with no strain on your body, wings batting out of their relaxed state, and your hand still with his. “T-Toji??” You question directly, eyes surveying the nude neighbor in your bed, doing everything in your power to ignore the fact that you’re naked as well. Speaking of, you notice the subtle pink glow of your womb tattoo, and anxiety spikes to a high. “I–uhh–I’m so so sorry for last night! Sorry you had to bring me back home, and I didn’t mean to act weirdly on you with—Ooof?!”

“Relax,” he cuts you off by pulling you back to his lying frame, his left hand now free to snake on your shoulder. “Don’t talk so fast; my head’s poundin’ like crazy.”

You blink aimlessly, awkward now that you’re fully aware you’re in this man’s embrace. You can’t help recalling what transpired last night, suddenly feeling squeamish. “…You okay?”

“I feel like my life’s been drained by my dick,” he answers bluntly, adding more weight to your embarrassment. “Wakin’ up to a pretty face who nearly killed me with their pussy isn’t somethin’ I’d expect.” 

“……sorry.”

“It’s alright,” calloused fingers glide and intertwine with his yours, stroking your thumb with his. “Had a good time either way. Wild, but good.”

“Really…?” 

“Really.” You probably shouldn’t have peered up to see him look your direction. Albeit exhausted, his handsome face and sleepy grin ignite the heat on your cheeks. And your stomach flips, hearing a laugh when you meekly avert your gaze away. “How many times did we do it?”

“…Not sure,” long enough for my womb tattoo to be blatant. 

“Me either. Does that happen often?”

“Sometimes? I guess it’s because I haven’t done it for a long time, so I went…off the rails because of the intensity.”

“Noted, because I never felt so old until now. I probably pulled somethin’.”

“….Sorry.”

“Y’re good,” Toji scoffs before moving to place a soft kiss on your forehead, and your heart skips the tighter his hand holds your hand. “Tell ya what, I can help you with that cycle of yours, probably…twice a month, so it doesn’t get too crazy like last night. And don’t use y’re powers or some shit to make me forget, either. I don’t wan’ that.”

You lift your face from his shoulder, the heat spreading to your ears. “You don’t have to do that, Toji, I wouldn’t—“

“Nah, I’m down; it’s what neighbors for. Besides, it finally gives me a reason to make ya interact with me more.” Again, his smug smirk causes knots in your stomach. “Like the sound of that, mama? Let Daddy take care of you?”

Your lips quiver, and you hide your face back onto his shoulder. The rumble of his laughter worsens the butterflies in your stomach, and your tail squeezes on his thigh. “Don’t say it like that, Toji!”

“Y’r tail seems to like it.”

“Stop it!”

♱ 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

© 𝐇𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐲2024 – reblogs + comments are appreciated wholeheartedly ☆ header art by tamayura banko + dividers by @cafekitsune.

[lemort-vivant]

god's strongest soldier (local living in tourist town)

[seumyo]

the price to pay when you’re a passenger princess.

You knew that there had to be a catch when Bakugou said he’d pick you up after your 12-hour shift at the hospital. But the thing was, you were too exhausted to dwell on the thought.

Or so you thought.

“You look dead on your feet,” he commented as he opened the door for you.

“Thanks for the compliment,” you replied dryly, tossing your bag into the backseat. “And they say chivalry is dead.”

The sleek, jet-black Porsche 911 Turbo S roared through the empty streets like a predator on the hunt, the low rumble of the engine vibrating through your very soul. Bakugou, of course, looked completely at ease, one hand resting casually on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shift, a calm expression seen on his face.

You’ve come to understand that your husband was relatively calm when not provoked.

“Katsuki,” you started as the car picked up speed, “you do realize this is still a hospital zone, right? Maybe don’t speed like you’re in a Fast and Furious movie.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You literally just did.”

“Relax,” he drawled, shifting gears with precision. “You know I’ve got this.”

You, on the other hand, were internally reciting every safety procedure you could think of in case of an unfortunate circumstance to come.

“Should I call my assistant to make an appointment in advance?”

Bakugou snorts. “What? Don’t trust me?”

“Oh, I trust you. It’s the laws of physics I don’t trust,” you muttered under your breath, earning a low chuckle from him.

The worst part? There was barely any traffic this late at night, which only encouraged Bakugou to push the limits of what his new Porsche could do. You glanced at the speedometer and instantly regretted it.

“Katsuki, I swear to God—”

“What? It’s not like I’m breaking the speed limit,” he said with mock innocence, though the mischievous glint in his eyes told you he knew exactly what he was doing.

The Prefectural Government’s Public Safety Commissions should really revoke his license one of these days. Or you might not live to see the next one.

“By less than two!”

You leaned your head back against the seat, staring at the darkened city skyline as it blurred past you. You were exhausted from your shift, your feet aching, bone tired, but all of that was being drowned out by the overwhelming sensation of your life flashing before your very eyes.

You double-checked your seatbelt again. It’s never too late to actually be safe.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said without taking his eyes off the road.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re about to yell at me for being too hot and good at everything.”

“Wow? The audacity of my husband making such a bold claim,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes at him. “Have I fed your ego too much that you’re about to float away like a hot-air balloon?”

“Didn’t deny my claim.” He got you there.

You couldn’t argue with that.

“Just so you know,” you muttered, clutching the grab handle even tighter as he effortlessly weaved between two cars, “if I die tonight, I’m haunting you. And I’ll make sure to mess with you when you’re trying to sleep.”

“Good,” he said with a grin, finally glancing your way. “At least then you’d be with me all the time, huh?”

You stared at him, momentarily speechless. “Are you seriously flirting with me right now? While you’re driving like a maniac?”

“Who says I can’t multitask?”

Before you could fire back with another retort, the car slowed as you neared your apartment complex. Your death grip on the handle loosened ever so slightly, though your heart was still racing.

When Bakugou finally parked, you let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding. You unbuckled your seatbelt, your hands still trembling a little.

“I hate you.”

“Love you too or whatever.”

“I—wait, you actually said it.”

“What? Can’t a man just say he loves his wife?”

“Good point, but you rarely say it!”

“I pick you up after your every shift and make sure you don’t die of starvation or poor health. That’s enough than saying it, no?”

“But you said it! So it’s different.”

“Not.”

“It is!”

“Not.”

“Is!”

Terrifying car rides aside, there was no one else you’d rather be stuck with. Even if your husband drove you absolutely crazy—both on and off the road. This must be the price of being Bakugou Katsuki’s passenger princess.

SEUMYO © 2025, PLEASE DO NOT REPOST, PLAGIARIZE, MODIFY OR TRANSLATE.

[januaryembrs]

YOU WERE LIKE AN ANGEL TO ME | Spencer Reid x Sunshine!Reader

Request: my DARLING @avis-writeshq says- i’m a menace but i ADORED the spencer fic u posted 🥹 UGH THEYRE SO CUTE YOUR HONOURRRR 👹if it’s okay, may i request another fic with the same couple 🙈 perhaps one day reader is not as sweet or chirpy as she usually is, or she gets injured or threatened in the field? much love and lots of kisses xoxo 🫶

Description: Spencer swore he wanted to hate her. She was too happy, too chirpy, too much for a guy who spent months rotting in prison. But how could he ever hate her when she cried in his chest like that?

Length: 5k (I'm feral for these two)

warnings: post prison reid. Angst. depiction of suicide from the Unsub. gory language used. guns mentioned. mention of $nuff video and other murders. Nothing that hasn't been done on CM already.

authors note: if y'all want to see more with these two just SAY because I am all ears I would die on this ship

There were a lot of times in his time at the BAU that Spencer had wished he could have changed the outcome of their bad guy, surprisingly enough. There was the time they found their UnSub a few minutes too late, and one of the victims fathers decided to take him out then and there with a shotgun to the head. He was just a kid. There was the entire time he was with Tobias Hankel, and he lived in a state of both fear and sympathy for the boy trapped in his own body after years of abuse. There was Nathan Harris, the kid who had stopped him at the subway station and practically begged him for help to stop his urges to murder, only to slit his own wrists before Spencer could get to him because he thought he was tainted. 

He could see how it was easy in their job to get wrapped up in saving the day, in saving everyone they could. He just had hoped, on some stupid grace of a god he didn’t even believe in, that she would have at least remained untouched by the bad luck. 

Spencer had always thought, since the first day he had arrived back into the office after his stint in prison, that she seemed to just waltz through life easier than anyone else. He knew the concept of luck was not quantifiable, that it was just a coincidence that good things happened to some people, and bad things happened to others. He always grouped himself in with the latter, because what was his entire life if not one bad hand of cards after another?

Part of him had been seething with vitriol jealousy when he first met her. He hated how the elevator doors seemed to open without hesitation for her, no waiting required. He hated how her hair never seemed to fall out of place, while his required primping and preening to upkeep. He hated how she was always so happy, whether it had been she’d been given an extra cookie at the bakery for free, or her coffee had just tasted super delicious that morning, or the road works clogging the city had been put on hold the one day she needed to drive into the office. She was one of those people, he had decided, that life just seemed to smile down upon, and she beamed back in that dazzling grin. 

He felt sick to his stomach for ever wishing it gone, especially when she looked like she might never smile again. 

They never liked to say that they had easy cases and hard ones, all of their cases were difficult to process. But this one had been a handful above the rest. 

“UnSub has been killed on site, all units stand down,” Luke said into the radio, and the entire squadron took a sigh of relief, all of them except him. 

Because he saw that look in her eye, the way everything sparkly about her seemed to have vanished.

They had been following Bobbie Wrids for a week. Five bodies in, five men shot between the eyes execution style, almost six by the time they’d arrived on the scene. 

She’d gone with Tara around the front of the abandoned building; Penelope tracked their newest victim, Henry Frond, through his phone pinging off the nearest satellite towers, and it had been straight forward from there. Or at least it should have been. 

Because by the time Spencer and Luke arrived in their own SUV, Penelope had time to access the rest of Henry’s phone, and it was clear to see the victimology behind all six men. 

They were distributing snuff videos of women, some between themselves, some to other usernames on the darkweb, and Bobbie Wrids’ daughter had been one of them.

Bobbie had become somewhat of a vigilante, but he was a grieving father above all. He was a wounded animal chomping at the bit to soothe the ripping pain of his daughter's murder, the same one those men were getting off to. 

Tara and her exchanged a glance as Penelope relayed the information over their headsets, her once serious expression falling into something sombre and sorrowful. How could she arrest a man she couldn’t help but feel sorry for, one she couldn’t help but think wasn’t entirely wrong in his actions. 

“Bobbie Wrids,” Tara’s voice was stern, cutting through the silence of the desolate building. Their footsteps were careful as they made their way through the hallway, down to what had once been a rec-room, or perhaps a staff room, where they knew Bobbie had Henry, “This is the FBI, we’d like to talk,” 

They heard nothing, and she looked up to the older woman hesitantly, her finger hovering over the trigger the way Spencer had taught her. Tara took a minute, knowing she was leading the charge here with the girl being so inexperienced, before she nodded to the door knob and the rookie twisted the handle, pushing the peeling wood open gently. 

Bobbie Wrids stood in the centre of the room, moth eaten couches either side of the damp rug, the ceiling tiles half caved in from wear and tear. Henry Frond was already a pulp in the UnSub’s arms, and yet it was Bobbie that her eyes shot to first, sympathy shooting through every fibre of her being when she saw the distraught look on the father’s face. 

He was grieving. He was grieving his little girl’s death. He was looking for a solution, and this seemed to be his best bet. 

“Bobbie,” Her voice was shaky, her and Tara frozen in the doorway as the man brought the pistol to Henry’s beaten face, cocking it towards his temple before they could even explain themselves. “We’re going to come in, is that okay? We just want to talk, just let us talk-”

They had only edged closer by three paces between them as she was speaking before his knuckles turned white and he squeezed the gun tighter to Henry’s skin, the barrel contorting the flesh, “Don’t come any closer, this pig isn’t worth your mercy,”

“We know,” She said, her and Tara slowly stepping over a fallen ceiling tile, cracking under her boot as she met his desolate gaze for the first time, his head snapping to her. “We know what he did, Bobbie. What they all did.”

His throat bobbed, his bottom lip quivering and the sight of it, a man so broken, forced a frog into her oesophagus, and she willed herself not to cry. 

“They hurt my little girl,” Bobbie choked out, his face turning mauve as the tears began to build behind his eyes, “She was my girl. She was only eighteen.” 

She nodded, his wetted hues seemingly permissive when she stepped closer to where he held Henry hostage. 

“I know, I’m so sorry for what happened to her,” She said, her voice croaky, unstable as she wrenched it into something audible, “I’m so sorry,” 

“He doesn’t deserve mercy, none of them did,” Bobbie spat, his forearm crushing against Henry’s trachea in a vice-like grip. The man floundered, a wheeze coming from his lungs, not that she felt much sympathy for him. 

She sprung into action, flicking her gun onto safety and holstering it, Tara doing the same as she lowered her weapon to her side. He profiled as a vigilante; he had no reason to hurt them. 

“Bobbie, listen, I know they didn’t deserve to walk free, okay?” She said, taking the smallest step towards where the men stood, “But she wouldn’t want this for you, would she?”

The man flinched, his jaw hard as a rock with how he clenched his teeth together, as if holding back a sob. 

“Come on, Bobbie. Let him go, we have enough evidence to get him sentenced. We can get you a plea deal, I know a good lawyer,” She begged, because she wasn’t beneath it, because she knew he was a good man backed into a corner, “Please,”

Maybe it was the way her eyes were soft when she looked at him, or the fact two more agents burst into the room from the hallway, Spencer’s eye immediately falling to where she was stood so close to their UnSub, her gun out of hand. Tara stood by, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He edged with light footsteps until he was behind her, his gaze cautious, never leaving the gun in Bobbie’s hand. 

“Please,” She repeated, and Spencer saw Bobbie’s shoulders drop, every sliver of resolve draining from his body at her gentle tone, a deer approaching a hunter. 

Henry was thrown to the floor, the man practically dead weight as he gasped, almost retching at the feeling of air sucking back into his chest frantically, and Luke and Tara were quick to wrestle him into cuffs, the woman reading him his Miranda rights. 

Spencer almost made a grab for her then, because she was still creeping forward towards the man who had a loaded gun still live in his hand. He didn’t care for one second that the statistics said Bobbie wouldn’t lay a hand on her since she wasn’t part of his list. He didn’t care that every sign pointed to their UnSub being benevolent towards women, especially younger ones, that she fit his daughter’s description. Spencer didn’t care, he wanted her as far away from that gun as possible. 

His heart lurched into his throat when Bobbie did in fact make a lunge for her, just not the way he’d feared. Because she had grabbed him. She’d pulled him into an embrace, a hug, kind and sweet as she always was. 

Spencer cursed her for being so soft. It was going to get her killed. 

“Agent,” His voice was terse, worried if you dug a little deeper than the sharp surface, but she didn’t listen to him. She held Bobbie tight as the man unravelled on her shoulder, falling into heart breaking sobs and it was then Spencer realised she was crying with him. 

“It’s going to be okay, you’re okay,” She was shushing him, the killer, reassuring him he was safe, as if the killing thing wasn’t still between his fingers that clutched at her back with rough hands. 

“They killed my girl, they took her from me, and then they laughed about it,” He wailed, and she nodded, squeezing him even tighter if that was so possible, “No one would listen, the police didn’t listen, I had to do something,”

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry,” This was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be sympathising with the criminals. But she couldn’t help it, she couldn’t help the gasping urge to comfort the man who had lost his whole world, “I’m listening. Tell me about her,” 

“She was so beautiful,” Bobbie whimpered, sniffling into her shoulder. Spencer felt his chest twinge at the scene. He hated that she was so soft. “She never hurt a soul,”

She cried with him, though hers were choked down as much as she could get them, her wet cheeks the only proof she had ever let them slip. 

“I’m sorry,” She said again, because no matter how many times she repeated those two little words, it would never bring his daughter back, “I can help you,”

He pulled away from her shoulder, and it was only then that Bobbie Wrids even noticed Spencer, his face taut in anxiety as he watched the man’s hands still holding onto her body as if she was the only thing that kept him upright, which Spencer wouldn’t be surprised if it were true. 

He fished the cuffs out of his back pocket, his finger never leaving the trigger as he stared down at their UnSub cautiously. He knew he may be being cruel, knew that ten years ago he would be just as caring as her. But that Spencer was long gone. And what remained was screaming in terror that she was in the line of danger, that she was holding the danger in her bare hands like she didn’t see the jeopardy she was putting herself in. 

Bobbie pulled away to look at her, the creases around his eyes deep chasms, and even with the smattering of grey hair, the stubble, the cold, empty look of someone with nothing left, she thought he might have been a handsome man once. He looked at her with a ghost of a smile, and one of his callused hands came up to tuck her hair behind her ear as if it had been second nature to him for eighteen years. 

“You’re a sweet girl,” He murmured, and she blinked at him, her chest easing at the way his wails had subsided into something quiet. She could help him, she swore she would help him. He was a good man beneath it all. “But no one can help me anymore, sweet girl,”

And with that he lifted the pistol beneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

—

She heard someone scream before she realised it was coming from her own throat, but her ears were ringing and she couldn’t open her eyes. Her face was wet and hot, and for a second she thought it was tears, but she was beyond crying now. She felt arms pulling her back into a strong chest, and someone was murmuring to her, or perhaps they were speaking normally and the sound of the gunshot had knocked her hearing. Either way, it was like someone had pulled a bag over her head as she brought her shaking hands up to her eyes to wipe. 

She managed to crack her lids then when the sludge was gone, only to see the room still a blurry mess. She could make out, in the haze of blobs and crimson tint, Bobbie’s body slumped to the floor, a dark puddle seeping into the rug as those long arms tugged her out of the room. She only then looked down to her hands where she had rubbed her face and she caught the same claret plasma coating her fingers, her white shirt, her pants, her arms. It covered her head to toe. 

It was in her eyes, she realised when she saw the ichor coating her fingertips. It was blocking her vision, turning the world a vivid wine colour, and she thinks she whimpered, or perhaps it was a moan of horror seeing the puddle beneath Bobbie’s body growing larger by the second. 

“I don’t understand,” She said out loud, her head spinning, and she brought her fingertips up to her eyes again, maybe to get the blood out, god there was so much blood on her face, or maybe because she hoped to everything out there that she would clear her sight and find it all a terrible hallucination, the product of one too many nights of sleepless tossing. 

But when she rubbed her lids again, this time seeing the scene a little better, Bobbie was still dead. She had still been too late. 

“You’re in shock, you need to breathe,” A voice instructed her over her shoulder, and it was from the same person who had their hands around her waist, pulling her away from the crime scene, as CSI filed in from behind them. 

She tried pushing the arms off her, weak because she couldn’t feel anything that wasn’t the horror in her stomach, and it took her a second before she listened to their words and realised she was holding a breath in her chest, the way a toddler does when they’re overwhelmed. 

“I don’t-” She gasped, the air rushing through her lungs, so fast it made her cough, “I don’t understand, I was going to help him- I don’t understand- why?”

“I know, just breathe for me, sweetheart,” Spencer. She only just realised it was Spencer speaking, because he had never called her that and the gentle tone he’d taken was nothing like his usual, civil cadence. He had been dropping a few jokes the past few weeks since she’d driven him home, had been more touchy feely with correcting her form when she was at the shooting range, had delicately touched the small of her back when they were navigating a crowd together. He was slowly cracking from his statuesque expression that hadn’t left his face since he’d gotten out of prison, but the softness with which he held her waist was entirely new. 

“Spencer, I don’t- I don’t get it,” She said, her voice bubbling into a sob as she allowed herself to be pulled away with no fight left in her. He took her into the hallway, turning her body from the sight of his hand lifeless on the floor with little to no effort. She was damn near limp in his arms, “Spencer, I don’t under-understand, I was going to h-help him, why would h-he do that-”

“Shhh, you need to breathe,” He murmured into her hair, trying to lead her out the front of the building and far away from where she’d just been front row seats to a messy suicide, “Come on, just breathe for me, baby, and then we can talk,”

But she wasn’t listening, and he wasn’t offended. Spencer knew it was the shock. He knew the symptoms by how her respiratory system had picked up in a matter of seconds and it was like she had gone from zero to a hundred. She let out a long whine, tears collecting the blood on her lash line and her chest seized into action, gulping down air, too short to do anything for her lungs, and her legs began to buckle beneath the two of them. 

Spencer stopped in the hallway, realising she was in more shock than he must have thought. He knew she was sensitive, hell it was one of his favourite things about her. He knew she felt everything so deeply, burned too easily, like a daisy wilting in a dry heat, or candyfloss melting in his mouth. Spencer knew, as awful as watching death up close was for any agent, it would hit her hardest of all of them. 

He moved around to her front, his hands migrating from her waist up to her shoulders, brushing over her upper arms soothingly. But her body felt numb, her head felt heavy, and her eyes were glazed over, down a rabbit hole entirely away from him, even when one of his hands cupped her wetted cheek gently. 

“Just breathe, hey, look at me,” He tried a firmer tone, and she bent to his will too easily. It was a punch in the gut seeing everything shining and pretty leached out of her eyes, as if she had become soulless in a matter of minutes, as if she had lost all hope in the world the second Bobbie pulled that trigger. She looked like hell, blood still fresh on her cheeks, in her hair, smeared around her eye sockets where she had scrubbed so hard to get it off her skin, “You need to calm down, you’re going to faint if you don’t breathe,”

She nodded, or something close to it, her eyes falling down to the floor, and she seemed to wrestle for control over her chest then. But what came after was worse, Spencer thought. Her brows screwed together, her eyes welling up with more of those fat tears, and her lips dropping into a devastated pout, her eyes trailing over the mess on her uniform, on her hands. 

“Spencer, I don’t understand, I tried to help him, I wanted to help him,” She sobbed, sniffling to herself miserably, and he barely even thought about it when he pulled her into his chest, not caring that her skin would dirty his shirt. 

His hand wound into her hair, stroking her sweetly as she buried her wails into his vest. He used his other arm to pull her close to him, which she seemed to have zero qualms about as she clawed at his back to keep him close, as if she didn’t want to face what was going to happen when they left that building. 

Spencer regretted ever thinking her sunshine was too bright for him. 

–

She hadn’t smiled in a whole week. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She had given Penny a very forced smile when she had fussed over the younger woman the first day she got back, had said thankyou with downcast eyes and a fragile grin when the blonde presented her with a framed picture of a puppy to keep on her desk ‘incase she needed something nice to think about,’

She hadn’t looked at it once, because they both knew it wouldn’t do anything, no matter how much she pretended for Penelope’s sake that she would put it to good use. 

He had taken her out for coffee on him that first day, but by the time they had got to the front of the queue, he had been doing almost all of the talking, which had become rare nowadays since he had come home from Mexico. Usually, it had been her filling the silences, because he knew in her right mind she hated the sound of static nothingness, she found it awkward and unnecessary when she could talk to anyone without thinking about it too hard. 

They had got to the desk, the barista smiling up at him as he ordered his usual, before he turned to look at her as the woman serving asked her what she would like. But she wasn’t listening, she was watching out the window, nothing particularly invigorating beside a bird cleaning its feathers on top of a stop sign. 

He said her name, putting his hand on her back and her head whipped around, her eyes empty as they looked up at him expectantly, “What do you want to drink?” 

She blinked, waking herself from a stupor, and looked at the barista with an embarrassed expression, “Hot chocolate, please,” 

And that was all she really had to say until lunch rolled around, and she excused herself to head home early. Emily smiled at her reassuringly, her eyes wary as she watched their happy-go-lucky rookie head for the elevators with a desolate look in her eyes. 

Spencer hoped she would come around on her own, or maybe even be brave enough to talk to someone about the thoughts rattling around that head of hers, but she just didn’t. She stayed as silent as possible, only ever speaking when spoken to, asking Emily if she could finish off her reports at home, to which the Prentiss woman never protested. 

But Spencer had had enough. He’d worried himself sick over her, and where all thoughts of how endearing and lovely and charming she was had sat in his head before, now it was all just ways he could think to make her smile again. 

It was the following Tuesday by the time he braved action. She had gone home after their midday briefing, apologising to Emily with tired eyes that seemed to be growing more and more heavy by the day, like she hadn’t slept a wink in a fortnight. Which Spencer thought was entirely possible. 

He pulled up to the house Penelope had not so discreetly told him was hers, definitely not because he’d asked, and definitely, definitely not breaching any human resource policies about distributing fellow workers information (meaning Spencer had almost certainly not begged Penelope for the address with those puppy eyes of his he knew could bag him anything). 

The peonies in the window bays were wilting but her house was something out of a fairytale. He wasn’t sure why he was really so surprised. It screamed her, everything about it, from the toadstool post box to the little green, cast iron bench that sat in the garden, the metal forged to look like florets of ivy holding the sitter upright. 

He rapped the brass knocker, the metal cold under his long fingers. Brushing invisible dirt off his shirt, he hoped she would answer as the present squirmed at his feet. 

“Just a second,” He hushed, and as if she heard him, the front door swung open to reveal her bare face he hadn’t seen since he’d helped her wipe the blood from her skin in the back of the ambulance. 

She looked at him with furrowed brows, before they quickly shot to the floor, to her cobbled pathway that had clicked under his shoes, and her face washed with a shock. 

“Oh my god, Spencer!” She crouched to her knees, a slobbery lick immediately meeting her cheek as the Spaniel rubbed his wet nose up to her ear, sniffing her unique smell, as if it was a bag of Class A’s, “I never knew you had a dog,” 

“I don’t,” He replied, kneeling with her to ruffle the soft fur behind the canine’s ear, “This is Ace. He retired from the Bomb Unit a month ago and Penelope sent me his handler’s number. They said he’s the happiest dog in the world,” 

 “I would be too if I stopped so many people from blowing up,” She said, but before he could ask what she meant exactly by that, Ace had jumped up and attacked her entire face with kisses as if he too thought that statement was worth silencing. 

And she laughed. She laughed louder than she had in days, weeks, her eyes crinkling in joy as the little pink tongue stole away her sorrow, tickled away the traces of the blood that had tainted her skin. 

Spencer smiled, his eyes watching her face scrunch in a squeal, hands eventually coming up to the elderly dog’s jowls to gently push him down. 

“Oh, you are the sweetest guy,” She said, and the words had him tugging at the leash to lick her all over again, “Yes you are, you’re the sweetest little guy around, huh?” 

She chuckled, scratching down the mutt’s neck, and her eyes flicked back up to Spencer, who watched her with more intent than she’d realised. 

“Petting and receiving affection from pets causes spikes in serotonin in our brain and reduces anxiety, did you know that?” Spencer said, Ace pushing his muzzle into the palm of her hand to prove a point. 

Her smile wavered slightly, and she looked at his hazel hues that seemed to see right through her, “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so off lately, I just can’t sleep at the moment-”

 “Don’t apologise,” He cut in, though his tone was kind, and the two of them stood back up to their full height, “What happened was horrifying, even some of the longest serving agents I know would struggle seeing that,” 

She scoffed, unusually pessimistic coming out of her mouth, “You wouldn’t,”

His head tilted, not quite understanding what she meant, because she hadn’t sounded cruel when she said it. Then again, he didn’t think she was actually capable of that emotion. 

She looked at him, a flash of something vulnerable in her eyes, something like that day he’d held her in the hallway; too fast he almost missed it.

“You’re so brave, Spencer, you’re like invincible. I mean, you survived prison and your mom getting kidnapped and you bounced straight back to work like it was nothing. I can’t even watch a murderer die without spiralling out of control,” She huffed, rubbing the bridge of her nose and before he could respond on just how wrong she was, before he could tell her that that was exactly the opposite of what had happened because he had damn near changed every inch of himself in prison to stop himself from breaking, he caught her murmuring and he thought he might just have been punched all over again, “I wish I was like you,”

His jaw clenched, eyebrows furrowing into a frown as he stepped towards her, and her head shot to him, worried she may have said the wrong thing by mentioning everything that had happened, everything Pen had specifically said was a touchy subject, and she opened her mouth to apologise. 

“Do you know how unbelievably glad I am that you are nothing like me?” Spencer said, his voice bordering on furious and her fumbled for a reply, worried she had truly pissed him off. 

She wouldn’t blame him for hating her. She’d always worried, until perhaps that day they’d gotten into her car and she’d driven him home, that her very essence annoyed him. 

“I’m sorry-” She started, but he shook his head.

“Stop apologising,” He said, his hand reaching up to grab where her fingers tugged together nervously, his hold featherlike, his face softening when he saw her expression, “I don’t want you to be anything like me. I like you just how you are,” 

She sighed, eyes doe like with emotion as she looked at him, “Really?”

He smiled, a rare and genuine smile as she seemed to glow under his words, “Yes, really.” Spencer allowed himself to enjoy the way that the twinkle returned to her expression when he smiled at her with something almost like the old Spencer in him, before he cleared his throat, “We all like you. Everyone on the team likes how you are,”

She paused, nodding to herself as if knocking herself out of a silly daze, and Ace bounced on his hind legs trying to get her attention again. 

“You don’t think I’m too sensitive?” She asked, holding her palm out for the dog to nuzzle at with that wet nose of his. 

Spencer shook his head, “Sensitive is good. It means you feel something. Means you feel the good things deeper too,” 

Her smile was blinding, because she’d never thought of it that way before, and she looked like her old self again. Spencer wasn’t stupid enough to think she was never going to think about Bobbie again, he still thought about that first UnSub he’d tried to save. He still thought about Tobias Hankel. He thought about them all. 

But he was going to make sure she never turned into him. He didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself if she did. He’d protect her sunlight even if it burned him to know he could never have her the way he wanted. Because she was everything good, and he was him. 

She looked down at Ace, the life returning to her as she stood aside for the two of them to enter her house, “Tea?”

Yep. Spencer felt something run hot knowing she would always be out of reach. Didn’t stop him from thinking about it, though. 

[devosin]

— LATE NIGHTS & FLASHING LIGHTS !! prologue : keeping up with Y/n L/n . .

♡. Spotify playlist | Updates, every Friday !! — Vil Schoenheit x reader | Y/n pov . .

Your fingers glided through the screen—which was on its lowest brightness setting—skimming through the terms and conditions of your contract, noting anything that stood out, before you threw the phone aside back on the nightstand and fell back down on your bed, pulling the comforter on yourself, as you try and relax your otherwise restless brain. 

Tired shallow breaths leave your chest, your eyebags felt heavy, almost weighing you down—and the light peeking from your curtains almost caused a headache—there was this feeling that grew in the pit of your stomach that you couldn’t quite label, a mix between both nausea and the dreadful feeling of doom, and after effect of an intense hangover, that didn’t seem to go away even if you drowned it in water and pills. 

