#i do love it. but i also would like to not be screamed at so loudly my ears were ringing on my ride home yknow

[minkieater]

most to least likely in ateez to wanna share their girlfriend with the members…?

SHARETEEZ ☆ atz ot8 x fem!reader

please i love this topic so fucking much, thank you for asking this !!!!! shareteez is so important to me. the only government ship i used is yungi because im insane and addicted to them 😄 not proofread sorry 4 any mistakes <3

smut mdni 18+ | wc ~4k

most likely …

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐊 𝐒𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐖𝐀 ☆

idk what it is about hwa but something about him screams voyeurism to me. i think he’d be the one to bring it up, and i also think he’d share you with every single member if he could. as the oldest, even if he doesn’t share his personal items, something about sharing you gives him a sense of control. he’s always sitting in the corner of the hotel room, watching, analyzing as one of his best friends makes his girl feel good, but also, something about watching two people he loves together, right in front of his face, gets him off. he doesn’t wanna be involved— he wants to sit in his corner and watch, see how you react, see what the others do that he does or doesn’t do, watch how his members fall apart because of you. he’s prideful about it, it’s a way of showing you off, showing his members what they can have for a night but never to keep. he’s never jealous if you cum quick or if you’re screaming for another member, he’s watching with calculated eyes, taking notes, trying to ignore the ache of his cock that he doesn’t touch until he can’t take it anymore.

his favorite person to share you with is san. san is a passionate man in everything he does, his motivation never dies, and god does that statement remain true when it comes to sex. seonghwa is addicted to letting san fuck you, he’s the only member that’s fucked you more than once, hwa is obsessed with how you react for him, how easily you fall apart under his touch, the sounds the two of you make… seonghwa nearly asks for his wrists to be tied to the chair. its impossible not to stroke his cock while san’s eating you out, to not cum at the same time you do, to not drool as he watches the muscles in san’s toned back flex as he fucks you. hwa is a mess in his corner, his lap covered in cum, hand slick and wrist aching while his cock lays flaccid and utterly spent— but he still can’t stop, not when san hasn’t finished yet, not when you aren’t brainless and lifted to that fuzzy space that only san brings you to so easily. seonghwa could watch you for hours, his own personal movie, his favorite part would always be when you twisted your head to stare at him as you came, every single time. seonghwa would die a happy man in his corner if he was watching one of his best friends fuck you stupid.

𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈 𝐒𝐀𝐍 ☆

san would quite literally do anything his gf asked of him, but i think san is a fucking freak to begin with and watching you with someone else would be a dream to him. he’s obsessed with your pleasure, a demon possessed when it comes to getting you off, there isn’t a day that goes by where you aren’t finishing from some ministrations of choi san. if you even so much as look at another member with lingering eyes he’s on it— he’s observant, he’s horny, and his mind is always going, thinking of something new, trying it out with you, getting you past the finish line with it. san is a quiet man but he’s always storing details away, saving them for later, rewording them into propositions to make you think it was his idea. when san drops the idea of you hooking up with someone else, you’re the one shocked as if he’d just stripped you bare, peered inside your mind, as if all your thoughts were written across your forehead. san doesn’t get jealous, he’d do anything to get you off, and he means that.

san giggled to himself when he watched you approach yeosang in the backlit bar. quiet and meek, san would have never expected yeosang to agree to dance with you— but the blush that crossed yeosang’s cheeks, how his ears tipped red, san knew he was going to have fun with this. san stood with wooyoung as he watched you dance with yeosang, grinding on him, hands around his neck, lips ghosting his skin, san’s pants were agonizingly tight and only grew tighter every time yeosang glanced their way with worried eyes. he didn’t stop, though, he never asked for permission, and for some reason it made san hornier that yeosang knew you called the shots. so when the three of you made it back to your shared place and you sat with your back pressed against san’s chest and yeosang between your thighs, it was no surprise to any of you when san ended up finishing untouched, ropes of hot cum painting your back, sticking your skin to his. it was so hot, hotter than san could have ever expected, too hot to not make the occurrence a regular thing. after that night you invited the rest of the boys to your bedroom, one by one, it became a game to you and san. who could get you off the fastest, who did new things that you could incorporate into your own sex life, who you wanted to invite back into the bedroom. san was always present, always watching, always right there, always touching, always finishing at the same time as you.

𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐈 ☆

mingi would share the world with yunho, so yungi topping mingi’s gf is so real to me i’m 100% convinced it’s true. unlike the other two before him, mingi is possessive and jealous by nature, he can be shy and insecure, but never when it comes to yunho. he’s third on this list because i think he’d be dating his gf for less than six months before he let yunho get his hands on her, Grade A Lover Boy ™, he’s so open to the idea that he’s the one pushing it to happen— he’s been having threesomes with yunho ever since he started having sex, so when it comes to you, his perfect little girlfriend, why wouldn’t he want to show you off to yunho? he boasts about you all the time, how pliant you are for him, how your pussy is the best he’s ever had, how your body was sculpted by god himself. it makes yunho drool and fills mingi with such a sense of pride he needs to show him as soon as he can, let him experience it for himself, but asking you is the hard part. somehow explaining the relationship between the two without making it sound like he’s objectifying you in any way, because he’s not, you’re the two people in this world he loves the most, and he’s just as confident in yunho’s skills as he is in how he feels about you.

when you agree without a second of contemplation mingi knows he’s found the one. so he invites yunho over to your shared apartment on a random weeknight, a couple glasses of liquor between you to ease your one sided nerves, and you were laid out bare on your mattress before you had a moment to second guess. two huge men towered over you, taking you for everything you were worth, making you finish over and over and over until you had nothing left to give. yunho’s long fingers inside you combined with mingi’s thick, calloused hands roaming across your body, in your mouth, in your hair, when the both of them filled you up, at the same time, you were a sight to be seen by the end, the end that you weren’t sure would ever come. you didn’t want it to, and neither did mingi, who loved everything about it. he enjoyed threesomes with yunho always, but with you, they’ve never been more in tune with one another, it’s never been so intimate. fucking has always been fucking, but with you it was more, it was a dance, a rhythm, a mutual agreement never spoken out loud. mingi’s relationship with yunho changed after that— aspects of your own relationship with mingi changed after that. it didn’t stop with just that one time, neither you or mingi could let it be a one time thing, yunho kept coming over, the two of you kept seeking him out, even when you were in public yunho became regular, routine, never spoken about, only enjoyed.

𝐉𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆 ☆

even if wooyoung is a fucking freak i think this would definitely take him by surprise. i KNOW he is the mayor of freakville and would do anything at any point in time, but i think inviting someone else in, someone he knows so closely, so intimately, might make him double take just for a second. especially because its neither you or him that initiates it, it’s the third party peering in, the third party who has watched you, listened to you, can’t stop thinking about the two of you and wants to join in on the fun. you’re down immediately, but wooyoung…? as much as he would be down for a threesome, inviting a member in makes him think logistics. for once he’s thinking with his brain and not his cock when it comes to you, you’re his, and as much as he loves to show you off, a shred of insecurity lies deep in his gut somewhere. he thinks on it for a total of two (2) days and then he can’t stop thinking about it, what you’d look like under him, what you’d sound like, how he’d look inside you… it’s all too much for him all at once, the realization that he needs it, that he’d beg for it if it came down to it.

but he quickly remembers that it was him the two of you needed that final yes from. seonghwa comes over as soon as he shoots the text and the three of you are stripped bare without as much as hello, wooyoung thinks that maybe the two of you have him beat in freakiness. he doesn’t feel left out for a moment, though, not as seonghwa slips into easily found dominance, giving the two of you instruction, watching you make out sloppily on the bed before he’s pulling you apart and making you obey him. wooyoung’s cock was rock hard the moment he stepped foot into your bedroom, as soon as seonghwa used that voice on him, hitting that sweet submissive spot in his brain he couldn’t always tap into so easily. you were both switches in your relationship, neither of you dominant all the time, usually switching in an out of roles during one singular session, but seonghwa tamed you both with ease and wooyoung ate it up, he was a whimpering mess before he knew it, cock overstimulated and red and angry, laid against his stomach still wet from seonghwa’s mouth as he watched him fuck into you with no mercy— you were a crying, screaming mess, too, already came too many times, yet none of you wanted to stop. seonghwa was toying with you both and wooyoung was obsessed, he let it go on until either you or seonghwa had enough, and it seemed you had the same idea, too. both of you wanting to please him, satisfy him, give him what he wanted from both of you. only on nights where both you and wooyoung were reminiscing particularly hard did you call him and beg him to come over again, to dominate you both, to send you back into that headspace you’d never forget.

𝐊𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐄𝐎𝐒𝐀𝐍𝐆 ☆

yeosang is only down here cus i think if you brought it up poorly you’d hurt his feelings. he’s really a chill guy and he’s super versatile when it comes to sex, i think there’s not much that he’d say no to, but he’d definitely have to think it over for a long time before deciding to say yes to opening up your relationship to anyone, let alone another member. you’d have several conversations about it before even thinking about choosing a partner, setting boundaries for one another, what a threesome would consist of, why you’re doing it in the first place. choosing someone was another week-long conversation, going through every single member before deciding on one together, the reasons why you were choosing him, making sure none of this was being easily decided. yeosang is heavily aware that this is a big ask of another member, and he won’t be anything but wise in his choosing, in his intentions. then it came down to actually asking him, the safety of it all, precautions and boundaries, what would actually happen during the encounter. yeosang would want all bases covered before going into it, you’re too important to him to lose, and his members are too important to him to fuck up his dynamic with any of them. it’d be months of just talking and planning before anything actually happened.

the two of you choose wooyoung because he’s the closest to you both, you spend a decent amount of time together just you three, wooyoung going as far as joking that you adopted him to the other members all the time. he’s kind, respectful and light-hearted, you both trust him deeply, and you think you could show him a good time, and vice versa. wooyoung is def thrown off when you approach him with the seriousness of it all, he’s probably like yeah sure and then you two throw a five page long essay about why you chose him and what would happen in said threesome. not really. but it probably feels like that to wooyoung, who’s ready to strip his clothes off when you asked him if he’s open-minded. yeosang is feeling confident when the night finally comes, and falls into pace and rhythm with wooyoung easily, the two of them bouncing off one another and leaving you a writhing mess. it’s a dance of hands and spit and tongues and cum, kissing yeosang while riding wooyoung’s face, blowing wooyoung while yeosang stretches you out, relying on two sets of strong shoulders while they both try to fit inside you, fighting to keep your eyes open to watch as they messily makeout over your shoulder. it was a true threesome; not one of you left out, no one left untouched, wooyoung was exactly what you expected him to be, if not more. it left yeosang feeling so confident that he’s the one to suggest it happen again— after you caught him making out with wooyoung after one too many beers at the bar.

𝐉𝐄𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐔𝐍𝐇𝐎 ☆

jeong yunho is a deeply possessive man, we all know this, and i think there’s only one way this could possibly go. he isn’t possessive out of insecurity or jealousy, but because you’re his, and no one else should be able to see all of you, hear you the way only he gets you. soft and submissive, bendable, pliant, obeying— that’s how he loves you, how he needs you, yunho is dominant, extremely dominant, and when it comes to your sex life, you will not do anything unless he asks it of you, or unless he makes you. so when you make a silly joke about fucking mingi, he takes it personally, he almost spanks you for it— why would you want to invite anyone else into your bedroom? why do you want someone else to fuck you? you had a long session that night, yunho took it upon himself to fuck some sense back into you, because yunho is all you need, jokes or not, you know better than that. as the days followed, yunho found himself daydreaming about fucking both of you, dominating you at the same time, two people crying and begging at his mercy… it was less about sharing you and more about making the both of you his, even if it was just for a night. his cock was standing tall at the thought, he could see it in his head, thinking of his best friend that way opened another can of worms he wasn’t sure he even wanted to act on, so he didn’t. not for months.

then there’s that one time he’s out with you and mingi somewhere completely innocent, like the farmer’s market, somewhere the three of you go often, probably twice a month when your schedules allow. the two of you are deep in conversation standing in front of a fruit stand, and yunho’s speaking to you, trying to get your attention but neither of you hear him, and it pisses him off. he snaps his fingers, something he does to you when you’re lost in a session, when your mind floats away even with all of your training, when he needs you to come back down to earth. but instead of your head snapping up it’s the both of you, with wide eyes and parted lips, waiting for yunho to say something, waiting for instruction. it awakens a feeling he buried deep in his gut that he couldn’t help but get you both in the car and back to your place immediately. the bond the three of you shared has never gone unnoticed in your years of being friends, and that mental link you had was proving itself more than ever now, how both you and mingi went straight to the bedroom, sat yourselves quietly on the bed awaiting yunho’s instruction. it was heaven to yunho, as he instructed mingi on how exactly to make you cum, how to suck on your clit, how to curve his fingers inside you to hit that one spot that made you squirt on demand. it was even better when he instructed you on jerking mingi off, how he held mingi’s hands behind his back, how he made you edge him over and over until he cried, abdomen clenching and sweat beading down his skin. yunho’s favorite was when you both sucked him off at the same time, how your tongues danced with each other on his cock, how you both had that gleam in your eye solely to please him. yunho couldn’t get enough after that— having one person completely submit themselves to him was one thing, but to have two? it’s safe to say that was not the last time mingi was in your shared bedroom with yunho.

𝐊𝐈𝐌 𝐇𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐉𝐎𝐎𝐍𝐆 ☆

another possessive demon freak is hongjoong! you would piss him off so bad if you didn’t bring this up in a delicate way, honestly even if you did bring it up delicately he’d still prolly be pissed off. i think he’s the only member that would get mad mad tho, like not speak to you or sleep on the couch or something. why would you need anyone but him? he gives you everything you ask for, and it’s still not enough? when would it be enough for you???? it drives him insane for days, bro can’t work because he’s legitimately tripping over you thirsting after another one of his members. plus your sex life is great, he breaks your back every time he fucks you, he doesn’t consider it sex unless you’ve came two or three times. why would you need anyone else??? even if he could accept the fact that you wanted more— he has to come to terms with the fact that he’s to share you? the thought is ridiculous. someone else seeing you spread out, writhing, hearing you, possibly touching you? it makes him homicidal tbh he’s actually fucking crazy. knowing you have exes makes him rage enough, but to willingly let someone else see you is a whole different ordeal.

but he hated the idea of letting someone else watch a little less, so there’s your compromise. you let him choose because he’s insane and he tries to think of someone who would get the most pleasure out of sitting off to the side and just enduring, someone borderline pathetic, someone so horny they’d say yes to everything. naturally his mind leads him right to wooyoung, who said yes in a heartbeat. sat in the corner of the room in a cozy chair, wooyoung already had his pants pulled down to his thighs when hongjoong had just started kissing you. he smiled into your lips, knowing he was putting on a show, pride consuming him at the fact that he got to show this part of you off. as much as he hated the idea initially, he warmed up to it quickly when he realized how desperate wooyoung was, when he saw how badly wooyoung wanted to join in, wanted to be touched… depriving him of that made his cock harder, made him want to please you more, wanted to show wooyoung what he’ll never fucking have. hearing wooyoung whine and moan and gasp whenever he locked eyes with you, when hongjoong made you cum again, it made hongjoong want to work harder, want to make you cum again and again and again, just to hear you, to hear him, to dangle you right in front of wooyoung’s face. hongjoong never thought of himself as an exhibitionist but i think that experience definitely changed his life, and he wouldn’t mind showing you off for someone else again.

𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐈 𝐉𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐇𝐎 ☆

tbh i think jongho would be weirded out. he doesn’t see a point in opening up your relationship unless he wasn’t enough for his gf, and at that point he’d just end the relationship lol. if he was invited in to someone else’s relationship i think he’d literally say fuck no. too easy to get messy, for feelings to get involved, what if another member got jealous and couldn’t look at jongho the same way? these guys are his brothers, he doesn’t need to know what the inside of their girlfriend feels like. that’s territory he’d legit never cross. he trusts the members and their intentions but his relationship with them is too important to let a night of fun mess all of that up. but if you begged him for a threesome, like really begged, and strategized in a way that’d leave jongho with no more valid arguing points OR leave him with the feeling of not being enough for you, the one person he’d share you with is hongjoong. hj knows how to keep a secret, he can turn the switch off to separate his feelings, to realize when a situation his purely situational. he trusts hj with every bone in his body, he knows hj would take care of you, and if jongho never wanted to speak about it again he knows hj would never bring it up first.

what jongho has never realized because why would he is how versatile hongjoong is when it comes to sex. when jongho laid down the ground rules hongjoong was respectful, which was the most important thing to jongho, about yours and his boundaries— no kissing, no saying names, no cuddling, no spending the night. everything else was free game, though, and hongjoong took advantage of every unchecked box. it came down to worshipping you, and he was everywhere jongho wasn’t, you wondered if the two even realized the other was there. if jongho was inside you, hongjoong was feeling you up, fingers pressed to your clit, his other hand tweaking your nipples, whispering nasty shit in your ear. if jongho was kissing you he was behind you, licking and sucking down your back, his hands roaming every inch of untouched skin, praising you about how soft you are, how sweet you taste. jongho was pleasantly surprised, hongjoong slipped in like he’d done this a thousand times before, like your pleasure was all that mattered to him, and that was all jongho could ask for, aside from his rules. they totally never spoke about it again tho.

… least likely

masterlist

perm tags: @chimivx 😛

[hyuckiefluff]

casual | mark lee

pairing: idol! mark lee x waitress! fem. reader genre: fluff, strangers to lovers wc: 8k summary: you wouldn’t normally fall for a guy who left his number on a dinner bill. too bad that guy was mark fucking lee. content warnings: slightly suggestive content (making out), light cursing, food mentioned, parasocial themes, reader works a service job, a very overworked mark lee :(. no explicit smut in this part. a/n: hiii before anyone yells at me—yes, i know this isn’t the haechan fic i’m supposed to be working on (promise i’m still on it!!) but listen… i went to the smtown concert last week and it fully reignited my delusions, so i wrote this as a coping mechanism :P ik we’ve all been out with friends maybe at a restaurant, and thought, “what if my bias walked in right now?” right?? that’s basically the entire premise of this fic. pretty unrealistic but super fun to write & i hope it’s just as fun to read! also no smut… yall know what that means lol if you want a part 2... just say the word. ps: if you’re ever at an italian restaurant, do yourself a favor and get the gnocchi. trust me.

giving up your one free day to cover someone else’s shift wasn’t how you planned to spend saturday. but when your coworker begged with teary eyes and a story about her sick cat, saying no felt impossible.

so instead of sinking into your couch with a pint of chocolate ice cream and pride and prejudice on repeat, you were hustling through a saturday night at one of the city’s busiest restaurants.

it was hour six of your shift and you were at that breaking point where one starts fantasizing about quitting—or at least hiding in the walk-in freezer for five peaceful minutes.

any weekend here was a carnage with nonstop orders, zero patience, and customers who thought yelling would grill a steak faster.

but it was finally past eleven which meant the dinner rush had slowed and the only remaining stragglers were either couples too in love to notice the time or office workers too tired to cook at home. just two more hours, you thought to yourself.

“y/n! table four,” your coworker called, rushing past with a stack of empty plates.

you snapped out of your daze and walked over, expecting tired business executives or another couple feeding each other breadsticks. instead, you made eye contact with the two people you least expected to see here.

mark lee and johnny suh were looking right at you.

your heart dropped to your ass. for a second, you actually considered turning around. but even with your brain buffering, you knew you had to keep it together. the last thing you wanted was to make them uncomfortable.

you stopped beside their table, immediately recognizing the other two who had their backs to you as haechan and jungwoo. internally, you were combusting, but externally you prayed your expression didn’t scream that you were seconds from melting into the floor.

“hi, welcome to cecconi’s,” you said, voice steady enough despite your heart hammering your ribs.

when you handed over their menus, your fingers brushed mark’s briefly and you hoped he didn’t notice you flinch. that’s when you noticed the book peeking out of the front pocket of his hoodie.

you recognized the cover instantly— south of the border, west of the sun by murakami.

you cleared your throat, smiling before you could stop yourself. “that’s a good one.”

mark’s eyes followed where you were pointing and his eyebrows shoot up when he realized “wait… you’ve read this?”

you nodded, trying to be casual, as if you hadn’t picked that book apart alone on your bedroom floor at 2 a.m. two months ago. “i’ve read all of his stuff. but this one was a whole different experience.”

“i literally can’t put it down.” mark said, angling his body to yours with excitement. you could see he was tired but the small talk seemed to give him an energy boost.

“right? anything by murakami makes me feel like i’m eavesdropping on my own memories,” you said, mostly to yourself.

“that’s exactly it!” he said, eyes going wide. “i never knew how to put it into words before.” you had to look away before you got caught smiling at how boyish he looked when he got excited.

the other members stared with amused expressions on their faces, so you quickly straightened up and went back into server mode.

“right… uhm, our special tonight is black truffle gnocchi in a garlic cream reduction, topped with parmesan and chive oil. would you like something to drink while you look over the menu?”

“what kind of beers do you have?” johnny asked, leaning back in his seat.

you rattled off the list, stepping in to point them out on the menu. your hand was visibly shaking, but you hoped they’d chalk it up to general social awkwardness and not the fact that your four favorite idols were sitting in front of you.

“just water for me,” mark said softly. despite his smile, you could clearly hear how strained his voice was.

“great, i’ll bring those right out.”

they must’ve come straight from the venue. tonight’s show—the very one you’d missed because of this shift—had ended less than two hours ago. and now they were here, in your section, eating dinner. 

you walked to the bar, filled the glasses as requested except for mark’s. for him, you brewed a mug of hot water, dropped in a slice of lemon, a swirl of honey, and a small nub of ginger. it wasn’t even on the menu but something about his tired eyes and strained voice made you move on instinct.

you brought the tray back with all the drinks, placing them down carefully. when you reached mark, you set the mug in front of him.

“i hope this is okay,” you said quietly. “honey-ginger tea. it’s good for your throat.”

mark blinked, taken off guard. “oh… thank you.” he looked down at the mug, then back up at you. “seriously. that’s really thoughtful.”

you just smiled, brushing a stray hair behind your ear. “are you guys ready to order?”

they each placed their orders, nothing too extravagant. jungwoo wanted pasta, johnny asked for a steak medium rare, and haechan—after a dramatic five minute debate with himself—settled on the truffle gnocchi. mark went last.

“can i get the steak medium rare? and the mashed potatoes instead of the fries, if that’s okay,” he asked, glancing up again, voice still carrying that soft exhaustion.

“of course,” you said, jotting it down. “i’ll get those in for you.”

you dropped the order slip at the kitchen window, still feeling weirdly out of sync with your body. it didn’t help that you had to keep circling their table to serve other guests. table five had just ordered dessert, the group behind them needed their wine refilled, and your feet barely touched the floor before you were moving again. 

still, awareness prickled at the back of your neck whenever you passed their table.

you turned your head slightly, pretending to scan the room. mark was looking right at you but quickly glanced away, suddenly very invested in the tea in front of him.

you hesitated. maybe they needed something?

smoothing your apron, you walked back to their table. your heart thudded way harder than it needed to, but you managed a smile.

“everything okay here?” you asked.

mark cleared his throat, shaking his head as a faint flush crept up his neck. “we’re good. thanks, though.”

johnny’s lips twitched, and haechan was very clearly hiding a smirk behind his glass.

you smiled again, warmth rising in your chest at how shy he looked. “no worries. food should be out soon.”

back behind the bar, you tried to focus. really, you did. but your eyes kept drifting back to their table. thankfully, they seemed too wrapped up in their conversation to notice. every now and then, though, mark’s gaze would flicker your way.

he’s probably just zoning out, you told yourself. or exhausted, probably both. don’t be weird about it.

still… he kept looking. did you have something on your face? was it obvious you recognized them? god, what if he thought the tea was too much?

you groaned softly and buried your face in your hands when no one was looking.

pull it together, y/n. finish the shift. freak out later.

they are pretty quickly and eventually, their table quieted down. it was past midnight now, and the restaurant was finally starting to shut down. you printed their bill, then hesitated, chewing your lip as your pulse ticked higher.

should i?

this was your shot. it was maybe a little silly and borderline embarrassing, but if you didn’t say something now, you’d regret it forever.

before you could second-guess yourself any more, you scribbled a note at the bottom of the receipt:

"hii, hope this isn’t weird but i’m a really big fan. you’re amazing and i hope you enjoyed your meal and that the tea helped. get some rest tonight! :)"

you took a breath, walked back over, and placed it gently in the center of the table.

“here’s your bill,” you said quietly. “no rush, of course.”

mark looked up first. the smile he gave you was a little tired, but genuine.

“thank you,” he said warmly.

you nodded and stepped away, legs wobbling slightly as you disappeared into the back.

it’s done, you told yourself. no going back now.

as you busied yourself cleaning other tables, you watched from the corner of your eye as they got up. haechan said something that made mark laugh quietly, eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that made your stomach flutter helplessly.

then they were gone.

you waited a few extra minutes before heading over just to be sure. as you cleared the plates, you reached for the bill with your heart already racing, though you told yourself not to expect anything.

but when you opened the leather folder, your breath hitched.

they’d left a generous tip—but that wasn’t what caught your eye. there was something written under your message, a response scribbled quickly in neat handwriting:

"thanks for taking care of us tonight. especially the tea! :)"

followed by a number.

your heart kicked so hard you had to brace a hand on the table edge. there was no name at all, just the number. the ink looked a little smudged near the dash like whoever wrote it had closed the presenter in a hurry.

holy shit.

͏͏͏𝄞͏͏ ͏͏ ͏͏͏♥︎̼

it was past one when you finally made it home, hair smelling like garlic butter and burnt steak. the city lay quiet, your apartment even quieter, yet your brain refused to join the calm.

with a tired sigh, you tossed your bag onto the couch and collapsed beside it, fingers still gripping the bill tightly.

you’d reread the message ten times already. the ink was even more smudged now from your fingers, but the number was still clear.

you exhaled loudly, then groaned into a throw pillow.

“what the hell is happening.”

it had to be mark. right? it felt obvious. 

then again, maybe another member had simply appreciated the gesture and thanked you on behalf of mark. after all, their handwriting wasn't exactly familiar. you’d seen them a few times on signed albums or online fan letters, but not enough to be certain. 

suddenly determined, you sat upright, snapped a quick photo, and zoomed in immediately.

“this is insane,” you muttered.

 but that didn’t stop you from opening a tab to search: mark lee handwriting.

this wasn’t your best moment. you were tired, emotionally compromised, and clearly spiraling. still you opened a second tab and went deeper until you were staring at stan twitter handwriting threads for half an hour.

after many more side-by-sides, you sat back and stared at the screen like it could confess to you.

“it looks like his,” you whispered.

just text him. what's the worst that could happen?

the thought alone conjured every embarrassing scenario possible and made you nearly throw your phone across the room. how would you even start that conversation?

“hi, is this mark lee from nct? because i’m lowkey in love with you and i really hope you're the one who left your number at my workplace tonight?”

your heart nearly stopped at the thought. you glanced at the clock again—2:17 a.m.

yeah. no. you needed to lie down. you’d sleep on it. calm down a bit and gain some perspective.

but three days passed.

three whole days. that’s how long you spent agonizing over a single text. you'd written and deleted at least twenty drafts—too casual, too eager, too weird. one even included a joke you cringed at the second you typed it, and deleted just as fast.

he’s probably already back in korea, you reminded yourself while folding napkins at the restaurant on tuesday. fan accounts had posted airport photos before you even got out of bed. mark in a beanie and headphones, eyes puffy with exhaustion.

two more days passed. eventually, courage outweighed dread.

on thursday night, curled up in your pajamas, you stared at the too-bright glow of your phone while netflix asked if you were still watching. just do it, you told yourself. again.

you opened a new message. typed. erased. retyped. your pulse pounded, drowning out mr. darcy’s proposal in the background.

hi! this is y/n, the server from cecconi’s last saturday night. i know you’re probably crazy busy, but i just wanted to say thanks again for coming in. hope you’re resting well :)

it was friendly and not too over the top… right?

you hit send and immediately shoved the phone under your blanket, like that could somehow shield you from the rejection.

an hour passed, then three more, and nothing. you forced yourself to sleep, pretending the tight knot in your chest wasn’t disappointment. the next morning, you checked your phone before even opening both eyes.

still nothing. not even a read receipt.

it’s fine. they were idols. they were busy. you’d waited too long anyway. the group was back in rehearsals, buried in schedules. who had time to answer a text from a random server in another country?

another day passed with no reply. you tried to talk yourself down. maybe it wasn’t even his number. maybe it was a manager’s. maybe his phone was off. maybe international sims are weird. maybe—

“why did you wait so long,” you muttered into the couch, face buried in a pillow.

you were just about ready to let it go when your phone buzzed softly against the coffee table.

your heart nearly launched itself out of your chest. you scrambled for it, almost knocking over the entire table in the process.

a new message.

sorry!! things got crazy once we got back to korea. i’m really glad you texted though. and we’re resting (sort of haha). it’s mark btw :)

you stared at the screen.

read it. then read it again. and again.

warmth flooded your chest. you'd been right.

it was him.

your thumb hovered over the keyboard, brain scrambling for something to say. but for the first time in days, all you could do was smile.

you hadn’t realized how easily a single text could flip your whole mood until he replied. you must’ve read that message ten times before you even responded.

somehow, the conversation flowed naturally from there.

it started with casual back-and-forths. he’d talk about the tour, and you about your shifts. it quickly turned more personal though like blurry late-night snack pics from his studio, or mirror selfies of your server fits before dinner rushes.

none of it felt forced. but still… what was this?

you’d be wiping down table six or pulling espresso shots for a regular who never tipped, and suddenly your phone would buzz with a text message.

mark: can’t believe you’ve never seen inception…

you: maybe i was busy having friends

he sent back a string of laughing emojis and a photo of his laptop playing it.

mark: you’re watching it with me next time. no excuses.

next time.

you didn’t know what that meant, but it echoed in your head for the rest of the shift.

by the second week, it wasn’t just texts.

sometimes he’d call when your time zones aligned, and you were both free. once while you were folding laundry. another while he walked home from the studio, breath fogging the cold air as he complained about his busted heater.