You hated it, you hated how being drunk leads you to do impulsive shit, and you hated the aftereffects making you so wary of your decisions, which only resulted in you sowing every decision you make. 

Everytime you drink, you end up regretting it, and promising yourself that you won't ever again—it’s not that you're a heavy drinker—You just don’t trust yourself, you never have, but the alcohol really does wonders in bringing those feelings of deep-rooted insecurity up to the surface. 

It’s really not your fault, it was an after party for the cast and crew in celebration of your series finalé—You didn’t do well under pressure, and when everyone around you was pushing you to take another hit and another shot . . and well saying no would have ruined the mood—You don’t regret going on your phone, and you most definitely didn’t regret emailing a response back for the hosting offer—You would’ve accepted anyways, the alcohol just gave you the push you didn’t have before. 

It still triggers your anxiety, because you’re jumping into something headfirst with nothing prepared, you haven’t done that in ages. 

You sigh, getting up from your bed, you’re clearly not going to get any sleep with this much stress, it would be best if you get some air, to calm down . . . 

You were still in your pajamas, a large winter coat and hat covering most of your features (in order to avoid paparazzi), as you made your way through the streets, your hands buried in your pockets, forming fists as you looked through your surroundings. It was early november, barely any snow to be found yet it was colder than any winter you’ve ever experienced in the city. 

It’s been four years since you moved out to the outskirts of Pyroxene, you used to live in the capital, before your acting career even started. You even attended University there, not much going on with your degree anymore though. A lot of your friends still live there, and sometimes you miss the bustling streets, the noisy cafe’s, the ability to meet up with your friends as often as you’d like, or the feeling of home—However, if there’s one thing you don’t miss, it’s the fucking traffic. 

The traffic there was hell. You still have a small private condo in the capital under your name, considering a lot of your filming jobs take place there, and it seemed like a better investment than renting a hotel room every time, and hotels generally trigger your germaphobia . . —Plus it’s a lot cheaper just renting, and convenient for last minute things also hotels in the capital are fucking expensive—and everytime you film having to drive back and fourth made you want to take a knife to your throat, but that’s not a hotel exclusive problem. 

You snapped out of your thoughts, when you heard a car horn, realizing you had walked straight into traffic. 

‘Shit.’, you ran across the street as fast as you could, and for a moment you started believing in God again, because that was a close one. 

Y/n and Navia beef because I looped "Girls so confusing" remix a lil too much and I wanted to have a friendship rebound in this because I clearly ain't getting one irl. (ew trauma dumping? in front of my yogurt/j)

I decided to double post and publish both pov's (praise me frfr/j), so you can get a grip on how things might flow?! Also creating relationships of side characters and dynamics as we move along, I want ya'll to really know these characters.

Previous chapter | Masterlist | Next chapter . .

— LATE NIGHTS & FLASHING LIGHTS !! ♡. Synopsis : VIL SCHOENHEIT recently signed a contract under Descendant. Inc for his very own late night show, only to find out his co-star and fellow co-host is none other than Y/n L/n, someone he hates despite knowing very little about them and never having met them, previously. Y/N L/N, an actor who made their debut 3 years ago and hasn’t been able to catch a break since, recently decided to sign a deal with Descendants. Inc to host their new late night show “late nights & flashing lights”, as a break from acting . . Only to find out their favorite long-time actor will be co-hosting with them. Tune in every Friday, for a new episode of “late nights & flashing lights” to see if these two hosts can find a peaceful work-bond amidst their judgements . . and quite possibly even love? . .

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© devosin , do not repost, plagiarize, translate, or adapt my work without prior permission and or confirmation.

[rafecameronsslut4ever]

STAR SHOPPING — charles leclerc (angst, smut)

pairing; fem!reader x charles leclerc summary: look at the sky tonight, all of the stars have a reason. warnings: angst angst angst angst, little bit of smut (very less tbh), dying relationship a/n: ifuckfuckfukc. im not good at writing summaries, i guess. alsososo, this is inspired by lil peep's song, 'star shopping' (rip to that angel). love the song, love you.

charles massaged his temple, debating whether it would be worth it.

it was reckless, sure. a stupid gamble. but he’d made it anyway. he wasn't going to back down from a challenge.

the text from carlos glared at him, a void pulling him in, daring him to take the leap.

carlos Party at Twiga, join us bro!

he slipped his phone back into his pocket and turned to her. “i’ll be back in the morning,” he murmured, pressing a light kiss to her temple.

she nodded but didn’t say a word.

he knew she didn’t care anymore. and why would she?

promises, once bright as fireworks, had dulled to faint whispers she could barely hear over the noise of his world. he wasn’t the man she deserved, not anymore.

but god, she was everything to him. so much more than perfect, more than anything he thought he’d ever deserve.

but he wasn't worth it.

she was losing her patience, and he didn't blame her.

he first saw the cracks in their relationship months ago.

one conversation a week—if that—was all he could give her. he’d call her late at night from hotel rooms, his voice tired from exhaustion, apologising for being so far away.

“it’s okay,” she’d say every time, but her tone told him it wasn’t.

when he was home, his hands would find her waist, lips trailing down her neck, her collarbone, her chest. she’d arch into him, sighs warm against his skin, and for a moment, everything would feel right.

but this wasn’t about her. it was about his need for her, his desperation to feel close to her again.

his fingers trailed lower, her eyes fluttered shut, and he saw his own desperation in her expression.

she still loved him, he was fucking sure of it.

and the knowledge only sent him spiralling as if it were the only thought in his head.

her name a chant, a prayer, a mantra.

her name left his lips over and over, a plea she didn’t answer.

because she wouldn’t look at him. not once.

and that hurt more than anything.

he kissed her again, and she moaned against him, nails raking his back. he pressed harder, wanting her to feel, to see how much he needed her.

her hands moved to tangle in his hair, and he could feel her body tightening around him.

he pulled back, looking down at her.

"look at me," he murmured. "look at me, chérie."

her eyes were a void, and he could feel himself falling.

falling into her, and then, falling out.

out of her life, out of the apartment they shared, out of the city he promised he'd always come home to.

falling into a chasm that would take everything. everything he had, everything he was.

he fell, and she watched.

"do you still love me?" he asked.

she diverted her eyes, "yes."

her friends didn’t make it easier, either. they saw the missed dinners, the empty seat beside her at gatherings. they whispered that she deserved better, and charles hated that he agreed with them.

but he was working on it, he really was.

he was trying to make something of himself, to be someone worth her time. he spent hours at the track, pouring everything into his career. because maybe, just maybe, if he could prove his worth to the world, he could prove it to her too.

make his money, and drive his car.

he didn’t pick up her calls as often as he should have.

it wasn’t because he didn’t want to—he just didn’t know how to face the guilt in her voice. he was already so stretched thin, trying to balance racing and everything else.

his exes had hated this part of him too, the way he disappeared into his own world.

but she was different.

she didn’t hate him for it; she just wanted to understand.

and maybe that’s what made it harder.

her family didn't like him either. they thought him unreliable, uncommitted, and too much in his own world.

he wasn't the person her family wanted him to be.

he couldn’t blame them, though.

but she would just shake her head at that, arms wrapped tightly around him. “i don’t care about that, charles. i want you.”

her words should have been a comfort; a reassurance, but they felt like another weight added to the ones he already carried.

her faith in him was suffocating. they fought over it, a lot.

"charles, it was important to me!" she shouted, hands raising in the air from anger.

"what did you expect? what the fuck did you want me to do?" he shouted back, his anger matching hers.

"something! anything! you never think about me."

"of course i do!"

"you promised, charles. you said you'd be there." she ended, eyes shutting close from the tears welling in her eyes.

and there was the night before he left for vegas.

they sat together on the balcony, the stars blinking above them. he couldn’t stop looking at her, the way her hair moved slightly from the breeze, the way her fingers traced patterns on the glass of her wine.

“do you think the stars have a reason to shine?” he asked suddenly.

she looked at him, surprised. “i think we all have a reason,” she replied after a few seconds of silence.

he nodded, swallowing hard. “i hope you know you’re mine.”

she smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

it was 3:14 am now.

charles stared out at the sea from where he sat in his car. he had left the party early.

his phone vibrated, with her name flashing across the screen.

he didn’t answer. not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t know what to say.

all he could do was look at the sky that night, wondering if the stars above her were the same ones above him.

and if they were, maybe they’d shine a little brighter—for her, if not for him.

[yourlocalsmutwriter]

Tell me something awful like you are a lover stuck in the body of a racing guy - Fernando Alonso x reader

Pop music blares through your headphones from your guilty pleasure playlist as you're scrubbing a kitchen counter. The blonde singer's words about hating it here couldn't resonate with you more. Living with strangers was bareable. Them being students and not really sticking to a cleaning schedule was to be expected. You'd committed similar sins before. But texting your landlord to fix your water pressure while the state of the kitchen (and honestly, the whole flat) was abysmal wasn't the smartest. You hated confrontation,so it was on you to bring everything up to the guy's standards. One bit of the shared space took you an hour. You were tired. Unemployed. Done. Cold. Just as you were about to follow your astrology app's suggestion of a good cry, you get a WhatsApp notification from your boyfriend, asking you to call him.

"Hey, Fernando. Everything all right?"you say as his face pops on screen.

"Yeah, I just woke up. Figured I wanted to give you a tour of Sin City, but I think you'll have to wait a bit," he trails off.

"What, not feeling like an early bird, huh? Usually, I'd be the one bugging you to stay in bed with me and cuddle more. What's new, hmm?" you ask, curious as to why he's called you out of the blue.

He just grunts and flips the camera. Your eyes take a second to process what you're seeing. And then you focus on the tent in his boxers. As if intent to kill you both on the spot, he adds, "You know, it's your fault. Had a dream about you, and apparently, even fake you has the same effect as the real thing."

You laugh, just a bit.

"Sorry, sorry, love. Just the thought of you getting a morning boner like some teenager is hilarious." Sensing that he's about to hang up and not wanting to deal with it, there's a plan forming. The good cry you were considering a few moments before was going to be turning into a good wank. "Wait. Let me help you. Please?"

Fernando pretends to consider it for a moment. You both know that phone sex is the key to not loosing one's mind during a triple header.

"Fine." He agrees. "But you gotta put on a real show on for me, beautiful. Wanna see you ride your toy like it's me.".

"It is you,". Nando's reaction to your previous dildo was to replace it as soon as possible. You were flabbergasted that he would go through with cloning his willy, as the kit said, just to stake a stupid claim on you. All your annoyance evaporated the first time you used the new toy and came so hard you questioned every other solo orgasm before. You tell your boyfriend you'd be right back as you swiftly disappear to wash the dildo. Thankfully, no one's around to see you. You prop your phone on the edge of the bed, following Nando's example. His hand is already slowly palming his cock. You're about to spread the lube on your hands, when you realize you're still fully clothed.

"Teasing or quickie?" You ask him.

"You know the quote, honey. As much as I wanna watch you touch yourself and suck it first, on a time crunch here. So, clothes off and giddy up, cowgirl." He says.

You spread the lube on the dildo, matching Fernando's pace. God, the visuals of his cock, ready for you but out of reach was driving you crazy.

"You know what to do, baby. Rub your clit like I would touch you. Don't be cutting corners just because I'm not there to guide you on it properly." He adds.

You loved his more commanding side. Before you two had sex for the first time, he wondered why you'd pick someone his age to date. It became glaring obvious during fucking you, the way you melted against his words, how you begged him to be faster, harder, rougher, to not hold back on you. You depended on him to give you just what other partners often missed to do.

You realized that you were spacing out and returned to the task at hand. Circling your clit, once, twice and thrice and already you're wet and ready. You straddle the toy, making sure Fernando gets a premium view of how the plastic cock sinks inside of you slowly.

He groans and tightens his fist, squeezing it against the base.

"Faster, honey. Show me that I taught you how to take it. Ride it for me." He commands, needing to see you fall apart and soon.

You bite your lip and find your rhythm. Usually, when you used the dildo, it was in missionary. This position was making everything so much more intense for you it was as if you were doing it with the real thing. Speeding up, you could feel the toy going deeper, making you clench against it. You let you a quiet moan of Fernando's name, a plea, and a futile action.

"You look so good like this, my love. God, when I come back, I want to taste you as you play with this. Would you like this? To feel my tongue on your clit as you're fucking yourself on my dick, huh? Sound good, no?". Nando's fantasy reminds you of how his hands will be on you soon, how you'll fall apart on his lips, how he'll make sure to have you coming in exotic destinations, away from everything you hate here. This fuels a fire in you and you're thrusting your hips, the toy slick with your wetness.

Your boyfriend's pumping matches your speed, and you can see how he's rubbing down drops of precum down his shaft.

"Tell me when you're about to cum for me, beautiful. Let's do it together." Less than a minute later you're a moaning mess, pussy clenching against the plastic replica of your lover's cock and saying that you're about to finish. Fernando encourages you to go over the edge, to finish you both off like a good girl. And that's exactly what you do. You wish you could take the shot where he angles his cock and cums all over his stomach and have it burned behind your retinas forever. You're both panting and spent and taking a few minutes before starting your actual post-orgasm rituals and clean up.

"I'll call you again in half an hour, okay? Let me know what you wanna see of Vegas, and I'll have my driver pass it. Think I have the time to even walk into some landmarks and get you whatever souvenirs what you want. Plan and let me know. I love you, sweetheart." He says. Underneath the tough exterior and the sometimes arrogant facade was a gentle, wonderful boyfriend. Maybe you didn't really hate it here. And just maybe he was a lover, stuck in the body of a racing guy.

[varpusvaras]

Jason is driving when he gets the message.

It's a nifty little system he has added to his helmet. He gets alerts of messages that are high priority, and he gets them played out by the com unit. The message is from Lian, which means it's the highest priority, so Jason lets it play out as he waits at the intersection.

Jay I need help quick please I messed up

Jason had been on his way to pick up some groceries because it's his turn to make dinner, but those can wait now. The lights turn, and he makes his way to the front of the line, threading between cars, and makes a definitely highly illegal U-turn and starts to head back home.

His makes it to the house in record time after probably making half of the city hate motorists with how he had been driving, and he runs inside while still tugging his helmet off.

"Lian?" He calls as he makes his way through the door.

"Here!" She's calling from the bathroom. Jason runs to the door so fast that he overshoots just a little when he tries to stop.

"Are you okay?" He asks. He drops his helmet onto the floor and tries the handle before noticing that she has the door locked. "Are you hurt? Lee?"

"I'm okay", she says, and Jason is a little less panicked now.

"Okay", he breathes. "Can you open the door?"

"Just don't be mad at me?"

Jason doesn't remember ever being mad at Lian.

"I won't", he promises, still. He hears Lian walk up to the door. There's a moment of hesitation, before the lock turns, and the door creaks slowly open.

"What's going on?" Jason asks, turning his head to see inside, and oh.

"Don't be mad." It's more of a demand now than a request, like Lian is challenging him to keep his promise. Jason isn't paying much attention to her words, however, as he is busy staring at her head.

Her head that is full of very blotchy, bleached hair.

"Okay", Jason says. Then he leans against the doorframe and breathes. "Oh my God."

"Are you mad?" Jason breathes again.

"No", he says against the doorframe. "Just please send me a little less of an omnious text next time. I thought you had burned down the house or chopped your fingers off."

"Oh", Lian says, and Jason can hear the grimace in her voice. "Sorry."

"It's fine." Jason deems that his heart rate is calm enough again, and he straightens up. "So what happened here?"

Lian grimaces again.

"I wanted to dye my hair", she says.

"I can see that."

"And since neither you or dad were here, I thought I could do it now, but it's terrible."

"Yeah, it is." Lian sticks her tongue out at Jason for that. "Why didn't you wait for us to be here too?"

Now Lian crinkles her nose in a slightly guilty manner.

"...I didn't want dad to say no?" She offers.

"I don't think he would've", Jason points out. "He's pretty okay with different forms of self-expression."

He is dating Jason, after all. Compared to whatever Jason did as a teenager? Dyed hair is like a newborn baby smacking you.

He kinda understands it, though. He certainly remembers doing things Bruce would've been completely okay with behind his back, especially back when he had first arrived at the Manor. But he had been traumatised and neclegted by parental figures before, and Lian is not.

Maybe it is just something all teenagers go through. In any case, Jason is taking happily taking this over anything else, and he knows that Roy is too.

"You think he isn't going to be mad?" Lian asks. She glances up at her bangs.

"Over some badly bleached hair? No way."

"...I also bleached the sink."

Jason's inner Alfred wants to come out at that, but he pushes it down fast. Not now, Alfred.

"That sink has seen worse things", he says instead. "....listen. I have Bruces credit card with me that can easily pay for that to be fixed and dyed to all of the colors in the rainbow if you so want to. Let's go find a professional."

Lian grins at him, and Jason grins back.

"I only want it to be blue, though", she says.

"Blue it is, then." Jason nods. "Go get your helmet."

[lisired]

i thought you were dead

pairing: yuta x (f) reader

genre/warnings: murder, angst, violence, smut, unprotected sex, oral (f receiving), choking

summary: after investigating the activity of a local gang, your boss abruptly disappears, and it's up to you to find out what happened to him. you almost immediately suspect the reapers, one of the most infamous gangs in seoul. and yuta is willing to lend a hand in your operation, but only at a cost; forget him in the end.

word count: 20k

a/n: part 2/3 of my wanted: dead or alive series. as always, feedback is appreciated!

“I want him dead, woman.”

Every bone in your body was itching with the overwhelmingly extreme urge to roll your eyes. Though rather than lose your job, or potentially your life, you held back and replied, “Got it, boss.” 

You knew this conversation had been long overdue, but that didn’t mean you were any more eager to have it with him. Your boss could be a pain in the ass sometimes. He never cut anyone any slack and he took retribution way too seriously. 

That said, you supposed he had his reasons. As an inner circle member of one the most infamous gangs in the country, he had as much to lose as he had to gain. It made perfect sense, you knew, that he wanted his marks completely dead. Not barely on the cusp of consciousness. 

As if you gave a damn what he wanted.

“Jaehyun giving you a hard time?”

Coming out the door of the arms building, directly beneath the entire two floors of the narcotics trade happenings, you turned when you heard a familiar voice behind you. “When is he not?”

Jeno snickered and shoved his hands in his pockets. “He can be a pain in the ass. And he’s even harder on the noobs. I think you’ll get used to it though.”

You snorted. “You have that much confidence in me?”

Jeno nodded. That notorious grin was still on his face to express his amusement, but he seemed authentic as he replied, “Yes, because you’re stronger than the other recruits I see come in and out.”

Your brows furrowed together. In your three months under this gang, barely anybody had spared you genuine kindness. “What makes you say that?”

“You haven’t tried to slap the shit out of him yet.”

That was the last answer you were expecting to hear, so it made you burst into laughter. 

Pleased by having made you laugh, Jeno smiled a little wider. “May I tag along?”

“Please do,” you told him, the tone in your voice dangerously close to desperate. “When I was told I was being assigned to the arms unit, no one told me the head motherfucker of it all is also the one playing God.”

That was a lie, of course. You knew early on that Jaehyun juggled both the arms trafficking operation and the responsibility of getting rid of anybody who slighted the syndicate. Your real boss’ leftover notes were thorough and neat.

But that was nothing Jeno needed to know. As far as he knew, you were merely another newcomer anticipating to make dirty money by illegal means. And you had every last intention of keeping that dirty little image in his head. You had a role to play. 

Pulling a pair of keys from the pockets his hands had been buried in, Jeno chirped, “I’ll do the driving.”

You made no argument, following him to his car and climbing into the passenger seat. 

After giving him the coordinates of whatever location Jaehyun had sent you off to, Jeno drove you halfway across the city to an abandoned warehouse. The whole structure looked a whole breath away from giving in on itself. 

Jeno grimaced. “I’d hate to die here.”

You laughed at that, heading for the door. 

Jaemin blew out an exasperated breath when he saw you entering the warehouse and stood up from a crate he had been sitting on. “Fucking finally. Jaehyun never mentioned that you’d be bringing company.”

You rolled your eyes, but you couldn’t blame him for being vexed. The drive here had taken a good minute and if he had been here since you were informed of your assignment, he had been waiting even longer. 

“Nice to see you too, Jaemin,” Jeno replied sarcastically. 

Surprise flickered onto your face for a split second. You had no idea how they knew each other, but it was far from impossible. They both worked for the same bastard whose bidding you were doing right now. 

Jaemin was annoyed. “I would be happier to see you if you both were on time.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Jeno pointed at the back of Jaemin’s pants with a sly expression. “You’ve got a little something there.”

With another irritated breath, Jaemin dusted off his pants. Most of his current frustrations seemed aimed at the fact that this warehouse was barely holding itself together. “This place is old as fuck. I think something crawled and died in that crate. Like seven years ago.”

Even though you wanted to giggle, the urge was overcome by the one to get this over with so that you could do something meaningful. “Where’s Kang Hangyeol? I’m trusting you didn’t leave him alone.”

“Do I look like an amateur to you?” Jaemin asked, waving you off. “He’s in the back. There’s no way he’s moving out of that position, dead or alive. Follow me.”

You trailed closely behind as Jaemin led you through the old warehouse. There was a clutter of dust-laden boxes and a slew of spider webs in every available corner. Graffiti that looked maybe a few years old was the only proof of recent human activity. 

“What’s this guy dying for anyway?” you asked, disguising your concern as innocent curiosity. You didn’t want to make it obvious that you were trying to justify your inevitable actions. 

Jaemin, on the other hand, didn’t seem as worried. This was a life he had led for years and no one would expect anything other than him to be committed. “Apparently, he’s a brother. He was caught sneaking on our turf.”

Your brows furrowed, imagining what a brother was doing on Reaper playgrounds. They had no business being even remotely near this gang and any of its less than luxurious locations. “You’re sure he’s a brother?”

“Yeah, they found him in one of those ugly masks.”

Jeno snorted.

Nearing the forthcoming doorway, you reached for the switchblade you had tucked away, unsure what you were going to do with it in the first place. At times, it was less like a weapon and more like a comfort tool. And you needed comfort right now. Your involvement as an undercover cop didn’t legally or emotionally justify taking someone’s life. 

No doubt, it was the worst part of being undercover. You advanced your way through the ranks most times, meaning you gained enough authority to convince your new peers to spare innocent lives, but this syndicate was something bigger than you had ever experienced. It would take years to infiltrate their innermost hierarchy. And you didn’t have years. 

Jaemin reached for the door knob and pulled it open, expecting to see a half-conscious man bound with his arms behind his back. Imagine your collective shock when you saw nothing but an empty wooden chair next to a pile of rope. 

“Where’s Hangyeol?” Jaemin stammered. 

“I was expecting you to know,” you mumbled, inspecting what all was leftover. There were a few drops of blood on the chair at best. You clutched your switchblade tighter.

At least Jaehyun wouldn’t be pissed at you this time. You could already imagine the verbal backlash Jaemin was going to get for this. Not even you had messed up this badly before. 

Jeno leaned on the wall, entertained by everything as always. “Nah, you don’t seem like an amateur, man. Total pro.”

Jaemin groaned, “This is serious!”

Not a second later, you heard a gunshot echoing out in the main entrance of the warehouse. This felt like a setup somehow. You clutched your switchblade tighter, hissing, “You had one fucking job, Jaemin!”

He opened his mouth to say something about how this wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t have to babysit you to make sure you went through with the kill, but you all froze when you heard a second gunshot. 

Jaemin grabbed the bag slung over his shoulders and set it down on the chair where your mark should have been instead. He handed Jeno a gun and took one for himself, then pivoted towards you. “You sure you don’t want one?”

You shook your head. The knife in your hands would suffice. They always had. “I’m good.”

“You know what they say,” Jeno chimed in. “Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.”

That was true for someone maybe. But even though you had gone through your annual firearm training with the academy, you were stubborn and preferred your blades. “She’s my baby.”

“That’s even worse. Who brings a baby to a gunfight?”

You were tempted to laugh, but you could hear the chaos unfolding practically right outside the door and it unnerved you. “I do. Let’s go.”

The dark hallway outside the old storage closet led you back to the main entrance of the warehouse through a little opening. You could see brothers rummaging the place and took a wild guess that they were here to take back their own. 

A little headcount went on in your head as you noted the number of armed, masked men you saw lurking expectantly around every inch of the unloading site. The three of you were definitely outnumbered, that was for certain. 

“I counted fourteen,” you whispered quietly. “Are we good?”

Jeno nodded, gun close to his chest. He looked more serious right now than ever. “I’ve got your six. Let’s move.”

That was all you needed to hear as you dove headfirst into the bloody sea of chaos. While Jaemin and Jeno immediately started to fire their weapons, stealing all the attention, you hid close on anything you could find and ambushed, coming up behind and dragging your blade against the cold necks of your enemies. 

Your ears went deaf to the cacophony of masculine shouts as men dropped like flies around you. The sound bled into choked noises with every throat you impaled. 

They were strong men, but you were swifter. Both were lethal and dangerous, but they couldn’t touch you if you didn’t let them. You were too nimble for them to keep up with, too quick.

But the one time you didn’t move quick enough, you rolled onto the filthy floor and looked down the barrel of a gun. You groaned, raising your head a little higher to meet the bloody eyes of your mark. 

He was right there in the flesh, hovering over you with a sly grin as if he was proud of what he had done. You were insulted to even be held at gunpoint. Every desire to spare him immediately fled your body and you raised your switchblade, penetrating his throat without hesitation. 

Not stopping to watch him bleed, you turned your head just quickly enough to see Jeno’s gun be kicked out of his hands. You wiped the blood from your knife and furtively approached his aggressor, briefly catching him off guard and kicking the gun back. 

Jeno scrambled towards the gun and quickly opened fire, the sound making your ears ring obnoxiously. 

“Goddamn,” you said, shaking your head in disapproval. 

Jaemin came over panting for breath, glancing around to make sure the entire room had been cleared. “I think I should be getting paid extra for this.”

Jeno snorted and came to a stand, directing his attention back to your face. “Remind me to never again invite myself on one of your assignments.”

Your shoulders shook with a laugh. That was fair enough. But there was definitely bigger fish to fry right now. How in the hell did the Brotherhood know where Kang Hangyeol was being held?

The three of your phones beeped collectively. With all the fighting and being thrown you each had done, it was a miracle they were still functioning. You glanced down to read a message Jaehyun had sent. 

Several bases have been attacked. Going incognito. More details later. Lay low until further notice. 

Your brows furrowed. “What the hell?”

“Vague as fuck,” Jeno replied, as if he had read your mind. “He must be in a meeting.”

Jaemin scoffed. “So what do we do then? Just wait around to die?”

You closed your blade and shook your head, reminding, “You’re already going to die. You let Kang Hangyeol get away. Remember?”

“That’s not the version of the story I plan on telling Jaehyun.”

You rolled your eyes. “If you start being nice to me, I’ll leave that part out of my report.”

Jaemin hummed, as if he was mulling it over. “Deal.”

You nodded with a tiny sigh. Nothing good was going to come out of rival gangs taking turns exacting revenge on each other. You knew that like you knew the law. 

Jeno safely returned you to the headquarters with a little farewell and warning to be safe before you went your separate ways. Normally, you would meet Jaehyun in person to briefly discuss the happenings of your task, but he wasn’t in his office. He would have to settle for the paragraph you sent to his phone. 

Upon entering the tiny apartment you had surprisingly been offered by the Reapers, you almost immediately collapsed on the bed, worn down by exhaustion. 

You had nearly dozed off completely when the sound of your phone ringing made you jolt awake. “Hello?” you answered weakly. 

“Is someone sleepy?” Ten teased. 

You groaned. If not for the fact that you had recognized your co-worker’s number, you would be sleeping right now. “I had a very, very long day.”

That piqued Ten’s interest. “You did? Tell me everything.”

You sat up, trying to wipe the sleep from your eyes. Stifling a yawn, you replied nonchalantly, “Oh, you know. The usual running around the city, trying to look like a loyal employee, and nearly getting shot to death.”

“Nearly getting shot to death?” Ten’s voice was loud as hell, repeating your words with shock. 

Well, if you weren’t awake before, you definitely were now. “I’m fine. No more bullets for me. It wasn’t the first time and it probably won’t be the last either.”

You couldn’t recall the first time someone had attempted to shoot you, but the memory of the first and last time they successfully did so was something you would always remember. Across the world in the United States, on a mission to track and detain a gang leader moving in and out of the country to evade arrest. 

Surprisingly enough, with it being an open case, that wasn’t even the mission that made you quit being a spy. Until now. 

“You got lucky the last time you got shot,” Ten replied, hating how casual you were about it but almost somewhat impressed. “Don’t let it happen again.”

“I’ll try,” you replied quietly, fully awake but still mindful of the fact that these walls were thin and you had no intention of exposing yourself. You switched the topic. “How’s the birthday boy?”

Ten wanted to talk more about the hectic day you had, but he supposed he could let it slide this once. “He’s twenty-five and drunk as all hell.”

You shook your head in amusement. You had expected nothing less. “I remember when I turned twenty-five.”

“I don’t,” Ten retorted. “I was blackout drunk too. He’s not going to remember either.”

You snickered. As long as Mark was having fun, that was all that mattered. “He should go wild. At that age, life becomes more about experiencing and less about surviving.”

“I assume that’s why you think barely dodging a bullet is no big deal?”

You resisted a roll of your eyes. Leave it to Ten to be utterly dramatic when it came to all things big and small. “No, actually. I call that focusing on the things I can control and not dwelling on what’s behind me.”

Ten sighed. You were insufferably stubborn, and even when you had gotten shot your first priority was still your work. They had to more or less chain you down to make you rest. “Whatever,” he replied, tone laced with disapproval. “Do you want me to put him on?”

“Yes, please.”

There was a moment of shuffling as Ten went to find Mark, not that it took very long. In a matter of seconds, you heard Mark enthusiastically greeting you by your name. 

“Hey, birthday boy,” you said happily, content to hear your co-workers’ voices. It brought them peace too. Knowing you were still alive and breathing somewhere. “How much did you drink?”

Mark chuckled. You could imagine he was rubbing his nape right now. “Not gonna lie, I have no idea. But I’m feeling good.”

“As to be expected,” you replied, leaning back a little against the headboard of the bed. “How have you been?”

“I’m honestly bummed that you’re not here. But hey, I did finish this case I was working on. I kept asking myself what you would do.”

You snorted. “And that’s how you solved the case?”

“Well, Ten and Jisung helped too,” Mark confessed. 

You laughed. 

“What about you?” Mark asked. “How’s the case going? I heard Ten screeching something about you almost getting shot. You good?”

Your mind brought you back to that moment for a second, being knocked underneath the mark and coming face to face with the barrel of a gun, but you banished the thought away. “I’m good. Not a nick or bruise.”

Mark hummed. He chose to believe you had everything under control. It wasn’t that he didn’t worry about you sometimes, but he knew what you were capable of and admired your strength. “And the case. How do you feel about finding Kun?”

Something about the mention of your boss made you frown. After retiring from being an undercover spy three years ago, you decided to make yourself useful in other ways, and had been transferred directly under his unit. You had mainly adjusted to handling organized crime without being on the field yourself. 

A few months ago, Kun had been investigating a gang called the Reapers. He’d been playing it close to the chest and you only found out because he had been acting suspiciously lately. He made you swear to secrecy, which you did. Until he disappeared into thin air. 

The worst part was that he had been missing for literal months and you didn’t feel like you had made any significant progress. You knew deep down that his chances of being alive were slimmer than ever, but you wanted to have faith in the odds. Kun had dedicated his entire life to the force, but he wanted to settle down someday. He wanted a wife and maybe a couple of kids. 

The thought that he would never get to do those things chilled you to the core every time it crossed your mind. You sighed and replied honestly, “I feel like it’ll be a while, but I’m doing everything I can.”

Mark would have to be content with that answer for now. He knew you would find Kun, whether it be dead or alive. He just hoped it would be the latter. “I have faith in you,” he told you sincerely. 

“Thank you,” you replied, somewhat comforted by those words. “I’ll hear from you again soon. Happy birthday.”

Mark smiled as he held Ten’s phone to his ear. “Thanks. Talk to you later.”

The very next day, you woke up to another message from Jaehyun that had less to do with details about the attacks from yesterday and more to do with something about a weird buddy system. According to him, you would new a partner from now on. 

You didn’t exactly have many friends here, so your first instinct was to call Jeno. 

“What do you mean you already have a partner?” you asked, flabbergasted. Something told you that he had chosen Jaemin over you. 

Jeno was trying his best to let you down gently. “I mean, I already have a partner. You called a little too late. It’s a shame we can only choose one. The three of us would’ve made a good team.” 

You sighed exasperatedly. You were on a to-and-from lockdown, no detours. And you needed a partner for whatever fucking reason. This gang was impossible. “Do you have some kind of humiliation kink? That fool almost got us killed yesterday.”

Jeno tried to stifle a chortle and failed miserably. “He might be a fool, but he’s my friend. I’m sorry, babe.”

“Don’t ‘babe’ me when you’re in cahoots with Na Jaemin of all the people in the world.”

You could hear Jeno sighing from the other line, contemplating the situation carefully. He didn’t want to leave you hanging. “Hear me out,” he started. 

Although you were glancing down at the phone in the palm of your hand with a blend of disdain and disappointment, you answered reluctantly, “I’m hearing you.”

“I heard around that some of the high-ranks are taking in their best soldiers.”

“Oh,” you replied quietly, not sure if you liked where this was going or not. But you chose to think about it pragmatically. If you were closer to the high-ranks, you had more access to hidden intel.

“I know a guy who knows a guy, who knows a guy. He’s the gang’s tracker. The one who can find anyone and everyone. If there’s anyone who can keep you safe, it’s him,” he continued. 

So he was a dangerous man. Not that you were any afraid. You had met many lethal men and yet you were still breathing. “Okay. When can I meet him?”

“Right now.”

Your head snapped behind you. That voice didn’t belong to the one on your phone. It belonged to someone merely a couple feet away from you. If you thought you were stealthy, this man gave you a run for every dime you owned. 

You stumbled back. Your eyes went wide. The blood drained from your face as if you had seen a ghost. And to be fair, that was exactly what was happening. 

“Don’t look so surprised,” Yuta told you indifferently. The sound of his voice did nothing to put your nerves at ease. Your shoulders were cold. Your heart was thudding. 

You had been located by the tracker. You swallowed sharply. It took every bit of your strength not to collapse in front of him. “You’re the third-in-command.”

“That’s me,” Yuta replied calmly. He took your phone and hung up the call. You hadn’t even registered Jeno’s bemused voice calling out to you worriedly. 

To be frank, it felt like you were dreaming. Or hallucinating. This was the last man you were expecting to see. Ever. “I can find another partner.”

Yuta chuckled. “You will find another partner in a group of people who hate talking to strangers whose intentions they don’t know?”

“You don’t know my intentions either.”

That seemed to amuse Yuta more than the last response you gave him. “Kim Yeongsu. Ahn Dongil. Cho Geonhan. You still want to play dumb?”

That had your attention. Your work always came first. You would follow the trail of breadcrumbs if it meant there was a chance they would lead you to success, even if it was a trap. 

Yuta didn’t wait for your answer. Apparently the look on your face said more than enough. You were game. “Go to housing. Pack your shit. I know you didn’t bring a ton anyways.”

That was a little too true, but a thought crossed your mind. He was helping you, and you couldn’t imagine why. “What do you want in return?” you asked skeptically. 

The little grin on Yuta’s lips fell. You felt something gloomy inside you stirring, but ignored it the best you could. There was no time for old emotions. After a small pause, he replied darkly, “Forget we ever happened.”

“Consider it already done,” you said, cold as ice, and paid the throbbing emptiness in your chest no mind. 

After you gathered what few things you had from the apartment you’d been given, you went straight to Yuta’s place. He was none too happy to see you, at least from the less than warm look on his face, but he opened his doors for you and let you inside. 

Leading you down the hall to an extra bedroom, Yuta skipped the greetings and niceties. “I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t bother me and don’t leave on your own. I don’t feel like getting shit from Taeyong.”

You nodded. Yuta turned and headed out, and the second he was out of earshot you grumbled something under your breath. Did he really have to be so rude?

Maybe you deserved it. Not that you would ever admit it to him or yourself. The way you saw it, you had only done everything you knew to do best. You had made no commitments. The only thing you ever promised was absolute and unwavering loyalty to your work. 

Fuck’s sake, you were still in shock. You had spent the past three years of your life believing something that couldn’t have been more false. Three years of your life you would never get back. Didn’t you deserve to be angry too?

Aggravated, you started to unpack your things and put them away somewhere safe. Yuta was right about you not having many belongings. You never did when you were on missions, or even in the very rare event that you were on vacation. They would only weigh you down. 

You grabbed your phone from the nightstand when you were done, knowing Jeno would most likely be demanding some kind of explanation for your abrupt hang-up, and sent a text his way. Yuta is taking me in or whatever. Take care of yourself. And tell Jaemin to be safe too. 

Jeno sent a message back after a few moments. Well, you thought it was Jeno, but considering the content of the message, someone else had gotten ahold of his phone. I’m always safe, princess. Don’t worry, I’ll take perfect care of Jeno. 

You immediately typed a response, After what happened yesterday? Doubtful. 

Will you ever let me live that down?

Unlikely. 

Jaemin was probably somewhere rolling his eyes at your message. In a few seconds, he answered, Are you a human or a magic eight ball?

You laughed a little at that. Some of the stress elevated from your chest, though not by much. You were still fighting in a close battle with your feelings - shock, anger, bitterness. All of the above. 

They were becoming almost uncontrollably strong and the last thing you wanted was to be unable to put a rein on your emotions. You stood up and headed out what was your room for the next who knew how long, checking out the apartment to distract yourself. 

You had been here before. Once. You had gotten hurt and since it was the closest option, Yuta opted to bring you back to his home for the first time to take care of you. The other times you only met in hotels. 

He had taken you to his living room and prompted your legs up on the coffee table, gingerly tending to your injuries. You remembered the guilt in his eyes every time he heard you hiss and saw you grimace. You remembered the way he tried to kiss it better. 

Even now, that same coffee table was still here three years later. The apartment was more or less as you remembered, but Yuta wasn’t. He was so much colder than he was before, but maybe you had done that to him. 

None of it helped. You were still emotional. Remembering the way things used to be only strengthened the tremor in your heart. The only reasonable thing you could do now was focus on your work. At the end of the day, you had a job to do, after all. 

You spotted Yuta with a cup of coffee in the kitchen and mustered the courage to approach him, announcing, “I have a question.”

Yuta winced his eyes closed. “What about ‘don’t bother me’ was confusing to you?”

You took his annoyance in stride. “This group and the Brotherhood are basically at war with each other. Why?”

Yuta shrugged, sipping from his coffee. “We’re their only competition. Do the math.”

You hummed. You had learned that the Reapers dominated the drug market and it was their most lucrative branch of business. Even though you worked beneath its entire two floor levels, you were never allowed to become too privy to the operation itself. It was forbidden knowledge if you were too new. “Have you ever run into one?” you asked curiously. 

“Nope,” Yuta replied nonchalantly. “They’re all mousy about showing their faces and they wear weird masks and stuff.”

That you had learned from your encounter with them the other day, which you wondered if was worth mentioning to Yuta. You decided against it for now. “Do you know why I’m here?”

“You want to know who killed your beloved department chief,” Yuta sang knowingly, setting his mug of coffee down on the counter. 

Those words made you shudder, wondering if he had been keeping tabs on you, but you kept pressing. “Was it the gang?”

Yuta initially shook his head, but then he seemed to genuinely think about it for a second. The silence only served to make you anxious. There was a small pause before he answered, “Well, if someone did, neither of us signed off on the decision. We don’t kill cops. It’s too messy. I don’t like messy.”

You believed him. Though the decision to meddle with cops not being greenlit by the inner circle didn’t mean that any low-ranks weren’t involved. You had to keep digging. “I’m assuming all the names you gave me were low-ranks then,” you replied, piecing things together. “I haven’t ran them through the system yet.”

“They’re low-ranks who had pretty bad prior run-ins with cops,” Yuta explained. 

You were surprised they would knowingly even take in anyone like that, considering how much they seemed against it. “One of them probably did it, then.”

“When you find out, let me know so I can hang them on a billboard in town square,” Yuta said coolly, to no one’s surprise. 

“Or you can let me bring them back to the station and we’ll persecute them to the highest extent of the law,” you suggested instead.

Yuta shook his head, none too enthusiastic to let you do things the legal and proper way. If someone in his gang had done this, they had violated a highly important rule that was more like a law of his own. “My way’s quicker.”

You rolled your eyes while he wasn’t paying attention. There was never any use arguing with Yuta Nakamoto when he wanted something. You learned that early on. He was unshakable in his ways and couldn’t be bent and manipulated into shape like the other pawns you’d hunted. 

But that was what you had liked about him. At least, one of many things on his abundantly long list of attractive traits. The others had only been deliberately chosen expendable tools to leech new intel off and dispose of when you got what you wanted. 

When you met Yuta, however, you knew he could never just be another pawn in your twisted game of survival. He was too intuitive, too perceptive for his own good and yours. You never had the upper hand for long with him. You both had something to lose in mingling with each other, and strangely enough, that made things more exciting. 

Yuta dismissed himself first as if he sensed more questions approaching and knew to disappear before you could conjure them in your head. “Sleep well. I’ve got an early meeting with the boys tomorrow morning, which means you have to come too.”

You watched his back sadly as he left. It was impressive you had gotten him to speak so much, considering he seemed to want nothing to do with you. Though if that was the case, why did he go out of his way to be partners with you?

That was the one thing giving you hope - the single most dangerous thing for someone like you to have. 

Tomorrow rolled around, and like he said you would, you accompanied Yuta to an inner circle meeting. More accurately, you waited outside for him to finish while they discussed the gang’s next steps and back-up plan if their biggest rival challenged them again. 

Nothing you were interested in. You only cared to know who was responsible for the fact that your boss was presumably dead. So far, there was no body, which gave you even more ammunition to keep searching rather than readily move on. 

In your thoughts as you stood outside the door of the conference room, you jolted out of them when you noticed someone coming. And to your surprise, it was Jeno’s footsteps you were hearing. 

Jeno had been looking at his phone, but acknowledged your presence with a baffled look when he glanced up at you. “Oh, hey. I didn’t know you were here too.”

The shock was mutual. You waved at him. “I wasn’t expecting to see you either.”

“Yeah, Jaemin’s here too,” Jeno replied, slipping his phone into his back pocket and giving you his undivided attention. “He’s downstairs looking for coffee. He really wanted an Iced Americano.”

You shook your head, pretending to be disappointed. “Fish found in the ocean. Who’s surprised?”

Jeno was shaking with laughter. “No one, I guess. I’m also not surprised that they’re kicking us outside instead of letting us listen in on the meeting.”

There was no surprise there. Reapers were painfully stingy with important information, as you had come to know. “I know,” you groaned in annoyance. “Like we don’t deserve to know what the fuck is going on.”

Jeno nodded along, bobbing his head in agreement. He leaned in, mindful of the fact there were a number of dangerous men right behind the door, and whispered, “That’s what I’m saying. Jaehyun ended up more or less adopting Jaemin and I. If you think you hate the guy right now, imagine living in his house.”

You winced, feeling sympathetic. Between his housing situation and yours, you didn’t know which was worse. “Damn.”

He looked behind him to the conference room, hidden behind a glass wall. You could see in all you wanted, but couldn’t hear a word of the conversation. “This buddy system is weird as all fuck. Meeting like this is even stupider,” Jeno said, blunt as ever. “Everybody knows the best time to strike is when they’re all together.”

You hadn’t thought about something like that. In all truth, you had been thinking about Yuta. Nothing he was doing made sense right now and you sensed an ulterior motive behind his seemingly kind actions. He had never helped you for free, after all. There always came a price. 

The price didn’t seem so bad back then. You could have signed your life away to him and wouldn’t have even noticed. He helped you, feeding you intel on an underground fighting gang in Japan, and in return you helped him, giving him special access to cop affairs. 

It cost more now. Or at least it felt that way. The tension was unbearable and the memories leapt at every opportunity to weigh on your mind as well as your heart. Once upon a time, you only felt Yuta’s weight on your body. Things were so much easier before. 

“I guess so,” you told Jeno, forcibly grounding yourself back in the moment. “But I think that all depends on the Brotherhood’s motivations for attacking and what they plan on getting out of this.” 

“A few people are gonna have to die before that gets figured out,” Jeno replied darkly. 

That was very true. Naturally, you had already come to that conclusion too. At this rate, you were expecting a hefty number of casualties on both ends. 

The meeting droned on for what seemed like an eternity before Yuta finally stepped out of the conference room with most of his fellow members in tow. A few had stayed back for whatever reason, but the ones that headed out barely paid you a lick of attention as they made a beeline for the elevator. 

Not that you were complaining, of course. The fact that you were a mere blip on their radar was a good sign, all things considered. But it made you realize that Yuta had never told them what you were. 

You couldn’t wrap your head around why he was helping you. Every time you tried not to worry about the intent behind his deeds, it backfired immediately. And so when you were alone in his car, you asked, “Why are you helping me if you hate me so badly?”

“I’m not helping you,” Yuta told you, buckling his seat belt around his waist. His eyes were nowhere on you. Like you didn’t concern him at all. “I’m helping myself. The sooner you find the bastard that killed your boss, the sooner I can tie up loose ends, and the sooner we can both move on with our lives.”

He didn’t deny hating you. Something about that made your stomach churn. “Well, at least you’re honest,” you mumbled. “And we don’t know if he was killed or not.”

You knew better than to think that he was alive, but you wouldn’t accept it until you saw his corpse for yourself. The people in your unit had come to mean a lot to you over the years. 

Yuta scoffed. If you looked closely enough, you could almost see something bitter in his expression. “Your boss has been missing for what? Two or three months now? You know the statistics better than I do, baby. He’s dead.”

“Statistics aren’t foolproof,” you reminded. 

“I thought they would be to you. Glad to know I was wrong.”

You caught it this time, mainly because he wasn’t cloaking it. The resentment covering his words from head to toe. He wanted you to know he hated you. You swallowed sharply. Message fucking received. 

The ride back was silent. You had everything to say to him, but even more pride. It would do you no good with someone as stubborn as Yuta Nakamoto himself. What would it fix if you admitted you’d done him dirty? Not a goddamn thing. 

You raced into his apartment without another word when you both arrived. There were bigger problems than whatever was going on between the two of you. No issue, big or small, would be allowed to come between you and work and anyone who dared try ultimately faced your wrath. 

Once in your room, you opened your laptop and entered the names Yuta had given you along with additional information you had stumbled across and cross-referenced them against the unit’s current findings. And you came up empty. There was nothing that lent any support to either of those three men being the perpetrators, other than their history of assault on cops which Yuta had already informed you of. 

To say nothing of the fact that the crimes seemed very spontaneous, according to the incident reports available. Like they were simply doing whatever they had to do to remove themselves from the corner they’d been backed into. They were apprehended immediately. No repeats and nothing that screamed violent disdain of cops. 

It was unlikely that their behavior would escalate from second-degree murder to a deliberately executed abduction of a police chief. You shut your laptop, groaning. Yet again, I have fucking nothing.

Nightfall came and a lot of time sped by doing even more research, but to no avail. You weren’t any closer to solving the disappearance of your boss and it was making your skin crawl. Three years away was starting to make you think that you’d lost your touch as a covert. 

Uncontrollably, your mind started to wander to the past. The case that earned you your rep as a prolific undercover agent and simultaneously the last one you ever worked. A memory held you hostage, one of many. 

The room was so hot you couldn’t breathe. It didn’t help that Yuta’s naked body was tangled with yours, refusing to let go after a few long rounds of love-making. At the very least, the luxurious hotel room on the top floor had comfortable bedding and a beautiful window outlook of Yokohama. 

Though your breath was more taken by the view of the gorgeous man in your grip. And the intimate moment you had shared together. “Yuta, I’m scared,” you told him quietly. 

Not more than a few words had been exchanged since you two finished, so Yuta was surprised to hear you speak. “What are you scared of, darling?”

Your heart raced by a thousand miles per hour as you sucked in a breath, willing yourself to remain calm and level. It was not often you were made nervous by something, so Yuta had assumed whatever was troubling you was more or less life-threatening. In a way, he was spot-on. 

His eyes were squarely on you, giving you his undivided attention. Which only made your heart flutter quicker. “I’m scared because I like you,” you confessed in a whisper. “More than I’ve ever liked anyone before.”

Yuta’s eyes flickered in surprise. Not by what you had said, but the fact that you’d said it aloud. The two of you had been dancing around the subject of romance for a couple of months now, focusing on the main task instead of the love inadvertently developing between you more quickly than you’d hoped. He hummed. “That scares you?”

“It’s not just that,” you replied, knowing how it sounded. “We’re on two separate sides of the law. After this operation inevitably ends, I won’t have an excuse to see you anymore. I will go back to my way of life and you will go back to yours.”

That had always been the plan. Once you ultimately exhausted your purposes for each other, this little alliance would break. Though Yuta’d had a change of heart. “It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said, cradling your face. “We don’t have to live completely separate lives forever. You’re obviously good at keeping secrets. No one has to know.”

“But it’s wrong.”

“Playing with my dick when you’re supposed to be looking for a serial killer is okay, but secretly being in a relationship with me behind your handler’s back is where you draw the big red line? That cuts deep, babe,” he joked. 

“It’s a thin gray line,” you corrected, matching his humor. “And I think I found the serial killer.”

Yuta playfully rolled his eyes. He’d told you just enough about his job that you didn’t paralyze with fear whenever he touched you, in spite of knowing he had taken lives and would do it again in a heartbeat. He was a protector, a defender. “Yeah, wrong one, baby.”

You giggled. The noise made Yuta’s heart swell in his chest like never before. He wanted to defend you with everything he had, destroy anybody who dreamed of laying even the tip of their fingers on you. He would crush entire worlds in his palm for you.

“I like you too,” Yuta admitted, as if it hadn’t already been obvious. The man fucked you like he wanted to consume you right after. “More than I ever thought I would. Five months ago, I would’ve never imagined I’d be holding you in my arms like this right now, but I wouldn’t have you anywhere else. So tell me what I gotta do to keep you here.”

His words nearly had your head spinning. Your eyes were brimming with affection. “Just hold me like this forever,” you replied softly. 

Yuta smirked. “I think that can be arranged.”

The memory seemed so close, yet so far away. Sometimes you wished you were still somewhere in a hotel in Yokohama or in the alps of Hakone with him pressed into your side. You pictured cherry blossoms and scenic lakes with a view of mountain peaks touching the clouds. You pictured Yuta enthusiastically showing you to all his favorite stops, hand in yours. 

You couldn’t remember the last time he had genuinely smiled at you now. The promise to take you to his hometown was one of the last things he’d told you. You remembered how excited he had been. And now he wouldn’t even look at you. 

That hurt like a bitch. 

Something else was bothering you. You more or less always knew Yuta was a powerful gang member, but you never realized he was one of the most influential members of the Reapers. The two of you had been too focused on what was ahead of you to look behind. 

It made you wonder what you really knew about each other. You had seen him as an oasis away from dreadful work, someone who was passionate and intuitive. Someone who got more and more interesting every time he spoke. Someone who kept his heart under lock and key, but loved you with all of it.

Yuta had taken months to get to know. Intentionally. He preferred to take his time when it came to sizing people up and understanding them before they could do the same to him. And he was very, very good at doing so. He guarded his heart and only allowed you to see what he wanted you to see. But you knew how to disarm him.

Like you, he was also obstinate as all hell. It was immovable object meets unstoppable force meeting him. Things were still that way now. You would have to fight like hell and then some if you wanted to prove that you still deserved to be in his life, because he would fight even harder against it. 

You knew he was not one to forgive or forget and he could take a grudge to the grave if he so pleased. Scorpion was his name and stinging was his game. Viper and venom. No wonder his job was to hunt and kill anybody who slighted the gang enough. He was revenge personified. 

Tossing and turning in bed, unable to fall asleep even after a steaming hot shower, you swallowed your pride and paraded straight to Yuta’s bedroom. The door was unlocked. You poked your head inside, the movement not unnoticed by Yuta. He was still awake. 

“The day is already over,” Yuta said dismissively, glancing away from you. “You can bother me with questions tomorrow.”

“I’m not here to ask questions.”

Yuta raised a brow, turning to you again. “Then why are you here?”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. This was going to make things awkward. “I don’t want to sleep alone,” you whispered.

“You don’t want to sleep alone,” Yuta repeated, as if he had misheard you.

You nodded slowly. When he echoed your words back to you like that, it only made you feel stupid for thinking he would let you share a room with him, let alone a bed. 

Yuta contemplated your words for a while, mulling a decision over. After a moment, he sighed, relenting. “Come here.”

That surprised you thoroughly. You were half expecting him to tell you that he didn’t give a damn and ask you what you wanted him to do about it. You took a few tentative steps over to him. 

Yuta quirked his brow, patting the spot beside him. His skin looked like honey in the golden-yellow hue of his lamplight. “What are you waiting for? Get in the bed.”

You hesitantly crawled into the bed, underneath his sheets. You were scared of something. You didn’t want to make any more mistakes when it came to him. 

Yuta could practically smell your fear like the musk of an animal. He couldn’t help it. He had seen all of your emotions, especially the ones you pretended not to have in front of others. And he knew them intimately.

He suppressed a smirk. Was it wrong to bask in it a little? “What are you scared of?” he asked. 

Those five words made you freeze, remembering where you had heard them before. That night you confessed your feelings to Yuta in a Yokohama hotel. “I’m not scared of anything,” you lied through your teeth. 

Yuta knew you were lying. He always did, after all. “Tell me the truth.”

You swallowed. He was always so good at reading you. The words were at the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t say them. “I… didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

“I’ve had women in my bed before, you know,” Yuta replied with a snicker. “I think I’ll be okay.”

You almost rolled your eyes, but then you started thinking about how many women had slept beside him since you weren’t in his life. Your mind was picturing Yuta with some faceless girl, giggling naked underneath the sheets as you had done three years too long ago. 

“Yeah, I know,” you grumbled, turning around with your back to him. “Goodnight.”

Yuta called out your name sternly. “Look at me.”

You slowly faced him. It was hard to look him in the eyes, but you did it anyway. You wanted to seize the control back. 

Never in a million years would you have assumed that of all things, Yuta would kiss you restlessly. You reciprocated without hesitation, falling into the kiss as if you were picking up where you’d left off. 

Yuta tangled his fingers through your hair, lips moving against yours with something that was dangerously close to pining. Your heart raced at the thought, wondering if he missed you the way you missed him. Three years was too long to be without the only man you’d ever loved. 

Full of surprises, Yuta pressed his mouth to your neck, sucking and nibbling and marking you as his possessively. He would never admit it to your face, but that was his intent. You couldn’t resist a moan. Yuta knew exactly what to do to get you falling apart in his arms and begging for more like you just couldn’t get enough. 

Your entire body burned with fever. Your eyes winced closed when Yuta sank his teeth into your flesh, the sensation teetering somewhere on that thin line between pain and pleasure. You knew he would leave behind a number of bruises by the time he was finished with you, and you weren’t complaining. 

Yuta had gotten a taste of you and now he couldn’t will himself to stop, against his better judgment. The part of him that wanted to loathe you with every fiber of his being would have to be put on hold for now. He wanted you too badly. His ever-growing resentment for you be damned. 

You missed kissing Yuta to the last breath. Your body remembered what it was like, tasting and sucking on each other’s tongues, and it started to shudder with excitement at the memory. Amongst other things. 

Yuta recognized the telltale signs of you becoming aroused and decided to take things a step further, testing the waters to see if they would slam him against rocks. He brought a hand to your thigh where he knew you were weak and defenseless, tenderly kneading the skin. 

Like clockwork, you were tensing underneath his hands, needily pressing your thighs together. Goddammit it, he still remembered what your weak spots were and how to use them to his advantage. There was something about his warm hand on your skin clashing with the cold nudge of his rings that made you shudder. 

“Yuta,” you called out, reaching your breaking point. 

He didn’t say anything, having too much fun teasing you and watching you get worked over something so simple. “Hm?”

You stifled an irritated groan. He knew exactly what you were going to say, and you knew he only wanted to hear it from your own mouth. “I want you,” you confessed, as if it wasn’t obvious. 

Yuta watched your face, recognizing the look of absolute dwindling patience, and chuckled. “You want me how?”

“However you want.”

Yuta’s eyes flickered in astonishment for all of two seconds. Given the circumstances, he hadn’t expected to hear you say you would let him have you however he wanted, but it damn sure did wonders to turn him on. More than he was already, that is. 

You were less surprised when Yuta stole another steamy and borderline erotic kiss, his hands settling firmly on your jaw instead of combing through your hair this time. His tongue in your mouth had your heart fluttering and your body scalding with relentless desire. 

Yuta withdrew from the kiss to toss his shirt above his head. You mirrored him, and in the few seconds it concealed his face from your view, you were oblivious to where his darkening gaze had sunk. It wasn’t until your shirt was cast into oblivion that you realized he was staring at your belly. 

You glanced down, having forgotten about the long red gunshot scar. You opened your mouth to speak, but Yuta beat you to a word. 

“Who did this to you?” he asked almost threateningly, switching on a dime. 

You shook your head, reaching out to soothe him. “Yuta, it was two years ago.”

“I’m not going to ask again.”

You sighed through your nose. The man responsible was already rotting in prison, for life most likely. You were satisfied. “Some guy named Levi Clark,” you told him. “He’s an American. It happened when I got invited to the States on a classified that went open.”

Yuta hummed. The response was nonchalant itself, but you could see the little gears turning in his head the way they always did when he was up to no good. 

“He’s in prison,” you continued, sensing it would be worth including. 

Yuta nodded. “Okay.”

Your brow raised with suspicion. “You’re not going to kill him, are you?”

Much, much worse, Yuta thought grimly to himself. But rather than have you worry your pretty little head off, he kissed the corner of your lips and lied, “Of course not.”

You didn’t believe him at all, not even for a half second, but you weren’t going to say anything. Especially not when he started to kiss his way down your body from your supple breasts to your inner thighs, making sure to be extra tender when his lips brushed against your scar. 

His lips sank even lower, fingers raveling in your underwear and yanking them below your ankles. They were right between your legs yet still not where you needed them, pressing sweet and slow kisses on your thighs, which was nothing like how you remembered him. Yuta was hard and fast. 

You let him have his way, kissing and biting at your sensitive thighs while knowing the sensation drove you wild, your body visibly exuding arousal. It was enough for him to effortlessly slip his fingers inside, but he didn’t dare, thumbing your nub with his hand solely to watch you writhe and squirm. 

“Yuta,” you called out, voice teetering toward a whimper. “Don’t tease.”

Yuta raised a brow, pretending to be confused. Like he wasn’t deliberately trying to get a rise out of you. “You said I could do whatever I want with you. And I want to watch you get worked up over me.”

“I know, but…,” you trailed. “Please?”

Yuta knew how much you hated begging, so for you to say please meant you didn’t just want him - you needed him like you needed blood in your veins. And it turned him on even crazier. 

He made a spur of the moment decision to get a hold of your hips and pull you onto him, making you sit on his face. You released a shaky noise when he began to suck and lick at your neglected bundle of nerves without warning, his hands gripping your thighs for purchase. 

Yuta ate you out skillfully, pressing all the right buttons. Literally. His tongue was giving your clit ample attention, expertly doing everything he knew to have you moaning loudly and riding his face for more. Your arms were on either side of his head, gripping the sheets for dear life. 

You could hardly breathe. You moaned a breathless, “Fuck,” as he continued to go to town, obviously keen on eating you out until you went limp and couldn’t keep yourself upright. 

Yuta gripped your thighs roughly, scraping them with his nails. He didn’t mind how they were suffocating him at the moment, the sides of your knees pressing into his head every time you tensed and shuddered. Yuta kept going, nose brushing against your clit every now and then. 

“Holy fuck. Shit. Fuck,” you swore, all other previously existing vocabulary exiting on the right. 

Yuta was satisfied by that reaction. You tended to do that when you felt too good - forget everything except him and his uncanny talent for making you unravel. Something about knowing he was more or less the only thing on your mind made his already stiff cock even harder. 

You needed this more right now than ever. You could physically feel the tension escaping your mind and body, unshackling your bones and letting you breathe. Even Yuta could tell you were in dire need of relief and he took it upon himself to make sure you got enough to make your toes curl. 

“Yuta…,” you whimpered, grinding into his mouth like nothing would ever satisfy you. 

Fuck’s sake, you were going to be the death of him. The way you called out Yuta’s name made him want to shove you onto his mattress to fuck the breath of you and then some. He resisted for now. Knowing how rough he could get, he wanted to be certain you were ready to take him. 

Your eyes were rolling to the back of your head. This was the first time in three years you had experienced sexual contact from another human being and it was safe to say you were touch-starved. Your entire body tremored with the excitement not only of being touched again, but of being flush against Yuta once more. 

Yuta couldn’t lie. Well, he could and he most definitely would try, but he’d missed you too. The romantic aspect of his longing aside, you were a goddess in his eyes and he always worshiped your body the way it deserved. Which, after long hours of being hard at work, you had never not appreciated. 