“i feel like an old man,” he said once, voice scratchy. “my knees hurt”

“you’re twenty-five.”

“and breaking down.”

you laughed until your stomach hurt. he was quiet for a second, then said, “i like your laugh.”

you had to grip the edge of the counter to stay upright.

a month later came the first video call.

it was early morning. you were still half-asleep, texting with one eye open, when your screen lit up with a facetime request. you froze.

no makeup. puffy eyes. pimple cream still on your chin. but your fingers accepted the call before your brain could stop you.

he was lying down, hoodie half over his face.

“oh thank god,” he mumbled. “i thought you weren’t gonna pick up.”

“i almost didn’t,” you laughed, pulling the covers up to hide half your face. “you caught me in a vulnerable state.”

his eyes crinkled. “you look cute.”

you didn’t know what to say to that, so you just tucked your face further into the blanket.

after a few hours, the call fell into a comfortable silence, his eyes starting to flutter shut as you both lay in your respective beds.

you should’ve hung up, but you didn’t. you just stayed on the call, watching him sleep.

video calls became routine after that.

at first, they were short—ten, maybe fifteen minutes. he’d call after practice, his hair a mess, face still damp with sweat. the phone would be propped against his water bottle as he peeled off his hoodie and complained about sore calves.

but the calls started stretching longer. sometimes he was lying on a hotel bed, cheek pressed into the pillow, telling you about his comeback preparations. other times, he wandered through whatever city he was in, showing you the neon signs, quiet side streets, and cafés tucked into corners no tourist would ever find.

“i’ll take you here one day,” he said once, camera panning to a ramen shop. “i mean… if you ever visit.”

you didn’t answer right away. just smiled and pretended the idea didn’t stick in your chest like a pebble you couldn’t shake loose.

you started saving little things throughout the day just to tell him later. customer stories, songs that reminded you of him, strange headlines you knew would make him laugh. without realizing it, your brain made notes labeled tell mark this later.

he did the same. he sent you photos of whatever snack he was eating on set, told you about a dream where you both worked in a space bakery, asked what you thought of new songs he was writing. he never sent full demos, just a few seconds here and there—but it still felt intimate.

you started noticing things you hadn’t, even after all your years as a fan. how he bit the soft skin of his knuckles when he was anxious or the fact that he brushed his teeth for 6 minutes (yes, you counted).

neither of you brought up what this was. and maybe that was okay.

still, on some nights, you’d wonder does he text other people like this? has he done this before, video calls, sleepy laughter and quietly sharing his day?

you never asked.

you didn’t want to ruin the quiet magic of it all by needing too much too soon.

͏͏͏𝄞͏͏ ͏͏ ͏͏͏♥︎̼

mark eased you into his life bit by bit.

on a random thursday night, you were sprawled on the couch, scrolling aimlessly through tiktok when your phone buzzed. you smiled automatically when you saw his name and hit accept.

but it wasn’t him when the call connected.

“yo! she’s real!” johnny’s voice boomed through the speaker, far too loud and way too amused.

you blinked. “wait—what?”

the screen shook as mark scrambled to get the phone back. “okay, okay, stop—hyung, give it back!”

“nice to meet you,” jungwoo added brightly in the background. “finally!”

haechan’s face popped into view next. he hovered close to the camera, flashing a crooked grin. “she’s the one, right? the reason he’s always giggling at his phone like a loser.”

they were all speaking in korean, except for johnny—who made sure you caught the gist. you weren’t fluent, but you knew enough to piece it together. their tone said a lot, anyway.

“what did he say?” you asked, laughing nervously.

johnny leaned in. “he said mark’s obsessed with you.”

mark groaned in the background. “don’t translate that.”

“he talks about you,” haechan added in english, still half-hiding behind jungwoo but clearly enjoying himself. “all. the. time.”

you stared at the screen, wide-eyed, face already burning. “oh god—wait, we just—”

“aigoo, she’s cute,” jungwoo said with a grin, nudging haechan’s shoulder. “mark, you’re done for.”

mark finally got his phone back, his flushed face filling the screen. he was breathless from laughing.

“i’m so sorry,” he mumbled. “that was… i didn’t mean for that to happen.”

you were still blushing but grinning too. “so you talk about me all the time?”

he covered his face with one hand. “please. don’t start, they won’t let me live this down”

after that night, it became a running thing. sometimes you’d call just to talk to mark and end up ambushed by his members. taeyong once popped into frame with a plate of fruit, offering you a piece through the screen like you could actually take it. “for energy,” he said in halting English, then smiled and wandered off.

chenle appeared a few times asking random questions as if you’d been friends forever, one time he asked “do you like mark as much as he likes you?”

you sputtered something while mark tried (and failed) to shut him up.

renjun showed up once too, squinting at the screen. “so this is the girl,” he said, then walked off dramatically without another word.

it was chaotic, awkward, and constantly embarrassing but it also made your chest ache in the best way. knowing you weren’t some secret he was hiding. you were someone he wanted them to know.

and then one night, a few weeks later, mark called with a different kind of energy.

“guess what?” he said, barely able to sit still.

you blinked at him through the screen. “what?”

“we’re going to the US,” he grinned, and your heart nearly stopped.

“wait, seriously?”

“yeah, for a festival. just one weekend, but i’ll have a couple free days before the flight out. i—” he paused, scratching the back of his neck. “i was really hoping i could see you.”

you stared at him, stunned for a second.

“you want to see me?” you asked softly.

“yeah,” he said immediately. “i mean, only if you want to, obviously. i just… i’ve been thinking about it for a while. texting and calling is great but,.. i kind of miss being in the same room as you.”

not just the same city,  not just in passing. but in the same room with you.

you swallowed past the nerves bubbling up in your chest and nodded, trying to keep your voice steady.

“i want that too.”

͏͏͏𝄞͏͏ ͏͏ ͏͏͏♥︎̼

you tried for tickets the second they went live.

you had alarms set, several tabs open, your card ready. but none of it mattered…

they sold out in minutes.

you stared at the screen in disbelief, refreshing the page over and over hoping the outcome would change. it didn’t. your chest tightened with each failed refresh.

you were so close. and now, you had no idea how to tell mark.

you waited a whole day, thinking they’d release more tickets, maybe someone would resell—but the prices were insane, triple what you could afford, and the longer you waited, the more hopeless it felt.

when he finally called you that night, you tried to act normal for about ten seconds before it all came spilling out.

“i didn’t get tickets,” you said, voice cracking before you could stop it. “they sold out so fast and now the only ones left are like impossible. and i know you’re going to be super busy and probably won’t be able to meet up anyway, but i was really looking forward to seeing you perform, and now i don’t even know if i’ll get to see you at all—”

“hey, hey, slow down.” mark’s voice was soft. “breathe, y/n.”

you inhaled shakily, pressing your forehead to your knee, curled up on the couch. “sorry. i just… i really wanted to be there.”

“i know,” he said gently. “and i want you there too.”

you went quiet, biting the inside of your cheek.

“but we’ll figure something out, okay?” mark continued. “don’t stress about it too much. just… trust me a little.”

“what do you mean…,” you said slowly, suspicion creeping in.

he chuckled. “nothing. just saying... maybe don’t give up hope yet.”

you narrowed your eyes at your phone. “you’re being cryptic.”

“am i?” he said, way too innocently.

you groaned into your pillow. “don’t do this to me.”

“i’m not doing anything,” he replied. “just... keep the day of the festival open, okay?”

you wanted to press him, but the look in his eyes was too confident. so you nodded slowly, heart still a little heavy but soothed by the warmth in his voice.

the day they landed in the US, you got the call while brushing your teeth.

your phone lit up with his name, and you answered with a mouthful of foam, spitting it out quickly as you mumbled, “hey, did you land?”

“we did,” mark said, voice laced with excitement. “and i have good news.”

“what?”

“a car’s going to pick you up the day of the show,” he said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “my team helped sort it out. we wanted to make sure you’d be there.”

you blinked, wide-eyed, toothbrush still in hand. “wait what? you—what do you mean? mark—”

“you’re coming to the festival, y/n. you’re not missing this. not if i can help it.”

you clutched your phone, stunned into silence, overwhelmed by how much care he’d tucked into those few words.

“you didn’t have to—”

“i know,” he interrupted, voice softer now. “but i wanted to.”

͏͏͏𝄞͏͏ ͏͏ ͏͏͏♥︎̼

you’d never felt more nervous getting ready for anything in your entire life. not for job interviews, not for first dates, not even for a final exam. nothing compared to the fluttering anxiety buzzing in your chest right now.

it was almost ridiculous how much effort you'd put in. your hair was carefully styled in waves that took you half an hour to do, your makeup was done and redone multiple times until you finally settled on something subtle but pretty. your outfit had taken ages to choose, you didn’t want to look too casual but also didn’t want to make it seem like you were trying too hard. so you settled for a regular black skirt and a white long sleeved top, it was comfortable but not boring. you wanted to look good, even though mark had already seen you at your most tired, sweaty, and disheveled.

the car arrived precisely at the time mark had promised. your heart jumped to your throat when the driver opened the door for you, offering a polite nod. 

your hands trembled slightly in your lap the entire ride to the venue. you felt giddy, overwhelmed, and deeply nervous all at once.

but when you finally arrived, the excitement abruptly shifted into self-awareness. several staff members glanced at you warily, some whispering to each other and throwing quick looks your way. suddenly, you felt very out of place, shrinking slightly under their scrutinizing gazes.

“excuse me,” came a sharp voice behind you. you turned around to see a woman approaching, her expression serious, a clipboard held firmly in her hands. “you must be y/n?”

“yes,” you replied nervously.

“there are some documents you'll need to sign,” she informed you.

“documents? like—”

“standard NDAs, confidentiality agreements, liability waivers,” she cut in and handed you a clipboard, flipping briskly through pages filled with dense legal text. “you'll need to sign these before we move forward.”

you stood frozen for a moment, feeling incredibly naive and small as reality hit you like a slap to the face. you’d let yourself get carried away, almost forgetting who exactly mark was—who exactly these people were. they weren't just regular guys; they were idols, celebrities, people with management teams and carefully guarded images.

this was serious and you had somehow underestimated all of it.

the woman noticed your hesitation, her expression softening just a fraction. “it’s standard procedure,” she said, “mark personally asked us to ensure you’re comfortable, but we need to protect everyone involved.”

“okay,” you whispered shakily, taking the pen from her hand. your fingers felt numb as you signed, barely registering the words printed on the paper. 

once the woman was satisfied, she took the clipboard back, nodded curtly, and gestured for you to follow her. your heart thundered in your chest as you walked through the busy hallway.

then she stopped in front of a dressing room door, knocking sharply once before opening it slightly. “mark? your guest is here.”

you held your breath as the door slowly swung open, your pulse so loud you could hardly hear anything else.

mark appeared in the doorway, eyes widening slightly as he took you in. suddenly, all the anxiety, paperwork, and awkwardness faded into the background. his expression softened immediately, that familiar warmth returning as his eyes crinkled in a gentl smile.

“hey,” he breathed softly, clearly just as relieved to see you as you were to see him. “you made it.”

mark steps fully into the hallway, blocking the view of the bustling green-room behind him. for half a beat you both just stare, soaking in the fact that you’re finally sharing the same oxygen again instead of pixels on a phone screen.

“wow…” he breathes, cheeks coloring as his eyes scan you. “you look so—” he catches himself, smiles sheepishly, and opens his arms. “can i?”

you nod before your brain supplies coherent language, letting him tug you forward. the hug is quick—he’s hyper-aware of everyone around you—but his hand stays at your elbow afterward, grounding you.

“sorry about the fuss,” he murmurs, voice pitched low so only you can hear. 

“it’s okay… just a bit intense.”

“i know.” his thumb sweeps a tiny circle on your sleeve. “but you’re here now. c’mon, the guys are waiting.”

when you walk inside the room is buzzing with energy. there’s stylists zipping garment bags, a makeup artist following jungwoo around to touch up his lips, haechan drumming on a folding table with two half-empty water bottles. the second he spots you, his face splits into a grin.

“look who made it!” he crows, loud enough for the entire room to hear. “mark’s special guest.”

johnny swivels in a chair. “oh, the infamous y/n at last.” he stands, offering a hand that turns into a gentle half-hug when you take it. “nice seeing you again.”

jungwoo waves from a corner, cheeks puffed with gummy bears. “hi! mark’s talked a lot about you,” he says around the candy. 

mark groans. “ignore them, they’ve been insufferable since i told them you were coming.”

“insufferable?” haechan clutches his chest theatrically. “hyung, we’re just supporting your relationship!”

you feel your face go nuclear. “it’s not— we’re just—”

“friends,” mark supplies, shooting haechan a warning glance. but the tips of his ears have gone pink, and the little smile tugging at his mouth totally betrays him.

johnny leans closer, whispering, “lies, he’s always grinnung at his phone like a middle schooler whenever you talk.”

you let out a mortified laugh that turns into a squeak when mark nudges johnny away. “we have to be on stage in ten minutes, maybe focus?”

jungwoo claps. “right! you can watch backstage with staff.”

an assistant appears then, handing mark an in-ear pack. he hesitates, then squeezes your hand once before following the others toward wardrobe.

“sorry i gotta get dressed,” he says over his shoulder, “see you in a bit.”

you exhale for the first time since stepping off the car, pulse finally settling as the door swings shut. you tuck a stray hair behind your ear, catching your reflection in a vanity mirror. your cheeks are flushed and there’s a stunned little smile on your lips.

the staff member that escorted you in approaches again, her expression now more polite but still distant as she walks you down a narrow hallway. “you’ll be watching from here,” she explains as you reach a curtained-off section just beside the stage entrance.

the space is just wide enough for a couple of folding chairs, and a monitor showing the stage feed. even through the curtain, you can hear the low rumble of the crowd growing louder by the second—cheers, screams, the crowd chanting “ilichil, we love you!” 

you perch at the edge of a chair, feeling entirely out of place and wildly overwhelmed.

what am i even doing here?

this wasn’t some fantasy anymore. you weren’t watching fancams in your pajamas or whispering to your screen during late-night video calls. you were backstage, in their world, and everyone around you belonged to it except you.

you looked down at your outfit again, smoothing invisible wrinkles, suddenly doubting every choice you’d made that morning. your nails, your shoes, even the way you’d done your eyeliner. it all felt too much and not enough at the same time.

a soft noise pulls your attention back to the side curtain. one of the stylists slips through, handing off a mic pack to someone just outside your view. you recognize mark’s voice quickly.

he’s laughing at something jungwoo said, but even through the laughter you can hear the edge of nerves in his voice. it makes you feel… less alone in your own.

you peek around the edge of the curtain. they’re all gathered near the wings, adjusting their in-ears and bouncing on their heels to shake out last-minute jitters. mark’s back is turned at first, but then he glances over his shoulder almost like he can feel your eyes on him.

your breath catches when his gaze finds yours. through all the chaos and noise, his eyes meet yours like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

he doesn’t wave or call out—he just smiles.

he turns back as staff starts to guide them toward the entrance tunnel, and you’re left sitting there with your heart doing an unholy rhythm in your chest.

you hadn’t expected this, the building pressure in your chest, the way your emotions feel too big to hold.

but underneath all of it, layered between the nerves and the noise inside your own head, there’s a flicker of anticipation.

he’s just a few feet away now. he’s about to be on stage, doing what he was born to do, and you’ll be right here, watching not just as a fan anymore.

but as someone who matters to him.

the stage lights cut to black, and the low hum of the backing track pulses through the arena like a heartbeat. from your narrow perch in the wings you can feel the vibration under your soles, a physical reminder that this isn’t a dream.

a lone spotlight slices across the darkness—jungwoo steps into it, and the crowd erupts. the boys fan out behind him in practiced formation.

mark is near the center, head lowered, hand cupped over his earpiece as he settles into position. you’ve watched this opening on countless fancams, but up close everything is magnified: the hiss of their in-ears, the snap of jacket fabric when they turn, the ragged inhale before the first line.

johnny’s deep vocal rolls out, haechan answers with his bright harmony, and suddenly the whole place is singing along..

mark’s part hits next. he steps forward, eyes scanning the sea of faces before flicking to you. it’s only a second, a brush of attention so quick the crowd would never catch it, but it lands like a spark in your lungs. he grins, then pivots into choreography.

you never understood how performers could look both effortless and deadly focused until now. sweat beads at their hairlines within minutes, but they don’t miss a beat. haechan riffs a playful ad-lib, doyoung shoots him a mock glare, johnny laughs into his mic; the crowd screams, drunk on the interaction.

halfway through the set, they perform gold dust as a surprise, the stage lights go yellow. mark moves to the far edge closer to you and delivers his verse straight ahead. but on his last bar he tilts his head, eyes skimming the shadows where you’re standing. his voice drops into that warm, gritty register you know too well from late-night calls, and despite the roar of the arena the moment feels impossibly intimate.

you tuck your hands under your arms, trying to calm the goosebumps, but the sheer thrill of seeing him own that stage while still tossing these tiny pieces of himself your way is overwhelming.

the final song explodes in confetti cannons. the boys hit their last pose, breathing hard, grinning wide. the screams from the audience are deafening; even the backstage staff exchange awed looks.

mark bows with the others, shouting “thank you!” into his mic, but as they turn to exit he catches your gaze one more time. he taps two fingers against his chest, then points subtly toward the hallway where you’re waiting and mouths the words stay right there, i’ll find you.

and you waited exactly where he told you to.

or… at least tried to.

but the moment the boys disappeared off stage, chaos swallowed everything whole. several stagehands rushed past with crates, wires and gear flying in every direction, staff barking orders into walkies while backup dancers and security weaved in and out of the narrow corridors.

you stepped back into the corner, trying not to get trampled, but every second you waited the crowd thickened, people shouting over each other, crew passing by so quickly that you were bumped into more than once. you caught glimpses of the members being swept off into different directions—haechan laughing breathlessly with a towel around his neck, johnny taking a water bottle from someone. but there was no sight of mark.

“you can’t stand here,” someone snaps, grabbing your elbow and steering you quickly away. “please, move along.”

“wait, i was supposed to—” you start, but your protest drowns in the noise as you’re guided through the maze of corridors. 

you glance over your shoulder anxiously, panic rising in your throat. mark said he’d find you but you don’t even know where you’re going.

the staff member stops abruptly near a back exit, where a van is parked outside the open door. he gestures hurriedly. “wait in there, please. someone will be with you shortly.”

before you can question it, he’s already vanished back into the building. hesitantly, you climb into the empty van, settling awkwardly on the leather seat. not even a minute later your phone buzzes with a text from mark.

mark: where are you??? backstage is insane, i can’t find you.

you quickly reply: someone moved me to a van near the back entrance?

your heart pounds as minutes stretch into eternity and doubt starts gnawing at you—they will probably film some behind the scenes content now, interviews, livestreams, what if he doesn’t have time to find you before he’s sent away?

but just as anxiety peaks, the van door suddenly slides open. your eyes widen as mark appears, breathing heavily like he ran to reach you, his stage makeup slightly smudged, hair damp and tousled from the performance. he sighs in relief, shoulders visibly relaxing the second he sees you.

“oh, thank god,” he breathes, climbing quickly into the van and closing the door behind him. “i was so worried. everything okay?”

“yeah, it was just really hectic—” you start, but your words fade as he sits beside you, closer than you’ve ever really been. close enough that you can see the faint glitter along his jaw, the sweat glistening at his temples, the warmth in his gaze as it settles fully on your face.

“you were incredible out there,” you say softly. “i’ve never…  it’s different seeing it up close.”

his cheeks pink despite the post-performance flush. “i kept looking for you.” 

“i noticed,” you admit, smiling.

mark’s gaze drops to your hands twisting in your lap and he reaches out.

“thanks for being here,” he murmurs. 

your laugh is a shaky exhale. “i wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“also…the NDA,” he starts quietly. “i didn’t want you to feel like i was cornering you into some weird situation. that’s not what this is.”

“mark, i didn’t think that. i mean—it was overwhelming, yeah, but i get it. you’re…” you gesture helplessly. “you.”

he laughs softly, but there’s no real humor behind it. “i hate it. you know, not being able to just… hang out with you. not having the freedom to do normal things, like… i don’t know—go get coffee or show you the city or tell people about you without it turning into a whole thing.”

“is that what this is? am i…” you hesitate. “something you’d want to tell people about?”

he looks up at you, and there’s not a trace of hesitation when he says, “yes. i think about it all the time.”

you blink, throat suddenly dry.

he leans in slightly. “i just… i didn’t want you to think i was trying to make you sign your silence just so i could keep you a secret. it’s not about hiding you. it’s about protecting something that means a lot to me.”

and there it is. the part he hadn’t said yet.

you mean a lot to him.

your chest tightens with the weight of being chosen in a world that doesn’t make space for this kind of closeness, that demands boundaries, a good image and clean lines drawn in ink. and yet here he is, blurring those lines for you.

“thank you for saying that,” you murmur, voice trembling a little. “i didn’t realize how much i needed to hear it.”

mark reaches across the space then, taking your other hand. “i don’t want this to feel like you’re walking on eggshells because of my life. i want it to feel real.”

your fingers tighten around his instinctively.

“it already does,” you whisper.

and when he finally closes the distance between you, pulling you into a quiet, careful hug, it feels so right.

his arms wrap around you and for a second the world outside the van ceases to exist. he’s warm even through his stage jacket, you can feel his heartbeat thudding fast against your cheek. you breathe him in, clean sweat and fabric softener.

when he pulls back, he doesn’t release your hand. his thumb brushes lazy paths over your knuckles.

“i kept picturing this,” he admits quietly. “all week. wondering if it would feel the same in person as it did in my head.”

“and?” you whisper.

“it’s even better,” he says without hesitation.

he shifts slightly, the space between you rapidly shrinking. his gaze flickers briefly down to your lips, and the movement sends your pulse racing.

“mark,” you whisper, voice barely audible, “i—”

his other hand gently finds your cheek, thumb tracing lightly along your skin, tipping your chin up just a fraction. he searches your face, breathing shallow and eyes heavy with something soft and vulnerable.

you lean in instinctively, eyes fluttering closed as his breath ghosts warm over your lips—

and then the van door suddenly swings open, a burst of noise and harsh backstage lighting flooding in.

“mark hyung, manager hyung says—oh shit.” haechan freezes halfway inside the doorway. “ohhh, sorry… was i interrupting something?”

mark jerks back, cheeks blazing crimson as his hand quickly leaves your cheek and lands awkwardly in his lap. “dude, are you serious?” he groans, dropping his head with a sigh and muttering a very un-idol-like curse word. 

you cover your mouth, laughing breathlessly through the embarrassment even as your pulse continues hammering in your ears.

“sorry, sorry,” haechan says, grinning wickedly, clearly not sorry at all. “but uh, we gotta go. manager hyung’s freaking out. we got an interview, hurry up.”

“yeah. coming.” he searches your face, apology written in his eyes “they’ll herd us to the hotel soon. can you wait a little longer? i want to ride with you after they clear the crowd.”

you nod, trying to ignore the throb of almost-kiss still sparking across your lips. “i’m not going anywhere.”

“give me twenty minutes tops, and then i’m kidnapping you for actual food.”

“bold of you to assume i’d say no.”

as he slips out, you catch the faintest curve of a smile before the door thuds shut and you’re alone again.

thirty minutes later, mark slips back into the van. this time freshly changed, hair still damp but swept under a dark cap.

“sorry that took forever.” he drops into the seat opposite you, knee bouncing with leftover adrenaline. “do you wanna come meet the other members properly before we leave?”

you follow him back through a quieter service corridor to a smaller green room that smells heavily like hair spray. inside, half the members are sprawled on sofas in various states of post-show exhaustion. the energy shifts the second mark ushers you in.

“guys, this is y/n,” he says.

taeyong shoots up first, hand extended. “the legend herself,” he jokes, grinning wide enough to prove he’s still riding his performance high. jaehyun offers a shy wave and drags over a chair so you won’t have to hover. yuta, also walks over and introduces himself politely.

doyoung is the only one who stays seated, arms folded. his eyes flick between you and mark, assessing. it lasts all of three seconds before he notices how relaxed mark looks—those shoulders that usually sit somewhere near his ears are loose, his smile easy. doyoung’s expression softens.

“thanks for cheering him up,” he says quietly, a little sheepish. “he’s been impossible the last few weeks.” the tease lands gentle, and mark flicks a sweat towel at him in retaliation.

the small talk bubbles up easily. the topic shifting from favorite festival moments, to whose in-ears cut out, and the confetti that caught in doyoung’s mouth during a high note. the atmosphere is warm and surprisingly normal, until a manager pops his head in to remind everyone they’ve got early rehearsals tomorrow.

mark steers you quickly back to the van after saying a quick goodbye.

“so…” he ran a hand through his hair and put his hat back on. “food?”

“please,” you groaned, head falling back against the seat. “i’m starving.”

“wanna go to a restaurant?” he offered.

you winced. “too risky.”

he nodded slowly. “true, my hotel’s worse.”

you turned your head to face him. “sasaengs?”

“they wait outside sometimes, follow the vans from the venue” he trailed off, already looking annoyed with the reality of it.

“we could…” you swallow, then barrel through. “we could go to my place? it’s not far, and no one knows where i live. we can order in.”

mark’s head tilts, surprised but already nodding. “are you sure?”

“only if you’re okay hiding out in a tiny apartment that smells like scented candles and stale coffee.”

he smiles brightly. “sounds perfect.”

you rattle off your address to the driver, heart hammering as you drive through the city. mark’s knee bumps yours every time the van hits a pothole, but neither of you moves away.

he glances over. “thank you for trusting me with your space.”

you breathe out a shaky laugh. “thank you for trusting me with… all of this.”

his fingers brush yours on the seat between you. outside, the van slows to a stop at your curb. the driver kills the lights for discretion. thankfully, the street is empty.

you turn to mark, pulse racing for an entirely new reason now. “welcome to my part of the world.”

he grins, tugging his cap lower and reaching for the door handle. “lead the way.”

your apartment is small, cluttered with book stacks and half-burned candles, but it’s yours—and when mark steps in, slipping off his shoes at the door like he’s done it a hundred times, it feels suddenly, impossibly domestic.

“so,” he murmurs, looking around with quiet curiosity. “what’s good for takeout around here?”

you settle on thai food after a chaotic five-minute debate that ends with mark looking up from your couch and going, “okay but do you trust me with your spice tolerance?”

you blink at him. “mark. i watched you cry eating jalapeño chips during that one livestream.”

“they were ghost pepper!” he defends, slightly pouting. “and i didn’t cry, my eyes were just... dry.”

you giggle and the tension that had followed you into the apartment fades with it.

while you wait for the food, he wanders around your space with curiosity. never touching too much, just observing. he stops at your bookcase, smiles at the titles stacked sideways, fingers brushing one of the cracked spines.

“so this is where you’ve been calling from,” he says as he returns to the couch, flopping down beside you. “it’s cozy.”

“that’s code for small, right?”

he tilts his head, grinning softly. “no. cozy means i don’t want to leave.”

you glance over at him, heartbeat spiking in your throat. his hoodie’s a little rumpled from the ride, cap tossed somewhere by your front door, and he’s leaned so close your shoulders brush.

“you’re kind of the only boy who’s ever said that,” you murmur.

“then they’re idiots.”

your lips twitch with a smile. mark leans his head back on the cushion, you get distracted by the cute bump on his nose and the lines of his jaw.

you both fall quiet for a while, your legs stretched out beside his on the couch, ankles knocking occasionally. your body relaxes more than you expect, as if it remembers this feeling from all those calls and imaginary versions of this moment.

when the takeout finally arrives, you both eat cross-legged on the couch, plastic containers open between you, your playlist humming low in the background.

you talk through mouthfuls of noodles about everything and nothing—his weird craving for peaches whenever he’s overseas, your childhood phase of putting ketchup on rice, how you both secretly judge people who don’t rewind movies when they pause.

somewhere between “i really miss my mom’s kimchi stew” and your story about the nightmare customer who demanded gluten-free breadsticks, your shoulders touch. a minute later his arm slips along the back of the couch, fingers grazing your shoulder each time he shifts. your nerves fizz under your skin, but the contact feels safe.

You lean into him. He doesn’t move away.

the conversation slows and when you glance up to make a joke, your nose brushes the edge of his jaw. his breath hitches at this, then a warm hand settles on your knee.

“this feels…” he starts, swallowing. “kinda unreal.”

“yeah.” a whisper—because your voice has gone missing.

his palm lifts to your cheek, thumb soft against your skin. “can I kiss you?”

you’re already nodding.

the first kiss is shy and careful, more smile than pressure. The next slips deeper, mouths moving in a lazy rhythm neither of you rush. Your fingers tangle in the hem of his hoodie; his other hand skims your waist, pulling you just close enough to feel the quiet drum of his heart.

eventually the couch gets too cramped. mark breaks the kiss with a sheepish laugh. “my back is dying,” he murmurs.

you tug him down the hall to your room, giggling when he nearly trips on a sneaker. he perches on the edge of the bed and you climb into his lap without thinking, legs draped around him. his hands settle on your hips and he sighs.