After having been with Yuta, you knew no one else would ever satisfy you or get you off how he did. You each had been with your fair share of sexual partners, but Yuta was the only one who ever made you see stars and the whole damn moon. When work got especially stressful, you always had urges, but you took care of yourself just fine. 

This was a far cry from just fine. This was mind-numbing pleasure that had you clinging onto his hair and whimpering his name over and over as if it was the only word you knew. As if he was the only thing you knew. 

“Yuta, I’m close,” you told him shakily. 

Yuta could tell, but hearing you say it made him push you off his mouth none too gently and onto the bed as he had wanted. When you whimpered in disapproval, Yuta playfully chided, “Don’t complain.”

Your core throbbed with need, but your eyes flitted between his handsome face and his beautiful v-line, wondering if you should’ve focused on how he licked your arousal from his lips or how hard he had gotten from getting you off as he shuffled out of his pants. 

Both. Both is good, you thought to yourself, licking your own lips. 

Once his clothes were off, Yuta knocked your thighs apart and gripped your jaw with one hand as he steered himself to your entrance with the other, growling, “Look at me.”

You did as told. You would steal a soul in a heartbeat for him if he so bade you. His dark eyes were staring into yours, watching your contorting face as he began to take you. And you watched him, tightening at the way his mouth hung open. 

Yuta noticed your eyes wincing closed as he filled you inch by inch and when he was fully seated inside you, he slackened his grip on your jaw in favor of your hair. “Keep your eyes open,” he told you assertively. “I don’t want you to miss a fucking second.”

You whimpered, but obliged him. Your eyes were tempted to water at the sensation of being stuffed full of his cock again and it didn’t take long for him to stretch you out. 

“Good girl,” Yuta said, smashing his lips against yours. It was the only time you were allowed to close your eyes and you did so immediately, kissing him like it was the last time. 

Yuta started to move, pressing himself in and out of your slick pussy with ease. You were so fucking wet and it was making him lose his mind. Your body took him back with every deep thrust, accepting him, little wet squelches echoing off the bedroom walls as his hips smacked into yours at a quick yet steady pace. 

You were in a different world. With Yuta’s weight dangling on top of you, you couldn’t help but fondly remember all the times you had been here before, all the times you had surrendered your body to him for him to do as he pleased. You were another person with Yuta. Someone free and wild and reckless. 

For a long time, you thought that version of you was dead and buried. But here she was, eating her heart out for him, ready to kill for him if he so asked.

“Oh my fuck,” you moaned almost at the top of your lungs, grabbing Yuta’s shoulders to anchor yourself, as if you were afraid of sinking too far without him. 

Yuta lowered his head to your chest and began to cover every inch of your naked breasts with love marks that eventually would fade a dark color. They stung vaguely, but Yuta knew you were a sucker for pain and he was more than happy to give it to you. 

You didn’t feel human anymore. Rather, you felt like two feral and ravenous animals in a back and forth game of trying to intimidate and tame one another, clinging onto your survival instincts like they were all you had left. You would never back down, but you would never give chase either. You just kept taking turns circling each other in the wild. 

Yuta wanted to deny the hold you still had on him, but the second he felt the way you throbbed and tightened around his cock, he knew he would forever be a slave to his feelings for you. He continued fucking you at this pace, nice and hard, deep and fast. “Fuck,” he groaned. 

You yanked his hair and pulled him onto you, stringing your legs around his hips to keep him close as you kissed him endlessly, never wanting to cease your hold on his body that burned with sweat and insatiable hunger. Kissing it better again. You wanted to be sore when he was done with you, to feel the leftover ache of him in your very bones. 

“You’re so damn beautiful,” Yuta grumbled when your lips separated, almost as if he was upset about it. You had enticed him like a siren, lured him to a death he would die a million times for another night with you. 

You weakly shook your head, but grinned at the compliment. “That’s all you,” you whispered, slowly trailing your fingers down his back. 

Yuta could see it in your eyes that you were right there, on the edge he’d dragged you almost over, but not close enough to let you slip. This time he would give it to you. He wanted to make you come on his cock, pulsing with climax. Sex was power to him. He loved being in control of your pleasure, knowing that it was entirely dependent upon him. 

You didn’t even have to tell him you were close. Yuta got a hold of your throat and limited your air flow, craning his head to whisper in your ear, “Come, baby. Come all over my cock.”

It was almost instantaneous. In a matter of seconds you were crash-landing from the atmosphere and slowly grounding yourself back into the hard rough dirt. You suddenly shuddered with orgasm, clasping his hair in your hands and sharply crying out his name. 

Yuta chuckled, knowing that would happen. In a weird way, it was comforting to know that all his old tricks still worked on you, that he still knew your body as if it was his own. “That’s my girl,” he sang with satisfaction. 

You had barely recovered from your climax when Yuta pulled out and flipped you over, then buried himself some inches deep inside you again all within a blink. “Oh my god,” you stammered, tangling your hands in the silk sheets and thick blankets. 

His hips moved quicker than ever, roughly fucking you into the mattress while he chased relief, and you loved every second of it. There would never be a time where you wouldn’t be happy in allowing Yuta to use your body as a means of getting off. 

Yuta smacked your ass and the sound of your soft whimpers made his dick twitch with excitement. He willed himself to pull out of you and finished himself with his hand, a stripe of his cum landing on your back as he groaned deliciously in climax. 

“Stay still,” Yuta said after taking a pause to catch his breath, pulling his pants back up to his hips and meandering towards the bathroom. 

Not that you had any intention of moving as much as an inch. He had literally fucked the will to do anything out of you. You were going to lay right there on his bed where you had fallen limp until further notice. 

Yuta returned with a damp cloth to wipe his release off your back. His shirt was still on the floor and he didn’t seem like he was eager to put it back on. You staggered to the bathroom to clean yourself and the moment you came back you collapsed on the mattress. 

“Goodnight,” you whispered, getting comfortable on the opposite side of the bed. 

Yuta switched off the lamp on his nightstand and did the same, heart still trembling with the afterhighs of what you had done together. Or maybe it was out of affection. “Goodnight.”

It didn’t take long for you to drift off. You were sated, and it was all the relaxation needed to put you to sleep. 

When you woke up in the morning, admittedly somewhat later than normal, Yuta was no longer perched on your side. Your heart throbbed a little with ache, but you ignored it. This was Yuta Nakamoto, for fuck’s sake. You should have expected less.

You found your shorts and slipped them back on, more or less limping out of his bedroom to the kitchen where you figured Yuta would be hiding. And you were right. There he was with his morning coffee. He looked right at you for half a second, but said nothing.

Fine, asshole. If you won’t, then I will, you huffed to yourself, tenacious. “Good morning,” you said to him, leaning onto the counter. 

“Morning,” Yuta replied quietly. 

“Is something wrong?” you asked. You had trouble believing that was all he had to give after the night you’d shared together. 

“Hm?”

You shrugged your shoulders, feigning nonchalance, but you both knew what you were getting at and you were trying to play your cards accordingly. “I just feel like you’re keeping yourself from me.”

Yuta played dumb. For now. “What makes you say that?” 

You stifled a groan of frustration. His passive aggressive behavior was starting to get on your nerves. You would take direct confrontation over this if it meant he would stop hiding his heart from you. You knew he had something to say to you, which only made this all the more unbearable. 

“You know why,” you replied, snappier. “You’re acting like nothing has happened.”

Yuta sipped from his coffee, barely a single thing off in his composure. “Am I?”

You studied him, looking for a defect in his perfectly crafted demeanor, some hint or clue as to his genuine emotions. You didn’t buy his indifference. “Yes, you are. Is there something you want to say?”

“What do you want me to say?” Yuta retorted, continuing this back and forth game. The game of survival. “It meant nothing. You looked like you needed it. I was just lending a helping hand.”

You didn’t want to believe him, because that would mean you were alone in the memories, in the thoughts of what you had together once upon a time, so close to a happy ever after. “You seem to be really into helping me, for whatever reason,” you mumbled, suspicious. 

The doubtful undertones in your voice weren't lost on Yuta. He knew you were trying to figure him out and check him for ulterior motives. “Is that a crime, miss undercover?”

You groaned exasperatedly. “God’s sake, Yuta. Just spit it out. What do you want from me?”

“Nothing,” Yuta lied, rinsing his cup out in the sink and placing it gently into the cabinets before stepping out. 

You exhaled loudly. He had no reason to be this goddamn difficult when he was perfectly capable of speaking about his feelings like a normal human. Like hell you were going to put up with his insufferable bullshit. Did he expect you to be some kind of fucking mind reader? 

Five minutes later, almost the very second you had set your mind on following and confronting him, Yuta whirled back into the kitchen, hissing, “Why didn’t you look for me?”

Your eyes flickered with shock. “What?”

Yuta was too fed up to tolerate you playing dumb. He didn’t raise his voice, but he was firm as ever. “Don’t play dumb. You let me fade away. You never looked. Why?”

The anger disappeared from your body for a second, and guilt swept over in its place. “I thought you were dead.”

Yuta shook his head, unaccepting. “That’s not good enough. Your boss is more than likely dead, but you’re still risking your life to find him.”

You stayed quiet, unsure of yourself. Why didn’t you look? Were you leaping at the opportunity to undo the damage you’d caused by eating the forbidden fruit?

“Did I ever mean anything to you? Anything at all, dear?” Yuta pressed, approaching you like he was trying to intimidate you. To make you fear him. “Or was I a pawn in your perpetual pursuit of justice?”

In any other circumstances, you would have been amused by how poetic he sounded, in spite of how sharp his voice was. But you couldn’t bring yourself to laugh. “Yuta, you were never a pawn. You were so much more.”

Yuta grabbed your hair, but he didn’t yank. He simply held it firmly in his hands and tilted your head up to look at him. “Did you use me?”

“We used each other,” you whispered. 

“No, no, no, dear,” Yuta sang almost sweetly. “You did all the using. You got what you wanted from me and left me for dead. That’s the cold hard truth, isn’t it?”

“You know it’s not,” you said, reaching out to grasp his shoulder. 

Yuta snapped, “Then, what is?”

You were rooted in memory, traveling back in time three years. The last dance. The underground fighting gang in Japan you’d hunted like prey and chance met Yuta. The same gang had killed one of his own and he planned on exacting his revenge. In his own way, he had also been undercover.

The case was essentially over and it wouldn’t have been possible without Yuta’s help. After a typical long night of your bodies meeting, you had woken up one day to him gingerly prying himself out of your arms, whispering apologies for waking you and something about how he was going to head over to the fight club. 

You didn’t think it would be the last time you ever saw him. The opposite. You smiled in his burly arms as he veered down and gave you one final kiss of affection, daydreaming of how you would keep your illicit affair a secret from the law and betray your oath. 

The next thing you knew, you were receiving a call about how the entire fight club had burned to a crisp. With a handsome number of people in it. Your heart thundered in your chest and you waited all day for Yuta to return, but when morning came and he still didn’t show, you assumed he never would. 

But duty still called. You successfully carried out an operation that culminated in an ungodly number of convictions. You got your glory and fame. And only after mourning him for months did you slap on a brave face and pretend Yuta never meant anything to you. 

“You want to know the truth?” you asked, fighting tears as your temper rose. You had things to get off your chest too. “The truth is that I mourned a loss that never happened and when I saw you standing there, perfectly fucking fine, I thought I saw a ghost. Now you’re punishing me for grieving you and I can’t take that shit.”

Yuta rolled his eyes. “Don’t play the victim. We both know that if you wanted to look for me, you would have. You didn’t. Your work is all that ever mattered. It still is.”

That cut deep. Is that really what he thought of you, after all this time? That you only cared about money and power?

You stepped away from him, recoiling. “That hurts, you know.”

“The truth tends to do that sometimes.”

You shook your head in disbelief and laughed hollowly. “Is this seriously all you can bring yourself to say? After I thought you were dead for three years?”

Yuta shot back, “And I thought you didn’t care about me for three years. Who has it worse?”

Running your hand through your hair, you sighed exasperatedly and asked him, “Does it have to be a fucking competition?”

“Yes.”

This was more complicated than any case you had ever solved. It was impossible to wrap your head around in spite of how desperately you longed to make sense of this. “Why are you faulting me for this?” you asked, paralyzing. “You could have come to me, you know.”

“I didn’t want to get in the way of your work,” Yuta said, a hint of something rueful in his voice, but it was gone in a flicker. 

Now it was your turn to roll your eyes. “Stop doing this. Stop making it seem like everything you do is for my sake. Like you never had bad intentions.”

Yuta simmered with frustration. Was it genuinely so hard to believe that he cared about you? You were everything he ever wanted and everything he never had.

“Oh, I had intentions,” Yuta replied with a chuckle. “I had intentions of whisking you away and taking you across the world with me. Intentions of showing you off to my friends and doing everything I could to see you smile. But you had me fooled, baby. You manipulated me.”

You shook your head vigorously. “I did not!” 

“You did,” Yuta hissed. “I have to commend you, sweetheart. It’s not often someone tricks me the way you did. You really were something else.”

The tension in the room was becoming too much even for someone as strong as yourself and you crumbled underneath the surface, loudly confessing, “I couldn’t do it!”

Yuta paused, caught off guard. He had been slowly pushing you to the edge, but he wasn’t expecting you to break. “You couldn’t do what?” he asked. 

You inhaled a few deep breaths, knowing you were on the verge of tears and not wanting to sob in front of him. “I couldn’t move into your world and out of mine, over and over. I wanted to, but I knew the guilt would eat me alive. It had to be one or the other. And when you died, or when I thought you did, I mean, I thought the universe had made the choice for me.”

That only made things worse. You had essentially just admitted you were never going to allow yourself to be with him, dead or alive. “Is that why you never looked?”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, outstretching your hand to grab his, but he wouldn’t let you.

Yuta bristled. He loved you more than anything, but right now, he hated your guts. “You’re not sorry. You made your choice.”

And you were regretting it more and more by the second, wondering how you could account for lost time. “A choice I don’t resonate with anymore.”

Yuta had no sympathy. “That’s too bad. The damage has already been done. So just double down and bleed me dry like you always have, and we can both move the fuck on.”

The gears were starting to turn in your head, quicker and quicker. “That’s what this is about?” you asked, everything finally starting to click. “You want to see if I’ll take advantage of you?”

Yuta crept closer, running his fingers over your cheek almost with affection. Your body caved instantaneously, but your mind couldn’t fall for it. “I want to see exactly how far you’re willing to go to help your boss. The things you’ll do, the lies you’ll tell. The truths you’ll bury. I want to see you for what you really are.”

You were sick and tired of him acting as if he knew everything and snapped, “What am I then? Please enlighten me.”

“The death of me,” Yuta replied, seconds before closing the tiny gap between your bodies and kissing you. No matter how greatly he despised you, the weight of his desire would always overpower. 

Your lips moved in fearless sync as you kissed each other breathless, as if you were in a competition to see who would suck the life out of the other first. But until one of you died, you traced your hands along any bare skin you could set your fingers on and held onto each other’s bodies, keeping yourselves close.  

At least when you were like this, the odds evened out. You made Yuta insane with your body and he made you arch into his hot touches. You breathed a little less when he touched you and he died a little more when you pushed him to his high’s end. Then you brought him back to life and took his soul all over again. There was no losing or winning here. Only life or death. 

Without warning, Yuta gripped your hips and hoisted you onto the counter. You gasped, clasping his shoulders. He stole your shorts from underneath you and yanked them down your ankles, tossing them into the deep end, and stuck a hand between your legs to feel your arousal growing around his fingers, a deep, guttural sound springing from the back of his throat when he felt how wet you were from his kisses.

“Yuta,” you called out, running your hands down his chest from his shoulders. “Fuck me.”

“No.” 

You gawked. The next thing you knew, he had one hand around your throat and the other pressing a knife against it. “You don’t get to be the boss of me anymore. You lost that privilege. You don’t get to control me,” he said, cold as stone. “You don’t get to act like I’m yours.”

The knife flush against your neck did nothing to unnerve you. None of your survival instincts were on edge. Your muscles weren’t tense. Your breath was mostly level. You asked coyly, “Aren’t you?”

Yuta clenched his jaw. You were right and he knew it. He was completely and thoroughly owned by you - mind, body, and soul. And heart. No matter what lengths he went to deny it, you were his salvation. In beautiful life and in sweet death. 

“No. You have to earn it,” he told you, quiet but fierce. 

For the time being, you played submissive. You already knew he was eating from the palm of your hand, all yours. There was nothing left to secure, but you wanted to appease him. “How can I earn it?”

Yuta stamped the knife harder against your throat, not enough to draw blood, but enough to keep you still and pliant. “When you said you loved me, did you mean it?”

You thought back to all those little memories, swimming around in the deep end of your mind. There weren’t many times you’d whispered the three word confession into his ears, but that made it all the more special. You remembered all of them. Walking through those secluded streets of your dropsite, hand in hand. Shielding your face in his chest as he fucked you within an inch of your life. Waking up in his arms the morning after. 

When you had sex last night, it took everything in you not to say you loved him. Your heart broke itself with the effort. “Yes. I would draw blood for you.” 

That still wasn’t enough. Yuta knew you could be ruthless if pushed. He wanted to know where your love for him started and ended. And truth be told, he didn’t want it to end. He wanted it to overflow. “Would you die for me?” he pressed.

You exhaled, “In a heartbeat.”

That was the right answer. Yuta briefly forewent the knife and slackened his grip on your throat, unfastening his pants just enough to take out his stiffening cock. You gripped it in your hands and pumped him fully hard in no time at all. With a painfully hard cock, needy and aching for you, Yuta gently brushed your hands away and slowly coaxed himself inside. 

You gripped the bottom edge of the counter when he was finally rooted inside to the hilt. Yuta began to move and when he found a comfortable, hard pace, his hand leapt for his knife again, dragging it against your skin. 

Yuta had ample opportunity to hurt you, time after countless time. Yet he never had any more than you’d asked for. You could be staring death squarely in the eye and not an inch of you would paralyze with fear as long as Yuta was there to hold you tight.

You liked to pretend you were fearless, but Yuta made you feel like you really were. I can do anything as long as I have him. He’s my strength and my empire. The whole world doesn’t stand a chance against us. And we’ll burn it to ashes for trying. 

“I…,” Yuta started, his breath distant and faint. “Would die a million deaths for you.”

These kinds of confessions stopped startling you a long time ago. Yuta was intense and deep, and passionate. When he loved, he loved till the last minute. “I would bring you back every time,” you told him, shuddering. 

“What if you couldn’t?”

“Then I’ll follow you to hell close behind,” you whispered, clasping onto his forearms. You wanted to hold him until kingdom come, and you had every intention of doing so. 

Yuta was conflicted. The result of you tearing his heart in more than two pieces. Part of him wanted to resent you forever, to tell you to fuck off and stop toying with his imperfect feelings. Another was ready to stain the walls in blood, not yours, if it came to keeping you close. And the other accepted that you were the only woman in the world who could manipulate him, but chose not to. 

It wasn’t just the sex that made him weak, but it sure did help. You were tightening around him like a noose, taking his cock like a champ as you had done countless times in the past, and Yuta wanted to reward you for it in any way you wished. If you asked for the universe, he could pull a few strings. 

“You’re mine,” Yuta said possessively, teasing the knife down every available inch of your bare flesh. He was wholeheartedly obsessed with you and he would continue to be for as long as he breathed. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“You’re mine,” you taunted in between soft moans, attempting to hide the flutter of your heart. “And I’m yours.”

Yuta was burning alive with his own passion, scalding from the inside out. “Fuck,” he grunted, tossing the knife into the sink. “You drive me crazy, you know that?”

“I know,” you whispered. 

“You own me.”

“I know that too.”

“You wanna know what you don’t know?” Yuta asked through pants, but he wasn’t stopping. Not until you were both surely sated. “Not a second went by where I didn’t think of you. Of what you were doing and who you belonged to.”

Well, I know now, you thought to yourself, but the admission drove you mad. You couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts kept him up at night in your wake. Did he picture your face whenever he got hard? Did he pretend he was inside you when he fucked his fist until he came?

“I’ve always belonged to you,” you told him sincerely. You wanted to kiss him again, but you held back for now. 

Another groan sprung from the pit of his throat and he put a tightening grip on your throat. “Say it again.”

Your legs wrapped around him, wanting him more in spite of the lack of blood flow. Wanting him deeper. “I belong to you. And only you, Yuta,” you rasped. 

The way you said his name had him reeling. With how you reacted to every graze of his fingers, light or rough, Yuta knew there was a throbbing void in you being filled at last now that he was in your possession once more. It was the same dark and empty void in him. “I hate you,” he hissed, slapping his hips into you harder. “For making me love you when you never cared about me.”

You had been taken aback by his words, but eased a little with relief when he finished his statement. Only a little. “That’s a lie.”

“Admit it. Admit you never cared,” Yuta barked. His grip on your throat was harsher and he had another calloused hand winding your hair around his fingers.  

You couldn’t say that. It wasn’t true. “I was wrong,” you choked out instead, face tensing in a heavenly blend of pain and pleasure. “And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Yuta.”

Yuta all but stilled when he heard you say those words. Finally a fucking apology. And now he was going to make you beg. Or better yet, he was going to see if you meant it. 

You gasped loudly when Yuta abruptly pulled out of you and hauled you off the counter into his burly arms, carrying you to the living room. You clung to him tightly the entire time, although you knew Yuta would never let you fall. He sat you on the couch, sitting beside you to your right, and pulled you onto him. “Prove it.”

Yuta watched you grip his cock and steer him to your entrance without hesitation. Like it was routine. You made a high-pitched noise when he penetrated you again and clawed at his chest and shoulders for purchase, prepared to give him every ounce of your strength and vigor. 

You watched his face contorting with ecstasy, not minding the way your nails dug into him. Yuta had always been the bigger pain freak. Your legs still ached with the passion of him and they would even more when you were finished with him, but you didn’t care. You rode him to hell and back. 

“Fuck. Holy fuck,” Yuta swore, watching you bounce on top of him with a vengeance. He should have known that when he told you to prove it, you would take that as a challenge. He cursed your name between expletives. “Slow down.”

You smiled contentedly, proud of yourself for ruining him to the bare bone. This was a man that prided himself on power and control, so snatching it from underneath him surely gave you an ego boost. “You wimping out on me, babe?”

Yuta mumbled something under his breath. More dirty words, certainly. He wanted to fight it, yet he couldn’t help but surrender. “No.”

“Then, take it,” you hissed, grabbing his jaw gently and stealing his lips in a hot kiss. Yuta’s fingers bruised your hips as your lips met with a reverberating wet sound.  

Yuta looked dizzy from lust and pleasure, and passion when you pulled away from his lips in favor of his neck, sucking and nipping at the raw empty flesh. His breath went faint as you left your mark. He was moaning like a bitch underneath you, overwhelmed by your mouth on his skin and his cock in your warmth. 

It was taking a toll on him, making him shake and bite his swollen, bleeding lip. “Stop. I’m gonna come, baby,” he said breathlessly. 

“Come inside me,” you told him softly, riding him even harder. You wanted to finish him. 

Yuta’s throat went dry at your words and he couldn’t stop the indescribably erotic noise that escaped him. He had fucked you raw more than once, but he had never been allowed to fuck you full of his cum. Now you were handing him the privilege on a silver platter and he was about to come on the spot like a virgin.

Your hips smacked down against him, brutal and quick. Yuta couldn’t help but thrust up into you, matching your movements with the intention of finishing you and himself. You were bruising and breaking beneath his rough hands, but it didn’t matter. He would seam you back together. 

It quickly became more than he could handle and Yuta came with a groan of your name plus an additional slew of curses, his body writhing from the hot sensations. His eyes went wide when you kept riding him at this rough and hard pace, chasing your own climax. 

You hummed, satisfied. That’s it, baby. You might not want to say it to my face, but your body has never lied. You are just as owned by me as I am by you. You are bound to me by a ball and chain. 

Not far behind him, you shuddered with orgasm from the constant pounding of his cock against your sweet spot driving you over the edge. Yuta could feel you throbbing and pulsing around him and it drew him another deep noise from him. You went slack, draping your arms over his shoulders, and felt his cum leak from your cunt. 

You weren’t in any hurry to move. Yuta was as close as humanly possible, every inch of himself buried inside your pussy, and you wanted to keep him there indefinitely. You tilted his jaw, watching his cute face. “Are you tired?” you asked softly. 

Yuta scoffed, as if he couldn’t believe you were asking him that. Though you knew he always had more to give you. “We just fucked for an hour.”

“What are you talking about? We spent most of the past hour arguing.”

“That was foreplay.”

You burst into laughter. That was a very Yuta-esque answer. “For you, maybe,” you murmured. 

Yuta arched his brow. “Oh, really now? Then please explain why you were so wet by the time I’d only kissed you. Riddle me that, beautiful.”

“There’s a simple explanation,” you said, in spite of knowing you had none. None too inclined to admit it to him, you opted to kiss him again instead, still holding onto his jaw the entire time. 

Yuta let you get away with it just this once, hands roaming your back underneath your shirt. It was still damp with sweat and the thought of licking away every last drop with his tongue made Yuta stifle a groan. Most likely for the best. The sound would have made you clamp around him if you heard it. 

And you would’ve fucked him all day long if you could, but duty called and though the state of your relationship with Yuta was mending, you still had other problems to solve. 

After a makeout session that lasted way longer than intended, you both begrudgingly retreated to your separate rooms. You had work to do, and Yuta needed time to think about what you meant to him. 

You were surprised to receive a call from the station a few hours later, recognizing the number though it was unsaved. Figuring it was probably about the names Yuta had given you, you answered the phone. “Hello?”

“I’ve got news,” came Ten’s voice. You knew from his grim tone that it was nothing good. 

You sighed. “The bad kind, I’m assuming.”

“We identified a body today on the side of the highway. It’s Kun.”

You were silent for a long moment. No words would come. You weren’t surprised he was dead, but the fact that you couldn’t deny it anymore stung. 

Ten knew you were hurting, but he continued, “He was mostly bones. He’s been dead for months. And before you ask how we know it’s him, he died in uniform. His badge says his name.”

“Any idea what the cause of death is?” you forced yourself to ask. 

“Forensics are running tests right now, but we’re pretty confident it was a gunshot wound,” Ten told you softly. “He had a single one to the head. He didn’t suffer.”

“How nice of them,” you replied, but your voice was armed with pained sarcasm. It didn’t make sense. Why kill a man and release his body three months after the fact? 

“I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but I have something else to tell you,” Ten said, quiet as a mouse. 

You swallowed your darkness and listened. No matter what, it was paramount that you found the bastard who did this. And, if given the chance, ripped their head off. “Yes?”

Ten’s voice was soft, as if he was telling you a secret of some foul nature. “There was a witness description that matched one of the guys I saw you ran through the database last night. But he’s been locked up for a couple of days. There’s no way it’s him.”

You hummed in confusion. “That’s suspicious as hell. Who gave the witness description?”

“Some random truck driver,” Ten replied, obviously none too convinced. “We’ve tried interviewing him about it, but he insists that’s who he saw and that he’s not being bought or coerced in any way into giving false statements.”

You didn’t buy it. Not even for one second. It was literally impossible for someone who was currently in custody to have dropped off a body on the side of the highway. And if he had a solid alibi, there was clearly someplace else you needed to look. “He’s lying like hell. And he’s likely being intimidated. The question is, who has that kind of power?”

Ten took a wild guess. “A gang.”

You glanced in the direction of Yuta’s bedroom, as if you were trying to signal him through the wall. You had believed him when he said that the Reapers didn’t kill cops, but a situation like this required the influence akin to the kind a gang would have. “That’s true, but I think we can rule out the Reapers.”

“You have an informant?” You could hear the confusion in Ten’s voice. 

I have something much better, you said solely to yourself. “Something like that, yes. I think we’re looking in the wrong place. Or maybe there’s a part of the picture we’re missing.”

Ten hummed, clearly deep in thought. “What about the Brotherhood?”

“What about them?”

“I know these two gangs have conflicts about their drug territories and the like. Kun was investigating the Reapers’ involvement in a few drug deals gone south, but we know now that it was the Brotherhood’s mark.”

That was a valid point. The instance was one of many crimes Kun had been looking into, but it could have been his unlucky ticket to death. He had investigated crimes involving the Reapers and promptly went missing, which turned you to the same gang. Though as it turned out, it was the Brotherhood’s responsibility. 

What if this whole time, you had been looking into the wrong criminal empire?

“That… changes a lot of things,” you replied, connecting the dots in your head. 

“I have to go, but remember it’s just a hunch. Don’t get unmotivated. Keep looking,” Ten said encouragingly. “Someone will check in with you tomorrow as usual.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” you murmured. 

Before you could hang up, Ten called out your name one last time and added, “Be careful, okay?”

“I will,” you reassured him, not wanting him to worry too hard. You knew the loss of one prominent member of your team put additional stress upon the safety of the others. And with that, you bid each other goodbye. 

Yuta had a few errands to run the next day and as protocol decreed, you had to tag along with him. Nothing too dramatic. You imagined that with the gang’s current focus being on determining the next course of action to take against their rival, Yuta was more useful here rather than going from country to country eliminating threats.

His job was much like yours in that regard. Your former one, at least. You bounced from place to place, no one location being too safe, taking on new identities in foreign cities. In the middle of almost losing sense of who you were, all in exchange for recognition and praise, Yuta had been the one to sweep you off your feet and help you remember. 

That was why it hurt so much when he was gone. You lost him, and you lost yourself. He had reminded you how beautiful love was, how liberating it was to not think of the aftermath of missions. With every heartless criminal you locked away, another piece of your soul chipped away too. 

Yuta had made you realize that you weren’t broken. You were still whole and you still had a soul. And you knew, because you had bore it to him. 

You snapped out of your memories when you heard the car door click open and quickly close beside you. Yuta handed you a dark sheath, made of leather. “This is for you,” he said quietly. “If you still use them, that is.”

“I still use them,” you told him with a nod, unsuccessfully ignoring the way your chest flooded with warmth. He remembered. 

“Good,” Yuta said, fastening his seat belt around his waist. “And by the way, we’re not going home like I thought we were. I just got a call. We’re having an impromptu meeting.”

You stifled a groan, none too eager to sit around outside while the higher-ups had private discussions behind a glass door. But you said nothing as Yuta pulled out of the parking lot. 

Though as you followed him through the building to the designated door on the far end of the hallway, you complained, “I just don’t understand what you guys are talking about that you didn’t get done in the past two meetings this week.”

“This is important. And besides, I don’t make the rules, baby,” Yuta replied, totally amused but hiding it with a poker face. “He does.”

The man in question was already patiently sitting at the head of the table with a poker face that could kill if he tried hard enough. Lee Taeyong, you recognized. The leader. 

His second-in-command was right beside him and with Yuta being third, he didn’t hesitate to snag a seat directly across from Johnny. The only thing that surprised you was Yuta dragging you inside, seating you squarely beside him in a chair of your own. 

It wasn’t long until the room filled with enough high-ranks to make anyone nervous and after doing a mental headcount, you quickly realized all eight of them had come.

Taeyong seemed to be doing the same count and once he counted an adequate number of heads, excluding yours, he spoke up loudly. “Yuta, was it necessary to bring her?”

“Yes,” Yuta chirped without explanation. 

“Alright, then,” Taeyong said swiftly, commanding total attention with the tone of his voice alone. “Now that we’re all here, firstly I wanted to apologize for calling last minute. I realize you are all busy with your respective responsibilities. But in light of recent events, I want to extend our incognito another week.”

Haechan nodded in approval. He was the head of their prostitution business. “Good idea. The ladies are scared shitless. They don’t wanna work and I’ll raise hell if anything happens to them.”

“This is slowing down our income,” Doyoung chimed in, disgruntled. Likely thing for the guy in charge of money laundering to say. “We can’t make money if we’re all hiding. We need to fight fire with fire.”

“We've been trading hits back and forth. What more do you want?” Johnny asked. 

Doyoung shrugged. “We need to do something that will make them realize we’re not to be fucked with. Right now, they think they have the upper hand.”

Yuta shook his head. “No, they don’t. This all started because of drugs. It’s common knowledge that we own the market around here. If they weren’t intimidated, they wouldn’t have made any moves.”

“Then what do you suggest, Nakamoto?”

“I agree that we need to blow all their heads clean off,” Yuta replied like it was the most normal response ever. “But for the right reasons.”

Jaemin was the hacker and he didn’t exactly understand why he was here. Or why they were arguing. “I don’t really think it matters what the reason is. We need to stop them willingly or by force.”

Yangyang groaned. He was the one directly over the gang’s entire drug trafficking operation and you could imagine he was none too pleased. “Our drug operation is our most lucrative branch and they’re not touching that. We’re fine.”

Haechan insisted, “My ladies still need to work. And I’m not letting them until it’s safe for them to do so.”

Doyoung half-agreed, “The ladies need to work so we can make as much money as possible. This incognito is only hindering us.”

“My guys are dying,” Jaehyun announced. “If we lift the incognito, imagine how many more of us will be dead.”

Taeyong exhaled a sigh, rubbing his temple. You resisted a laugh. They were stressing each other out when every last one of their problems could be solved if the Brotherhood was removed from the picture. 

Noticing his boss’ exhaustion, Johnny changed the topic. “The incognito aside, we’re still not fine. I’ve been hearing that the police chief who was investigating us and disappeared before we could pay him off was found dead. Now it looks like we’ve got cop blood on our hands.”

Yuta deadpanned, “Exactly what we needed.”

You tried not to stiffen as Johnny mentioned your boss. Then you thought deeply about his words and reflected on the phone call you had with your co-worker last night, and your blood went cold. You mentally chastised yourself for not thinking of it before. 

Yuta raised his brow at you when he felt you attempting to subtly capture his attention. You mouthed, “Outside.”

You stood up abruptly and he excused himself, following behind you.

 When you were both on the opposite side of the door, you asked, “What exactly happens when you collectively sign off on decisions?”

Yuta was taken aback by your question, but gave an honest response. “The eight of us gather around, much like right now, and try to make a unanimous vote.”

“I’m assuming that doesn’t happen often?”

“No, it doesn’t,” Yuta replied, tempted to chuckle. “What’s this all about, baby?”

Now completely certain they had nothing to do with it, you took a deep breath, revealing, “I don’t know why it’s just now hitting me, but I think you’re being framed.”

Yuta didn’t seem surprised. “Are you sure?”

You slowly wound a hand through your hair. “I don’t know, but all the evidence points to this gang. Not just the fact that you were the last thing my boss investigated before he died. As it turns out, one of the cases he was looking into was the Brotherhood’s work. When he was found dead yesterday, we got a witness description identical to one of the guys you gave me.”

Yuta furrowed his brow. “You’ve lost me.”

“Yuta, that guy has been in jail for three days now.”

You watched the shock color his face in real time. “Who in the hell gave the witness description?”

“It was a truck driver,” you told him, remembering the conversation you had over the phone. “He was obviously lying and my co-worker and I think he’s either being paid or pressured. But we thought about who would have that kind of sway over someone.”

“A fucking gang,” Yuta finished for you, bristling with frustration. His hand was on his head, attempting to think this over. 

You felt guilty somehow. Like you should have known this was coming. 

The second Yuta turned to the door, prepared to come armed with news that would surely anger his co-workers to no end, you both heard gunshots echo out from downstairs. Instinctively, Yuta pulled you into his arms without a care, glancing around. “What the hell?”

You shuddered, words suddenly resounding in your memory, and chided yourself for being too stupid to not comprehend them until it was too late. Everybody knows the best time to strike is when they’re all together.

They were all together. 

“They’re coming,” you whispered.

“Do you have the knife I gave you?” Yuta asked, borderline frantic. You had never seen him so worried. 

You nodded wordlessly. 

“Thank god. We gotta go,” Yuta replied swiftly, not wasting a breath to get a hold of your arm and lead you down the hallway. You heard his co-workers barreling out the conference room from behind. 

You let Yuta steer you away, trusting him wholeheartedly. He knew this building better than you did, and better than his opponents did. That was his advantage. 

Moving door through door with you in his arms, Yuta clasped onto your body like the thought of letting you go would send a shiver down his spine, gentle enough to cause you no pain yet firm enough to keep you exactly where he wanted. You both remembered what happened the last time you were separated. 

The thought made you shudder. Second turning into minutes, minutes turning into hours as you’d waited for him to come back. For a goddamn phone call. Something. Anything that would indicate he was still alive. 

Like he could sense your prevailing thoughts, Yuta stopped you, glancing both ways like a child crossing the street, and whispered, “Listen to me, baby. I’m right here. Okay?”

“I know,” you replied, quiet as a mouse. Your natural instincts were flaring up and your whole body was tempted to paralyze with fear, but none for you. Only for him. 

“We’re going to make it out of here. I know we will.”

You believed him, but for safe measure, you grabbed his face in your palms and pressed your lips against his feverishly. Yuta kissed you back without restraint, his hold on your smaller frame tightening more with every passing moment. It felt like seconds until it was over and though you wanted more, you knew you had to settle. 

When he heard a noise emerging from a none too distant hall, Yuta reached for your hand and continued to drag you towards the closest exit he knew. You did your best to keep up with his hurried steps, almost tripping over your own legs every step of the way. 

Even more gunshots echoed against the walls, too close for comfort, and rather than potentially rush into something dangerous, Yuta caged you behind him as you hid on the opposite side of the closest available corner. You were able to cock your head just long enough to see a figure dressed in all black, their head cloaked in a beastlike mask. 

Brothers. 

There were masculine wails and screams everywhere. You recognized the sound of death and chaos when it touched your ears, and it made you cling to Yuta harder. The only thing you didn’t know was whether or not it was the blood of his gang members or his rivals staining the walls. 

“They’ve got this bitch surrounded,” Yuta murmured irritably under his breath.

That wasn’t reassuring at all. “Then what’s the plan? If we can’t leave, then what are we gonna do?”

You could see a flicker of something dark flicker in Yuta’s eyes, followed by something like resignation, and you knew what it meant instantly. “We have to fight.”

Fight didn’t startle you. Your hand immediately went for its weapon. Flight was officially off the table. 

This was a full-blown war. 

Yuta poked his head around the corner. When the coast was clear, he took you down another corridor, a touch darker than the others. You recognized the hallway and knew you were close to the rear side of the building. 

You didn’t see it. Not until it was too late. And by the time you heard it, there was already a brawny pair of arms wound viciously around Yuta’s neck, yanking him back with force. He dropped his weapon, reaching up behind him out of instinct, and endeavored to pry his attacker’s bloody, calloused hands off. 

“Yuta!” you called out. You didn’t hesitate to go after him, but another person snuck up behind you and put your wrists in a vice-like grip behind your back, dragging you off into another room as you desperately tried to writhe out their arms. 

The last thing you heard was Yuta shouting for you before the door slammed closed in your face. 

Your body tensed with the anger of a heartbroken woman at being separated once more from your lover, who you knew would move mountains to see you again - or die trying. And you would never, ever let that happen. 

In the split second of freedom you had while the faceless enemy locked the door, you snatched the blade Yuta had given you from its sheath and sprung into action, landing an unexpected attack in the back of his head. Over and over.

You were just about to drag the man’s fallen body out of the way enough that you could sidestep towards the door when you heard another one open from behind you. You jolted for your weapon, spinning on your heels. 

A person came out. This one had a face. And you recognized him. 

Jeno raised his hands in innocence. “It’s just me.”

“Get. The fuck. Back,” you hissed, holding your blade to announce that you were armed and very much dangerous. 

Realizing you didn’t trust him, Jeno switched on a dime. “You finally figured it out, huh? How clever of you.”

You knew Jeno wasn’t who you thought he was the second you finally pieced together the true meaning of his words. “Who are you?” you forced yourself to ask. 

Jeno shrugged, smirking to himself as if something was funny. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m a brother.”

“I know that, but where do you fall in their hierarchy? Who do you take orders from?”

Jeno scoffed, his evil little smirk widening in unwavering amusement. “Take orders?” he repeated, incredulous. “Babe, I’m the one who calls the shoots.”

You stilled for all but a second. You were staring into the eyes of a gang leader who was conniving enough to infiltrate the ranks of his rival. There was no way in hell he was easily backing down from a challenge. 

The glaringly obvious shock on your face made him laugh out loud. “That’s right. I’m the leader. You look surprised.” 

You sneered, “You son of a bitch.”

If not anything else, Jeno looked proud of himself. He was so damn smug. “Don’t play innocent, beautiful. You’re not exactly a saint either. I doubt Taeyong knows there’s a cop mingling in his affairs, and his trusted third-in-command is just allowing it to happen under his nose.”

How in the hell did he know you were undercover? You had to assume everything he knew about you right now was equally as dangerous and lethal as his potential. 

Your eyes narrowed. Your body was twitching with unadulterated anger and twitching to do something deadly. “Did you kill Kun?”

“Nah. Well, I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, I mean.”

That didn’t make it any better. He was the one calling the shots, after all. He said so himself. “But you consented to his abduction and murder. Why?”

Jeno played with the edge of a blade of his own. He sounded thoroughly bored as explained, “He was getting too close for comfort. Looking for the Reapers was inadvertently bringing him closer to us, and we couldn’t just give him a two for one combo. It was nothing personal, you know.”

You shook your head. Then you slammed on brakes. “How do you know about Yuta and I?”

His mocking tone wasn’t lost on you as he teased, “I think you’ve lost your touch, spy. My guys wanted to take you out, you know. They were certain you were a threat and you would figure us out.”

So he not only knew that you were affiliated with the police force, but the covert agency too. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jeno snorted. “Surely you remember Yokohama. I’m realizing it’s very easy to pin things on other gangs. You swept in to investigate their activities and lover boy came along to figure out who was killing off his buyers.”

This was unforgivable. The entire time Jeno had this much dirt on you and your personal life and discreetly used you to expand his illegal crime syndicate at the expense of another, and another. And you had no idea. 

“You recycle all of the same shit,” you pointed out, seething inside out. 

“Maybe,” Jeno replied carelessly. “But you know what they say. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

You shook your head. “So that day the three of us were together. It was all fake. You killed your own men?”

“They served their purpose,” Jeno said darkly, lifting his blade. “And you’ve served yours.” 

Your entire body stiffened with alarm when you heard someone attempt to push open the door closest to you. Stepping inside after kicking away the corpse of the man you’d fatally stabbed, Jaemin came in armed with a gun. And you were to assume it was fully loaded. 

This shocked you less than Jeno’s betrayal did, if you could even call it that. He wasn’t some guy you’d trusted. He was some guy you’d underestimated. “Of course you’re involved too,” you murmured, positioning the sharp blade in front of yourself. 

“Of course,” Jaemin repeated with a sly little laugh. “Who do you think cleans up his mess?”

Jeno didn’t bother to roll his eyes as you would usually expect from him, going with it. “And I’ve made a big one.”

You knew what that meant. They wanted to exterminate you like some troublesome little pest in their happy home. 

As if to confirm your suspicions, Jaemin smiled menacingly and crooned, “You have to go, sweetheart. You know too much now.”

Your heart was racing. Even you seemed to accept that you were overwhelmed and outnumbered. You knew that with one wrong move Jaemin wouldn’t hesitate to empty his chamber into your head, but for once, you had no idea how to get out of this. You just knew that you wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

Yuta entered your mind again and wouldn’t leave. You couldn’t hear his voice anymore, but you hadn’t heard any more gunshots either. Rather than resign yourself to defeat, you were going to assume he was still alive until proven otherwise. 

“Wait!” you shouted when you saw Jaemin cock his gun, obviously ready to paint the walls with your brains. “Where’s Yuta?”

Jaemin shrugged his shoulders. His smile was ominous. “Your little boy toy? No clue. He’s probably bleeding out somewhere, princess. I think he might be dead.”

“Not yet.” 

The three of your heads snapped in the same direction when you heard that familiar voice. Relief flooded your veins when you saw Yuta standing in the entrance of the door, having snuck up unheard. 

Before Jaemin could even get the opportunity to fire his weapon, Yuta raised and cocked his own, and a loud clap rang out in the air just before you watched Jaemin fly backwards from the impact of the piercing hole in his gut. 

And to your surprise, Yuta didn’t immediately kill him. He had his reasons. Rather than stick around to give a message, Yuta hurriedly reached for your arm and tugged you out the door. You could see in Jeno’s dark eyes when you took one final glance at him that he wanted to give chase, but saving a life was more important. 

You used all your strength and speed to keep up with Yuta’s steps, his fingers intertwined with yours as you paced wordlessly through the seemingly endless corridor. The two of you ran and ran until you had descended at least two more floors, wanting to ensure there was a safe gap between you and your enemies. 

Like hell Yuta was going to let you get shot a second time. 

“I’m so happy you’re okay,” Yuta said frantically when you were in the clear, running his hands over your cheeks. “Are you hurt? Did they touch you?”

You shook your head. “No, they didn’t lay a finger on me. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine as long as you are,” Yuta told you, relief washing over his face. You had lost each other once and neither of you were keen on suffering that hell ever again. 

“I’m fine,” you whispered, your heart speeding quicker than you knew it ever could. This was nothing like that first time you thought you lost him. Fear struck you tenfold. “I told you I would die for you.”

“If you ever risk your life for me, I’ll die right after you,” Yuta told you, more grave and serious than you’d ever seen him. “You’re not leaving me. Ever.”

And you didn’t leave him. As soon as two weeks later, you were in a hotel in Osaka after dark, tangled in silk sheets after a long night of making love to each other. Yuta made it abundantly clear that he wanted to make up for lost time, and you both mutually agreed there was no better way than doing all of the things you’d always wanted to do together. 

He wanted to whisk you away on romantic trips and show you to all his favorite places in his hometown, and you were slowly making your way down the lengthy list. You wanted an oasis away from the dark reality of the world, to lose yourself in a world that only consisted of you and the man you loved. 

You missed nights in Japan. The country never slept. Neither did your heart and your feelings for Yuta.

Ironically, he was fast asleep when you received a call from a familiar number. 

“I know I’m not supposed to contact you anymore,” Mark started without greeting. 

You snickered, wondering where this was going. You were still under the sheets right beside Yuta, knowing he would immediately stir if you even attempted to sneak out of the comfortable bed. “And yet you’re calling me anyways.”

“I have a good reason,” Mark replied reassuringly. “So you know how you got shot?”

“I think I may remember getting shot in the stomach, yes. I'm not too sure.”

Although you couldn’t see him, you imagined Mark was playfully rolling his eyes. “Yeah, well, that guy who shot you - Levi Clark - he disappeared from prison.”

You gawked, but tried to keep your voice to a murmur. “What?”

“Yeah. And he was found dead two hours later. Like, really dead. I saw the photos. It’s ugly.”

You glanced at the man sleeping beside you with extreme suspicion, but told Mark levelly, “Thanks for informing me.”

Mark sounded chipper. “No problem. And if you ever need anything, I’ve got you.”

You broke into a wide smile at those words. Though you knew it would only do everyone involved no good to continue contacting your former co-workers. “Take care of yourself, Mark,” you whispered softly. 

“You too,” were Mark’s last words before he hung up, letting you resume your new life. 

You placed your phone down and crossed your arms, knowing something was very off in this picture. “Yuta?” you called out. 

“Hm?”

So he wasn’t asleep. You crossed your arms tighter. You suspected as much. “I know what you did.”

Yuta’s voice was groggy. “Which thing did I do?”

“You know the one.”

A small sliver of a smile tugged at his lips. “You would die for me. I would kill for you. We’re even, dear.”

You wrapped your arms around him and pressed a few kisses to Yuta’s devilishly handsome face, not mad about it. His hands snaked around your waist and you sighed contentedly. “I guess we are.”

[thewriterwithnoplan]

THE TRAITOR'S SOULMATE (2/2)

Summary: Humans once had four legs, four arms, two heads, and two hearts. For humanity's hubris, Zeus struck them in two. You and Luke Castellan are determined to find your way back to each other, but before that can happen, there are things the two of you need to do.

[Part 2 to The Hero's Soulmate]

Soulmate AU: You meet the future version of your soulmate.

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Word Count: 7378

Warnings: Canon typical warnings, swearing, I use the spelling 'mom' because the series is American but I - and I cannot stress this enough - am not American, she a long one.

A/N: I've loved reading your comments, thank you so much for all the support in part one. I hope you enjoy, because we all deserve a little Luke Castellan every now and then!

Masterlist

Amphitrite had been gifted a premonition and the world was all the worse for it. The dream had come from Apollo or perhaps the Oneiroi or whatever great heart pumped blood and Gods and monsters out into the world.

It did not matter to the Goddess from whom the vision came, for in this dream Amphitrite had watched her husband fall in love and sire a child to a mortal paramour. A precious boy that Poseidon might even one day love, with a taste for the colour blue and a heroism that would grow to rival his namesake. And for the Queen of the Seas, that simply would not do.

It would not be the child’s nor his mortal mother’s fault – she was not Hera after all – and so she would have to punish her husband for the blame would be his. But how was one to punish a King among Gods before his crime even came to be? Why to beat him at his own game, of course.

So, Amphitrite set out to sire her own demigod with the mortal man her husband would hate most. A devout catholic.

Amphitrite stayed with her mortal lover and their half-blood daughter until the girl was all but five.  Far longer than the greater Gods were wont to spend with their offspring. But what a precious babe she had bourn and what a traitorous husband she had back home.

But fate and prophecies and soulmates were such funny things. Inciting chaos. Inviting paradox. Introducing dangers untold.

It took Amphitrite all those years – though seemingly short in her immortality – to realise her fatal error. She had been the one to leave Poseidon. She had been the one to sire a child. She had been the one to drive her husband to the surface and his mortal. And so, the blame was hers to shoulder.

Amphitrite decided that she would be a self-fulfilling prophecy no longer. It was time to venture back below the surface.

In a last fit of guilt, she bestowed her first and final act of mercy unto her mortal lover. She told him everything.

When finally, she had gone back to the sea to reconcile with her husband, the catholic man took his turn to bestow his first and final act of mercy unto his young demigod child.

Against all the teachings of his faith. He abandoned his young daughter at Half-Blood Hill. And let the devil-spawn keep her life.

The Spirit of the Hudson River never did learn to like you. You with your greedy hands, snatching debris from its murky waters. You and your strange sea creature friends who would not dare brave such pollution were it not for your presence. Your pile of war spoils tossed aside like children’s toys. Your strange little bubble of air on the sandy floor of the river, where you stowed your treasures and slept bracketed by water. Were it not for the pollution that slopped against the edge of the river as if it were trying to escape you, the Hudson River Spirit might have chased you and your sea friends and your collection of trinkets out of his waters. But as it were, you made a strangely amicable tenant for a demigod. So, as long as you paid your dues the spirit let you keep your little underwater oasis.

For your first years living there, you made your way in New York City by selling lost things dredged from your river home. Bikes and old weaponry and tarnished jewellery and buckets of coins from across the world. You were careful and you coveted your few precious belongings, but with the rivers bounty, you rarely went hungry.

By the time you were fourteen, you found you could venture further into the city without as many questions. You had met an odd assortment of people whilst selling the lost and unloved things of the river; all who knew someone, who knew someone, who needed another set of hands and so you offered yours. You babysat and cleaned, worked in delis and sandwich shops, helped old women with their groceries and young families mend their clothes. A retired teacher gifted you packets of schoolwork and with little else to fill your hours under the river you took to learning. Your numbers came easier than letters and reading always gave you a hard time but the activities she gave you each time you tended to her balcony garden gave you something to do when the sounds of the city kept you up at night.

All the while you followed Percy Jackson from the recesses of the Hudson. Shuffling your little bubble and its blessedly dry treasures up and then back down the river as he was bounced listlessly from school to school. Watching over him as the mythosphere tried desperately to barge into his little mortal life. Feral harpies that tried to snatch him into the air, great snakes that tried to sneak through air vents and all manner of underworld-born sea creatures that sought to pull him below. You had wrestled and dismembered and slayed them all. Adding their feathers and scales and great weapons to your dragons-hoard.

You were sixteen when you finally knocked on Sally Jackson’s door to introduce yourself. You had spent weeks working yourself up to it, planning your outfit and then fussing over each piece. All your clothes had been gifts and were often a size too big or printed with some generic tagline like Spread peace not hate!; or made entirely from yarn that the old woman whose meals you prepped at the start of each week had gifted you after she had taught you how to crochet; or like the dress you wore now, were sown together from thrifted fabric scraps and embellished with pretty shells and baroque pearls. You had planned the time you would arrive down to the minute so that her oppressive husband would be out, but the hour would not be so late as to make an unexpected visit threatening. You had planned to keep Percy safe while you were away from him by entrusting your friends Clarence the Crab and Emily the Squid to supervise him for the evening.

What you had not planned for was the possibility that Sally Jackson would be the most lovely woman you had ever met. You had been struck dumb by it the moment she opened her door and greeted you with a kind smile. Couldn’t your mother have chosen a mortal as gentle as she to be your parent? Alas, the Gods had never done a thing for you.

“Can I help you, lovely?”

You tried not to burst into tears as you asked, “Mrs. Jackson?”

“Are you alright?” She opened the door wider, leant out and scanned the corridor behind you. “Is there something you need?”

“No ma’am. I’m here about your son, Percy. His father sent me.” A good ambiguous statement that would pique her curiosity but let on nothing about the Gods. Allowing you to spin your tale – that you were Percy’s long-lost step-sister, come to reconnect. 

“Poseidon?” Alas, the Gods had truly never done a thing for you. “Is something wrong? Is Percy, okay?”

“He’s fine Mrs. Jackson, I’ve been keeping him safe.” 

She scanned the hall behind you once more, “You best come in.”

Over a cup of tea, you told Sally Jackson everything.

You liked your home under the river. For lack of a better term, it allowed you to remain liquid. You could follow Percy wherever trouble took him. You could stay up until the city grew quiet for that brief moment before dawn. You could train with the Hudson River Spirit, even if he only entertained you because he enjoyed winning.

You liked your bed made out of stacked wood pallets and a mountain of blankets. You liked your wooden chest of draws stuffed full of trinkets and weapons and the precious few items you owned. You liked this place that you had carved out with your own two hands.

But you also liked your home in the Jackson household. Where there was always music playing. Where it was always warm and dry. Where there would always be some blue-ified food in the oven or blue candy in the mason jars by the sink.

It became your job in the summers to babysit Percy, to keep him away from Gabe and from danger while entertaining his endless need for motion. You took him to art galleries (which he hated) and aquariums (which he loved), to craft fairs (which he tolerated because he liked the things you made) and swimming pools (which he only liked when he won your swimming races).

“What even is a soulmate?” Percy had asked you one day at the park.

“The person with the other half of your soul,” You scrunched your nose up, “Or well, that's what people say.”

“You’re saying I’ve been walking around with half a soul?”

“I didn’t say I believed them,” You rattled your water bottle in front of his face until he took it. “Stay hydrated.”

He frowned at you, “You don’t believe in soulmates?”

“Of course I do, but it's a little more complicated than that, kid.” You took the water bottle back and played with the cap for a moment while you thought. “Think of it like this. You can have two different puzzles that are cut the same way, right? So all the pieces from one will fit with all the pieces from the other. But that doesn’t mean they belong together, the picture doesn’t come out quite right because even though the pieces fit, they don’t necessarily belong to the same puzzle. Maybe that’s what it was like for your mom, like she couldn’t find the pieces that made up her picture and so she went with the ones that fit at the time.”

“You don’t think my mom and dad were soulmates?”

“I never met your father.”

“But he’s your dad too.”

“He’s my mom’s husband. Maybe my mom and dad are soulmates.” Percy didn’t seem to like that answer.  “Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe your mom and my mom each have pieces that fit into your dad's puzzle but neither match his picture, or both. Maybe his picture is a year with your mom and a lifetime with mine and having you. Maybe he needs to collect all those little pieces at the right time when they’re the right shape or he’ll end up with a completely different picture at the end.”

“I kind of understand.” But he gave you a look that said he probably didn’t. “What picture are you making?”

You hid your smile behind the lip of your water bottle, “My soulmates about yay-high, pretty as a magazine cover with dimples and all. I’m collecting my puzzle pieces with you and your mom and this city so that I’ll have half of his picture.”

“If you know who he is, why don’t you just go find him now?”

“Still looking for some pieces, I guess.” You kicked a rock with the toe of your boot. “Souls are fragile. If you go rushing in and trying to jam the pieces in when they’re not shaped right just yet you could damage them.”

“What happens if you do that?”

“It’s probably harder to find each other in the next life. You’ll chip pieces away and your souls won’t fit right.” You shoved your hands into the pockets of your cardigan and pulled out a sandwich, you gave Percy the bigger half.

“Who taught you all this?”

“My mom used to tell me and well, I've thought about it a lot.” You tugged Percy by the back of his shirt so he didn't go stomping through a puddle, he glared. “But anyway, some people think it’s just fate. That you find your soulmate no matter what and it’s a perfect fit either way.”

“It would be easier that way.”

“Sometimes that’s just not how the story goes, kid.”

Percy thought that was the most important thing anyone had ever taught him, but he figured some of the other stuff you taught him came in handy too. You taught him the tricks you learned to work around your dyslexia. You taught him to skip stones and to not throw rocks at seagulls. You taught him to flip off the Empire State Building but only when his mom wasn’t around. You taught him to knit and do a cartwheel and make a good cup of tea to take his mother in the morning. You taught him to chew with his mouth shut and to sword fight with wrapping paper rolls. You taught him to braid hair and throw a punch and say all the swears in Ancient Greek.

And then one day, a Satyr came for Percy Jackson, and there was nothing left for you to teach. 

You wrote Sally a brief letter of warning, picked your way through seven years’ worth of belongings and collapsed your life into a backpack. You said goodbye to Clarence and Emily with a brief promise to visit, pushed a final wave of pollution from the waters and thanked the Hudson River Spirit for his hospitality. He gifted you sixteen perfect round pearls and insisted that he never wanted to see you again. You spent the bus ride to Long Island threading them into a necklace made of fishing wire, tying off each pearl with your teeth. 

It was a tentative tradition between demigod soulmates to exchange gifts upon their first meeting. So few and far between were the possessions of a half-blood that even the smallest bauble would likely mean the world. The practice had died out some over the centuries as the Gods received fewer offerings from mortals and turned to their children for sacrifices. Gift-giving to your soulmate as a demigod became all but synonymous with spitting at the feet of the divine and loudly proclaiming you would make offerings to your soulmate instead. A pearl necklace would be an excellent final addition to the collection of small gifts you had assembled over the years. Let the Gods weep at your feet and beg for scraps if they needed them so much, you would ignore them just as they had ignored you. 

You arrived at Camp far sooner than you might have liked, a few hours past mid-day when hopefully the rest of your ilk would be occupied with meaneal chores and activities. You considered waiting at the crest of the hill for someone to notice you only to find a pine tree planted firmly at its peak where you might have stood. Instead, you make the alarmingly easy trek down to the Big House.

“Chiron!” He had always been your favourite of the two men, currently sat on the porch drinking juice and playing cards. 

“Yes, my girl?” He barely spared you a glance as he shuffled his cards between his weathered hands. He stilled for a moment and then tossed his head back in the way a horse might toss its mane. “My dear!” 

You raised a hand, halfway between a salute and a wave, “Nice to know I haven’t been totally forgotten.”

“Au contraire.” Mr. D stuck his nose up at you. “Which one are you again?” 

“The little one that went missing some seven years ago,” Chiron stood as you climbed the stairs onto the porch. “How are you, my dear? Where have you been?”

“Shouldn’t you be at Yancy Academy?”

Mr. D’s eyes turned sharp in the way that had once made your friends whisper that some days, he was more maniac than man , “And how do you know about that little girl?”

“Percy Jackson is at Yancy,” You smiled at him, all teeth, “How did you think he survived long enough for your baby satyr to find him?” 

“You have been protecting young demi-gods?” Chiron asked wearily. 

“Percy Jackson is a full-time job, I’m afraid,” You tugged at the strap of your backpack, praying you could keep control of the conversation. You had a lot of time under the river to think and this was one of many things you had spent countless hours mulling over. Weighing and considering what story you would tell them – to tell the truth of both your parentage and put Percy in harm's way or to lie and balance your life on its sharp edge. “I found him in Manhattan, he was like a magnet for mythological activity. By the time I’d had enough of rebelling and wanted to come back to camp, I was protecting him from attacks every other week. He wouldn’t have lasted a month. I came back as soon as I could.” 

No matter how many times you played it out in your head, the lies won every time. 

“Kids.” Mr. D threw back the last of his juice.

“Perhaps you should settle back into the Hermes Cabin, dear.” Chiron smiled down at you, the corners of his eyes pinched, “You’ve given myself and Mr. D much to talk about. We’ll settle the issue of your paperwork tomorrow.”

“Of course.” You rustled through your bag, digging up a palm sized statuette that you set onto the table. “Before I forget, I brought you a gift Mr. D.”

“A toy,” He snatched it up. “Oh joy.”

“It’s you, as the mortals’ see you. It’s from the gift shop at the Met.”

“How kind of you, my dear.” Chiron softened, and you watched as even Mr. D’s temper seemed to ease, his hands gentle around the gift as he admired it. 

An unseeing piece of plastic for the God who served as no more than a silent observer over the affairs of the camp. Let him choke on his ego, you thought as you left the pair to their discussion. 