“i really, really like you,” he says, forehead resting against yours.

“i like you too. a lot.”

he kisses you again. you spend the next half hour like that, trading soft laughs and softer kisses until the adrenaline drains from his limbs. head falls heavy on your shoulder, he mumbles something about the best night of his life…and falls asleep mid-sentence.

You ease him back onto the pillows, kick off your skirt, and curl into the space beneath his arm. One leg hooks over yours; his hand rests at the small of your back, protective even in sleep.

it’s the tenth call that finally wakes him the next morning.

mark groans into your pillow, dragging his phone blindly toward his face. “what…”

a second goes by and then he jolts upright. “shit. shit.”

you blink groggily, one arm reaching out for him. “what’s wrong?”

he’s already stumbling for his shirt which he doesn’t even remember taking off last nigh. “i slept in. i never—fuck, i never sleep in.”

you sit up slowly, watching him try to shove his hat over tousled hair while checking his phone. “i have like ten missed calls.”

he answers the incoming call hurriedly, voice tense and apologetic. “yeah, i’m sorry, i know… i’m on my way now, just got… held up. i’ll explain later.”

he glances down at you then, taking in your messy hair, swollen lips and sleepy eyes, and the look on his face softens just a little.

when he finally hangs up, he rushes back to your side, quickly pressing a kiss to your forehead. “i gotta run, but i'll text you as soon as i can. i promise.”

you smile sleepily up at him, already missing the warmth of his body against yours. “go. don’t get in trouble.”

he pauses briefly before leaving. “last night was… perfect. thank you.”

and then he’s gone, leaving you to curl back into your pillow, still feeling the ghost of his touch and the lingering warmth of everything you shared.

[beautifullilacsky]

maybe, I must write. I couldn't count the amount of tears that rolled over my face today, and I couldn't even tell you why they were here. Something in me feels empty. Or is it heavy? Is it maybe screaming loud, or does it hide in the silence? Something must be up, because I feel pulled down. There is a melody playing, so beautiful, it makes me cry. Then, I come across a poem, and while my eyes move over the letters, the tears start rolling over my cheeks. There are things I am unsure of in life, like my purpose and goals, but There is one thing I am sure of. That is, that I am a soft, deeply feeling and sensitive humanbeing. I have different depths of feeling, too. Sure, normally, I might be able to think of how I love something or someone, smile about it, and move on. Though with you, my love, it runs deeper. It isn't just a passing thought. The more I try to surpress it, the more it bangs on the doors of my soul. It gets louder and louder, going from the butterfly sunshine vibe, to a more desperate and longing icey-vibe. When let in, I know that love can brighten up my entire being. I can float in the feeling of love. Though, caged up, there isn't a way to release it. It grows so big, and parts of it shapeshift. This once tiny, happy and kissing puppy, slowly turns into something darker. My feelings are so big and deep, I feel like they are drowning me if I cannot open the door to release them.

Baby, I want to love you. Please. I want to tell you. I want to know all of your hidden secrets, just so I can make space for them and hold them. Not to try to fix anything, but to give them a home, too. They deserve to be seen and treated with kindness. Baby, I want to hold your face in the palms of my hands, as if you are the most precious thing to ever exist. I want to look at every detail of your face, and fall in love with individual eyelashes, the lines that run across your lips, the universe that is hiding inside of your irises, the bone structure molding your face into shape, and all the different colors and marks that are displayed on your face, as if you are a perfect canvas. I know I have a fishbrain, but oh god, I wish I could remember every single detail about you as if there is a book about you inside of my head. I would love to read it, carefully, word for word. I'd love to make notes, and underline my favorite things about you. I would love to run out of ink, because the pen couldn't keep up with the love that I feel for every part of you. I want to hear about your worst mistakes, and hold you in the way you held me. I want to make you feel welcome. Accepted. Safe. At home. I want to press my body against yours and lose a sense of where I end and you begin. I want to hear your heartbeat beating through my entire being; realizing how grateful I am that it kept you alive until this moment. I want to move my hand through your hair, and all over your body. I want to explore your body, and learn everything about it. I want to adore you. I want to tell you those words, because I feel like no action or look or thought, will be enough to explain to you how I feel. I don't just want to look, I want to speak about what I see. I want to let you know about all the magic I see inside of you. Baby, I want to love you. But I also want to be loved back. If not, I feel restricted; like I need to hold back my own love.

I am an ocean of love, and you are scared of water. I am drowning in the love I need to hold inside. But maybe, just maybe, in this case, the grandest love I can show you is respect. I know how I want to love, but I also know that doesn't allign with your wishes to be loved. So, I need to learn how to love you properly. I need to learn how I can love you in your way, and still feel fulfilled, knowing I love you the way you need to be loved. I should remember that, love isn't just selfishly doing things the way I want them to be done. The beautiful thing about love, is seeing the other person and wanting to do what is best for them. So baby. If you prefer me to not mention it, let me find other ways to show you. Let me find how you feel the most loved, and show you in that way. Let me learn to remind myself that I did good doing that, and that you'd prefer to be loved that way, so since I do love you and care about you, that is how I should bring it.

Maybe i should give the type of love that feels to be trapped inside me, to myself. Can you please love me, too? You show me your love, probably in the way that you'd like to be loved. But just as I have trouble loving you like that sometimes, I also have trouble noticing and translating your love. I will learn. Will you also learn for me?

㋡🥀

[anakinca]

ANAKIN SKYWALKER having a nasty habit of taking flowers from Jedi temple garden and just casually plucking it behind our ear :((( just pure ani in love; his eyes all adoring and screaming love

- im identifying as 🐇 now and you can not stop me Nina..

—❝loves in quiet ways❞

anakin skywalker x reader

tw ; nothing, just pure fluff

a/n ; hmm.. i wonder who this anon is.. IM GIGGLING. ALSO GUYS PLEZ. IM SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG IM TAKING TO DO THESE REQUESTS. I SWEAR IM WRITING THEM ALL PLZZZZ. DONT CANCEL ME. i hope you all enjoy this, angels <3

THE SUN WAS SOFT THAT AFTERNOON, DRAPING THE JEDI TEMPLE GARDENS IN A GOLDEN KIND OF QUIET. The stone paths were warm beneath your boots, the hum of distant speeders barely cutting through the sound of birdsongs and rustling leaves. 

There was a breeze, light and playful, threading through the tall grasses and swaying the heads of the flowers that lined the edges of the courtyard. It smelled like Naboo, somehow—like sun-warmed petals and something fresh and green.

It always started the same way.

You’d be walking through the Temple grounds—usually after a training session with your Master, sometimes on your way to the Archives, once even after a really boring mission debrief—and out of nowhere, Anakin would slow down beside you as you two were walking together. His eyes would wander a bit, like he wasn’t really listening anymore. You used to think he was zoning out. Turns out, he was just looking for flowers.

The first time it happened, you right were here in the Temple gardens. You were mid-sentence about something pretty boring—which was the ridiculous size of the new training droids—when you noticed Anakin had stopped listening entirely. You were about to call him out when he suddenly turned to you, completely unbothered, holding the softest-looking flower between his fingers. It was a small flower—soft blue petals, barely bigger than his thumb.

“Hold still,” he said, like it was the most normal thing in the galaxy.

You blinked a few times in confusion, but didn’t move an inch—just tilted your head questioningly as he stepped in close, your eyes looking up at him. 

He reached up with one hand and carefully tucked the flower behind your ear, his fingertips brushing your skin so lightly it made your breath catch.

You stood there staring up at him, heart tripping over itself, while he just smiled at you like you’d hung every single star in the sky.

“Perfect,” he said, quietly. Not looking at the flower, but instead looking at you.

You could feel your cheeks warming up, a rosy blush covering your face, but it was still impossible to look away from him. His gaze was so open, so full, that it made your stomach twist in the best kind of way. 

“You’re ridiculous.” You murmured as your lips quirked up at the corners, trying to sound casual.

His own lips twitched like he was fighting back a smile. “Can you blame me?”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like tucking flowers behind your ear was as natural to him as breathing. And maybe it was.

“I like seeing you with something soft,” he added after a beat, voice quieter now. “Like… Like the world should treat you just as gently.”

Your stomach was filled with butterflies in that moment, and it was hard to hide the way your eyes twinkled with adoration for him.

And all he did was smile at you. That small, boyish one. The one that only ever reached his eyes when he was looking at you.

Since then, it’s just become a thing of his now.

Sometimes he does it in passing, like it’s muscle memory now. You’ll be walking towards the mess hall, or sitting on a bench in the courtyard, or leaning over a datapad—and suddenly, there’s Anakin, plucking a tiny bloom from somewhere and tucking it behind your ear like it belongs there.

Like you belong to him, in this small, soft, secret kind of way.

No one else notices. Or if they do, they pretend not to—like Obi-Wan, for instance.

Maybe because it's Anakin, and he knows better than to ask about whatever storm or sun is brewing behind those eyes.

But when he's with you? It's never stormy. Just warm. 

Soft. Reverent. 

A little shy, even.

The way he looks at you every time he does it… stars. It’s like you’ve undone him without even trying. Like he’s seeing the whole galaxy and somehow you’re still the brightest thing in it.

There’s no smirk on his face, ever. No cocky comment. Just that stupidly soft smile you adore and those eyes—so full of something that looks so dangerously close to love.

Once, you caught him doing it when you were barely paying attention. A little wildflower tucked behind your ear, and he stared at you for a second longer than usual.

“What?” You asked, trying not to grin.

“Nothing,” he said, but his voice was too full of feeling for it to mean nothing. “You’re just… beautiful.”

And you couldn’t even pretend to tease him for it, because your heart was doing backflips, and you knew his was too. Because for all his bravado and charm, Anakin loves in quiet ways—in flowers and looks and touches that said everything he couldn’t out loud.

And even now, with the war growing louder, and the galaxy heavier, he still finds time. Still finds flowers. Still finds you.

Because loving you is the only thing that’s ever felt easy. 

And he’d rather die than let go of that. 

Rather die than let go of you.

@thesassypadawan @anakinstwinklebunny @sydkneez @dessxoxsworld @nikiloveshayden @anisangeldust @sweetcheesecakesblog @throughparisallthroughrome @ysrjune @fredswrite @divineani

let me know if you'd like to be added or removed from the tag list, angels <3

[no-144444]

cruel- c.sainz

꩜summary: an argument means he says some things he doesn't mean. he's never gotten that cruel before though.

꩜pairing: carlos sainz x fem! fiancé reader

꩜a/n: kinda toxic relationship but like not really but like also so be aware :D

You two didn’t fight. It just… wasn’t like that. You argued. Calmly. Softly. Gently. He didn’t shout. You didn’t scream. Neither of you ever walked off without having the issue resolved. 

It had never been like this. Just one slip of the tongue about him not being there for the important things, like your promotion, or Laura’s graduation, or those nights when you just needed your boyfriend a bit more than the other nights. That, and the mention of your new friend, Jamie, you knew him from work. He off-handedly got you a bunch of flowers for your promotion, just doing something nice. Carlos didn’t like it. You fought him on it, telling him he shouldn’t care since he’s never here. It wasn’t meant to be as snarky as it came out, you were just frustrated, you just wanted Carlos back for yourself, not constantly working or thinking about how he himself could improve the car. Carlos was tough, sure. Tough on himself, tough on Williams, tough on James. He was the kind of tough that didn’t really disappear, even in his gentlest moments. But he wasn’t tough on you. He was softer around the edges, reining it in so you wouldn’t run away. His voice was less gruff. His eyes were less hardened. He didn’t want to give you a reason to leave him, well, more than the ones you already had. 

Tonight he was angry. The kind of anger that silences a room and makes everywhere his own. The kind of anger that puts you on edge for a few days, even if it’s passed. The apartment didn’t feel big enough, didn’t feel like a shared space, it felt suffocating as you sat on the couch, Carlos shouting his head off at you, screaming that you were inconsiderate, that you were trying to make him angry, that you weren’t thinking. “So what do you want me to do, huh?” he barked, his voice loud. You were sure the neighbours were confused. “Do you think I am just going to relax this whole season?! Williams is a place for learning- for growth. I cannot grow if I’m not putting in the work!” His voice was cutting through the tension in the air. He stared at you with pleading eyes, begging for an answer. 

“I’m not asking you to stop racing Carlos, I’m asking you to spend some more of your free time with me-” you held your ground. You weren't being unreasonable. You wanted your boyfriend to be your boyfriend for more than 5 minutes a day. He sighed and spun on his heels, facing the other direction, head in his hands. “I’m sorry I said what I said about the Jamie thigh-”

He spun around again, wide eyes meeting yours. “So it’s a thing now? It’s a ‘Jamie thing’ now?” he demanded. “Dios mío, Y/n he’s a co-worker, he’s not in love with you,” he scoffed and you felt yourself recoil. What did that mean? ‘He’s not in love with you’ is he insinuating he’d have no reason to be in love with me? That I’m unlovable? That there’s no way anyone else would date me? You thought to yourself, emotion building in your chest. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. “He shouldn’t be giving my girlfriend flowers-”

“It was a nice thing to do!” you argued, your voice rising to meet his, as you stood from the couch. You couldn’t take this bullshit anymore, this ridiculous disrespect when both of you knew he was in the wrong. “I got promoted! 8 people sent me flowers and none of them were my boyfriend! How do you think that makes me feel, Carlos? Do you think it makes me feel cared for? Appreciated? Like you’re proud of me? Well, it doesn’t. It makes me feel like you don’t even care that I have a life outside of being your perfect little WAG.”

He rolled his eyes, his fists clenching. “You know I wanted to do something with you in person-”

���When was that going to happen?” you spat. “Winter break? Come on Carlos, just admit you knew nothing about it until I brought the flowers home, and you only started caring then. This isn’t about Jamie, or what my promotion is, it’s about you feeling like putting our relationship on the backburner isn’t a problem. I’m not asking for flowers or dates every week. I’m asking you to take an interest in my life again, and if you feel like you can;’t do that, then I don’t really know what we’re doing here,” you shrugged, the first of a few tears falling. “I can handle myself most of the time, I just need help sometimes. I need you-”

He scoffed. “Can you handle yourself? You’re crying to me about a fucking promotion and wanting to be congratulated on it.” 

He realised he crossed a line. He saw the way your face hardened. He saw how you stiffened. You crossed your arms, willing yourself not to cry. Your voice was soft and fleeting. “That’s not fair.” 

“Life’s not fair.” 

Then the silence. The suffocating, intoxicating, charged silence that made you want to run out of your own home and never come back. You couldn’t believe him. You knew he was stressed, but this was beyond stress. This was him being cruel. He had no right to speak to you like that. You could tell he wasn’t even listening to your side of the story and of course you hadn’t told him about the flowers because you knew how he’d react. You just didn’t think it’d be this bad. You didn’t think he’d belittle and dominish you so much. You didn’t think he’d cared so little. You turned your back on him, walking into your shared bedroom, needing time to think. You didn’t see it, but he reached out for you, but he stopped before he grabbed you, not knowing what to say. 

The lock clicked into place and you finally let yourself break down, your hand flying over your mouth to stop yourself from sobbing. You tried to suck in a steadying breath, but all the air had been sucked out of your lungs back in the living room, and the weight of his words still pushed against your chest. You stared at the blue walls, your arms wrapped around yourself like it might somehow hold you together from falling apart. Your throat burned from the tears falling down your face, but you made no effort to grab the bottle of water on your bedside table, not when you knew Carlos had made it for you that morning. Fuck, how could so much change in one stupid fucking morning? 

This was uncharted territory. He could be sharp, frustrating, downright rude sometimes, but he wasn’t cruel, not to you. He could fight people on track like it didn’t matter if they lived or died, but he’d always hop out of that car with a soft kiss for you. Even in the beginning of your relationship, when it consisted of heavy and wanting glances where you cautiously tiptoed around each other, to something tangible, something steady, something real- Carlos had always been there for you. Maybe not physically, but he was there. He’d always text at the right times, call just when you needed him, say the right thing, always. He was passionate, sure. Sometimes he got it wrong, but he was never cruel. He never wanted you to feel like you needed to hide from him. 

You pressed your back up against the door, trying desperately to will the tears away, will that sinking feeling in your chest away, make everything alright again, forget today and all the horrible things he said. You couldn’t. You knew it wasn’t totally fair to pin all the blame on him. This fight wasn’t just about Jamie. It wasn’t just about him not giving you enough attention. It was both of you realising that if you didn’t work on it, your relationship was bound to break apart. 

And that scared the shit out of you. 

Carlos was protective, he always had been. But he was never possessive. He didn’t ask you to change. He didn’t ask you to not have guy friends. He didn’t feel intimidated by your male co-workers. Then Jamie rolled up with his bouquet of your favourite flowers, and he felt threatened. Then he panicked that he felt threatened, and he took it out on you. At first it was sweet, quiet mumbled in Spanish about how he shouldn’t be doing that knowing you have a boyfriend at home. Somewhere between then and now, it turned into a screaming match where Carlos insulted your very being.  

You let out a shaky breath, your mind rushing at a thousand miles an hour. The diamond ring on your finger weighed down your hand. You felt it more than you ever had before. Every negative thought your brain could muster brought itself to the surface as you looked over it. He gave it to you just to shut you up. He hates you. He doesn’t love you. He doesn’t care that you’re pulling away. He doesn’t care about you. You groaned, pouting as you looked at it. It was so beautiful. A proposal down by the harbour. Private. Small. Gentle. Carlos in front of you, tears in his eyes, asking you to choose him, because he already chose you. You sighed. 

Ding! 

Your calendar app sent you a notification. 

Carlos and Y/n’s Engagement Celebration Dinner! 

You scoffed at your phone, wiping your eyes. Worst timing ever. 

Meanwhile, Carlos stood in the living room, going over every horrible thing he’d said. He ran his hands through his hair repeatedly, something he did when he needed to think- or when he was pissed off. He knew you were upset, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to notice the way your eyes welled up with tears when he said what he did. He also knew his reaction was totally out of line, he was pushing you too hard without having a real reason, and the guilt of that settled in his stomach like an ulcer he couldn’t get rid of. This was the first time he’d directed everything at you. He was wrong, he knew that. But that anger persisted, burning in his chest like a fire that just wouldn't go out. He wasn’t angry with you, he was mad at the situation. Hell, he wasn’t even mad at the situation- he was fucking terrified he was on the brink of losing you. He was more terrified that that argument might’ve been the last nail in the coffin. 

He ran a hand through his hair again, scoffing out a heavy sigh as he walked out to the balcony, dropping down onto the chair he’d sat not 8 hours ago, having breakfast with you. He kept replaying it, over and over again, like a corner he couldn’t get quiet right, or a chicane he’d fucked up one too many times. His words were sharp. Cutting. Cruel. 

He contemplated trying to talk to you again. Trying to apologise, admit he was scared of losing you. But even he knew you needed space. His jaw and fists clenched as he stayed put on the balcony, watching over the roads he knew so well, wishing he’d done so many things differently. 

Ding! 

He opened his phone as fast as he could, hoping it was a message from you. It wasn’t. 

Carlos and Y/n’s Engagement Celebration Dinner! 

Fuck’s sake. He swiped a hand over his face and groaned. Of course he picked a fight on the one day you two needed to be a happy couple. 

You stepped out of the bedroom wearing a long white dress, something simple and plain. Just silk. Your hair up. A bag in hand. 

You were breathtaking. He stared. He’d gone with a white linen shirt and some white trousers, not really knowing what to wear since he had assumed you would’ve guided him. You didn’t. You also didn’t look up at him. The various keys stayed on the counter, untouched. If you left it any later, you’d be late to your own reservation. 

He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold you, promise you he didn’t mean anything he said, and apologise. You sat on the bench beside the door, lacing up your heels like they’d offended you in some way. He couldn’t take his eyes off you. He didn’t want to. Your movements were sharp, jerky, and your mouth was set in a flat line. You looked up at him, your mouth opening like you had something to say. It closed again. You weren't sure if it was frustration or guilt, or anger written in his expression, but either way, it left your stomach in twists.  “Which car do you want to take?” he asked, clearing his throat. He wanted this to be about you, about the way you two loved each other, about how good the good times were, even in the midst of a bad time.

“Whatever you want, Carlos,” your voice was airy, lacking of its usual conviction. He gulped. You walked out the front door without so much as a glance over your shoulder. He cringed.

The Monaco air seemed much too cold for May. Sharp, like it was taking after your argument,the universe working to remind you of just how shit you already felt. Carlos locked the door behind the two of you, and you didn’t wait up for him so that you could take his hand. He didn’t open your car door. He just sat into his own seat, hands gripping the wheel so hard they turned white. He placed the keys into the ignition without so much as a look your way. The radio switched on, filling the strained silence between the two of you. 

The drive loomed over your head like a cruel punishment. You couldn’t cancel on everyone now. You couldn’t drive separately. You couldn't blow up. You just had to stay calm. That became increasingly difficult as you felt the emotions of the day overcome you, no matter how hard you tried to regulate yourself, the tears just kept burning your throat, that anxiety never left the place in your chest where it had settled over an hour ago. You focused your gaze out the window, watching as the streets of Monaco whipped by. You weren’t really paying attention to it, just trying to count and calm yourself down and your mind whizzed, focused on everything he did, and didn’t say.

He’d been louder than usual. Harsher. Crueler. His mouth worked before his brain could realise the hurt he was causing. Like he couldn’t stop it. But you knew he could’ve, if he really tried. You knew him. He had to control everything at 300 miles an hour, so he could definitely stop himself from saying the shittiest things he could think of to you. 

But he didn’t. Knowing that hurt more.

The silence was deafening, growing unbearable. You just kept telling yourself you weren’t going to break, then thought about those times you promised yourself you’d never make yourself smaller for a man, all those times Carlos promised you that you’d never have to. You spared him a glance. Gone was that sweet boy who was too shy to speak to you the first time. His jaw was clenched. His eyes stayed on the road. His shoulders were hunched like he was trying to hide himself. But you saw past that. You saw the way his expression didn’t reach his eyes. The way his shoulder sagged. The way he was tired in a way he’d never admit. Drained. Emotionally drained. 

You didn’t realise you were crying until the tear slipped down your face. Thank god you’d decided to pack your makeup bag just in case this very scenario occurred. You brushed it away quickly, knowing he hadn’t seen it. He couldn’t look your way. That just made your cry harder. More tears falling down, that sick feeling in your stomach, that weight on your chest, that burn in your throat. 

You sniffled as you watched the countryside whip past you, hues of pinks and purples painting the sky. You pretended that small ache in your heart wasn’t a call for comfort, for reassurance, for him, but you knew it was. You wanted him to turn to you and apologise. Promise you he loved you. Promise he’d do anything to not lose you. But you didn’t want to have to be the one to reach out. You wanted him to. You wanted him to care. 

Your hands were trembling in your lap. You hadn’t noticed. He did. 

He pulled over the car on the side of the road, not caring that his Ferrari 812 Competizione was in the dirt on a countryside road. You barely noticed you’d stopped. “Cariño,” his voice was soft, gentle. He reached over. He held your hands like they were the most fragile thing on the planet. 

You broke, tears falling. “I’m sorry,” you whispered, loud in the silence of the car. “I just miss you.”

He let out a heavy sigh, he squeezed your hands before he let them go, opening his door and rounding the front of the car. He was at your side before you could ever ask what he was doing.

“Come here,” He opened your door, the cool air rushing in as he offered a hand out to you. His tone was soft. So soft. So much softer than before. You took his hand without thinking much about it. 

He pulled you into his arms. His chest was warm and solid. Grounding. He squeezed you like you’d run away if he didn’t, and maybe you would. It made you feel safer. Cared for. Like someone was there for you. 

“I’m sorry Cariño,” he huffed out against your ear, you pretended not to notice the way his voice broke. “I was wrong.”

“I’m sorry too-” you tried, but he shushed you. 

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he shook his head as you let out yet another shaky breath. “I was a dick, and I was just scared of losing you. You’re just too nice to me, aren’t you?” he cooed, his thumb brushed against the side of your face as he looked down at your face. Your mascara was smudged. Tear lines down your face. He felt the splotchy heat on your chest and it pulled at his heart strings. “We’re going to be okay?”

You sighed, closing your eyes as your emotions took over again. You leaned your forehead against his chest. “What did you mean?” you whispered.

“What do you mean, my love?” he asked, a hand smoothing down your back.  

“He’s just your co-worker, he’s not in love with you,” you repeated. “As if no one would ever love me?” you let out a sad chuckle. “I just want to know what you mean.” 

He let out a shaky breath, internally kicking himself for saying such ridiculous things. He wanted to smack himself. “No my love,” he shook his head, your small sniffles twisting his heart strings as he tried to not let his emotion overtake his senses. “No. You’re wonderful and I was being stupid. Please don’t believe anything I said. You’re incredible. I’m so proud of you. You’re a genius. YOu deserve to be celebrated, and I’m sorry I couldn’t see that.”

You nodded against his chest. “Yeah, you are stupid,” you agreed, a sad smile on your lips. He chuckled against your hair. “We’re going to be okay?” you asked. 

“I’m going to fight for you everyday,” he said it like it was a promise. An inevitable. A truth. You both felt that release of anxiety, though guilt lingered. You’d be alright. You’d fight for each other. You’d do what it takes to make it work. He pressed a kiss to your forehead, lingering for a moment. Instead of pulling back completely, his lips trailed down, brushing lightly against your temple, then your cheek. His hands circled your waist, his breath on your cheek. You sniffled again, realising how much of a mess you must look. He didn’t care. He leaned in closer and your hands tightened on his shirt as he stopped, hesitating. He was dangerously close as an unspoken ache settled between you two. He held himself back as best he could, but all he wanted was to kiss you.  “Carlos,” your voice was just above a whimper, and he only leaned in closer, cradling your face with a hand as his lips found yours. He kissed you like he needed to, passionate but slow. Careful and cautious, like your first. Like he couldn’t get close enough. Like it’d never be enough, no matter how many times he kissed you. You pulled back, breathing out with a small smile on your lips. He could’ve sworn he’d gone to heaven and died when you looked up at him. “We’re going to be okay,” you spoke the words like you meant it, and he felt his stomach twist in the best way. 

He smiled. “You’re something else,” he shook his head, his voice low, a depth behind his words you couldn’t name. You chuckled, your cheeks heating. You pressed one last lingering kiss to the edge of his mouth and sent him a small smile. 

“We’ll be late,’ you reminded him, stepping back into the car and getting your makeup bag out to start fixing your makeup. He shook his head, chuckling as he slid into the driver’s seat. His hand found your thigh, holding tightly. 

It felt like he would never let go. You didn’t want him to.

williams & merc masterlist

navigation for my blog :)

[draftbeerbibi]

FOR ME, IT WILL ALWAYS BE YOU - Sylus x Non MC!

Summery: you find yourself in lads universe after a particularly close interaction with truck kun. How does life go from here after arriving in the N109 zone leaders backyard when MC hasn’t arrived yet?

Disclaimer, Sylus might be OOC, since i’m not very good at writing so bear with me. This will be multiple parts! Also, this was not proofread, so sorry if there are mistakes!