Cabin 11 was blessedly empty when you entered, but your old bunk was not. A pile of clothes was thrown haphazardly across the bedspread. You snatched a sleeping bag and a lumpy pillow from the storage closet and threw them down with your bag. If you could not have the bunk that had been yours at twelve, you would claim the corner that had been yours at five. As you shook out the sleeping bag and pulled out your belongings, you tried not to think of your bed of blankets under the river or Sally Jackson’s couch. 

Instead you turned your mind to the Big House and the conversation that was no doubt happening within. 

You had constructed a perfect image, if you did say so yourself. Grown in ways Mr. D could not have predicted but Chiron would insist he had foreseen. Still a rebellious young woman in the mortal sense, with your scuffed leather boots and ripped jeans. But the parts that had screamed ‘insubordination’ to the Gods were neatly tucked away. Your twin knives strapped to your forearms under the billowing sleeves of your crocheted top, your vicious tongue caged behind a sweet grin, your once sharp stare softened at the edges.

Once you had fashioned yourself so that the Gods could not paint you as a hero, now you fashioned yourself so that they might forget you were an enemy. 

Let Chiron think you were a misunderstood wayward girl scout come home from her self-imposed quest. Let Mr. D think you were a stupid girl who had seen the world beyond the Gods’ protection and finally accepted that you needed them. Let them all think wrong. You had left to protect your brother and returned for one reason only. 

“You’re here.” 

You turned, and there he was, “Luke Castellan.” 

He opened his mouth and then closed it, limbs jerking slightly as if he wasn’t sure whether to move toward you or stay put. He was almost certain you could hear the way his pulse was racing, his heartbeat clanging wildly in his chest as he searched desperately for a suave reply, but everything else seemed lack lustre when you said his name like that.

Your face twisted into something like anger and for a moment he thought he’d messed it all up before your lips curled and you practically spat, “I do like your scar.”

And then he was laughing at you, wild and bewildered and not the least bit contained. Before long you were laughing too, neither of you quite sure what was funny, just so wholly relieved as your chests were flooded with wonder and warmth.

It felt like fireworks and popping candy. Just as he had promised all those years ago. You resisted the urge to throw up on his Converse. 

You might have been crying and he might been too but you weren’t exactly sure because one moment you were both laughing at nothing and the next he was on the floor with you. He held you like he had never held a single thing in his life, like he was lost at sea and you were the only solid thing for miles. He tucked your head under his chin and sucked in great forced breaths that you could feel beneath your cheek. Because he was warm and there and real. And that meant the last seven years, the better part of your life, hadn’t been for nothing. 

 You and Luke make your way to dinner side by side. You had spent the afternoon rambling about your lives, about your meetings with your future selves, about your home under the river, about his responsibilities as a camp counsellor and yours as your brother’s keeper. He told you about Annabeth and Thalia and the rest of his siblings, you told him about your parents and Sally Jackson and your sea friends. You gave him his necklace which he lets you fix in place at the base of his throat – you do not spend a moment too long running your hand up the back of his neck and through his curls. 

He had been almost bashful when he gifted you a watch that matched his, inlaid with twin fragments of mother of pearl taken from the same shell – kind of like your soul had been, he had said. You swear you’ve never owned anything as precious. You let him strap it to your wrist as he tells you about spending a summer diving for it in the lake. And then softly, tentatively, he tells you about his quest.

Luke could have cried from the way you were looking at him alone, so very gently, like you could cradle him with your gaze alone. At a loss for words, you simply whispered, “I am so proud of you.”

His grip is iron-clad and you tell your next story with your face pressed into the side of his neck, pretending you can’t feel him shaking softly. 

When you make your way to dinner you’re both glowing with the soft exhaustion of emotion. You all but lean against one another as you collect your goblets and fill your plates.

The other campers steer clear of you, content to leave Luke to chauffeuring the new kid around. You count yourself lucky, it was only a matter of time until one of the older campers recognised you.

You were almost to the end of the Hermes table – that perfect spot at the end where you might just have a chance of holding a private conversation after dinner – when Chiron interrupted you. 

“Mr. Castellan, I see you’ve acquainted yourself with our newly returned camper.”

“That’s my job, sir.” You tried not to stare at the crooked smile he flashed the centaur. 

“Perhaps you ought to show her how to make an offering,” Chiron says pointedly, “She’s been away for a long time, and it’s your responsibility to treat her as you would any other incoming Camper.”

Luke turned to you, his boyish grin still charming but the mirth leaking out of his eyes, “Of course. Do you remember how it’s done?” 

“I do. Just not a lot of food to be spared in the mortal world.” 

You squinted, the corners of your mouth pulled up in what Chiron would likely mistake for sheepishness. But Luke could see it in your eyes. How your anger had made you pointy in all the places someone your age ought to be soft. He wondered how all the jagged edges of you would feel against all the jagged edges of him. He thought maybe if the two of you were careful, you could make something smooth as sea glass and twice as pretty, together.

You dump a clump of mashed potatoes into the fire with an unconcerned flick of your fork. Luke lops part of his own meal on top of yours, you glare enviously at the reasonable portion he had left on his plate. You hoped the food would burn at the bottom of the braiser. 

“Sorry, sir.” You mocked Luke. He stuck his tongue at you once Chiron had turned his back. 

You hurried to snag the seat at the end of his table, sliding into place across from each other. You flounder for a moment, wondering whether to draw your legs as far under your seat as they will go or bask in the gentle brush of his knee against his leg. You settle for the latter and try not to evaporate under his gaze, as he stares at you even as you start eating.

Luke realised he’d spent too long staring when you all but groaned, “Don’t tell me I have to sacrifice my dinner to you too.” 

He flashed you a grin, then tried to say as nonchalantly as possible,“Is that why you left? So you could enjoy a proper meal every once and a while?”

You stared at him for a long while, “You, future you, told me to leave, to find my brother.”

“Why would I do that? If you had stayed at Camp–”

“That’s almost exactly what I said to you.” You pushed your food around as you stared at a point just beyond his head, he thought for a moment that he could see the neurons firing behind your eyes, like a hundred tiny zaps of lightning, “But I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. And I think you were right to send me away.”

“I don’t think I’ll be hearing that very often.” He dodged the pea you fling at him with a grin. 

“I think maybe if I don’t leave, I won’t become this me or do the things I’ve done and maybe that’s important for us or our future or some past you rewrote by telling me to leave.”

“Seems overly complicated.” 

“I think it’s supposed to be complicated,” You couldn’t help but admire the quiet skill with which he wielded his cutlery, “If it were easy, we would find each other in every universe.”

He paused, knife aloft, “You don’t want to find each other in every universe?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” You speared a leaf of spinach onto your fork to hide your scowl behind as you said, “The Gods have made it this way to keep us separated.”

“We’re together now.” 

“Which means they lost.”

Luke watched you for a drawn out heartbeat, then leaned over to transfer the perfect squares of meat he’d been cutting onto your plate. 

You took a long moment to chew before you said, “So, your plan to send me after Percy worked.”

“I thought it was your plan.”

“I forgot to ask you whose plan it was.”

“I say it’s your plan.” He took a long pull from his goblet that left his lips tinted red. 

“It doesn’t matter what you think.” You passed him a napkin before he could ask, “It’s what you will think.”

“Sure, Precious.” He smothers a laugh into the napkin at the way you scrunch your nose at him, “You know, because you're so protective of your food. Like Gollum with the ring.”

“That’s the stupidest explanation for a pet name I’ve ever heard.” But you’re damn near head down on the table as you laughed. “I definitely got the smarter half of our soul.”

“Then it was definitely your plan.”

You’ve still got a hand pressed to your face to conceal your smile when you say, “What about when I meet you? Any words of wisdom?”

“Try not to fall for me. I can tell you’re pretty charmed but it’s really not appropriate. I’m seventeen, and you’re what? Twenty-four?” 

You launched your bread roll at him. You’re twice as incensed when he catches it whilst looking directly at you, “Asshole.”

“Smartass. See, two can play that game.”

Luke can’t help but think you’re just as pretty sneering as you are smiling, like no expression no matter how ugly could detract from your beauty. Maybe you’re like him, he scarcely dared to hope. Maybe you’re something better, another part of him whispered. The way you talk about the Gods and turn your nose up at them, and play their game only when it suits you. 

You weren’t vengeful in the way he was. You weren’t the spitting vicious thing the Camp had liked to pretend you were when you weren’t around to prove otherwise. You were worse and better and everything he needed. You were a storm on the horizon, a snake coiled tight. You were better than just angry. You were disillusioned. Not a product of juvenile resentment but true wrath born of awareness. Not the wild foaming-at-the-mouth kind that he had imagined when he had first heard your name. But the dark carefully contained kind he had seen in the face you would grow into.

This, Luke thought, you were the start of everything.

It’s some weeks later when you stick your hands through the grating of the bunk above Luke as leverage to lean over him and croon, “Up and at ‘em, Pretty Boy.”

He pushed his face out of his pillow, curls sticking up at odd angles as he looked at you half-asleep, “What?”

“Remember? Training?”

“No,” He scrubbed sleep from his eyes, “What did you call me?”

“Sickly.” 

“I don’t think that was it.” He propped his head up on a fist as he smiled at you sleepily. 

It was so disgustingly cute that you had to turn your back when you said, “Just meet me there.” 

Luke’s freshly showered and holding an apple core when he deigns to join you in the forest. He tossed the apple at you and you caught it without thinking. You fake gag at him as you throw it further into the forest. 

You wiped your hands against his shoulder as you say, “I’m not sure if an apple core counts but that was dangerously close to an Ancient Greek proposal, Castellan.”

“I got hungry.” He shrugged. You squared off across the clearing, stretching as you warmed yourselves up for the ensuing sparring match. 

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Is this you rejecting me?” He landed an open hand on his chest and staggered backward. “You wound me, Precious!”

“Was that you proposing? Because I’m,” You wiped your hand again for good measure, scrunching your nose up, “Disgusted.”

“You would be honoured if I had just proposed to you.” 

“You should be nicer to me.”

“And go easy on you just because you’re my soulmate? Unlikely.”

“Because, asshole, I’m the one who got you out of chores this morning, or have you forgotten already. You seemed rather grateful for your little sleep-in.”

He unsheathed his sword and twirled it round in his hand, “You’re a bad influence.” 

“Like you weren’t ready to worship the ground I walk on when I told Chiron you needed to get my training up to speed.” 

“Do you want me to tell you, you’re brilliant?” He pointed his sword toward you with that grin that made you want to hold him down just so you could admire it longer. “You’re brilliant.”

“You’re stalling.” You pull your knives out, one from your boot, the other from your belt. You miss your old clothes with their pretty sleeves and their personality, your camp shirt seems a poor trade in comparison. 

“Stalling? Me?” Luke scoffed. “Never!”

“Don’t you have a counsellor meeting at half-past?”

“I do, so please don’t feel bad when you lose. I only have half an hour to wrap this up. You understand.”

“Who’s fault is that Mr. Just-five-more-minutes?”

He gasped in mock offence and lunged forward, his sword swinging at you in a great arch. You leapt back, out of his range, then ducked low and rushed toward him. Luke was quick, in a viciously smooth move he swept his sword at you again. You brought your knives together, bracing as the impact ricocheted up your arms. Admittedly, you were at a great disadvantage given that you were reluctant to throw a knife at Luke’s head – even though he’d demonstrated an impressive ability to swipe your wayward throws out of the air – and that he had an additional several feet of reach on you.

Luke feigned to the right, you lashed out at his left side and narrowly avoided his sword as it came down at you. He whistled slowly as both of you backed up to circle each other for a moment. 

“You’ve got moves, I’ll give you that.” 

And so the dance went on. Luke struck, you parried or slipped out of his blade's path with a flourish. You struck, Luke swung his sword and slipped around your blows. Finally, you found the chink in his precious armour. He fell back to his right foot when he deflected a blow. You jerked forward. You jabbed the knife clutched in your left hand toward him as you moved in with the right. Just as you hooked a foot around the back of his leg, Luke’s sword made contact with your left shoulder slicing through sleeve and skin. Luke fell backward with a sharp hiss, his sword flying to the side.

In the end you had laid him out flat in twenty minutes. Luke Castellan had spent the last seven years fighting to win. You had spent them fighting to survive. You supposed it didn’t hurt that the greatest swordsman to enter Camp Half-Blood in nearly three centuries was reluctant to let anything sharp or pointed anywhere near you. You secretly thought he might have been going easy on you for being his soulmate after all. You collapsed on the forest floor beside him, your chest heaving to draw in oxygen. 

“I’m sorry about your shirt,” Luke huffed. 

“Orange isn’t really my colour.”

He turned to you with a wink, “Oh but it is.” 

You wave your hand through the air.

“I’ve gotten very good at putting broken things back together over the years.” He tried not to look at the line of stitching that ran from the ankle of your jeans to the rips at your knee. You tried not to look at his cheek. Instead you reached out and trailed your hands across his necklace where the pearls sat snuggly at the base of his throat. 

“You’re wonderful.” He brushed his knuckles down your shoulder and they came away red. “Even covered in blood you’re the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen.” 

You groaned, “Sweetness, you can’t just say–”

“You call me Sweetness when you visit me.” He whispered it like it was his greatest secret. You traced up his throat to his cheek and pressed your thumb into his dimpled cheek. “You’re still being wonderful. I can’t think when you’re–”

“Wonderful?”

“Okay, Smartass.” He sighed up at the sky, then pulled the both of you to your feet, “Enough lounging, we need to get that cut checked.” 

You let him dust the dirt from you and resheath your knives, one in your boot, the other in your belt. Silently revelling in the gentle way he tugs you this way and that. You were well on your way to the infirmary, shoulders bumping and fingers just barely brushing, before he spoke again.

“Where does it come from? The nickname.”

“Sweetness?” 

He looked away from you and squinted off into the distance, as if you were suddenly too bright to look at, “Yeah.”

“My mom used to tell me this story about meeting her soulmate. She probably meant Poseidon, but at the time I thought it was about my dad,” The back of Luke’s hand bumped into yours again, his fingers catching yours, his gaze resolutely ahead but you were definitely holding hands. “She said it felt like swallowing lightning and gorging yourself on popping candy. Like sweetness.”

“You like popping candy?”

“It’s my favourite.” You gave him a queer look as if to say, it’s not yours, you utter heathen?

Luke laughed at you all the way to the Apollo Cabin as he listed all the reasons it was the sub-par candy option. Nonetheless, when you emerge from the infirmary, he unloads a fistful of little packets he’d pinched from the candy bowl when the Apollo kids’ hadn’t been looking.

“Who has sub-par candy options now, Sweetness?” You teased, your mouth crackling merrily.

“Keep calling me that and you can have all the terrible candy you want.”

“Try some,” You shoved a packet toward him, because if he kept saying silly things like that and looking at you the way he was you were liable to do or say something equally as stupid. “You’ve got half my soul, maybe it’s our favourite.”

“I don’t think they had popping candy when we had one soul,” He flicks the packet held between your fingers. “And aren’t you the one who says we’re puzzle pieces not halves?”

“You have been listening to me!”

“Hard not to.”

“Asshole.” You flashed your teeth at him.

“Smartass.” He said, but the bite wasn’t there. He was watching you again, in that way he did sometimes before he said something stupid that made you want to throw yourself in the lake or run back to Manhattan or do something equally as stupid, like kiss him. “You–”

You twisted your hand in the front of his shirt and jerked him toward you, the little sachet crinkling in your fist. For a heartbeat, you were both silent, an inch away and staring as if you could will the other to be the one to press forward. But then he closed his eyes and Luke Castellan was kissing you. Like lightning and popping candy. With all the elegance of two lovestruck teenage fools and all the heat of two people who knew they had all the time in the world but still couldn’t bear to waste a second of it. His hand held you by the chin and then splayed lightly across your cheek and tucked hair softly behind your ear. You were only just reaching for the mess of curls at the back of his head when someone wolf whistles.

“My favourite.” Luke grinned, licked his lips and then turned. Hands stuffed in his pockets and a big stupid grin stretched across his face, as he shouted at you, “Stay out of trouble.”

You flip off the Aphrodite kid who’d whistled at you, and hurried back to the Apollo Cabin. You and Luke Castellan were going to need a lot more popping candy. 

You’re in the lake, encased in an air bubble, sprawled out side by side with your backs against the sand, when Luke tells you what he’s done. That mere weeks before your arrival he had done the unthinkable. He had robbed the King of the Gods blind and betrayed half the Pantheon in doing so. You weren't sure whether to laugh or cry.

You had simply laid there, silently, for what had felt like aeons to Luke but maybe that had only been because he had to keep reminding himself not to hold his breath. He wasn’t drowning. You weren’t going to turn him in. He hadn’t just blown his whole plan and his life with his soulmate in one fell swoop. He just had to keep breathing and wait for you to say something. He thinks that maybe your mother had passed on some divine knack for diplomacy as Queen of the Sea with the way you seem to turn the issue of his betrayal over and over in your head. 

After a while, you reach your arm toward the bubble and the sky. For a brief, terrifying moment, Luke thinks you’re going to pull the lake down on him. When you don’t Luke spends another infinite second wondering whether he would just let you do it. 

He tosses the thought aside and focuses on the coin weaving between your knuckles. Like magic, it appears and disappears around the bends of your fingers but it wasn't real magic, just you fidgeting. He pressed his lips together and tried not to think about you at the bottom of the Hudson River, flipping your coin and turning over the issue of your soulmate and your brother and the camp you’d left behind. What is it you had said? You’d had plenty of time to think about those things. 

Maybe that's what you need now – time. He’s about to offer it to you, offer to swim his way back to shore so you can think, even if he'd probably drown on the way. He’d give you all the time in the world if he had it. 

But then you finally speak, the golden drachma rolling between your fingers, “If you hurt my brother, soulmate or not, I will kill you.”

“I am your soulmate.” He insisted as the implication made his skin itch.

“You are.” Your smile was so gentle it almost felt sad. “So you understand that my love for him comes before my hatred of the Gods. If you have put him in danger wit–”

“We get married.” He blurted. “We have a future. I woke you, when you visited me. That must mean I win.”

“It means, if that’s the path we’re even on, if those people are even the versions of us that we become… maybe you don’t hurt Percy.”

“I won’t.” He swore and you weren’t sure how to ignore the half of your soul that lies so sweetly. “I wouldn’t.”

“Maybe.” You swallowed like you’d been chewing glass your whole life, and someone had finally offered you something substantial to sink your teeth into. “Maybe if we leave now, there’s a world in which I don’t have to pick between my blood and my soul.”

Luke was quiet for a long moment, “We could recruit him. You said it yourself, he’ll be more powerful than any of us.”

“He’s twelve.”

“He’s the son of Poseidon.”

“He’s twelve.”

“You were twelve when you left to protect him.”

“And look how that turned out,” Your grin was brittle, but he swore you were still the loveliest creature he’d ever laid eyes on. “I’m sat here planning to betray everything I was raised to follow.”

“You’re going to follow me?”

Your eyes traced the shape of his jaw, his nose, his scar. You looked pained, “I fear I would follow you into much worse, Luke Castellan.”

“I’m trying to lead you to something better.” He reached for your hand, took the drachma from your fingers, and pressed a slow, soft kiss to your palm. He smiled and there were dimples in his cheeks and tears in his eyes as he whispered, “We can try for better.”

“Leave Percy.” You pressed your fingers to his cheek, “Let him come to camp, let him join us when he’s ready.”

“You’re sure he’ll join us?”

“He will, I know it. We just need to let him see the Gods’ apathy for himself.” And you sighed. Luke wondered how many lifetimes your souls had seen, how many times you had searched for each other, how many times you had been torn apart. You sound ancient when you say, “You and I have seen more than enough.”

He turned his head and whispered in the scarce distance between you, “What do you propose?” 

“We leave. As soon as anyone catches on, we take anyone who agrees with us and flee.” You brought his hand to your mouth and pressed your lips to his knuckles firmly, “We can plot your revenge and plan my new world on the way.”

Luke feels ancient when he promises, “Okay, on the way then.”

But he swears, as you lean forward and kiss him, that no matter how many times you do it this lifetime or in all the lifetimes until this story – of you and Luke Castellan – became ancient, it would still never stop feeling like the first time.

Like lightning and popping candy.

Tag List:

@emelia07 @star611 @7s3ven @kissingyourgrl @myxticmoon @shermanno @moonsficrec @soleilgrec

[bunnywritesjunk]

My King

Series summary: Your parents signed you up for an Alpha Omega Match company when you were eighteen. It took years for them to find your match, but you meet the giant austrian man. Will he be a good partner?

Chapter summary: You are settling in to living in a new country. Your Alpha wants to show you how important you are to him.

Pairing: König x Fem Reader

Warnings: A/B/O dynamics (Never use this abbreviation without the slashes it is an indigenous slur) 18+ MDNI (no others for this chapter)

Word count: 3.4k

Genre: Mostly Fluff a little angst here and there.

A/n: Oh my GOD. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I can't believe the amount of love this fic is getting. I just had to write another chapter for you guys asap. I have a taglist so comment if you'd like to join it.

Previous Chapter

Chapter Two:

You sigh as you take in the barren state of your room. All that was left was boxes and your suitcases. Your mom is going to send the rest of your belongings after you arrive in Amsterdam. You were sad to leave your childhood home and your parents but, excited to see what the future holds. Especially now that you have a very sweet Alpha taking care of you. As much as you hate to admit it, your inner Omega has longed for this day. You still couldn't shake the nerves of moving to a completely different country. The AOMO assisted you with your visa which was easy to get approved for. Countries were more lenient with citizenship when it came to obtaining a mate. You haven't seen König in about a week. He went back to Amsterdam to prepare for your arrival. A knock sounded at your door before it opened. 

“You ready?” Your Dad asked, moving to grab your suitcases for you. 

“Yeah.” You followed him out of the room.

Your Mother was standing near the door, her eyes filled with tears that threatened to spill. You went over and hugged her. 

“My baby girl, moving out. I'm gonna miss you.” 

“I'll come visit, don't worry.”

“You better.” Your dad called an Uber to get to the airport.

The drive was silent besides the quiet radio in the background. The airport was busy. This was your first time flying by yourself, you took a deep breath to calm your nerves. You gave your mother and father one last hug before to went to check your bags. Your mother shed a tear and adjusted your protection collar again, urging you to be safe. You bid them goodbye and headed to check your bags and go through security. Once you made it to your gate your phone vibrated. You didn't recognize the number. 

'Hello liebe, It is König. Kara has given me your number.'

'I am not used to texting, I text no one. Are you at the plane?'

Your heart jumped with excitement hearing from him. 

'Hi König, I am at my gate. It boards in about an hour I think.'

'Wonderful, I will be waiting for you when you arrive.' 

'See you then.'

You suppressed a squeal as you put your phone away. Your inner Omega was getting a little out of hand with her feelings about him. You felt like a middle schooler with a crush. You distracted yourself by using the bathroom and buying some expensive airport snacks to tide you over on the ride. It was a seven-hour overnight flight set to arrive at eleven am Netherlands time. Once you boarded the plane you got comfortable for the long flight. You brought a blanket from home and a neck pillow. Kara set you up with a window seat. As you took off you silently said goodbye to the big city and hello to your new future. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You woke as the lights of the plane cabin turned on. The flight attendants told everyone to prepare for landing. You gathered your things and gazed out your window. The city was lush, the leaves were turning slightly as fall rolled in. Your heart pounded against your chest with excitement, your Omega desperately wanted to see König. You still had to go through customs and baggage claim. 

König wasn't much better. Throughout the week he had distracted himself by cleaning and buying things for your arrival, but that did little to quell the Alpha in him. He brought new bedding for your nest. He didn't know what kind you'd like so he got a little bit of everything. Fluffy faux fur blankets, cooling quilts, silk sheets, you name it. He also started putting aside t-shirts he has worn in case you wanted them for your nest. His apartment had two bedrooms, one of which he never used. It had a bed and that was about it. Although he desperately wanted you to sleep in his bed, he knew Omegas needed their space to nest and feel at home. He furnished the room with a desk, nightstand, dresser, and TV. He would leave the decorating up to you as that has never been his strong suit. He waited outside of baggage claim tapping his foot anxiously. He had arrived entirely too early but couldn't stand to sit in his apartment any longer. 

Customs went by smoothly. You scanned the conveyor belts for your luggage. The longer the wait was the more your heart pounded. You were starting to sweat making your scent waft to the people around you. You moved to a corner with fewer people to avoid the annoyed looks people would give you. Your luggage finally made its round in the rotunda and you snatched it as fast as you could. You walked outside to the pickup area the sun blinding you for a moment as you looked around. You inhaled deeply trying to pinpoint König's scent. The faint smell of bread and cinnamon entered your nose through the breeze. You looked to the left seeing a familiar mop of hair behind a black SUV. He was too tall not to be the Alpha you were looking for. You walked up to him his back turned to you. 

“König.” You said happily. 

He turned to you surprised. “You're here.”

König was trying to contain his excitement. His inner alpha pressured him to pick you up, to hold you. As if reading his mind, you hugged him. He wrapped his arms around you, dwarfing you. He bent down resting his nose in your hair, savoring your scent. You looked up at him keeping your arms around his waist. He had his black surgical mask on. 

“I'm so happy to see you.”

“I spent every day thinking of you liebe.” 

He reluctantly released the embrace and opened the passenger side door for you. You sat in the car and watched him load your luggage into the trunk. He slid into the driver's seat glancing at you before pulling off onto the road. His scent sweetened the longer he was in your presence. 

“How was the flight?” He asked.

“It was easy, I just slept.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, I could eat.” 

König reached behind your seat to the back and grabbed a white paper bag. He handed it to you all without taking his eyes off the road. Inside was a croissant and a peach Danish. 

“Oh thank you König. You really know the way to woo me.” You chuckled taking a bite of the Danish. 

He responded with 'hmm' and a content smile. The ride was about thirty minutes. You gazed out the window taking in the sights of your new city. Many people rode bikes and there were endless cafes. König parallel parked onto a quiet residential block. You got out of the car taking in your surroundings. The houses were all unique in color and style. Only one person was walking down the street. König unloaded your bags and put them on the sidewalk. You went to grab them but he shooed your hands away. He locked the car and started walking. The house he led you to was a brick home with a few steps leading to the foyer. He opened the door and let you walk inside first before carrying your bags in with ease. You walked up the two flights of stairs. 

“The door is open.” König said from behind you. 

The second door came into view and you opened the door for him. He sets your bags down and closes the door behind him. The apartment was furnished but bland. Not much decor or color. It was obvious he doesn't spend much time here as it did not look lived in. 

“Come.” He said leading you down the small hallway.

 He opened the first door, it was the bathroom. Quite large for an apartment bathroom, you were excited to use the tub. He then lead you to the second door it was a nice furnished bedroom there were a lot of shopping bags near the bed. 

“This is your room. I brought nesting material for you but, I was not sure what you liked.” 

You walked in. The natural light of the morning flooded into the room through the large windows. The building was high enough that you had a decent view of the neighborhood. 

“König, you didn't have to buy all these for me.” 

“Nonsense.” 

You smiled. “Thank you, Alpha.” 

König's heart thumped against his chest. He didn't expect you to use his title so soon, but he was over the moon.

“You're welcome Omega.” He purred.

Your Omega preened at the title. Although the situation was new, you felt safe and cared for. You started opening some of the bedding to assess them for your new nest. There was a large dark blue comforter with matching silk sheets. You knew you should focus on unpacking but the temptation to build your nest was too high. König watched you from the door with adoration. He was proud of himself for making his Omega feel happy and safe. He brought your luggage into your room to unpack whenever you were ready. 

You were completely engrossed in your nest you didn't realize König was watching you. You took off your shoes and jacket and started arranging the sheets first to have a silky base. Then you used the quilts as a border before you could arrange it properly your phone started ringing, taking you out of the daze you were in. You reached for your phone in your jacket pocket. It was your mom. 

“Mom it's so early there you didn't have to call now.” 

“I know sweetie I just was paranoid. Did you arrive safe?” 

“I did, I'm at König's now.” 

“Oh, great ok that's all I was worried about. I'm gonna head back to sleep. I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you too Mom”

You hung up the phone and looked around at the mess of packaging on the floor. You were debating whether you should continue making your nest or clean your mess up. Sensing your internal struggle König spoke. 

“Let's unpack Schatz.”

“Oh, right.” 

You unzipped your suitcases and started sorting things into the dresser and closet. You instructed König to put your toiletries in the bathroom and put your clothes in certain drawers. He was happy to help, spending time with his Omega was the most important thing to him. König was given a little over three months' leave to settle with his Omega. After Christmas, he had to go back on missions. The thought made his heart ache. He shook off the negative feelings before she could pick up on anything, not wanting her to worry. König picked up the packaging placing it in one of the shopping bags. He went to the kitchen to throw it away. 

Now that he was here he did not know what to do. Does he give her space? Should he take her out? König wants to spend as much time as possible with her, but he did not want to be overbearing. Before he could overthink, he heard you calling him. Walking into your room he saw you kneeling on the bed. 

“Take off your shoes and come I want to test something.” You said. 

He obliged, taking his shoes off. You waved him over to your unfinished nest. He stepped up to you hesitantly not wanting to cross any boundaries with your nest. You grabbed his hand and made him lie down. König stiffened not wanting to ruin anything. He has never been invited into an Omega's nest before. You started arranging your nesting materials around him. Once you got a good sense of how many blankets you needed for both of you to be comfy, you released him. He sat up carefully trying not to disturb anything that you arranged. He was honored that you'd feel comfortable just being in the room while you created your space. 

While making your nest you noticed how barren the room was. You wanted it to be warm and cozy. You looked up at König. 

“Let's go shopping, Alpha. Can we?” 

“Sure, liebe.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

König was surprised you had so much energy after your night of travel. You took in the scenery of the local shops. You slipped your hand into Konigs and led him into a home decor shop. König let himself be dragged around as you browsed. Every shop they went into you picked up small things. A wall mirror, a pretty tapestry, a cute frog statue, you had to have it. One of the shops you walked into sold Omega protection collars. You sighed.

“I wouldn't mind wearing mine as much if it looked better.” 

The shop made custom-fit metal collars. There was a beautiful gold metal collar with a dangle charm in the center. It came down to a point near the clavicle. Contrary to your basic black leather one. 

“Would you like this one?” König asked. 

“Oh, no it's expensive.” 

You moved to walk out of the shop but you felt a hand on your waist stop you. König pulled you back to him gently and waved over the sales associate. 

“Can she try this one on?” The worker nodded and took the collar out of the case. 

You removed your collar with the key you kept in your wallet and let the worker place the gold one on you. You looked in the mirror and smiled. It complimented you in the best way, simple yet elegant. The worker explained that they do custom fittings that take a few days to make but it's worth it. You removed the collar and handed it back. 