WC: 7K

~~~

It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

These past few months you had been working yourself to the absolute bone. Summer had started and the restaurant you worked at was packed every single day.

You worked hard to keep your smile on your face, but there had been an increase of the rudest people to ever grace the planet, and they all simultaneously decided to grace you with their presence.

Every single day was a battle. You didn’t feel like you fit in anymore, colleagues living their lives, while yours felt like it was stuck in place. Every day was the same shit over and over again.

And then it happened.

You were on your way home from a particularly difficult shift, anticipating flopping on the couch to unwind with some love and deepspace. A game you had been playing for over a year now, making everything doable, when out of the blue a truck slams into you at full speed.

You feel all the air get blown out of you, as bones break. You hear people screaming, yelling for an ambulance.

This is it?

After all your hard work, this is how you die?

You scoff as unconsciousness pulls at you.

You awake with a jolt. Artificial grass prickles at your skin as you take in your surroundings.

“Am i dead?” You mumble, looking around in shock. No hospital lights. No pain. No nothing. You’re about to stand up when you feel something around your waist. It tightens as it spins you around hard. A sharp hiss of pain slips out as you are turned to someone.

“Who are you, and how did you get in?” The voice sends a shiver down your spine, as you recognise it immediatly.

Sylus.

How could you not recognise him? You had spent everyday after work with him. Interacting with him in destiny cafe, praying for a day you might get to see him, even just for a second.

You stare at him blankly. How does one even explain this situation? Would he believe you? Why would he? Would you believe someone if they casually dropped that they were from a different universe?

Questions and answers course through your mind till you feel his evol tightening even more.

“I said, who are you, and how did you get in?” His voice was sharp and menacing. His eyes glowing a dark crimson, as the wind softly swayed his hair. He truly looked divine, even when shooting daggers at you with his gaze.

“I-i don’t know how i got here. One moment i was on my way home from work, and now i’m here.” You confess, fear tugging at your heartstrings. You had seen him on your phone screen countless of times, but absolutely nothing could have prepared you for how breathtaking this man was in real life.

His eyes narrowed as a mocking grin spread across his face.

“Right, i’m supposed to believe you just ‘happened’ to land in the most tightly secured backyard of the whole N109 zone.” He scoffed. His eyes roamed your body, his eyebrow slightly tilting as if contemplating. You didn’t look fit enough to pull off a stunt like this. Cuz ur not.

“Trust me, don’t you have camera’s here?” You plead, his evol still tight around your waist. You feel it prickling, almost like electricity. Uncomfortable.

He raises an eyebrow.

The twins emerge from behind him, and even with their masks on, you can feel their curiosity radiate off of every inch of them.

Without a word he steps in the house, with you still tightly bound in his evol. He gracefully steps into his office as he places you not so gently into a chair.

“I’m not really in the mood for ‘games’ right now, so i do truly hope you’re telling me the truth.” He cocks his brow at you as he settles into his chair. You can’t help but be mesmerised by the absolute power and control he radiates just from sitting down.

He knows what he’s doing. Always. Even the smallest things are thought out before they can happen. You look at his face as he checks the footage, and to his surprise which he manages to hide very quickly, you were telling the truth. One moment the backyard looks peaceful, unperturbed, and the next, you’re there. It happens in the blink of an eye. No lights, no fireworks, nothing. Just sudden existence.

He looks at you, almost through you as he contemplates.

"It seems like you were telling the truth, kitten" The way he enunciates the word kitten sends goosebumps flying over your arms. The timbre in his low voice echoes through his office. How on earth were you going to survive this?

"I told you, i mean, who would be foolish enough to break into your territory?" You all but scoff. It's true though. Breaking into his lair, which in and off itself is impossible, would be a death sentence. Sylus was soft and mellow with MC in the game, but he never extended his kindness to anyone else.

It's a war in your head. At least your innocence is proven, but what about the rest? With nowhere to stay, how were you going to convince big bad boss man to keep you alive long enough to look for a way back. Could you even go back? Are you dead in your world?

His voice snaps you out of the war going on in your head.

"Explain"

"Huh?" You look at him sheepishly.

"Explain how you ended up in my backyard. I don't sense that you have an evol, or, anything for that matter, so how on earth did you get here?" His eye softly glows in the dim office. His features sharp, as the moon accentuates every line. Divine.

"Like i said, i was on my way home from work when-" The thought of the truck stops you dead in your tracks. The feeling of your bones crushing and consiousness fading still lingering beneath your flesh.

"When i got in an 'accident', i guess." Your voice got softer with each passing word. It was hard to make sense of what was happening. Though it was a literal answered prayer to be face to face with Sylus, the circumstances were far from ideal.

"Accident?" You could hear the amusement in his tone, he was intrigued. However, the thought of going into the details made you want to throw up, so you decide to change the subject.

"Could i stay here?" You blurt out the question, wincing at the lack of thought. All you could think about was needing a place to stay, but you didn't mean to throw it out there so haphazardly.

He raises his eyebrow, a small smirk appears, so small anyone would have missed it. But not you. You have spent so much time with him, he basically felt like you knew him better then yourself.

"Hmm? Bold aren't we, kitten?" All you can do is stare at him, what else are you supposed to do? You were literally throwing yourself in the dragons lions den.

"Here's an idea, you can work for me, i'll give you a spare bedroom in the eastern wing, close to the twins. If i do manage to find anything on you though, you can count your days."

Your mouth is agape. It's that easy? Suspicion creeps up, how could it not? You knew Sylus, and you also knew you were not MC. What was in this for him? But you were bone dead tired. This whole ordeal had sucked every last ounce out of you, and against better judgement, you nod in agreement.

He smirks.

The sight of him looking all pleased sends a shiver down your spine. Excitement? Fear? Both? Who knows. All you knew, was that you were going to do everything you could to prove your worth.

~~~

Part 2!

[victusinveritas]

Some of the replies to this got a bit out of hand, but I think I've ended the discussion. However, if you don't, please feel free to join in. I might not reply right away, because this is the internet and nothing we do on here matters much. I thought about screenshotting and posting a chain of pretty picture replies, but then realized how damn long my response was...and didn't want to do that.

santa-ana-winds

2d

Russia is going to nuke themselves and all of you are going to become pro-israel and believe in Jesus amen Hide replies

themarospeaker

The moon will come crashing down onto the earth, but it's made of cheese, and everyone will eat cheddar cheese and convert to Islam. Amen.Reply

[there's some more comments here but to cut down on space I've removed them, go read them though, they're good stuff]

hootenannyskeleton

21h

jesus is a puppy girl who humped the 24 legs of the 12 apostles while moaning 'puppy loves you'Reply

dae-15

15h

Get my Lord's name out of your mouth Jesus stood for the oppressed and those rejected by society he will not stand for your bsReply

victusinveritas

now

Original Poster

@dae-15 I try not to step into comments, because I generally have better things to do. On the one hand, I get where you are coming from, and agree entirely that Jesus stood for the oppressed and those rejected by society. I think Liberation Theology is like the absolute tits (to quote the Blessed Oscar Romero loosely) and that without the preferential option for the poor, Christianity is kind of...worthless as a spiritual path since all it does is gladhand folks that believe for their own eternal sake. However, I also think the Big J-Man would have a bit of a sense of humor, because he hung out with whores and lepers and social outcasts and their humor was probably pretty coarse. Once you explained to him what a puppy girl was (if he didn't already know because of his seat at the Right Hand of the Father and all that in Heaven), he'd be like, yeah, no, I wouldn't do that because that's not my thing, not to kinkshame though, whatever fills your net with fish I say verily unto you, but Judas Iscariot absolutely would do that, right boyyyyz? And the Apostles would all just nod and grunt and high five except for Judas who would look up from Hell and say "Yeah, that's why I betrayed you because of jokes like that, it's not ok, guys." And Judas would kinda be right there. Jesus, as fully human and fully divine, both told dirty jokes as patter before his parables, and forgave those who only remembered the dirty joke from before the important part of the parable.

[Plus, I add in this post rather than the reply because I just thought of it, the Man's middle name was Fucking, of course he had a sense of humor. Here endeth the office chair theology.]

Anyway, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream and because genocide is wrong no matter who does it. Unilever, Ben and Jerry's parent company, is also a sack of shit, but it's nice that Ben Cohen spoke out. Also, Ben and Jerry's is pro-union. Which is good. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism, but you could do worse. I haven't been keeping track of any issues they've had since supporting their workers when they formed a union, so if it turns out they've since tossed the main agitators into a a special blend of Phish Food for the band themselves, well, then that sucks.

Made by @mattxiv on Instagram.

[gigiwritess]

BACK TO EARTH

dr. jack abbott x f!resident!reader!vega aka "wildcard"

wc: 2,100 synopsis: the weeks go by—until the pittfest happens. jack wasn't even supposed to be working, but there he was. he didn't expect to have to save vega from herself, too, as her personal dark spiraled out of her control.

contents: 20-year age gap (vega is 26, jack is 46). vega's worsening mental health issues; she's having an anxiety attack, but it's not heavily described. usual pitt dynamics. probably lots of medical inaccuracies that i'm not gonna apologize for. this is totally self-inserted and vega is totally based in lots of aspects of myself. this list is concerns general warnings and specific chapter warnings—i'm gonna keep updating it as i go

gigi's notes: hi people!!!! i'm sorry for not posting the 3rd piece sooner. besides work, classes, organizing and academic conference, my depression keeps getting the best of me and i dissociate and don't do all the shit i need to do and it's an endless cycle. so it took me a bit longer to be able to flesh it out exactly how i wanted this to go and to find the right voice for the things i wanted to write. i really loved this piece and i hope you like it to. i'll try my best to write the next one sooner <3 about the 'jack abbot x reader x frank langdon love triangle', i can tell she's here and she's called TRAITOR (based on the song TRAITOR by elley duhé). i'm nowhere near finished but i'm already at 3k soooo it might take a bit longer to finish cooking it. i should probably make a list of jack abbot's works in progress because i have many lol i'm also gonna write jack abbot x firefighter!reader bc it's my alter-ego, probably a mini-series shorter than BRIGHTER, and i'm also thinking of somethinng like jack abbot x brat!reader in nessa barrett's vibes. as you can tell, jack abbot is rotting my brain :()

PLAYLIST | NAVIGATION | MASTERLIST

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There was something wrong.

The worst of the Pittfest chaos had passed. The ER wasn’t quiet—it never was—, but now the screaming had dulled down to murmurs, the steady beep of machines, the last critical cases being dealt with. Even though it wasn’t over, there was finally a small semblance of quiet starting to spread.

Jack was hands-deep in a tracheotomy when it happened—a kid. Couldn’t have been older than ten. Vega had been working on him since he arrived; Jack caught a glimpse of her across the room as she stopped her compressions and called time of death. He saw the way she stilled for a second, the way something in her eyes cracked. She didn’t lose it, didn’t panic, didn’t break protocol. Just took a deep breath and moved on. But he saw the look in her eyes. He knew that look.

He knew, the moment she stepped out of Trauma Two, her shoulders sagging, her hands shaking as she pulled the latex gloves off with far more force than necessary, there was something wrong.

The beeping from the monitor finally went back to a steady rhythm; his patient was stable. Jack could finally breathe normally again; no one else was calling out his name to go help another patient. He ripped off his gloves, shoved a blood-soaked gown into a bin, and wiped the sweat from the back of his neck. By the time his patient was finally handed off, Vega was gone.

He probably shouldn’t have been paying that much attention to her all this time working together, but he couldn’t help it—he was, by nature, an observant person; he had thrived in workplaces exactly because of that. But Vega was the biggest mystery Jack had ever faced—the most fascinating one.

Every time they worked together or were near each other—which happened way more frequently than it should’ve, considering they worked opposing shifts—, he noticed something about her, sometimes without even meaning to.

It was almost as if she were a giant magnet and he was made of iron (part of him was, at least). He noticed the way her forehead would furrow whenever she was in deep thinking; he noticed the way she would let a quiet groan escape when stretching her back, always a grimace of pain she was quick to disguise when there were people around. He noticed how picky she was with her fingers, always scratching something, filing her nails, finding something to fix in her cuticles. He noticed how expressive she was; how her face always showed what she was feeling, even when she was trying to pretend otherwise.

He noticed a lot of things about her. Especially how well she held herself together, but her eyes gave her away—he always saw right through them.

It took him longer than it should’ve to find her. She wasn’t in the break room, wasn’t in the stairwell. Not in the far supply closet that staff usually went to scream into empty shelves, not in the ambulance bay.

It was one of the old, near-empty trauma bays, half-lit, curtain drawn. Vega sat on the edge of a gurney, knees close to her chest, elbows on her knees. Her hands were covering her face, her palms pressed against her eyes as if she could absorb back her own tears.

Jack didn’t announce himself. He just stepped inside, quietly closed the door behind him, pulling the curtain shut. For a moment, he just stood there. The room felt too small, the air too heavy.

“Vega?” He called out in a low voice, rough from a long, chaotic day.

No response—she didn’t move. He could hear her small, soft sobs.

He crossed the room in two strides, invading her space, her knees touching his chest. Carefully, gently, Jack took her hands in his and slowly pulled them away from her face, her eyes, wet with tears, sealed shut as he lowered her hands to her sides.

“Look at me,” Jack said, both his hands coming to cup her face, firm and steady, warm palms against the sides of her neck.

She did. Her eyes, usually so full of fire and life, were dark, red-rimmed, almost vacant as they met his. It was as if an angry, destructive storm had passed through them, taking everything in its wake, taking a piece of her with it. A storm that had been hidden deep, brewing for some time—not just the Pittfest.

“Breathe.” Quietly, she did. “In and out.”

Her breathing hitched, the tears subsiding, the tremor in her chest slowly fading away. His thumbs brushed the sharp line of her cheekbones—not soft, not tender. Grounding. Just enough to tether her back to Earth, back to the present, away from her spiraling thoughts, back to him.

“Good girl,” he muttered as her breath came in shaky but obedient, almost even now.

It was meant to come out as a tease, something for her to laugh, to bring her back to reality. But it didn’t sound that way, not as she shivered, not as his thumb grazed the corner of her mouth. Not as her gaze fell to his lips once, twice before flicking back to his eyes. It shouldn’t have made his stomach twist—but it did. They stayed that way for a moment, just breathing, just looking at each other, existing in each other’s space. Simply being with each other, her pulse a steady rhythm against his fingers.

But his eyes betrayed him—his gaze dropped to her lips before he could stop himself. Maybe it was the tiredness. Maybe it was the blood stuck under his nails, or the way his chest still ached from all the patients he’d lost. Or maybe it was the way that here, in this room, right now, with her, none of it mattered.

Jack leaned in—Vega met him halfway. It wasn’t a careful kiss, not sweet. It was like a collision of exhaustion and adrenaline, and months of looking at each other as if they were two souls who knew something about each other, who recognized something in each other. Her hands gripped the collar of his scrubs, his palms sliding to the back of her neck—it was a kiss meant to ground them both. Hard and a little desperate, meant to translate everything that couldn’t be said yet. No promises, no words, no soft confessions. Just here, right now.

When they pulled apart, their foreheads stood almost touching for a moment. Jack’s breath was ragged; his hands still cupped her face.

“Keep looking at me like that, old man,” she said, voice hoarse, “and I might start thinking you like having me around.”

The wicked smirk on her lips, swollen from his kiss, was the first real thing he’d seen on her face all night.

It took a moment for her teasing to hit its mark, for him to realize she was back. “Yeah, yeah,” he laughed. “Don’t let it get to your head.”

Jack was the first to pull back, hands falling away slowly, reluctantly. The air between them still crackled, was still charged as they stared at each other for a moment longer, the memory and the weight of the kiss too fresh, too sharp. For a second, neither of them spoke.

Outside, someone faintly asked about more negative O units—the world hadn’t stopped.

He jerked his chin toward the toward.

“Come on, Wildcard,” he said, the usual sharp-edged version of him settling back into place, “you’ve got a shift to finish.”

There was something about the way he uttered ‘Wildcard’. It was not in the usual teasing, mocking way people did. It felt personal—he spoke it like a secret kept between just the two of them.

She slid off the gurney, her hand brushing his as she walked, her pinkie tangling with his for a single moment before she put distance between them. Her expression was the same as it always was—cool, a little cocky, composed. But her pulse was still visible at her throat.

Jack noticed. Of course he did.

The world was calmer now as they sat down on the park benches, Matteo happily handing beers to whomever would accept. Life still went on around them—music thudding faintly against the night air, sirens going off in the distance—but here it felt quieter. Slower.

Vega looked up; the night sky was clear and bright, stars twinkling faintly. Jack sat beside her on the same worn-out bench. He was sitting close, almost too close. His thigh brushed hers, solid and warm; his arm bumped hers when he shifted slightly to accommodate his prosthetic leg, but he didn’t move away. If anything, he leaned closer, the barest tilt of his body, casual enough that no one would notice.

She noticed—every single second. She could’ve inched away, could’ve created a little space. She didn’t.

They hadn’t spoken since leaving that trauma bay, hadn’t worked together—only traded stolen glances throughout the ER, glances full of everything they didn’t recognize yet.

“You held up good today,” Jack said, nudging her leg with his left knee, beer in hand, “better than most.” He angled his body towards her, looking at her profile.

She nudged his leg back, turning her head to look at him, finding his eyes. “Even with a breakdown?”

“Even then,” he said, sipping his beer and staring intently into her.

Vega tried to play it off, act cool—but her throat still tightened all the same as she held his gaze, as she tried not to think about the anxiety black hole she’d just barely clawed her way out of. She tried not to think about how everything had been spiraling each time worse than the previous, each time getting far out of her control, until his warm, steady hands pulled her out. She didn’t want to think about how grounding his touch felt—or how his kiss felt like a lifeline she didn’t know she needed, how his kiss felt like being above the surface after being underwater for so long, how his kiss felt like feeling a spark of something after being numb for so long.

But that was all she could think about as she looked into his eyes, as the world seemed to narrow down to just the two of them under the amber streetlights.

She looked away; her heart sounded stupidly loud in her ears, overwhelming. She took a breath, trying to quiet it down.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” she said, breaking the moment, pretending like it didn’t weigh heavily on her chest. “But thank you.”

“I know,” Jack said after a beat, a half-smirk ghosting across his mouth. “Guess I just have a thing for trouble.”

Vega let out a breath of a laugh, genuine, small, and surprised, meant just for him. Something warm started to spread over her chest, something good. When she turned to him again, her eyes were brighter, crinkling just a little at the corners. She shouldn’t say anything—or at least say something else. But she couldn’t help it when his eyes had a spark of something daring, of something dangerous, something familiar.

“Yeah? That why you keep hanging around?”

The air between them went still. Heavy, charged. Like something coiled and tense, just waiting for someone to make a move—any move.

Feeling just a bit emboldened by the spark in his eyes, she reached out and snagged the beer right out of his hand. Jack’s eyebrows shot up, surprised, but he let her do it, watching as she lifted it to her lips and took a long sip. Brave. Almost defiant.

Vega handed the beer back. Eyes still locked on Jack’s hazel ones, his fingers closed around hers, slow, deliberate, and his head tipped toward her, just a bit, like he was going to say something to Robby instead—he didn’t.

Jack’s mouth brushed near her ear, low enough that only she caught it, meant just for her.

“Careful, kid. Keep that up and I’ll think you’re flirting.”

It was her turn to stay silent, her breath caught like a deer caught in a trap, just for a split second before she masked it into a tiny, sly smile. Her cheeks, her whole face, felt like it was on fire. She didn’t need to look at him to feel the wicked grin tugging at his mouth.

Vega leaned back against the bench, purposefully pressing her shoulder against his. She said nothing as she stole his beer again, brushing his fingers—and he let her—, acting as if her heart was beating normally. It wasn’t. Not since his kiss brought her back to earth.

@cosmoscoffeee @mackycat11 @sunfairyy @starkgaryan @amandarobertsboyce @starlight-starbright-8080 @patatesliomlet @saynotononsense @sweetestcowboy @diaryofafeelsaddict 

[sebmindbreak]

Hi, hi! Just gonna start of with saying that your writings are awesome, and quite inspirational!

If it is possible, could it be possible to pair yandere + smut as a request? (Characters: Azure, Two Time and ofc, reader.)

Oneshot of course! (These stupid little exes(?) have a death grip on me, and possibly many others…)

Oh, but please take the time you need to think, and all of that! Drink and eat lots that you possibly can as well!

Honestly looking forward to your future works! 🫶

— Sincerely, a certified hibernating bear. 🐻💤 (I can bet that some people will be able to tell who I am, even when anon…)

I LOVETHEIR DYNAMICS BRO!! <3

AAAAAAAAAAA ALSO TYTYTY SM <33

it makes me very happy u like my writings! ^u^

scenario : is basically two time and azure fighting over you

TITLE : fighting

The round had barely begun, and yet the familiar tension in the air had already twisted into something volatile. only as a backdrop to the true conflict unfolding before you.

Not the game. Not the round.

But them.

Two Time and Azure.

They stood in the middle of the killer's domain, nose to nose, like predators baring their teeth over fresh prey you.

Azure's eyes, usually so calm and electric with mischief, were now alight with something far more dangerous: possessiveness. His teeth were gritted behind a too-wide smile, his arms spread as though he were shielding you.but his entire posture screamed "mine."

"You're wasting their time," Azure growled, voice laced with venom. "You think they want to sit in your dusty little altar room again? Staring at bones and gibberish ink? News flash, cultist, they want something real."

Two Time didn't flinch. If anything, they leaned in closer, a twitch in their eye as their gloved hand gripped tighter around the worn, bloodstained dagger they carried like a lifeline.

"You call it gibberish, but you wouldn't understand devotion if it branded itself onto your skin." Their voice was low, but no less threatening. "The Spawn chose them. Not you. They belong beside me."

"Belong?" Azure snapped, stepping forward. "They're not a book for your altar or some sacrificial toy! They need care. Love. Something you clearly know nothing about."

Two Time let out a laugh, sharp and bitter, like a knife dragged against stone. "And you do? Dragging them to your hideout like a pet? You think shoving sweets and distractions in their face is love? It's pathetic."

Azure's hand twitched at his side. You could see the tension in his shoulders, his jaw, the way his usually fluid movements had stiffened into something rigid, ready to pounce.

"At least I don't watch them sleep and write about it in ink! You creep me out more than half the survivors."

Two Time tilted their head, a twitching smile pulling at their lips. "At least I worship them like they deserve. At least I see them as divine."

You stood in the middle of it. Silent. Caught.

Azure reached for you suddenly, fingers brushing your wrist. "Come with me. I'll make you comfortable. You can rest we'll lay together, I'll cook for you. You like waffles , pancakes , anything you want i'll cook it for you ,anything"

But before you could move, Two Time was there, grabbing your other arm like a vice. "No," they hissed. "Come. You said you'd help me. You said you'd be there when the next ritual came. I need you."

Their eyes met across your form, one blazing purple, the other twitching with spiraling devotion. You could feel their breathing on either side of you, could practically hear their racing hearts in your ears. You weren't a person to them in that moment. You were a battlefield. A divine prize.

"You can't have them."

"Neither can you."

"They want me."

"They belong with me."

The words became a blur of snarls and obsession, your name twisted in praise and plea. You could feel the heat from their bodies as they pressed closer, as if proximity might secure victory.

And yet neither would let go.

Neither would yield.

Even in their shared history , exes bound by something broken and furious they had never been more similar than now. Both deluded. Both devoted. Both dangerous.

And both utterly, violently in love with you.

I HOPE YOU ENJOY!

i love these sillies <33

writing writing , honestly its relaxing asf to write.. , especialy so small thigns like these!

[readerihardlyknowher]

hello!! I was wondering if you could do a spencer agnew x reader fic (fem!reader if that’s okay) where spencer and reader are coworkers at Smosh. Both are cast and have never really gotten along the best but one day things kinda click for them in a video during a shoot (kinda acquaintance to friends to lovers). During this shoot and once the video airs, other Smosh workers and even fans start to notice the change, like how they always want to be touching or near each other in some way in other videos or even when not filming. It’s just that neither of them realize then the smosh peps try to start and force them into spaces and situations together to hopefully get them to realize their feelings and admit them. Thanks! And hopefully this made sense lol

Okay, so this was originally going to just be a oneshot, but I've been working on it since last week and it's not even close to being done yet, so I'm releasing it in parts.

A Loving Feeling | Pt. 1

Spencer Agnew x Reader Warnings: None WC: 2,195 Pt.1

It wasn’t that Spencer was bad per say, nor was it that you were particularly stuck up, but rather, you both just hadn’t interacted all that much. It made no sense as to why, really. You knew everyone else loved him, even the more bubbly ones like you, but you just never sat down and chatted with him. Frankly, it had gotten a little annoying how often people brought him up in conversation. Whenever you talked about a videogame you liked, Shayne would bring up how Spencer had already done a playthrough last year. If you brought up a show you were watching, Angela would mention how Spencer tried getting her to watch it. It was kind of pissing you off, and you didn’t really know the guy. It’s not like you watched many Smosh videos anyways, but you especially didn’t watch the videos with him. If you started to like him just from his on-screen persona, then that wouldn’t feel right at all. And if you hated him for his on-screen persona, that also wouldn’t feel fair. 

Which is why you were a little nervous to see that you both were supposed to be on camera together as two sisters in a Spud Hut video. You figured that it shouldn’t be too difficult, it’s just a few minutes on camera and a few minutes talking it out beforehand. It’s mostly improv, but you still wanted to get some things straight, like names.

When you walk up to the man (who is currently dressed as a middle-aged woman) you had yet to have spoken to, you suck in a breath, mentally preparing yourself for him to roll his eyes and walk away from you. You don’t even know why you think this, because he’s never been rude or standoffish to you in the past, but since you two had never really spoken anything’s on the table.

“Okay, so I don’t know about you, but I think my character’s screaming ‘Carrie’,” you begin, because nothing better than just jumping in without saying anything like “Hey! Nice to finally talk to you! Sorry we haven’t talked in the whole ass year that I’ve been here!” But to your surprise, he looks down at your outfit with a nonchalant glance and nods.

“You’re absolutely right, that’s a Carrie for sure.” The smile on his face felt like ice cold water in the heat. You felt relieved, safer, that there didn’t need to be anything to worry about. “For alliteration purposes I’ll be Mary.”

You smile back at him, still a little nervous, but now mostly alright. You don’t know how it’ll be improvising with him, you don’t know if you have a similar sense of humor, you don’t know anything about this man you’ve worked in the same building as for the past year except you apparently have the similar interests.

It’s time to get on set, and you both wait until you’re given the go ahead to enter the kitchen where you’re filming. When you’re finally told to head on, you feel Spencer’s arm lock with yours as he walks merrily into the room, where Chanse, Angela, and Damien are standing. You remind yourself to get in character as you walk up to “order.”

“Well I’ll be, this place is… unique, Mary,” you begin, giving your character a southern accent. Spencer glances over at you with a nod. When he speaks, his voice sounds hilariously high-pitched.

“I do agree, Carrie. I don’t know what on earth anyone sees in a place like this.”

At this, Chanse steps forward, introducing himself in character.

“Hi, my name is Jerry Spruce, I’m the owner of the Spud Hut. Our special today is the Oyster Spud,” he says, painfully in-character. You internally cringe at the concept of an “oyster spud” but you nod and put on an impressed face.

“An Oyster Spud? That sounds very well refined, doesn’t it, sister?”

“Very much so, sister. I do say, I heard there was the famed fettuccine alfredo spud here?” Spencer asks, which gets a nod from Chanse.

“Yes, our fettuccino alfredi spud is world renowned. I can get both of those ready for you now.”

You look over at Spencer, feeling less and less awkward by the minute. He turns back to you and catches you staring, so you speak to cover it up.

“Sister, I’m disappointed. You know, a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips,” you say, mimicking an older, judgy aunt as best you can. Spencer’s face breaks out in a small smile as he tries not to break.

“Sister, I know you are not talking to me about what to eat. I’ve seen the things you put in your mouth and it’s filthy,” he ends with a snap, acting all sassy. You mirror him, yet this whole time you still keep your arms locked.

“I can’t believe you’d call your husband filthy then, Mary,” you finish with another snap, which makes him gasp and clutch the pearls around his neck with his white-gloved hand.

“Well, I’ll tell you Carrie, that the reason your husband left you is because I showed him how much better he could have had it with me.”

By this point, Chanse has now brought over the potatoes, but you two are both so into the fake argument that you take the potatoes from his hands and begin to walk out.

“I am telling mother all the cruel and sinful things you’ve been doing, Mary,” you say, not taking your eyes from Spencer’s. He huffs out a laugh and turns up his nose.

“Have fun talking to a grave then, Carrie.” And with that, you are off the set. Still though, you have to be silent for an extra minute while the crew makes sure you’re not needed again before taking off the costumes. So for that time, you both just look at each other and try not to laugh. Once you’re both given the green light to take off your mics and undress, you let out a snicker and unloop your arm from his. For the first time since walking into the kitchen, you both aren’t pinned to each other’s side. As you undo your mic, you speak.

“God, that was really fun,” you say to no one in particular, looking down partly to see what you’re doing, but mostly to avoid eye contact with him.

“Yeah, it’s no wonder Shayne and Amanda keep saying we should be in videos together. We nailed that shit,” he says, now undoing his own mic. Your snaps up to look up at him at this. You didn’t know he was also getting those same words as you were.

“Yeah, we definitely did.” There’s a pause for a moment before you let out a nervous sigh before looking up at him. “Hey, I feel bad that we’ve never really talked before. I don’t even know why I never just came up to you to break the ice, but I guess at some point I just thought it was too late and so it’d be awkward and all, so I–”

“Hey, don’t worry about it. I get it, I meant to introduce myself when you joined, but then I didn’t,” Spencer says, before finally looking up at you and extending his hand to you. “Let me start over. Hey, I’m Spencer, director of games. It’s nice to meet you, I’ve heard so much about you.”

You stare at his hand for a moment, a little shocked by his actions, before meeting his hand in a handshake.

“Nice to meet you too. I hear we have a lot in common,” you say, a small smile on your face. He chuckles in response, shaking his head before looking you back in the eye.

“So have I. My break’s in a couple minutes. How ‘bout we go grab lunch and talk about it?” Spencer asks. Once more, you’re surprised. Upon first glance at the man, you’d never guess he’s the type of person to be so bold and nice. You just thought he was an introverted shy guy, which you guess he can be at times, but right now he’s asking to hang out to get to know each other more. The thought of finally mending the gap you had unknowingly placed between the two of you makes you smile.

“Sure, that’d be awesome. Let me go get out of this old woman apparel.”

“Aw man, I thought it suited you pretty well.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Have you been on TikTok lately?” Courtney’s voice draws your eyes from your computer. Confused, you shake you head.

“No… why?” You ask, thoroughly suspicious of the mischievous grin on her face. You watch as she pulls out her phone, tapping and scrolling for a couple seconds before shoving it into your face. As you adjust to the closeness, you watch as someone clipped a part of the recent Spud Hut video you were on, specifically the parts with you and Spencer. You don’t see why she was so insistent that you saw the video until you notice someone found you two in the background, still in costume and arms still locked, laughing and looking each other in the eye. Your face twists in confusion, since clearly that must have been a mishap with the camera angles to accidentally keep you two in, just barely in the corner. Glancing down at the caption, your eyes widen.

Literally the cutest non-canon couple at Smosh. There’s a reason they haven’t appeared in videos together up until now 🧐

Your heart practically stops at the sight of those words. You don’t know why, you’ve been shipped with other people in the cast before, but this just felt weird. Maybe it’s because you two had been getting closer and closer in the weeks since filming. You have gone to his apartment a couple of times, mostly to play videogames and hang out with his cats, but there had never been any tension with him. You’ve just become good buddies, which is why this feeling of nervousness and blush makes you confused.