“She would like to get fitted.” König said suddenly. 

“What? No König really it's too much.”

“Just in case.”

“In case what?” 

He didn't answer. The worker did a few measurements around your neck and the size and placement of your scent glands, writing them down on a form. After they were done they bid the both of you goodbye and looked forward to your order. 

“I don't think I'm gonna get it.” You told König.

“It's too much...” You added

“That's ok.” He said. 

He placed his arm around your waist as you walked, holding your shopping bags in the other hand. You had a feeling he was planning something but you let it go for the time being. 

By the time you got home, it was getting dark. König placed your shopping bags into your room. You yawned. 

“You should sleep liebe, you've had a busy day.” König said. 

“Yeah, I'll head to bed early so I can finish my nest.” You stretched your back and walked to your room. König followed behind you heading to his room. He grabbed your wrist spinning you back toward him. His other hand caressed your cheek while leaning down to your level. He pulled down his mask revealing his plump lips.

“Goodnight Omega.” He kissed your cheek. 

König felt it was only right to return the kiss you gave him before. He let the kiss linger for a few seconds before pulling away. Heat crept from your neck to your cheeks. König walked to his room smiling to himself. You leaned against your door, heart racing. You opened the door, your inner Omega was reeling from your Alpha's attention. Your alpha? You were completely smitten by the giant Apex. You closed the door, changed into pajamas, and jumped into your nest. You sighed into the pillows, fantasizing about your Alpha. You began adjusting your nest to your liking. It ended up taking you an hour to make it perfect, keeping in mind the space for König. You'd never made a nest with someone else in mind but it was nice. You got cozy and let sleep take over. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Light entered your room slowly waking you. You looked at your phone, it was 6:04 am. You sat up and stretched, happy that you beat the jetlag. Wondering if König was awake, you quietly stepped out of your room and down the hallway to his room. You knocked gently. König was a light sleeper. He heard your small footsteps before you knocked and went to open the door. He looked down at your face still flushed with sleep. 

“Good morning.” You said, absentmindedly rubbing your eyes. 

König purred deeply. You looked so cute in your PJs he wanted to pull you into his bed., for more than just cuddling. He leaned down and kissed your forehead. 

“Morning Schatz.” He guided you down the hallway to the kitchen. 

“I can make us pancakes for breakfast.” You suggested.

“Sounds wonderful.” 

König watched you flit around the kitchen. The kitchen was barely used because of his job, so it was nice seeing it get used. Your head snapped to the alpha when you realized he was watching you. 

“Go sit, I'll bring it to you.” 

König nodded and sat on the couch. He turned on the TV as he waited and listened to the kitchen utensils clanging in the background. A few minutes later you emerged with a plate for him topped with syrup. He took the plate and looked at the food quizzically. 

“What's wrong?” you asked. 

“These...are pancakes?” He analyzed the fluffy discs.

“Yeah, are pancakes different here?” He nodded.

“I'll try them.” He carved out a bite with his fork. You watched him intensely. 

“How is it?” 

“...Sweet, but good.” He said. 

You smiled and went to get yourself a plate. You plopped down next to him on the couch and you took a bite. You watched the random movie he put on as you ate, feeling perfectly content with your Alpha.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later, you were on the couch typing away on your laptop working on your next chapter. König was struggling to find something to do with himself. He wanted to give you space to write, but desperately wanted to spend time with you. He understood that your job was time sensitive. He was lucky to have you here at all. You heard König pacing behind you causing you to lose your concentration. You got up and went to your room. You rummaged through your suitcase, finding a copy of your fantasy novel. You walked up to König and handed him the book before returning to your spot on the couch. He appeared next to you on the couch glancing over the blurb. 

“I thought I had to buy a copy?” He said. 

“Well, you need something to do.” You chuckled. 

You two fell into a comfortable silence with König's mind now occupied. After a while, you glanced at the Alpha. He was engrossed in the pages well into the starting plot. 

“How is it so far?” 

“So good Schatz. I have not read a novel in a long time, I like it.”

“I'm glad.”

König bent the corner of the page he was on and closed the book. You nearly felt your heart jumped out of your chest.

“Ah! König!!!” You grabbed the book and attempted to straighten the corner out.

“This is a book sin!” You exclaimed.

“Oh? But I have no bookmark.” He gave you an amused look. 

“Ok just ask for one I have many!” You pouted.

“The book isn't hurt.”

“How do you know?” 

König laughed. It was so genuine and hearty that you almost forgot what you were upset about. You turned away and set the book page-side down. König's laughter died down and he looked at you. 

“You're adorable, Schatz.”

“Hmph.” You said. 

König reached around cupping your cheek. You turned to him. It was surprising to see his face a couple of inches away from yours. His eyes were soft as they gazed into yours, he looked down at your lips before capturing yours in a chaste kiss. Your eyes fluttered closed, leaning into the kiss. Your bottom lip slotted in between his in the most delicious way. He pulled away, resting his forehead on yours. You wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him again. One of his hands slithered around your waist pulling you flush against his torso. The other hand firmly gripped the side of your jaw. 

Your heart pounded so loud you swear he could hear it.

König smiled against your lips. He finally had his Omega. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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@that-fangirl-1106 @itsryuken @y2katsuki

[creepswrites]

MASK OF HATE | Michael x Reader

a long awaited rewrite of my favorite fanfic i've written... i've come far since my first time writing it and i'm so so happy to be able to recreate my pride and joy!! if you want to see the original, here it is! but i'm thrilled to rewrite it and i hope you all like it :)

MICHAEL MYERS X FTM!READER (he/him)

SUMMARY: The jumpsuit he wore made you think that maybe there'd been an accident with a car or something? You weren't sure. It wasn't likely he'd gotten himself out this far with a wound that bad but you couldn't really think straight to work out logistics. A man was injured and he needed help and that's all you could focus on at the moment.

WARNING: graphic depictions of violence & injuries

NEXT

The smell of wet earth enveloped you as you made your way back home. The earlier afternoon rain had let up long enough for you to walk home from work, a long day spent at the farmers market and plant nursery. It was rewarding work and one of the few jobs you'd actually wanted to be hired at. Your family had moved here a few years ago and you'd fallen in love with the town instantly. You and your father lived on the edge of town, more in the woods than the city itself, but not too far that you had to go out of your way to go to work. Even after you graduated, you still hadn't moved out. Why would you? You helped pay rent, shopped for groceries, and could tend to your garden.

It was, as far as you were concerned, the perfect location. A lovely little house surrounded by trees and bushes of flowers, overgrown with vines, and a stepping stone path that led to the front door. The house itself was covered in a dark brick with the inside a beautiful white with dark wooden floors that smelt of books and fresh fruits and vegetables. And sometimes the smell of rain leaked in when you left the windows open.

So no, you had no intention of moving.

Today was one of those days where you'd get the house to yourself. As the current chief of police, your dad was known for working late nights and leaving you to your own devices for a few days. With Halloween coming up, the police were on edge. Rumors were circling in the station that Michael had escaped again but couldn't confirm yet. They were avoiding telling the public until they were sure.

You always enjoyed walking home more than you enjoyed driving. It gave you a chance to think while enjoying music in your headphones, hopping along to the beat. You were weighing your options for dinner in your mind as you got closer to home when you felt a sense of wrongness wash over you. When your song came to an end, you lowered your headphones to hang around your neck as you scanned the nearby area with scrutiny.

The smell of iron reached you in a soft breeze that brushed your clothes and skin. Coyotes weren't unheard of but you didn't exactly have a way to defend yourself if they got any closer. Not to mention there was the chance your cat had gotten out.

You picked up the pace, grimacing when the smell grew stronger and stronger. Had your head not been on a swivel, you would have missed the way the bushes shook. You froze, swallowing hard as a man stumbled out of the treeline and onto the paved street towards you. He was tall, dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit and a white Halloween mask that rang a bell in the dark recesses of your mind. But you were too prioritized by the gunshot wound in his side that bled copiously, staining the jumpsuit in dark blotches.

"Are you okay?" You gasped, watching the man stumble for balance. He just made a grunting sound so you rushed forward to catch him by the shoulders. "Oh fuck, okay, uh, I might have a first aid kit at home. It's not far, c'mon." You said, trying not to panic. God knows how this dude was even standing with how much blood he'd already lost. But you slung his arm around your shoulders to practically drag him along. He was silent, which unsettled you slightly, but you didn't have the time to be unsettled. This man was possibly dying and that was far more important to you.

Did you need to talk to him to keep him awake? You were worried that if he did collapse on you, you wouldn't be able to move him. "How'd you even get an injury like that?" You tried, jostling him a little. The size difference was glaringly apparent like this but you did your best to move him. "You're lucky I live near here. Don't want to imagine you bleeding to death out here in the woods alone."

The jumpsuit he wore made you think that maybe there'd been an accident with a car or something? You weren't sure. It wasn't likely he'd gotten himself out this far with a wound that bad but you couldn't really think straight to work out logistics. A man was injured and he needed help and that's all you could focus on at the moment.

The walk home felt like hours but you finally pulled him up to the back door, kicked the rickety old screen door open with your foot, and practically dropped the man on the floor against the counters. No way were you carrying him up the stairs, especially not when he could track blood all over the carpet. You threw your bags aside and ran upstairs to the bathroom, hurrying past your cat Mayhem who cried in hunger. "Later." You said quietly as you began rifling through the cabinet under the sink. "I should clean this out later."

First aid kit in hand, you tore down the stairs again and came to a stop in the awning of the kitchen. The man was slumped over where you'd left him and you took the brief moment to get a better look at him. Dirty, brown work boots that were covered in grass stains and wet mud had left a small trail of dirt alongside the blood drops. The jumpsuit was mostly clean except for what looked like oil stains and the blood on his side. As you approached him, you noticed blood staining his sleeves in streaks too. Odd. You made a mental note to check his arms when you were done.

You knelt down in front of him, close enough that you could hear his frantic breathing. Like he was attempting to stay awake. "Can you tell me what happened?" You asked softly, clicking open the first aid kit and reaching for the zipper of his jumpsuit. When he flinched away, you froze. "I'll need to unzip you in order to take care of your wound."

He stared at you. Or you assumed he did. The black voids of the eyeholes left much to be desired.

"Just give me a nod." You sighed.

A moment passed but he finally nodded. A small little motion that you would've missed if you hadn't been looking. You gave him a little smile and unzipped the jumpsuit to his waist, careful to avoid brushing against the wound as much as possible. The black tank top underneath had ridden up slightly which made your cheeks warm. Stuffing that down, you helped him carefully shrug his sleeves down so you could better see the damage.

It was hard to see what had happened with how much blood covered his skin. So you reached into the kit, using one of the little sanitizing wipes on your hands before grabbing the disposable gloves. "Okay, uh, I'm not exactly a doctor so just let me know if the pain is too much, okay?" You gave him a nervous smile before hiking the tank top up more around his chest to let you wipe down the skin with a clean wet wipe.

The amount of blood was almost ridiculous. But you were eventually able to make out what was undeniably a gunshot wound. "Who the hell shot at you?" You mumbled more to yourself than to him. But he still gave you a tilt of his head as though answering. "At least the bullet went all the way through," You sighed, looking between him and your supplies as you tried to figure out what to do. "Okay. Let's… see what I can do."

You didn't know anything about gunshot wounds, much less how to clean them. But you'd helped patch your dad up when he stuck himself with a fishing hook so you figured it couldn't be that much more difficult. Anything was better than letting it get infected. "Sorry," you said softly before giving his hand a squeeze, "This is gonna suck."

And you poured the hydrogen peroxide on both ends of the wound, wincing at the pained grunt he let out. You kept apologizing as you fumbled around for the needle and thread, also dousing that in the peroxide before you tried to stitch him up. Sewing had never been a skill of yours but it was the best you could offer him. At least until you could get him to a hospital. You pressed gauze at either end of the wound before wrapping him tightly in bandages. "I think the wound is supposed to drain? I think I remember hearing stuff about that. We'll have to keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't get infected." You tried to give him a reassuring smile and sat back to view your handiwork. It was probably sloppy, yeah, but at least it was cleaned and covered.

It could've been much worse.

"Can you pass me one of the wipes?" You asked, holding up your bloodstained hands and giving him a toothy grin. "I don't wanna stain everything with blood."

He offered you a blank stare before reaching slowly into the kit and handing you one of the little packages. You tore it open and got to scrubbing. "I'd give you a sucker for being a good patient if I had any. Would you take dinner and a shower instead?" You scooted back to clean up more, letting him stand on shaking legs. "My dad shouldn't be back till late. But he should be able to drive you to a hospital once I explain-"

At that, he shook his head violently no. "No, what?" You paused, brow furrowing. "No hospital?" He gave you a nod. "I'm not exactly a doctor. Your injury probably needs more than my below average sewing skills and half a bottle of peroxide." But still, he shook his head. "Fine. Okay. No hospital." You sighed loudly, giving him a quick once-over. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

He tried to pull away but you finally saw it: a spot on his opposite shoulder where he'd been just grazed by a bullet. More a flesh wound than anything, but you'd missed it in your stitching him up. "Alright, c'mere mister," your tone was light as you raided the kit for more gauze and bandages. "Got anything else you're hiding from me?" You gave him a playful smile as you wrapped and cleaned his wound. "It doesn't look too bad. I'm way more worried about the gunshot wound." You trailed off. "I wasn't kidding about dinner and a shower though. My dad's got clothes I bet could fit you. Though the pants may be a bit short." He gave you a calculating look as you shrugged. "At least until I get your jumpsuit washed."

The two of you just stared at each other for a while. His head tilted slowly in confusion and you couldn't help but snort. "What, you think I'll just patch you up and throw you out? Not a chance. C'mon," you took his hand and led him towards the stairs. Mayhem had ventured downstairs and began to sniff you both over, hissing at your guest despite your soft scolding.

Once inside the bathroom, you tossed the first aid kit back in as the man took a look around the small space. White tiled floors and faint, floral wallpaper framed a huge mirror, spanning the distance of the smooth countertops. You pride yourself on keeping the bathroom clean, so you only winced slightly at the dirt on the work boots that left a small trail of dirt behind. "I'll get you some clothes if you want to get undressed. I don't mind washing your clothes for you." You gave him a smile, sidestepping him to slip back out into the hall. "A shower might help you feel better. Just try to avoid getting your bandages too wet."

You left him in the bathroom and slipped down the hallway to your dad's room. A rifling through his dresser earned you some plain sweatpants and an old, black shirt you knew he wouldn't miss. Worst case scenario, your guest bled all over the shirt and you'd have to throw it out.

Heading back towards the bathroom, a realization came to you. "Hey, I'm sorry, I don't think I introduced mys-" You froze in the doorway, words dying on your lips. The man had his back to you and had shrugged the jumpsuit off the rest of the way, his boots laying near the doorway by your feet and the blue material like a puddle around his ankles. His shoulders were broad and you could make out tiny scars that littered his forearms and shoulders. His mask had remained but that wasn't what surprised you.

He didn't have underwear on.

Your face felt like it was on fire as you slammed fresh clothes down on the counter, pointedly not looking at him. "Alright, here's your clothes, bye!" It felt like your words slurred together as you slammed the door behind you, leaning against it with an embarrassed sigh.

Once you heard the water turn on, you went downstairs to clean up the kitchen floor, grateful the blood hadn't dried too much yet.

Mayhem, having decided you'd spent long enough fussing over your guest, began to complain and shout for his dinner. "Alright, you needy thing, c'mere." You scooped him up and pressed a kiss to his fuzzy head. "Let's get you fed and then see about feeding our guest, yeah?"

Mayhem meowed, as though enthused only about the coming tuna.

The man took his time showering but you didn't really mind. He certainly needed it. Plus, you could empathize there - showers always made you feel much better too. In the meantime, you'd snuck back upstairs to grab his clothes and toss them into the washing machine. When you'd gotten a good look at his clothes, you recognized the auto mechanic company logo on the jumpsuit. "L. Smith?" You'd wondered aloud, frowning to yourself. "Pretty sure I'd tutored his kids when I was a junior…" But he didn't look anything like Lawrence Smith. "Maybe it's just a common name," you had mumbled. Something about this whole situation felt off but you couldn't exactly place why.

You shook your head slightly and sighed, trying to dismiss a nagging feeling you had in the back of your mind. Sparing a glance down at Mayhem, who brushed against your leg insistently, you frowned. "You don't think this is Michael Myers, right?"

Big yellow eyes blinked up at you and you sighed, chewing on your lower lip. Not much about the Myers case was made public beyond his crimes and his mugshot. Your dad had refused to divulge anything to you about the case and you'd only managed a quick peek at crime scene photos. Nothing about the way the man had been dressed or anything like that. Besides, it had been so long since that night that any details you could have seen have been lost to time.

"Impossible." You decided with a shaking sigh as you opened the can of tuna, not even believing your own words despite their conviction. "There's simply no way."

The sound of thunder outside was a welcome distraction from your thoughts. The rain had always been peaceful to you, the smell of wet earth and the chill breeze from the window had you relaxing. You smiled, whistling for Mayhem to come get his dinner and slipped past your hungry cat into the kitchen once again.

Cutting the vegetables and boiling pasta was peaceful, a wonderfully monotonous task you could just get lost in with the soft white noise of the rain. You would have missed the sounds of the shower turning off if you'd been any more zoned out. You had just taken the tomatoes out to cut them up when you heard heavy footsteps behind you.

You glanced over your shoulder and took him in. The sweatpants had stopped just above his ankles, which you had expected. What you hadn't expected was the way his broad chest filled out the shirt, struggling to hug around his biceps. You turned back around to hide your swooning, biting your lip hard to keep yourself from smiling like a fool. He'd put the mask back on but you couldn't even bother to give it a thought.

Swallowing, you cleared your throat. "Are the bandages alright?" You asked, turning your attention back to the tomatoes. He didn't say anything but, then again, you hadn't really expected him to. "Pasta's boiling right now so dinner should be ready in a few minutes if you want to sit down." You gestured to the nearby dining room table with only a few chairs pulled up. But you didn't hear him move. The feeling of eyes on the back of your neck made you tense for a moment but you brushed it off. If he needed something, he'd let you know, right?

As you reached for a knife, his hand shot out and covered yours. You weren't even aware he'd gotten that close and you jumped in surprise. The eyeholes of the mask bore into you as you turned to look at him once again. "Do you… want to help?"

He just tilted his head, as though bewildered by your offer.

You move your hand aside to let him grab the knife, stepping to the side to give him room at the cutting board. "You just have to make them into small chunks. Try and get them around the same size, I'll get the garlic going." You hummed, your fingertips barely grazing the extra knife before he grabbed your wrist tight, jerking your hand back. A surprised yelp left you as you stared wide-eyed up at him, noticing the way he white knuckled his own knife.

Something about this was very wrong.

Swallowing back your terror, you held eye contact with him, the two of you locked in a standstill. The room was silent except for his heavy breathing, barely audible over the pounding storm outside. Soft bluish grey light cast shadows on his face, making the eyes of the mask seem like bottomless pits. Everything felt frozen in time as the two of you stared at each other.

You were the one who broke the tension, reaching over with your free hand to uncurl his fingers from your wrist as casually as you could. Anxiety pounded through you when you heard his breathing hitch. "Don't worry," you gave him a weak smile once you were freed, "I have every confidence in you." You said, giving a weak gesture to the tomatoes laying on the cutting board. You slowly moved towards the stove to set about roasting the garlic cloves, trying to appear as calm as possible while he continued to stare you down.

You only let your shoulders drop when you heard him start slicing.

Making the rest of dinner didn't take long, especially with your guest's help. He seemed unwilling to leave you alone now, hovering around you as you finished cooking and plating dinner - pasta with garlic sauce and dried tomatoes - and only retreated to the living room when you'd reassured that you were right behind him. He took a seat on the couch and you caught him staring at Mayhem comfortably sprawled out on his favorite chair.

"His name is Mayhem," you told him as you sat beside him, setting two water glasses down before digging in. "He won't bug you, he knows he's not allowed on the couch."

The man's head turned slowly to look at you, letting you get a brief sight of one of his eyes: a blue-green color that looked almost hazel in the darkness of the mask. You held in a soft gasp and turned away, trying to push the idea that the man was pretty from your mind. You hadn't even seen his face for crying out loud! Much less gotten his name.

Instead, you just clicked the television on. "Anything in particular you wanna see?" You asked around a mouthful of food. "We've got movies too but I dunno if you like horror." You hummed, setting your plate down briefly to shuffle over to the drawers in the tv stand, leafing through VHS tapes. "It's almost Halloween though," you smirked, "But, judging by your mask, you knew that."

His eyes were boring holes into you again but you just chuckled to yourself. While you pride yourself on being good at reading body language, his ramrod straight posture and silent staring was like gazing at a white canvas. But maybe that's one of the reasons you liked him so much: he wasn't complicated to understand, when he needed to be heard.

You pulled out a particular VHS and flashed it to him. "Do you like cartoons?" You asked, dangling 'It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown' for him to see.

He nodded then - so clear and obvious that you didn't waste any time popping the tape in and sitting back down alongside him. You kept your eyes glued to the screen as you ate, hoping that would be enough privacy for him to comfortably eat. He'd have to give you his name later, at the very least, but you felt the urge to give him some semblance of privacy as he ate. So you kept your eyes off him and the two of you ate in amicable silence, both your attentions rapt on the little cartoon. He ate like he was starving for it and practically chugged the glass of water when he was done, which made your heart hurt a little.

How long had this guy gone without eating or drinking anything?

"There's more in the pot if you want. Help yourself." You said softly, bumping his knee gently with yours to get his attention. He'd tensed up slightly at the contact and you momentarily scolded yourself for that. He was clearly not good with touch, but it had just felt natural to do for him.

But he didn't seem to hold it against you and just stood up, retreating into the kitchen with his plate. You watched him with a slight smile on your face. He was, no doubt, intriguing. His mysteries had you utterly fascinated and there was so much you wanted to ask. But a part of you feared the answers, paranoid your suspicions would be proven correct.

He would have killed you if that were the case, right?

The two of you continued watching movies once you'd learnt he hadn't, in fact, seen most horror films. "Well obviously I'm going to show you 'The Thing,'" you'd said as Charlie Brown came to an end. "It's one of my favorites, I think you'll like it." His staring didn't bother you anymore so you took his silence as agreement when the movie began playing. The night continued like that, the two of you watching movies together. Horror films seemed to intrigue him and you swore he jumped a little at some of the visceral body horror moments. But the two of you had cozied up just a little. He'd finally sunken back into the couch and had tolerated you scooting closer to him.

You were halfway through Frankenstein when you heard the phone ring in the kitchen. "Be right back," you whispered to him, feeling his eyes on you as you walked away. A quick glance at the clock revealed it was nearly midnight and you frowned. Your dad should've been home by now and your guest didn't seem in any hurry to go home. Didn't he have somewhere to go?

Regardless, you stepped into the kitchen on socked feet and plucked the phone off the receiver. "Hello?

"Kiddo? Oh thank god you're alright!" Your dads voice sounded monetarily relieved, letting out a sigh as he spoke. "You should've called me after you saw the news." He said, once again becoming frantic. "Lock all the doors, keep Mayhem inside tonight, and-"

"Calm down," you cut him off, "What's going on? I haven't even seen the news, I've been watching movies with-"

Your dad wasted no time cutting you off as well. "Just stay inside, okay? Keep your eyes on the news and just- just stay safe. My pistol is in my room in the bedside table if you need it."

A sinking dread began to settle in the pit of your stomach as you twirled the phone cord. "Just tell me what's going on!" You became equally frantic, running your hand through your hair in frustration.

He was silent for a moment before sighing. "Look, I'm not supposed to tell you. This is strictly police business. But the last thing I want is you digging into this yourself-"

"That was one time-!" You protested.

But he ignored you. "There's a killer on the loose." His words were like a gunshot to your chest. "We nearly caught him this afternoon but he managed to escape. We're- we're not sure where he'd gotten off to so I want you to stay inside and call me if you hear or- or see anything strange."

A lapse of silence passed and you can tell your dad was about to hang up but you quickly squeaked out. "What's his name?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you." His voice had a finality to it. He didn't plan on telling you.

You knew how to play him though. You faked a sniffle and a sob. "Dad, please, I- I need to know what I'm up against! W-what if he gets inside?"

Despite his voice being barely a whisper, it was deafening to you. "Michael Myers."

Instantly, you sobered up. Your fears were confirmed and you felt your blood run cold. Michael Myers was sitting in your living room in your dads clothes after you'd had dinner together. He'd been fascinated by Charlie Brown and had jumped a little at the chest defibrillation scene in The Thing. The Boogeyman of Haddonfield had helped you cut tomatoes and let you tend to his wounds.

You were still alive. As terrifying as this revelation was, you were curious why he hadn't killed you. You didn't know Michael Myers to be very forgiving or benevolent…

Wrapping up the call with your dad, you practically slammed the phone back into the receiver, your back still to the living room. You steadied your resolve and forced your hands to still when you turned back around. You nearly slammed into him when you did. He'd been eavesdropping and the idea that his mercifulness would end made you talk before he could move. "Seems we're locked in tonight." You managed a smile and a shrug. "Dad says it's too dangerous to go out tonight so at least it'll just be us two. If you want, I can set you up on the couch to sleep when you're ready."

He continued to stare at you and you swore he almost seemed…surprised.

You sidestepped him to head back into the living room and he let you, though he was hot on your heels. "Means you and I get more movie time though." Grinning up at him, you sat back down with a soft "oomf" and looked up at him expectantly. If you just acted like everything was fine, maybe he wouldn't kill you?

It seemed as good an idea as any.

Eventually he rejoined you on the couch after staring at you for a few good minutes.

You knew. And you had a feeling he knew that you knew. But what could you even do? It wasn't like you stood a chance against him if he decided to attack you. In fact, a part of you felt almost guilty for withholding your newfound information from him. He was literally a serial killer and you didn't want to make him think you were against him.

Which bewildered you. Why would you feel bad? You knew, logically, you should call your dad back and tell him Michael was here and let him and the rest of the force come try and catch Michael before he ran you through with a knife.

He'd extended trust to you though. You recognized that. You didn't want to betray that, especially since you didn't know who the last person he trusted could have been.

As the movie came to an end, you decided to take a risk. "Want me to make popcorn, Michael?" You kept your tone light and casual as you stood and stretched.

You didn't even get two steps in before he was up, grabbing your wrist tight and spinning you to face him. You kept your smile light and tilted your head the way he liked doing. "I think I have M&Ms if you want me to mix those in too." He continued to stare and you finally sighed. "I already knew. I, uh, had my suspicions before we made dinner. But dad called and confirmed it, basically." His grip tightened but you brushed it off. "I'm not going to tell anyone." You finally admitted.

His posture remained rigid, like he expected a fight. You felt your heart break a little. Has he ever had anyone be kind to him ever since that night? "Do you know about doctor-patient confidentiality?" His blank stare was an answer in itself. "When a doctor treats a patient, that patient has the right to keep their information private. Including their name." You placed your free hand atop his in what you hoped was a comforting gesture. "So, since you're technically my patient, I don't have to tell anyone anything." He still seemed confused and you just let out a soft sigh. "I'm not gonna rat on you, is what I'm saying."

He seemed to consider this before giving you a slow nod.

A part of you was relieved. A fair trade, you thought as you went into the kitchen to make popcorn. You patched him up and fed him and, in exchange, he didn't kill you.

The two of you wound up watching movies late into the night, with you adding soft commentary as you munched on popcorn and M&Ms. By 2AM you were fading, your head lolling to the side and bumping against Michael's shoulder in your attempts to fight off sleep. He was warm and, despite knowing who he was, you felt safe.

So you'd nodded off.

The next time you opened your eyes, you were being shaken awake by your father. "Get up," he whisper-yelled as he turned off the tv, a quick flash of the movie menu disappearing as soon as you saw it. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

You hummed, yawning and rubbing your eyes. "Early." A glance at the clock confirmed it was nearly 6AM. "Sorry, guess I was up watchin' movies." You sat up and looked around a little before your sleep-addled brain immediately recalled that Michael Myers had been sitting on your couch last night and you looked around.

As your dad herded you upstairs and past the kitchen, you noticed Michael's boots were gone. The dishes had been left atop the table but yours had been placed in the sink as though to hide the fact there had been two people here. Once of the knives from the block was missing too, but that didn't surprise you.

If your dad's weary expression was anything to go by, Michael had escaped before he'd gotten home. "'m headin' to bed," he grumbled, "You should too." He said before shuffling into his bedroom, closing the door with more force than intended. You nodded to empty air before retreating into your bedroom, noticing Mayhem lazily dozing on top of your messy bedsheets.

Your bedroom was dim and cool, the morning light just starting to shift the pitch black sky into a dark tealish blue color. Raindrops still covered the window, indicative of the storm that must be still going. You frowned and went to close your curtains to avoid being blinded by the sun once it rose but you paused just before you could yank the fabric closed.

There, across the street, only visible thanks to the streetlight he stood under, you could see Michael Myers staring up at you.

Dumbfounded, you smiled and gave him a little wave, swaying on your feet as you tried not to swoon. You wanted to believe he wouldn't hurt you, seeing as he had ample opportunity to do so and had instead laid you gently down on the couch to sleep when he'd decided to leave. But the realistic part of your brain reminded you, as you closed your blackout curtains, that it should be more concerning that you'd become a fixation of his.

You'd heard of Laurie Strode and how she was assumedly his previous fixation, seeing as he'd stalked her for a while before deciding to take action against her friends. She'd been terrified of him for years and continued to lock herself in her house for the past two years to protect herself against him. Despite her fear of him, she'd yet to move out of Haddonfield.

There wasn't any point in trying to figure her out though. She was of no help to you. You couldn't tell anyone about what was going on or risk yourself or Michael.

You were far too tired to think about any of that for now and just flopped down into bed, freezing when your hands brushed an unfamiliar texture. After scrambling around under your stomach, you held up Michael's tank top. He must have left it for you when he'd gone to change into his jumpsuit. You felt your face heat up at the implications of him leaving his shirt for you, opting instead to shove it under your pillow with your cheeks burning.

The memories of him in the tshirt filled your head as you fell back asleep.

Crunching dry, brittle leaves beneath your boots, you made your way into town for work. You always liked the walk, especially with how beautiful Haddonfield got in the fall. A gorgeous watercolor painting of oranges, browns, and reds, touches of yellow and green giving pops of color. Despite the tragedies that had happened two years ago, Halloween decorations were still up in full swing, the town determined to celebrate no matter what. There was even a small festival at the farm nearby, complete with haunted houses, hayrides, and pumpkin patches. Halloween spirit was everywhere and you loved it. It'd always been your favorite holiday, even before a certain man fell into your life.