“What? Why would people think that’s anything? It’s clearly just us talking. These fans are crazy,” you say, a little too frenzied to set things straight, which Courtney clearly notices.

“Interesting. Anyways, so how have you two been getting along lately? I’ve seen the both of you chatting it up after shoots, ready to say I was right?” They tease, leaning forward and confronting you on your stubbornness. 

“Yeah… fine, you were right. He’s actually… he’s actually really cool,” you admit, somewhat grumbling to avoid the embarrassment you know is coming.

“You guys talking about me?” You hear an all too familiar voice ask from behind you. Just as you turn your head to see him, you feel two pairs of hands resting against the back of your seat.

“Actually, we were,” Courtney says, making your cheeks feel even warmer. “But anyways you guys. In one month. My birthday party. You both better come.”

Your smile widens at that, always excited to hang out with your friends outside of work. 

“Yeah, of course. Where will it be at?” You ask, still feeling Spencer’s hands lingering behind you.

“Just our place, it’s nothing too crazy. Just gonna have some drinks and play some games and stuff. So be there or be square!” They say jokingly before walking off, leaving just you and Spencer. You look up, seeing his face from upside down when he looks down at you with a smile.

“Will you need a ride, my lady?” He asks, his voice teasing, but gentle. He normally doesn’t drink much at these events anyways, while you normally get a little tipsy. Not good for driving. You smile back at him.

“Indeed I will, my lord,” you respond, making him smile even wider before letting go of the back of your seat. This grants you the opportunity to turn around to see him as he backs off some more. “Alright, it’s time for me to head back to games. See ya.”

You reply back before watching him turn around and head back the way he came. For a moment, you can’t seem to take your eyes off him, just watching as he walks, before shaking your head and returning to your work on your computer.

You think back to the TikTok Court showed you, how suddenly your fans have turned to shipping you and Spencer. Shaking your head of the thought, you remember how you need to get Courney a gift, so you pull out your phone to text your new friend.

To: Spencer From: You Wanna go to the mall or something later to get Court gifts?

You barely have time to set your phone down before you get a response that makes your smile widen.

To: You From: Spencer Sounds cool. I’ll drive you after work?

You shoot off an affirmative text, ignoring how much happier you feel having received such a quick response. Yet again, you have to shake the thought of him off your head, bringing yourself back to reality as your computer screen waits for your return.

[haveihitanerve]

Steph having canonical long blonde hair has always been a point of interest to me.

Because- thats so unsafe? As a fan of history and just like learning about wars and conflict in general- long hair is wildly unhelpful for any sort of conflict. Especially if she's doing it every night and leaves it flying loose. (although leaving it loose is better than a ponytail because a ponytail provides a whole ass handle)

She also canonically defends it- sure its bright and could identify her, but no one has ever covered their hair before her, so why should she?

But also the length gets me. Because it can easily get caught in stuff, get snagged, grabbed and yanked back. 

So I have a hypothesis. 

Her hair is bright and long and obnoxious. All of these are undoubtedly flaws that Bruce would have noticed, and pointed out himself. 

Steph has proven on multiple occasions to be very observant of Bruce. Specifically Bruce, though she's a fine detective otherwise, she reads him from an outsiders perspective very well.

She watched as he snatched Dick by the cape. Jason by his hoodie. Even Tim got a few tugs on his grapple line or bow staff

Her hair is an invitation

She is waving a massive flag in front of his face, screaming, begging for him to grab it and yank to pull her to safety. She is begging him to show her he cares. That he loves her. 

On another side-

Steph’s hair, while a certain indicator for some people, is incredibly common. I mean, its Gotham. They don't get sunlight. They are pale skinned, light haired people, for the most partBut still- it stands out. So she’s not necessarily trying to hide. She wants her dad, a person who would easily recognize her hair, to know its her. Spoiling his plans.

[nostalgebraist]

on exordia (a "rant"?)

Yesterday I said I'd write a longer post about Exordia. Here it is.

This will be... sort of review-shaped, but not quite a review? I dunno.

I'll try to avoid spoilers, although some amount of (largely minor or indirect) spoilage will be inevitable.

As I said in my earlier posts, there was a lot I liked about this book, but also a lot that frustrated me. This post will focus almost entirely on the latter; it will be a big long list of gripes, which I'm posting mostly to relieve a certain mental pressure that built up over the course of the reading experience.

I want to clarify at the outset that the negative angle here doesn't faithfully represent by overall stance toward the book.

Yes, I often found it extremely annoying, but it was a lot of fun, too – often it was both, at the same time. I am normally a pretty slow reader, but I sped through Exordia's 500+ pages very quickly; even when I was annoyed with this or that feature of the book, I was pleasantly engrossed, too. And I feel like writing out a bunch of thoughts about it, which has to mean something good, right? Even if those thoughts are critical in nature.

----

Why do I feel like writing so much about the book? And why do I care so much about the fact that it was "frustrating"? (There are lots of bad books out there; sometimes, I read them; in itself, this is just business as usual, and not worthy of note.)

I think it comes down to what I said in my first post (see link above). Because Exordia feels so much like something I would absolutely love, I feel more incensed about its flaws than I would be about the more thoroughgoing flaws of something that was simply, wholly, and straightforwardly bad. There's a tantalizing sense of unrealized potential, unfulfilled promises.

Exordia would be so good if it were good.

----

Talking about this book's flaws is difficult, because most of them are closely related to one another, and it's difficult to break down that big ball of tangled-up string into manageable chunks.

But there are a few things that are relatively self-contained, so I'll pick them off first. (The main course starts in section "3" below.)

Oh, also: this ended up extremely long. As in, just over 10,000 words. If you wanted to read 10,000 words of Exordia critique today then this is your lucky day I guess.

----

1. frontloading

Exordia has a very strong opening. When I was 30 pages in, I was almost certain that I would end up loving this book and recommending it to everyone I knew.

Ha! Little did I know!

----

The book is divided into five sections called "Acts."

Act One is very brief. It ends on page 38, less than 10% of the way into the book.

And it's very, very good. Or more precisely, it's very, very promising, as a way to begin a story.

Right off the bat, we get two instantly charming and intriguing characters, with an instantly charming and intriguing dynamic.

Then – starting barely five pages in – we are suddenly assailed by a rapid-fire barrage of incredibly cool sci-fi shit. Bizarre neologisms, alien biology and psychology, quasi-theological revelations about physics and the early universe! "Narrative prisons"! "Weapons that mark their victims for damnation"! An "observatory" that can see the afterlife!

All three of those examples I just quoted are from one single page (p. 21).

And Exordia is over 500 pages long.

I was like: holy shit. If this is what it's like now, what is the rest of it going it be like?

Well. Now I've read the rest of it, so I know. What was it like, then?

----

What it's like is this:

On page 38, Act One ends.

Act Two begins by switching over to a completely different set of characters.

In Act One, it seemed obvious that we were meeting the book's main characters. All the usual conventions of novelistic storytelling were practically screaming at us: behold, the protagonists! Better figure out how you feel about them in short order, reader, because you'll be strapped in with them for the long haul.

But – psych! Turns out that we are not strapped in with the Act One characters for the long haul. Eventually they do show up again, but they spend most of the book on the sidelines due to a succession of plot devices which seem designed specifically to keep them there.

The fast pace slows to a crawl.

We discover that we're in a completely different genre: not wild-eyed cosmic science fiction, but Tom Clancy military-techno-thriller. And so a large fraction of the text, by volume, is stuff like this:

"What's up?" Mike Jan asks, like they've just bumped into each other at the gym. "Something bad?" "Something undetermined," Erik says. "One of the EBADs broke. One more check, then we go in." So they do a final test on their MOPP protection, which is an absolute nightmare in the rising sun. Masks that fog up if the seal isn't perfect, baggy JSLIST oversuits, paper wraps that turn bad colors if they contact known agents (what good will that do?), gloves and booties over their boots. All perfect for poaching them in their own sweat. "Can't see shit in here," Ricardo says, without unhappiness: just the condition of things. "I know. Mike, bodyguard Anna. Skyler, get the drone up. Ricardo, load a mouse. All call signs, Zero-Six, now proceeding into the target area. Out." They walk straight toward Blackbird. Skyler flies a quadcopter drone ahead: a Teal Drones Golden Eagle with a fifty-minute charge. Ricardo Garcia follows its course, waving a ten-foot spear with a live mouse in a plastic lattice canister. The idea is that the mouse will die in time to warn the rest of them. "Pretty out here," Mike Jan remarks. "Looks like a Windows desktop." Of course Mike has never changed a default desktop wallpaper in his life.

I'm sure some people like this kind of thing – it's an established genre, after all, and it sells well. But it's not really my jam, and (more importantly) it's not what the opening led me to think I was getting myself into.

(Sidenote: the last two lines in that quote have nothing to do with the point I'm making, but I included them anyway, because they confuse me and I want to know whether I'm missing something that would make sense of them. "Has never changed a default desktop wallpaper in his life" is apparently meant to be some kind of telling character detail, and it's delivered as though we'd immediately grasp its significance. But what IS its significance? "Oh, we all know those guys – the ones who don't change their desktop wallpapers. You know what I'm talking about, wink wink." Huh???)

The new characters are mostly U.S. military/government/intelligence guys (at this stage anyway – later on there will be even more new characters, and then more, etc). The book tries its hardest to make us care about them, but it's fighting an uphill battle because it has to work against our frustration at the bait-and-switch that has been pulled on us.

Plus, frankly, they're just not all that interesting. Sorry.

Sooner or later, we realize that Act One was the odd one out. When Act Three arrives, it's just "Act Two: The Sequel" – and so on. Except in a few parts very close to the end, the book never recaptures the energy and wonder that it used as a hook in Act One.

It gets worse. Remember how I said that Act One rapidly reveals a bunch of sci-fi lore to the reader?

Well, a large fraction of Acts Two through Five are a mystery story in which the new, less-interesting characters study a classic BDO and try to figure out what its deal is, plus a bunch of related ancillary mysteries. And in some cases, the reader can guess the answers long before the characters get there, because the answer is something we were told back in Act One.

(This is only possible, by the way, due to the previously mentioned sidelining of the Act One characters. These characters re-appear, and the other protagonists get to know them, but for most of the book the two groups are unable or unwilling to communicate for some reason or another. If these communication blockers weren't there, the Acts Two+ guys could just ask the Act One guys what was going on... and the book would be several hundred pages shorter.)

This is a baffling structural choice.

I have no idea how one could possibly try to justify it; I simply can't think of any arguments in its favor, even bad ones.

2. the path, grant!

This isn't even a complaint, per se. Just something about my reading experience that seems like it should get mentioned in this post, somewhere.

In a lot of ways – big and small, important and trivial – this book feels weirdly close to the kind of thing that I would write myself.

Indeed, it feels weirdly close (in a lot of ways, big and small etc.) to some things that I did in fact write, myself.

Namely, Floornight and Almost Nowhere.

I'm not claiming that Seth Dickinson ripped me off, or anything. It seems very unlikely that he's read any of my work, or even heard of it. Like I said in my earlier post, it's probably all just a matter of shared influences and/or pure coincidence.

Still, I have to talk about it, because I couldn't stop noticing it.

In the first ten pages, I learned: this is a story about first contact with aliens. It involves a lot of exotic invented terminology, and the worldbuilding includes novel connections between fundamental physics, psychology, and ethics.

And I thought: wow, this sure is right up my alley. Nice!

On page 11, the book started talking about the Shahnameh.

Ten pages later: souls are real! But this is arguably bad, because it's been used as the basis for exploitative and dystopian technologies.

I dunno, it's not like I has a monopoly on that concept. (I stole part of it from Madoka, for one thing.)

Nor, as I happens, do I have a monopoly on the concept of "wacky eccentric scientists who live in a remote setting apart from most of humanity, studying Lovecraft-style mind-bending entities from the beyond." That's just taking well-worn, well-liked tropes and combining them in a natural, appealing way. (And what's more, I stole part of it from Annihilation.)

But in any case – monopoly or no – Exordia does in fact have those wacky scientists, and that remote zone, and those creepy, soul-physics-related objects of study.

It also has a character named "Anna" – with a sort-of-similar role in the story to Almost Nowhere's Anne.

And a character named "Rosamaria," who...

But I'm sure you can guess how that sentence ends.

Some of this stuff is hard to talk about without violating my rule about spoilers.

But, uh, that said – remember that big scene about 2/3 of the way through Floornight, the one with a raised platform that gets used as a stage? The one in which [HUGE FLOORNIGHT SPOILER] happens?

And then the chapter right after that, which has an unusual name, because it portrays things from an unusual point of view?

Oh, you haven't read Floornight. Well, then. Do you remember that scene near the end of Exordia...

Some of the "connections" I thought I saw are flimsier than this. Some aren't really much of anything, in retrospect. Early on we learn that the aliens have some technology called "the way of knives," and I thought: ah, just like AN's "knife-power"! But in fact the two things have nothing else in common. And surely I don't have a monopoly on the word "knife."

I dunno. How about this? Is this anything?

The Ubiet burbles away in her arms: clarification and amplification of aretaic event in self-like past, recursive self-caricature by protoprecosmic influence, WARNING WARNING WARNING pathology! pathology! pathology! pathology! pathology! Until that word, pathology, starts to sound like path-ology, the study of paths. The discovery of the way.

3. the geeky badass hive mind

Okay, here begins the part I called "the main course" above, where I lay out the really big thing that irked me about Exordia.

Hmm... where to start...

There is a problem with the characterization in this book. There is also a problem with the narration in the book.

These two problems are sort of the same, and the fact that they are sort-of-the-same is itself a noteworthy symptom of the problem.

Whoa, whoa – too broad, too abstract! Let's start with something small and concrete. Something that anyone who's read the book will have noticed, and which I am definitely not the first person to complain about.

So: Exordia is full of geek culture references.

The characters make incessant references to specific sci-fi/fantasy books, anime series, video games, and popular movies and TV shows. The 3rd-person narration also does this frequently.

It gets pretty "cringe" at times.

Here's a very early (and hence memorable) example. Anna, our Act One pseudo-protagonist, is learning the deep secrets of the universe from a snake-headed alien. The alien tells her that souls exist.

And in response, Anna says:

"Souls? You mean immortal souls? Are those real? Is this some kind of, like, Evangelion thing?"

I was like: seriously? Seriously? Come the fuck on.

But a moment later, I got my balance. I thought: wait, I see what this is. This is a character trait. It's a feature of this person, not the book/world.

Anna is a person who makes these kinds of nerdy, "cringe" references at inappropriate times, just like (as we learn in the first few pages) she is a person who has been fired from multiple jobs for being too abrasive, too upfront with people. That tracks. There's a coherent person, here, and I'm getting to know her.

Ha! Little did I know!

Act One ends, and Act Two starts.

We are introduced to our first "Acts Two+ protagonist": Clayton Hunt, Deputy National Security Advisor in the book's alt-universe version of the Obama administration.

Clayton is a slick charmer, a skilled and versatile liar, a power-hungry schemer who deliberately orchestrated his rise through the ranks of the National Reconnaissance Office bureaucracy. He is – if we are to judge by his (disturbing) past deeds, which are recounted as crucial backstory – a cold-hearted psycho sonuvabitch who's way, way too eager to kill people "for the greater good." At first glance, he seems to have nothing at all in common with Anna (too honest for her own good, a basically normal person struggling to keep her basically normal life afloat, etc).

Does Clayton make nerdy, often "cringe" geek culture references – incessantly, come hell or high water? You bet he does.

We meet Clayton's once-and-future best friend and right-hand man, Major Erik Wygaunt: Rhodes Scholar, badass soldier, doctrinaire quasi-deontological moralist. Totally different guy from either of the forenamed – or so one would think.

But in practice, in what he actually does and says? Erik is exactly the same sort of argumentative, obscure-trivia-knowing, geek-culture-referencing dork as Clayton and Anna and – yes – virtually every other character in the book.

Here's a typical passage, from page 86. Clayton (dialogue in italics) is in conversation with Erik (no italics):

��My guess is that Blackbird is dispersing some kind of communication agent. It seeks out information-dense substrate and … interfaces with it. Tries to use it to grow a message or a system. It’s trying to talk to us by amplifying patterns it finds. Not how I’d go about first contact. But how I might do it if I were very, very strange.” Erik can’t help making a technical protest: like they’re both optimizing their colonies in Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri, arguing over the details of the science fictional technologies in play. “Then it should be bursting open every cell in our bodies. If it’s looking for information coding, then DNA would be the first thing it’d find. Seven hundred megabytes of digital data in each cell.”

By this point, I had long since discarded my "characterization for Anna" hypothesis. I'd gotten the hang of what was really going on.

And so I didn't even blink when, on page 103, a character is introduced as "Captain Davoud Qasemi of the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force" – and he immediately begins rattling off the names of specific video games he liked as a kid, rambling about the homosexual overtones in Top Gun, and saying things like "It's marvelously ironic! It's so classically ironic that it's invented pederasty and gone to war with Sparta."

That's just how everyone in the world talks, apparently.

Everyone in the world. This book is about a Kurdish village that is suddenly crisscrossed with deployments from the U.S. and Russia and China etc., in what seem likely to be the last days of the human race; it is, in large part, about the culture clashes and strained attempts at international collaboration that result from this arrangement.

But the characters are helped along in their efforts by the fact that there is at least one culture to which they all belong.

They would all seem perfectly at home sitting on a big couch in a dorm common room at some nerdy liberal arts college, nominally watching a movie but in fact talking over most of the dialogue as they strive to out-do one another in the game of pointing out its scientific and historical inaccuracies.

Now, don't get me wrong. This is a perfectly fine way to be.

But it is not the only one.

----

It is probably clear that I did not like this aspect of the book. But why?

Well, there is the thing I just mentioned, about how it undermines the attempt at portraying culture clashes. But that's not the only problem, and it's not really the main problem.

What else, then?

In his (in)famous essay about "hysterical realism," James Wood wrote (my emphasis):

By and large, these are not stories that could never happen (as, say, a thriller is often something that could never happen); rather, they clothe real people who could never actually endure the stories that happen to them. They are not stories in which people defy the laws of physics (obviously, one could be born in an earthquake); they are stories which defy the laws of persuasion. This is what Aristotle means when he says that in storytelling “a convincing impossibility” (say, a man levitating) is always preferable to “an unconvincing possibility” (say, the possibility that a fundamentalist group in London would continue to call itself KEVIN).

Exordia is not hysterical realism, and it contains plenty of events which deliberately contravene the (known) laws of physics. Nonetheless, while reading it, I kept thinking of that line about "defying the laws of persuasion."

In the case of any one character, the traits I'm pointing to would be perfectly acceptable. (We saw this with my reaction to Anna, above.)

What's more, they would be acceptable even if they went against the expectations set by other attributes of the same character. The world is huge, and contains billions; every oddball combination of traits you can imagine quite possibly does exist, at least in someone, somewhere.

And besides: as Wood says, the "laws of persuasion" are not the same as the "laws of physics." The requirements needed for something to "feel plausible," in a work of fiction, are not the same as the requirements needed for something to be plausible, in real life.

But there is a set of requirements in the case of fiction. It's just a different one.

Meet the terms of the contract, and the reader will happily "suspend their disbelief," even in the face of actions and dialogue that would be extraordinarily unlikely in the real world. But if you break the contract? Then piling on more "realism," more geeky period/setting detail and laws-of-physics plausibility, will only heighten the disconnect and slide things further into the uncanny valley.

It's like watching a 3D 60-fps movie, back when Hollywood was going through its simultaneous 3D and 60-fps fads.

Yes, yes, there is technically more information, it's technically closer to the signal your senses would receive from the real world. But you have broken the terms of the illusion, suspended the suspension of disbelief, and so I am no longer seeing your world and characters, anymore. I am seeing the remaining gaps in your inevitably flawed illusion.

On page 136 of Exordia, we meet a female Kurdish shepherd. She's an extremely minor character, really just a horror-movie extra who's there to get picked off (ambiguously, "off-screen") by the spooky powers at play, and thereby give the reader an (ambiguous, tantalizing) hint of what those powers can do.

But, as is the convention in such matters, Seth Dickinson gives her just a smidgen of characterization, to humanize her before she goes.

What kind of person is she, this poor doomed shepherdess?

You already know the answer, don't you?

Tonight she thinks only of her sheep. Oil smuggling paid for her phone and the rifle on her back, but this flock is part of the village’s common wealth, and she is responsible for it. Or so her mother is always reminding her. And even if she watches too much anime and spends too much time getting into fights on Facebook, she wants to do her mother proud.

She watches too much anime? Fine. Maybe she does. Maybe she does.

Maybe – if it were only her. If the seams in the illusion were not showing through so plainly.

I'm a fairly cooperative reader. The implausible and the impossible do not bother me. I am capable of believing just about anything.

But not like this.

----

The characters of Exordia are geeks. That much I've covered already.

They are also badasses, every one of them. Geeky badasses.

That's the phrase that came to mind, pretty early on, when I was trying to formulate what bothered me about these guys. "Every single character in this book is a geeky badass," I thought.

I'm sorry. It's a very, uh, "cringe" phrase. But that too is apposite.

What do I mean, "badasses"?

For one thing I mean that they are hypercompetent. They know all kinds of stuff – geek culture trivia, academic esoterica in seemingly every discipline, hands-on working knowledge of whichever military or scientific devices the plot needs them to use. They are quick on their feet, relentlessly thoughtful and logical, cool under pressure (or hot under pressure in an impressive and charismatic manner), capable of creative problem-solving.

They never fail.

Nothing fazes them. Or rather: when they are fazed, it is brief, and they look great doing it, and it doesn't matter in the end anyway.

Many of them have dark, traumatic personal histories (exciting! dramatic! potentially sexy!), but however bad their trauma, it does not dare disturb their hypercompetence when the latter is at work.

This book is about the cataclysmic end of the world-as-we-know-it. It contains a staggering quantity of violence and death: on-screen and off-screen, mass-scale and intimate, dealt out by a diverse range of human and inhuman actors and weapons. But no one ever just breaks down in the face of it all. Or rather: if they do "break down," they do so only briefly, and they look great doing it, and...

One of the main characters is, explicitly, an alcoholic with PTSD. But this doesn't really ever come up as a serious obstacle, either to her or to anyone else. Mostly, it just means that she jokes around with the other characters about being the town drunk, sometimes, in between one moment of epic badassery and the next.

One might argue that this is sort of... I don't know, "tasteless"? I don't know. I had some sort of problem with it, anyway, that or some other one.

For a book that is so thoroughly about nerds, it is remarkable how little it contains in the way of humiliation. Of straight-up, unalloyed uncoolness.

As always, things start off with uncharacteristic promise. In the first few pages, Anna loses her job, then breaks up with her boyfriend in a very awkward manner and instantly regrets it.

This, remember, is the same character who says that cringe line about souls and Evangelion. So far, so good! We've gone from zero to #relatable in record time. We have a confirmed blorbo, stable under laboratory conditions. Sources familiar with the situation report that she is "a hot mess" and "literally me."

But that's all in Act One (may it rest in peace). Soon enough, Anna is taken up into the geeky badass hive mind, and from then on she too is never seen to fail. Except in a cool way, sometimes.

Soon enough she is just like the rest of them. Quick-witted, effortlessly articulate, situationally aware, ready for anything, an endless font of witty geek banter.

Is this bad? Why?

I'm not sure. Maybe I just don't like it. Maybe there's nothing more than that.

But... okay, look. This is a book about the likely end of the human race, about humans trying to work together in the face of cultural differences and mutual mistrust. It wants you to hope. In its moments of triumph, it wants you to feel proud of your whole species.

And, in the name of these goals, it tries so very hard to humanize its characters. It tries, it tries! They have so many traits, so much specificity! They will tell you all about their home towns, their cultures, their hopes and dreams and fears! Look, look, the book says: surely these are people? Look at them, they're doing so much people stuff!

But at the moment where "being human" might entail "not being effortlessly cool and badass literally all of the time," the book suddenly relents. That cannot be allowed, of course. Every threshold can be crossed, except that one.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't relate. I'm not a badass. I do embarrassing shit all the time, and I'll probably just go on doing it until the day I die. I don't think I could hold my own with these demigods in the anime-referencing game, much less the high-pressure-military-operations game.

I guess "people" are like this, sometimes. But only because the world is big, and so for every X, there are some people who are X, somewhere.

This book is about the human race, except it isn't. To be human is (among other things) to kind of suck, and no one in this book kind of sucks, not even the military psychopaths, not even blorbo-candidate Anna.

On page 10, Anna asks her alien how she views humanity, and the alien's characterization is humorously blunt, underwhelming, and undignified:

“You’re a species of gangly distance runners, adapted to sweat and throw stuff. You like watching each other fuck. [...] “You are wired for small social groups, so all human organization degenerates into power trading and gossip between a tractably sized elite, no matter the stakes. You have two sources of authority—dominance and prestige—which conflict in interesting ways. Something killed most of you, and so your survivors are very inbred. Very similar. Your meat smells the same.”

Act One really is so very different from the rest, isn't it?

Ah, those were the days!

4. differentiation of hive mind tissue

In the last section, I argued that the characters were overly similar. Possessed of the same "geeky badass" traits in a way that defied "the laws of persuasion."

That is true, but it's not to say the characters don't have distinguishing traits. They definitely have those.

But even here, in the realm of differences, something feels... off. To me, anyway.

It's sort of like this:

To a zeroth-order approximation, every character in Exordia is identical. Just another dollop of homogeneous geeky badass paste, scooped up from the same wellspring as all the rest.

That's only the zeroth-order approximation. Look closer, and you can see differences.

What kinds of differences?

Well, here's an example. There's a character named Chaya. Who is she? Besides a geeky badass, I mean?

She is [takes a deep breath] a Ugandan-Filipina Catholic butch lesbian plasma physicist!

That's a long list of traits, but it was very easy for me to recall them all from memory just now, even though Chaya is just one member of this book's long roster of protagonists. Why?

Because whenever Chaya appears in a scene – whenever she says anything, and whenever the narration is filtered through her perspective – these traits are mentioned over and over again.

Virtually everything that she says or thinks is:

A) Narrowly pragmatic, directly related to what's happening in the immediate plot, could have been said/thought by any one of the characters

B) Directly related to one or more of the traits listed above (e.g. she's Catholic, so she's praying or talking about God with one of the irreligious / differently religious characters)

C) Some mixture of the two (e.g. she is making some smart practical comment about a current dilemma in the plot, which any one of the characters might have said, except that where one of the other characters would have said "fuck!", she says "mama Mary!")

I almost feel kind of gross, dissecting a character in this way. Especially when it's a character like Chaya, who I kind of liked!

I almost feel that way, but then I remember it's not really me doing the dissection. The characters come this way, marked with convenient labels for ease of disassembly.

I said I "kind of liked" Chaya, and I did. When I was reading the book quickly, swept along by the story – when I sort of defocused my brain, and didn't pay too much attention – I felt that she was a likable character. She had the general shape of a "likable character." My brain could match her against familiar templates, and accept the match, if I let my brain work without too much conscious deliberation.

When I focused harder, though, the joints began to show.

When I focused harder, I could watch (well-crafted, clever) lines of dialogue and narration flow past, and see through the Matrix to the calculated flecks of trait-relevance which adhered to each and every one of those lines.

This is a Chaya section, so I am getting told over and over again about God and rosary beads and plasma physics and what Uganda is like and what the Philippines is like and the woman Chaya has a crush on and how Chaya has a crush on that woman and how these two have a vaguely butch/femme dynamic.

(Sidenote: although this book seems like it's taking great pains to be culturally sensitive – or, perhaps, because of that fact – I kept noticing that the American characters are not constantly thinking and talking about what America is like. Only the people from places presumptively unfamiliar to the reader do that kind of thing. And it almost feels like the American characters are given more "slots" in which to fit distinct character traits, because they don't have to spend any slots just to establish their national origins.)

These are the Chaya topics. I am being told about them, and I will be told about them later, in other Chaya sections. Except for "the plot," these are the only topics I will ever be told about in Chaya sections.

If this were a Clayton section, I would be hearing for the 50th time about how Clayton is manipulative and conflicted about his manipulativeness. Or, hearing about one of the other Clayton topics. There's a list of those, with maybe five or six items, just as there was with Chaya. In Clayton sections, you hear about these things, and only these things.

It reminds me of the kind of improv where you're handed a brief description of your character, and have to immediately start acting as that character, with no time to prep. There's no way you could invent a whole fleshed-out human being in under a second, of course. So you lean hard on the traits listed on your character sheet. You find ways to weave one or more of them into each and every line. See: I'm doing it right! I'm playing my character!

----

Exordia's characters have no small traits. Only big ones, like "being Catholic" or "being Chinese." They do not act whimsically or inexplicably, ever; they do not play against their fixed types, ever.

Real people are microscopically detailed, incompressible, differentiated from one another by millions of little quirks that are essentially arbitrary and cannot be satisfactorily "explained" except by narrating huge segments of their life histories ("see, that's where it came from," one might say, after relating years of experience in unsparing detail).

In fiction, this stuff can't possibly be conveyed in full, and so a faithful portrayal of its consequences tends to just look like "noise," arbitrary behavior, the whimsical, the inexplicable.

Which is fine. Good fictional characters often come with such halos of static around them. It's a part of making a fictional world feel real, rough-edged, lived-in.

And on the other hand, sometimes it's fine for a fictional character to just be a type, and play out that type. A lot of science fiction is this way: it simply isn't much interested in character, which is okay, because it has other interests with which to keep your attention.

But Exordia is trying to have it both ways.

It's not just a standard hard SF story where the characters are types, and are clearly and only those types, and that's okay. Compared to that sort of story, Exordia spends way more time lingering on its characters, "zooming in" on them. Inviting you to consider them, study them, love them.

But this causes a feeling of intuitive wrongness, an uncanny valley effect. We should be zoomed in far enough to see the details, the noise-haloes. So where are they?

You can zoom in and in, but all you see is a magnified version of the stuff you'd already seen at lower resolution. A surface of unreal smoothness, unmarred by dust or fuzz.

4b. so meta

It's annoying (I keep using that word...) to talk about these aspects of Exordia, because the book involves a sci-fi conceit that could potentially explain its unusual flatness of character.

Explain it in-universe, I mean. As a "real" thing that causes these people to be this way, for a specific reason, in a specific place and time. Leaving everyone outside of the frame potentially intact, with dust and fuzz still in place.

(Wait, that was in Floornight too! Huh. I literally didn't realize that until just now.)

I'm not going to say anything more about this due to the spoiler rule, except that I don't think it really works when you think about it. The stated causes don't actually match up with the effects: the former are too narrow in scope, the latter too pervasive. The characters are flat even when the sci-fi flat-causing mechanisms aren't supposed to be in effect.

At most, I guess you could say the flatness is "thematically appropriate." Connected to other stuff that the book talks about, elsewhere. But... I dunno. Who cares? What's the point?

4c. the voice of the hive

Like a lot of modern fiction, Exordia is mostly written in studiously maintained free indirect speech.

If you don't know (or don't remember) what that is, the Wikipedia page I just linked has a nice example, which I'll reproduce here.

Quoted or direct speech or narrator's voice: He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. "And just what pleasure have I found, since I came into this world?" he asked. Reported or normal indirect speech: He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. He asked himself what pleasure he had found since he came into the world. Free indirect speech: He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. And just what pleasure had he found, since he came into this world?

It's third person. But the third-person narration is commingled with the perspective of one of the characters (where this focal character can vary over the course of the text). Often the "narrator" just says stuff as though it's objective reportage, when in fact it is (and the reader knows it is) what this specific character thinks or believes.

The use of free indirect speech accidentally provides a useful way to "directly measure" the characterization problems described above.

Consider: although the book is written this way almost all of the way through – and you can discern that fact if you pay attention – it is easy to forget in the moment that it is written this way.

Why? Because, although the narration follows the thoughts of one character and then another, the characters are too similar to one another for this to make much of a difference.

Mostly, the narration just describes things the way you'd imagine a "geeky badass" might describe them, with lots of flashy clever phrasing, and lots of arguably pedantic detail about science / engineering / military matters / etc.

Free indirect speech already blurs the distinction between the authorial voice and the character voices, by design, but here the blurring is taken to its limit, and the distinction collapses entirely. Is "the author" describing events this way? Or, is one of the characters describing it in that way? Or not them, but a different character? We can't tell, because all of these people would say precisely the same string of words.

Of course, we can usually tell who the focal character is, because the items listed on their character card are getting sprayed all over the place. If every other sentence of the narration mentions a Clayton topic, then Clayton must be the focal character, and likewise for the others.

Even here, though, there's a curious departure from the way free indirect speech works in most other books. Note that referencing the "Clayton topics" is not the same thing as conveying Clayton's moment-to-moment thoughts: the former is a fixed list of 5 or 6 items, while the latter presumably roves all over the place as time passes.

I say "presumably" because if the characters' thoughts do rove around in this way, we mostly don't see it. All we hear about is their "topics," again and again.

Maybe these are Clayton's thoughts; maybe Clayton is an obsessive monomaniac who just thinks endlessly about the fact that he's manipulative and so on. Maybe they are all like that. Who knows? It's impossible for me to tell, because the narration is ambiguous in this odd, specific way.

One section, late in the book, begins as follows:

An awful light from the sky finds Anna. She’s, barely, smart enough not to look straight at it.

I was briefly startled by this. I interpreted that "barely smart enough" remark as something said by the omniscient third-person observer. I was like: dude, that's kinda harsh, isn't it?

But a few sentences later, I realized: oh, the focal character in this scene is Anna's mom. It's Anna's mom who's judging her like this. That makes sense.

This particular example is just sort of a narration glitch. I'm not sure it'd be possible to avoid the effect I'm describing, here, without rewriting the scene so it's clear who the focal character is before the "barely smart enough" judgment occurs.

But this case stuck out to me when I encountered it, because that feeling of disorienting perspective-realignment – although it's just kind of awkward, here – is what good multi-character free indirect speech usually feels like, all the time.

"The book should have more of this," I thought. "It should be constantly calling the characters stupid, or whatever, from the perspective of other characters."

(It's not like that doesn't happen at all, mind you. It just happens way less than usual, and way less than it ought to, IMO.)

"With this much perspective-shifting, I should be getting vertigo," I thought. "So where is it? Why is everything so smooth?"

5. the forbidden word

My division into sections is sort of breaking down, here. There's a thing I want to mention that doesn't really deserve its own section, but doesn't quite fit anywhere else. Whatever.

It's yet another annoying quality of Exordia's characters. ("Wait," you're saying. "You said you enjoyed this book?")

Basically everyone in this book is so...

Look, guys, I really don't want to say "woke," okay? If no one ever used the word "woke" again, we would live in a better world. I have said it twice already in this paragraph, and thus made our shared world worse, twice. Sorry.

I'm just not sure what else to call it.

They're feminists. They're against racism, and it's not the kind of hollow and unreflective "opposition to racism" that (e.g.) most Americans will assent to if you poke them about it – no, these people have subtle, thought-through ideas about racism, and its causes.

And so on, w/r/t other forms of bigotry, and the like.

And it's not just that the characters hold these views, themselves. These views are a fluid in which they swim, in a mostly invisible fashion. Everyone assumes without asking that everyone else is like this, and acts accordingly.

Or, more precisely, all the main characters are like this. There are a few bit players who are vaguely suggested to have more right-wing attitudes: the "Mike Jan" who we briefly met above, he of the unchanging desktop background, seems like the type of guy who'd watch Alex Jones, for instance. And on really rare occasions – like maybe 2 or 3 times total – some barely characterized nonentity will actually say something racist or sexist, but nothing much comes of it (remember, our mains are emotionally impregnable badasses), and then the guy who made the comment gets beheaded by an alien laser on the same page or something.

Meanwhile, all the Important Characters are (I guess) invisibly equipped with Important Character Detectors that let them hone in on each other, ignore the hapless maybe-bigoted redshirts around them, and proceed immediately into sophisticated conversations about social justice with one another. No need to feel out the other party's general point of view beforehand: this guy's a protagonist. He's cool, he's one of us.

Is this bad?

I mean, if it is, it's not really a big deal, I guess? Not compared to the other issues I talked about earlier, the deeper ones that plague the fundamental ingredients of the work (character, plot, structure).

But I did find it kind of offputting. Especially at first, before I'd accepted that the Exordia world is just like this.

I remember specifically being startled by an early scene, during the part where the Act One characters are getting introduced to the Acts Two+ characters, in which Anna and Erik suddenly – without warning or preface – launch into a discussion of Kurdish feminism, and potentially distorted/simplified/problematic Western views of Kurdish feminism, and whether Kurdish feminism really matters at all in light of the dire geopolitical position of the Kurds, and that sort of thing.

Again: the problem is not that this is "implausible," in itself. We barely know Erik at this point, and insofar as we know him it's mostly as some hardcore soldier type of dude, but – sure, whatever. There are plenty of feminist men in the military, I'm sure. The military is big, it's got all kinds of people in it.

Again: the violation is not against the laws of physics, but against the laws of persuasion. It's not that this couldn't happen. It could!

And yet.

"Yes, this could happen. I guess it could. But like, come on. Really?"

Sometimes the reader is a harsher master than reality.

And beyond that, this just seems like... I don't know. Like a half-assed, cowardly way to make your book "about" social justice in some sense, without ever really confronting the topic head-on?

A book in which everyone verbally agrees with one another about their enlightened views is not a book about the content of those views. It's just a book in which some characters happen to agree with one another about some things, and also some other stuff happens.

(I'm being at least sort of unfair here: the book really is "about" the Kurds and the Anfal campaign, for instance.)

For a book about culture clashes and genocide and the struggle for international collaboration under tense circumstances, Exordia has a remarkable lack of ideological tension. Or even non-ideological international tension, depicted "on-screen."

Mostly, people in the book... just kind of instantly get along with each other? And then immediately start exchanging packets of nerd banter and/or trenchant commentary on the evils of U.S. imperialism. Members of the geeky badass hive mind, recognizing one another on sight, conversing in the native language of the hive.

Once again: is this bad? Even if so, how bad is it, really?

I think, maybe, that if your book is about the sorts of things that Exordia is about, then sometimes your characters should very much not get along immediately. That they should be riven apart, and driven to extremes, by identity and ideology – if not forever, then at least for a time.

Maybe.

6. proof by intimidation

Man, this post is long!

And somehow I haven't really touched upon what Exordia's prose actually feels like, most of the time, word by word.

That's what this last section is about.

I don't mean the prose style, exactly. Actually, the prose style per se is... really good, mostly! I don't have that much to say about the ways in which it is good, but for the sake of balance and accuracy, I ought to make it clear that they exist.

Seth Dickinson is clearly a very good writer. In the "writes high-quality prose" sense, at least, and – despite all that I've said – in plenty of other ways too. (I'm told that his other books are better than this one; I will probably read them sometime. And I look forward, warily but with a considerable measure of hope, to his future work.)

But. You know what's coming. This post is negative-only. I've got something bad to say about the prose, it seems. Not about the style, but about... something else?

What, then?

Well, let me show you some examples.

He [i.e. Clayton] has seen enough satellite timelines of mass graves to know exactly which stage the corpses have reached. Their skin and bone cells are still alive. Their suits are bloating with gases now. Death signals the beginning of a final uprising, when the three pounds and 60 percent (by count) of your cells that are bacterial clients claim their last meal. They eat you so greedily and so well.

Sixty percent, huh. TIL!

I didn't know that, but Clayton did, apparently. (Free indirect speech in action.)

Of course he did. Clayton is a geeky badass, and like all of his kind, he knows every gee-whiz fact (and factoid) in existence.

And like all geeky badasses – like the book itself – he is not shy about letting you know that he knows.

What else does the book know? Here's some chemistry:

Their X-ray frequency gun isn’t working. Maggie Gaboury breaks out the breakdown spectrometer. A neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet laser attacks the hull; the plume of excited vapor releases a rainbow of light that the spectrometer can read like a bloody fingerprint.

"Breakdown spectrometer"? I've never heard of those. Am I supposed to know this? Is it important?

Two pages later:

The US Radar 110XLS is designed to survey down to two hundred feet below ground, seeking out oil deposits and land mines. Emme didn’t expect the radar to work—after all, their radios are burned out, and radars are giant radios. But radio doesn’t go through metal. The radar’s storage unit protected it. So now they’re aiming it at this alien hull, which Joel says isn’t metal. It’s some kind of stable excimer, or Rydberg matter.

"Ah, the US Radar 110XLS, huh?" I say, smiling and nodding.

Just keep smiling and nodding, I tell myself. Keep your mouth shut. Or else Seth might catch on that you're a fucking moron who doesn't even know what a "breakdown spectrometer" is.

Later, here's some physics:

She knows how matter behaves around black holes. This thing is not behaving like a black hole should: it ought to be pulling in nearby air, forming a friction fireball. It’s not. But even if it isn’t actively pulling, some air is going to move into it anyway. Air molecules at room temperature move shockingly fast—about 350 meters per second.

350 meters per second. Smile and nod. Smile and nod.

God, I'm dumb. All the fucking things I don't KNOW.

The areas which the book knows all about, and which I know virtually nothing about, are too numerous to name. Does it know aeronautical engineering? And astronautical engineering? You bet:

Volume around 12,000 cubic meters. Assuming the same density as a 747, this implies a mass of 5,400 metric tons, just short of two fully fueled Saturn V rockets. Blackbird has wings, but they’re too thick to produce much lift. The fuselage shows no sign of area ruling for efficient transonic flight. It’s not a plane. As a spacecraft design, Blackbird almost makes sense. The entire fuselage could serve as a lifting body while Blackbird glides down to a water landing. In space, the wings and their jagged trailing edges could act as radiators. There are no visible engines, but maybe the tail stuck in the mountainside is the exhaust.

That all sounds logical enough, I guess. But then again, if it wasn't, how would I know? Man, I don't even know what the phrase "area ruling" means.

Perhaps, despite my pretensions, I am not in fact cut out to disparage this book at all. It's above my pay grade. It's smarter than me.

You want more? Here's, um, a "BLEVE":

The blast tips the nearest helicopter on its side, snapping rotors, the fueling hose lashing like hell’s elephant. The helicopter carries a tank of helium cryogen for food storage and magnetic resonance systems. The heat of the fireball envelops the tank and pushes the helium above its boiling point. It tries to revert to a gas but it can’t: no room in here! For an instant the tank holds back tons of super-pressurized liquid helium trying to boil off into gas. Then a seam fails, and every molecule inside flashes to steam. The result is a BLEVE: a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion. It ruptures the kerosene fire and kills the luckier men instantly. The inert helium snuffs the fire and replaces it with a zone of asphyxiation and paradoxical cold. The blast wave slaps the lab complex’s tunnels taut and snaps the laundry lines in Tawakul.

Maybe you knew what that was already. Not me!

Is... is that what the blast wave resulting from a BLEVE would do, under those circumstances? Look, I'm not saying it isn't. I'm not casting doubt. I'm just saying, I have no clue.

Did Seth Dickinson do some sort of calculation, here, to make sure this made sense? How much research did he do, how much homework? Did he run simulations?

This stuff reads like he did. It reads like he was so careful, so laboriously conscientious about the science and engineering details, that he just has to tell you everything he learned along the way, or else it would all be for naught.

The book knows about military hardware. Oh god does it know about military hardware. The following excerpt is merely a drop from an ocean:

A column of Spetsnaz BMD-4s roll south down the riverside road, bristling with hundred-millimeter rifles and thirty-millimeter autocannon and anti-tank missiles and active hard-kill defenses. Spetsnaz riding atop their transports watch every incremental tick of the compass. Brand new Azart-P1 radio sets squall with static, still picking up the aurorae hidden behind the low gray sky.

Seth, is there anything you don't know?

I'm not even touching on the learned, labored excursions into history and geopolitics, here – just focusing on the science-y parts for brevity (ha ha, "brevity," I'll be here all night).

But even then, there are plenty more domains of science and engineering left to cover! Behold:

The copper tracks that connect components on the board have been duplicated, as if the etching process was performed twice before the final UV burn. Some of the pin connectors have dwarf copies. The CPU socket is crusted in a dark mass, like over-applied thermal paste.

The world is vast, nearly as vast as my own ignorance of it. Would you believe I have no idea what "over-applied thermal paste" looks like on a circuit board?

Like Seth, I do an arguably excessive quantity of research. Look, I spent a while this morning finding all those quotes, and there's no way I'm going to leave them un-quoted after all that work, okay? Here they come:

The KingFisher can read DNA sequences at targeted locations, but it can’t physically examine the structure of DNA. For that, she needs to get purified DNA extract from the KingFisher machine, then mount the DNA on slides of mica and put them under an atomic force microscope.

But of course. (Smile and nod.)

Did you know that certain ways of getting killed cause you to ejaculate as you die? Clayton does!

"Gunshot trauma to the cerebellum causes post-mortem erection and discharge," Clayton says.

More physics, and some speculative engineering:

The engine that forms the “quill” is a sheared-flow-stabilized Z-pinch fusion rocket. This is a fancy way to say that it turns spin-polarized heavy hydrogen and light helium into a continuous thermonuclear explosion. This is itself a fancy way to say that it runs on a rolling nuclear fireball. The magnetically confined tailpipe puts out about 100 grams of helium-4, protons, loose neutrons, and unburnt hydrogen-helium fuel every second. Add gamma and X-rays for taste, and, in situations where you need extra thrust at the cost of efficiency, dump some extra mass into the beam as a kind of afterburner. The resulting exhaust plasma moves at 3,500 kilometers per second: Mach 10,000, or about 1 percent of lightspeed.

Even more:

Some of the atoms take direct gamma-ray hits to their nuclei, breaking apart the strong-force bonds that tie protons to neutrons: a process called photodisintegration.

Did we really need to be told, after having this phenomenon explained to us, that it was called "photodisintegration"?

I mean, maybe we did. Or at least, maybe I did.

Since, you know.

Since I didn't know that, before.

Of course I didn't.

----

One last time: Is this bad? If so, why?

Maybe the problem is that I've written too much fiction, myself. (And SF, even, sometimes.)

And so, I can no longer look at this stuff and just think, "ooh, cool science facts, described in a flashy way. Fun!"

Instead, I just feel an immediate, intimate sense of exhaustion.

"God, how much work this must have been. How long it must have taken to gather all this info, and double-check it, and integrate it with the story in the right places."

(The fact that it has to actually suit the story means that a lot of this kind of "homework" never even makes it to the page, because the plot points that might once have required it get edited out or modified! Ugh, I'm feeling drained just typing this.)

Exhaustion – and self-doubt.

"God, so many things to potentially get wrong in an embarrassing way. So many fields that I'm an amateur-at-best in. And since I'm writing fiction, I'm taking those fields 'out of distribution,' taking them places that have never been studied by their real-world practitioners! Fuck, I have to make novel predictions! I'm screwed. Everyone is going to know exactly how much of an idiot I am."

This isn't just about science, mind you. It's about everything. Writing fiction inherently requires one to assume a posture of staggering arrogance, or what would be staggering arrogance in any other context.

"Here's what happened, to these people who are not like me, in all these places I've only visited, at most. Here is exactly what they did and said and even thought, inside their heads, where no one else could see. How the hell would I know, you ask? It's simple: I know everything. I know all the things there are to know, about all the things that exist. (And the ones that don't exist, for that matter.)"

I do manage to assume the posture, at least for long enough to get the words written when I want them written. But outside of that trance-like state, I start to doubt myself.

Who am I to do this thing? My ignorance is vast, nearly as vast as the world of which I'm ignorant.

And it's there, in that world, that they live. The readers. Aren't they going to notice how badly I'm getting it all wrong? They will, won't they?

This is neurotic, I know.

And so, perhaps the only thing that we're learning here is the following:

A) I am a writer who is very intellectually insecure, and

B) Exordia is a novel with a majestic stock of implicit intellectual self-confidence.

Is that bad? Could it be bad, "objectively," apart from my issues? I mean, surely not, right?

Nonetheless, I notice that reading Exordia filled me with this kind of tetchy, defensive intellectual competitiveness – which is a thing that most books do not do to me, though "my issues" remain a constant.

Perhaps – to psychologize myself further – this objection is downstream from the others, and has no life of its own. Perhaps I just felt annoyed with the book for other reasons, and at the same time felt like the book was asserting itself to be superior to me in some sense, and so I felt a need to say:

"No, all of this is bad somehow, because if it were good it would mean this whole book is good – and that would have dire implications for my own work, given how similar-and-yet-maybe-inferior it is to the incredibly-annoying-and-yet-objectively-superior novel Exordia."

Which is... extremely neurotic, and self-regarding, and also barely even makes sense. I don't want it it just be that, but maybe it is.

(The legitimately high-quality prose did not help, in this respect. It really is good! Five hundred and twenty-nine small-print pages of good. It's so fucking polished, way moreso than anything I could ever imagine putting out. And so fucking clever, so fucking smart...)

(Jeez. Get it together, man.)

----

However, there is one more thing that I notice.

There are works of fiction that make me feel smart, and works of fiction that make me feel dumb.

And I think, all else being equal, it is preferable to make the reader feel smart. Not by cheating, not by lowering your intellectual standards to what you imagine the reader can handle. But by trusting them, and then giving them something hard in a way you trust them to digest themselves.

Rather than... I don't know, bludgeoning them into cowed reverence through sheer force of accumulated, exhaustive, exhausting showing-off?

I don't know how objective this quality is, this feel-smart/feel-dumb thing. I'm sure it's reader-relative to some extent, maybe a huge extent. Maybe it varies so much that it's not even worth talking about in the abstract; you just gotta hope the right reader finds your stuff, and feels smart.

Still, here I am, talking about it.

What defines the works that "make me feel smart"?

Mainly that they are complicated and difficult by virtue of the complicated and difficult novelties they create, as part of the creative act that they are. They involve things which are equally hard for anyone to wrap their mind around, because no one had ever needed to wrap their mind around such things at all, before the work existed.

That, and the fact that these works – despite being inherently complicated and difficult – do not talk down to you, or hold your hand too much.

They act kind of like you already know what their deal is – which you don't, but then again, no one does. (The playing field is level.)

They say:

"Congratulations. You have passed the entrance exam. Welcome to the class. It will be hard, but I trust you to do your best. If you aren't smart enough now, perhaps you will become so, by your own efforts, by the end. Good luck."

They expect the reader to be a genius, but they know, deep down, that the reader is not really the right sort of genius – not yet, anyway. That is the point of presenting the challenge: so that you will rise to it, and see a new kind of thing, beyond what you had believed to be the horizon.

This is how I feel about Homestuck, say, or The Quincunx.

Or The Lymond Chronicles, or The Recognitions, or Ulysses.

Some of these are extremely dense with learned and carefully prepared authorial research. And, where this is the case, they are certainly not shy about showing it to you.

And yet, these works make me feel smart.

And then, there are works like Exordia, which make me feel dumb as fuck.

The end!

[greenxgloss]

In honor of Mona Lisa can we get a jhope fic please Mona Lisa inspired ofc😔👉🏾👈🏾

A/n: so sorry for how long this took but ohhhh my god I loved writing this lmao this was good. it was also lowkey intimidating to write this bc I kinda had to write "mona lisa" as closely as hobi describes her in the song but I think I did a pretty good job lol I hope you loved this!!

Mona Lisa, Yeah I Need Ya (Jhope)

Summary: After a painful breakup, Y/N cautiously reenters the nightlife scene, where an unexpected encounter with the charming Hoseok awakens new desires and challenges her emotional boundaries. Themes: softdom!Hobi, PleasureDom!Hobi, Independent!Reader, Self-Possessed!Reader, Fem recieving oral and fingering, protected sex, alcohol consumption Word Count: 5.2k

It had been a few months since the breakup, and by the second month, you had started to feel like yourself again—steady, clear-headed, no longer unravelling at the sight of old photos or mutual playlists. Still, you decided to lay low a little longer. There was no rush to be social again, no pressure to be seen. You gave yourself the space to rebuild in peace, focusing on self-care, solitude, and the small comforts that often go neglected in the wake of a relationship’s slow erosion.

The breakup itself hadn’t been dramatic—no screaming, no infidelity, no grand exit. If anything, the ending mirrored the relationship itself: quiet, slow-burning, and far too polite. You’d both simply drifted apart, pulled in different directions by work schedules, emotional needs, and that inevitable, unspoken disinterest. He had been distant for months, and though you'd noticed, you had never demanded answers. You didn’t issue ultimatums or stage a last-ditch confession. You were composed. Stoic, even. So when he ended things on a mild spring evening while the sunset painted your apartment in gold and coral, you simply nodded and offered him a drink before he left.

He had been neglectful, true—but mature enough to do the leaving himself. You didn’t mention that part to anyone. Too considerate. Too loyal, even after the fact. It’s a quiet tragedy: how often women swallow the discomfort in favor of appearing unbothered, offering their partner a gentle exit in the name of dignity. “If you don’t love me anymore, just say so.” But that wasn’t the line you fed him. You simply let go.

By the fourth month, the fog had lifted entirely. And when your best friend Gissele texted you an invite to a party at one of the city’s most talked-about clubs, something in you stirred. Not apprehension—readiness. Excitement, even.

There was a dress hanging in your closet you hadn’t worn yet—bought during an impulsive shopping trip when you’d told yourself you would have something to dress up for eventually. It was sleek and unapologetically bold, black silk and structured seams, still crisp with tags. Tonight was the night.

You and Gissele entered the club hand-in-hand, laughter already dancing on your lips as blue and violet lights swept over the crowd. The bassline of the music thrummed in your chest. A kaleidoscope of bodies moved across the floor, sweat-slicked and electric. You hadn’t realized how much you missed this—the ritual of getting dressed up, the chaos of the night, the sense of belonging to your own body again.

“I am so ready,” you said with a grin, glancing at Gissele.

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that,” she teased, dragging you toward the bar. The two of you settled on stools, giggling as you sipped pink Whitney from dewy glasses.

“I’m glad you came,” she added, more serious now, swirling her drink. Her honey-brown eyes shimmered under the strobe lights, and her hot pink lacefront framed her face like a crown. Gissele never did subtle. That’s what made her so magnetic—every movement was intentional, every outfit a declaration.

“I just needed time,” you replied softly, shrugging. “To recalibrate.”

“I get it,” she said. And you believed her.

One of the many reasons you adored her was that she always made you feel safe. She had an eye for detail, a sixth sense for shady behavior, and could destroy a creep’s ego in seconds flat—all without smudging her lipstick. She was your shield, your chaos twin, your anchor.

Tonight, her look was a statement of its own. She wore towering white platform boots that wrapped just under her knees, layered shredded tights in blush and fuchsia, a silky white slip dress, and a structured harness that gave her an edge of danger. She looked like she’d stepped out of a cyberpunk magazine. In contrast, your style was more refined: a black dress with asymmetrical ruffles and heeled boots. Romantic. Reserved. A perfect foil to her explosive palette.

“I swear to god, the men here are insane,” she whispered, eyes scanning the crowd. “Wait—yup. That one’s staring at you.”

You blinked. “Which one?”

But she was already gone, abandoning her stool with a laugh and a wink. “Have fun,” she called over her shoulder, leaving you alone with your drink—and, apparently, under observation.

You didn’t have to wait long.

A few moments later, a hand gently brushed your elbow. You turned, startled, only to meet a pair of warm, expressive eyes and a mouth curved into a smile that was as soft as it was knowing.

“May I buy you a drink?” the man asked, voice velvet-smooth. He slid into the seat beside you—the one Gissele had left vacant—as though it had always been his.

You looked at him—really looked. The subtle shine of sweat on his brow, the warm bronze undertone of his skin, and the twinkle of his grill as he smiled, catching the light like a constellation. Elegant, refined—and yet there was a hint of mischief beneath his charm.

“I’m still working on this,” you said, lifting your half-full pink Whitney and licking the corner of your lip, as if to test his reaction.

A rejection, technically. But not a closed door.

His smirk widened just slightly, like he understood the game. “Fair enough,” he replied, his eyes not leaving yours. The air between you shifted, magnetic. He didn’t press—but he didn’t leave either.

You crossed one leg over the other, sitting up straighter, aware of the way his eyes briefly flicked down and back up. “Your friend seemed eager to disappear.”

“She saw you coming,” you replied, letting a slow smile curl your lips. “Thought she’d give us a moment.”

“Smart woman,” he said, clearly amused.

“I’m Y/N.”

You extended your hand, and instead of shaking it, he brought it to his lips and pressed a kiss to your knuckles—light, gentlemanly, deliberate.

“Hoseok,” he said. “Pleasure.”

You felt your stomach flutter—ridiculous, you told yourself. It’s just the alcohol. But you knew better.

“Is this your usual scene?” you asked, easing into conversation, trying to keep your tone casual despite the way his presence kept pulling your attention like a gravitational force.

“I show up when I feel like dressing up and flirting shamelessly with beautiful women,” he replied without a trace of irony. His gaze locked with yours. “So tonight, yes.”

You laughed. “That a line you use often?”

“No,” he said, “I save it for when it’s true.”

The banter had an easy rhythm, but it was laced with a sincerity you weren’t prepared for. He wasn’t just trying to charm you—he meant what he said. Every compliment had weight, every glance held intention.

And still, there was no pressure. Just presence. Just a man leaning in slightly, his fingers ghosting the rim of his glass as he listened to you speak. You told him about your job, your last girls’ trip, your recent obsession with 90s R&B. He told you about his travels, his work in dance and music, his deep affection for old vinyl records and lavender-scented candles.

The two of you slipped into a corner booth after the second drink. The crowd pulsed on around you, a blur of motion and noise. But the space you occupied felt insulated—separate, private, like a soft secret between the two of you.

He leaned closer.

“You have a way of being still in chaos,” he murmured, his voice low, almost reverent. “It’s... rare. That calm.”

You raised a brow, caught off guard by the poetry in his tone. “You talk like that to all the girls?”

“No,” he said again. “Only when I mean it.”

This time, the blush crept to your ears. Hoseok watched the shift in your expression with barely concealed satisfaction, like a man who knew the power of words and wielded them carefully. He didn’t reach for your thigh. He didn’t try to kiss you. But every movement, every word, made it clear: he was interested. And he was in no hurry. This wasn’t conquest—it was intrigue. And the longer you sat with him, the harder it became to look away.

“Come dance with me,” he said, standing and offering you his hand.

You hesitated only for a second before slipping your fingers into his, letting him guide you onto the floor. The music shifted to something sultry and slow, the kind of rhythm that curled around your limbs and made the space between bodies feel charged.

And when he placed his hands—gentle, respectful—on your hips, guiding you to move with him, you felt the heat settle into your skin.

Maybe it wasn’t the alcohol after all.

The music thrummed low and seductive, a steady rhythm that seemed to sync with the beat of your heart as Hoseok guided you into the tangle of swaying bodies. His grip was light at your waist—two fingers resting just enough to suggest control without taking it. You settled into the tempo, allowing yourself to relax into the motion. He moved close, not too close, but close enough to feel the heat of his body through the thin black silk of your dress.