As you approached the plant nursery you worked at, you mulled that over. The police hadn't caught Michael yet but were working round the clock. And although you hadn't seen him in person since he'd stayed over a few days ago, you'd seen glimpses of him. Enough to know he was definitely stalking you. While you should logically feel afraid, you instead felt… oddly comforted.

You stopped beating yourself up over why. You knew why. Michael Myers was the most dangerous person alive and he was looking out for you, in a way. You felt safe with him watching you. So you played the game and pretended not to see him. It was easier to play along anyways and, as far as you knew, he hadn't killed anyone since he found you. No one your dad talked about at least.

So you'd been spending more time in town or out in the woods, hoping that entertaining him would keep him from killing. At least, you hoped so.

It didn't help that you still found yourself fascinated by him.

You'd stopped beating yourself up for that too. Most people you knew were predictable, bland, or boring. They had routines and patterns that were easy to predict. But Michael wasn't like that. You never knew what he was thinking or how he'd behave. He was interesting, unique, and unpredictable.

You liked that. Maybe that was sick or twisted of you, but it was true.

"Helloooo?" Your co-worker's soft voice pulls you from your thoughts. "Did those blackberries do something to you?" Kalei snorted, nudging you gently. "You've been staring at them for, like, ten minutes now."

You responded with a yawn, rubbing your eyes. Despite having only been at work for a few hours, you were ready for it to be over. "Sorry, jus' haven't been sleepin' well." You slurred as you tried to give her a smile.

"Bad dreams?" Kalei asked, frowning slightly as she set her own blackberry plant aside. Working at the plant nursery had been your idea, more interested in working with plants than people. But Kalei was a good friend and always looked out for you. It was nice to have company while taking care of the plants.

You chewed on your fingernail and gave her a little shrug. "Just been… thinking about a guy, I guess."

They let out a shocked gasp. "A GUY?!" Kalei squealed, ignoring your desperate attempts to shush them. "Tell me everything RIGHT NOW, oh my god!" 

You blushed, trying to get them to quiet down, flustered at the idea of Michael listening in. "It's not anything serious! Just, um, met this guy and he's… interesting. I like him." You blushed at the childishness of your own words, focusing on your plants to avoid meeting Kalei's eyes.

They gave you a nod. "Well, as your workplace bestie, I am obligated to give him The Talk."

You chose to not mention the fact there were only five total employees counting you both. "Kay, it's Illinois. I doubt he'd be interested in me, available or not." Which wasn't untrue. Even if Michael was interested in you, it likely wasn't anything beyond obsession. At least the obsession went both ways, you thought to yourself with a private smile.

"Well, regardless, I have a duty to fulfill." They beamed at you, hands on their hips. "You're a cute guy and, if I didn't have a partner, I'd take you out sometime." They ignored your snort and continued. "If this guy screws you over, I'll kick his ass for you."

If only they knew, you chuckled to yourself as you left Kalei to attend to a customer. Michael wasn't exactly great "bring-home-to-the-parents" boyfriend material. Much less introduce to your co-worker. When you'd finished helping the customer, you froze at the sight of movement in the tree line across the road. Standing in the tall grass and brush, you swore you saw Michael standing there…

As far as you were aware, he stayed close by to watch as you finished your shift. You hoped that as long as he was watching you, he wasn't out killing someone. Hopefully. For all you knew, he could be supernatural.

But you'd let him watch you. The whole rest of your shift, the walk home, and as you got in the car to go shopping. While you usually got vegetables and fruits from the plants at your work, you still needed to get normal groceries at the store. So you parked around back to be a little more secluded and went inside.

It was a cute little supermarket, clean linoleum floors and shelves lined with food. You didn't need much but you definitely needed to refill your medkit and find a proper first aid book, just in case. Thankfully, it was relatively empty that day, meaning you had free reign of the aisles to explore and take your time shopping.

You knew Michael wouldn't come in the store but you didn't doubt he was waiting for you outside.

So when you finished loading your grocery bags into the trunk of your car, you didn't feel surprised when you heard footsteps approaching you. Michael was definitely taking a risk being out with you in public but you hadn't exactly spoken to him in a few days and you were itching for the chance.

Turning around, however, you were met face to face with an unfamiliar black ski mask. Definitely not Michael. The stranger grabbed you by the arm before pulling out a knife, his head on a swivel. "G-gimme all your cash! Now!" He hissed, jerking you aggressively.

"I don't have anything on me." You said calmly. Your dad had always prepared you for situations like this so you didn't worry too much, even with the glint of his knife in the corner of your eye.

"D-don't bullshit me! I know you j-just got outta there. G-gimme what you've got and I'll b-be on my way!" He spat at you, pulling you closer to press the knife against your neck.

You caught the faintest of movement in the shadows of the alleyway behind him but you kept your eyes on him to prevent the guy freaking out. "Okay. Let's just calm down," you said, keeping your movements slow as you reached for your hip, pretending to go for your wallet. The guy kept looking around frantically as though expecting something to jump out at him. Police, most likely. But when you saw the white face of a familiar mask over his shoulder, you felt a sense of calm settle over you.

"C-c'mon!" He hurried you, jerking the knife again to threaten slicing your throat.

At that moment, you jerked back as hot blood splashed across your face. Michael had effortlessly slashed the guy's neck open from behind, bright red falling like rain against the concrete below. You closed your eyes as the choked gurgles of the mugger's voice faded to silence and his body hit the ground. It was like you were frozen in place, unable to make your muscles move as you listened to the sounds of Michael killing the man. The vicious stabbing sounds made your skin crawl and you turned away from the scene entirely to check yourself over.

You hadn't gotten blood anywhere besides on your face, which was good. Easier to clean.

This was inevitable, you reminded yourself. That man wanted to hurt you and Michael was doing you a favor. Still, you tried to steady your breathing, bracing on the trunk of your car as he dragged the body away, presumably to hide it.

You heard Michael start to approach you and you let out a breath you didn't know you'd been holding. His footsteps could be silent, almost supernaturally quiet, so if he was making an effort to be loud, you knew it was his attempt to make you feel better. To let you know he was coming.

He stood in front of you now, covered in fresh blood and gripping his knife tightly. You were thankful for the setting sun that cast dark shadows over you two, obscuring the bloodsoaked Michael from view on the streets. You noticed the body slumped against the wall a little ways away and you swallowed back bile. "T-thanks." Your voice was soft and you cleared your throat. "For saving me."

It was only an assumption that he'd killed that guy to protect you. He didn't have to. He could have just let you die or at least be robbed. You were confident in that assumption though. He wouldn't risk your game ending so soon. 

On some level, he wanted you alive.

The blood on your face was beginning to dry uncomfortably and you desperately wanted to go home. You gestured to your car and gave Michael a tilt of your head. "You coming?" He seemed to weigh his options in his head before casually making his way for the passenger seat after a brief deliberation. "What's the plan if we're caught?" You asked him with a raised eyebrow and climbed into your own seat.

Turns out, once the cops got wind of the body, they were very easy to avoid. Predictable, you thought as you gripped your steering wheel tighter, careful to not draw attention to your car as you drove through the windy roads that led to your house.

You got Michael inside, shoving the grocery bags onto the kitchen counter as Mayhem came around the corner, meowing for attention and approaching Michael to give him a curious sniff.

It was then that you remembered stories your father would tell you about how Michael would kill animals for fun as a boy. How he'd leave the dead bodies of cats and birds in his locker at school to terrify the other kids. You weren't sure how truthful the stories were but you felt a heavy pit of anxiety when Michael looked down to acknowledge Mayhem.

"If you hurt Mayhem, I will turn you in." Your voice was steady despite the way you trembled. His head snapped up to look at you and you could feel the glare behind it. "I mean it. T-this is one thing I'm not bending on. He's my kitty and I won't let you hurt him."

Michael was still for a moment, letting Mayhem rub against his boots and yowl as though expecting the man to feed him. Slowly, ever so slowly, he bent over and let his fingers brush against soft black fur. The motion was gentle, like either you or the cat would lash out should he make a mistake. Mayhem loved the attention, purring and rubbing against his fingers more, which made you smile.

He was usually an anxious cat so seeing him this comfortable with Michael made you smile. You set about making up Mayhem's dinner while Michael tried to navigate petting him. He was shockingly gentle despite clearly never having pet an animal. "Did you have pets as a kid?" You asked as you scraped food into the bowl.

He didn't answer but you didn't really expect him to. His hand was still, just letting Mayhem rub all over it and meow at him. It was endearing, you thought as you set the bowl down and let Mayhem go to town on it. Michael's head tilted curiously as he watched and gently stroked his back once before standing back up.

"I think he likes you," you giggled, scritching the cat behind the ear.

Michael just watched the cat before slowly standing back up and heading back into the living room. You followed him, tugging on his sleeve gently. "Want me to wash your clothes?"

Your words trailed off when you noticed Michael was looking at a photo of you with your dad at your graduation party. A tired sigh left you when the man tilted his head. "I don't… want to talk about that." You mumbled, crossing your arms over your chest. "It's not like it's easy to plan for your own dad's murder." The words were heavy in your mouth and you forced yourself to look away from the photo.

Ever since your mom had died, you knew your dad had been different. She'd died in childbirth with you and all your dad's friends would whisper about how that changed him drastically. He'd always been distant with you, especially as you'd grown up. When you'd hear stories about him before your mom died, he sounded like an entirely different man: happy, enthusiastic about life, and excited to be a father.

But then your mom died and he retreated inward. As though the whole thing was entirely your fault. He didn't want to parent you on his own and therefore you had to grow up taking care of yourself instead. 

"Whatever you have to do," you swallowed, turning away from Michael entirely and your voice hollow, "Just make it as painless as you can."

It wasn't like there was an easy way to ask him to kill your dad painlessly. You tried not to dwell on how easy it would be to let him go. It wasn't exactly like he'd ever been there for you anyways.

"So. Your clothes. I, um, still have your shirt and the sweats you borrowed are clean, if you want to change." You changed the topic quickly, ignoring the way he stared at you. The last thing you possibly wanted was pity from the Boogeyman. "Either way, I'm going to go wash my face before someone sees me."

You went upstairs to the bathroom, leaving Michael to his own devices downstairs. You opened drawers at random until you found the wet wipes you kept stashed for when you wore makeup. Some good hard scrubbing and scented lotion and it's like you were never there, all evidence flushed down the toilet and out of sight. You sighed, staring at yourself in the mirror as the events of the day hit you, leaving you feeling winded and exhausted all at once. You were complacent in a crime now. It wasn't just you hiding Michael from the cops, you'd let him kill a man in front of you.

Trying to argue with yourself that it was self defense was pointless. No use in lying to yourself.

When you opened your eyes, unsure of when you'd closed them, you met Michael's eyes where he stood in the doorway of the bathroom. "Oh, sorry, do you want to shower?" Before you could even move to leave, he unzipped the jumpsuit, leaving you speechless.

You gasped in horror at the state of his chest. The black shirt was gone and left his bandages on display, dirty and stained with reddish-brown blood that mixed with ugly yellow pus from the drainage of the wound. It reeked of infection even a few feet from him. "Michael!" You hurried to him to get a better look, feeling sick for the second time today. "Christ, you should have come to me before it got this bad! With how wet it's been… Take these off and sit down on the edge of the tub. God, this looks awful."

Michael sat, watching you with amusement. At least you assumed it was amusement. Though you couldn't find anything funny about this. "I should have stitched you," you mumbled as you reached for your first aid kit and began sterilizing a pair of scissors, "Or at least looked up what to do."

Swallowing back your squeamishness, you cut him free of the bandages, practically retching when you got a better look at his wound. It had somehow gotten worse, a painful red and oozing pus. "Oh my god, Michael." Your voice was barely a whisper. "I'm so sorry."

He tilted his head and you almost wanted to smack him. How he wasn't in any noticeable pain was bewildering to you.

You began to undress him, uncaring of any potential nakedness, and he grabbed your wrists tight when you reached forward to take off his mask. "Michael, this infection could kill you. I need to see if you're running a fever. So either let me touch your forehead or I'm touching your neck." 

He stood quickly, stumbling slightly as he grabbed the bloodstained knife from where he'd apparently set it down on the counter. But you didn't back down. "Be mad all you want, this is really fucking infected and I'm not letting you get worse." You sighed, racking your brain to come up with an idea to placate him. "If I close my eyes, will you let me take your temperature?" 

Slowly, his shoulders fell. Which confused you. You'd seen his mugshots, you knew he wasn't disfigured or anything like that. So his insistence at not being looked at confused you but now was not the time to be worrying about that.

Prettiness aside, you needed to help him.

So you shut your eyes and held out your hand. A minute passed without Michael moving and you briefly worried he'd left the room entirely. Before you could open your eyes, you felt his fingers encircle your wrist and press it to his neck. You felt him swallow and you tried your best to focus on how hot his skin felt and not how this was an incredible show of trust. Goosebumps erupted across your arms as you cupped his neck gently.

His skin was soft and feverish and you felt your heart clench.

"You're definitely running a fever," you sighed. "I'll look for a sewing kit or something to stitch you up but I want you to shower and get all that gross off first. Don't scrub too hard, okay?" Before you could retract your hand, his grip on your wrist tightened. "Are you-?"

He lifted your hand, letting your fingers graze his bare cheek. You felt Michael lean into the touch momentarily and you reacted quickly, holding his face gently. He was burning up so hot you weren't sure how he was even standing in this condition. When was the last time anyone had taken care of him? Or the last time he was even sick?

Judging by his height, he was likely slumped against the bathroom counter. The idea made your heart clench. Despite every instinct in your body telling you to pull away, you ran your hand up the side of his face in a gentle, soothing motion. Your fingers ran through tangled hair, soft and curly, before sliding down behind his ear to rest back on his neck. "You'll be okay," you said softly. "The fever will break and you'll be back on your feet in no time."

Having had enough of being touched, he took you by the shoulders and moved you aside, careful to not let you stumble and fall. You kept your eyes closed when you heard the shower turn on and the curtain shift as he stepped inside. Only then did you open your eyes.

What... was that?

You looked down at your hand like it offended you before shaking your head in bewilderment. He'd never fail to surprise you.

You figured out pretty quickly that that instance of seeking your touch was the extent that Michael wanted you to touch him. He barely tolerated you checking him over for fever symptoms, opting instead to lounge in your bed like he'd been exorcised of a demon.

For the past few days, you'd done your best to keep Michael's presence in your house a secret. With your workaholic dad's late hours, he usually just came back home, ate a frozen dinner, and passed out in his bedroom before waking around 9AM to stumble to work and repeat the process all over again. So, provided Michael kept quiet, there wasn't any worry. You'd taken a few days of sick leave from work to take care of him, citing a head cold. Now you just had to hope that the police would continue their dedicated search even if people weren't dying.

You wondered, as you sat on your bed with a feverish serial killer half naked and asleep beside you, if hoping he recovered soon made you a bad person.

Probably.

But god he was a bitch when he was sick.

He kept the godforsaken mask on, which you had expected. But when his fever rose to 102 you had kind of hoped he'd take it off for the sake of wanting to cool down. He was persistent, you'd give him that.

You were getting the hang of his body language too. It was subtle but you'd begun to notice the slight shifts in his stance or the way his hands would twitch without a knife in them. At first you'd assumed it was just you projecting but you'd grown confident you could understand him now. Being sick definitely made him more expressive too.

Though, right now, you wanted to strangle him. "Michael, it's chicken noodle soup." You sighed, rubbing your temples. Trying to feed him was like dealing with a picky toddler sometimes. "It's chicken, noodles, carrots, and broth. All things I've fed you before." You could feel his glare at you and you were half tempted to get your own knife to speak his language better.

The infection was running its course, which was the only reason you had so much patience with him. His bitchiness was a byproduct of his fever and you had to keep reminding yourself that he probably hadn't been sick before.

That didn’t make you want to clobber him any less.

"If you eat the fucking soup I'll go buy you pumpkin pie when you feel better." You tried, glaring him down. "Because the sooner you eat this, the sooner you'll get better. And then you can go back to slaughtering the town."

He seemed placated by that. You turned your back to him so he could eat and you let out a silent sigh. You knew him well enough to know he liked that soup, he just wanted to be a jackass about it.

Later that afternoon you yet again threatened him with violence when he refused taking medicine. You weren't surprised he wasn't interested, seeing as he grew up in a hospital. But you were outgrowing your patience with him. You did smirk a little when you realized he absolutely wanted to throw you across the room for all but forcing the antibiotics down his throat. But once it was down, you softened. "C'mere, sleep will do you some good."

Michael glared at you but let you sit next to him against the headboard of the bed as he laid down. You'd learnt he was definitely a stomach sleeper and you could tell by his huffing that the heat underneath the mask was beginning to frustrate him. You jerked your head away when he ripped the mask off, throwing it with a growl and face planting onto the pillow.

"It's okay," you said softly, keeping your gaze straight ahead and fighting the urge to look down at him. "You don't feel as feverish today, you should be back on your feet in a day or two." You heard him grumble and you giggled. "Want me to rub your back? Might help you sleep."

He was silent. But he didn't immediately lash out so you kept your movements slow and purposeful. Like approaching an anxious, abused cat. He didn't know touch that wasn't associated with pain and you had to be careful to avoid startling him or overstepping. Your fingers made contact with his back and you slid your palm over his upper back, rubbing in slow, soothing motions.

Maybe it was exhaustion, the fever, or resignation to your touch but you swore you felt him relax.

Michael's skin was tacky to the touch and incredibly warm but that didn't deter you. You hummed a soft lullaby, keeping your movements slow and gentle. He looked painfully human and you were choking on the urge to care for this man. This strange, silent Boogeyman who'd fallen into your lap and sought you for care and food and attention and it made you want to cry.

If it weren't for his murderous hobby, you'd be infatuated with the sleeping man. The slow rise and fall of his chest made something in your own clench painfully as you continued to rub his back. You'd only known each other for a short time and yet you both had extended a lot of trust to each other. Most people met him with hostility or violence but you'd met him with kindness. A kindness he was unfamiliar with and must have been a welcome change. Either that or he just liked your cooking and bedside manner enough not to kill you. You weren't too picky about his motives.

You'd be lying if you said you weren't fond of him regardless.

The sound of the front door opening was like a bucket of ice down your back. You crept from the bed, carefully shutting the door behind you and heading downstairs, meeting your father's tired face. "You're back early."

"I'm only on my lunch break," he sighed as he shrugged his coat off, "Didn't feel like packing one so I figured I'd come check on you." He was giving you a strange look. "Are you okay?"

You watched him go into the kitchen as you loitered on the stairs, watching him through the awning closest to the steps. "Yeah, just been a little under the weather." You feigned a cough and sniffed. "Getting better though."

Your dad hummed as he opened the fridge. "Michael Myers killed a man at the store the other day." He reached in to pull out a sandwich you'd made for yourself at lunch and hadn't gotten around to eating. Trying to feed Michael was a laborious task.

"Really?" You raised your eyebrows, crossing your arms over your chest. "I didn't hear about it in the news."

He watched you with a painfully blank expression. "Correct me if I'm wrong but… I think you were out shopping before you fell ill, am I right?" Your dad took a slow bite of his sandwich, poorly trying to act casual. "The store clerk said a man was following you outside the store."

Fortunately, you were a better actor than your father. "I didn't see anyone."

But, of course, he didn't believe you. He never did. "Son, a man was killed by Michael Myers the day you went out and now you've been hiding away since then." His cop voice grated on your nerves. It felt like he never stopped being a cop, even with you. Every conversation with him felt like navigating a maze to try and hide yourself from him. You hated it.

"The weather has been getting colder and I work outside. It's really not that surprising."

"Have you seen Myers?" He got sick of beating around the bush, his hands on his hips as he leveled you with an unimpressed look. "Is that why you've been hiding out here?"

The word "hiding" made your hackles raise. Like this wasn't the same man who'd told you to lock the doors and windows when he first informed you of Michael. "Nope." Your smile was fake and bitter and you could see the way he flinched. "Hard to miss a man walking around in a Halloween costume." 

"Kid-" He tried to placate you.

But you weren't interested. "I'll be back to work in a day or so, don't worry."

He seemed remorseful now. "If Myers is stalking you, you can talk to me. You know that, right?"

An awkward silence hung in the air. Your dad seemed to deflate and he ate in silence, pretending to not see you. "Have you talked to Laurie Strode yet?" You asked as you picked at a stray string on your sweater sleeve.

He swallowed and shook his head. "We're hesitant to let her know what's going on until we're certain he's still after her. Dr Loomis has been working with us to try and find him as soon as we can." He scratched his chin in thought. "Maybe I should make a statement soon, what with Halloween approaching."

You gave him another acidic smile. "You'll find him, I'm sure. You're very dedicated."

Your dad gave you a helpless look. If you were five years younger, you might have apologized for being so curt with him. But you weren't sixteen and craving your father's approval anymore. You knew that the family charade you both put up was only because you helped around the house. He wasn't home enough to give a shit who lived there anyways.

He didn't even know the killer he was hunting was asleep in your bed, stitched up with your string and your soup in his stomach. You had no intention of telling him, partially out of spite at this point.

You hoped Michael got better soon.

Lucky for you - and unlucky for Haddonfield - Michael was back on his feet a day later. He was still a bit warm but you knew it was fruitless to try and keep him inside any longer. He had to make another appearance in town anyways or else he'd risk you both. If people paid too close to timelines, your sick leave corresponding with his disappearance would be too suspicious.

But his stitches came out easily and his wound had healed decently. "Next time, come back before your bandages get too dirty." You'd smirked at him as you zipped his jumpsuit up. It felt too close to a wife sending her husband off to work for the day and the thought made your face warm.

You managed to get a few days of relative peace, especially once your father was occupied by Michael killing again. It had also been a few days since you saw Michael and you hoped that was just because his bandages were holding up well. The last thing either of you needed was another sick week.

Currently you were heading home after spending the afternoon reading at the park. Your little bag bumped against your hip as you hopped along to the music coming out of your tinny headphones. It was unlikely Michael had been watching you, since you didn't feel his eyes on you, but you still felt like taking a break from the house for a minute.

The sight of a cop car parked haphazardly along the sidewalk made you freeze. It had hit the curb slightly and looked like the driver had been in a hurry to get out. The door was wide open and you lowered your headphones slowly, the frantic voice over the radio better. The voice was staticy and it sounded like whoever it was was running but their words were crystal clear. "All units respond. Multiple fatalities reported on Orange Grove Ave. Suspect has been identified as one Michael Myers. He is armed and extremely dangerous. Shoot to kill, I repeat, shoot to kill. Over."

You felt your stomach drop and your head whipped around. Orange Grove Ave was just ahead so you took off like a shotgun, sprinting down the street. The only sound was that of your shoes hitting the pavement as you tried to come up with a plan. If they hadn't seen him yet, you just needed to get an opening for him to escape. You knew of Michael's unnatural ability to vanish if your eyes weren't on him.

Desperately, you didn't want him to get shot again.

You rounded the corner onto Orange Grove with a sharp turn, your eyes immediately spotting a second cop car. "Fuck!" You hissed to yourself as you picked up the pace. You should have gone looking for Michael sooner. Should have left for the park earlier in hopes of catching his attention. Anything, anything to have avoided him getting caught.

When you got closer to the car, you noticed a cop hanging halfway out of the car. His head had been smashed in, a puddle of gore, blood, and brain matter leaking steadily down the side of the car door. You felt like throwing up but you held it in when you spotted his partner. A young man, likely fresh on the force, clutching his gun as he pointed it down the alleyway. His trembling told you all you needed to know.

The officer gave you a quick glance, fear obvious on his face. "Get back!" He called to you.

You ignored him and looked down the alleyway. Michael stood there calmly, hanging back in the shadows between the two buildings. Another cop lay before him and you watched with horror as Michael's boot made heavy contact with the cop's skull, a wet, sickening crunch echoing out in the small space.

"Get down and put your hands in the air!" The rookie said, hands on the gun shaking as he kept his eyes on Michael. An idea came to you. It was stupid, reckless, and dangerous.

You lunged for the cop, knocking his gun from his hands and sending him stumbling.

He didn't even have time to do anything but look at you with horrified eyes before Michael descended on him. He grabbed the rookie by his collar and lifted him effortlessly before running him through with his knife, spilling his guts on the sidewalk in warm waterfalls of blood. You scrambled backwards to avoid being caught in the spray but Michael gladly covered himself in the fresh gore. The rookie's lifeless body hit the floor with a heavy, empty sound and Michael turned his attention on you.

You scanned the nearby area and spotted a little path between two houses overrun with grass and brush. Without a second thought, you took off towards it and just hoped Michael was behind you. Other members of the force would be on their way and you both needed to disappear. You ignored the scratching of sharp branches against your arms and hands, only wincing when a particularly sharp one sliced a thin cut across your calf.

But you didn't falter. You kept running through the town, your heart pounding hard and pumping pure fumes through you as you ran. As soon as you broke into the treeline of the forest, you collapsed to your knees and let yourself catch your breath.

A hand gripped the back of your shirt and for a brief second you feared you'd been caught. But Michael dragged you towards a tree, pinning you to it and holding his bloody knife close under your throat, the blade digging into your skin. "Wait!" You struggled against his grip, kicking out at him with your heavy boots. "What did I do?! I got you out of there without getting shot!"

You could see his eyes this close. Hazel, like you'd suspected. His eyes were narrow with hate and anger as he glared you down. But you stopped struggling and that only seemed to make him madder. "I wasn't just going to let you get hurt!" You hissed, reaching up to grab the hand that held your collar tightly, keeping you rooted in place. "I don't see what you're so angry about."

He didn't like that answer. The knife pressed in and you gasped when you felt a stream of your own blood run down, wetting his fingers. "Stop," you pleaded, clawing at him frantically. "Stop, please, I'm sorry."

That wasn't good enough for him and held you tighter. Tears welled up in your eyes and fell, mixing with the blood. Pain shot through you when Michael yanked his knife away, taking a few steps back and letting you slide down the tree as you gasped for breath. Your hands gripped at your neck, slightly relieved it wasn't more than a surface cut. Blood started to stain your hands, falling in rivulets down your arm and leaking over your elbows only to stain the grass beneath you a muddy red color.

His head tilted as he watched and you wanted to spit at him. "Y'know, I kinda thought we had a partnership going on." Your words were choked as you glared up at him. "Was I wrong?"

That seemed to get to him. He straightened up and stared you down. You got up on shaking legs and stumbled away from him and towards the forest. His footsteps were loud as he followed behind you and that only served to make you angrier. The walk home was silent and he stayed a few feet behind you the whole time, never getting closer nor straying. The only sounds were the twigs crackling under your shoes and you were too rattled to feel or think much of anything. Your only goal was getting home.

You kicked the back door open and stormed inside and upstairs to the bathroom. You stared at yourself in the mirror and wanted to smack yourself for your infatuation with a killer who didn't care about you. The cut was, thankfully, small. And hopefully the amount on your arms could convince your dad you were just handling a blackberry bush at work or something. The one on your leg could be hidden under pants until it healed. So you began rooting around for bandages and ignored Michael standing in the doorway.

"I help you get away and you try to kill me?" You growled, glaring at him in the mirror. "I could have let that cop shoot you and I didn't because I fucking care, Michael." Tears threatened to fall again and you swallowed them back when he gave you a tilt of his head. "I get you aren't good with feelings and- and maybe this is just you needing me to clean and feed you but I wanted to help you." You dabbled your neck with a cotton ball soaked in hydrogen peroxide and hissed at the sting. "If that's all you want me for then fine but I need to know where we stand."

He watched you bandage your neck, his shoulders set tight as he waited for you to finish. He set the knife down on the counter and reached for you but you flinched back. "Wash your hands." You mumbled and stepped back more to give him access to the sink.

The water ran for some time as the two of you watched the blood swirl down the drain and out of sight. Once the water ran clear, he pulled his hands out and reached for you again. You wanted to run but were backed up into a corner with no way out.

He covered your eyes with one and you frowned in confusion. "What are you-?" He took your wrist with his free hand and held it to his face again, silencing you. His face felt wet and that concerned you. "Are you bleeding somewhere?" You tried feeling around for any cuts but he shook his head no. "Was it raining?" Another no.

So an idea came to you. A dangerous one if you were wrong. "Were you… crying?"

He nodded. Your heart broke.

You pulled him in for a hug, keeping your eyes closed as you just held him. He dropped the hand from your eyes to hold your hip, leaning into your touch like he did when he was ill a few weeks ago. "What happened?" You tried, holding his face with both hands.

Michael just shook his head helplessly and bumped your foreheads together. Oh. Oh. "Were you… worried I was turning you in?" No. "Was it because I was there while you were, uh, hunting?" No. You chewed on your lip as another dangerous thought came to you. "You were worried I was going to get hurt."

His jaw clenched as his throat worked around a growl. The Boogeyman of Haddonfield couldn't afford to feel anything. He doesn't. As far as anyone is concerned at least. Yet here you were, defying all odds and earning Michael's favor. His protection. His care. And the idea of losing you had terrified him, causing him to lash out at you for willingly putting yourself in danger. Emotions had run high and he'd acted out. He hadn't known what else to do but scare you back. 

"I'm sorry I worried you," you said softly, stroking your thumbs over his cheeks and wiping the moisture away as you kept your eyes closed. "I was worried about you too. I heard the police radio mention shooting you on sight so I went looking for you." His grip on you tightened slightly and you sighed. "I know that you're used to people shooting at you or- or attacking you. But I'm not used to hearing about it."

You finally admitted to yourself and him: "I don't want you to die."

After a moment of silence, he pressed your foreheads together. You felt his breath ghost over your skin and your noses bumped together awkwardly. You hooked a hand behind his neck to just hold him and he squeezed your hips tight. "I don't want you to die," you gasped into your shared air. He made a muffled sound and this felt so much more intimate than any kind of kissing you'd done in the past. You just stood there in each other's spaces, sharing air and warmth and closeness that you hadn't had with someone else in a long time. You couldn't imagine how it felt for him.

"We're in this together now, okay?" You said softly, your eyes fluttering open to meet his. Pretty, you thought absently. But you already knew that. Brown ringlet curls, one eye injured from his fight with Laurie Strode, and a light dusting of freckles across his nose. His face looked damp and you brushed under his eyes with the hem of your sleeve. Despite that, his face was expressionless even though you could see conflict swirling in his eyes. You couldn't imagine how he was feeling. "We'll look out for each other, yeah?"

He gave you a slow nod and you smiled. Your foreheads pressed together again and you felt his shoulders relax as his eyes closed. Trust. You both trusted each other and were partners in this now. You accepted you'd be complacent in his crimes going forward and he'd learn to accept your care in time.

Just you and your Boogeyman against the world...