“You dance like someone who doesn’t come out often,” he murmured, leaning just enough that his breath stirred the strands near your ear.

Your lips curved. “Is that a bad thing?”

“No,” he said smoothly. “It means I get to watch you rediscover it.”

You turned your head to glance at him, amused and a little intrigued. “And what exactly am I rediscovering?”

His eyes flicked down, just once, before settling back on your face. “What it feels like to be wanted.”

That one hit deeper than you expected. But you didn’t falter. You just tilted your head with a coy, polished smile, like he hadn’t just said something that made your stomach twist with heat.

“Is that what this is?” you asked, voice even. “You wanting me?”

“Undeniably,” he said.

A beat passed. You looked away first, the corners of your mouth twitching upward in unspoken amusement.

He didn’t press. Instead, he shifted closer—so slowly it was imperceptible at first. His chest barely grazed yours now, and his hand had migrated, palm resting against the dip of your spine. He kept the movement subtle, his other hand lifting to brush a stray hair from your cheek, fingertips skimming along the line of your jaw. Polite, still. But loaded.

“So,” he said, voice smooth as honey, “what brings you out tonight? You don’t strike me as someone who comes here for the drinks.”

Your gaze flicked up to his, your brow lifting. “I could say the same to you.”

He chuckled, clearly enjoying the push and pull. “Touché. But I asked first.”

You paused, just for effect, before answering. “I needed the reminder that I still exist outside my apartment. Outside my routines.”

“A reawakening,” he said, the word drawn out thoughtfully, like he was tasting it.

“Something like that.”

He nodded, hand pressing a little more firmly against your back now. You stepped forward slightly to keep your balance, and he didn’t move back. Your bodies were close enough now that you could feel the bass of the music reverberating between you.

“And the dress?” he asked, eyes sweeping over you again—but not lewdly. Thoughtfully. “Bought for tonight?”

“No,” you replied, tone playful. “It’s been waiting in my closet for months.”

“Ah,” he said, smiling faintly. “Then I feel incredibly lucky.”

You raised a brow. “To see it?”

“To be the reason it came out.”

Your laugh was soft, reluctant. “You’re smooth.”

“I’m honest,” he corrected. “And observant.”

His hand drifted just slightly lower, the heat of his palm lingering now at the curve where your spine met your hips. You felt the warmth climb your neck, but your expression remained neutral—poised.

“You move like someone who doesn’t just dance,” he said. “You move like you know exactly what kind of attention you command.”

Your mouth parted slightly, caught off guard by the comment, but you recovered quickly, tipping your head in mock consideration. “Is that a compliment?”

“It’s a fact,” he said, voice dipping lower, lips brushing dangerously close to your ear now. “And a turn-on.”

This time, the flush threatened to betray you. Your stomach coiled with something sharp and satisfying, and though you didn’t respond immediately, your eyes met his again with that same unreadable smile.

He searched your expression, but you gave him nothing—just subtle amusement and polished restraint. That only seemed to intrigue him more.

“You’re good at this,” you said at last.

“At what?”

“This slow burn thing. Drawing people in.”

“I could say the same to you.”

A silence settled between you—thick, charged. His hand still rested against your lower back, and your arms had looped, almost instinctively, behind his neck. There was no distance left between your bodies. You were moving in sync, slow, deliberate, the music now secondary to the tension blooming between you.

You leaned in slightly, voice low. “I should probably check on my friend.”

Hoseok glanced across the floor, spotting Gissele leaning against a far wall, already deep in conversation with two girls and laughing over something shared on a phone screen.

“She looks... occupied,” he said, then turned back to you. “But if you want to leave, I’ll walk you both out.”

You studied him for a moment. His posture, his ease, the way he never once made you feel boxed in despite the magnetism between you. He didn’t ask for anything—but the possibility hung heavy in the air.

You took a breath. “I don’t want to go home yet.”

There was a pause—brief, electric.

“My hotel’s nearby,” he said, simply. No edge, no pressure. Just suggestion. “If you’d like to keep talking somewhere quieter.”

“Talking,” you echoed with a knowing smile.

His own smile widened. “I did say I was honest.”

You didn’t answer right away. You turned toward the crowd, eyes finding Gissele again. She caught your gaze immediately and raised a brow, already knowing. You mouthed something across the distance—going to head out—and she responded with a wink and a thumbs up before returning to her new entourage.

You turned back to Hoseok.

“Well,” you said, brushing invisible lint from your dress and adjusting the strap on your shoulder. “Lead the way.”

He offered you his hand again—this time not for the dance floor, but for the descent into something far more intimate. You took it without hesitation.

As the two of you exited the club, the air outside wrapped cool around your legs, balancing the heat that still lingered across your skin. Hoseok pressed the hotel’s location into his phone with one hand, the other still cradling yours like it was second nature.

And all the while, you walked beside him, steady, unreadable—but your pulse betrayed you, thrumming in places he hadn’t even touched.

Not yet. Not quite yet.

The elevator ride was quiet at first. Not awkward—just charged. A kind of silence that hung heavy between you both, weighted by everything unsaid but fully understood.

Hoseok leaned back against the elevator wall, one hand in the pocket of his slacks, the other running through his dark hair as his eyes traveled over you again, unapologetically this time. The overhead lighting softened his features, casting delicate shadows across the sharp lines of his face. His bottom lip caught slightly between his teeth before he spoke.

“You know,” he began, voice lower now in the confined space, “I wasn’t expecting much tonight. A few drinks, some polite conversation. Maybe a dance.”

You arched a brow, arms folded loosely, your smile just barely present—soft, knowing.

“But then I saw you,” he continued. “And you were… still.”

Still?

“Everyone else was moving, talking, laughing. But you were just there. Still and deliberate. Like you didn’t have to do anything to be seen.”

He pushed off the wall just slightly, not closing the distance between you, but enough to shift the tension in the air.

“You’re beautiful,” he said simply. “But it’s something else. Something about you makes me want more than just tonight.”

You tilted your head slightly, lips pressing into a faint line of amusement, not revealing much. Your posture hadn’t changed—you remained poised, calm, with that same unshakable grace—but the warmth that bloomed in your chest betrayed your exterior.

“I’m not saying I’m expecting anything,” he added, quickly but not nervously. “I mean that. I just want to talk to you. Maybe get to know what it is that makes someone like you walk into a place like that and look like you already own it.”

You glanced sideways at him. “Smooth,” you said, your voice light but your eyes sharp. “Again.”

His grin deepened, dimple flashing. “Told you—I’m honest.”

The elevator chimed, and the doors parted.

Hoseok stepped out first and held the door without needing to look back, like it was muscle memory. You walked past him with that same unbothered elegance, and he fell into step beside you as the two of you moved down the hall toward his room.

Once inside, he didn’t rush. The suite was wide and open, the lights dimmed low and the view of the city glittering through the glass balcony doors. You made your way there without needing an invitation, pushing them open and stepping outside into the night air.

The wind was soft, almost warm, carrying the sounds of distant traffic and nightlife up to the high floor. Hoseok joined you moments later, two glasses of something amber in hand—he offered one to you silently, and you took it without comment.

The silence returned, this time more companionable. The city stretched out before you in every direction, glittering like it existed just for the two of you.

“So,” you said, finally. “What brings you here?”

He exhaled slowly through his nose, sipping from his glass before replying. “Work. Mostly.”

You nodded. “What kind of work?”

He turned to you, leaning one elbow on the railing. “Creative consulting. For artists. A little bit of choreography. A little bit of producing.”

Your brow lifted slightly. “That’s vague.”

He laughed, the sound quiet and unforced. “It is. That’s on purpose. I’m not really supposed to name names.”

You hummed. “Discretion. That’s attractive.”

“And rare,” he said, eyes flicking to yours again. “But I don’t just come here for work. Sometimes it’s a reset. Different city, different pace. New people.”

You sipped. “New distractions.”

“Maybe.” He glanced sideways at you again. “You don’t seem like one.”

You smirked. “No?”

“No. You feel more like a disruption.”

That word hung in the air between you.

You didn’t respond right away. Instead, you leaned forward slightly, resting your elbows on the railing, letting the wind lift the ends of your hair. The glass in your hand caught a glimmer of moonlight, casting tiny golden flecks onto the concrete floor beneath you.

He watched you. Carefully. And when you looked back at him—slow, deliberate—his gaze didn’t shift away.

You held it.

That’s when the space between you shortened.

He didn’t move all at once. Just a step, and then another. His hand rested lightly on the curve of the railing beside yours, knuckles brushing your wrist.

“I’ve been trying not to stare,” he said, almost under his breath. “But you make it hard.”

Still, your smile didn’t waver. You simply turned your face toward his, eyes locked, unreadable.

The kiss was inevitable.

It didn’t happen in a rush—it happened in the quiet pause between glances. His hand rose to touch your cheek, thumb trailing just beneath your bottom lip, eyes watching the way your mouth parted the slightest bit at the contact. He didn’t ask, didn’t need to. When he leaned in, your lips met in a soft, exploratory kiss—slow at first, like the two of you were testing gravity itself.

When you didn’t pull away, when your fingers found the lapel of his jacket and held him there, he deepened it.

The glass in your hand tilted dangerously. You broke apart just long enough to set it down on the balcony table, then turned back to him with a heat now undeniable in your eyes.

He took your hand, no words this time, and led you back inside.

The room was cool, draped in shadows and city light. He paused at the edge of the bed, his eyes scanning your face once more.

“You’re sure?” he asked, quiet now.

You leaned in, your breath warm against his neck. “If I wasn’t, you’d know.”

That was all the permission he needed.

“I want to take my time with you,” he whispered, voice velvet. “Is that alright?”

You didn’t answer with words. Instead, you let your hands slide beneath his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders in one smooth motion. It hit the floor with a soft thud.

Hoseok’s hands were reverent, moving to the hem of your dress but not lifting it—yet. First, his fingertips traced along the fabric, following the curve of your hips, the line of your thigh. His palms flattened over your sides as he leaned in again, lips brushing just below your ear.

“You have no idea how long I’ve been holding back,” he said, exhaling slowly. “How much I’ve wanted to touch you like this… see how far I can push you before you ask for it.”

You inhaled slowly, your lips parted in the half-light, but your expression stayed controlled—poised, as ever. “I don’t ask.”

And that thrilled him.

He knelt then, lowering himself with grace until he was eye-level with your thighs. Your breath caught—not from nerves, but from the gravity of the gesture. The way he looked up at you, hands now sliding under the hem of your dress, bunching the fabric slowly to your waist, was enough to make your knees threaten betrayal.

He pressed a kiss to your knee. Then higher. Then higher still.

“Sit back,” he said, voice quiet but firm, “and let me make you feel good.”

You obeyed without speaking. Still wordless, still elegant—but when you leaned back onto the bed and rested on your elbows, your eyes stayed locked on his.

The pleasure was slow at first.

His mouth on you was deliberate, exploratory, taking his time with every flick, every suck, every drawn-out breath against your most sensitive skin. His hands pressed down on your thighs—not to hold you still, but to anchor you. To remind you where you were. With him.

You bit your bottom lip, hard. Refusing to give him the satisfaction of the noises building in your throat.

But Hoseok could read the tremble in your thighs, the subtle curve of your back arching slightly more with every languid sweep of his tongue. He didn’t need the moans—you were giving him everything already.

He pulled back just briefly, lips slick, eyes hooded with restrained desire.

“You're doing so well,” he praised, voice rougher now. “So fucking beautiful like this.”

Your lashes fluttered, mouth finally parting with a soft gasp as he moved back in and kept going—more confident now, more focused. One of his hands slid up to hold your waist, feeling the way your stomach tensed and relaxed with every wave of pressure he delivered.

And when you finally let your head fall back and exhaled a soft, trembling moan—he smiled against your skin.

It wasn’t about power, not really. Not domination in the way most understood it.

It was about control—his of himself, and yours of how far you’d let go.

You came undone in his mouth, tension bursting like light behind your eyes. Still elegant, still quiet—but shaken in a way that made your hands reach for his shoulders, grounding yourself as you rode the high out in stunned silence.

Hoseok rose slowly, reverently, kissing the inside of your thigh one last time before pulling you gently up to meet him.

He kissed you again—slow and soft—like he wasn’t trying to erase what just happened, but let it linger.

“Not done with you,” he whispered into your mouth.

Then he stood, reaching back to unbutton his shirt, eyes never leaving yours. “But only if you let me keep going.”

You smiled.

A real one this time. No teasing, no mask.

“Go ahead,” you said, voice soft but steady. 

He stepped back just enough to pull the shirt from his shoulders, the faint light catching on the hard lines of his chest and the soft sheen of sweat that had started to gather at his collarbones. Every movement he made was fluid, unhurried, as though undressing in front of you was its own performance—one he wanted you to watch.

And you did. Reclined now against the plush pillows, one leg slightly bent and the other stretched long across the bed, you watched him like art. Quiet, composed, with only the slight tug of your bottom lip between your teeth giving you away.

Hoseok crawled back onto the bed, his hands brushing the sides of your thighs as he moved over you. He leaned in to kiss you again—slower this time, deeper. Like he was memorizing your mouth.

“You taste like my name,” he murmured, lips brushing yours. “And now I want to hear it.”

Your lips curled in a small, knowing smirk. “Then earn it.”

He laughed softly—low, rich, aroused. “Oh, sweetheart…” he exhaled, trailing his mouth along your jaw, “I already am.”

This time, he didn’t rush. He took his time laying you bare—unzipping your dress with care, helping you shift out of it like he was unwrapping silk. His hands explored in unhurried strokes, tracing the dips and curves of your body with open admiration. Every glance he gave you was appreciative, worshipful, but not the least bit cloying. It was honest. Hungry, but controlled.

He kissed your sternum. The curve of your breast. The space just below your navel. His hands pushed your thighs apart gently, and when you let him, you saw the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

He spent the next while reacquainting himself with you—like a second act to the performance before, only this time slower, deeper. His fingers were skilled, precise, coaxing out reactions you tried to smother, and his mouth followed wherever your body arched.

"That's it..." he whispered against your skin, lips brushing your inner thigh. "Just like that. Let go." His fingers gently reach deeper.

You were close again—faster this time. You could feel your composure slip, inch by inch, but not in a way that embarrassed you. It felt safe, wrapped in the cocoon of his body, his words, the sheer focus he gave to your pleasure. “Hoseok.” You nearly whined, surprising yourself.

And when you did come, he didn’t rush you through it. He kissed your trembling thighs as they shook, gently massaging your hips with open palms. His voice stayed low and sweet.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. “Every sound, every breath—you’re fucking perfect.”

You were still catching your breath when he hovered above you again. The weight of him between your legs felt like gravity—solid, anchoring. He was hard, thick against your thigh, and you could feel the tension in him, the restraint.

He kissed you again—deep, open-mouthed, and a little desperate this time.

You pulled back just enough to look at him.

“Your turn.”

That same smirk from earlier flickered on his lips. “Only if you still want more.”

You nodded slowly, letting your hand trail down between your bodies, fingers brushing over the outline of him through his pants. “I want it.”

Those three words flipped a switch.

In seconds, he was out of the rest of his clothes, and you were guiding him back between your legs. He ripped open a metallic packet and rolled on a condom. He pressed against you gently, pausing at your entrance, watching your eyes.

“Look at me,” he said softly.

You did.

He pushed in slow, filling you inch by inch, and your breath caught in your throat. His hands gripped your hips, his forehead resting against yours as he whispered a near-silent curse.

“Fuck—you feel like you were made for me.”

You smiled, eyes half-lidded. “That’s a line.”

“It’s a truth.” He pulled out almost entirely, then pushed back in, deeper. “And I’ll prove it.”

What followed was nothing rushed. No frenzied thrusts, no hurried movements. Hoseok fucked you like he meant it. Like every slow grind of his hips was a conversation. Like every breathless moan from your lips was a secret he wanted to keep in his mouth forever.

He kept one hand at your waist, another tangled with your fingers, grounding you together. You wrapped your legs around his hips, pulling him deeper, and he groaned into your neck.

“I could lose myself in this,” he breathed. “In you.”

The rhythm built—still slow, still controlled, but more desperate now. Like he was trying not to come too soon, and you were trying not to fall apart again. You kissed, gasped, touched, pressed—until the tension coiled tighter than either of you could stand.

When you came again, this time it was together.

Bodies trembling, breaths mingling, hands gripping tightly like you didn’t want to let go. His forehead rested against yours, eyes closed, his mouth parted in bliss.

The silence afterward was comfortable—thick with heat and something else you didn’t dare name yet. He slowly pulled out, then settled beside you, arm wrapped around your waist as you turned into his chest.

Neither of you spoke for a while.

Just breathing.

Just being.

Then he kissed the top of your head, his voice softer than you’d heard it all night.

“Stay the night?”

You let out a quiet laugh against his chest.

“Didn’t realize I had a choice.”

-

The sun was barely up when you stumbled through Giselle’s front door, barefoot heels in hand, hair tousled and lips still tingling but still as put together as you could be. She was exactly where you expected her to be—sprawled on the couch in last night’s chaos of pink and white, a satin eye mask crooked on her forehead and a slice of cold pizza hanging limply from her fingers.

She peeled the mask off and blinked at you. “Oh my god,” she groaned, sitting up. “You look like sin.”

You grinned, tossing your shoes down and flopping onto the couch beside her. “You have no idea.”

She gasped. “Y/N—tell me everything. Who was that man? Where did you go? Did he ruin your life or just rearrange it a little?”

You laughed, burying your face into the throw pillow for a moment before lifting your head. “His name’s Hoseok. And...he’s dangerously charming.”

“Dangerous how?”

“Like—he kissed my hand when he introduced himself. Like, who does that?” You paused, smiling to yourself. “He made me feel like the only girl in the room without even trying. And he didn’t rush anything. He...listened. A lot.”

Giselle squinted suspiciously. “Was he hot?”

You let out a short breath. “He was beautiful. Like warm smile, honey voice, perfectly tailored pants beautiful.”

Giselle clutched her chest dramatically. “I’m gonna scream. Did you kiss him?”

“Giselle.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

You gave her a look.

Her mouth dropped open. “YOU DID.”

You laughed again, hands covering your face. “It was… good. Like, really, really good.”

“I’m so proud,” she said, hugging you from the side like she was sending you off to war. “Godspeed, you emotionally available goddess.”

You rolled your eyes but smiled, still a little dazed. “It was just one night.”

She grinned. “Yeah. But sometimes, one night’s enough to shake you a little, right?”

You paused, thinking of Hoseok's hands, his words, the way he looked at you like there was no one else worth looking at.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “It really is.”

“You should have given him your number.” she sat up. 

“Who says I didn't?” 

➽ Kpop Masterlist ➽ Main Masterlist ➽ Yoongi Masterlist ➽ G Dragon Masterlist ➽ Buy Me a Coffee

[wickedwitchofthegalaxy]

☞𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒞𝑜𝓈𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝒶 𝒩𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉𝓈 𝑅𝑒𝓁𝑒𝒶𝓈𝑒☜︎

☠︎ 𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝒻𝒾𝓋𝑒: 𝒮𝓊𝒷 𝑅𝑜𝓈𝒶 ☠︎

𝒫𝒶𝒾𝓇𝒾𝓃𝑔: 𝑨𝒏𝒂𝒌𝒊𝒏(𝑪𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒆𝑾𝒂𝒓𝒔)𝑿 𝑭𝒆𝒎𝑷𝒂𝒅𝒂𝒘𝒂𝒏!𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓

𝒲𝒶𝓇𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈: 18+, DEAD DOVE🕊️, Non-Con, Power Imbalance, Rough Sex, Dirty Talking, Emotional Manipulation, Obsessive Behavior, Coercion, Mild Blood/Injury, Degradation/Praise, Toxic Dynamics

𝒲𝑜𝓇𝒹 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉: 6.9K (Tehe🤭)

𝒮𝓊𝓂𝓂𝒶𝓇𝓎: What happens here will not be spoken of, but it will leave its mark.

𝒩𝑜𝓉𝑒𝓈: I’m super excited but also lowkey terrified to share this chapter with you. It’s darker and a bit more intense than before. This was definitely a… complicated chapter to write. Never hesitate to leave a comment, I love hearing from ya’ll. ☺️

Banners by @cafekitsune !

Enjoy🖤

Your instructors told you war happened on the front lines, in bursts of fire and blood. With screams caught between blaster bolts and the split-second calculus of who would die first. This was a more isolated war. This war followed you down steel hallways and gave instructions in a voice so smooth, you mistook it for mercy.

“Left,” Anakin ordered behind you.

Below your boots, the drone of the ship prospers louder, droids move cargo with clanking limbs, and console panels blink rhythmically along the walls.

You turn.

The stairwell yawns downward, and each step sends a sharp jolt through your feet. The alien metal ridges nibble at your soles, the ship reminding you who it belongs to.

You pass a pair of troopers exchanging low banter, one laughing about something you can’t hear. He glances at you.

Doesn’t look again.

“Do they know you drag people down here,” you toss over your shoulder, the rungs of your voice catching on the words as they drop, “or am I getting special treatment?”

It stings, but you push it. Your skin is thick enough.

You can handle this.

This game you’re playing now, it’s the only one you’ve got left. The trick of dominance. The magical delusion that if you say the right thing, smart enough, keen enough, maybe you can tilt the scales.

“Again,” he announces, his voice chipped. “Left.”

You hesitate.

You don’t know what your foot does next; only that it forgets how to be a foot for a second. Your cadence breaks, and your step glitches. A vessel faltering around its sown chagrin, its dread sewn tight behind the knee.

You don’t have to obey.

You could stop. Here, now.

You could, right?

You could turn and cry out, let the accusations blister up from your throat and scald the walls. You could shatter the neat order of this damned metal cage. You would be unapologetic.

They’d hear you.

But what then?

Would they step in? Tell him what he’s doing is wrong? Draw their blasters?

No… they wouldn’t.

You know what name is stitched into the history of this war, of their loyalty.

It isn’t yours.

If they came running, especially if they came running, how would you explain this?

That you followed? That you obeyed, again and again, until your own limbs stopped trusting you?

You don’t have a clean sentence to give them.

There is no bleeding wound to show the medics. No bruised lip to press into a report, nor would there be a soul on this ship that would believe its origin. You don’t have the wording to explain that kind of fear. No description that would fit on a report, no line item that says the silence was a cry.

You don’t have any proof.

Deep within your intestines, where the glare of your defiance rests, that sparks it more than anything else.

Your fingers twitch.

You turn.

Behind you, the pause lengthens, and he, of course, fills it.

“You’re scheming,” he begins, almost like it pleases him. “You’re trying to decide what would happen if you stopped walking.” He answers as if he already knows the flavor of your rebellion. Like it’s a delicacy he’s swallowed and dined on for years.

You flinch, but it’s internal, visceral, gaping, a sliver of memory in the folds of your gut pulling tight like it’s bracing for a blow.

“You want me to tell you?” he asks, his tone delicately barbed.

You try to breathe.

Calm. Control. Focus.

But your chest doesn’t expand; it locks. Your ribs feel like scaffolding; you, a building half-destroyed from the inside out.

“Would you like me to describe what happens next?”

The cadence of his song coiled incantations into your skin.

Don’t turn around. Don’t let him see it on your face.

Your throat tightens. Your body does the strange thing it always does in moments like this: Preserve. Conserve. Contain.

You pull your energy inward, flatten your rage, and tuck your panic into a corner of yourself that doesn’t move. That won’t tremble.

It won't last.

“Stop,” he orders, and you freeze mid-step.

He doesn’t give you time to question it. “Go ahead. Scream. Run. Cause a scene,” he pushes, daring you. You can feel the frigid amusement in his eyes on your back. He's expecting the worst, and wishing for it.

You could cause a scene, you should.

His voice slides back into your ears with menace clotting the letters.

“Before you do,” he adds, and these letters come out darker. A command. “Look around you.”

You make yourself turn your head, your pulse thumping painfully. Every panel along the wall blinks at a beat you can’t keep track of. The clones, those soldiers who you followed around halls similar to these a thousand times, now stare straight ahead, rounding you on either side and pretending not to notice the two of you stopped in the center of the walkway. The droids drift past without a peek. But then there’s a flicker.

One of the clones. His visor is lifted, face visible; young and very tired. He locks eyes with you as he passes. For a heartbeat, he sees you. Yet, the moment his eyes scan behind you, they jerk away, and he too passes you. And then another.

And another.

Anakin steps in closer. You can feel it, the change in pressure before his body even brushes near. A new gravity.

You hear the smirk as he whispers the last words you want to hear.

“They’re afraid of me,” he states, not as a secret but as a low-slung truth.

“Look at them.”

Your eyes move on instinct.

None of theirs meets yours. Not one. The ones that glimpse your way avert just as fast like they’d seen something they weren’t meant to.

“None of them will look me in the eye. They don’t see you,” he says. “Not truly. They’re pretending not to.”

“You could scream,” he starts again, and the sound falls inward, like water down a well with no base. “You could run. But none of them will help you.”

There’s nothing uncertain in it, no trace of doubt, and he waits to let it settle.

They’re not going to save you.

It’s not a question anymore. It’s reality.

“You’ve got five seconds,” he warns, veiled barbs now pricking.

He’s tired of pretending you have choices.

“Decide your path.”

You want to spit an insult back, something bright with venom. But nothing comes. You’re not even sure what language you speak anymore.

There’s rage, but it’s disoriented.

Fire without a direction.

You don’t have to obey. You can fight back.

But your voice is caught someplace profound, chained next to the vertebrae where your dignity lies. And when you try to conjure the scene, your body turning abruptly, your hands a weapon, throat open, you see a version of yourself that doesn’t move. Not paralysis. Absence. The image slips, half-formed, like a dream dissolving. You see static as if your body’s been erased from the moment.

“I’m not angry,” he murmurs, with that infuriating calm he wears as armor. There’s a smile just beneath like he’s humoring more than denying the idea. “This?” he tells, as if he’s clarifying for your sake. “This isn’t anger.”

“You’ve seen me angry,” he clips in, tone dipping like the stillness before a scream, lullaby-sweet but soured.

You have.

That’s the problem.

You know the distance between this and fury; this is worse.

Because this is control. This is him letting you think he hasn’t already decided how this ends.

You swallow. Or try to. It riddles halfway down.

Behind you, steel boots clatter over metal. A voice crackles through a comm link, blurred and indistinct. From above, there’s a burst of laughter.

Life continues.

“Four,” he states.

You grip your forearm. Dig your nails in.

He’s taken everything. Every choice. Every shred of control.

He’s stolen it.

“Three.”

You flinch, and something in him catches on it, either his satisfaction or his sorrow. Maybe both. The lines blur so effortlessly now.

The ship thrums around you, boards blinking like false sentinels as if they’re trying to warn you, or watching. A clone passes. Doesn’t glance. Doesn’t blink.

Anakin steps in again, and the world seems to slope on its axis.

“Two.”

His voice, there’s a split in it, vulnerability cracking inside him mid-word. Not much and not visible, but there.

Your heart should be faster. It’s not. It’s delayed like it’s listening instead of pumping. You feel your hand fall from your arm. You don’t remember telling it to. It’s the smallest movement. But enough. Enough to halve the suffocating stillness.

He notices. Of course, he notices.

“You think I want to count?” The words spill tighter now, like pressure seeping out of him through a seam he can’t seal. “You think this is the lesson I want to show you?”

“I tried to let you go. I tried to leave you alone. I tried to do the right thing. I tried—”

He cuts himself off, voice snagging on the words like they hurt coming out. The space between you sags, like a bridge too long without repairs.

You’re too quiet. Too still.

He exhales once, sharply through his nose, as if it costs him. Like you’re costing him.

"This isn’t about punishment," he breathes, voice sliding thinner, more frantic. "It’s not discipline. I’m not training you."

A pair of clones pass across the upper walkway. One taps a comm. The other checks his weapon.

Neither of them looks down.

"This is about keeping you."

He says it plainly as if it should clarify everything. Like it’s enough.

The word is coming. You can sense it in your bones, vibrating up through durasteel plating, collecting in your spine.

“One—”

Your foot recalls how to move.

Not both. Just one. A twitch forward, like your body’s hauling itself up from a grave.

The word dies on his tongue, unfinished.

The dread inside you feels rehearsed. Your body sets into its marks, each muscle moved by some forgotten script you are bound to, obedience disguised as instinct.

“That’s it.”

It’s a line you’re not certain if he’s telling you, or himself.

Regardless, the words cram your chest with a warmth you won’t dare address. You don’t even consider giving it an ounce of introspection.

You endure a single step, then another, the rhythm falling into place.

“Keep going,” he mutters, and you catch the command returning to his voice. “Not much further.”

He doesn’t rush you again. He watches, content in the knowledge that you’ll do precisely what he’s asked.

You hate this.

The walls ooze indifference, and the air grows denser the farther you go. Saturated with burnt oil and the scent of metal shavings. Overhead lights flash repeatedly as you pass beneath them, sputtering against the recycled air, their dim, sallow light resisting the dark.

A common enemy.

This part of the ship doesn’t feel like the others. No console panels. No shuffling of clones. No droids. Just welded grating, exposed piping, and a low, soulless whine bleeding through the passageways like it’s alive and sobbing.

You can feel it drive into your blood, its pulse in sync with your vibrating heart.

Locked hatches and thick mechanical joints of sealed doors line either side.

This is where things are stored until they’re needed again.

Or never.

You wonder, briefly, if you'll be part of the forgotten things down here.

You speak without turning your head. “Is this where the other distractions all went?”

A pause. The kind you recognize instantly because it means he’s debating with himself.

Anger licks up your throat.

“I’m not your secret to stash away,” you state, harsher now. But your voice doesn’t plug the corridor the way you expect. And then, behind you; half scoff, half exhale. It’s not quite laughter or disbelief, it’s vacant.

“You think I’d hide you?” The words tow behind your steps, as he keeps a steady pace. “That’s not what this is.”

You don’t change your speed, but you listen. Your entire body is on edge to hear his next sentence. It’s infuriating.

“This place doesn’t matter, it's an unused space where no one else gets to look or guess or laugh about things they don't understand,” he continues, “Why are you acting so immature? You did the hard part for me, now no one will question why you’re bruised and shaking when you walk back in.”

His voice stretched out past your skin and found the dish of your vertebrae. You keep moving, despite your spine wanting to spring. Wanting to curl.

The hallway feels smaller than it is; it narrows as the main path gives way to a pressure-sealed junction. There are cleaner welds here, newer lights, but still unmarked. Still buried.

You stop in front of a sealed hatch.

Behind you, his boots halt too. He steps forward, and your head straightens. The moment wrinkled, like time bent a knee to him.

What just happened?

“You want to keep wearing this act of being scared, Y/N? Fine.”

His hand lifts mid-sentence, skimming the access panel. A low chime responds to his presence, and the hatch opens with a groaning hiss. A ruddy light bleeds out in strips across the floor from the opening to your feet, flowing wider as the door parts.

“Be afraid that I haven’t changed—that I don’t want to.” He’s closer, and your mind starts to buzz, a familiar numb yet present impression taking over.

“You want to fear me?” He leans in, his words growing large and reshaping law as you know it.

“Fear that I’ve stopped pretending I don’t need this, and I won’t do anything to get it.”

There isn't a second to move before he shoves you forward.

Your body crashes into the threshold with the sound of metal greeting skin. You instinctively try to catch yourself on the chilled floor, hands splayed, knees jarred.

It isn't clean here. It isn't warm.

You breathe in: coolant, scorched wiring, and grease. A chemical rot where nothing circulates.

Above you, a single bulb sways like a body hanging from a noose, casting red lines across the foundation, and humming with a frequency just off enough to bother the teeth in your head.

Your palms sting and your left is slick. Oil or blood, or both. You don’t look.

Your knees ache. Not from the fall, but from the way they stay planted. Your body understands; do not stand. Not yet.

You hate that.

You hate how natural this all feels.

You shift to sit upright, slower than you want, elbows trembling. Because it’s cold. That’s all. Not fear. Just temperature.

The door hisses closed behind you. Not a slam. A seal.

You keep your eyes trained on the wall.

You already know where he is. He’s an excessive pressure behind your eyes as if he's mapped into your nervous system. Every cell aware.

The silence carries. You expect him to move. To speak again or gloat.

He doesn’t.

Why didn’t you run?

Because you don’t know this ship? No.

Because you had no choice? Closer. But not it.

Because some hideous, blistering part of you wanted to feel him again?

Bingo.

“Is this… what you had planned?”

“Planned?” he echoes, and it’s not really a question. It’s a taste, foam, and corrosion. “No. I tried not to plan this. I gave you space. I let him have you for a while. I tried to be better.”

I let him have you for a while.

The audacity. The ownership buried in the words, offered like a gift.

You swallow down the spike of stomach acid.

“I told myself I wouldn’t do this,” he tells, above you, like he’s delivering a eulogy. “I swore I’d keep my distance.”

You hear him strip his gloves off, one finger at a time.

The leather creaks.

“You should’ve heard the promises I made.” His voice files like it's being shaved down to something barely manageable. “To the Council. To P—”

He cuts the name off like it burned him and exhales. Almost a laugh.

“Didn’t matter.”

Whose name was he about to say, and what promises were made?

You don’t dare look back. Can’t. Because the heat in your gut is already curving into a shameful knot.

You shouldn’t feel this.

You shouldn’t…

But it’s not new, is it? It’s just undeniable now.

You brace, but it doesn’t help.

You feel his knees frame your back. Wide. Grounded. His boots set apart just far enough to box you in; not touching or grazing, but unmistakably there.

His hand, uncovered now, skin warm and wrong, hooks under your chin.

Your breath stalls.

You don’t lift your head. He does it for you.

Anakin’s arm is wrapped around from behind, elbow locked to his side, using the weight of his stance to tilt your face upward. His body doesn’t press into you but looms just shy of your back.

His cloak is open, parted like a veil around either side of your shoulders. The light wags, slicing the enclosure into bands of shadow and ichor. A gash of light runs along the underside of his jaw, gleaming the faintest stubble on his throat and the hollow just beneath it.

The sharp line of his nose casts a long cloud over your mouth. His cheekbones, usually elegant, and noble, now jut like cliffs from his skull. Sweat has gathered at his hairline, intertwining a few strands against his temple, darker and wetter than the rest.

The blood rays daub his eyes like wounds. You see them from beneath, those skyless cyan irises clouded and cracking. His stare is a much greater consequence than his touch. His expression, it’s not wild. It’s worse than wild.

It’s starving.

There it is again.

You had nearly buried this feeling.

Not submission, obedience comes naturally now. It’s that same muscle-deep urge, wreathed between fleeing and understanding. A soundless, dishonorable abidance you can’t name without flinching.

“I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” his tone has no business being soothing, yet it lathers across the room like honey over warm toast. “But the second they handed you off to him, knowing the bond we share, as if you weren't meant to be at my side—”

You don't need to see his jaw muscles flex; the proximity allows you to feel it in your skull.

From this angle, you capture the movement in the cut of his neck, the hard line twitching just under his skin. It shifts his entire face, sets one cheekbone higher, and darkens the stage of his mouth until he doesn’t look like himself.

Except he does. This is Anakin. This has always been Anakin.

“You thought I forgot about you?”

It’s an arterial laceration, a carefully placed first cut in a creed of oaths.

“I should’ve.” His voice kinks, the trembling escaping in the small caverns of the syllables. “I should’ve pulled it out by the root. You. Every trace of you.”

The thought had crossed your mind that you’d been a moment. That he’d blinked and let you go. You expected the Council meeting to snap him out of it, shock him back into his right mind.

Maybe that would be the end.

You were exceedingly mistaken.

“You want to know what I’ve been doing while he’s been wasting your time in that archive?”

He doesn’t wait for your answer, the guise of patience has depleted. His breath comes once and he speaks again.

“I’ve been undoing every reason I had not to touch you.”

Your eyes clench shut.

If you see his, words will spill; words you'll regret later.

“Look at me.”

You don’t.

Not fast enough.

His grip closes, but doesn't hurt, it isn’t meant to. You gasp without sound.

“I said,” he cuts in, closer now, “look at me.”

Your lashes lift.

He’s there.

Not angry. Not yelling.

But gone, his restraint dwindled to ash.

His lips barely move. “There you are, good girl.”

His words shouldn’t land like that. They shouldn’t ease your shoulders.

What is this feeling?

This nuisance that turns shame molten. That eats at the only piece of you that remains sane. Their little whispers in your head turn to screams.

You're smarter than this, stronger than this, you should claw your way out.

A Jedi would.

Your actual voice should protest. Your actual limbs should fight. But neither move. You’re not afraid of him. You’re afraid that you aren’t afraid at all.

The next noise is more subtle. Not speech. Not breath. A pruned click. You realize it's his teeth tapping once, against the inside of his lower lip. Unconscious. Edged. Regretful.

It shouldn’t mean anything.

It's a sound that doesn't mean anything.

He's been above you for a lifetime. Long enough for the swelter to rise and stay trapped between his body and yours.

You remember that heat. It doesn’t belong in you. It’s not the calm of meditation or the clarity of the Force, it’s a breach. A wrongness curling down in your abdomen. It tugs at your soul like hunger, but not for food, not for peace.

He tips his head the barest degree. The cartilage in his nose creaks, inaudibly, but you see it in the way one nostril flares broader than the other. His lips part again, not to speak. Just to breathe.

When he finally does speak, it’s in the leeway between drags of air. Almost like he doesn’t want you to know which exhale it came from.

“There are things I’ve done,” he whispers, “to try to forget what it felt like to be inside you.”

The words aren’t thrown. They’re released.

He smiles or tries to.

His grin doesn't lift his face; it’s the kind that drags at one corner, like something is unraveling inside. A single canine glints through the split, catching the blood light just as it breaks across the plane of his face.

“I’ve burned hours in sparring drills I didn’t need. I’ve repeated the Code so many times it doesn’t even sound like words anymore.”

He swallows, listless and dry.

“I’ve meditated for hours,” he continues, “with your voice in my head and my hand wrapped tight around my cock—”

A pause. Not for effect. For composure.

“I can't stop hearing how you sounded when I pushed you open.”

Corruption and manipulation are nonexistent in his voice. That one, that one is a confession.

A truth.

And when your eyes tinge, just slightly, his lashes descend. A racing bead of sweat has made its way down his neck now, catching in the recess where his collarbone disappears beneath his robe.

Anakin’s hand, still tucked tightly beneath your chin, adjusts slightly. Not to lift. To feel. The pad of his thumb shifts to the curve just below your bottom lip, where your skin is delicate.

He doesn’t press.

You feel the pause in him, waiting, wondering if you’ll cower. You don’t. You know you should. That would be the smart thing to do. The right thing.

Perhaps even the safe thing.

‘Safe’ ceased in meaning to you. If it ever had one, you're not sure. Not when it comes to him.

“Say something,” he murmurs, and though it’s scarce, it isn’t an order. It’s softened like it’s not meant to be heard.

For a split second, you nearly do.

A brilliant and cruel retort. Your tongue is sharpened by years of experience in the great arts of insults. You could cut him down and make space between your skin and his heat. You could remind him of the mission. Of the Order.

Yet there’s a chunk taking refuge in your throat.

Lodged behind your teeth and gums; connected to the pits of your stomach.

You remember how it felt, too. How he sounded.

Silence, at least, lets you pretend this chunk is absent.

But then a darkness dresses behind his voice.

That strange duality of him; you remember this as well. The speck of vulnerability suppressed under a far more famished appetite.

His thumb rises, tracing the boundary of your lip once, slowly. Your traitorous lips part, but you say nothing. He inhales again, pointed this time like your speechlessness cut him.

“No,” he corrects, voice rougher now. “Don’t.” The two words land with prejudice; one part blessing, the other warning.

He’s telling you not to ruin it. The illusion that you want this, that you always have, could still hold if you stay quiet a moment longer.

“I have few words for how you feel,” he murmurs, head dipping. His nose grazes your temple, not a kiss, but intimate enough to make your skin weep.

His hold changes.

His hand slides from under your chin, but not without tracing the column of your throat first. It snakes around the front of your throat, palm flat, thumb pressing below your jaw, tilting your head back further.

“You feel like betrayal,” he mutters, closer now, his mouth near your ear, his voice folding into the smooth niche behind your ear and blooming down your nerve endings.

He's crouched, his knees spread just enough for you to settle between them. Your lungs draw in as his metal hand finds your shoulder and drags. He wrenches you back against his legs, tighter, aligning your body where he wants it.

There’s a reason you trained. A reason you were attentive when the superiors lectured about attachments. You learned to handle the rise of appetite without seeking food, anguish without chasing relief, and loneliness without pursuing touch. You learned discipline in solitude. You listened. You obeyed.

What was all the training for?

With one word from his mouth, it’s all erased. One tip of your head, one breath in your ear, and you’re frayed as if you were never trained, like you were constructed for this instead.

For him.

No.

No, that’s not true.

You shouldn’t let this happen.

You shouldn’t.

You whisper his name. A diminutive, broken sound. The final trace of your sanity trying to surface before he pulls you under completely.

“There you are,” he whispers again. “My girl.”

He releases your throat and snakes into your hair, yanking it back, and with his steel hand, he moves your torso, bending it forward just slightly. Just enough to tell your body what comes next.

His thigh presses forward behind you, nudging your knees wider, and anchoring your hips in place.

You hate the part of yourself that arches into his touch. That embraces the positioning, the claiming. That goes flexible, not in dread, but in readiness.

Your body knows this version of him. Too well.

“You dream about me?” he rasps, again not waiting for an answer. “Because I dream about you. Ruined. Sobbing. Still begging for more.”

Ruined—and your center contracts like it wants the damage.

Sobbing—and your lungs seize, filled with too much air, too little dignity.

Begging—and it settles in your hips with a familiar welcome.

You let your spine relax. Not because your mind gave in, but because everything else inside you already has.

He exhales, and it tastes like vindication.

He knew this part of you before you did.

That makes you physically nauseous.

You despise that your knees haven’t buckled in objection.

You loathe that you're still on them, back against his chest, pliant, pliable, willing.

He pushes his chest against your back, solid. There’s no room to breathe, no space to move. His hand slips down your body, metal fingers slick as they trace the outline of your waist.

You want to move, to fight this.

Instead, you feel your chest snare when he changes positions behind you, his fingers curling tighter in your hair as he tugs your head back to expose the bend of your throat.

“You knew,” he says. “Back in that hall. You knew what this would turn into.”

What you don’t know is if you’re trembling from fear or something else, maybe both, but he senses it. He always senses it. And it only makes him move closer.

“You’re not even bleeding yet, pathetic.”

Your knees scrape the floor as you’re tugged, then shoved, your forearms catching your weight. The angle forces your spine to curve as his hand remains knotted in your hair.

You want to scream. You want to resist, to wail, but you don't.

The words slip from your lips, faded and flimsy, “I hate you.”

He doesn’t need to answer, the way he drags you back against him with one swift motion tells you everything you need to know. His other hand slides around your waist, fingers digging into your flesh with no intention of letting you go.

“You hate me,” he declares, a breathless, unstable smirk in his voice. His hand wanders lower, pressing firmly into the fabric of your pants, rubbing what’s underneath. “Is this what hate makes you feel?”

The words are a vicious twist, trickling with ridicule and mockery. His metal fingers rub against you in the most intimate, violating way. You tremble at the sensation, disgust swirling in your chest.

“I hate you,” you breathe, the repetition lurching past your lips before you can stop it.

You want to believe the statement, to connect to it like a lifeline, but the sum of your body betrays you.

“Liar,” he whispers.

Click

You don’t feel the phantom limb of compliance, but the moment you see stainless steel in his fist, the world ruptures. His metallic hand glides from your core to the hilt of your saber.

He holds it out, the polished cylinder’s fresh grip gaping at you with a cheated blood glow.

Two days.

Forty-eight hours of owning that thing, and you’d barely looked at it.

Two long days of page-turning and taciturn disappointment. Of pretending the endless archaic words fed you like combat might have. The saber had felt like a prop, a congratulatory relic earned in name only.

You’d shown Lex and Abby like you were shucking back your skin, exposing weeping tissue. Not pridefully. You offered it up like a wound before it scabbed, just to see if they’d flinch. But they hadn’t. They’d lit up, lit you up, their awe adequately drowning the second-guessing, tugging you into the courtyard with bare feet and joy on their lips.

They pulled you into the plaza and called it amazing. Called you amazing.

That was the only time the saber had felt like yours.

Their splendor pressed into your skin like daylight against a bruise. You could almost believe it then, that this path had been carved for you, not around you, that you were becoming someone to be amazed by.

“Most Padawans sleep with their sabers the first night,” he tells, almost conversational. His hand knots tighter in your hair. You can’t move. Can’t look away. “They light them in the dark. Learn the sound. The weight.”

He lifts it slightly, and the hilt grazes your upper arm. It’s rigid, foreign.

“But not you,” he murmurs. “Too busy pretending to be something else.”

The red bulb overhead flickers once. Anakin stares at your saber, rolling it in his hand.

His thumb brushes the ignition.

He won't—

Snap-hiss

The green blade splits the room. Not emerald, not jade, a more brutal color, like acid flash-frozen midair. It bleeds green across your thighs, across your knuckles as you brace yourself. The light saturates the crimson in the room, bursts the gloaming into slats.

He brings it near your throat.

“They make you build them,” he continues, his voice hushed, as if the blade has made him holy. “So you’ll respect the weapon. So it’ll respond to your touch.”

The ignored chunk blocking your airway is gone, replaced by a dryness. The light licks against your collarbone, projecting green sparks in the sweat on your skin.

“I wonder if it will still answer you after this.”

You feel the undeniable pull of it then, the memory of building it, fingers trembling as the components snapped into place. The crystal knew what you didn’t, even then. It had whispered, don’t fuck this up. It recognized the fracture in you.

Anakin hums, a bottomless rumble in his throat. The saber’s glow washes neon over the curve of your neck. You can’t swallow. Can’t shift to relieve the ache thriving down your spine.

“Take off your pants.”

You blink. Not at the words, those don’t surprise you anymore, but at the cruel finality of them.

You don’t budge.

He clicks his tongue and angles the saber.

The beam kisses the narrow skin of your jaw.

You can smell it burning.

“Now,” he insists.

Your fingers start to move.

You hate how deftly they find the buttons, how easily you pivot your hips to shimmy them down. You hate the sound they make, fabric slinking down your legs, pooling around your knees.

“You kneel like you've done this before,” he rasps, and you want to hate the words. The depth of it. But you can’t because your own saber is still at your throat, and hate is small in comparison.

You don’t cry. Not because you’re strong, but because your body is too focused on surviving. Everything else, everything you thought you knew, is nothing.

“I see pieces of myself in you, pieces that need breaking, or maybe… setting free.”

His hips grind into yours, wanting to feel your body's reaction. He delights in what it responds with, tilting his head to see your face better.

A breath. His voice drops lower, the kind that twines inside you and pulls tight.

“I’m not asking for your permission.” His fingers tighten like a vice, yet strangely reverent. “I’m showing you how to listen. To feel beyond the pain and the fear and the lies.”

His hand abruptly leaves your hair, and your head leans forward from the loss, searing your throat further. Your teeth click down on your cheeks, holding back the yelp in your chest. The copper tange is becoming an all-too-regular taste.

The droplet of sweat dragging down your temple distracts you momentarily from the ruffling of fabric from behind you as it drools over your lip and falls onto the saber, a small crackle emitting and throwing you disturbingly fast back into reality.

It isn't until his bare length is rubbing greedily into your folds that a noise flits from your lips.

Your eyes are fixed on the red walls while your fibers are only aware of the ridges and veins of him, and a delicious, sickening warp inside you.

This isn’t like last time, and you know it.

It's more.

So much more.

There isn’t a single thought or memory that exists here. Not now.

The stretch is brutal. He doesn't stutter, not even when your body spasms and bucks under him.

When his hips finally hit the curve of your ass, you can barely breathe.

The floor plunges from beneath you both, a shared weightless pleasure.

You know because, for a moment, his hand goes slack.

The blade dips lower, singeing your clavicle.

You can feel the blisters forming on your skin, yet it, too, like your memories, are lost. Because his cock is thick and throbbing inside you and his body is scalding and damning. And the sounds.

Oh Gods. The sounds.

Low grunts, resounding, carnal.

Whimpers, depleted, pitiful.

Your hips jerk forward as you try to get away, but he only drags you back, pushing in deeper. It doesn't hurt, not exactly, not the way you expect.

Because you're wet.

Your pussy is fucking wet.

Drenched.

It's shameful.

And then, the blade is gone.

Gone from the fresh wounds, gone from your thoughts, and then—

Crash

Glass shatters across the floor.

The lightbulb above is dead.

It's pitch black.

And he's everywhere.

His arms wrap around your waist, and he fucks into you. He fucks you like it's not his cock between your legs, but the truth and the truth is that you love every second.

The pain and fear are gone.

“There is no emotion, there is peace,” His voice rumbles against your neck, so deep you almost mistake it for a growl, but the words he spoke are ones you've memorized yourself. “Say it,” he demands.

Your mind scrapes at fog, desperate to obey, desperate not to. It takes all the willpower you have to push the words out.

“There is no emotion, there is peace,” you echo, as he pushes further, his hips hitting forcefully and rapid, each one jolting you.

“Say the rest."

You find it. You make yourself find it.

"There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

"Say the rest."

Your words are barely coherent, the last few words broken and disjointed as he pounds harder.

"There is no passion, there is serenity."

"Say the rest!"

“There is no chaos, the—”

His cock hits inside you, sending a bolt through your spine, and you can't hold back the wail that escapes.

You could die from the humiliation alone.

He chuckles, pridefully.

"What was that?” he goads. “What were you saying?"

You don't need light to know the expression on his face, the satisfied grimace, the gleam of his blue eyes.

You're not sure how you haven't shattered yet, but you can feel it.

Building.

"T-There is no chaos, there is harmony."

There’s a rhythm to the desperation now, a music in the way the body can still move, still dance, even when it thinks it can't. Your hips rock, and you can't tell if you're doing it consciously. Are you doing that? You don’t know.

You don’t know.

"Say the rest." He groans through his teeth. It’s not appealing. It’s not performative. It’s a man who’s too far gone to care.

"There is no death, there is the Force."

Your voice breaks, and you're almost certain that you've fallen apart, but no, no, the pressure is still building.

You don't notice the tears. They're a reflex. A chemical response to stress.

"There you go," he murmurs, a deformed gentleness in his tone. "That's it."

His thumb catches the tear at the rim of your jaw, dragging it down in a motion so soft it feels like a caress, then he slides it to his mouth and curls his tongue around it.

“You don’t have to understand. Just stay.”

The tears aren't stopping, salt-streaked mixing with the moans that rive out of you, each one more dismal than the last.

He doesn't seem to mind if anything, he seems to treasure it, the way your walls are clamping down on him, the way the noises are becoming manic.

“Say it, say you will stay.” he pants, “Tell me you will stay.”

You try. But what comes out is garbled, unmade. Your mouth is a ruin, your voice a trembling gasp of syllable soup.

His thrusts are punishing, searching your body for the answer your tongue can’t form.

"Fuck," he grunts, "come on, Y/N."

You're already gone.

Your body shudders violently against him, and your mouth opens, but there are no words, just wreckage.

Just ruined breath.

He doesn’t wait. He drives harder, chasing the answer your body is giving.

But your voice finds you, just as the pressure peaks. It's not a whisper or a scream this time. Not a sob or a plea, no, a plea would be braver. It would beg. This is not that.

“I will,” you state, and his mouth is on yours before the word finishes.

Not a kiss. Not even close.

His lips crash into you, tongue slipping inside your mouth, tasting the vow.

He doesn’t have to ask if you meant it.

Your body is honest, always.

You're not sure who came first, him or you, but your orgasm is still pulsing when his releases, his length twitching as it empties deep inside you, so hard that you can feel each rope of his cum shoot into you, filling you up.

He slumps into you with a hiss. The sound of a man emptied, not of passion, but of need. You feel it, too. Not just the spill of him inside you, but the silence that follows. The awful, tender silence.

His breath scalds the side of your neck, mouth parted against your skin.

You expect shame. You want shame. A clean and penalizing feeling. It doesn’t come. A much crueler fate presents itself. A frantic calm. Like descending into a lake and deciding not to swim.

His metal hand drags along your waist, a possessive line, and then flattens low over your stomach. You swallow, but your throat’s scraped of any healthy tissue. Your lips are open, but they hold no protest behind them.

“Say it again,” he murmurs, kissing the back of your shoulder. “Just once.”

Every muscle is tight and trembling, but your control is rotted. Thought and will have slipped behind you. You aren’t deciding to speak. Your mouth simply moves.

“I will stay, Master.”

The title falls off your tongue in a daze, drugged.

His breath hitches along your shoulder, and there’s a moment where everything feels even, serene before the next wave hits you.

“You are… the perfect distraction.”

Perfect.

A word that means he sees you as equal, more than equal; you exist in the one place he’s still human.

You break.

Not with sound, you’ve run out. You break in the tranquility. In the way your body seizes and stays. In the way you remain full of him, unmoving, undone, and thoroughly, irreversibly his.

[revelboo]

Hi Revel! My family is in Disney World to watch our sparkling march down Main Street with his high school school's band. It's also our 20th anniversary. Could you please do a scenario where Starscream, Soundwave, and Megatron (and reader) take the sparkling to Disney? Thanks in advance!

That’s so awesome that he gets to play at Disney and happy anniversary! I hope you guys have so much fun! If you get a chance, Cosmic Rewind is amazing and the Nine Dragons in Epcot has awesome duck boa buns as an appetizer! (Disney is my jam)

Vacation

Starscream x Reader, Soundwave x Reader, Megatron x Reader

• Fingers tightening on the twins’s hands to keep them from trying to dart into the parade route, you force yourself to relax. Because you’ve got their actual hands and Uncle Shockwave swore he had all the bugs worked out. Shockwave’s improved avatars less uncanny valley at least as they superimpose over their actual bodies, so people aren’t actively avoiding your family. Including your three mass displaced mates. Head turning to find Megs with your daughter on his shoulders screaming demands for a Mickey balloon even though you know she’s going to immediately let go of it and scream even louder. Your oldest son clinging to Soundwave’s hand, eyes wide at the crowd, but calm as long as his sire has him. And it’s normal in a way that almost hurts because you didn’t think you could actually have this. Breath catching as one of the twins points and bounces on his peds, you smile.

• Noisy and crowded with humans, he has to keep his wings tucked close to keep a human from brushing against one and realizing there’s something there they can’t see. But you’re happy, crouching to point out costumed humans to the twins. And he can put up with a lot if it means you’re happy. Including Shockwave just following your little group around since you’d given up and started telling the younglings he’s their uncle. Because this has to be the most messed up trine in existence.

• Laughing as his daughter kicks her little peds against him, momentarily distracted from her demands by a brightly colored float. And she rests her chin on top of his helm, entranced by the parade. Reaching up, Megatron cups his hand against her side when she leans back slightly, spotting a human child in a frilly little princess costume. Knows it’s coming even before she points, crying that she’s a princess and she wants it. “Of course, little spark.”

• Venting hearing Megatron promising their daughter everything she wants without hesitation, Soundwave understands the impulse. They all thought they would be it, that their race would die out and fade away. Still can’t believe the next generation is real. And he bends, lifting his son into his arms so the youngling can see better. Rumbling soothingly when his son leans his head against his chassis, watching the parade.

• Smiling when Starscream crouches, tugging you into him and brushing a kiss against your temple, you feel loved. Watching him snagging the twins to make them squeal and straightening with them, you feel oddly light watching your little family. And Shockwave catches your eye, just staring like he always does and you offer him a hesitant smile before leaning into Starscream while he balances the twins on his shoulders so they can see better.

[uceyliyahh]

TASTE OF SIN

summary: he warned Chantel once, he doesn’t bite without meaning it But she was already drunk off him — the gold in his grill, the shadows in his brown eyes, the way his voice wrapped around her name like silk and smoke.Joshua Fatu wasn’t human. Not anymore. He didn’t just want her blood — he wanted her soul, her screams, her submission.

warnings contain: explicit sexual content, bloodplay, possessive, and supernatural themes. (Reader discretion is advised), dark romance, vampire thirst, sinful energy.

If you’re not into biting, obsession, and being absolutely ruined by a smooth-talking, grill-wearing nightwalker… this might not be for you.

SO MDNI ‼️‼️

Jey Uso x Chantel

thanks to my homegirl @charmed-dreamssss for helping me with the title and summary 🫶🏽

AWFUL GRAMMAR IM GETTING BETTER I SWEAR LOL.

comments, likes, repost are appreciated I would love the constructive feedback in what area I need to approve in. 🤍

ALSO! I don’t not want nobody stealing my fanfics or take it as theirs that will be an issue fasho so keep it cute respectfully.

I only own my OC along with the make up scenarios

again mdni you have been warned.

TAGS ⬇️ lmk if you wanna be tag 🏷️ @pinkwithhearts @420days @jstarr86 @empressdede @angiedawn02 @biancasreign @prettyfilmz @fafomama @levissslutt @shes2real

@bebesobrielo @skyesthebomb @aikosilo @papireigns-05 @punksyeet @paigereeder @magnificentbouquetmusic

@charmed-dreamssss @fearlesschimera @partypoison00 @mselenalovebug @bloodlinesbabe93 @justazzi @xbriexx @luvrsluxe @celesteheartsjey @4milly @luuvprincess @yyaktayak @yana3sworld @mzv11 @mjonthetrack @ambersinterlude @li-da-savage @sharmelasworld @shanthefemalerapper @sharmelasworld @spiicii @jeyusosqueen @amazinggirlsstuff @southerngirl41

ℑ𝔫𝔱𝔯𝔬𝔡𝔲𝔠𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔰

Chantel Sage Carter- Chanti

college student

naive

stubborn

iMessage: Chanti🌹

Instagram: chantibae

best friend: Trick Williams & Liv Morgan

“I need more of you Joshua.”

Joshua Samuel Fatu - Josh

professional wrestler/bloodline clan

nightstalker

possessive

obsessive

iMessage: Bloodsucker💋

instagram: uceyjucey

“You’re such a naive lil girl aren’t you baby?”

Trick Williams

professional wrestler/wolf-pack clan

protective

possessive

iMessage: Trick💪🏾

Instagram: trickwilliams_wwe

best friend: Chantel

“I’m not letting him change you Chanti.”

Liv Morgan

professional wrestler/wolf-pack clan

well-spoken

protective

best friend: Chantel

iMessage: Livv🦋

Instagram: yaonlylivonce

“Chanti honey, you do know what you are asking for right?”

Jonathan Solofa Fatu - Jon

professional wrestler/bloodline pack

loyal

trust-worthy

married

iMessage: BigJon💪🏽

Instagram: jonathanfatu

“I wouldn’t mind having a little sister.”

chapter one